by Bill Crider
“I’m shot!” he yelled again.
To make sure he didn’t shoot anyone with the pistol, Ellie fired the shotgun.
There was a scream, and Ellie heard the braying of a mule.
“Leave the sonuvabitch!” someone yelled, and Ellie heard the churning of hoofbeats.
In only seconds, there was quiet. Ellie counted to thirty. Then she stepped out into the yard.
“Laurie?” she called. “Sue? Lane?”
There was no answer from any of the Tolberts, but Harry Moon yelled to her from the bunkhouse.
“Are they gone, Miss Ellie? We got a wounded man in here.”
“They’re gone,” Ellie said. “Who’s hurt?”
Harry came to the bunkhouse door. “Jim Colburn. He’s hit in the leg. I don’t think he’s hurt too bad, though. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I have to check on the Tolberts.”
Ellie’s stomach felt as empty and hollow as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She walked to the foreman’s house and saw that the front door was open. The dark shape of a man was lying to one side.
He wasn’t moving, and Ellie didn’t care whether he was dead or alive. She hardly glanced down at him as she walked by and into the house.
“Laurie? Sue? It’s Ellie. Is everything all right?”
There was no answer, and Ellie knew that everything was not all right. She was very afraid that nothing was going to be all right ever again.
SEVENTEEN
Ellie walked up to the door with the shotgun ready, but there was no need for it as she saw almost at once. She leaned the gun against the wall and started back to her own house for a light. She’d gone only a couple of steps before Juana came out with a lamp. Ellie waited for Juana to reach her; then they both went into the Tolberts’ place.
They found Lane Tolbert lying on the floor of the bedroom. There was blood all over the front of his bare chest. Ellie couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not.
Sue was lying not far away. She was stirring, and her eyes flickered as Ellie bent down to her.
“Go look for Laurie,” Ellie told Juana, who stepped into the next room.
“No one is here,” Juana called, and Ellie’s heart sank, though she’d been expecting it.
“Look under the bed,” Ellie said. “Maybe she’s hiding.”
Ellie helped Sue sit up. Sue’s eyes were open, but she wasn’t focusing. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
“You just sit still,” Ellie told her, then turned to Lane.
She put her cheek next to his face and thought that she detected just the faintest exhalation.
“There is no one under the bed,” Juana said, coming back into the room. “The little one is gone.”
“Go get Mr. Moon,” Ellie said, ignoring the hollow feeling in her stomach.
Juana left and Ellie went to Sue, who was now looking around the room. The flickering lamp flame threw jittery shadows on the walls.
“It was Angel, wasn’t it,” Sue said.
“It must’ve been,” Ellie answered. “I didn’t see anyone’s face, but I don’t know who else it could have been.”
Sue’s eyes went to Lane’s still form. “Is he alive?”
“I don’t know. He might be.”
“What about Laurie?”
“We can’t find her. Do you think she’s hiding?”
A tear rolled down Sue’s cheek, but her voice was steady. “No. I think he took her.”
Harry Moon came into the room with Juana. Moon wasn’t a doctor, or anything like it, but he’d proven to have a way with sick animals, and Ellie was hoping his skills might be applied in other situations. He was a short, wiry man with bushy hair and a bristly beard, and he’d put on a pair of denim pants and a wrinkled cotton shirt. Ellie didn’t think she’d ever seen him without a hat before.
“Juana tells me somebody’s been shot,” he said.
“It’s Mr. Tolbert,” Ellie said. “Will you see if there’s anything you can do for him?”
Moon went and knelt down beside Lane. “I’ve seen a bullet wound or two in my time. Lemme see what we got here.” He put his fingers on Lane’s neck. “Well, he’s still alive, but just barely. I guess I’ll have to see just how bad this is, but you and Juana’ll have to give me a hand.”
Ellie looked at Sue, who said, “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me.”
“Just stay here then,” Ellie said, and went to help Moon.
With Ellie and Juana’s assistance, Moon raised Lane off the floor and got a look at his back.
“Bullet hit him way up on the shoulder and went straight on through. Made a damn big hole when it came out, though, didn’t it. Pardon my language, ladies.”
Ellie didn’t mind the language. “Is there anything we can do for him?”
“Well, we can put him in the bed, get the bleedin’ stopped, and bandage him up, if that’s what you mean. After that, we’ll just have to trust to luck and the Lord. He’s already been mighty lucky. A little bit lower and that bullet might’ve gone right through his heart.”
“So you think he’ll live?”
“Hard to say. Probably will if the wound don’t get infected. Might be a good idea to pour a little whiskey in there. It’ll sting, but he won’t feel it.”
Ellie sent Juana to the house for some whiskey. Jonathan Crossland had kept a small supply, and Ellie had drunk none of it since his death.
“A little drink might not hurt me, either,” Moon said. “I don’t do a whole lot of doctorin’. Might steady my hand.”
“Take whatever you want,” Ellie said. She turned to Sue. “Lane’s going to be fine. Don’t you worry about it.”
Sue smiled weakly. “I won’t.”
“That’s good, then,” Moon said. “Now help me get him on the bed.”
An hour later, Sue and Ellie were drinking coffee in Ellie’s kitchen. Lane was still in his bed, unconscious, but Moon had assured them that was for the best.
“When he wakes up,” Moon said, “he’s gonna hurt like hell. Best to let him sleep for as long as he can. I’ll sit with him. And leave that whiskey bottle here. It ain’t for me. I’ve had all I need, but I figger he’s gonna need a swig when he wakes up.”
The man outside, the one both Ellie and Lane had shot, wasn’t going to wake up at all. Ellie didn’t know who he was, and she didn’t really care. He wasn’t Angel, and that was all that mattered.
She wasn’t sorry she’d killed him, and she wasn’t going to waste any grief on him. There’d been a time, not so long ago, when she might have done so, but she’d changed since then.
She told the men not to bury him. “There’s supposed to be a Texas Ranger coming. He’ll want to see the body.”
“We can’t just leave it lyin’ here,” one of the men said. His name was Fred Willis, a short, bandy-legged man who could always see the worst side of any situation. “It’ll mortify on us. Liable to poison us all.”
“If the Ranger’s not here by tomorrow at noon, you can bury it. Now, who wants to ride into town and let Marshal Tillman know what’s happened?”
“I’ll go,” said Willis. “He won’t like me gettin’ him out of bed, though.”
Ellie didn’t care what Shag liked. “Just tell him to come. It’s his job.”
Fred had nothing to say to that. He went to saddle his horse, and Ellie went to get Sue.
“Are you sure Lane will be all right?” Sue asked. “Harry Moon’s a good man, but he’s no doctor.”
“He’s the closest thing to a doctor we have, though,” Ellie said, sipping the steaming coffee. “We don’t have a real doctor in Blanco anymore. We’ll just have to pray that Lane comes through this. It’s Laurie I’m worried about.”
Sue’s steady gaze faltered. “So am I. I should have known that something like this would happen. Angel always has to get revenge, and of course he’d want to do the thing that would hurt me most. He wouldn’t kill me. That wouldn’t give him any sat
isfaction. He’d take away what I loved most and leave me alive to suffer.”
“He didn’t take Lane.”
“That’s right, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He wanted to kill him. He just missed.”
Ellie’s stomach turned over at the word kill. “You don’t think he’ll kill Laurie.”
“No. He wouldn’t do that. Not for a while. He’ll keep her alive as long as he thinks I’m grieving. Or until he gets tired of her.”
“How long will that take?” Ellie asked.
Sue shook her head. “It won’t take long. He gets tired of things pretty quickly.”
“Those men with him wouldn’t let him kill a little girl.”
Sue took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She tried to take a sip of coffee, but her hand was shaking too hard. She set the mug back down.
“Those men are probably no better than Angel,” she said. “They might even be worse.”
Ellie knew she was right.
“What are we going to do, Ellie?” Sue asked. There was a sob in her voice. “We can’t let Angel kill my baby.”
“There’s a Texas Ranger coming,” Ellie said.
“When? You told me he was coming two days ago, and he’s not here yet. What if he doesn’t come at all? And what will he do when he gets here? Angel will be long gone by then. He may even have killed Laurie.”
“No, he won’t. He won’t kill anyone.”
“Who’s going to stop him?”
“We are,” Ellie said.
EIGHTEEN
It was just after daylight when Fred Willis and Shag Tillman got to the ranch, which Shag still thought of as “the Crossland place.” It didn’t seem right to him that a woman owned it now, even though she was a hell of a woman, no doubt about that. He wondered what Fred thought about working for a woman, but he didn’t ask. He thought he knew the answer anyhow, since the woman was Ellie Taine.
“Where’s that dead man you were tellin’ me about?” he asked instead.
“Right out by the Tolberts’ house,” Fred answered. “Got a bullet hole in him. Took on a load of buckshot, too.”
“Who shot him?”
“I didn’t ask, but the pistol shot, I reckon that was Mr. Tolbert. The shotgun, now, that must’ve been Miss Ellie. Wasn’t anybody else could’ve done it.”
Shag wasn’t surprised. Anybody who messed with Ellie Taine was making a big mistake. You could ask those fellas that robbed the bank about that, except that you’d have to dig ’em up to ask, and that wouldn’t work because they were just too damn dead to answer.
Thinking about Ellie sometimes shamed the marshal because he knew that she had something he lacked. Call it what you wanted to, nerve or gumption or grit, Shag had just never had a whole lot of it. He liked for everyone to behave, not cause any trouble, keep everything nice and calm and peaceful. When things went wrong, he was generally at a loss, and those times always made him wonder how he’d ever gotten talked into pinning on a badge in the first place.
But Ellie Taine, well, she was different, which is why Shag figured Fred would have said he didn’t mind working for her at all. She wasn’t what you’d call a handsome woman, but she had plenty of backbone. Truth to tell, Shag knew deep down that even if she was a woman, she was a better man than he was, not that he’d ever say that to anybody.
Fred showed Shag the body, still lying right where it had fallen.
After receiving the telegram from Ft. Worth, Shag had looked through the most recent batch of wanted posters for the four men the Ranger had mentioned. The one on the ground matched the description of Abilene Jack Sturdivant.
Shag told Willis the dead man’s name. “Killed three men in a saloon fight down around Galveston. Shot one of ’em in the back, killed two of ’em with his bare hands. It all started with an argument over some woman. He was a mean one.”
Shag stared down at the body. The blood had congealed around the bullet hole in the stomach and the buckshot wound that had taken out a chunk of Sturdivant’s chest. The flies had found it. They were buzzing around, and there was a rank smell that made Shag turn his head.
Fred said, “Wasn’t as rough as he thought he was, looks like. Not as rough as Miss Ellie anyhow. And he’s mortifyin’ already. We need to plant him quick.”
“No need to take him into town,” Shag said. “Just put him under somewhere out here if you can spare the space.”
Fred gave a short laugh. “That’s one thing we got plenty of. I don’t reckon Miss Ellie would mind, not as long as we don’t bury him too near to Mr. Crossland.”
“We can ask her. Where is she?”
“In the house, most likely. Harry’s supposed to be sittin’ with Mr. Tolbert.”
Shag dismounted.
“I’ll see to your horse,” Fred said.
Shag thanked him and went into the house. There was no one in the kitchen but Juana, who was washing dishes in a big pan. Shag could smell bacon and coffee. He couldn’t decide which smelled better.
“Where’s Miss Ellie?” Shag asked, taking off his hat and holding it in front of him.
Juana wiped her hands on her spotless white apron. “She is gone.”
Shag didn’t like that answer. He was almost afraid to ask his next question, but he knew he had to do it.
“Gone where?”
“She went after the men who came here. The men took Senora Tolbert’s little girl with them, and Senora Taine is going to get her back.”
Oh, Lord, thought Shag.
“Senora Taine said to tell you that you were not to worry about her. She said that she and Senora Tolbert will be just fine.”
Shag didn’t say anything, but he started to sweat. He could feel it trickling down his side.
“She also said to tell you that if the Texas Ranger comes, he should go and look for them. But you do not need to send a posse.”
Sure, Shag thought. But if I don’t, and if I’m not the one leading it, what’ll that make me look like to everybody in town? He wiped sweat off his upper lip.
“She said that I should offer you breakfast,” Juana went on. “Fresh eggs and bacon. Good strong coffee.”
Shag’s stomach was churning. A moment before, he’d been quite hungry, but he couldn’t possibly eat now, not the way he was feeling. His appetite had completely disappeared.
On the other hand, he wasn’t in any hurry to go back to town. Maybe if he took his time, the Ranger would be there when he got back. Shag had told his deputy where he was going, and maybe the deputy would send the Ranger on to the Crossland place, and then he’d take charge.
If things worked out like that, Shag wouldn’t have to worry about the posse or anything else. He wouldn’t be responsible any longer. Thinking about it that way, he began to feel a whole lot better. He even felt a little hungry again. And he always liked a cup of hot coffee in the morning. He hadn’t had time for one when Fred Willis had come to get him.
“How would those eggs be fixed?” he asked.
“How would you like them?”
“Scrambled.”
“Then they would be scrambled.”
“With a little cheese and onion in ’em?”
“Si. I can do that if you wish.”
“Well, I guess I could spare the time to eat, seein’ as how that’s the way Miss Ellie wants it. I’ll just go out and see how the boys are doin’ with that body in the yard.”
He needed to tell them to go ahead and bury Sturdivant. There was no use in letting the body lie around, and he didn’t think Ellie would be back any time soon.
“The food will be ready quickly,” Juana said.
“What I have to do won’t take long,” Shag said. “It won’t take long at all.”
NINETEEN
Laurie was riding behind her Uncle Angel with both arms around his waist. She didn’t like the way Uncle Angel smelled, and she didn’t like the way he laughed. It was a mean kind of laugh, and it didn’t sound as if he really thought anything was funny.
She didn’t like the red-haired man named Hoot, either. He was singing “Buffalo Gals” as loud as he could, but he didn’t have a nice voice, and now and then he would look at her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, though she couldn’t have explained exactly why.
The other man, Ben, was different. He rode along a little behind the others, and he hadn’t said more than two or three words all morning. Laurie wondered if maybe he was sick.
“I want to go back home,” she said.
Angel laughed his laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. Then he said, “I’ve already told you all about that, honey. You haven’t seen your Uncle Angel in a long time, and we’re going to have us a picnic to celebrate. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m not having fun,” Laurie said. “I want my clothes.”
She was uncomfortable, being outside in her nightgown. It wasn’t made for riding, and it was hiked up too high. She didn’t like being barefoot, either. She needed some riding britches, some boots, and a hat.
Hoot stopped singing. “You won’t need any clothes, little lady. Trust your Uncle Hoot.”
“You’re not my uncle,” Laurie told him.
He gave her one of those looks she didn’t like. “I’m sure not, honey. I’m sure not.”
She didn’t like the way he said honey. It made her skin feel bumpy.
“Where are we going to have a picnic?” she asked Angel.
“It’s not far now. It’s a nice place.”
“Why didn’t my mother come? And what about my father?”
“Now you don’t need to worry about them. They know you’ll be safe with me.”
He laughed again, and this time it did sound as if he thought something were funny. Laurie couldn’t figure out what it could be.
“Why did you wrap me up in that blanket?” she asked.
“It was just part of the fun. I thought you’d enjoy it.”
Laurie hadn’t enjoyed it. The blanket had smelled horsey and it had made her sneeze. There hadn’t been anything fun about it.
