Will Tanner

by William W. Johnstone

  “Nope,” she said. “You’re the first.”

  “Well, then I thank you very much.”

  * * *

  Sophie changed his bandages two more times with Will insisting he didn’t need her medical expertise anymore. He discarded the sling on the second day, but Sophie promptly put it back on that night, along with a stern scolding. While she ran her fingers lightly over his bare shoulder above the wound, she was prompted to ask a question. “Why do you always tense up every time I touch you? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He could not tell her that it had nothing to do with a concern for pain. It was a sensation he experienced whenever he felt her touch. “I don’t know,” he said, laughing. “You’ve just got a mean look in your eye, I reckon.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Sophie replied, pretending to be insulted. “You’ll know it when I get a mean look in my eye.” She affected her most stern expression and put her face eye to eye with his, so close he could smell the soap on her cheeks.

  It was at this awkward moment that her mother walked in the washroom. Alarmed by what she thought she saw, Ruth just stood there for a moment, speechless. Unconcerned, Sophie backed away from Will and said, “All right. I’ll check your wound tomorrow. Don’t get it dirty.”

  Finding her voice then, Ruth said, “I was going to ask if you would like me to help with the bandages.”

  “Nope,” Sophie answered nonchalantly as she breezed by her.

  During the next couple of days, when Will had little to do, he came to be quite friendly with Ruth Bennett’s attractive daughter, much to her mother’s continued concern. She was encouraged somewhat, however, when Sophie allowed Garth Pearson to call on her on one of those nights. Ruth took the opportunity to invite Garth to have supper with them the following night. She suspected it was not coincidence that Will decided to have supper at the Morning Glory that night, explaining that he hadn’t had a drink in quite some time. “Don’t you do anything to aggravate that shoulder,” Sophie said to him as he went out the door.

  “I won’t,” Will replied. “I’ll use my good arm to raise the glass,” he joked.

  “Why don’t you eat supper here before you go drinking alcohol?” she asked.

  “You’re havin’ company for supper,” he replied. “I’ll just let him take my place, so it won’t be too crowded at the table.”

  * * *

  “Well, look who’s back,” Gus Johnson announced when Will walked in the Morning Glory. “I was wonderin’ if we was ever gonna see you again.” He affected a quick frown on his face and said, “That was awful sorry news about Pride. It ain’t the same without him around here.”

  “I reckon not,” Will said. “Pride left a big hole when he left.”

  “What’ll you have?” Gus asked.

  “I think I’ll have a drink of your good whiskey, and I’ll drink a toast to Fletcher Pride. Then I think I’ll take supper, if Mammy’s still cookin’ that cowboy stew.”

  “She sure is,” Gus said. “Mammy’s cowboy stew is the best because . . .”

  “. . . she uses real cowboys instead of beef,” Will finished for him. “I know.”

  “Right,” Gus said with a chuckle. “I’ll drink to Pride with you, and it’s on the house.”

  Overhearing, Lucy Tyler got up from a corner table and walked over to the bar to join them. “I think I’ll take a shot of that in honor of Pride.”

  After they all drank to Fletcher Pride’s memory, Will took a seat at one of the tables. Lucy sat down with him and stayed to talk to him until a couple of cowboys came in. She asked Will if he needed anything more than supper. When he said he didn’t, she smiled and left to join the two strangers. In a minute or two, Mammy came from the kitchen with his supper. She gave him a brief nod of hello, then said, “Glad to see you again,” which surprised him. The stew was up to standard, but not quite as good as Ruth’s cooking. The thought made him wonder if Sophie was as good a cook as her mother. Then he asked himself why he even cared.

  Each day, Will tested his arm, knowing that Eli was wounded and racing to heal as well, and he intended to win that race. It was his thinking that Eli would most likely have gone to his father’s place in Tishomingo to get help. But it was also possible that he wouldn’t stay there long, and if so, he would need a place to hide out. That brought to mind the cave in the Sans Bois Mountains. He could only guess how badly Eli wanted to avenge his brother’s death. He might be inclined to give up on hunting Will down and flee the territory again, now that his return was sure to be known by the law. In view of this, Will made sure that everything was ready to ride as soon as he felt he had most of the movement in his shoulder back. He made sure that Buster was well fed and rested. And he sold the blue and the packhorse to Vern Tuttle. The day came when he tested his shoulder and decided he had better than 75 percent movement. On that day, he told Dan Stone that he was heading for Tishomingo the next morning, and he notified Ruth at supper that night. He was astonished to find himself confronted by an apparently irritated young lady in the parlor right after supper.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to leave again in the morning?” Sophie demanded.

  Surprised by her attitude, he replied, “I did tell you, just now at supper.”

  “You’re more like Fletcher Pride every day,” she remarked curtly. “Can’t wait to go out and get yourself shot at.” She spun on her heel and returned to the kitchen, leaving him mystified. She was hard put to explain her attitude, even to herself, and she was reluctant to admit that it had to do with Garth Pearson’s proposal of marriage the night before. She had begged for a little time to think about her answer. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew she needed time to decide if being Garth’s wife was what she really wanted to be. And she knew that damn rugged, untamed mountain lion was causing her hesitation—and he didn’t even know it.

  * * *

  When morning came, Will felt even stronger in his shoulder. As he and Pride had done on that morning of their fatal assignment, he waited to have breakfast there at the house before starting out. When he walked out the front door, carrying his saddlebags and rifle, both Ruth and Sophie walked out on the porch to bid him a safe journey. “You take care of yourself, Will Tanner,” Ruth said.

  “Don’t worry, I always come back,” Will said, causing her to wince. Fletcher had always said that very thing.

  “Don’t come back here with any more holes in you,” Sophie called after him, her mood improved from that of the night before. “My rates have gone up.”

  He laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He walked up the road a few yards before turning to look at Sophie again. “I will be back,” he stated emphatically. Then he continued on to the stable to get his horses. As usual, he would ride Buster and take his packhorse. When Stone had asked, he told him that he didn’t want a wagon, a cook, or a posseman. He worked better alone. To Stone, it appeared that Will was going after Stark with the sole intention of killing him, so he reminded him that his assignment was to arrest Eli and bring him back for trial. Will had assured him that he understood, and he would bring him back alive if at all possible. “I still don’t want to fool with a wagon. When I catch Eli Stark, I’ll bring him back on that big Morgan he rides.

  * * *

  “That damn-fool horse doctor don’t know what he’s doin’,” Eli complained. “My shoulder’s still red and all swole up. We shouldn’ta gone to him in the first place.”

  “Lemme see,” Lem said, and bent over his son to examine the wound in his shoulder. “Yeah, it don’t look too good, but Jack Pike’s the only doctor within twenty miles of here. The only other ’un is that Choctaw medicine man over at Switchback Creek, but he ain’t no real doctor.”

  “He’s likely a sight better ’n the fool that done this,” Eli said, looking at the swollen area around his wound. “Help me saddle my horse. I’m gonna ride over there tonight and get him to take a look at it.”

  “Are you crazy?” Lem blurted. “That’s g
ettin’ too damn close to Jim Little Eagle’s headquarters. What if he finds out you’re back in these parts?”

  “What if he does?” Eli fired back. “He can’t do nothin’ about it.”

  “He can damn sure tell the marshal,” Lem insisted.

  “He ain’t gonna find out. I’ve gotta get this damn wound healed up if I’m gonna find that son of a bitch that shot Jeb, and that’s for sure.”

  “You shoulda kilt that deputy when you had him on his back,” Lem grumbled. “He killed your brother.”

  “It wasn’t as simple as that, Pa. I told you, he had me where I couldn’t get a shot at him unless I stuck my head over that bank. Besides, I was already hit twice. I didn’t have no choice but to get the hell away from there. There was a bunch of folks at a store about a half mile away and they heard the shootin’. I had to get outta there.” He reached up to touch the bandage on his neck and grimaced as if it was extremely painful. It didn’t draw any sympathy from Lem.

  “If you hadn’t missed with your first shot, you wouldn’t be in the fix you’re in right now,” Lem said.

  “I didn’t miss, Pa. I hit him, and if he hadn’ta fell back against that horse, I’da finished him off.”

  Lem stood over him, a look of disgust on his face. “All right, dammit, let’s go see that Injun doctor and see if he can do anything for you.” The pride he had always felt for his eldest son was beginning to weaken somewhat, a result of Eli’s apparent inability to kill this one deputy.

  “I don’t need you to go with me,” Eli said.

  “You know where his shack is?” Lem asked curtly.

  “No, sir,” Eli admitted sheepishly.

  “Then I reckon you need me to go with you, don’t you?”

  “I reckon,” Eli said. He got up from the chair and started for the door, hating the way he had cowered before his father, something he would never do before any other man. He couldn’t understand the dominance his father held over him. It had been that way with both Jeb and him ever since they were boys. He decided the only way to break Lem’s hold on him was to kill him. And when his shoulder was well, he decided that was what he might be tempted to do. But first he wanted to kill that deputy, Will Tanner, so he could tell his father that he did.

  * * *

  The old Choctaw medicine man opened the door of his shack and held a lantern up to see who was coming to see him at this late hour. “Who is there?” he called out when two men on horses pulled up before him.

  “Are you the one they call Walkin’ Crow?” Lem asked as he stepped down.

  “Yes, I am Walking Crow. Why do you come to me?”

  “Step down, son,” Lem said. “Walkin’ Crow, we came to see if you’ve got the big medicine you claim you got.”

  “What is it you want my help with?” Walking Crow asked.

  “Show him, boy,” Lem said.

  Eli walked up before the old man and showed him his shoulder. “I got me a gunshot wound,” he said. “And it won’t heal up proper. You got somethin’ that’ll fix it?”

  “I don’t know,” Walking Crow said. “Come inside in the light, and I will see if I can help.”

  They followed the old man inside. He placed the lamp on the table and started removing the bandages from Eli’s shoulder. When he could see the wound, he examined it closely before giving his diagnosis. “It is plain to see why it troubles you. The wound is festering. It looks like someone dug the bullet out, but must have used a dirty knife. I can take the swelling out, so it will feel better, but I’ll have to lance it to do it. Then I can put some medicine on it to make it heal.”

  “Well, go ahead and do it,” Lem said. “We’re in a hurry.”

  Having no desire to offend them, since he knew who they were, and their reputation, Walking Crow prepared to work on his patient. After he sterilized his knife in the fireplace, he said, “This may be a little painful until I can release the pus.”

  “Go ahead,” Eli scoffed, “I don’t mind no pain.” Lem watched for a while before deciding to go outside and wait with the horses. They were awfully close to a few other Choctaw houses, and it would not be good for anyone to find out they were there.

  Inside the shack, Walking Crow completed the lancing of the swollen area around the rough incision the self-taught veterinarian had made, and applied some salve that he said would heal the infection. He gave Eli some of the salve in a jar to apply daily until it was gone. “You know who I am?” Eli asked when he took the jar.

  “You are the son of Lem Stark, who has the store in Tishomingo,” Walking Crow answered.

  “That’s right, and you don’t need to be tellin’ nobody we was here,” Eli said.

  “As you wish,” the old man said.

  Outside, Lem turned to meet his son when Eli came out the door. “Everything all right? Did you pay the old man?”

  “Yep, he got paid. He ain’t gonna tell nobody we was here.”

  “I hope he ain’t,” Lem said, “but I don’t trust these damn Injuns when it comes to us white folks.”

  “You ain’t got no reason to worry ’bout that,” Eli said confidently, “unless he can talk with his throat cut.”

  Lem exploded. “You damn fool! You cut his throat? What’d you go and do a damn-fool trick like that for? You’ve just drawed the Injun police into it, for sure.”

  Startled by his father’s violent reaction, for he expected Lem’s approval for taking care of Walking Crow, Eli stammered in reply. “He knew who we was, Pa. I couldn’t take no chance on him spillin’ his guts to the police. Ain’t nobody gonna know we was even here.”

  “Looks like I coulda had at least one son with a thimble’s worth of sense,” Lem fumed. “What’s done is done, I reckon. Let’s get outta here before some of these other folks see us.”

  They rode out of the tiny cluster of shacks and cabins without noticing the lone man who stopped on his way across his backyard when he saw them leave Walking Crow’s home. Still clutching his armload of firewood, he walked around to the front to see them disappear down the dark trail leading to the wagon road. Leon Coyote Killer was not certain, because of the darkness, but one of the riders reminded him of the outlaw who dressed in black and rode the black horse. Eli Stark was his name, and he was a very bad man. Leon wondered what business a man like Stark had with Walking Crow.

  * * *

  Old Walking Crow’s body lay on the floor of his shack for over two days before anyone thought to check on him. It was not unusual for the old medicine man to drop out of sight from time to time, and the few people who lived near him were not overly concerned until Mary Raintree went to see him, seeking a poultice for her backaches. Mary knocked on his door, but there was no answer. She looked at the small corral behind his house, and Walking Crow’s old paint pony was there, so she went back to knock on the door again. With still no response, she rapped harder—hard enough, in fact, that the door opened ajar, far enough for her to see the medicine man’s body on the floor.

  Mary ran down the path that linked the cluster of houses, screaming for help. Her screams soon brought everyone outside, including Leon Coyote Killer, who went at once to Walking Crow’s shack. He found the old man lying on the floor with a pool of dried blood beneath his head. While some of the others gathered at the scene of the ghastly murder, Leon saddled his horse and rode to Atoka to fetch Jim Little Eagle.

  “He’s been lying here for a couple of days,” Jim said when he investigated the scene. The condition of the corpse quite obviously proved that. “Who can tell me anything?”

  “I can,” Leon spoke up immediately. “Two nights ago, late, I was in the backyard chopping wood, and I saw two riders coming from Walking Crow’s house.”

  “Did you recognize them?” Jim asked.

  “No, it was too dark to see their faces,” Leon said. “But one of them looked kinda like that Stark fellow, the one who always rode the black horse and wore black clothes.”

  “Eli Stark?” Jim asked.

  “Maybe,�
�� Leon hedged. “Like I said, it was dark, but that’s who it looked like.”

  Jim paused only a moment to consider what Leon said. He had recently received a telegram from the marshal’s office in Fort Smith to alert him that there was an encounter with Eli Stark and the new deputy marshal near the Poteau River. Deputy Marshal Will Tanner was on his way to Atoka Station and would be contacting him. “It didn’t take him long to get back to his murdering ways,” Jim muttered to himself. “But why did he kill Walking Crow? The old man could not have done him harm.” There was little doubt in his mind that Eli Stark was the guilty party.

  Some of the neighborhood women gathered to prepare Walking Crow’s body for burial. Satisfied that the old man was being taken care of, Jim Little Eagle decided to ride down to Tishomingo right away. The problem was that Stark’s place was forty miles away, a good day’s ride from here, and it was never good to show up somewhere on a tired horse. In light of that, he decided to go halfway that afternoon and call on Lem Stark the following day. He briefly considered waiting for the deputy marshal before taking action, but the wire from Fort Smith said only that Tanner was on his way—but not when he had left. And Jim figured that they had already lost a great deal of time. Eli Stark might have left the territory by then.

  Walking Crow was held in high esteem in the small village of Choctaws. Jim owed it to the old man to work as fast as he could to catch his murderer. So he returned to his cabin to pack some supplies and tell his wife, Mary, that he would be gone for maybe a few days.

  CHAPTER 15

  “See what that damn dog is barkin’ at,” Lem Stark grumbled.

  Minnie Three Toes placed a plate of corn cakes on the table between the two men, then went to the door. Peering out at the front yard, she recognized the rider at once. “Jim Little Eagle,” she announced indifferently.

  Her warning caused an immediate response from the men. “Damn!” Lem cursed. “I shoulda knowed that damn Injun would show up here.” He turned to Eli, who was already strapping his gun belt on, and said, “Go out the back door and hide in the shed. I’ll get rid of the nosy son of a bitch.”