Six Gun Justice

by David Cross

  The man was momentarily taken aback, but he took another step into the street. His hand dropped to within inches of his gun as he stood spraddle legged in the hot sun. Jake could tell he was a working cowpoke and had no desire to kill the man. Having practiced with his Dragoon for many hours, becoming very proficient with it, he knew he could outdraw and out shoot most men.

  “This is not your fight mister,” he rumbled. “You’d best leave it lay.”

  With two of his friends now standing behind him, the cowboy felt he could not back down without looking like a fool, so he did the only thing he could to save face. He drew his pistol. The only thing he heard was the loud report of the dragoon and the blur with which the man had drawn, before he felt the sting of a bullet hitting his own gun, before he could even bring it to bear.

  The cowboy grabbed his tingling hand, trying to stop the pain that was coursing through it, as he looked in awe at the stranger in front of him. He knew he was lucky. The stranger could have killed him just as easily as he had shot the gun out of his hand.

  Jake reholstered his gun and said, “You’re lucky mister. Mixing other folks business can get a man killed. You just bought a little longer to live. This yahoo has killed some of my friends and tried to steal ranches that don’t belong to him. In my book that brands him as a killer and a down right thief. I’m telling you this, not because it’s any of your business, but because I didn’t come here looking for trouble.”

  The cowboy nodded his stunned understanding and took a step back. Jake dropped the Colt back into its holster and grabbed a handful of Murdock’s collar, dragging him along the dusty thoroughfare, as though he was a dead coyote. He would tie the man for the night and collect his and Murdock’s horse in the morning. Right now, he needed rest and the salt from his sweat was causing his wound to burn and itch. He intended to follow the doctor’s orders and rest.

  He dragged Murdock up the stone steps to his room and bound him hand and foot with a rope and left him on the floor beside the bed with a gag stuffed in his mouth. He shucked his gunbelt and lay back on the bed, which sagged in the middle, causing a sharp pain to lance through the wound in his side. At this point he could have cared less. His stamina had reached its peak. He was on a downhill roll and he let the lids of his eyes close as soon as his head was on the pillow.

  He did not know how long he slept, only that he felt drugged as his mind made contact with the world around him and the incessant thumping that filled his head. Sitting up, he brought his feet to the floor, feeling the soft flesh of a body beneath them. Startled, he came to full alert, grabbing for his pistol hanging on the bedpost. As he bought it around, his mind cleared enough for him to realize that the body was that of his prisoner.

  Releasing the hammer on the Colt, he dropped it back in its holster, rolled Murdock over, listening to the muffled murmur of his voice as he tried to talk around the kerchief stuffed in his mouth. The room was in dark shadow, so Jake figured it must be night. he fumbled around until he found the lamp sitting on an aging table, struck a match on the bottom and lit it, turning the wick up enough to emit a dim light in the room.

  As he looked down at Murdock’s inert body, hogtied beside the bed, he could feel his anger rise against him. The thought of what this man had done, the damage he had caused sent a cold feeling through his stomach. He had the almost uncontrollable urge to shoot the man where he lay bound. But, this was not the way of a civilized man and above all else, Jake considered himself a step above such men as the one lying at his feet.

  He bent and pulled the kerchief from his mouth, letting Murdock catch his breath. He could see the man trying to work some saliva back into his dry mouth, the croaking of his cracked voice scratching on his nerves as he waited. When he had sufficiently moistened his throat, his voice still cam out like a frog.

  “I’ll get you for this Killman! If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get you for this! No man can treat me like a dog and live! No man!”

  “If that’s all you have to say, I might as well stuff the rag back in your mouth, so I can get some sleep,” Jake said.

  “No, wait Killman! If you untie me, I promise I will be quiet. You’ve tied me so tight, there’s no circulation to my hands.”

  “You should have thought of that before you tried to run roughshod over the people who are my neighbors and steal my ranch. I should just kill you and drag your carcass back with me, but you would stink too bad before I could get you home.”

  “Please,” he begged. “I’ll give you my word!”

  “Your word isn’t worth spit. I wouldn’t trust you to honor it, because you’ve shown yourself to have no honor. I met men like you in the war, who had rather lie than to do the honorable thing. You’re not worth the bullet it would take to send you to hell, he said, spitting the words out as though they tasted bad in his mouth.

  “Cou…could you at least give me a drink of water? I need some water, or I’ll die.”

  Jake looked at him for a long time, then finally went tot eh pitcher and poured a glass of the tepid water for his prisoner and brought it back to him. Jerking Murdock to a sitting position, he shoved the glass close to his mouth. As he drank greedily from the water, Jake tilted the glass until it was all gone and picked up the rag to stuff back in Murdock’s mouth.

  “No, wait…please!” he pleaded. “I can’t breathe with that in my mouth. For God’s sake, show a little compassion!

  “Like the compassion you’ve shown me and my wife and my friends?” Jake said with scorn. “I don’t want to spend the night listening to your moaning and lying. He reached to put the wadded up kerchief back in his mouth.

  “I promise to stay quiet!” Murdock yelped. “Just don’t put that rag in my mouth again! Please!”

  Jake stopped his hand in mid air, holding the kerchief inches from his mouth, thinking about it. He did not want to make the man choke to death, but he still had to get some rest.

  “I’ll give you one chance. If you open your mouth one time, I will gag you again and keep you that way until we reach Strawberry. Do you Comprende?

  “Yes, yes, I promise!” he answered quickly.

  Jake rose, and lay back in the bed, leaving the kerchief lying on the floor nearby. He hated to trust Murdock, even for this small favor, but after all, the man could choke to death if he persisted in gagging him. He stared at a crack in the ceiling, listening to the prisoner breathing beside the bed. Within minutes he was asleep again.

  The next time he awoke, it was still dark, but the light of day was creeping through the window shade and he wasn’t feeling too well. He rose wearily from the sagging bed and walked to the stand with its pitcher of water and wash pan, splashed a little water over his face, which made him feel a little better, but not by much. His head ached something fierce and he felt somewhat weak.

  Staggering back to where his prisoner was tied, he touched him with the toe of his boot. (time to get up,” he said.

  Dropping on his haunches, untied the ropes that had bound Murdock through the night, but left his hands tied and drug him along behind him down the stone steps. He was in a foul mood and when Murdock started whining about being hungry and thirsty, all he gave in response was a dry growl and told him to keep his trap shut.

  When they got to the bottom of the steps, the fat Mexican woman was stirring the dust around on the adobe floor. She looked up, but said nothing. With his gear over one shoulder he yanked on the rope, causing his prisoner to stumble, but he kept following along, complaining all the way to the livery. Jake’s head was hurting, so he paid little attention to the moaning, but saddled his horse and told the hostler to bring out Murdock’s horse and gear.

  By noon they were southeast of Phoenix, moving steadily toward Tortilla Flats about 50 miles away. He knew he had a long three or four day ride back to Strawberry, through the rugged Mazatzai Mountains and across the Sierra Ancha. They had stopped for a noon meal of jerked beef and water, when Jake tired of listening to the complaining of his pri
soner and loosed his hands so he rub some feeling back into them.

  He kept his eyes on Murdock, not trusting him at all. He knew the man would as soon shoot a man in the back as not. By the time they had rested the horses for an hour, he was feeling weaker than ever and knew he was running a fever. Tying Murdock’s hands again, he pulled himself into the saddle with a great effort and led the way, the rope attached to his saddle horn.

  By that evening, he was in pretty bad shape, his fever having gone up and the wound in his side hurting more with each step of the horse. He had to find a place to hole up and still keep his prisoner from escaping, until he could regain his strength. An hour or two before sundown, he found a cave of sorts, and prayed there weren’t any bears in it. It was all he could do to get out of the saddle and strip it from his horse. Tethering the animal on a long lead rope took the rest of the strength he could muster.

  He sat with his back against the side of the cave, his head hot with fever, not even bothering to settle his prisoner. His head was spinning and he could not have done anything if his prisoner had tried to jump him. What he didn’t realize was that Murdock had come to fear him and wanted no part of him. All that was in his devious mind was a chance to escape and be away from this madman.

  As sleep overtook him, he had no way of knowing that Murdock had slipped from the cave and was making haste back the way he had come, rubbing the ropes until they frayed and broke. Once free of his bindings, he thought about doubling back for his horse, but gave it up as a bad idea. If Killman were to get his hands on him again, Murdock had little doubt he would kill him. He would just have to get to some place where he could buy a horse and gear. He still had plenty of cash left in the money belt he wore around his waist.

  Little did he know that Jake was at this moment passed out on the floor of the cave, his mind in a fit of fever and delirium and not enough strength to do anything. He lay in a stupor for that entire night and half the next day, unaware his prisoner had escaped and unaware of his surroundings, or where he was.

  Late the next evening he regained enough of his faculties to drag himself to his feet and stagger to the small stream a few hundred feet from the cave. He bathed his face and inspected the sound in his side. It had become infected. He took off the old bandage and washed the wound as best he could then bandaged it again, with some clean linen bandages he had purchased from the doctor before leaving Phoenix.

  He looked around for his prisoner, but knew he had gone. What he couldn’t figure was why he had left him alive. He led the two horses down and let them drink their fill and fed them a little grain from the bag attached to his gear, before making his way back to the cave. By the time he reached his haven his mind was losing all semblance of thought, revolving in a kaleidoscope of images, which he could not understand or make sense of. There were two Indians, the sense of his body’s movement, then blackness and floating in a limbo of darkness.

  Nightmares came and went, as did his hallucinations, his fever climbing and then all was peaceful after a time. He had no understanding of time, no feelings of pain, nothing. He felt as though he had been dropped into some great dark hole, from which there was no exit and he was sinking in this morass of liquid darkness. Time passed him by, leaving no imprint upon his mind of the things that happened in the space of passing time.

  He awoke to stare into the flat face of one of an Indian woman, who was sponging his hot brow, showing no expression of alarm. The face was so impassive, he could not tell anything about the woman, and would have figured her for dead, if she had not blinked on occasion, or moved her fleshy arm as she ministered to him. He lay there, feeling the cooling rag on his head, trying to regain his faculties, to remember what had taken place and where he was.

  It all came back to him in slow, laborious spurts. He remembered his prisoner and looked about for Murdock, but he was not there. Then he remembered the cave, and tried to rise from his prone position. The horses would need water. He knew there was plenty of graze for them, because he had tied them on a long tether, but they would definitely need water. He tried again to raise himself, but found the effort too much for his weakened body, and the gentle pressure exerted by his Indian nurse, informing him in unspoken words that he was not in any shape to move, though the admonition, silent or otherwise, was unnecessary since he could not have gotten off the bright rug on which he lay if he had wanted to.

  He let his head fall back and tried to clear his mind more. It was a great effort, but he had to remember where he might be and how he might have come to be here in this hogan, nursed by an obese Indian woman, from some unknown tribe. He could not remember moving, or being moved from the cave of his last memory. The last thought he had had, was when he had led the horses down for water. From that moment on, everything was a blank, a lost point in time.

  He knew the Indians who had helped him must be friendly, or they would have killed him, or left him to die. He tried to raise his head again, but the effort was more than his weakened state would allow. He lay back on the fur rug on which he lay, watching the bland face if the woman as she placed her hand behind his head, lifting his lips to an earthen mug. The liquid she poured down his throat was a vile concoction, that threatened to bring everything from his stomach, but then it settled and he felt a warm glow suffuse his limbs as a warm darkness enveloped him once more.

  He drifted in and out of his hidden place of retreat, all sense of time lost, with no post of beginning or end to hold to. Again the dreams returned, but this time they were of people and places he did not know. He was in a panic to escape the demons that visited him in those dreams, fighting to regain his hold to the real world, but he could only drift in that limbo of soft black cotton, fighting against the loss of his sanity and his earthly body.

  The next time he awoke, he was again gazing up at he smoke hole of an Indian hogan, as his memory of a large native woman returned. He raised his head and pushed laboriously to his elbows, trying to rise once more. He could tell it was dark outside, but had no idea of the day or how long he may have lain in his stupor. Forcing himself to greater effort he tried again to raise himself to a sitting position, sweat popping on his brow from the effort. He made it after a lengthy time and a lot of perseverance, but his head was swimming so bad he almost fell back on his pallet.

  There was a small fire in the center of the hogan, lending its meager light to the interior. The place was a lot larger than he would have imagined hogans to be. His gaze finally stopped at the heavy blanket covering the entrance and he tried to screw up his will to rise further, to try out the legs that felt as weak as wet whang leather. He was sitting in this position, with his head down, when a large Apache entered the hogan. At first, Jake’s heart stopped beating for a couple of beats, until he realized the man meant him no harm.

  “Satange,” he said, pointing a finger at himself and then turning it toward Jake. He repeated the effort again, turning the finger back to himself as he said, “Satange!”

  As he pointed the finger back at Jake, he finally came to understand that he was telling him his name and wanted to know his. He pointed one of his fingers at himself and said, “Jake Killman.”

  The brave’s brow furrowed in deep thought, then he smiled slightly, if one could call it a smile and said gruffly, pointing his finger at Jake once more, “Jack Illman,” then turning the finger back toward himself, he repeated. “Satange!”

  Satange made motions with his hands of riding, hunting and what Jake took to be finding him and his horses and bringing them back to the camp to nurse him back to health. With a little time they were able to communicate and Jake finally gained the knowledge that he had been in a state of delirium for more than two weeks. His signed queries about another man and his descriptions of Murdock and the way Satange kept shaking his head that his prisoner had somehow escaped. He felt de3jected and cheated. He had ridden for so long and gone through so much to capture Murdock and now he had to start all over again.

  />  

  David Cross, Six Gun Justice