by Ralph Cotton
“Help—me—!” Gantry pleaded to the others as the big man seated himself on Gantry’s chest and batted his face back and forth between his big fists.
“We should let him kill you,” Dock Latin said, he and the others stepping into the clearing, dragging Segan back a few feet by his boot heels. As the wild-eyed—still bellowing—young man tried to rise to his feet, Royal Tarpis reached down with his rifle butt and gave him a sound thump on his forehead. It wasn’t enough to knock Segan cold, but it was more than enough to stagger his senses for a moment.
“Oh God! Don’t hurt him! He’s my husband!” Caroline shrieked, seeing Segan melt onto the dirt.
“Don’t hurt him?” Cheyenne said, stepping over to her and pulling her to her feet. “Look what he did to our pal.” He gestured down at Gantry, who lay struggling to get to his feet, his face battered and bloody. With no warning, Cheyenne jerked the blanket open before Caroline could try to stop him. “Hell, look what he’s done to you.”
“I’m all right! Please!” Caroline said, snatching the blanket closed across her naked breasts, covering the countless red marks Segan’s switching had left up and down her naked body.
“You don’t look all right to me,” said Cheyenne, allowing her to keep herself covered.
“Let me see,” Gantry said, staggering to his feet with Dock Latin’s help.
“Get away, Red,” said Cheyenne. “This is between the two of them.”
“Like hell! I deserve to see anything she’s got,” Gantry insisted, “after what this loco sumbitch done to me.”
“Get away from my wife!” Segan shouted, coming around from his dazed condition.
Gantry went for his gun, still hazy from the beating he’d taken. But as the Colt came up from the holster, Cheyenne grabbed it from his hand and stepped in between him and Segan Udall.
“Calm yourself, mister,” he warned Segan, his Colt coming out, arm’s length, cocking only inches from the young man’s forehead. “I will make your wife a widow.”
“Stop, Segan, for God’s sake!” cried Caroline. “He’ll kill you! I know this man!”
“You do?” said Cheyenne, stunned.
“You do?” repeated Segan, a strange look in his already crazed eyes.
“Yes, I do,” said Caroline. “You’re George Anholt, the Cheyenne Kid.” She gave him a nervous smile. “It’s me, Caroline Darby. Don’t you remember me?”
George Anholt . . . ?
Royal Tarpis and Dock Latin looked at each other.
Cheyenne looked closer at the woman.
“Caroline Darby?” he said. “Yes, of course I remember you. I’ll never forget that you and your husband saved my life.” His Colt came down from Segan’s face. Segan stared at his wife as she spoke.
“How have you been, Cheyenne?” she said.
“I can’t complain, Caroline,” said Cheyenne. “How about yourself?”
She gave a slight shrug.
“As you can see . . . ,” she said.
“I was real sorry to hear about Herbert,” said Cheyenne. “I never really heard how he died.”
“He was killed in his sleep, Cheyenne,” Caroline said, a look of remorse coming to her face. She drew the blanket tighter around herself. “They never found his killer.”
“Him and I were staying the night at a public house,” Segan put in. “Somebody wrung his neck.”
“Oh . . . ?” Cheyenne said, looking the powerfully built young man up and down.
“This is my husband, Segan Udall,” Caroline said.
“I see,” said Cheyenne. Without so much as a nod to-
ward Segan, he looked back at Caroline, gestured to-ward her blanket and said, “Why don’t you get dressed? We’ll talk some later.”
“Yes, thank you, Cheyenne,” Caroline said. She started to turn and walk away.
But Red Gantry called out, “Wait just a damn minute. I have designs on this woman. I’m the one found her first.”
Cheyenne just stared at him for a moment.
“Red, she and her husband once saved my life when I was shot bad,” he said.
“So?” said Gantry. “Her dead husband saving your life don’t change what this husband done to me. I’m making demands here.” He pointed at Caroline standing naked save for her blanket. “She’s already undressed. What’s the harm?”
“Jesus . . . ,” Dock Latin whispered under his breath. He shook his head.
Segan started to step forward toward Gantry. But a look from Cheyenne stopped him cold.
“Look at me, Red,” Cheyenne said in a demanding tone.
“What?” said Red.
“If you lay a hand on this woman, you will be dead before you hit the ground,” he said firmly. “Do you understand me?”
Gantry looked at Dock Latin, then Royal Tarpis, then back to Cheyenne, seeing the same warning expression on each of their faces.
“Yeah, I understand,” he said meekly. He rubbed a knot that stood out red and throbbing on the side of his head. Blood ran from a cut under his eye.
Cheyenne turned back to Caroline. He wanted to know the story, why she was out here in the wilderness, her new young husband taking a switch to her. But this wasn’t the time or place to hear it, he thought. He looked over at the wagon and horses standing at the edge of the small clearing.
“We’re heading away from the fire to a trading post nearby, Caroline,” he said. “Why don’t you and your husband here accompany us?”
Segan started to speck, but Caroline didn’t give him a chance.
“Obliged. That is kind of you, Cheyenne,” she said, sounding suddenly relieved. “I’ll just get myself dressed and we’ll be on our way.”
But as the two spoke, Royal Tarpis had gotten nosy, walked over to the team of horses and examined the wagon bed. What the hell . . . ? His eyes rested on a pile of burnt torches. He picked one up and looked at it curiously.
“Cheyenne,” he called out, “come take a look at this.” Next to the torches stood a tin of coal oil and a pile of rags. Rummaging quickly through the rags, he pulled up a box of long wooden matches.
“Keep your hands out of there!” shouted Segan. He started to head toward the wagon, but stopped as Cheyenne leveled the Colt back at him.
“Settle down, Segan,” Cheyenne said, speaking to the young man as if he were a foolish kid who would need constant correcting. He turned a short smile to Caroline Udall. “I can see how your new husband here might take a little getting used to. Is he always this way?”
Before Caroline could answer for herself, Segan cut in, his big fists clenched at his sides, saying, “Don’t answer him, Caroline!”
“Please, Segan . . . ,” Caroline said quietly, trying to calm her young husband down.
But Segan would have none of it. “Never you mind how I am, or how I ain’t, mister,” he said to Cheyenne.
Cheyenne’s easygoing manner began to dissolve.
“Just trying to keep it friendly here, Segan,” he said, “for Caroline’s sake.”
With the barrel of his Colt, Cheyenne gestured them both toward the wagon, where Royal Tarpis stood inspecting the rags.
“Never mind keeping it friendly either,” Segan said, getting more and more jealous, threatened by the way Cheyenne and Caroline looked at each other. “We don’t need your friendship—don’t want nothing to do with you.”
Cheyenne gazed at Caroline as he directed the two of them toward the wagon.
“Is that how you feel too, Caroline?” he asked in a lowered voice, giving her a guarded look that her husband didn’t see.
Caroline almost blushed, Segan walking along in front of her, Cheyenne near her side and sidling even closer.
“Why, no, George—I mean, Cheyenne,” she said, catching and correcting herself. “S
egan is just an excitable boy—man, that is,” she added quickly, knowing Segan could hear her.
Tarpis turned and pitched two burnt torches to the ground at their feet as the three stopped beside the wagon. Behind Cheyenne and the Udalls, Red Gantry and Dock Latin walked along, staring curiously—Gantry holding a wadded bandana to the bleeding cut beneath his swelling eye.
“It looks like we’ve got ourselves a couple of real live arsonists here, Cheyenne,” said Tarpis, staring hard at Segan as he set the tin of coal oil on the ground at the brawny man’s feet.
“That’s a damn lie!” Segan shouted at Tarpis. “And you, sir, are a damned liar!”
“A liar, huh?” said Tarpis. He reached back calmly and picked up his rifle from where he’d leaned it against the wagon. Turning back to Segan, he said to Cheyenne, “Can I smack him around some, maybe knock out a couple of his teeth?”
“No, Roy, keep your head,” Cheyenne said, knowing Tarpis wasn’t joking.
He stooped and picked up the tin of coal oil and shook it a little, then set it down, judging it to be half-full. When he stood up he turned back to Segan and Caroline Udall and shook his head as if in resolve.
“Segan,” he said in a low, even tone, “it looks like you’ve been a naughty boy. Maybe you’re the one needs a good switching.”
Segan blurted out, “I’d like to see you try—”
“Let me explain,” Caroline said quickly, cutting him off. “Segan didn’t mean anything bad by it. He just gets so upset and excited, he has to do something—”
Now Segan cut her off.
“Shut up, Caroline!” he said. “This is none of their damned business!”
“Leave her alone, Segan,” Cheyenne warned. “Open your mouth again, I’ll turn Roy and his rifle butt lose on you.” He turned to Caroline and said quietly, “Go on, Caroline. Say whatever you feel like saying. He won’t bother you.”
Segan stared at him with a look of white-hot anger in his dark eyes. But he kept his mouth shut, seeing the eager expression on Royal Tarpis’ face, his hand clenched around his rifle stock, just waiting to bust his head.
Caroline said hesitantly, “My—my husband and I have had some difficulty getting our lives together off to a good start.” She paused and looked embarrassed. “I’m afraid we haven’t even consummated our marriage as yet.”
A dead silence set in. The gunmen all looked at each other, stunned expressions on their stony faces.
Segan hung his head in shame.
After a moment, Cheyenne cleared his throat and looked Caroline up and down—a middle-aged woman standing covered by a wool blanket. Underneath, her naked body etched with countless small but painful burning switch marks.
He said in a gentle tone, letting his words trail, “You mean you haven’t . . . ?”
“No, not yet,” Caroline admitted. “We’ve tried—that’s what we were doing when you come upon us—but so far, no, we haven’t.”
Segan sighed in pain, hearing his wife tell perfect strangers about their problem.
“And this causes him to set fires?” Cheyenne asked, making certain he understood.
Caroline only nodded.
“Jesus . . . ,” said Cheyenne.
“I know,” Caroline whispered, on the verge of tears.
Cheyenne looked off in the direction of the distant smoke. On the rock lands below, he saw elk running along the chasm, fleeing the oncoming devastation. He thought about the large number of species he’d seen over the past few days—most of them dead by now, he reckoned.
“All this beautiful woodlands,” he said. “The lives of all these animals . . .” He shook his head, pondering the magnitude of the destruction.
But when he looked around and saw the glaring faces of his men, he quickly pulled himself together.
“What?” he said defensively. “It is a good-looking woodlands. No sense in wasting all that wood.” He shrugged. “All those critters dying? Hell, that’s just wasting food, far as I’m concerned.”
The men just stared at him.
He looked back along the trail for a second to avoid their eyes, knowing how weak it looked to them, their leader giving a damn one way or the other about trees, or animals. Then he looked back at Caroline.
“Did he start any new fire back along this trail the past day or two?”
“Yes, he did start one,” Caroline said, looking ashamed. “He started it a few miles back on this side of the rock lands. Then we rode up in a wide circle above it on our way here, just to see how it was doing.”
“And how was it doing?” Cheyenne asked.
“It—it was just terrible when we saw it,” Caroline said haltingly. “Probably the worst one yet. The winds caught it and speeded it up, blowing it east. But we hurried on up here, knowing when the wind changes, it’ll head this way. It’ll kill everything in its path.”
“Really, now?” said Cheyenne. He gave the men a dark smile, then looked at the crestfallen Segan and said, “So, then, Segan. Anything on this trail behind us is either cooked dead by now or damn soon will be?”
Segan stared at him sullenly before finally replying begrudgingly, “Yeah, you could say that. So what? It’s just trees and dumb critters. Who cares?”
“Hear that, fellows?” said Cheyenne. “Anybody who followed us up here is either cooked dead or soon will be.” He turned back to Segan Udall and said, “We got off to the wrong start, you and me. But from now on I think we’re going to get along just fine.” As he talked to Segan, his eyes met Caroline’s, the two of them saying something to each other that no one else could hear.
“Don’t count on nobody being on our back trail, Cheyenne,” Red Gantry said in warning, the bandana against his cut and swollen cheek.
“I am counting on it, Red,” Cheyenne replied confidently. “Who in their right mind is going to track us through a wildfire?”
Chapter 6
In the middle of the night, the Ranger raised his dozing head to the sound of the horses chuffing and whinnying where he and Gilley had hitched them to a rope strung between two pine trees. When he looked over in the moonlight, he saw them stepping back and forth nervously, high-hoofed, sawing their heads against their hitched reins.
A few feet away, beside a low campfire, Gilley awakened suddenly and sat up on the ground.
“What’s got them spooked, Ranger?” she asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” said Sam, rising to his feet, his Winchester rifle in hand, “but we better find out.”
They both hurried to the three restless horses and got them settled, drawing them by their reins, talking to them, rubbing their muzzles until the animals calmed down a little. But only a little, Sam noted, still seeing the wild, fearful look in the dark eyes of his rust-colored barb.
“There’s something nearby,” he said, examining the moonlit woodlands beyond the circling glow of firelight.
“What, do you suppose?” Gilley asked warily, looking all around with him.
“The way this land is stirred up by the fires, it could be anything,” Sam said.
No sooner had he spoken than they both turned toward the sound of breaking brush and the shrill cry of a frightened panther cub. Instinctively, Sam threw the Winchester to his shoulder, just in time to see a young cougar spill from a broken edge on the hillside surrounding the camp and tumble into the campfire’s glow.
“Oh, look,” Gilley said, “it’s only a kitten! Look how young it is.”
Sam only lowered the rifle a little, still looking all around the broken hillside.
“Yes, it’s young,” he said, “too young to be out of its den on its own. Keep the horses settled,” he added, stepping forward. “I’ve got a feeling it’s not alone.”
As if on cue, a loud roar came from the hillside as the mother cat with the mi
ssing half of an ear stepped into sight and crouched low onto her paws. She snarled over bared fangs.
“Oh no,” said Gilley. “Look, she’s hurt.”
“I see,” Sam said. “Stay back, watch the horses. Let her get her cub and go.”
“How do you know that’s all she wants?” Gilley asked, already drawing tighter on the sets of reins holding the horses to the length of rope hitch.
“We’ve met before,” Sam said, his rifle up and ready, his eyes locked on the big cat and her feisty but frightened cub.
“You have?” Gilley said.
“Yes,” said Sam. “I hate to say it, but last time I saw her she had two cubs with her.”
“Maybe the other one is in the woods,” Gilley offered.
“Maybe,” Sam said, but he doubted it—owing to all the turmoil and disturbance on the tortured woodlands floor.
The mother cat sidestepped over, reached down and picked the small cub up firmly yet gently between her sharp teeth. The cub hung writhing and kicking in its mother’s grip.
“Isn’t there something we can do to help?” Gilley whispered, noting all the dried blood on the mother cat’s shoulder, down her front leg from the severed ear. “She’s bleeding terribly.”
The horses settled a little on their reins, Gilley holding them firmly, her confidence assuring them there was nothing to be afraid of.
“We can stay back and leave her alone,” Sam said. “She knows what she’s doing. The blood is old. She had it on her when I saw her at the water hole.”
Almost before the Ranger had finished speaking, the big cat turned in a flash of tail and hindquarter and bounded straight up in one powerful leap, vanishing back onto the treed hillside.
“And that’s that,” Sam said with a breath of relief. The last thing he wanted to do was kill an animal whose only purpose was to protect its cub—its last remaining cub at that, he reminded himself.
