by Joe Slade
‘Do you want wooden crosses or stone markers on the graves?’ he asked.
‘No markers,’ Maggie replied.
‘What about the names of these fellers?’
‘We don’t know their names.’ Rick gathered his reins and prepared to mount. ‘We came on them at the side of the road and decided to make sure they got a decent burial.’
To Maggie, it sounded like the lie it was, delivered in haste and bound to arouse more suspicion.
‘We did our bit by bringing them here,’ she added quickly. ‘The rest is up to you.’
The cigarette glowed more intensely as the man took a deep drag.
‘I suppose so,’ he said after he exhaled.
He returned to stand close to Maggie. ‘It seems to me though, that these fellers came to unnatural ends. Maybe you should take them over to Flitwick and let the Sheriff have a nosy at them. He might have posters on them. You could maybe earn yourselves a few dollars.’
‘We don’t want money for them.’
‘Probably wise. After all, they do say that money is the root of all evil.’
‘Do you include preacher in your list of jobs too?’ Maggie asked impatiently.
‘I’m whatever you need me to be.’
Losing patience, she shoved the gun muzzle against his shoulder. ‘I need you to get the hell away from me and forget you ever saw us. How does that sound?’
‘I don’t think you mean it. I’m almost certain your friend there doesn’t agree with you.’
With his soft-spoken, self-assured attitude, he was starting to rattle Maggie. What kind of man didn’t flinch under the threat of a gun?
‘You don’t know anything about us,’ she said.
‘I know you’re hurt. I can smell the infection. I can feel the heat of the fever radiating from you. Why don’t you come inside and let me take a look at what ails you?’
His hand touched her leg.
She flinched and her finger tightened on the trigger. ‘Get away from me. I will shoot you.’
‘If you intended to do that, you would have cocked the hammer.’
Her heart started to pound. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She could feel it streaking down her temple as she realized he was right. What was wrong with her?
I taught you better than that, Maggie. You disappoint me.
She shook Frank’s voice from her mind. ‘If you can’t help me, stay out of my head,’ she snapped.
‘Maggie?’ Rick dropped the reins and moved towards her. ‘I think he’s right. You’re not yourself.’
‘Don’t worry about me, mister. Rick, mount up and let’s get out of here.’
‘No.’ Rick picked up her fallen reins, holding the horse steady as it sensed the tension. ‘You need a doctor. You can barely sit your horse let alone ride.’
‘I’ll need an undertaker if we don’t get moving.’
She drew a deep breath to steady herself. It was a mistake. The stench of the bodies caught in her throat and she started to gag.
A hand shot out of the darkness and snatched the gun from her as easily as if she had offered it freely. She heard the hammer click back. The clouds shifted and moonlight glinted off the polished barrel.
‘Shoot him, Rick,’ she shrieked.
‘Keep your hands where I can see them, son,’ the stranger countered, turning the Schofield on him. ‘I’d sooner shoot you and worry about it later than see this woman ride to her death.’
Rick raised his arms to shoulder height. ‘You’ll get no argument from me, sir.’
Betrayal and defeat sapped the last of Maggie’s resolve. She let herself go as the remainder of her strength seemed to slip away with the last vestiges of hope. She had been willing to give Rick a second chance, to let him prove he could be a man of action when it counted, but she had obviously made a mistake.
He caught her as she fell. ‘You’ll be all right, Maggie. I won’t let anything happen to you.’
She fought for a few more seconds of consciousness, determined to have her say before she surrendered to it.
‘You’re a yellow son-of-a-bitch, Rick Talbot,’ she muttered, before finally giving in.
Six
Maggie came to slowly, like a bear coming out of hibernation. The throbbing in her shoulder was gone and the warm breeze coming in through slots high up in the wall felt pleasant not stifling. Her mind reeled as she tried to remember where she was. She knew they had ridden in to town but, after that, the details were jumbled.
She waited for her eyes to focus then looked around, searching for clues that might forewarn her of what awaited beyond. There wasn’t much to go on. The small room with its grey walls held no more than the bed, a straight-backed chair and a side table with a jug and a glass of water on it. It could have been a cell except that the door was ajar and she could hear the sound of sawing coming from nearby.
Clothes, not hers, hung from a peg driven into the wall. Walt McLean’s boots stood on the floor below, a pair of socks draped over the tops. There was no sign of Frank’s gun or her knife. Underneath the light blanket covering her, she ran a hand over her nakedness. After everything that had happened, it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it should. The bandage wrapped around her shoulder and chest, pinning her left hand over her right bosom, felt fresh and clean.
She groaned as she reached for the water and drank deeply.
It took several attempts to get out of bed and dress. The clothes had store bought creases in them and were a good fit. The socks improved the comfort of the oversized boots. For a long while after, she sat on the chair and waited for her strength to return in some small measure. She was about to make a move when a man appeared in the doorway.
‘You’re awake,’ he said.
He was tall with stooped shoulders and dark hair threaded through with grey. She recalled someone claiming to be the undertaker or doctor or furniture maker or whatever else he turned his hand to. Somehow, this person wasn’t what she was expecting. His face was that of a younger man than she had imagined, maybe only touching thirty, the skin smooth except for a few lines at the corners of his eyes. Eyes that were dark and intense.
‘Did you bury the bodies?’ she asked.
‘Well, good afternoon to you too, Sunshine.’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘Did you?’
‘We did. Come and join me in the kitchen when you’re ready. You must be starving.’
It was a few minutes before she followed. Time spent ordering her thoughts. He was bound to have questions and she needed to have the right answers.
She wandered through a large workshop with doors that were swung wide open, letting in bright daylight. Several coffin panels lined the walls but on a large bench in the centre of the room, he appeared to be working on a cabinet. Looking out at the cloudless blue sky, she considered making a run for it but her stomach rumbled, as if arguing to stay. Knowing she would need her strength if she were to have any chance of getting away, she turned and followed the smell of coffee and the sound of sizzling bacon.
The man hardly glanced her way when she entered the kitchen.
‘Sit down before you fall down,’ he ordered.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Already her legs were starting to feel weak.
He placed a plate of ham and eggs in front of her. ‘Eat it. Doctors orders,’ he instructed, sitting down with his own plate. ‘You need to build up your strength.’
She didn’t touch it. ‘Who are you?’
He sighed, seeming mildly annoyed. ‘My given name is John Thaddeus Simpkins. Most folks just call me Doc, and yes, I am a real doctor, before you ask. Now, eat up. Your questions can wait.’
His tone brooked no argument and, as he tucked into his own food, he appeared to be no immediate threat.
‘You’re a good cook,’ she said later, as they sipped coffee from enamel mugs. ‘Is there anything you don’t do?’
He shrugged.
‘The man I rode in to town with,’ she said, ‘is
he still here?’
‘He’s around, I couldn’t say exactly where. Seems to be keeping a lookout for something … or someone.’
His intense brown stare demanded answers.
She started to stand, suddenly wary of him, but the movement was too quick and she staggered into the table as the world tilted.
‘Sit down before you fall down, woman.’ He waited for her to comply. ‘I buried three bodies for you, not to mention saved your life. You can do me the courtesy of telling me what I’ve gotten myself into.’
‘Gotten yourself into?’
He leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. ‘Don’t play innocent with me. I looked at those bodies before I dug a deep hole and buried them one on top of the other. Your story about finding them at the side of the road doesn’t add up.’
A hot flush washed over her but she held her nerve. ‘That’s the way it was, unless Rick has told you anything different.’
‘He hasn’t but he’s a bad liar.’ He sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. ‘Here’s what I think happened.
‘The short, skinny one tried to rape you. You stabbed him, first in the back and then in the chest. I can’t be as sure with the other two but I’d say you shot one in the head and your friend shot the other in the back.’
Maggie felt the color drain from her face.
Doc nodded. ‘It seems I was right on all counts.’
‘If Rick didn’t tell you, how do you know all that?’
‘Well, I’m a naturally curious person but, bearing in mind I’m also a doctor, I found scratches and bruises on the short one’s face and neck. You had blood and skin under your nails and bruises on your thighs, handprints. The rest was a guess based on what I know about you and Rick. You pulled a gun on me and said you’d kill me. Had you been clear headed and cocked the hammer, I would have believed you. You called Rick a ‘yellow son-of-a-bitch’ so he seems the more likely back shooter.’
His powers of deduction frightened her. What else might he know? More importantly, what would he do with the information? She had spent too long as a captive to lose her newly gained freedom now.
‘You’re wondering what I intend to do,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘To tell the truth, I’m not sure. It depends on your answer to the next question.’
He pushed back his chair and reached for something inside the paper-strewn dresser behind him. She couldn’t see what it was until he dropped it on the table in front of her. For some reason, she flinched at the sight of it. There was no mistaking Frank’s gun. The Schofield .45 had been customized with engraved ebony grips. It was unique.
She grabbed for it.
Doc’s hand clamped down over hers, strong but not violent. ‘Care to tell me what you’re doing with Frank O’Bannen’s gun?’
Seven
‘Why does it matter to you?’ she asked.
‘Because Frank was a friend of mine. There’s only one reason you’d have his gun.’
Maggie struggled to free her hand.
He refused to let it go.
‘The only question is …’ he continued. ‘How did Frank die?’
‘I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean. I had no reason to.’ She stopped struggling and forced herself to meet his intense gaze. ‘The only men who’ve died by my hand were a danger to me.’
Maggie doubted her veiled threat would worry him overly much. He more than anyone would know how weak she was and how vulnerable. Nevertheless, he raised his hands in a show of submission.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to go on a bit of faith here, if you are.’
She eased back, leaving the gun between them. ‘Start by telling me how you knew Frank?’
‘You’ve got quite the nerve questioning me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got nothing to hide. You could say, Frank was my benefactor.’
‘Benefactor?’
‘It means—’
‘I know what it means but that doesn’t sound like Frank. He was more of a taker than a giver.’
His narrow mouth quirked into the hint of a smile. ‘That’s true but it doesn’t change the fact that he paid for me to go to medical school. Now, you tell me how he died.’
She wondered where to start, what to tell him and what to leave out. John Simpkins had already proven himself to be a perceptive man. That he was even asking about the circumstances of Frank’s death, suggested he had suspicions.
‘He was sick for a long time,’ she said, after a pause.
‘His lungs.’
‘Yes. If you know that, then you know he was close to death.’
He didn’t answer. His hawk like gaze never wavered from her face. It was unnerving but she steeled herself against it.
‘I think Walt McLean finished him off. Smothered him.’
Doc’s shoulders sagged as the news hit him. ‘He was the one you stabbed, is that right?’
She nodded.
‘The disease was a bad enough end but that was no way for a man like Frank to go.’ Doc’s chair tipped back, hitting the dresser as he stood up. ‘I’ve a mind to dig him up, bring him back to life and kill him myself.’
She didn’t doubt it as he paced back and forth in the small kitchen, punching his fist into his palm and uttering oaths under his breath.
‘What did you mean when you said Frank paid for you to go to medical school? What were you to him?’
He continued to pace. ‘About fifteen years ago, Frank and his partners held up a bank in a place called Taunston Falls. As they were leaving, a citizen pulled a gun and shot Frank in the back.’
Maggie pictured the puckered scar, high on Frank’s right side. She had never asked him about it or about any of his scars. He had many.
‘He managed to get to his horse but he was losing a lot of blood. The three of them made it to a small homestead just outside town, but he was in no condition to ride any further. They divvied up the take then the others left.’
Fifteen years. From what she could recall of Frank’s rare drunken ramblings into the past, that was around the time he, Braddock and Harris had parted ways.
‘Go on,’ she said, her interest piqued.
‘The homestead belonged to my ma—well, to the bank at that point. My pa had died the year before and heavy rain had wiped out our crop.’ He straightened the chair and sat down, looking out the window as he reflected on the past. ‘Everyone has a sad story and that was mine. Then Frank arrived. After the others left, I took out some medical books a travelling man had left as payment for a bed and a meal one time. I dug the bullet out, sewed him up and me and my ma nursed him back to health. After he’d gone I found five thousand dollars and a note shoved inside one of those books.’ He took a deep breath, as though the story had winded him. ‘Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?’
Maggie didn’t think so. Frank was nothing if not unpredictable. Hadn’t she experienced firsthand his impulsive nature?
‘What did the note say?’
He chuckled. ‘Be qualified next time I need you.’
‘And you saw him again?’ she asked, more interested than she should be.
‘Several times over the years. Just six months ago was the last time. I think he came to say goodbye.’ He turned his hawk eyes on her. ‘Enough about me. I want to know who you were to Frank O’Bannen?’
It was a question she hadn’t expected and the answer wasn’t easy to decide on. For so long she had seen herself as one thing but would the outside world see things differently? Would the truth be viewed with sympathy or contempt?
John Simpkins would be as good a test as any, she decided.
‘Seven years ago, he took me into the hills and said I was his wife,’ she said, without emotion.
It wasn’t the whole truth but time had helped to blur the painful facts.
‘I’ll be damned. Frank had a wife.’ The lines around his eyes deepened as he smiled with genuine pleasure. He reached across and shook her hand. ‘I’m pleased to m
eet you, Mrs. O’Bannen.’
‘Maggie,’ she corrected him.
The sound of running footsteps coming through the workshop brought an abrupt end to further discussion on the matter. Rick burst in to the kitchen, breathing hard, his face scarlet against the blonde hair plastered to his sweaty forehead.
‘They’re here.’
She grabbed the gun and lurched to her feet. ‘Where?’
‘They just rode in … went straight to the saloon. Are you fit to ride?’
‘What in blazes is going on?’ Doc asked. ‘Who’s here?’
‘Bull Braddock and Milt Harris. Frank’s old partners,’ Maggie said.
She followed Rick back out through the workshop with Doc following close behind. He grabbed her arm, pulling her back before she reached the outside.
‘Jesus Christ, woman,’ he exploded. ‘Why didn’t you say anything about them before now?’
She tried to shrug free but his fingers tightened, biting into her flesh. His actions seemed out of proportion, deserving of an explanation.
‘What difference would it have made to you?’ Maggie asked.
‘What difference? What difference!’ He waved towards the .45. ‘I held that very gun on Harris and Braddock while they divvied up the bank haul. They wanted to take all the money and leave Frank to die. I threw their guns in the horse trough. I held that gun on them while they split the money three ways. They didn’t take it well. In fact, they promised to kill me the next time our paths crossed.’
Eight
‘Let her go, Doc.’
Maggie saw Rick draw his old six-gun and heard the click of the hammer as he knocked it back. Looking along the muzzle, she realized it was aimed as much at her as it was at Doc. Behind it, Rick looked two steps shy of crazy and jumpy as hell. She could see the tension drawn in tight lines around his mouth as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Dark shadows under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept in a while.
‘Don’t shoot, Rick,’ she said. ‘If you do, we’ll have the whole town down on us.’
