The E.R. Slade Western Omnibus No.1

by E. R. Slade

  The tracks returned to the trail and Jeremy followed them all the way to the cabin with rising apprehension. The door was wide open. He stood irresolute. Unable to bring himself to go inside, he decided to look for his horse instead.

  But as he backed away from the edge of the clearing he happened to look down and see wagon ruts—deep wagon ruts. He bent over to look at them. They were fresh—since the last rain, anyway.

  Jeremy straightened, blinking, thoughts pinwheeling in a tangle through his mind.

  Suddenly he strode for the cabin. He stepped in and looked quickly around. Nobody. Nothing.

  Jeremy yanked open the stove door, shoved his hand straight into the ashes.

  “Cold,” he said, making it an epithet, and slammed shut the door for emphasis.

  “Played me for a danged fool,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He strode out.

  But then he cursed and went back in, began rummaging, desperate to find some sort of gun. He was losing patience with the way this business kept costing weapons. He finally discovered an old shotgun and some shells. Just bird shot, but he could find nothing else. He cursed again and went back outside ruminating resentfully, thoughts of reform entirely forgotten.

  They’d just used him to draw off Courtland. Only it didn’t look like Courtland had been fooled. Probably seen that tree cut down and figured out that good old Jeremy was only a decoy hauling off a load of rocks. Nobody cared if he died—obviously Leanda hoped he would die. Then he’d be out of the way and Courtland would be distracted dredging the lake instead of chasing her and her crafty old uncle. Jeremy’s rage grew and grew at the way he’d been used, the sound of Cork’s unhuman laughter ringing unbidden in his ears.

  The swaybacked old gelding looked up speculatively when Jeremy located him. Instead of feeling relieved, Jeremy was further enraged by the discovery that nobody had bothered with his horse. In fact, they were so confident that Jeremy could do nothing riding such an animal, even if he’d managed to survive the rimrocking, that they had left him his saddle—a really good, valuable saddle.

  Jeremy wished for one of the mules, but there wasn’t time to go looking. He rigged the gelding and set off following the ruts.

  Courtland’s posse was, of course, on the same track. By now they might well have the gold. If they didn’t, one old twelve gauge loaded with bird shot wasn’t going to prevent them from taking it. But Jeremy was so furious he was oblivious of such practicalities. He was ready to fight anybody and everybody to get that gold. It wasn’t just the gold any longer, it was to prove a point.

  The first point he proved was that the gelding couldn’t run uphill very long before getting so lathered and winded that it was necessary to stop and let the poor old animal get his breath back. Jeremy was impatient, but he still had enough sense to give the horse a chance to recover before going on, and then not to push too hard once they did start.

  He rode up out of the trees into a deep cut between two peaks, then sometime after midday as the pitch steepened he rounded a turn and came upon a body lying face down in the middle of the trail. Jeremy reined in, looked up carefully at the steep, rough stone slopes on either side, listened. There was only the lonely moan of the wind amongst the rocks.

  He swung down and investigated the body: it was Blue, back shot.

  Jeremy stood a moment, hands on hips, looking up the trail, thinking. Then he spat on the ground, got back aboard his horse, every muscle complaining, and pushed grimly on. It was hard not to believe this was Leanda’s doing. Maybe she’d had Cork do the dirty work, but it would have been her decision.

  Jeremy rode on up the narrow pass, started down the other side. The trail led down a widening boulder-strewn slope, and way below, just above the tree line, Jeremy thought he saw movement. He hauled up and sat looking, but it was too far away and might have been anything. He nudged his mount ahead.

  The old horse moved slower and slower, even going downhill. Jeremy was frustrated, but there was nothing he could do.

  Long before he saw anything he heard faint gunfire. Sporadic, with long pauses sometimes. Then at last he emerged from a patch of boulders and saw men crouched behind more boulders some distance ahead, their horses being held under cover also. Jeremy looked where they were looking and saw the entrance to some sort of narrow little canyon. There came a puff of smoke on the rim and lead slapped stone right behind him, the retort echoing slightly.

  Jeremy spun his horse around and took cover.

  It appeared Cork was holding off Courtland’s men all by himself. Slipping around from vantage to vantage, Jeremy found a place from which he could see the entrance to the little canyon but was out of sight of Cork and Courtland’s men—who so far seemed unaware of his presence. Four bodies lay sprawled in the open area that approached the entrance. Jeremy wondered where Leanda was. With the gold, probably.

  The fight went on desultorily until sundown. But when it grew dark the shooting stopped since nobody could see anything. Jeremy heard low voices, then the clip of hooves on rock, and surmised one or two men were either going to try to get into the canyon or were intending to circle and take Cork from behind.

  The second guess turned out to be the right one. There was a shot, a short pause, and then a voice hollering, “Got ’im!” The rest of the men mounted and Jeremy could hear them moving off in a group toward the canyon. Stiff, thirsty, cold, and hungry, but still determined, he climbed onto his horse, checked the load in the old shotgun, and then followed the others at some distance.

  When he gained the entrance to the little canyon he could see a fire blazing, a solid little wagon just like the one he’d driven into the lake, and a group of men gathered around something going on at the front of it. He didn’t see the mules or horses. He rode slowly closer, and through an opening in the circle of men he saw Leanda facing Courtland. Courtland’s arm swung and Leanda’s head snapped back, but she still faced him proudly. Courtland backhanded her a couple of times, and Jeremy stopped, full of conflicting emotions, shotgun butt-down on his knee.

  He heard Courtland give an order but couldn’t make out what it was. Several men approached Leanda, who fought like a cornered wildcat, lashing out with clawed hands, spitting, screaming obscenities.

  But they got hold of her, slammed her down on the wagon tongue, and lashed her there on her back. Courtland gave another order and the men grabbed hold of her clothes and began to rip them off her.

  Something snapped in Jeremy. Maybe it was that where he came from you didn’t treat women that way, or maybe it was resentment of all these people for costing him so much trouble, or maybe he had some idea it was his last chance to take back the gold. It wasn’t that he thought it through. Something just snapped and he went into action.

  He cocked both barrels of the shotgun and dug in his heels. The old gelding humped his back, then broke into a weary trot. The men were so intent on the piecemeal exposure of Leanda’s bare flesh that they didn’t hear him until he was nearly on them. As the first man started to spin around Jeremy dropped the reins, set the shotgun to his shoulder and let fly both barrels in close succession. Four men staggered under the onslaught, but several others spun on their heels and drew.

  Jeremy found himself rolling backwards and to one side, and that was the last he remembered.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Slowly he became aware of pain. Something in his right shoulder throbbed dully. He tried to move in hopes of relieving it, but everything else started hurting and he groaned, opening his eyes.

  He couldn’t recognize anything in the gray light of predawn, couldn’t remember where he was, but did remember riding at Courtland. He felt a sort of numbness in his right arm, looked at it and saw blood. Worried, he tried to work the arm and hand. It was usable but only to a very limited extent because of the pain. He found the source of the problem was a bullet hole in his shoulder. By the time he had established that the slug had gone right through, his movements had cracked open the wound and increased the
bleeding.

  Then he saw Leanda. She lay in a naked crumpled heap not far away. He struggled over to look at her. She was either asleep or unconscious, but she was breathing. She was mostly naked and there was not a lot left of her clothes. He tried to cover her as best he could. He shook her, but she did not wake up.

  He felt weak after this much exertion and rested for several minutes, looking around. The wagon was gone, no sign of Courtland’s men, and at first he thought even his old gelding had been taken—or had wandered off. But then he spotted the animal grazing a hundred yards away, saddle still on. He tried to whistle to him, but his lips were too dry and cracked. Calling was no better as he couldn’t get his voice much above a whisper. He felt tempted to just lie down and give up.

  His eye fell once more on Leanda. Her face was bruised, her lower lip swollen grotesquely. Yet in spite of that she was beautiful and gave the impression of innocence. It was hard to picture her in pursuit of gold or killing anybody. In any case, he supposed he had some responsibility for her, under the circumstances. He shook her again, as hard as he could, but still to no effect.

  He needed water, both to drink and to dowse her face with in the hope she would revive. He struggled up, stood swaying dizzily. Perhaps he’d lost a lot of blood. His shirt was soaked with it. He was still bleeding, he saw, and the sight of it scared him. He managed to get his shirt off, tear loose the right sleeve and plaster it over the wound. The pain this cost him was excruciating, but the blood was slowed down. He got the shirt back on, feeling thoroughly chilled, and hobbled along on sore limbs toward the horse.

  The old gelding didn’t like the smell of blood, but even so Jeremy managed to get himself aboard and rode in search of water, finally located some perhaps a mile away. When he returned, exhausted but no longer thirsty, with a wad of cool mud—he hadn’t thought to bring his canteen from the cabin—he found Leanda sitting up, her tatters pulled tight around her against the cool morning air.

  “Jeremy!” she said faintly. “Oh, Jeremy!” The gratitude in her voice was so overwhelming as to be out of character.

  Jeremy tossed down the mud in disgust, since it was no longer needed.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he said, hoarsely, somewhat above a whisper, looking off across the little canyon. He’d been ruminating on the idiocy of what he’d done the previous night, and now he was reminded of the wagonload of rocks he’d ridden over a cliff because of Leanda’s trickery. Besides, he hurt all over. It put him in a bad mood.

  “Are you going to rescue me?” she asked, almost coquettishly.

  “I guess,” he said, without enthusiasm. “I got to get to a sawbones pronto.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” she said, just as though she really cared. “Are you hurt real bad?”

  “If you’re ridin’ with me, you’d better get up here.” He wanted to cut short this conversation. Even talking hurt.

  She got unsteadily to her feet, her face twisting up as though against pain. Jeremy was jolted by the sight of what seemed quarts of blood on the rock where she’d been sitting. She came over to the horse gingerly, and Jeremy used his good arm to help her get up. After this was accomplished she held tightly to him. Both of them needed time to recover before starting.

  “Thirsty?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, so Jeremy went to the water before they headed back through the pass.

  They spoke very little until they’d made it to the cabin. They spent that night and more than half of the next day resting, eating, getting warm by the fire, fixing Leanda a decent set of clothes, and tending to their wounds. Leanda’s blood seemed never to stop. She said nothing about it, waved aside help from Jeremy. She weakened continually. Yet when they finally set off she revived enough to start talking.

  “I hope you don’t think I killed Blue—or anybody else,” she said earnestly, and went on at length explaining how Cork had shot Blue after an argument about the gold. “You believe me, don’t you, Jeremy?” she pleaded, clutching herself close behind him. When he declined to speak, being full of his own thoughts and weary of hearing her lies, she went on to say the wagonload of rocks trick was really Blue’s idea originally, that he’d set it up as a decoy because he figured somebody would find him sooner or later. She said it was entirely Cork’s idea to use it to get rid of Jeremy, and she had known nothing about it until afterwards. “You believe me, don’t you?” she begged again, and pressed herself against him quite hard.

  “That hurts,” he said, thinking he felt blood starting around the bandages.

  She let off some, crooning that she was so sorry. Then she started talking about how grateful she was to him for saving her life, and how she had always meant to do right by him, how she felt so close to him after all that happened, and so on and so forth, which Jeremy endured stoically, hoping silence would finally shut her up.

  She did run down after a while, and then her hold on him grew lighter and she started to slip sideways. Jeremy stopped her fall, and finding her unconscious, he drew up and used the end of his lariat to tie her hands together so her arms were around him. She did not come to for more than an hour, then lapsed again into unconsciousness. By the time Jeremy finally rode slowly and wearily into Parkersville two days later she appeared to be nearly gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sarah Hooper moved with quiet grace around the room, flicking her feather duster over the furniture. The morning sunlight poured through the windows and made bright patches on the floor, and turned Sarah’s hair into spun gold. The room was quiet. There were faint sounds of teamsters in the street below the windows, but the loudest sound was the whisking of Sarah’s feather duster.

  When she glanced his way Jeremy closed his eyes so she’d think he was still asleep. He was afraid to talk to her. He’d been here in her family’s house for more than a week and was feeling much recovered (though his wound would need more time to heal up), but he spent most of his waking hours fervently wishing the doctor hadn’t recently died leaving Sarah the only choice of help. He dreaded every contact with her—yet daydreamed about her constantly when she wasn’t in the room. She was a wonderful nurse and had done as good a job as any doctor could have for him, and she had accomplished something remarkable in keeping Leanda alive as well. But the kinder Sarah was, and the more circumspect, the worse it was for Jeremy. She made him feel ashamed.

  He listened to her working and could not resist opening his eyes to get a look at her—and found her gaze was fixed on him. Her serene countenance lit up warmly and she laid down the feather duster to come over to the bedside. Jeremy stared at her, helpless to take his eyes away.

  “You look better every day,” she said. “Are you ready for your breakfast?”

  Jeremy nodded, afraid to speak.

  “I think we should change that bandage this morning, too,” she said. “That can wait until after breakfast.” She paused, and he felt a painful heat rise in him for he knew what she would talk about next. “You will want to know,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “that your friend Leanda is still with us. It’s now been four days since there has been any bleeding and she seems to be holding her own. But she still has trouble keeping food down. And she never says anything.”

  He merely nodded. Every day he wanted to try to explain to her that Leanda was nothing to him, and every day the moment slipped by. So far he had made no explanation of any kind to Sarah, though he lived in terror that sometime Leanda would start talking.

  “I tell her how well you are doing,” Sarah said, and Jeremy saw the beginnings of care lines in her face. He could see these daily reports cost her something, too, and that made his own silence infinitely worse. It made him feel desperate—but what could he say that wouldn’t be worse than nothing?

  “I’m not sure how much she understands of what is said to her,” Sarah said, and she searched Jeremy’s face as though for help putting together her thoughts. She appeared close to asking something, but didn’t, and after a moment she turned away abruptly an
d went out. Jeremy realized he was sweating.

  As he lay there trying to relax and listening to the familiar sounds of Sarah moving around downstairs, the squeak of her semi-invalid father’s bedroom door, the heavy tread of her brother coming in from the cow shed, Jeremy felt emotion crowding up his throat. His eyes fell on the bedside table and the Bible Sarah had left there for him, and it reminded him of the old family Bible at home with his mother’s name in it which always made him wonder what she had looked like.

  He thought of his older brothers calling him a runt to tease him but drawing off an outlaw steer the time he was thrown and knocked cold, of his father saying that going gold hunting was a damfool notion but then giving him his own favorite horse to ride away on. And he got to thinking of the hands he’d worked with, of the way cattle were when you rode around them on a peaceful night singing quietly, of pulling some cow out of a bog hole and how good it felt to see her look glad to be set free. And there was going to town to get supplies and look in store windows, buy new boots or a hat or maybe some fancy spurs you’d saved up for. And nothing came up to breaking a horse you knew was going to turn out to be one of the best.

  It all seemed so good but so far away. And why? Because like a fool he’d up and left it. To go gold hunting. Pa didn’t have stacks of gold bars anywhere, but he had a ranch and men who looked up to him and everybody had enough to eat and spare.

  Jeremy sat up in bed. He wanted to go home. Right now. Being around Sarah only made it hard for her and hard for him. He could never tell her the truth, and the idea of lying to her was intolerable. It was plain he had to leave, and the sooner the better.

  When Sarah came in with breakfast, Jeremy was dressed.

  “Oh, my goodness, Jeremy,” Sarah said, startled. “I don’t think you ought to be out of bed until your shoulder heals a bit more. It’s knitting together so well it would be a shame to disturb it.”