“I understand, Ranger,” said Sherrif DeShay. “Anyway, I wasn’t sheriff here your last time through. I decided it wise to hang back out of the way, for fear of you shooting me, thinking I was one of his pards.”
“I understand, Sheriff,” Sam said. “That was wise thinking.”
Hornady had a sour expression on his face. “Well, ain’t this just wonderful…? The two of you understands each other so well,” he said in his cynical, pain-filled voice.
“Lightning here wants a doctor,” Sam said to the sheriff, ignoring the bitter wounded outlaw’s remark.
“An undertaker might serve him better,” the volunteer sheriff replied. “What do you want me to do with him if he lives?” he asked. “What’d he do, anyhow?”
“Bank robbery,” Sam said.
“Him and the bunch he rode in with?” DeShay asked.
“Yep,” said the Ranger. “He’s with Fannin Orwick’s Redemption Riders. Ever heard of them?”
“Dad Orwick? You bet I have,” said DeShay. “I saw him once in Carson. That was years ago, though. The old bull’s got more wives and kids scattered across these badland hills than you could squeeze into two freight cars. Calls his whole brood the Family of the Lord—which reveals how highly he thinks of himself, I expect.”
“That’s him all right,” Sam said. “He robs banks to support his family. I need to get on their trail while it’s still warm. I’d like you to hold him until a posse gets here from Goble. If the posse doesn’t make it, turn him over to the circuit jail wagon when it makes its rounds.”
“I’ll do that, Ranger,” said DeShay, “only I didn’t see Dad Orwick riding with the bunch who came through here.”
“You wouldn’t if Orwick played it right,” Sam said. “I saw where three horses split off the trail a mile out. I expect he and a couple of his gunmen circled town. They’ll take up with the others farther along.” He nodded toward a line of hills in the distance.
“Shit,” Hornady grumbled to himself with contempt. “These two peckerheads wouldn’t recognize Dad if he walked up and kicked them in the sack.”
DeShay ignored Hornady’s grumbling and gazed out with the Ranger. “It makes sense he’d do that,” he replied.
Sam turned to DeShay, lifted the two Simpson-Barre revolvers from behind his gun belt and handed them to him. “You can sell these guns to help pay for this one’s keep here.”
“You can’t sell my guns,” Hornady shouted in spite of his pain. “I’ve got money…. I’ll pay for my jailing…. I can afford my keep.”
“Do what best suits you, Sheriff,” Sam said. “Any money he has on him is most likely stolen.”
“Obliged, Ranger,” said DeShay. He hefted the two custom-made revolvers in his hands and looked them over closely. “I might want to keep these for myself.” He gave Hornady a flat grin.
“What about my knife, Ranger?” Hornady asked with a scornful tone. “I expect you thieving sonsabitches will steal it too, huh?”
“Shut up,” Sheriff DeShay warned, giving Hornady a stiff kick in his side. Hornady let out a deep, painful moan and grasped his chest.
Sam pulled Hornady’s knife and its rawhide sheath from behind his belt and handed it to the sheriff.
“If you’d waited a second longer, you’d see me give it to him, and save yourself a kick in the ribs,” Sam said.
“I’ll see you in hell, Ranger—in hell, I tell you!”
“Another word out of you and I’ll tell Dr. Lanahan to stitch your mouth shut,” DeShay said to Hornady. “If he’s drunk enough, he’ll likely do it and have himself a good laugh about it.”
Hornady coughed blood and closed his eyes as the Ranger walked away. When Sam picked up the reins to the black point dun, he turned to the sheriff and said, “If you need me, I’ll be at the livery barn getting this dun fed and tended before I move on.”
“Obliged, Ranger,” said DeShay. “I’ll be along and let you know how he’s doing, if Doc doesn’t miss a lick and cut him in half.” He grinned fiercely down at Hornady, then turned to two townsmen standing nearby and gestured down at the hapless outlaw. “You fellows get him up and carry him over to Doc Lanahan’s for me.” He turned to another townsman and said, “Gainer, go fetch the doc from the saloon. Tell him to sit his bottle down. He’s got a patient needing him.”
“This is his drinking time. What if he won’t come?” asked Ted Gainer, a tall, serious-looking man with a thick, wide mustache and watery eyes.
“He’ll come. He heard the gunshot,” DeShay said confidently. “He always comes, even if his path ain’t in a straight line.”
Ted Gainer turned toward the saloon a block away, where a crowd of onlookers jammed the open batwing doors, some of the more curious of them already stepping down from the boardwalk and walking forward.
“Tell him I’ll get some coffee boiling,” DeShay called out in afterthought. He grinned down at Hornady as the two townsmen stooped to pick him up. “That’ll help him clear away some of the dancing squirrels and pin whistles before he goes to cutting and stitching on Lightning Wade here.”
Hornady moaned at the prospect and closed his eyes.
The two townsmen laughed as they raised Hornady by his shoulders and bootheels and walked away along the dirt street with him hanging limp between them. But Hornady saw nothing funny about it. He cursed to himself and let his mind drift away into a dark tunnel of unconsciousness, blood dripping steadily from his wound.
“That blasted Ranger,” he murmured in a weak voice. “Just when everything’s going my way…”
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