Cutthroat Gulch

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Still, Blue felt the need build in him, and pressed heels to the jaded roan. If Jack Castle was stalking Tammy, Blue wanted to be there. He knew exactly why he should hurry. Castle could have killed him up there in the meadow, shoot him down as he stood over the body of his son, murder the sheriff too. But he didn’t.

  Chapter 28

  The clean acrid smell of fresh hay filled Blue’s nostrils. Sunlight awakened him. He peered about, remembered where he was, and sat up. The loft of the livery barn in Centerville leaked bright light through every knothole. He didn’t know how long he had slept; only that deep in the night he had put his weary horse into a stall, hayed and watered it, and climbed to the loft without awakening the hostler, burrowed a hole in the hay, and fell into a stupor instantly. It wasn’t right that he should see sunlight, but Olivia and Absalom and Steve Cooper would never see it again. He sat up and stretched. He contemplated his blood-soaked shirt and britches, and decided he would get some ready-mades if his credit was good at the mercantile. He would let Zeke Dombroski know he was in town, and head out to Tammy’s ranch. He didn’t know how the hell he would tell Tammy about her brother.

  The little monkey of a hostler wasn’t anywhere around. Blue wrote out a chit and left it on the desk, collected his roan and tack, saddled up and headed for Maisie’s Café for some java, amazed that he had slept the entire morning away. He hadn’t meant to; not with danger lurking.

  Zeke wasn’t there, but his cronies were, sipping coffee.

  “Where’s Zeke?” Blue asked.

  “Some trouble south of town,” one said. Cold fear seeped through Blue.

  “What trouble?”

  “How should I know? Maisie said he got some coffee and rode out just after she opened at six.”

  The man was staring at Blue’s blood-soaked clothing. “Ah, sheriff, you got something maybe I should tell Zeke?”

  Blue grunted. He didn’t want food. He wheeled out, boarded the roan, and headed south, putting the horse into a mile-eating lope. He pulled the shotgun from its sheath, kept a sharp eye for ambush, and pushed the horse as hard.

  Worry clawed at him. It probably was nothing. There was no way Jack Castle could ride all the way from the high country to Tammy’s ranch so fast. It was something else. But Blue couldn’t put it aside, and it would be an eternity before he reached the place.

  He scarcely noticed the howl of his empty belly, or the lack of his usual cup of java. All he knew was that a fresh horse was too slow, and he wanted a railroad to carry him there at a breakneck mile a minute.

  Not Tammy. Not his girl.

  But even as he thought it, he knew Tammy had to be the next target; the final target before the muzzle was pointed at Blue himself; Castle’s last stab at him.

  Blue was oblivious of the beautiful and empty land as he thundered south. There was only Tammy upon his mind, and the ghosts of his family that rode his shoulders as he traveled. And Castle, the almost son and almost son-in-law who had murdered his family, the wild kid he almost loved.

  The horse sweated up in the July heat, and foam collected on its withers, but it was a horse with heart, and kept on going. Blue walked the roan now and then, but not long enough, and then put the horse into a lope again. The faithful roan was wearying, and Blue knew he must slow it down or destroy it.

  Blue slowed the stumbling roan to a trot, and then a walk. He was still twelve miles from the ranch. If he killed a horse, he would never get there in good time.

  Ahead of him heat waves bent and shimmered the air. He felt the heat pierce his clothing, felt the sun hammer his weathered flesh, felt the grasses wither and brown under the blast of the sun. And then as he topped a hill an apparition greeted him. It occupied the whole white sky before him. His family was marching up a long stairway into the heavens: Olivia, step by step, her face filled with light; Absalom, sharply etched, determined to master those endless steps; Steve Cooper, walking with great dignity... and Tammy, thin and proud, her skirts wrapped close, her chin high, stepping up those golden stairs and vanishing into the mist. At the last, she turned to look at him. He cried out, but she was gone. The apparition was only that. The bleached blue of the hot heavens was all there was. He tugged the reins and sat the trembling horse, dismounted, stood, letting the zephyrs dry him, and then began walking before the valiant strawberry roan, leading it through the heat.

  The wagon before him was not an apparition and he knew everything about it long before his old eyes could make out the detail. It was the Cooper ranch’s spring wagon, and driving it was Zeke Dombrowski, and sitting on either side of him were Joey and Sarah, Blue’s grandchildren. Blue stopped and waited. The horse hung its head and its sweat collected on its withers and dripped to the parched earth.

  Zeke stopped the wagon far from Blue, examined Blue, and then stepped down, leaving the little children on the hard seat.

  “I’m sorry, Blue,” Zeke said.

  “Zeke...”

  “She’s gone. She and Cletus.”

  Blue couldn’t stand. He slumped to the ground and sat there. Zeke hunkered on his heels beside him. “How’d you know?”

  “The son of a buck left a calling card. Tammy’s hat, tied to my door. Found it first thing this morning.”

  “What did you find, Zeke?”

  “Let it lie, Blue.”

  “No...I need to know.”

  “Let it be.”

  “I’ll look.”

  “Blue, the children.”

  Blue staggered to his feet, walked toward the wagon, saw the two blanket-wrapped forms lying in the box, saw the pale and frightened faces peering up at him from the seat.

  “Joey, Sarah, it’s your grandpa.”

  Neither responded. He stepped forward and patted each one with his big paw. “It’s your grandpa, and you’ve got to be strong now.” He pointed to Zeke. “You go there with Zeke for a bit.”

  Silently they stepped down, landed on the parched earth, and walked toward the constable. Blue untied the knots that bound Tammy’s shroud, and undid the blanket. She was white and naked. Blue recoiled. She had been shot once, through the heart. Her mouth formed a surprise. Her almond eyes stared straight at him.

  Blue wrapped her again and tied the knots tightly. Cletus had been shot in the back of the head.

  Now you’re coming for me, Blue thought.

  Jack Castle was almost through. One last bullet and he would finish what he had sworn to do. Blue gripped the wagon, so dizzy he could barely stand. He did not know how he could let go of the wagon without tumbling to the ground.

  The children had no mother and no father. He peered at them, ached for them. They were so young; almost too young to understand death, but not to young to learn that they would never see their mother again. They stared back at him from tear-streaked faces, as if he was the only thing in all the world they could trust. He walked back to Zeke, who was holding each child by the hand.

  “When you got there, what? Tell me the story.”

  Zeke worried a look at the children. “Maybe eight or nine is when I got there. Tammy, in bed—like that. Cletus sprawled on the porch. Got shot from behind as he came to see what the trouble was. Middle of the night probably.”

  “The children?”

  “Joey staring at his ma. Sarah still under covers in a trundle bed, whimpering. She heard it all.”

  “Joey crying?”

  “No, just staring.”

  “That it?”

  Zeke nodded.

  “And Castle put Tammy’s hat on your door?”

  “Tied it to the knob tight so the wind don’t get it.” Zeke looked like he was about to crumple. “God, Blue....”

  “They been fed?”

  “No. I just bundled them up, got the dray horse harnessed, took care of things as good as I could...You’ve lost Olivia, Tammy and Steve.”

  “And my boy.”

  “No, no.”

  “Castle shot him, just when Absalom was trying to bail me out of trouble.”
/>
  Zeke clutched Blue. “No, no, don’t tell me that.”

  “It’s so. I put him on an old burial scaffold. Brave boy, come out here after Castle was sprung loose, come out here to keep an eye on his stubborn old man. No finer boy, and I didn’t know it until too late.”

  Zeke pulled his battered hat from his balding head and pressed it to his chest. “You’ve lost everyone, Blue. I don’t have any words in me that do what words are supposed to do.”

  Blue nodded. “Mind if I drive this wagon?”

  “Blue, you do whatever you have a mind to do.”

  “Mind riding shotgun?”

  “I’d be proud to look after you.”

  Blue tied his tired roan behind the wagon and pulled off the saddle. Zeke untied his own horse from the back of the wagon, and climbed on. And so they started back to Centerville, the sheriff, the constable, and two small orphans. The heat bore down on them, and rose off the clay to smite them, and not even the crows were circling in the sky. There was only the steady clop of hooves and the rear end of the horse. Blue’s mind drifted back to those days when he liked Jack Castle because the boy would stop at nothing and that was the sort of man the West needed, and back to the days when he scorned his own son because his son wanted to draw pictures and be inside, and that disappointed Blue so much he could hardly talk to the boy.

  But things didn’t turn out that way. Jack Castle was the devil’s own, and Absalom was the one with the great and good heart. Blue hadn’t seen it; Blue hadn’t seen a lot of things until now, when he sat in the center of the wagon seat, with two desperate little children swaying beside him.

  Chapter 29

  Blue sat in the parlor of Vinegar Will’s funeral emporium, flanked by Joey and Sarah in their Sunday best. They were alone, surrounded only by dark space. The doors were barred to the clamorous public, half the population of the county seat, which had collected outside in ninety-five degree heat.

  Blue was damned if he would make a spectacle of this, even though Cyrus Meek, editor of the Blankenship Weekly Crier, was doing his best to sensationalize it. Blue felt uncomfortable in his stiff suit; he always did, but he would not wear anything less. Let the clothing fit the event, and this was an event most solemn.

  Carl Barlow’s wife, Millie, had dressed the children, and now they sat beside him, the threads of life connecting them to their grandfather. He reached out and patted Joey’s shoulder, and then ran a rough hand down Sarah’s head. There were no coffins here. Tamara had been swiftly buried in Centerville beside her husband, before the heat had a chance to work its evil. Zeke had sent an escort to guard the old sheriff and his grandchildren all the way to Blankenship, but word had spread, and even before they arrived at Blue’s cottage, a silent crowd had gathered. He was an object of horror and pity, and worse, a freak for P.T. Barnum’s midway.

  Vinegar was his usual officious self, and swiftly found a preacher for Blue. “All right. Let him preach. But I’m bringing Joey, who’s seven, and Sarah, who’s five, and I want every word of it to be addressed to them, not to me,” Blue said.

  The preacher swirled out of the darkness. The parlor was curtained against the heat, and lit only by two banks of candles. Even so, the air oppressed Blue and he ached to be anywhere else than this close, dark, silent chamber.

  But the preacher, a Mister Fowler, proved up to his assignment.

  “Well, now, little ones,” he said, “we’re going to say goodbye to your mother and your father too, and I am going to tell you that they lived good lives. I will also tell you that most people are good, and we live in a garden given us by God, and we must all find the courage to go on, in spite of loss and sadness and grief.”

  It was a good talk, and the children listened intently. Joey had suffered the most; he understood death better than Sarah, and he understood murder. He had drawn deep into himself, his gaze fearful, his tears hidden from Blue. Sarah had been stoic, but Blue thought the little girl expected her mother to return. Blue hoped the preacher wouldn’t dwell overly much about a reunion some day in heaven; not for a five-year-old girl.

  The Barlows and a lot of others didn’t want him to bring the children. Funerals aren’t for children, they said, and volunteered to care for the grandchildren while Blue attended the service. But Blue made his own decisions, and quietly insisted that things be done his way. It was an odd thing: the worse the tragedy, the more people meddled.

  Well, they were going to receive some more surprises in a day or so, Blue thought, grimly. And there would be more protests from all quarters. It was all well-intended. People wanted to be kind. But no one ever quite understood Blue Smith.

  There was something about all this: Jack Castle has not killed the children, even though he’s had the opportunity.

  The Reverend Mr. Fowler addressed the children kindly, and Blue was grateful. This man wasn’t one to pretty up death, or even to paint fancy pictures of heaven and angels and harps and gold-paved streets. Often, the minister abandoned Vinegar’s little altar and stood right before the little ones and Blue, and there was a kindness in him that caught the spirits of Blue’s grandchildren.

  And then, after a prayer, it was over. Through a stretching silence, Blue sat in the darkness with his grandchildren. Vinegar fidgeted. Then Blue gently led the two into the blinding sunlight and heat, where Blue’s friends waited solemnly to receive him. Carl Barlow had done a good job outside, and he hustled Blue and his family into a carriage. Blue nodded gratefully, and pressed Carl’s hand. The county supervisors stood there, hats in hand, and Blue knew full well what they were thinking: as soon as they decently could, they would ask him to resign. They would tell him what tragedy he had suffered, how it was time for him to retire, spend the rest of his days fishing, after a long and noble career as a lawman. Blue nodded to them. Not yet. Not quite yet. Maybe later.

  He surveyed the silent crowd, which gawked at him, at the bereft children.

  “Come along now, Joey, Sarah,” he said, and herded them toward the shining black carriage. Many hundreds of gazes followed them. Blue saw Cyrus Meek straining to overhear anything said, and scribbling on a notepad.

  “Clear the way now,” Barlow said, “Make room.”

  Reluctantly the crowd parted to let the carriage through. Blue stepped inside, and sat on the burning leather seat. “Hot,” he said. The children eased into place.

  The enclosed black carriage swiftly carried them to their cottage, where more people waited, some with flowers or pies or pitchers of lemonade. They were most kind. Blue nodded his thanks from his carriage seat, and hustled the children into the hot, airless house. Barlow appeared a few minutes later and set a guard around Blue’s cottage. The grass had browned, and the flowers had withered under the blast of July heat, and the lavender lilacs of spring had surrendered to the sere tan of drought.

  Barlow knocked. Blue answered. Barlow stood there, straw hat in hand.

  “You’ll be guarded twenty-four-a-day. I’ve deputized half a dozen men,” he said. “Blue, is there anything else I can do?”

  “Fetch me a pair of mules tomorrow morning, Carl.”

  “Mules?”

  “We’re going up to the fishing hole and camp for a spell.”

  “The children?”

  “What better place?”

  “But Blue...”

  That was as much as mild-mannered Carl would protest. But Blue knew a dozen objections were teeming in the deputy’s head.

  “Carl, you just run things here. Consider yourself the acting sheriff. In fact, I’ll name you acting sheriff.”

  “But Blue, the children...”

  “Two mules, Carl.”

  “Blue, that’s where Castle started it.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll send a man along.”

  “No, Carl. Let me do this my way.”

  Carl Barlow stood on one foot and the other, sweating even under the cover of the porch. “I can’t let you, Blue. You’re just being bullheaded. Castle, h
e’s young and quick.”

  “Yes, faster and meaner. Young, got good eyes, stops at nothing. Laughs when he shoots.”

  Carl swallowed, nodded, and waited.

  “He’ll find us there,” Blue said. “Kill us all, the last chapter. That what you’re saying?”

  “Dammit, Blue, you’re endangering the lives of those two in there! That’s all that’s left! All that the world knows it.”

  Blue stared. “Two pack animals at dawn, Carl.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Suit yourself, then.”

  Barlow was on the brink of tears. Blue reached out and patted the man’s shoulder. “I’m bullheaded,” he said. “You’re probably right.”

  “Dammit, Blue...”

  “Good fat cutthroat, cool meadow. Some mosquitoes but that beats this heat.”

  Blue saw moisture build in Carl’s weathered eye sockets, but then the deputy took Blue’s hand and pumped it slowly. “It ain’t over, but I got no say,” he said. “I’d watch over you if I could. I’d watch over you till hell freezes over.”