by John Glasby
Edging back into the trees, he threw the saddle back on to the horse, pulled the cinch tight under its belly, then hauled himself weakly into the saddle, pulling hard on the reins as he walked the horse back among the trees, away from the ridge. Once out of the grove, he deliberately rode over the roughest, hardest ground he could find determined to leave no prints for the posse to follow. Riding down into another long, narrow valley, he chose a wrinkle-edged ravine and rode through it, his mount’s shoes striking hard on the solid rock underfoot. The steep-sided walls rose sheer on either side of him, shutting him in, but providing him with cover at the same time. Threading his way over the gravelly bed of the ravine, through the high-walled rock fissures, moulded in a bygone age, he came out of the ravine, just as the grey glow in the east was beginning to be tinged with red as the sun lifted just beyond the horizon.
In his mind, he was not exactly sure what he was going to do even if he did manage to keep ahead of Cantry and his men. How far the lawman’s jurisdiction stretched beyond Culver City, he didn’t know. But he figured that the other had only to mention to the sheriff of the next town who the stranger was and he would either find himself in jail again or have to fight his way out. At the moment, in his weakened state, he did not relish either course.
His shadow ran behind him, shorter and shorter as the sun lifted clear of the horizon, red at first but soon brightening to yellow and then white. He drowsed now in the saddle, head falling forward on to his chest, the throbbing in his skull having subsided into a dull, continuous ache now that was almost as agonising as the pain he had felt earlier. Gradually, the country lifted from its flatness and he rode into a more rugged stretch of ground, interspersed with huge boulders and rising standstone buttes that glowed redly in the fierce sunlight. Slowly, the heat head reached its piled-up intensity. The bright flaming splashes as the sunlight struck the metal parts of his bridle, sending them lancing into his eyes only served to increase the hurt in his mind and body. Stirring himself, he reversed his neckpiece over the lower half of his face. There was still a hot wind blowing across this desert place, sending stray eddies whirling over the ground, kicking up the itching, irritating grains of dust into his face, clogging eyes and ears and nose, getting into his mouth and nostrils.
Here and there among the rolling dunes and dry clay gulches, he came across a lone pine tree which stood as a warning sentinel to the hills which now lay sprawled across the skyline to the west. Bulky and high, they lifted their long, undulating length above the desertlands, looming over them. But as the long morning dragged by on leaden, heat-filled feet with the sun climbing to its zenith and then beginning on the long, slow slide down to the west, the hills seemed just as far away from him as they had been when he had started out towards them shortly after dawn.
But the flat country enabled him to keep an eye on the trail at his back and the further he rode, the more convinced he was, that he had thrown the posse off the scent by heading out in this direction. He saw no tell-tale grey clouds of dust behind him which would have indicated a group of hard-riding men. Gradually, he allowed the horse to slow its pace and it picked its way forward with head lowered.
Shortly before three o’clock in the afternoon, with the terrible, scorching heat bringing the sweat boiling out on his body, mingling with the dust on his flesh, he came in sight of a narrow creek, shallow but still with water flowing along the bottom of it, over a smooth stone bed. He climbed stiffly and wearily from the saddle, went down on to his stomach, forced himself to ignore the beating pain in his skull as he stretched out and half-buried his face under the water. He drank thirstily, washed some of the dust from his face, felt the mask crack and his face sting as the water touched the scorched flesh beneath. Finished, he filled his water bottle, then let the horse drink, watching as it pushed its muzzle completely under the water to drink, a sure sign of a thoroughbred.
Wetting his bandana, he tried to wipe away most of the dried blood which had congealed on the side of his head. His left eye still felt as if it were on fire and the brilliant sunlight sent stabs of pain lancing through into his skull whenever he tried to focus it on anything. That blow on the head, or the slug which had creased his forehead, must have done something to it, he decided after a while. Climbing, stiff-legged, to the top of a low rise, he stared back along the way he had come. The desert was empty and the middle-down sun burned on the back of his neck and shoulders like an open flame, turning the distant horizons a bluish-yellow that was hurting to the vision. The ground shimmered all about him as if he were viewing it through a layer of constantly moving water.
Satisfied that there was no one on the trail, he went back to the creek, stretched himself down in the shade of one of the rocks, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and forced himself to relax, grateful for the chance to rest a while and do a little thinking. So far he had been on the run to clear himself from the weight of the posse that Sheriff Cantry had got up against him, well knowing that he could never have bucked the whole outfit even if he had managed to take them from ambush and by surprise.
He experienced again his hatred of the world, his contempt for the law which had hounded him across half a dozen states. All he wanted now was to get someplace where he was not known, where he could build up a band of men who could defy the law. He had led such a band once, but the Texas Rangers had smashed them, trapped them in a gully which had overlooked the railroad. There had been more lawmen riding the train they had intended to rob and he had been the only one to escape with his life. Two other members of the gang, badly injured in the gunfight, had been taken to Tucson, tried, and hanged for their part in the attempted hold-up. Now there was a reward of five thousand dollars for the capture of Ed Turrell, dead or alive. He turned slightly on the ground, lay on his side, closed his eyes and was asleep within moments.
When the sunlight came around the edge of the rock, burning in his eyes, he woke, stretched himself, drank from the creek once more, then bent to tighten the cinch, climbed up into the saddle and put his mount to the narrow, rocky trail on the far side of the creek. In time, the trail widened and he reached a stage road, clearly marked by the imprint of the wheels in the dusty earth. Gigging his mount, he started the slow climb into the benchlands of the hills, now dark and shadowed by the setting sun. As he rode, the heat of the day was dissipated by the flowing coolness that swept down at him from the hills. He breathed it in with grateful breaths, filling his lungs with it, feeling the sweat turn cold on his back and chest. The horse increased its gait as if sensing that they were close to the end of the trail.
Just as the sun vanished behind the looming crests of the hills, the sky and the world turning blue all about him, filled with the night smells of the tall hills and ridges, he turned a bend in the trail and came in sight of the town, perhaps half a mile distant, on the far side of a wide river that wound down from the point where it was born high in the hills.
The town was set out in a haphazard manner on a wide bench of flat ground which fronted the desert and was backed by the looming backdrop of the hills. The main street was a continuation of the trail which he had followed for the past two hours. It ran arrow-straight through the centre of the town, dividing it into two almost equal halves, and then disappeared into the gloom that lay across the foothills.
The long shadows lay deep on the town as he rode over the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the river. Here and there, he saw a yellow light in a window of one of the wooden shacks which lined the main street of the town. There were few men on the street for it was almost supper time and he guessed that most of them were in the restaurants and saloons. As he walked his mount slowly along the street, he kept switching his gaze from side to side until he spotted the place he was looking for. The faded wooden sign above the door said: ‘Clancy Foster, MD.’
Making a mental note of its position, he rode on until he came to the livery stables where he dismounted, led his horse inside. A weather-beaten individual drifted out of the gloom at
the rear of the building, gave him a glance of open curiosity, then took the reins as Turrell held them out to him.
‘The terms are a dollar fifty a day,’ grunted the other surlily.
‘I’ll probably be ridin’ on out tomorrow,’ Turrell said. He handed over two dollars. ‘Throw in an extra feed and a rub down.’
The groom glanced at the coins, then nodded slowly, led the horse away to the stalls. Turrell went out into the street, stood with his back against one of the wooden posts and rolled himself a smoke. The dust in his throat, lining it all the way down, gave the smoke no flavour, but it gave him the opportunity to watch the street and survey the town, eyes alert for trouble.
During the ten minutes that he stood there in the shadows, he saw only three men in the street. One lit out of town as if all the devils in hell were at his back. The other two moved slowly across the street from one of the small eating houses to the saloon. There was a cool current of air flowing along the main street now and it took the sting of the day’s heat from him. Dropping the stub of the cigarette on to the ground, he crushed it out under his heel, moved off along the street to the doctor’s place. Rapping sharply on the door, he waited. For a long moment there was no sound inside the building and he was on the point of knocking again when the light snapped on in the room and there was a sound of footsteps just beyond the door. It opened a moment later and he saw the pale grey blur of a face peering out at him, eyes wide behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses.
‘Who is it?’ queried a harsh voice.
‘Open up,’ Turrell said hoarsely. ‘I need your help.’
The other hesitated, then opened the door and stood to one side for him to enter. The doctor glanced hurriedly up and down the street before closing the door behind him.
‘Go through into the room,’ said the other, pointing the way.
Turrell stepped inside, blinking against the light of the lamp on the table. Then he turned and eyed the other intently. There was a look of veiled suspicion on the doctor’s lean features, then his gaze drifted to the guns in Turrell’s holsters and his lips tightened a shade.
‘What is it you want of me?’ asked the other. The dignity was a little too contrived.
‘I need some doctorin’,’ grunted Turrell. ‘That sign outside means you’re a doctor, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’ The other moved forward as Turrell removed his hat. Then he nodded slowly. ‘You’d better sit down and I’ll take a look at that. What was it? A bullet?’
‘Both that and a knock on the head from a gun butt,’ Turrell said. He sat down in the chair at the table, blinked against the lamplight. The doctor noticed this but gave no outward sign. Going over to the door leading into the other room, he paused sharply as Turrell said thinly: ‘Hold it there, Doc. Where do you reckon you’re goin’?’
Foster shrugged his shoulders, kept his hand on the doorknob. ‘I’ll need my instruments for this. You seem strung up about something, stranger. A posse on your trail?’
‘Why’d you say that?’
For a moment, Turrell’s right hand hovered close to the butt of the Colt at his waist. The other’s expression did not change as he noticed the movement. There was a faint smile on his thin lips as he said calmly: ‘You’ve got that hunted look about you, mister. There’s the smell of gunsmoke on you.’ He opened the door slowly. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t intend to give you away to the sheriff. So far as I’m concerned, you’re just here for treatment. That’s as far as it goes with me.’
With an effort, Turrell forced himself to relax. ‘Go ahead and get your instruments,’ he said tautly. ‘But no tricks, or you’ll regret it.’
The other disappeared into the other room, came back a minute later with a black bag which he set down on the table in front of him. ‘I’ll boil some water and then take a look at that head wound.’
Turrell lifted his left hand and touched the side of his skull gingerly. It still hurt as he ran his fingertips over the torn flesh, but it had stopped bleeding. Sucking in a sharp breath, he watched closely as the other busied himself with a pan of water on the fire in the wide hearth. When it was boiling, he poured it into an enamel basin, carried it over to the table. Dipping the corner of a towel into the water, he began to bathe the side of Turrell’s head. Pain tore through his skull and it was all he could do to keep himself from crying out aloud with the sheer agony of it. Gritting his teeth, he tasted salt on his lower lip where he had bitten into it. His hands were clenched so tightly that the nails dug deeply into the flesh of his palms, but he was scarcely aware of the pain.
‘You’re lucky to be still alive,’ said the other after a pause. ‘An inch to the right and that slug would have gone through your brain.’
‘Could be that’s what they were aimin’ to do,’ he muttered grimly.
‘I sort of figured you’d been in a gunfight,’ went on the other softly. He hesitated, then said: ‘That eye of yours. Does the light hurt you when you look at it?’
‘Seems like it’s on fire.’
The doctor stepped back from the table, then held up the forefinger on his right hand. ‘Close your right and watch my finger with your left,’ he ordered. ‘Keep watching it.’
Gently, he moved his finger from one side to the other. Turrell tried to follow the movement, then drew in a sharp intake of air as a stab of agony lanced through his head.
Nodding, Foster said: ‘That slug must have caused more damage than you thought. Probably it glanced off the skull bone before tearing through the skin. Can you see properly out of it, or does everything look blurred and dim?’
The question was almost a physical shock to Turrell. He turned his head swiftly and stared at the other. ‘You’ve got somethin’ on your mind, Doc. What is it?’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to lose the sight of that eye, mister. I’ve seen cases like this before.’
Turrell said nothing for a long moment. He was vaguely aware of the numb, throbbing ache inside his head, like a hammer striking a continuous tattoo on a padded wall. Gradually, the news penetrated his mind. ‘You mean I’m goin’ to be blind?’
‘Only in the one eye. The other is perfectly all right.’ Foster smiled thinly. ‘Try to tell yourself that you’re lucky to be still alive. I think I can guarantee that you’ll soon get over the other wound. A week or so and you won’t know you’ve had it.’
Turrell felt the sweat on his face, trickling down his cheeks and running into his eyes. When Foster had finished dressing his wound, he got to his feet, swaying a little and holding on to the edge of the table to steady himself.
‘You’d better stay here for the night,’ suggested the other. ‘In your present condition you won’t get very far.’
‘How much do I owe you for this, Doc?’ he said harshly, as if he had not heard what the other had said.
Foster shrugged his shoulders. ‘A couple of dollars,’ he said tightly.
Turrell pulled the coins from his pocket and tossed them on to the table in front of him. Turning abruptly on his heel, he strode to the door, jerked it open with a savage movement, walked quickly along the hall and out through the street door into the dusk. He needed a drink.
His footsteps echoed hollowly on the wood-slatted boardwalk as he moved along the fronts of the buildings. Pushing open the swing doors of the saloon, he went inside. There were a couple of men standing at the bar and four more seated around one of the tables playing faro. He gave them a cursory glance, then walked to the bar, lifted a finger to the barkeep and waited for the drink to come. He took the whiskey quick, poured another and lingered over this one. The raw spirit burned his throat, but it made him feel better.
Back in the street, he caught the odour of food from the eating house on the corner of the street and the effect on him was so sharp that it was almost a physical pain in his mouth. A small group of men strolled out of the place as he made to go in, brushing closely by him. They all gave him bright-sharp glances that were quite noticeable things, m
aking him wonder a little. Had any men from Culver City arrived here before him? There had seemed to be more than just interest in their looks.
He passed inside, chose a table where he could both watch the door and see through the window, and let the stiffness of a long day in the saddle seep slowly from his taut muscles and limbs. It felt good to sit and stretch his legs beneath the table. The place was almost empty now. Most of the tables were clean and near the counter there were only three still with the supper dishes piled on them. He noticed all this in the few moments before the Chinese cook came over.
‘Got anythin’ left to eat?’ Turrell asked.
‘Some,’ agreed the other. His features bore the Oriental’s inscrutability. If he considered that Turrell was a stranger and wondered about the bandage on his head, he showed no sign whatever. ‘Lamb stew, fried potatoes, cabbage.’
‘Everythin’,’ Turrell said. ‘I’m starvin’. It’s been a long day on the trail.’
