A Gideon Johann Boxed Set Book 1 - 4 (A Gideon Johann Western 0)

by Duane Boehm

  After riding for a couple of hours at a trot for most of that time, Gideon and Jack came around a big hill and saw a man they presumed to be Willard Ramsey watering his horse in a small creek. The man saw them at the same time and quickly jumped up, using his horse as a shield. He disappeared up a gully coming off the hill.

  “This is not good,” Gideon said as they looked for cover before turning around to get behind the hill.

  “What now?” Jack asked as they brought the horses to a stop.

  “I wish we had an idea what that gulch looks like. He might be able to climb the wall of that thing and shoot us from here. I’ll climb the hill and see if I can get a drop on him,” Gideon said.

  The hill presented a steep climb for Gideon, his boots finding poor footing navigating the surface, and provided very little protection except for a few crops of rock. He had climbed about three quarters of the way up the hill when he saw Ramsey’s head and rifle pop up out of the gully not thirty yards away. Gideon hurled himself behind a small ledge of rocks as the first shot kicked up dirt. The rock outcrop was so small that it forced him to lie flat to keep from exposing himself and every time he tried to peek out, he was greeted with a bullet spinning his direction.

  “Can you see him? He’s got me pinned down,” Gideon hollered to Jack.

  “No, there’s too much curve to the hill,” Jack answered.

  “Damn, I may have to wait until dark to get out of this mess,” Gideon yelled back.

  “To hell with this. I’m tired of tracking his sorry ass,” Jack said as he pulled his rifle from the scabbard and put his heels to his horse.

  Jack rounded the hill and charged up the gully, aiming his rifle at Ramsey as he rode. In his peripheral vision, Ramsey caught sight of Jack and spun to face him. The two men started shooting at each other as fast as they could cock their rifles.

  Gideon listened to the ensuing war until complete silence abruptly fell upon the land. He called out to Jack, but received no reply. Peeking his head over the rock, he saw no sign of Ramsey. Panic made his heart race and Gideon ran to the edge of the ravine with his revolver drawn. He saw Ramsey lying sprawled down at the bottom of the gully and Jack slumped over his horse. Crawling over the edge, Gideon walked and slid to the bottom of the gulch. He flipped the lifeless body of Ramsey over and spotted a bullet hole in the outlaw’s forehead. Running to Jack, the old trapper sat up in the saddle. His chest was drenched in blood and each beat of his heart squirted out more.

  “Did I kill the son of a bitch?’ Jack asked.

  “He’s dead. Jack, let’s get you off that horse. You’re hurt bad,” Gideon said.

  “No, you’ll never get me back in the saddle and I don’t want to be buried in this godawful place. Would you bury me by that lake where I’ve been living? Would you do that for me, Gideon?” Jack said.

  “Jack, we’ve got to get you to a doctor,” Gideon said as his hope began to fade with each squirt of blood from Jack’s chest.

  “Gideon, you’re a good boy. I always liked you and you always did right by me. I can’t think of anybody that I’d rather have been with on my last ride. You can have all my possessions. Do I have your word on my burial?” Jack said.

  Gideon reached up and took Jack’s blood covered hand. “You have my word. Jack, I’m sorry I got you into this mess. I should have handled this myself.”

  Jack began slowly slumping in the saddle. “Nothing to be sorry for. I came because I wanted to. A man needs an adventure every now and then to know that he’s really alive. I’d rather die this way than freeze to death some winter because I got too old to take care of myself. You can tell a story about Farting Jack Dolan every once in a while so that my memory can live on, okay?” he whispered.

  “I’ll do it. You go trap you some beaver and keep me a place warm at the campfire,” Gideon said as Jack draped over the horse’s neck.

  Realizing that Jack was gone, Gideon turned and kicked a rock. He tried fighting back the tears, but the last couple of years had changed him into a man that no longer possessed the stoicism to hold them at bay. Jack was the first person in a long time that Gideon had been close to that had died and the loss overwhelmed him to the point of having to sit down on the ground and collect himself. Guilt soon replaced the mourning. He chastised himself for having ever asked Jack to come along and lamented the fact that sometimes the most seemingly inconsequential decision could have such drastic outcomes.

  Once he regained his composure, Gideon tied Jack onto his saddle. He couldn’t lift Ramsey onto his horse so he covered him in rocks where he fell. Stringing the horses together, he started on his journey back to Santa Fe.

  Dusk was settling onto the town by the time Gideon reached the sheriff’s office. The sheriff helped him get Jack’s body off the horse and sent a deputy to get a tarp. They wrapped Jack in it and then tied him across the saddle. The sheriff tried to persuade Gideon to stay the night, even offering his home, but Gideon wanted only to ride. He gave Ramsey’s horse and guns to the sheriff, thanked him, and rode away with his mind in a stupor.

  He pushed himself and Buck as hard as he dared on the trip back to the lake. He occasionally stopped for a couple of hours to nap and maybe eat before again pushing on down the trail. Both he and his horse were thinner from the pace, but Gideon had little appetite. Burying Jack and getting home were all that he cared about.

  Having arrived at the lake at sunrise, he found a shovel in the tepee and began digging the grave by the lakeside. The soil was soft and he made good time on digging the hole. Fatigue had set in to the point that Gideon could barely think, but he refused to rest until satisfied that the grave was suitable for burying Jack. He pulled the body down from the horse and rolled Jack into the grave.

  “Jack, I hope we meet up again someday. I believe we will. You were a good one and you taught me a lot. Happy trapping,” Gideon said and began shoveling dirt into the hole.

  After filling the hole, Gideon intended to make a grave marker, but he staggered with exhaustion walking towards the horses to unsaddle them and realized that he couldn’t push any further. He turned the horses loose and crawled into the tepee. Sleep overcame him within minutes.

  When Gideon awoke, the sun was getting low in the west. He grabbed Jack’s fishing pole and the worms that he had saved while digging the grave and walked down to the lake. The fish were apparently as hungry as he was and he caught a couple within a half–hour. By the time he cleaned them and had a fire burning, darkness was settling in. The fish tasted about as good as any food he had had in his life, and with his belly full, he felt like a living person again. He retrieved a bar of soap from his saddlebag, stripped down naked, and walked into the lake. The water was cold and he cursed loudly before plunging completely in. As he scrubbed, the rough soap felt good against his skin as if he were peeling off layers of dirt, and he began to sing. After washing his hair, he scampered to the fire to dry before dressing. With nobody to talk with and nothing to do, he went back to the tepee and fell asleep.

  He slept through the night. In the morning, he fashioned a crude cross from a couple of tree branches and bound them with a strip of leather. He carved Jack’s name into the wood the best that he could with his knife and planted the cross into the ground. Giving his work one final look, he walked back to the tepee. Jack was a man of very few possessions. Gideon kept the old trapper’s knife, guns, and a deerskin coat with beadwork that Jack bought years ago from a Ute squaw. The coat fit so he left it on. He inhaled the scent of the jacket, a combination of leather and pipe smoke, and felt better about leaving Jack.

  After saddling the horses, Gideon rode off thinking about Farting Jack Dolan. The old trapper would be forgotten in another generation even though he had played a part in the settling of Colorado. Jack certainly was the finest tracker Gideon had known and the only loner he had ever come across that liked to talk a blue streak when in company. Gideon knew that he had had the honor of knowing a man that died a true original and he felt the l
oss keenly. He smelled the jacket again and tried to focus on getting home to his family.

  Chapter 14

  Gideon finally arrived back in Last Stand in the afternoon and found Doc, John Hamilton, and Finnie sitting in front of the jail. John had felt well enough to leave the doctor’s office for the first time that day and sat beside his father on the bench. Finnie sat in a chair, leaning back against the wall on two legs, looking the picture of contentment.

  Eyeing the three men with begrudging admiration, Gideon said, “Good to see that the town is in such fine shape that the deputy and the doctor can rest on their laurels and asses in front of my jail. How have things been?”

  “Well, hello to you too. The town’s been quiet since you left if you don’t count Mary on the warpath. When I learned I have a child on the way, I somehow made a mess of it,” Finnie said.

  “Imagine that,” Gideon replied sarcastically.

  “Isn’t that Farting Jack’s horse?” Finnie said, ignoring the mockery.

  “It is. He died helping me catch Ramsey. I don’t feel like talking about it right now. In fact, I don’t feel like talking at all. I just want to go home to cleanup and see my wife and kids,” Gideon said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Gideon,” Finnie said.

  “John, I’m glad to see that you’re up and getting around,” Gideon said before nudging Buck into a walk.

  As Gideon disappeared down the street, Doc turned to Finnie and said, “I take it that Mary hasn’t calmed down from your blunder?”

  “No, I’m still sleeping on the cot in the jail. She won’t even talk to me. That woman may be an orphan and have no idea about her family, but I can assure you she has Irish in her. Only an Irish woman can stay mad as long as she does,” Finnie said.

  “Or maybe it takes an Irishman to infuriate a woman so badly that they stay mad no matter their heritage,” Doc said.

  Finnie chuckled and said, “You may have a point there. We do seem to be a troublesome bunch. Have you talked to her?”

  “I’ve talked to her, but when I brought up your name, she cut me off like a hatchet on the poor chicken’s neck,” Doc said.

  Finnie leaned over and looked at John. “Since you seem to be the only one of us here that has successfully navigated the slippery slope of courting a woman, do you have any advice?”

  “I find that the phrase ‘Yes, dear’ goes a long ways in solving most problems,” John said.

  The three men exploded into laughter. Finnie slapped his leg and the motion caused the reclining chair to slide out from under him, sending him crashing down onto the sidewalk to the chorus of more laughter.

  As Finnie stood, he said, “I don’t know why I act like this is so funny. If I don’t get Mary to come around, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Give her some time. She’ll come around, but you have to handle things better when you get your chance,” Doc said.

  “I surely hope so,” Finnie said as he dusted off.

  “Speaking of your wife, you haven’t told me much about her,” Doc remarked.

  John’s face lit up. “Kate was a waitress at this café that all of us Harvard boys liked to frequent. We all had quite the high opinion of ourselves and Kate would skewer us like a pig on a spit. I found it absolutely charming. I’d been told all my life how our family wasn’t like the common laborers and that it was best to be with our own kind. I expected quite the row when I told Mother that I was seeing her, but she never once said anything disparaging. She and Mother grew to be quite close. Of course Grandfather had passed by then. He would have had a conniption fit if he were still living. Anyway, we are quite happy.”

  “There seems to be a lot of women that like to skewer men. Abby and Sarah both keep Gideon and Ethan on their toes too. And poor old Zack, I feel for him,” Finnie said.

  “It’s because you all like challenging women. It’s not a coincidence. There’s plenty of demure women. You all just aren’t interested in them,” Doc said.

  “For a lifelong bachelor, you sure think that you know a lot about women,” Finnie said.

  “A lot can be learned by sitting back and watching all you fools,” Doc reminded him.

  “How about I tell you about my children,” John said to change the subject. “Henry, being the oldest, is too serious for his own good and he is smart. I believe that he’ll go far. Rose is the bossy one of the bunch. She’s smart too and rules the roost. And then there’s Tad. He came along after we thought we were done with all that nonsense of raising children. I swear I believe that he could turn out to be an outlaw. Everybody has coddled him far too much, I fear.”

  “It sounds as if you have a nice family, John. I hope I get to meet them someday,” Doc said.

  “Oh, I insist. We need to get to know each other and plan for it,” John said.

  Melancholy settled over Finnie. “I hope that I get to know my own child. Mary may kill me before it’s born.”

  ∞

  Winnie and Chance played in the yard as Gideon rode up to the cabin. Chance began crying and Winnie let out a shriek at seeing the scruffy bearded man in the deer skinned coat.

  “It’s me, your daddy,” Gideon said as he climbed down from Buck.

  Abby came flying out of the cabin at the sound of her children and saw her husband standing by the horses. “Thank God, you’re back. I’ve been worried sick about you. I didn’t think you’d be gone so long,” she said as she walked to Gideon and hugged him.

  “It’s been a long trip for sure and not a good one,” Gideon said as he scooped up Chance. The child stopped crying after hearing his father’s voice and held out his hands to touch Gideon’s beard. Gideon put his hand on Winnie’s shoulder and walked to the porch where he sat down on the swing.

  “So what happened and where did you get that jacket?” Abby asked as she sat beside her husband.

  Gideon filled his wife in all that had transpired on the trip and how he came into his new possessions.

  “I’m sorry, Gideon. I know that Jack meant a lot to you,” she said.

  “I never should’ve asked him to go with me. I got him killed,” he said.

  “Honey, Jack doesn’t sound like the type of man that did anything that he didn’t want to do. I’m sure he was lonely and enjoyed the company. He had to know the danger. You were just being a friend,” Abby said.

  “I’d hate to be my enemy then,” Gideon remarked.

  “Gideon, stop it. You’ve been down this path before and nobody knows better than you that guilt gets you nowhere. His death is unfortunate, but you didn’t cause it. Please stop. You scare me when you get like this,” Abby pleaded.

  Gideon wrapped his arm around his wife and pulled her against him. “I’ll try, but it’s hard letting him go. They don’t make men like Jack anymore. He was an original.”

  “You know that if you’d give up this sheriffing business, you wouldn’t have to deal with things like Jack getting killed,” Abby said.

  “We’ve already been over this. It’s what I’m good at doing. Besides, I’d have to worry about Finnie being all on his own if I quit,” Gideon said.

  “What about the children and me if something happens to you?” Abby asked.

  “Nothing is going to happen to me and with the reward money and your money, you’d probably have a line of suitors waiting at your door before I got good and cold,” Gideon said, poking her in the ribs and making her smile.

  “You need to take a bath and shave. You smell like a goat,” Abby teased.

  “I think I’m going to leave my mustache. I haven’t worn one in years,” Gideon said.

  “Not if you’re planning on kissing me. I can kiss the dog if I want to feel whiskers. I like my man’s face to feel like a baby’s butt,” Abby said.

  Gideon cackled. “I’m not sure that’s the image I want my wife to have when she’s kissing me.”

  Chapter 15

  Early morning light washed over the town, turning the interior of the jail into a s
hadowy gray. Finnie opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling as he tried to will himself awake. He sensed someone watching him even though he had not heard the bell above the door ring. Once before he had been waylaid in the jail and his heartbeat quickened. His holster hung beside him and he made a grab for his revolver. As he sat up, he could see the silhouette of someone standing by the desk.

  “Don’t shoot me. I don’t have a gun,” a girl’s voice called out.

  “Move over by the door,” Finnie ordered.

  He waited until the girl moved before striking a match and lighting an oil lamp. Standing before Finnie was a girl that looked to be in her teens. She stood a little taller than average and rawboned, giving her arms and legs the appearance of being unusually long. Clothed in a worn out dress, the garment did nothing for her already plain features. Her feet were bare and her arms and legs showed scratches as if she had run through a briar batch.

  “What are you doing in here?” Finnie asked.

  “I need to see the sheriff,” the girl answered.

  “I’m Deputy Finnegan Ford. You can talk to me,” Finnie said.

  “I know who you are. You live in sin at the saloon with that whore. I’ll wait for the sheriff,” she said matter–of–factly.

  “Watch your mouth, young lady. There’s no need for talk like that. What’s your name?” Finnie said.

  “Charlotte Bell,” she answered.

  “Well, have a seat, Charlotte. The sheriff will be here directly,” Finnie said before beginning the process of making coffee.

  Gideon walked into the jail an hour later to find Charlotte and Finnie sitting in chairs facing his desk. Finnie sipped coffee and looked agitated.