by Ralph Cotton
The iciness was gone from Willie John’s voice. Billy Odle breathed easier and rubbed his eyes with his palms, clearing the water from them. “Is he . . . ?”
Willie John’s only answer was a short nod. As Billy Odle watched, Willie slipped the saddle from the mule’s back, blanket and all, and tossed it over onto the shaggy mare.
“I reckon it’s my fault,” said Billy Odle. “I should have ran the mule off, so he couldn’t follow us, shouldn’t I?”
“It makes no difference now whose fault it was, kid,” said the Indian with impatience in his voice. “Next time you might want to think out what you’re doing, though, if you don’t like to see any killing.”
Billy Odle nodded and hung his head. Willie John saw him shiver in his thin outgrown coat and suddenly felt sorry for him. The wooden handle of the toy pistol stuck up from Billy’s pocket. Willie allowed himself a slight smile and said in a softer tone, “Don’t worry, kid, you did good.” He reached into his hip pocket, took out a small Uhlinger pistol he’d found on Old Man Renfro’s body and pitched it up onto Billy’s lap. “Here, you might as well hang onto this.”
Billy Odle’s eyes lit up. “Golly!” He snatched the pistol from his lap and examined it, turning it back and forth in his cold hands. “Thanks, Willie!”
“Don’t mention it, kid.” Willie’s smile widened a bit. “Just be careful you don’t shoot one of us with it.”
“It’s loaded?” Billy stared at the pistol in awe.
“What kind of friend would hand you an unloaded pistol?” Willie John chuckled. Willie slipped the bridle from the mule and strung it to the smoke-colored mare as he spoke. “How much farther to this hideout of yours, Billy?” He took the lead rope from the mare and placed it around the mule’s neck. The mule sawed its mallet head up and down in protest, then settled and scraped a hoof in the dirt.
“Not that much farther,” said Billy. “We’ll be there before you know it.” He shoved the Uhlinger into his coat pocket next to his wooden pistol and rested his hand on the butt, liking the feel of it. He wanted to ask Willie what he’d done with the old man’s body—had he moved it off the trail?—but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about the deed right then.
“Good,” said Willie, favoring his wound as he stepped up into the saddle and turned the mare to the trail. “This wind is getting colder by the minute. We need to get out of it.” He nudged the mare forward, pulling the mule behind him. “Come up ahead of me, kid . . . take the lead.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Billy Odle said, heeling the dusty chestnut forward past Willie John. “Just follow me.”
Man oh man! Billy thought. If only Alvin Bartels could see me now. He lifted his chin and looked back in the direction of Hubbler Wells for a second thinking about it. Then his expression darkened as he thought about his mother and wondered what trouble his leaving might cause her. “Everything all right, kid?” Willie John asked.
Billy turned forward and studied the trail ahead. “Sure, everything’s fine, Willie,” he said. Billy felt the Indian’s eyes on him as he heeled the chestnut’s pace up a notch. It was time he got away from his mother anyway, Billy told himself. He couldn’t stand being at the shack any more than she could stand him being there. After all, he was bad for business. With his hand growing warm on the handle of the Uhlinger pistol in his pocket, Billy ducked slightly against the cold wind and pushed forward upward, deeper into the hills.
Hattie Odle felt the full force of Colonel Fuller’s backhand. His gloved hand sent her spinning backward across the saloon floor, into the woodpile beside the glowing potbellied stove. She struggled to rise to her feet and make a run for it, but her brain was still too fogged by the remnants of opium and whiskey. She rose halfway to her feet and staggered sideways, the throbbing in her jaw not helping her keep balance. “You . . . son . . . of a—”
Her words cut short beneath the next loud slap from Colonel Daniel Fuller. This time he reached out and caught her by her shoulder before she could fall away from him. He shook her, then said nose to nose, “Listen to me, whore! I can spend the better part of the day doing this to you—it can even get worse if need be! Tell me where they went!”
“I . . . don’t know what you’re . . . talking about,” Hattie gasped. Blood flowed freely down the corner of her swollen lips. Her right eye had already begun to close, the effect of the blows she’d taken when the colonel and his men came storming into her shack. She’d been awakened from a drugged stupor by an angry mob. So far she hadn’t managed to make any sense of it. She’d seen the bloody rags on the dirt floor. That much she knew was real. Everything else could well have been a nightmare for all she knew.
“Whip the living hell out of her, Colonel!” Murray Fadden shouted. “It serves her right, letting that little rat son of hers use my attic like it was his private living quarters!” As Fadden bellowed, he took a step forward from the rest of the men, his fists clenched. “Let me bust her once or twice. I figure I owe it to her!”
“Why, Murray,” Hattie Odle managed to say in a pained, slurred voice, “you’ve always . . . gotten your money’s worth.”
Murray Fadden’s face reddened. “You low-down gutter hussy!” He snuck a quick look around the saloon as if his wife might be present. “Let me have her, Colonel! I’ll beat the truth out of her.”
But Colonel Fuller only shoved him back, then turned his face to Hattie Odle again. “You see, young woman? You don’t have a lot of support going for you here.”
“The hell she don’t!” yelled a young woman who stood halfway up the steep stairs leading to the second floor. “Turn her loose, you son of a bitch!” On the banister above, three more girls had gathered, each with defiant looks in their eyes.
“Better do something with Tinnie and the girls,” Murray Fadden said quickly to Asa Dahl, the saloon owner. “They’re fixin’ to stick their noses in.”
Asa Dahl turned toward the stairs with his thick hand on his hips, his right hand near the billy club he kept shoved down in his belt. “Every one of you whores get back to your rooms, this is none of your business!” Asa shouted.
Tinnie Malone had started to take a step down, but she stopped as Asa Dahl’s hand closed around the billy club handle. Tinnie was cautious, but she wasn’t through yet. She raised a finger and pointed at Daniel Fuller. “Can’t you see she’s knocked out on her feet! She can’t tell you nothing! That dope’s got her mind in a cloud! Turn her loose!” Tinnie shouted.
“This will clear her mind!” Fuller shot Tinnie Malone a dark glare, then reached a hand behind Hattie, entwined his fingers into her hair and jerked her head back at an awkward angle. Stepping over to the glowing side of the potbellied stove, he held her face down close enough for her to feel the stinging heat. “If you want enough face left to ever attract another drunken miner, you best get to telling me what I want to know.”
“Oh God, please!” Hattie gasped, trying to press back from the searing heat. “I don’t know where he is! He does as he pleases!”
“And he brought the Indian to your shack? What made them come there? Have you hidden him out before? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” she whined, the heat growing more and more intense against her face. “Please! For God sakes! I don’t know!”
“Oh, I think you do, little missy,” Fuller hissed. He pulled her face back from the stove just for a second, just long enough to make her think it might be over. Then he slammed her head against it hard. Hattie screamed long and loud. The men looked on with sickly grave expressions, some of them stricken by disbelief. Tinnie Malone screamed as well, and came down the stairs in a lunge, only to be caught around the waist by Asa Dahl and held back. “Turn her loose!” Tinnie shrieked.
Engrossed by what was happening, no one even noticed as Sam Burrack stepped through the doors, followed by Red Booker and the rest of the posse. Not an eye in the crowd seemed to see the Ranger hurry across the floor, the Colt coming up from his holster, and cocking. “Pull her ba
ck, mister,” Sam demanded. “I’ll only say it once.” The tip of his pistol barrel jammed up hard under Colonel Fuller’s chin.
“Who the hell are you?” Colonel Fuller demanded, slowly backing away from the stove. Sam’s pistol held his face at a raised height, making Fuller cut his eyes downward for even a slight glimpse of his face. “You’re interfering with legal business here.”
“It’s like no legal business I’ve ever seen,” Sam said, releasing Fuller’s grip from the woman’s hair and pulling her away from him. Sam kept the Colt pointed at Fuller, the tip of the barrel an inch from his face. He held Hattie Odle against his chest. Sobbing, Hattie pressed her palms to the hot skin on her face and trembled. “Somebody wet a towel and bring it over here!” Sam shouted over his shoulder.
“Who is this man and why has no one shot him?” barked Fuller, glaring at Red Booker and the rest of the possemen. The men milled uncomfortably, staring at one another as if in search of an answer.
Finally Red Booker stepped forward and spoke up. “He’s an Arizona Ranger on the trail of the Ganstons, Colonel. His name is Sam Burrack.”
“Oh? A Ranger?” Fuller’s expression only changed slightly as he looked Sam up and down. “You look awfully young to be a Ranger.”
Sam ignored him as he took the wet towel from Tinnie Malone’s hand and helped Hattie Odle press it to her face. She moaned in relief. Sam stepped with her to a chair and helped her down into it, Tinnie assisting him. “There now, ma’am, take it easy. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” said Sam.
“Rotten sons of bitches,” Tinnie Malone whispered, cradling an arm across Hattie’s shoulder.
With a thin humorless smile, Fuller said, “You must’ve lost your way, Ranger. Arizona’s a long ride south. What about your jurisdiction?”
Before the Ranger could answer, Red Booker cut in, “That’s what I asked him, Colonel. He told me jurisdiction is a state of mind.”
“Well, that’s real funny, Ranger,” Fuller said. He watched Sam Burrack kneel beside the woman’s chair and lay his free hand on her shoulder. In his other hand Sam still held the cocked Colt, the barrel never wavering from Colonel Daniel Fuller. “I reckon if you’re after the Ganstons, we’re all on the same side,” Fuller added.
“That’s right,” Red Booker joined in, speaking to the colonel and the Ranger at the same time. “We’ve got a prisoner outside what says Ganston’s Injun scout shot one of this man’s amigos. I say we’re all after the same thing here.”
“Is that right, Ranger?” Fuller asked. “Are we all after the same thing?”
Still ignoring him, Sam asked the woman, “Are you going to be all right, ma’am?” She nodded without lifting her face from the wet towel. Sam straightened beside her chair and took a step away from her, his pistol lowering only a little, his thumb still lying across the cocked hammer. “Where’s the Indian—Willie John?” he asked Colonel Fuller. As he spoke, Sam uncocked the Colt, letting the hammer down slow and easy.
Fuller let out a breath of relief. “Well, that’s a real interesting question, Ranger. The fact is, we don’t know where the Injun’s at.” He gestured a hand toward Hattie Odle. “She knows, but she hasn’t told us yet. I was sweating it out of her when you came in. We think her son is involved in all of this some way or another. He helped the Injun get away through the attic of the mercantile store. We found bloody rags on the floor at her shack.”
Sam looked down at Hattie Odle. “Is any of this true?”
“I . . . I don’t know what’s gone on. They pulled me from my bed and started beating me, accusing me . . . asking me about my son. You saw what he was going to do to me if you hadn’t shown up.” She wept quietly into the wet towel.
“You’re a disgrace, Fuller.” Sam fixed the colonel with a scorching glare.
At length Fuller cleared his throat and said, “All right, things did get a little out of hand. But, Ranger, we’ve had a hell of a shoot-out here. There were men lying dead in the street. A fine old frontiersman, Elkheart Joe Perkins, was gunned down like a dog. So, you might well expect we got a little angered at this woman hiding one of the murderers.”
“He was ninety-three years old, you know,” said a voice among the gathered men. A thin red-haired man pressed himself forward and stood with his bowler hat in his hand.
Fuller shook his head. “No . . . I did not know that, sir, but thank you for telling us.” Fuller grew visibly impatient. “Now if you don’t mind, we’re discussing things of importance here.” He turned to the ranger. “There, you see? That’s what we’re up against. The Ganstons think nothing of gunning down an elderly gentleman.”
“But it was your men who shot him,” the man meekly said.
“And that was a terrible, unavoidable mistake, sir!” Fuller raged. “I dare anyone to step forward and hold my men responsible for what happened out there! We track down dangerous criminals. Of course mistakes are going to happen!”
The red-haired man slipped backward into the crowd. Fuller looked back at Sam Burrack. “Pay no attention to him, Ranger. We have the full support of this town, you can ask Selectman Collins.” He looked into the gathered men, searching.
“Here I am,” said Collins, inching forward. “It’s true, Ranger, we’re behind the colonel and his men one hundred percent until this situation is resolved. Even though you’re a long ways from home, we hope Hubbler Wells can count on your support, too.” Sam noted the trace of desperation in the man’s voice.
Before Selectman Collins could say anything more, Colonel Fuller took over the conversation again. “You heard him, Ranger. We’ll be leaving straight away. Can’t afford to wait around here looking for one man while the whole gang gets away from us. What do you say, Ranger? Will you ride with us on this?”
“I don’t think so, Colonel Fuller.” Sam Burrack shook his head slowly. “You burn women . . . you shoot old men. I doubt that you and I would get along.” He gestured with his pistol barrel toward the saloon door. “Now everybody clear back so the lady and I can leave. I don’t have any more time to waste here.”
“You’re making a big mistake trusting her, Ranger,” said Daniel Fuller. “She’s nothing but a dope-eating whore. Ask anybody here.”
“She’s sick, you peckerwood!” Tinnie shouted in Hattie’s defense.
“Sick, ha!” said Murray Fadden. “She’ll cut your throat for a pipeful of tar opium.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Sam. “Now clear that door or I’ll clear it myself.”
Chapter 6
Inside Hattie Odle’s shack, Sam Burrack poured cold water from a pitcher, rewetting the bar towel for her to hold to her face. Hattie sat on a wooden stool beside her bed and let Sam tilt her chin up and examine her face closer. He touched one corner of the towel to a cut on her lower lip. “I probably should have gone ahead and cracked Fuller’s skull with my pistol barrel,” Sam muttered. “Calls himself a lawman, then does something like this.”
Hattie Odle looked away and lowered her eyes. “It doesn’t hurt so bad now,” she offered in a lowered tone. “I’m used to men losing their tempers, the business I’m in.” She seemed to be waiting for a response from him. When none came, she looked around the shack and asked, “Where’s Tinnie?”
“She said she had to get back to the saloon.”
“I hope she’s not in any trouble for trying to help me,” said Hattie Odle. “That’s the first time any of the women there have had anything to do with me. Usually, I’m their competition.”
“Well, sometimes when the chips are down, you never know who’ll be on your side. Besides, she didn’t strike me as being too worried about getting into any trouble over it.” He paused for a second, then brushed her hair back from her forehead and said, “Now, I’m going to ask you the same thing the colonel asked, only whatever you tell me I’m going to take as the truth. Did you or your son have anything to do with this?” He gestured a hand toward the bloody rags on the dirt floor.
“No, I swear I didn’t,” s
he said firmly. “I wish I could say the same for Billy, but I can’t. He’s been running wilder and wilder ever since his father went to jail.”
“His father?” Sam asked.
Hattie looked up at him as she pressed the wet towel to her cheek. “Yes, his father. I’m a married woman, Ranger,” she said with a bitter ironic twist to her tone of voice. “Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard of? A woman like me—married?”
Sam let it pass without comment. “What about this boy of yours? Any chance the Indian made him do all this at gunpoint?”
“I wish I could say it’s so, Ranger,” Hattie replied. “But I’ve lost touch with the boy lately. I don’t know what’s going on in his mind.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m afraid I’ve lost touch with everything and everybody lately.”
“That can happen to any of us from time to time, ma’am,” Sam offered. He looked around the small cramped shack and saw the battered tin coffeepot lying on the dirt floor. “Don’t suppose you’d have any coffee or tea around here, would you? I could boil us up a pot.”
She looked up at him again, her right eye nearly swollen shut as she lowered the wet towel from it. “There’s a bottle of rye under the bed, if the possemen didn’t take it.”
“Thank you all the same,” said Sam, “but I could use a cup of coffee myself. What about you?”
She looked down at the dark space beneath her bed and touched her tongue to her lips as if anticipating the taste of rye whiskey. But then she took a deep breath to calm herself, looked back up at Sam and said, “Yes, me, too. Coffee sounds good for a change.”
They talked while Sam broke kindling across his knee and built a fire in the small tin stove standing in the corner of the shack. She told Sam about her husband going to prison, about how she had worked for a while scrubbing floors and washing dishes at a boarding house in Cottonwood until the owner of the house took ill and died. Sam only listened and nodded now and then as she seemed to purge herself of a year’s worth of bad memories. When she stopped for a moment, Sam asked her, “What about the boy? What’s all this done to him?”
