by Jory Sherman
“We got us a cool sleepin’ room out back,” she said. “Some cots in it and whatnot. They’s a well and dipper, a trough for your horse to slake its thirst. Fifty cents, you can stay the night.”
“No, thanks,” Cord said.
“They’s a mister a-sleepin’ out there now. Came in last night. Late.”
Cord’s heart pumped faster.
He scanned the walls again, looking for a Wanted poster with his image and name on it. He breathed in and out with relief. He saw nothing tacked up anywhere.
“I just want to purchase a few things, Ma’am, and then I’ll be on my way.”
“What do you fancy, Mister?”
“Have you a pencil and a piece of paper? I can write it out for you.”
“I don’t read but a few words,” Betty said. “Mostly the names be on the goods we sell here.”
“All right.” He was glad he had money. U.S. Marshal Ben Alexander had hired him to help track Jake Krebs and had paid him enough to keep him going for a month or so and said he’d give him more money later. Dan planned to give most of the money to his mother when he saw her down in Waco. But he had more than enough to get by until then.
Cord gave Betty the order, fretting at the slowness of the process as she walked to fetch each item and set it on the counter next to an empty feed sack. He didn’t buy much, two tins of peaches in airtights, coffee, some cornmeal, hard candy, a stick of black licorice to eat after he got back on the trail home, and some other items that were easy to carry, simple to prepare.
Betty toted up the cost on an abacus, the beads clicking like false teeth in the mouth of a shivering man, and set each item tabulated inside the sack.
She gave him the total and Cord gave her enough bills to cover the cost and give him back some change in coin.
“Thank you,” Cord said when she was finally finished and handed him the sack full of goods.
“I should be thankin’ you, Mister,” she said. “And, I do. Where you headed?”
“Wichita,” he lied.
“Well, you ride careful, hear?” She made a point of looking at the pistol strapped to his hip.
“Yes’m.”
Outside, the faint scent of Betty’s perfume still lingered in Cord’s nostrils, reminding him of how rank he must smell. He loaded his saddlebags with the goods he had bought then leaned down to unwrap his reins from the hitch-ring set in the ground in front of the store.
As he stood up, he felt something hard press against the soft spot in his lower back, just to the left of his spine.
“Don’t you make no sudden moves, Pilgrim,” a voice said.
Cord stiffened. Every muscle in his body froze until he looked like a store mannequin.
“Whoa there, fella,” Cord said tightly. “I got nothin’ you want.”
“Turn around. I want to see your face.”
Cord did as he was told. He held his breath as he looked down at the man holding the pistol. The barrel was about a foot away from his belt buckle and steady as a carpenter’s level on a block of concrete.
The pistoleer scanned Dan’s face with tiny porcine eyes set well back behind high round cheek bones, ruddy from days in the sun, rough-textured as if they had been scoured with wind-blown sand. The man wore a hat with a sugarloaf crown, droopy brim, gray felt, Dan thought, soiled with grease. His lips were cracked, the inside of the fissures, white as salt, the edges brown as bacon rinds. His tongue snaked over his lips, wetting them as he studied Cord’s face.
“Whoever you’re lookin’ for, I ain’t him,” Dan said.
“Shut up.”
Dan had never seen the man before, but he had seen his kind in two different jails, one in Junction City and the one in Abilene. He had seen such men come in and ask the jailer for wanted posters. Seen them lick their lips just the way this one had as they toted up the reward amounts, then stuffed the flyers they wanted into their pockets before leaving the jail. Leaving to hunt down men who were wanted for various crimes.
The man standing before Dan was a bounty hunter.
“Maybe if you tell me…” Dan started to say.
“I said to shut yore trap. You got a name?”
Dan thought quickly. If the man didn’t remember his face, he just might remember his name. He couldn’t give the man his real name. If he did, he was liable to end up back in Abilene where Frank Gaston was just waiting for the chance to hang him.
All he could think of was Juan Martinez and he knew that he didn’t look like any Mexican he had ever seen.
“Matt,” Cord said. “Matt Cardwell.”
Sweat broke out on his forehead and beaded up in the furrows as Dan squinted against the glare of the sun.
“That name don’t ring no bells,” the man said. “But, that horse sure does look familiar. Where did you ride in from?”
“That’s my business,” Cord said.
“If you don’t want to breathe through two holes in your face, you’ll answer my question.”
Dan wondered if he dared tell another lie. He knew about lying. Once you started, you had to keep going, and you could get tripped up very easily. But this man was a hunter and he was sniffing too close.
“I come from up Abilene way,” Dan said.
The man considered Dan’s answer for a moment.
“Well, I rode in from Topeka, by way of Cottonwood Falls. Ever been up thataway?”
“Nope.” Dan shook his head.
“Abilene’s a pretty rough town.”
“I wouldn’t know. I stay to myself and I don’t drink spirits.”
The man snorted. “Haw! What were you a-doin’ up Abilene way, then?”
Dan thought fast. “I was lookin’ for a job. Didn’t pan out.”
“What kind of job?”
“Haulin’ freight,” Cord said.
“Yeah? Where do you hail from?”
Dan knew he had to lie now. There were freight outfits all over. He wished now he hadn’t said it, but it was too late. It was all he could think of when the bounty hunter popped the question.
“I live in Indian Territory, down in Oklahoma.”
“No jobs down there?”
“Only ones that can get a man killed.”
The man laughed at that.
Dan hoped he had finally said the right thing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Betty standing at the window of her store peering out at him from behind a shutter so that only half of her face showed, half of her torso, and one baleful, accusing eye staring straight at him as if he were some kind of parasite come to sully her town.
“Maybe you got a name,” Cord said. “If so, you haven’t spoken it to me and I’m curious as to what you call yourself.”
“Maynard Finch,” the man said.
“You a bounty hunter?”
“I like to think of myself as an officer of the court.”
“A hair-splitter, Finch. You hunt men for money.”
“I hunt law-breakers, scum.”
Dan did not disguise his feelings for the man. He scowled in disgust and the look was not lost on Finch.
“Maybe I’ll just take a look at them brands on your horse,” Finch said, taking a step toward Blue.
“You put a hand on that horse, Finch, and you’re liable to wind up with a bloody stump at the end of your wrist.”
“Why, you son-of-a-bitch,” Finch said and raised his arm with the pistol ready to strike a downward blow atop Cord’s head.
Dan stepped into the open space and grabbed Finch’s upraised wrist. The two men wrestled, grappling with each other like wrestlers squaring off, each looking for a superior hold.
Dan wrested Finch’s pistol from his hand as he pushed the man away. Then he brought the pistol down hard, smashing the sugarloaf crown of Finch’s hat until the butt of the pistol crunched into the bounty hunter’s skull. Finch’s eyes rolled in their sockets. He let out a grunt and crumpled to the ground like a sack of meal.
Maynard Finch was out cold.
Dan
looked up and saw Betty’s face contort into a startled grimace. Her eyes flared wide and her mouth opened in a silent O.
Cord slid Finch’s pistol inside his belt and mounted Blue. He rode around behind the store where he spotted a lone horse, unsaddled, tied to a hitchrail. Finch’s horse, he was certain. He rode up to it, slipped the halter from the horse’s head and whopped it on the rump with his reins. The horse galloped off and Dan pursued it, chasing it for two miles, until it was well on its way away from town.
Then, he turned Blue toward Oklahoma, Finch’s Colt .45 sticking out of his belt, adding to his arsenal and making him into a wanted thief as well as a hunted murderer.
“Damn it all,” he muttered, “why couldn’t the man have just left well enough alone?”
But he knew why Finch had been suspicious. A man on the owlhoot trail stood out like a sore thumb in daylight. In every town, he knew, he would be a stranger. And all who saw him would know it and think the worst.
He rode on, feeling that he was truly cursed, by man and God.
Chapter Three
Cord was grateful for the rain, because he knew it was washing away his tracks. But soaked through to the skin, he decided it was worth the risk to stop off in a town and buy himself a slicker. He rode into El Dorado while it was still raining and looked for a mercantile or a dry goods store. He found the mercantile easily enough. He hitched Blue to a porch post and sogged inside, feeling awkward and exposed. He had wrapped Finch’s pistol in an oilcloth and tucked it at the bottom of one of his saddlebags, but still wore his own sidearm.
He stood inside for a moment, letting the water from his clothes drip onto a small throw rug.
“Come on in, stranger,” a man behind the counter said. “Wet ain’t goin’ to hurt nothin’ in here, long as you don’t try and shake it off like a shiverin’ dog.” The man laughed at his own joke.
“Howdy,” Cord said. He walked to the counter and faced the man who had spoken.
“What can I do you fer?” the man asked.
“I need a sougan and a duster, a black one if you have such.”
“I got a yellow slicker that’ll fit you. And dusters in black and white. White’s cooler in the sun.”
“Black. I don’t want to stand out like a grain of rice in a bowl of beans.”
The man chuckled. He trooped off to some shelves where he bent down, rummaged through the goods, then returned with a yellow raincoat and a black duster.
“You might want to try these on,” the man said.
“I will. Oh, and I need a box of 45 caliber cartridges.”
“Pistol or rifle?”
“Pistol.”
Cord tried on the duster and slicker. The man returned with a box of .45 cartridges.
“Not much call for these, but I sell a box every so often; to drifters, mostly. Like yourself.”
“What makes you think I’m a drifter?”
“Oh, you got that glazed look in your eyes. Too much sun. Too much wind. Always looking over your shoulder.”
“You’re very observant,” Cord said.
“With strangers, yes, I am.”
“Probably a good idea. But I’m no drifter. I have a home and I know where it is.”
“And where would that be?”
“West of here,” Cord lied.
“West is a lot of country. Look, my name’s Seth. Seth Brown. I own this place. Been here since before the war. I didn’t catch your handle.”
“I don’t give it out much. But, it’s Jason Martin.” After his brother, Jason, and Juan Martinez. The names just came to him. He was getting pretty good at lying, he thought. He was getting comfortable as a damned outlaw. And he hated it.
“You on the dodge?”
Cord considered his answer. It seemed to him that the man was reading him like a book, and he didn’t want to get caught up in another lie right off. He didn’t mind lying to save his skin; he just didn’t want to be caught at it. But the answer wasn't easy. He did not consider himself a criminal, and he didn’t think he was. But he was both running and hunting, and sometimes the distinction was blurred in his mind. Like now, for instance.
“I’m not running from anyone,” he said. “I’m just goin’ home. And, it’s a long ride.”
“Good,” Brown said. “You’re too young to live that kind of life.”
“What kind of life are you talkin’ about?”
“Outlawin’. Hurtin’ people. Robbin’ ’em. Stealin’s a sin.”
“I’ve not robbed anyone,” Cord said. Another lie. He had taken a weapon from a man and kept it. But he was strong into considering that act one of survival. If he had not taken the Colt, he reasoned, that pistol just might have taken his life one day. The bounty hunter would have killed him, he was certain, if he’d had a flyer with his image and a reward for his capture printed on it.
“None of my business, but you remind me of my nephew who fell in with bad company and got his neck stretched over in Wichita for tryin’ to rob a bank. He lived by the gun, but he died by the rope.”
“I’m sorry,” Cord said. “Look, I’ve got to burn some daylight. Could we settle up, Mr. Brown?”
“Sure.”
The man bent over a scrap of paper and made some notations with a stub of a pencil. He looked up and told Cord the cost of the goods. Dan thought the price fair and he dipped into his pocket to find a small bill among the fifty dollars he kept there for expenses. The rest of the money he had was in his boot. That money was to go to his mother, Eileen, when he got back home.
“I thank you kindly, Jason,” Smith said, making change out of a cash drawer under the counter. He handed Dan the coins and bills that completed the transaction.
“Better put that slicker on before you go back out there,” the storekeeper cracked. “You might even dry out under it.”
Cord laughed dryly. “I might at that,” he said, pocketing his change.
He left the store carrying the duster rolled up with the box of cartridges inside to keep them dry until he stored them in his saddlebag.
He climbed aboard Blue, who had been hunkered, head drooping, in the rain, all drawn up like a horse about to buck, his hide slick and steamy with the wetness of it.
Dan rode out of town through curtains of rain, heading south toward Oklahoma. He had wanted to stop at a café and eat some eggs and steak, greasy potatoes and maybe a blueberry muffin, washed down with hot coffee. But he knew the longer he lingered in any one place, the more he stood a chance of being recognized or caught by Gaston or that damned bounty hunter.
The more he was alone, the more Dan worried about his backtrail, and who might be on it. U.S. Marshal Ben Alexander, who secured his release from the Abilene jail, and who had hired him to ride the owlhoot trail and help him catch Jake Krebs and bring him to justice, had said he’d be following Dan back to Waco, where Alexander thought Krebs had gone. But Dan had seen no sign of Alexander, and he began to wonder if something had happened to him, or if Alexander had not spoken the truth. Maybe all of what Alexander had said had been hogwash. Maybe Alexander no longer cared what happened to him. Or, maybe he had already caught Krebs and his henchmen and had forgotten all about Dan Cord.
Thoughts could be dangerous things, Dan realized, and his thoughts on that gloomy wet day were dark as the sky. He didn’t know Ben Alexander very well, but he had trusted him. At one time, he had trusted Krebs, too, and now Jason and Juan Martinez were both dead, and he had a price on his head. And the only man in the world who knew he was innocent was Marshal Alexander, who had notarized affadavits from two witnesses—a stable boy and a homeless derelict, both of whom had slept in the hayloft and were awakened by loud voices.
That's a whole hell of a lot of trust, Dan thought.
The rain persisted and Dan longed for some shelter, even a small tree with leafy branches that he might ride beneath and find some surcease from the constant tattoo of rain upon his hat. But the plain was flat, monotonous, and he rode with dead reckoning in hi
s mind, like some blind, trusting wayfarer following behind an unseen caravan that knew where it was going. The rain spattering on his slicker also became monotonous, like what he heard about Chinese torture, where a man was shaved bald and made to sit beneath a dripping pump until he went stark, raving mad.
He tried to put such thoughts out of his mind, but a man alone is at the mercy of such stray musings and the constancy of the rain making its own sounds upon his hat and the slicker and the horse was inescapable, as were the random thoughts that, like the rain, would not cease.
In the days that followed, Cord drifted eastward toward the Cimarron. He washed his clothes when he crossed the river, at a ford that plainly showed cattle had been driven across, along with horses and chuck-wagons. Deep ruts still showed near the banks. He did not linger, but forged southward, sometimes wearing the black duster, which he felt gave him a disguise, another identity. And that seemed important to him since he was, in a way, acting as an undercover agent for the United States Government. The duster was like a cloak, hiding him not only from those who pursued him but from people who knew him as the old Dan Cord. And perhaps, the disguise hid him from himself, from what he had unwittingly become, a common thief, a liar, and an outlaw.
The Canadian was harder to cross and he had to swim Blue over part of it, but it was better than walking the horse into quicksand. The river was running almost full from the recent rains and the wind blew fierce gusts, stinging his face raw with sand and grit, sometimes blinding him so that his eyes burned and he could barely see.
After he crossed the Canadian, he rode away from roads when he saw dust in the sky, or specks on the horizon that meant riders were heading his way. He felt at times as if he were some skulking, homeless drifter, an outcast from society. Then he came to the startling conclusion that he was all those things. Behavior was becoming a habit, and habit was weaving itself into his personality as surely and surreptitiously as opium in his bloodstream.
At every chance, Dan practiced his fast draw with the .44 and the .45 pistols. The .45 Colt fit his hand quite well and he was pleased with it. But he knew he had to buy a good holster that fit it, and a gunbelt to hold the cartridges. That could wait. He practiced his draw from every position and angle, even while riding Blue, and was satisfied with his speed and the accuracy of his aim. He only fired the .45 three times, at running jackrabbits, and he never missed. The grip of the pistol fit him like a glove.
