by Ralph Cotton
As soon as the rear door closed behind the two men, Sara turned to the doctor with a stunned look on her face.
“My God,” she said, “where did Kern find—”
“No time to talk!” the doctor replied in a rushed voice. “Go lock the back door.”
Sara did as she was told. When she returned to the surgery room, Dr. Washburn had thrown back the sheet from the woman’s face and stood staring down at her intently
“Don’t worry. They’re gone,” he said to the battered face. “You can stop pretending.”
Sara gasped in surprise to see the woman’s eyelids flutter slightly and try to open against the dark swelling that surrounded them.
“Oh my!” Sara said. “She’s not dead.”
“No,” said the doctor, “she’s still with us. Aren’t you, dear?”
The woman made a moaning sound that would have to do for the moment.
“Did you hear us talking from the hallway?” the doctor asked. “You covered yourself when you knew we’d be coming in?”
With much effort, the woman managed to nod her head slightly. “I—I recognized . . . the voice,” she managed to say in a weak and raspy voice. “They . . . did this.”
The doctor and Sara Cayes gave each other a troubled look.
“They’re nothing but murdering, back-shooting rapists,” Sara said, horrified.
“They are also Marshal Emerson Kern’s deputies,” said the doctor, “at a time when Kern is disarming this whole town.”
Jennings stopped dead in his tracks on the way back to the marshal’s office, turning to Philbert. “You go on. I’ve got to go to the jake.”
Philbert looked at him, recognizing the tightly drawn expression on his face.
“Has that little strawberry dove got you all steamed up, Buck the Mule?” he asked in a lowered voice.
“Don’t you say nothing like that to me,” said Jennings, getting upset. “I told you I have to go to the jake. That’s all I have to do.”
“All right, go on to the privy,” said Philbert. “I’ll be at the marshal’s office. I want to tell Jason about the dead woman.” He grinned. “He’s going to be real surprised to hear it.” He walked on as Jennings veered away toward the privies in the alley behind the row of shops and buildings.
Inside the surgery room, Dr. Washburn and Sara Cayes stood over the woman on the gurney as she came around. She’d managed to hold her swollen eyes open long enough to tell the doctor a little bit about what had happened to her and her husband out on the high trails. When she’d finished, Sara leaned in close and held her hand.
“You rest now,” Sara said. “Doc Washburn and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
But as the woman drifted back to sleep, Sara gave him a worried look. After they’d walked a few feet away, Sara whispered, “What if they come back?”
“She mustn’t be here for long, Sara,” the doctor whispered in reply. “Can you keep her at the widow’s shack?”
“Of course I can keep her there,” said Sara. “Sherman won’t mind sleeping on the floor. Neither will I.”
“Bless you, Sara,” Washburn said. He patted her shoulder. “I’m going to put her in my buggy. With the top up, nobody will see her in there.”
“All right,” said Sara. “I’ll go make sure there’s nobody snooping around back there.”
While the doctor walked back to the gurney, Sara hurried to the rear of the house and looked through a window. At the hitch rail, the doctor’s buggy still sat where he’d left it. But Dahl’s horse, which Sara had ridden bareback from the shack, was missing. She finally spotted the big dun hitched near the open door of a barn thirty yards from the doctor’s backyard.
When she looked more closely, Sara recognized Buck the Mule Jennings peep out from the shaded darkness of the open doorway. A chill went up Sara’s spine. She turned and hurried back to the surgery room just as the doctor had started to scoop the wounded woman up into his arms.
“Doc Washburn, wait,” she said. “There’s a trap waiting out back.”
“A trap . . . ?” Leaving the injured woman on the gurney, he turned and followed Sara to the rear window and looked out.
“There, see him?” Sara said, the two of them huddled at the edge of the window curtain, peeping out.
“Yes, I see that low-down scoundrel,” said the doctor. He looked all around to make sure the big dirty gunman was alone. Pulling his face back from the edge of the window, he sighed in frustration.
“One thing’s for certain, we can’t send you two off to the widow’s while he’s back there waiting for you to come get the horse.”
“Yes,” said Sara. “Once I get close enough for him to grab me, he plans on pulling me into the barn.”
“That’s clearly his plan,” said Washburn, his rage growing. “If only I were a younger man, I’d go give him the thrashing he deserves.” He clenched his fists at his side, his shirtsleeves still hanging loose and unbuttoned.
“No, you stay right here,” said Sara. “He’ll leave in due time, once he sees I’m not coming for the horse.” She looked back out for a second, seeing only the toes of Jennings’ boots in a slice of sunlight at the open barn doorway.
“You’re right, of course,” the doctor said, letting his anger settle a little. “We can outwait him. He has no interest in the woman now anyway. His only concern is to get you within his reach.”
“While he’s in the barn,” Sara said, “I’m going to slip out the front door and go tell Sherman what’s going on.”
“Yes, certainly, you go ahead. He needs to know,” the doctor said. “I’ll wait here with this poor woman.”
“Will you both be safe, Doctor?” Sara asked.
“Oh yes, we’ll be safe,” said the doctor. “I have a loaded gun in a desk drawer. Don’t worry about us.”
“Then I’m gone, Doctor,” Sara said. She turned and walked toward the front door.
“You be careful, child,” the doctor said, walking right behind her.
After he’d made certain that Sara had slipped unnoticed along the street toward the edge of town, Dr. Washburn went to his office and took a .36-caliber Navy Colt from a bottom desk drawer. He hefted the gun in the palm of his hand.
“It’s sure been a long time since I’ve come calling on you,” he said to the blue brass-trimmed revolver.
Sherman Dahl stood leaning against the door of the widow’s shack, his Winchester rifle propped against the doorjamb, when he saw Sara cross the town limits and step into the weedy rock-strewn front yard.
“I was starting to worry about you,” he said as Sara walked up toward the porch. Recognizing the worry on her face, he asked, “Are you all right? Is the woman going to make it?”
“I’m all right,” Sara said. “The woman is alive. That’s as well as can be expected, the shape she’s in.” She stepped onto the porch and said, “Two new deputies came to the doctor’s office. She played dead while they were there. When they were gone, she told us she recognized their voices. They’re the men who did all this to her.”
“Deputies, huh . . . ?” Dahl appeared only slightly surprised.
“Yes, deputies,” Sara repeated. “Thank God they thought she was dead. I believe if they hadn’t, they would have killed not only her, but the doctor and me as well.”
Dahl only nodded, gazing past her and in the direction of the doctor’s office on the main street.
“Where’s my horse?” he asked quietly.
Sara drew a tense breath and let it out slowly. She told him everything, about how Buck the Mule hitched the dun near an open barn door in order to lure her in close enough to grab her.
“He has my horse,” Dahl said flatly.
“Yes, to lure me in,” she repeated. “But it didn’t work, and see? I’m okay,” she added quickly, not liking the change she saw coming over Dahl’s icy blue eyes.
“And these are the marshal’s deputies?” he asked.
“That’s what they said,” Sara rep
lied. “I believe them.” She quickly changed the subject, getting down to business. “I’ll bring the woman here in Doc Washburn’s buggy as soon as things settle a little.”
“Yes, as soon as things settle down,” he said. He stared in the direction of Kindred, attempting to make out the doctor’s office and the barn behind it in the faroff distance.
“What is it?” she asked, seeing him grow more distant from her.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. He picked up his rifle from the doorjamb and walked off the porch.
“Wait,” Sara said. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” Dahl replied over his shoulder.
“But you can’t go into Kindred armed,” she said. “You agreed not to!” she called out as he walked away across the front yard, the rifle lying back over his right shoulder.
“I agreed to when I considered Kern to be the law. If his deputies did that to the woman, Kindred has no law. I owe them nothing.”
Sara stared at him as he walked away. “Should I—Should I come get the woman?”
“Give me five minutes. Then come get her,” Dahl said.
From the darkness of the barn’s open doorway, Jennings watched as the tall sandy-haired figure walked along the alleyway, a rifle propped over his shoulder. When he saw the man walk to the dun and begin to unhitch the animal, he stepped out, his big hand on his holstered revolver.
“Hey, you,” he said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t take that hor—”
Dahl’s rifle swung off his shoulder and crashed down on the big man’s right collarbone. Dahl heard the bone snap like seasoned hickory. Jennings’ head snapped sideways with the impact of the blow. As he tried to straighten up, the tip of the barrel stabbed him full force in the V of his chest where his ribs joined. His breath exploded from his lungs.
Dahl looked down at the big gunman, who lay gasping in the dirt. He then unhitched the dun and led it away toward the widow’s shack.
On the way, he saw Sara slip along the alleyway toward him.
“You said five minutes,” she said with the trace of a smile.
“It went a little quicker than I thought,” Dahl said. He looked along the street toward the marshal’s office where a long line of townsmen had once again formed. He shook his head. “Go get the woman in the buggy. I’ll wait right here.”
PART 2
Chapter 13
It was near dark when Buck the Mule Jennings dragged himself up on the hitch rail and staggered along the alleyway to the street. He had just turned the corner toward the marshal’s office when Philbert Catlo approached him, looking him up and down.
“Great guns, man, what happened to you?” he asked, catching the big gunman before he fell and helping him lean against the front of a building.
“I . . . fell,” Jennings lied in a strained and ragged voice. He clutched his right collarbone with his big left hand. “I’m all broken up here,” he said, his big head cocked painfully to the right.
“You fell . . . ?” Philbert said in disbelief. “And broke your collarbone . . . in the jake?” He recoiled back from the injured gunman and looked at both his hands.
“No . . . not in . . . the jake,” said Jennings. “But when I walked . . . out. I stumbled over a hitch rail.”
“Oh, I see,” said Philbert. “They put those things in the damnedest places.”
Jennings stared at him, unable to tell whether or not Catlo was mocking him.
Philbert stepped closer. “Anyway, I came looking for you. I thought you fell in.” He stifled a laugh. “Turns out I wasn’t far wrong.”
“It’s not funny,” Jennings managed to say. He straightened up a little.
“Do I need to take you to the doctor?” Philbert asked, still taunting the big gunman a little.
“Hell no,” Jennings growled. “There’s nothing he could do. It’s just a broken bone.”
“Right, just a broken bone,” said Philbert. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Did you tell Jason about the dead woman?” Jennings asked.
“Not yet,” said Philbert. “I’ll have to tell him when we’re alone. The marshal’s office has been crowded ever since I went back. These rubes can’t get rid of their guns quick enough, ever since brother Jason parted the blacksmith’s hair with a gun barrel.”
“So, we’re not going to tell the marshal about the dead woman?” Jennings asked.
“Jesus, Buck the Mule,” said Philbert, “did you get hit on your head? Of course we’re not going to tell the marshal anything.”
“Why not?” Jennings asked.
“Because . . .” Philbert lowered his voice as if letting the thick gunman in on a secret. “We’re not really lawmen, Buck the Mule. We’re only setting this town up for a big letdown.”
“Hell, I know that,” said Jennings, sounding irritated. “I just think it might look funny, us going to the doctor and asking about the woman, then not telling Kern about it.”
“Let brother Jason and me do all the serious thinking,” Philbert said. “You concentrate on sidestepping those hitch rails.”
Jennings glowered at him.
“Right now, let’s get back to work collecting these guns,” Philbert said. “I don’t know what the marshal or Jason, either one, has in mind, but whatever it is, it’s going to go a lot better when these rubes aren’t able to fight back.” He turned and nodded back toward the marshal’s office where men still stood in line, guns in hand.
“Yeah, that’s what I can’t wait to see,” said Jennings. He turned and walked stiffly alone behind Philbert. He managed a slight grin, considering the possibilities awaiting them in an unarmed town.
They arrived at the marshal’s office, and stepped inside. Jason Catlo placed an older muzzleloader rifle down atop the table and looked up. Denton Bender and Tribold Cooper carried guns from the table into a back room, which had been set up for temporary storage of firearms until a more permanent place was established.
“Damn, what happened to him?” Cooper asked, noting the stiff twisted way Jennings walked into the office.
“He fell in the jake,” Philbert said.
“Damn . . . ,” said Cooper, taking a step back, his nose wrinkling.
“No, I didn’t,” Jennings said. He cut an angry glance at Philbert. “I can speak for myself.”
“Excuse the hell out of me,” Philbert said. He shrugged and walked away.
“I stumbled over a hitch rail,” Jennings said in a voice that was more of an angry growl. “Anybody got anything to say about it?”
The gunmen just look at each other.
“Yeah, I do,” said Philbert, realizing that all the big man could do was make threats. “You should’ve stuck with falling in the jake.”
With his collarbone broken, Jennings’ gun hand hung helpless down his side. All he could do was stare ahead in a smoldering rage. “I didn’t fall in no damn jake,” he said, “I fell over a hitch rail.”
Bender stepped over to where a townsman stood in the open doorway, a shotgun and big Colt saddle pistol under his arm.
“Come back tomorrow,” he said to the townsman, shoving him backward out the door. He slammed the door in the man’s face. “I’ve worked hard enough for one day,” he chuckled.
Outside, the townsman looked around at the few others in line. Some of them had been standing for over three hours.
“Notice how the fewer guns there are left, the more belligerent they’re getting with us?” he said.
“Yeah,” said one man who carried a ten-gauge longbarreled goose gun. “I also saw the blacksmith’s head where one of them cracked him with his own gun barrel.”
“Being made to stand in line ain’t the worst thing that can happen to a man,” another townsman said as the line began to break up for the night.
“No, but standing a man in line is where it all starts. Once he’s standing in line, it’s easy to point that line any direction they want him to go in.”
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br /> “They . . . ?” another man said, irritated by his long wait only to be turned away. “I’d like to know who the hell they is?”
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll know soon enough who they is,” said another.
“We all will, soon enough,” added a third.
Inside the marshal’s office, Kern having still not returned, Bender and Cooper stood on one side of the big gun table, looking across at the Catlo brothers and Buck the Mule Jennings. Bender finished examining a Starr revolver and tossed it on the table.
“The way this thing is shaping up,” he said, “Tribold and I figure this town will be unarmed by noon tomorrow. Right, Tribold?”
“That’s what we figure,” said Cooper.
“Yeah? What then?” Jason Catlo asked, sounding the two out before telling them anything.
“Of course, that don’t mean there won’t be guns coming in and out of town with travelers until word gets around that guns aren’t allowed,” said Copper. “But as far as guns in Kindred go—” He stopped and grinned. “Hell, this goose is cooked.”
Jason allowed himself a thin smile. “Yeah, I still can’t believe these folks were stupid enough to be talked into this.”
“I know what you mean,” said Cooper. “It makes me wonder what’s waiting in the future, especially for bank robbers.”
Jason Catlo liked what he was hearing. He and his brother gave each other a nod. Jennings stood clutching his broken collarbone, mumbling curses under his breath.
“I expect robbing banks will get taken over by the government, just like everything else. Once folks everywhere are unarmed, all the law will have to do is get everybody’s money into banks and rob every bank at once.”
“Without having to fire a shot,” Philbert said, grinning.
Bender chuckled, getting it. “Because what the hell can anybody do about it?” He shrugged and laughed. “Nobody will be armed!”
The five gunmen cackled and hooted for a moment.
