Wild Side of the River

by Michael Zimmer

  It began to cool off when the sun went down, although the coming night worried Ethan more than the suffocating heat of the closed-off house. He knew the bushwhackers wouldn’t wait forever. Come full dark, they’d try something. He just hoped he’d be ready for it.

  As the shadows thickened under the cottonwoods along Wilder Creek, Ethan began to grow restless. He kept moving from window to window, the Winchester always at the ready. The last, lingering tendrils of a scarlet sunset were being sucked down into the horizon, nightfall skulking in from the east, when the men in the barn finally made their move. Ethan heard them first, voices excited and urgent, the rattle of weapons being readied. Standing at the kitchen window, he eased the Winchester’s muzzle through the narrow slot, hammer cocked. A face appeared at the barn’s entrance. Moon-pale and fleet as a swallow, it disappeared before Ethan could swing his sights on it. There was a thud from the creek, a splash, nervous laughter so soft Ethan couldn’t tell where it came from. Then . . . .

  “Wilder!”

  A hiss like escaping steam, it came from . . . where?

  Leaning back, Ethan pulled his finger off the trigger. Were they were playing with him, trying to jack up his nerves until he did something foolish? Dropping from the kitchen platform, he checked the other windows. Nothing stirred, and the silence brought a taut smile to his face. Were they disappointed that he hadn’t revealed his position by firing wildly at feigned targets? Had they wanted him to deafen himself temporarily with his own gunfire so that they could slip in closer? Ethan had grown up on the frontier. He was no greenhorn. If they wanted a fight, they’d have to bring it to him.

  There was a shout from the barn, scattered replies barely intelligible.

  “. . . coming!”

  “. . . outta here!”

  “Quick, dammit . . .”

  Ethan frowned, shoulder pressed to adobe as he tried to piece together something coherent. The voices seemed to be coming from everywhere—the barn, the creek, even the chokecherry patch east of the house. He heard the dull thud of hoofs and wondered if this was their next ruse, to make him think they were abandoning their siege, riding away. He didn’t intend to fall for it, yet he knew time was as much his enemy as the men who had kept him trapped here. He couldn’t hide forever. Not with Vic as bad off as he was.

  Minutes crept past. Sweat beaded above Ethan’s brows in spite of the cooling temperatures, and along with the drone of flies was now the laborious sounds of Vic’s breathing, like the distant rip of a bucksaw.

  “Ethan. Ethan Wilder!”

  Ethan tensed. “What do you want?”

  “It’s John Red Bear, Ethan. I have news.”

  “Red Bear?”

  John Red Bear was a half-blood Piegan, one of hundreds of Métis who roamed the country between the Yellowstone and Saskatchewan Rivers. Men like Crazy Dog, Jimmy Chews, even Gerard Turcotte’s wandering sons. Drifters and hunters, mostly, here one season, five hundred miles away the next.

  “Are you alone?” Ethan demanded.

  “Very much.” Red Bear’s chuckle seemed as dry as Ethan’s throat. “Your enemies have left. Can I come in?”

  Ethan hesitated, then lowered the Winchester. “Come on up to the house, but slow. I ain’t in a trusting mood tonight.”

  There was movement near where Ethan had shot the first bushwhacker that morning, the soft crunch of autumn grass under soft-soled moccasins. A man came out of the trees, slim, wiry, wearing a derby hat with a feather stuck in the band. Stopping halfway to the house, he said: “I am alone, see?”

  “Where are the others?”

  “The cowards who hid in the barn have left.” Red Bear’s teeth flashed in the gloaming. “I think maybe they thought the Army was coming after them.”

  “Now, why would they think that?”

  “Maybe they heard me coming through the trees. I have extra horses, and they made a lot of noise kicking rocks and splashing across the creek.”

  “I didn’t hear them.”

  Red Bear shrugged noncommittally.

  “You’re sure they’re gone?” Ethan pressed.

  “Six men rode away. Two were wounded. Another they carried across his saddle like a butchered elk. I think maybe that one was dead.”

  “He was,” Ethan replied flatly. “Come around to the kitchen.” He shuttered the bedroom window, then walked back through the house. He didn’t know John Red Bear well, but he’d trust him enough to allow him inside. Because of Vic, as much as anything.

  With Red Bear safely inside, Ethan struck a match and lit the lantern. Red Bear’s easy smile disintegrated when he saw Vic. He muttered something in Blackfoot, then switched to English. “He is dead, your brother?”

  “No, but he’s hurt bad.”

  Red Bear nodded soberly. “I was bringing him some horses to sell. I guess he isn’t interested now.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Red Bear looked up uncomfortably. “Who are these men, Ethan? Why did they shoot Victor?”

  “I don’t know who they are, but I’m pretty sure they want our land.”

  Red Bear shook his head sadly. “It is not your land, Ethan. How many times must I explain this to the white man? The land cannot be marked up and sold like the carcass of something dead. It is like the sky and the air. It is for everyone.”

  “You might want to chase down that bunch of hardcases that had me and Vic pinned down in here all day. I don’t think they share your beliefs.”

  “No, I think I will let someone else do that,” Red Bear said. “You know of McMillan and his woman?”

  “Uhn-huh. I was at Turcotte’s when Jimmy Chews brought us word. And old Emile?”

  “What of that cranky bastard?”

  “He’s disappeared. Turcotte thinks he dead.”

  Red Bear reached for the latch. “I am going away now, Ethan. Maybe I will come back in a couple of months and talk to Vic, if he is still alive. I have an Appaloosa that is as good as any horse I have ever owned.”

  “I’ll tell him you were here,” Ethan said absurdly. He followed Red Bear outside. “John?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are any of those horses of yours broke to saddle?”

  “A couple of them are, yes.”

  “Gentle enough for a wounded man?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Red Bear said: “Not to hitch to a wagon, but to stand a rider, yes, I think so.”

  “I’m in a hurry, and I don’t want to lose time looking for my own stock in the dark. I’d like to buy a couple of horses from you. The best you’ve got, as long as they’re broke to saddle.”

  Red Bear smiled. “Go get your saddles, Ethan. I will help you put Victor on his horse.”

  * * * * *

  Coming over the last low rise south of town, Ethan was taken aback by the number of lights still burning in the middle of Sundance’s main thoroughfare. Fearing trouble, he reined the Appaloosa off the road to approach Doc Carver’s house from the rear.

  There was a lamp in Carver’s front window, but the office in back was dark when Ethan dismounted and knocked loudly on the door. Pulling Vic’s horse close, he felt his brother’s chest for a heartbeat. It was there, but faint. A light appeared in the window behind him, and Carver opened the door.

  “Ethan!” he exclaimed, then saw Vic slumped in his saddle and hurried outside to help. They carried him inside, to the same table Jacob Wilder had been laid out yesterday.

  Noticing Ethan’s uneasy glance around the room, Doc said: “I sent your father’s body over to Roy Manson’s mortuary yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t come in yet, and, with things outside starting to turn ugly, I was afraid I’d need the room.”

  Claudia Carver whisked into the room like a small windstorm, fully dressed but with her hair down, captured in a net at the back of her neck.

  “Bullet,” Doc informed her tersely, cutting away Vic’s shirt with a pair of heavy scissors.

  Claudia didn’t speak, but set about lighting more lamps while Do
c began to bath the bruised flesh surrounding the wound. He looked up briefly. “Sheriff Burke is back.”

  Ethan felt a clayish lump form low in his throat. “Is he?”

  “He arrested Joel yesterday, has him locked up with Ben.”

  “Is that why there’s such a big crowd out front?”

  “It was bigger last evening,” Doc said. “Almost a mob. Burke got most of the decent folks to go home at sunset. What’s left is largely riff-raff . . . cowboys, freighters, saloon bums.” He shut up and leaned over the wound. “Hold a light over here,” he said.

  Ethan reached for a lamp, but Claudia cut in front of him. “I can handle this, Ethan.”

  “Why don’t you go into the front room and get some sleep?” Doc suggested. “You look like you’re about to fall on your face.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Ethan acknowledged, but turned toward the back door instead. “I’ll look after the horses.”

  He went outside and caught up the reins to the Appaloosa and the sorrel John Red Bear had sold him. There was a small barn behind the Carver house, unused since Doc kept his buggy horse stabled at Tim Palmer’s Livery. Ethan led his mounts into the barn, made sure they had hay and fresh water, then walked out to the street. There were fifteen or twenty men standing in front of the sheriff’s office. A few of them carried sputtering torches or lanterns; almost all of them looked liquored up and ill-tempered—a bad combination, Ethan knew.

  He crossed the street, made his way past a tinsmith’s shop, then down an alley to the rear of the jail. Half a dozen soft knocks brought a curt inquiry through the heavy wooden door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Ethan Wilder, Jeff. I need to talk to you.”

  “Not now, Ethan. Come back in the morning.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “If you want to help, get out of town. If people knew you were here, it’d only make things worse.”

  “Jeff, Vic is over at Doc Carver’s. He’s been shot.”

  Silence greeted that. Finally Jeff said: “Ethan, I wouldn’t open this door to the president of the Union Pacific Railroad. There’s nothing I can do about Vic tonight. I’ll stop by Doc’s tomorrow, when things calm down. In the meantime, I want you to disappear. Right now, the name Wilder ain’t all that popular around here.”

  Ethan took a deep breath, then nodded to himself. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow at Doc’s.”

  * * * * *

  Slouched in a hard wicker chair, heels propped on the railing of Doc Carver’s front porch, Ethan dozed fitfully. The wing-back chair made a poor bed, and it was with relief that he watched the gray light of a new day creep over the town. Pushing aside a blanket from his bedroll, Ethan climbed stiffly to his feet. Hide Street was empty in either direction, the mob having disbanded during the early morning hours.

  Walking around back, he knocked tentatively at the rear door. Claudia opened it instantly. “Come in, Ethan,” she said softly.

  Doc was sitting in a padded platform rocker, stockinged feet propped on a hassock, a shawl draped over his legs. He got up when Ethan entered.

  “I’ll heat some coffee,” Claudia said, leaving the room as she’d entered it the night before, a whirlwind of energy.

  “I don’t think I could keep going if not for her,” Doc confided quietly. “She’s a child of the Army, you know? Her father was the post surgeon at Fort Randolph, then later at Fort Bowie in Arizona.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Ethan replied distantly, gaze riveted to the empty table where he’d left Vic last night. A tightening in his chest made it difficult to breath.

  Smiling sympathetically, Doc said—“He’s in here, Ethan.”—and led the way through a door into a side room. There was a bed, heavy curtains drawn closed, an array of medical supplies laid out on a table against the wall. A lamp flickered in front of a polished steel reflecting plate; Doc turned it up until its light flooded the room.

  Vic lay in the center of the bed, blankets to his waist, chest swaddled in bandages. In its center was a bright red stain, like a small rose pressed under the gauze.

  “Should he still be bleeding?” Ethan asked in a low voice.

  “No, but he shouldn’t have been shot, either. How did it happen?”

  Ethan told him in detail—the first thunderous volley, the long hours cooped up in the stifling heat of the house, Vic’s steadily deteriorating condition. He described the fight itself, and how John Red Bear had inadvertently scared the bushwhackers off at dusk, approaching the ranch with his string of horses.

  When he’d finished, Doc scratched thoughtfully at the overnight stubble on his chin. “You say you might have wounded one of them?”

  “In the hand or wrist, I’m not sure.”

  “The hand,” Doc replied. “You shot off two fingers and the thumb.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Ethan asked loud enough that Vic moaned faintly in his sleep.

  “Let’s move out here,” Doc said, leading Ethan back to his office. He was closing the door behind them when Claudia came in from the parlor with a pot of coffee on a tray with two cups and some blueberry muffins. She sat the tray on Doc’s desk and started to speak, but was interrupted by a knock at the front door. She and Doc exchanged a worried glance, then she went to see who it was.

  “Something wrong?” Ethan asked.

  “Not necessarily. I’ve had a disproportionate amount of business the last few days, and more bullet wounds than I normally see in a year.”

  Claudia returned with a middle-aged man of medium height, his tousled gray hair and bulldog’s stubborn cast to his features a clue to his mood. He nodded to Doc, then looked at Ethan.

  “You’re up early.”

  “I came to see Vic.”

  Sheriff Burke nodded, turned to Doc. “How is he doing?”

  “I’ll leave you gentlemen alone,” Claudia said, then quietly exited the room. When she was gone, Jeff repeated his question.

  After a reluctant glance at Ethan, Carver said: “Vic Wilder suffered a single, small-caliber gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet struck a rib on its way in and appears to be lodged near the heart, along with several bone fragments too small to be extracted.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. I’m sorry, Ethan.”

  A sudden roaring filled Ethan’s ears, and the room seemed to tilt dangerously. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he looked again, the room had stopped pivoting, yet it seemed different, every detail clearly drawn, a clarity of focus he’d never experienced before.

  “Are you all right, Wilder?” Jeff asked.

  “Yeah, it’s just . . . he held on so long, I kind of figured . . .”

  “It’s the bone fragments,” Doc explained. “At least two of them have pierced the heart itself. Not enough to disrupt its rhythm, but my fear is that it’s only a matter of time until one of them ruptures an interior chamber. After that . . .” He shrugged regretfully.

  “How much time, Doc?” Jeff asked.

  “Impossible to say. Postponing treatment, then the long ride in, none of that helped his condition, even though I understand why it had to be done.”

  Jeff turned to Ethan. “What about the men who shot him? Did you get a look at them?”

  “Not much of one,” Ethan admitted, then tipped his head toward Doc. “But he did.”

  “I might have,” Carver amended, then told Burke of his treatment of a man shot in the hand. “He claimed it was a hunting accident. At the time, I didn’t have any reason to doubt him. You’d just arrested Joel and had your hands full of angry citizens.”

  “It wasn’t the citizens who were wanting to hang him,” Jeff said. “It was some of Kestler’s cowboys who were yelling loudest for a rope.”

  “Charlie Kestler?” Ethan asked, puzzled. “Why would his hands be so upset with something Joel might have done?”

  “Because Charlie’s boy, Nate, is courting that gal. Or was.”

  “It still isn’t any of Charl
ie’s business,” Ethan said.

  Jeff Burke hesitated.

  “He doesn’t know,” Doc said mildly.

  “I don’t know what?”

  Jeff sighed. “I didn’t catch up with your brother on the prairie, Ethan. It was Lou Merrick who brought him in. Lou found him in his barn whaling the tar out of that girl of his.”

  Ethan tensed. “I don’t believe that. You’re saying Joel keeps coming into town just to beat up Suzie Merrick? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you think it makes sense. Lou caught him in the act, and Suzie’s sworn a statement of collaboration.”

  “They’re lying.”

  “Don’t make it worse than it is, Ethan,” Jeff said. “If it was your word against Lou’s, I’d be inclined to put my faith in you, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to call Suzie Merrick a liar. Not the way she’s been busted up.”

  “Thompson,” Doc interrupted.

  “What’s that?” Jeff asked.

  “Suzie’s real name is Susanne Thompson. Her father was a brakeman for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was killed in a rail yard accident several years ago. Missus Thompson married Lou Merrick just before they moved out here.”

  “Well, I don’t see what that has to do with what happened last night,” Jeff replied defensively.

  Doc shrugged. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter who her father is,” Ethan insisted. “She’s lying if she says Joel hit her.”

  “Whoever did it, it wasn’t a single blow,” Doc said. “She was severely beaten.”

  “Then it sure as hell wasn’t Joel,” Ethan replied stubbornly. He looked at Jeff. “What about the men who shot Vic?”

  Jeff rubbed wearily at the inside corners of his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “All right, give me some time to go home and clean up. I’ll meet you at my office at ten o’clock. You can fill out a report then.”

  Doc picked up an official-looking document from his desk, Incident Report scripted in large letters across the top. He handed it to the sheriff.