by Clyde Barker
Knowing he had only one shot left, and considering the distance, O’Shea was almost in despair. He decided that his energy would be better used in getting the flimsy craft to the American side of the river, though how many of them would be alive by then, now that that fellow had the range, was anybody’s guess.
The boom of the next shot, practically at his elbow, came as a shock. Looking at the shore they had left O’Shea observed that another of the riders was down. It was apparently the one who had just fired at them. The surviving man did not appear anxious to wait there to be picked off; suddenly he spurred on his horse and galloped away towards Chuchuverical.
Rick O’Shea stopped hauling the rope and spoke to the ferryman.
‘There you go, old man,’ he said. ‘You can take over now.’ He turned to Jemima Covenay.
‘You must have started reloading the second we came on board,’ he said. ‘I’ll own to being impressed. You feeling all right after shooting those scoundrels?’
The young woman’s eyes were as hard as pieces of glass.
‘I told you before, I’d shoot any of them that did this,’ she replied. ‘You think I didn’t mean it?’
The younger girl chipped in: ‘What’s this ’bout shooting, ’Mima? Who you gonna shoot?’
‘Nobody at all, darling. Me and this here gentleman are just fooling around. There’s nothing for you to fret about. Way past your bedtime. We need to get you a room for the night.’
There was unpleasantness when the ferry reached Archangel, for the old man demanded ten times the usual fare on account of he had been roused from his bed and had also had his very life set at hazard. O’Shea’s only aim was to assist in getting Emily Covenay back to her home; he did not wish to throw around money that might be needed to pay for food and accommodation for the sisters, for whom he now felt responsible.
‘See now, you can choose,’ he said to the man. ‘I’ll give you five dollars or nothing. It’s up to you, because you can see how I’m situated. It’s life and death and I wouldn’t think twice about gunning down anybody who gets crosswise to me. You understand me well enough, I see.’
In truth, the old man who operated the ferry understood with perfect clarity that over the next few days there would be good business for him; one result of the gun battle he had witnessed would be to draw a bunch of bandits seeking revenge from across the border.
‘Well,’ he said with an ill grace, ‘let’s see your money then.’
Once this had been attended to, Rick O’Shea was ready to consider what provision it would be best to make for the night, which was fast wearing away.
Chapter 6
The main point under consideration, at least as far as Rick O’Shea was concerned, was whether or not a large band of Mexicans would cross the river that very night in search of both him and the child whom he and Jemima had taken. If so, he could hardly expect any help or support from anybody in Archangel. The inhabitants all had fish of their own to fry, and wouldn’t thank him for bringing trouble down upon the town. For all he knew to the contrary, some of those here might even be friends of Yanez and his boys, inclined to take his part in any sort of dispute. At the very least nobody hereabouts would want trouble that might bring the law – or, God forbid, the military down on them.
All this necessitated coming to a decision as to whether O’Shea and the girls should try and find a room for the night there in town, or press on, making a run for San Angelo at once. The simple fact that he had only one horse, or just possibly two, made O’Shea decide that they would be well advised to stay in Archangel, at least until morning. He had his own mount, and according to Jemima Covenay she too had one, stabled in the same establishment as O’Shea’s.
It might prove possible to persuade the fellow running the livery stable to part with Sheriff Jackson’s mount as well but, when all was said and done, there were three of them to transport through the Reds. If it had been only himself and Jemima Covenay to consider it might have been possible to make a run for it, but he suspected that the little sister would not be up to galloping hell for leather through the Gap with a body of armed men on their tail. It certainly wouldn’t work if one of the horses were carrying two people.
The most sensible dodge would be to stay there that night and then, if the owner of the stable wouldn’t part with Jackson’s horse, try to get hold of some little pony the next day – assuming, of course, that Emily Covenay was actually able to ride. Otherwise, he supposed it might mean running across rough ground with a buggy or something of the kind.
‘Can your sister ride?’ he asked Jemima.
‘Why don’t you ask her? She’s not a fool.’ replied Jemima tartly.
‘Sure I can ride,’ affirmed Emily, catching the drift of their conversation. ‘I can ride ’most as good as ’Mima. Ain’t that right?’
‘It is, darling. You’re a most remarkable rider.’
‘So, young Emily,’ said O’Shea, ‘if I could get hold of a pony or something, you reckon as you could ride for a couple of days?’
‘Pony? I won’t need no pony, will I, Jemima? I can ride big horses.’
‘Well then,’ said O’Shea, ‘that might make things a little easier. I dare say as somebody in this town’ll be induced to sell us a horse.’
One of the hotels was still open for business – or at any rate the saloon on the ground floor was, and the manager was happy to rustle up a couple of poky little rooms. O’Shea’s arrival in such a fashion with a couple of females, one of them only a child and the other dressed as a man, had attracted a good deal more attention than O’Shea would have wanted, but there was nothing to be done about it. The fact that the older of the females was carrying a military musket was also apt to make people talk after they’d left.
There was little doubt that if Yanez and his men or Seth Jackson showed up here, it wouldn’t take too long for them to hear tidings of him and the Covenay sisters.
Before they turned in for the night O’Shea checked out the room that the two sisters would be sleeping in. He took the opportunity to reload the pistol that he had borrowed from Jemima. She had a neat little powder flask and full box of caps, along with a plentiful supply of balls and lint. As he charged the chambers of the gun, he said casually:
‘And you ain’t too distressed about that shooting earlier?’
For the first time since he had met her Jemima Covenay smiled: a radiant sight that warmed O’Shea’s heart.
‘It’s real sweet of you to be worried about me,’ she said, ‘but really, I’m just fine. Those men should never have troubled my sister, then they wouldn’t have got theyselves shot. I felt no more of it than if I’d shot a dog with the rabies.’
‘You’re the devil of a girl!’ he exclaimed admiringly. ‘I don’t know when last I met somebody with as much grit as you got. I’ll leave you two alone. Don’t open that door for anybody but me. I’m in the next room; just bang on the wall if you’ve need. Goodnight, Emily. I hope you’re looking forward to a good long ride tomorrow?’
‘I can’t wait. I love long rides.’
After giving some thought to staying awake all night and guarding the sisters next door, O’Shea came to the conclusion that he’d be fit for nothing the next day if he were to do so. He was a light sleeper and didn’t doubt that he’d awaken if anything untoward happened.
As he lay on the bed, after having kicked off his boots, O’Shea suddenly realized that he had given no thought in the last twenty-four hours to the fact that he was not really a free agent in this mission. However, had he been released that very minute from the obligations laid upon him by the priest in San Angelo, he would still carry straight along on the same course. This was a comforting reflection: that his present inclinations coincided in all respects with his duty. It was, to say the very least of it, an uncommon state of affairs. With this thought Rick O’Shea fell sound asleep.
When next he opened his eyes daylight was flooding in through the window. The light had that pale and wat
ery quality about it that you get just after dawn. O’Shea figured that it was no later than half-past five. He could only have been asleep for four or five hours, but that would have to do for now.
He pulled on his boots, opened the door and went out into the corridor. To his surprise Jemima answered him as soon as he called her name softly outside the door to her room.
‘I’m awake and ready,’ she said. ‘Give Emily five minutes and we’ll join you.’
O’Shea had the feeling that it was a shade under five minutes before the door to the sisters’ room opened and they both came out. Emily was yawning sleepily, but Jemima Covenay looked as fresh as if she’d been on an especially relaxing vacation.
‘I’ve to see about our horses for the journey to San Angelo,’ said O’Shea. ‘I shouldn’t be gone more than a half-hour. We must move quickly. Can you both be ready to move by then? I’ve a notion they’ll serve you coffee down in the saloon if you ask.’
‘We’ll be ready,’ said Jemima Covenay.
The fellow in charge of the livery stable was amenable to the idea of O’Shea taking both his own and Sheriff Jackson’s horse, providing always that both bills were settled. It was while he was on his way back to the hotel that Rick O’Shea caught sight of Seth Jackson, striding down the street as large as life.
It shouldn’t really have been any great surprise to see the sheriff here. After Rick O’Shea’s escape from captivity it would have taken no great exercise of intellect to work out that he would be heading across the border. The discovery, which must surely have been made by now, that the child was also free, must have made this conclusion a racing certainty. Well then, O’Shea was not about to let Jackson spoil his game; not by a long sight.
Sheriff Jackson was walking briskly past the space between a hardware store and one of Archangel’s less salubrious saloons when he received an almighty shove from behind, which almost sent him sprawling into the dirt. Before he had recovered his balance somebody had grabbed hold of him and hustled him into the alleyway between the two buildings. The whole action had taken only a few seconds.
Either nobody had noticed what had chanced or those who frequented the main street of Archangel were in the habit of minding their own business and not getting mixed up in things that were no concern of theirs. Whatever the reason, nobody appeared to take any notice of the scuffle. As soon as the two men were out of view of anyone in the street Rick O’Shea cocked his piece and thrust the barrel of the .36 pistol painfully up into Sheriff Jackson’s throat, right at the angle of his jaw. He did this while still gripping Jackson’s arm, it being made clear in this way to the sheriff that if there were to be any struggling or fighting he was likely to have his head blown off. Despite this rough handling, Jackson said in a civil enough voice:
‘What’ll you have, O’Shea? You know it’s a hanging matter if you go any further down this road?’
‘I just want the favour of a word, is all. First off is where others in this here town know now about your villainy. Disposing of me won’t save you and word about it is already like to be on its way to San Angelo.’
This was a bold bluff, but O’Shea figured that it might put the wind up Jackson, who merely asked, still in a conversational tone of voice:
‘Anything more?’
‘Just this. I got no interest in chasing after crooked lawmen right now, nor killing of them either. You leave me be and I’m going to return that poor child to her folks. You try and hinder me, and before God I’ll lay you in your grave and be hanged to the consequences of it.’
Surprisingly, Jackson laughed at this.
‘You won’t make it back to San Angelo,’ he said, ‘not after what you done, O’Shea.’
‘What I done? What’s that mean? Speak up now.’
‘You killed Yanez’s mother and his baby brother last night. When I left last night he was swearing oaths by all the gods that he was going to torture you to death.’
‘His mother? What’re you talking about?’
‘Well,’ said Jackson, chuckling as though he was at a musical theatre or some other light entertainment, ‘it was you, I guess, as hog-tied the old woman and gagged her? She tumbled down after you carried out your rescue last night. Fell down from her bedroom and broke her neck in the dark. You take the ladder away, too?’
He saw from the look in O’Shea’s face that his question needed no other reply; he smiled again.
‘Well then, you’re a woman killer. How’s that make you feel? Still feel you’re a better man than me?’
For Rick O’Shea, who had always prided himself on not harming a single hair on the head of any woman or child, it was the hell of a shock, although he was not about to let Sheriff Jackson see that. He didn’t speak for a second; he and Jackson just stood there in their awkward poses, as though they were part of a waxwork tableau. Then O’Shea spoke.
‘I’m sorry that the old woman died and I own freely that I am answerable for her death. Even so, I reckon her blood is upon her own head. Anybody becomes mixed up in such a filthy business as that, man or woman, they got to abide by the results of it. She’d tied a rope round that poor child’s arm, like she was a dog or steer.
‘I’ll answer for her death to Yanez, maybe, but I’d do the same thing again if it brought that little girl to safety.’
‘Why, you are one cold-hearted bastard,’ said Sheriff Jackson wonderingly. ‘Wait ’til Yanez catches up with you.’
‘I suppose one of them I shot last night was his brother? Well, I’ll answer for that too, though I don’t feel a bit sorry. This ain’t business, Jackson. You might be a lawman, but I reckon you’ll have your work cut out rustling up any posse or finding citizens to assist you in any way in a town like this.
‘Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll turn you loose, but on the understanding that you keep clear of me. Were I you, I wouldn’t go back to San Angelo, for they’ll soon know what a wretch you are there.’
‘I don’t believe you’ve had time to send word anywhere. You’re bluffing.’
‘Well, I ain’t bluffing about this: I catch a sight of you afore I leave this town, I’m like to kill you. That’s no bluff.’
O’Shea took his gun from Jackson’s neck and released his arm, but he still kept the pistol pointing vaguely in the sheriff’s direction.
‘Go on, get out of here,’ he said.
As he made his way back to the hotel O’Shea thought to himself, I reckon that with good fortune and a fair wind behind me, I have no more than ten minutes to collect those horses and get out of here. Jackson’s a snake and he won’t forgive being held so at gunpoint.
The two girls had had a bite to eat and O’Shea hurried them out of the hotel and down to the livery stable and yard. It was at this point that things miscarried, because O’Shea had been fixing to take Sheriff Jackson’s horse for Emily but, even though they had come straight here within a matter of ten or fifteen minutes of his parting company with Jackson, the sheriff had still had time to collect his horse.
‘How long since he collected his mount?’ asked O’Shea of the man running the livery stable. ‘Can’t have been that long since.’
‘You the law?’ enquired the man pertinently. ‘No? Thought not. Just worry about paying your own bill, never mind cross-questioning me about other folk’s business. We don’t care over much round here for those as ask a heap o’ questions.’
‘We need to buy a horse. Tack, too,’ said O’Shea after a moment’s thought. ‘Can you help?’
‘That’s more like it,’ replied the man, brightening considerably. ‘This is business. Come round back; I got the very thing.’
The man’s idea of ‘the very thing’ turned out to be a scrawny-looking beast that looked as though it was on its last legs. To hear the stableman talk, though, you’d have thought that the nag was on a par with the legendary Pegasus.
O’Shea interrupted the man’s spiel to settle on a firm price, which was, all things considered, less than he had feared. Beggars, howe
ver, cannot be choosers, so O’Shea took the horse and paid about twice what it was worth. He could, he supposed, always sell it on when he got back to San Angelo. The saddle and bridle smelled of mildew and looked to Rick O’Shea’s eye like they’d been mouldering away in some hayloft since the Devil was a boy.
Time was pressing, so he paid cash down for both horse and tack. Within another ten minutes they were on their way north, heading towards the Reds.
It was pleasing to O’Shea to observe that the elder of the two sisters had not once asked anything about the dealings he’d engaged in while buying the horse. She might be a tough one, but she had been well brought up. Nevertheless, from time to time he caught her looking sideways at him, as though waiting for him to offer some explanation of the transaction she had witnessed. It was only right that she should know something of how matters stood, he supposed.
‘You don’t mind I call you just Jemima?’ asked O’Shea, once they were on the road. ‘We’ve no time for fancy manners.’
‘Go ahead. You’ve some urgent news, I can see. Let’s be having it.’
‘The fellow that took your little sister might be coming after us. He’s not after her, but me.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s nothing to the purpose. The point is, you might have to take your sister home without my help. Reckon you can manage that?’
Emily Covenay piped up at this point.
‘We going home now, ’Mima? I’m surely glad,’ she said excitedly.
‘Yes, we’re going home, darling. This gentleman is just working out some details with me. Nothing for you to fret about. Just enjoy the ride.’ Jemima Covenay turned back to O’Shea. ‘You’re wrong, you know. We’re all in this together. You think anybody’ll want a living witness to this? You know it’s me and Emily as well as you in the frame.’
