Doc Cornish said, "That is correct, madam. The deceased were transported on to Tombstone, laid out in the stage. I served during the war. The military always treat their fallen with dignity and respect."
"Yeah," said Kate. "But they’re still fallen."
J.D. said, "Kate, let’s stable the horses. They’ve had a long, hot ride."
Doc stepped outside with them. He accompanied J.D. and Kate to the deserted street.
He said, "If hell is coming to Whiskey Bend as you say, I had best brace myself for performing some serious patching up tonight."
Kate said, "You mean serious burying."
"Not my job," said Doc. "My job ends when they stop breathing. After that, the barber takes over. He’s the town undertaker."
He headed off in the direction of the saloon.
J.D. and Kate led the horses toward the stable. They walked some distance in silence.
J.D. finally said, "Okay, wife. Something’s eating you inside, and I know what it is. Let’s talk."
Chapter 19
Doc paused on the boardwalk that fronted the saloon. He turned and watched the young couple leading the horses down the one street of Whiskey Bend, in the direction of the stable.
They looked like a pleasant couple returning from a romantic ride.
Appearances could sure be deceiving.
Doc considered the two fastest guns in the territory, joined together as gunfighters for hire in a partnership consecrated by marriage.
Two of a kind, for damn sure.
Kate Blaze was the sort of woman who made a man of Doc’s age wish he was thirty years younger. She had every curve right in place. Intelligent and possessed of a deep sense of human compassion as evidenced by the way the death of the two cavalrymen so visibly troubled her. Of course, if he was a man thirty years younger he would have to compete with J.D. for Kate’s affection and it was doubtful that any man could measure up to that standard in her eyes.
J.D. was the sort of fellow that women adored and men enjoyed being around.
A man’s man.
Yes, a fine couple.
For a moment, unbidden thoughts drifted back to Emma. His sweet, beautiful Emma.
They met in school. Childhood sweethearts. Their destiny was to be in love and to be man and wife forever. In their innocence there had been no holding back. They came to know each other so intimately that in time no one on earth understood him like his Emma. There was no one he would rather be with and, wonder of wonders, she felt the same about him!
Typhoid fever claimed Emma sixth months after their wedding day.
Doc had graduated from Harvard Medical School. A successful practice caring for the Boston elite. But after the war, after four years of hell serving in the field as a medical officer, he’d had his fill of what they called civilization. He headed west. Life had taken him this way and that over the course of the next thirty years.
And here he now stood.
Drunken old sawbones.
But he still had a brain to think, a heart to feel and eyes to see, and he remembered what it was like to be young. At his age a man understood the importance of a woman’s love in a man’s life, because at his age that was often something long lost. If Emma were alive, he would not be a drunk.
J.D. obviously appreciated the blessing of having a good woman. That was good.
This was a wild country. Still dangerous with roaming Apache war parties, but the Apache embodied a way of life doomed to extinction. Adapting to a new way of life was inconceivable to the followers of Geronimo, who would never willingly give up the old ways. There was much to admire about those ways, but no one could stop the inexorable force of the behemoth called Progress. This wild country was dry and savage. One day, though, it would be a verdant green. Irrigated pastures. Farmland. A bountiful life for those who had tamed a wild country and for generations of their descendants.
That would come a long time after he was gone, Doc knew, when these early days of land taming, this winning of this West, would become the mythology of a growing nation.
For the present and foreseeable future, it would take all kinds to carve civilization from the wildness. The team-up of J.D. and Kate Blaze was one of a kind in that grand endeavor. In all of his travels and experience, Doc had never encountered anyone quite like them.
Then there was Paco and his hellion girlfriend, Rosa Diablo. Doc had known all types of men. He knew a human rattler when he saw one. A lowlife who would murder his own mother for the gold in her teeth. Luis Paco gave him the impression of a coiled diamondback just waiting to strike.
He lost sight of J.D. and Kate and the horses in the deepening shadows surrounding the stable. He remained standing just short of the saloon’s batwing doors. He stroked his whiskers and considered the matter.
Blood would flow tonight. He would be called to patch the wounded and maybe save a life or two.
What if one of those lives belonged to J.D. or Kate Blaze?
He generally drank to steady his nerves. A habit carried over from battlefield surgeon days when unspeakable human suffering and wretched death made for a normal day. This new land could not lose someone like J.D. or Kate. A new land in the making, yes. And if his only contribution to that grand enterprise was to save the life of one fighting to making it possible, then he must remain sharp. At his best and able to perform. He would stay sober.
Doc retraced his way back to the alley and his office. He would check in with Belton. He did not care much for the man, who had a weaselly way about him. Just the same, Belton had taken on a dangerous task, watch-dogging Luis Paco. The Blazes would undoubtedly return after tending to the horses, but until then it wouldn’t hurt to have a second pair of eyes on the outlaw. He side-stepped the clutter near the door. Doc reached for the door handle.
Then he paused at the sound of voices from within his office. A window, open an inch to allow in the cooling night air, also allowed voices to carry clearly to him. There was a relaxed, almost conversational tenor to the voices.
Paco was saying, "So, Señor Belton, you do not feel guilty talking with Luis Paco, the most notorious bandido on the border?"
"Can’t see any harm in it," was Belton’s confident, offhandedly taunting reply. "And from what I hear, this lady friend of yours is the notorious one, branding women while she kills the men."
Doc sensed a tone of fascination more than disgust in Belton’s statement.
Paco must have noted it too. His voice, when it drifted out through the window, carried confidence.
"It is the woman and me together that makes us a force to be reckoned with. And for Whiskey Bend, the day of reckoning is tonight. You look nervous, amigo."
"I’m not used to gunfights," said Belton. "But Blaze and his woman will be here too when your friend shows up. No one’s taking you out of here but the law, Paco."
"Ah yes. Mr. and Mrs. Blaze. But they’re not here now, are they? It is just you and Paco."
"What of it?"
"Nothing. I just want you to know that I can smell your fear. You are afraid to fight with the gun. You are afraid of being hurt. You are afraid of dying."
"Stop talking like that."
"It is true, what I say. The gun that you wear."
"What of it?"
Paco said, "You are not in the habit of wearing the pistola, eh? It should be worn lower on the hip, my friend. For the fast draw. It is the difference between life and death."
A lengthy pause followed. Then Paco chuckled.
From his listening post in the alley, Doc had no trouble visualizing Belton loosening and lowering his gun belt as Paco recommended.
Paco said, "How much do they pay you, this company from far away that you work for?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
There was no belligerence in the reply, only genuine puzzlement.
Paco said, "Money is everything. Do they not say it is what makes the world go around and around? How much does your company in the big comforta
ble rich city pay you to come out here to the edge of civilization, to be surrounded by savages who would enjoy the chance to kill you? How much do they think your life is worth?"
Doc held his breath, waiting for the answer.
Should he storm in and put an end to this conversation on the spot? He knew Belton was no good. Even at his age he could slap the young pup down! Paco was still in chains. But...he wanted to hear Belton’s response. What sort of a man was this Easterner, really?
Belton said, "They don’t pay much."
Paco said, "I am going to take off my left boot. Please do not shoot me."
Belton said, "Hold on there. I know about boot guns. How well did they search you—?"
"Relax." A slight grunt as Paco pulled off his boot. "Here."
There followed the slight sound of something that had been tossed dropping to the floor.
Belton said, "What the hell? Where did you get this?"
"Does it make a difference? Go on. Count it."
"Holy shit."
"Keep it," said Paco. "It’s yours. And there is much more where that came from waiting for you."
Belton said, "Are you trying to buy me off?"
"Señor, you are not selling out. You are buying in. Why risk your life for scraps off their table. Ride with Paco and Rosa and we will steal the dinners right out from under them and you will feel like a king and know what it is to ride free!"
Belton said, "Uh, that does sound exciting, the way you put it."
Doc nodded to himself in the darkness of the alley.
He’d heard enough. He had to get word to J.D. and Kate.
Belton was already bought off!
There was no time to waste.
He pivoted and started away from there, forgetting about the clutter of refuse around his feet. He tripped and fell, causing enough noise to be heard inside the office.
Belton’s said, "What the hell was that?"
Paco said, "Quick! Stop them!"
Doc picked himself up. He started to run.
Chapter 20
Three riders drew up on high ground that overlooked the sparse cluster of lights.
Rosa Diablo said, "So this is Whiskey Bend. This is where they think they can keep my Pablo? We will show them differently, eh, amigos?"
Jaybird checked the action of his six-gun.
"I always was one for raisin’ a little sand."
The rigors of the long ride and anticipation of the coming action had made him forget his missing ear. The wound was already scabbed over.
Spivey said, "Don’t seem like much of a town. Wonder where they got Paco?"
Anticipation had Spivey’s gut in a knot. He had been weary enough to almost drop from the saddle after the day’s long ride. But the closer they got to Whiskey Bend, the more awake and energized he became.
And he knew why.
Spivey enjoyed killing. Seeing someone alive one minute. Seeing them scared shitless. Then ending their existence with a bullet. It was a grand sensation. Nothing like it. He discovered the joy of killing people while riding with Quantrill's Raiders during the war. There was still a price on his head in Kansas.
Rosa said, "Pablo will be in that big building. The hotel."
Jaybird nodded. "That figures right enough. Let’s hit 'em."
Spivey had first met Jaybird when they were serving time together in the hell hole that was the Territorial prison at Yuma. The hottest, deadliest, most lifeless desert land in the Territory. Spivey and Jaybird made a mass jailbreak with eight other hardcases, killing three guards in the process. The fugitives made a run for the border. Spivey and Jaybird partnered up when the escapees scattered. They alone made a clean getaway. The others were overtaken before they could reach Mexico. Spivey learned later that seven died shooting it out with the law. The eighth, when cornered, pressed his gun barrel to his temple and blew his brains out rather than go back to prison.
Spivey and Jaybird drifted east along the Arizona border. They hooked up with Paco. It had been good enough pickings, riding with Paco. He was a tough boss. He knew how to recruit hardcases and, more importantly, he was clever. He knew how to keep men in line. And he knew how to talk his way into and out of anything.
Things changed when Rosa came into the picture.
Spivey wasn’t sure where Paco found her. When Paco rode into camp one day with Rosa Diablo they were already thick as, well, thick as thieves. The raids and robberies staged by the gang increased after Rosa’s arrival, which was fine with Spivey. More money to spend on whores and tequila.
But he was ready for a change.
Things had started getting out of hand.
Spivey had dealt out plenty of bad shit and pain to a lot of people in his time but it made him edgy to see such qualities in a woman. Rosa’s fetish for carving her initials into the flesh of her female victims and then not killing them...it was plumb nutty and when something made him feel that way, Spivey he knew it was time to light a shuck for new parts.
He did not even give a damn about Paco. He had made the long ride here for a very good reason of his own.
Spivey said, "So what the hell are we waiting for?"
"Who said we’re waiting?" said Rosa.
She slapped her spurs to her mount’s ribs. The horse tore out at full gallop, with Spivey and Jaybird riding close her.
Spivey grinned a tight grin to himself.
The Man Who Killed J.D. Blaze.
Yeah. Had a nice ring to it.
They rode toward Whiskey Bend.
Chapter 21
J.D. and Kate stabled their horses with a wide-eyed, gape-jawed liveryman. Then they walked back toward the hotel. The town’s single street, wide and rutted, remained eerily quiet, bathed in moonlight that limned the world in dark silver.
J.D. felt them being watched by townspeople from behind every narrowly drawn curtain in every darkened window they passed. He knew better than to pressure Kate to speak her thoughts. He let her simmer.
She paused. They stood only a few yards from the mouth of the alley that cut alongside the hotel, where Doc Cornish had his office.
She said, "Blaze, you said you know what I’m feeling."
He said, "Those two soldiers. The lieutenant and the sergeant who were ambushed."
She nodded. "Were you ever responsible for someone’s death? You didn’t kill them. You were on the same side. But you’re the reason they died."
"Kate, don’t think that way."
"Why shouldn’t I? They were guarding the stage. The stage took that alternate route as a precaution. And I tipped off Rosa and Paco about it so we could join their gang."
"It’s what we set out to do," said Blaze, "to join their gang so we could apprehend those two."
Her eyes were bitter. "And what a great plan, that was. We only got one of them, and we set up those soldiers to be bushwhacked. We’re responsible for that. I’m responsible."
"Like hell you are. Stop it. Are you forgetting what we discussed last night in camp? Those soldiers were at risk because that’s their job. ‘It’s what they’re paid to do,’ you said."
"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"
"Listen to me." J.D. spoke patiently. "You didn’t kill those soldiers. Those men are dead because lowlife scum bushwhacked 'em. You try to keep score like you’re doing, you’ll go crazy. I don’t need a crazy wife."
"Too bad for you. I was crazy when you met me."
"Yeah, but in a good way. Can’t toe the mark and can’t walk the line. Can’t kowtow to other people’s bullshit rules and regulations. That’s why we hit it off. We’re two of a kind."
"So tell me something I don’t know."
It was not said as a rebuff or a challenge, but was an open invitation.
He said, "Okay, here it is. Kate, you’re a good woman doing the best you can in life. Whenever your time comes to meet your maker, tonight or ninety years from now, you’ll check out like the rest of us. You’ll have done some damage and you’ll have done some
good. Your heart is true and your intentions were righteous. The good outweighs the bad. Let the man upstairs keep score. You’re responsible for what you do, not for the acts of lowlife scum just because you happened to be involved."
A pause between them.
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
"I needed to hear that, Jehoram Delfonso."
J.D. glanced around. The street remained empty.
"Darlin’, you know I don’t want people knowing my name."
She smiled. "That’s why it means so much when I use it. When did you get so smart, J.D.?"
He said with a grin, "Reckon it was about the time I met you."
Doc Cornish suddenly lurched into view from the alley. A stumbling apparition. He saw them. He started toward them. Eyes wide. Face pale, taut with pain. Arms outstretched. Then his knees buckled.
Kate and J.D. hurried forward to assist him. J.D. reached Doc in time to catch him, to break his fall. He cradled the old man in his arms, gently lowering Doc to the ground. Kate gasped when she saw the knife protruding from the center of Doc’s back, its ivory handle gleaming obscenely in the moonlight.
Doc shuddered with pain. Both of his hands clawed at J.D.’s arm. He visibly struggled to speak words whispered in pain.
"Belton...sold out..."
Doc started coughing. A line of blood dribbled from each corner of his mouth. Then he died.
J.D. stood, lifting the frail body that felt light as a newborn. He walked Doc to the front boardwalk of the hotel. He set the body there in a sitting position. Then he turned to Kate.
"Couldn’t leave him lying in the street. Let’s you and me take care of business."
They each filled both hands with iron, and rushed toward the dark alley.
Chapter 22
Ninety seconds earlier, Belton had stumbled into the small, shabby office where Paco stood, chained to the pipe. Belton was out of breath. His heart pounded against his ribs. Despite the cool of the night, he felt flushed. Feverish.
"Well?" Paco demanded. "Who was it that heard us?"
"It was Doc. Doc Cornish."
Belton’s mind was numb. He looked down at his hands. They gleamed with slick blood from where he’d braced the old doctor to the ground with one hand while he plunged the knife into Cornish’s back with the other.
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