Shotgun Charlie

by Ralph Compton

  He’d have to cross that river, and if there was one thing he did not go out of his way to experience, it was the bone-chilling cold of water barely frozen at the edges. The afternoon light glowed gray on the rimed, jagged edges of ice formed along the banks.

  Charlie had no doubt that this river would be frozen clear across with thick ice in another month, two at the most.

  “Maybe if we explore downstream for a spell, eh, Nub? Could be there’s a narrower place to cross.” He tugged the reins and the horse lifted his head from cropping the tops off spindly riverbank shoots, still somewhat green. His curiosity took them another quarter mile down along the river, but the waterway itself grew more contentious-looking.

  “I reckon that’s the reason the trail is back up thattaway and not down here.” The horse barely acknowledged his chatter, but followed along, head bowed. They turned in the riverbank mud and made their way back to the spot they’d first come up on the river, back at the trail.

  It burbled, wide and cold. Charlie readied the gear atop Nub, lashing down the bedroll and his bag with extra gear. Aside from that, Charlie had very little that he could do in preparation for the savage flow he was about to plow on into. Never, he felt sure, was a man more ill-suited to a task than was he to the notion of fording a river.

  He briefly toyed with the idea of taking off his boots. But that thought passed as soon as he bent down and ran his fingers in the flowage, waggled them, then pulled them out. It would be much too cold to bear. He expected he’d still come down with chilblains, but it would be worth it if it would get him across the river and back onto Haskell’s trail.

  Charlie pulled in what he was sure would be his last breath on earth—and the guess was verified as soon as his stovepipe boots filled with water that seeped through the cracks in the leather between the boot and sole. He didn’t think it was possible to draw in a breath on top of another breath, but he did. The frigid water felt as if it were minutes from becoming ice. The cold seized his core as if a snowy hand had wrapped itself around his insides and squeezed.

  Even Nub, usually a hardy brute not inclined to utter protest no matter the circumstance, winced and whinnied at the shock the water brought. “Come on,” said Charlie, in gasps. “We can’t stop now, Nub.” Charlie led the way, tugging the reins and stepping slowly.

  He found that if he slid his boots along in front of him, he felt more stable. The horse, he saw, had no troubles in finding solid footing. Then again, Charlie reasoned, Nub had four feet to his two.

  The current raged, pushing into him with a steady pressure that sometimes was supplemented with a slamming of whitecapped waves. They pulsed downriver from the various obstructions nature saw fit to pepper the river with, mostly in the shape of boulders, misshapen and craggy, and for the most part, unseen.

  The river had a voice too, and it grew louder the farther into the river he ventured. Soon enough, though he didn’t dare look behind him to see how far he’d come, the river’s voice roared, a gushing, thick-throated thing full of surprise and anger. It sounded like what he imagined the chants of a thousand angry Indian warriors might sound like.

  Charlie tried to keep an eye on the far shore, certain that he’d heard such advice from somewhere. Something about how it helped with dizziness when crossing a river. He didn’t feel dizzy yet, so maybe it was working. Trouble was, he had to rely solely on his feet to do the close-up work of inching forward. And that was why he didn’t see the cluster of boulders dead ahead of him, the tops of which jutted slightly from the roiling, boiling surface.

  His left boot angled into a crevice wide enough that the toe of his boot fit perfectly between two rocks. He inched his right foot forward and it stubbed into the side of an unseen boulder. His right knee buckled slightly, and green river water splashed his pant leg halfway up his thigh. He could right himself, he knew, if he could get that left foot upstream a bit more, provide some stability. But the boot had wedged tight.

  His eyes widened, Nub kept splashing forward, hooves clomping, water surging upward with each step, not daring to give up his well-earned head of steam, and definitely not stopping to worry about the beginnings of some sort of odd flailing dance that Charlie had begun.

  The big man felt Nub’s reins slip from his hand. He wasn’t worried about the horse, knew he was better off than Charlie at this point, but he also knew that Nub wouldn’t go far once he made it across. Charlie’s biggest worry was whether he would make it across the river himself.

  Before venturing into the river, he’d taken the old socks off his hands that he’d used as paltry mittens, so he’d have a better grip should he need his hands. He windmilled his big arms, desperately trying to dislodge his left boot and at the same time trying to gain purchase with his right, but having no luck at all. Then he went down, like a big tree felled in the forest.

  As he pitched forward Charlie felt as if it were all happening in a slowed-down fashion, as if someone were holding the clock’s hands. He saw the rocks before him, the water parting, spraying upward as his legs cleaved the river’s flow. He felt, rather than saw, the wrenching of his right knee as it slammed into the tallest of the river boulders.

  Charlie’s howl of pain was cut short as icy river water filled his face, snatching away his breath and instantly numbing him. His body slammed into the river, and he scrabbled frantically with his hands, managed to paw a few slick river rocks with one, nothing but water with the other. But there, beneath his left hand, he felt the bottom.

  He pushed, but something held him down. It was his left boot, still lodged in the rocks. The weight of his body hadn’t quite snapped his lower leg, but it darn sure tested the bone’s limits. The pain, even in the cold water, bloomed hot and angry within his leg.

  But he could pay it no heed at the moment, for his biggest concern was the fact that with one foot pinned, the other was splayed, bobbing with the downstream current. He was unable to drive it back down beneath the water, where he might jam it into the riverbed to gain a foothold. But he had no luck. The leg whipped back and forth in the current like a child’s toy.

  All this happened in a matter of seconds, and try as he might, Charlie wasn’t able to push himself up out of the current enough to grab a mouthful of air. The current thrashed him as if he were in the midst of a bar fight with a pair of twin giants. Jolts of hot pain pulsed up and down his legs.

  In his right, it radiated up from his knee. In his left, it burned and snapped from his ankle to his knee. He strained against the current and the wedged boot. But with each roll and push caused by his body as it obstructed the natural flow of the raging river, new pains bloomed.

  Then, as quickly as it had begun, his boot popped free of its underwater death hold. Nearly unconscious, and nearly spent physically, Charlie knew he had to somehow flip himself over, felt sure he was facing downward in the water. Air, he needed air—he wasn’t a dang fish! And with that unlikely and comical thought, both of Charlie’s substantial fists punched forward from his chest.

  That was the direction they needed to head, for his knuckles slammed into the river bottom and pushed hard. He felt the skin splitting, felt small bones, maybe his knuckles, popping and crunching into the stony river bottom. But he didn’t care. Somehow deep inside, he knew it was his last shot at life.

  When Charlie’s head began to turn, followed by his big body—like a huge log slowly rolling over in the current, pinwheeling downstream—he felt the cold air on his face, spewed a gout of water from his mouth, alternately gagging and coughing as he sucked in air.

  Charlie lay on his back, spinning in the middle of the river, a wide stretch of unruffled current. His arms floated outward by his sides as if he were a bird testing his wings. His legs hung limply. Too soon the currents conspired to upend him once again and he thrashed to gain his footing, but could not.

  The river was too deep. His long, bulky legs churned beneath the roiling
brown surface, groping for purchase on the bottom. But it was no use. And then all too soon he was sucked back into the rapids. They boiled all about him as if he were in the midst of a witch’s mighty cauldron.

  He spun, thrashing wildly, saw something dark approaching fast. Then that something slammed him in the head, as if it were a giant’s fist landing a solid punch to his eye socket. He thought he heard himself groan, couldn’t be sure as the river’s anger rose to a roar all about him. He fought to pull in breaths of air, but his lips found only water.

  He fought to keep the light of the sky—now water, now sky, over and over again—above him, the water below, but there was no one here like Pap to tell him how it should be done, no one to share the secrets gained from experience. No one. . . .

  And soon the great river flipped Charlie Chilton over once more, his great bulk of a body rising from the water before slamming, facedown, striking rock after rock, caroming from one to the next until he was rendered motionless, save for the push and pull of the river’s unending, ageless forces.

  Chapter 32

  Marshal Dodd Wickham thought for sure he’d have caught up with the overgrown galoot before now. Stood to reason he would have—the big young man, though he hadn’t dallied terribly, was far from speedy. Whereas Wickham had doubled his pace, much to his Missy’s consternation. She kicked up a fuss now and again as he’d urged her to move along faster than she liked.

  Maybe he’d lost track of him? Not likely. The big man’s sign was easy to read, boot prints deep and wide. His horse had looked to Wickham to be some sort of Percheron cross, big-hoofed and weighty. Just the mount for a man such as Charlie Chilton. It also meant together they left enough of a sizable imprint on the trail’s dusty, packed surface that Wickham could follow quite easily compared with a number of rascals from the old days who’d decided to head on out on the trail in hopes of escape.

  A couple, as he recalled, did make good on their escapes. But most, he’d caught. He smiled, remembering the good old days, the glory days for one such as he. He’d been the toast of many towns along the way. And as a result had been able to slide his boots under many a fine woman’s springy bed.

  A noise like a far-off roll of steady thunder broke his reverie. What was that? A storm? No, the snow clouds would open on them soon enough, but they would be silent. This was something different, a sound he’d heard much in his past. But what? He scanned the valley below and spied the rolling gray course between trees—a river.

  He was not certain which one, but it didn’t matter. He’d been told a long time ago that they all ended up in the same place. Something about the oceans. How the rivers stayed full was another matter. Something about snowmelt and being on top of the world. Again, it really did not matter to him.

  His old dear and long-passed daddy had once told him, “Worry about the things you can do something about, boy. Else you’ll wind up with bloody insides and a head full of worms and mush and not be of use to anyone.” Wickham recalled too how the old man had come to tell him that.

  Young Dodd had experienced his first true love, and as he’d come to learn, in true love’s fashion, that also meant he was due sooner or later for a true-love heartache. And that was what he got from Henrietta Bulgins. Now that he recalled, her face, and even her demeanor, sort of matched her name—all lumpy and unpleasant.

  He came to learn months later, once he’d stopped mooning over her, that his faithless chum, Clarence Wiggins, had done him a mighty favor in taking her off his hands. Last he heard Clarence was a haggard whip of a man and Henrietta had become as big as a stable and had birthed a baker’s dozen young Wigginses. No doubt they’d all gone on to do the same.

  All those years later, Wickham shook his head and smiled as a stray gust whistled through his mustaches and chilled his teeth. His horse had picked her way down the scree slope toward the river, and from the looks of it, it was the same spot Charlie had chosen.

  “Good lad,” said Wickham, on seeing Charlie’s tracks. He looked ahead, but the path wound to the right. He heard the river, though, and knew they were very close. The trail leveled off, then curved around the rocky corner and there was the river before them, in all its roiling, brash, rock-thumping glory. “That looks colder’n a grave digger’s heart.” The horse nodded once, as if in agreement.

  The marshal dismounted, bent to examine the tracks. “Looks like he cut upstream.” He low-walked forward, eyeballing the spongy, sandy riverbank. “Then came back—couldn’t find a spot to cross, eh, Charlie?”

  Wickham’s mare, Missy, nickered. The marshal glanced up, saw her staring downstream across the river. A large, riderless horse was thundering up the far bank, nursing a hind leg, water sluicing from the saddle and dragging gear. He knew that big beast!

  Wickham gained his feet, already wrapping a gloved hand around his pommel. “Charlie!” he shouted, cutting his eyes to the river. Downstream from the horse by a dozen yards, he saw what looked like a big ol’ log flopping over in the current. But this log had arms, a big shaggy head, and wore a sopping wool overcoat.

  Wickham quickly read the water, yanked the reins hard to the right, and sank spur. The mare responded with renewed vigor to match the old lawman’s barking commands and raking rowels. Water sprayed and hooves clomped as the pair followed the river’s near edge. If he could reach the slowly spinning man, who looked to Wickham as if he was unconscious or worse, Lord help him, then maybe he could cut left across the river at that point ahead where the rapids rose and the water was shallower. He had to try.

  “Hang on, Charlie!” growled Marshal Wickham through clenched teeth. The river spray soaked him, lashed across his face, stinging with its coldness. He barely heard his horse’s breathing over the roar of the river and stabbing, splashing hooves.

  It was going to be close . . . and he yanked hard again on the reins, cutting the horse to the left. The beast was undaunted by the quickly deepening river. “Charlie!” shouted the old man, fighting with one hand and his teeth with the rawhide thong he’d cinched down too tight around his lariat. When it seemed the water-swollen strip of hide would not give in, Wickham, with a final gnash of his teeth, was able to break the back of the tiny knot and work it apart. He shook out the loop as they reached Charlie, angling downstream with each second that passed.

  The big body had hit the faster current sooner than Wickham expected and he had to thunder into deeper water, slowing the horse. Soon it was up to the horse’s chest and then he felt the horse bob and go buoyant, and he knew they were no longer in contact with the streambed. He gripped the horse’s barrel tight with his legs and focused on getting that loop around Charlie.

  It wasn’t looking good. The big man was facedown in the drink, but there was little Wickham could do at the moment about that. He stuffed the wet leather reins between his teeth and teased out the loop. Angling his horse with his knees and head, as much as reining with his mouth was effective, Wickham managed to work the horse, slower and more reluctant by the second, to their left and into deeper water.

  The loop hit the water, slapped against Charlie’s legs, and Wickham jerked it . . . too quick. It slapped over Charlie, whose massive shoulders and head bobbed out of reach, turning all the while like a leaf thrown on stormy water.

  One more retrieve back and a fresh toss, the last Wickham knew he could make before he’d have to thunder farther downstream to catch up with the big, floating body.

  But this time the loop snagged Charlie’s torso, and Wickham wasted no time in snugging it as tight as he could. He wanted to flip the big kid over, but there was no time. He had to get his own horse back to shallower water before they foundered much more.

  As if sensing the best direction, his trusty mare beelined upstream at an angle. This took them through the rest of the deep, swift current, and for one moment he felt sure they were about to go belly up, but he trusted his Missy.

  He felt more th
an heard the horse’s hooves strike something below—no doubt a mammoth boulder lurking in the gray-green depths. But she righted herself and pressed on. Wickham tugged on the rope, tried to flip the bobbing Charlie over, but had no luck. He spurred his horse to move faster, to give it all she had, and the old girl did just that. In seconds he felt her frantic lashing legs strike something once more, but this time it wasn’t something momentary, but the river bottom.

  He worked his frozen legs as best he could, trying to spur her to gain that bank a dozen yards ahead. Now ten, seven, five . . . he tried to spur her again, but his legs were useless. Might as well have been lengths of wet stove wood for all the good they did. But the old girl gained the bank and kept scrabbling upward, wanting that high ground, wanting to leave the cold, strange river behind.

  Once at the top of the ice-rimed bank, the horse staggered. Wickham smacked at her neck feebly. And she gave another lurch upward. It was enough to get Charlie up out of the water.

  Wickham couldn’t feel his legs, could barely dismount, but forced himself to move. He grabbed at his leg and with a handful of sopping trouser cloth, managed to yank his unfeeling leg out of the stirrup. Then he pushed against the saddle and dropped, sliding, belly in, to the ground. He landed with a thud on top of Charlie, and immediately worked to drag the boy so that his head faced down the bank, with his feet higher than his head.

  It proved a big task, but Wickham managed it in a few seconds of wordless shouts and straining. Then he dropped to his knees and flipped the big brute onto his side. The man’s face was the color of lilac flowers with a blackness creeping in beneath it all.