Outlaw

by Charles G. West

  He wasn’t sure how far he had walked when he saw the buildings of Topeka, but it was now late in the afternoon. The place had evidently developed a great deal since Ike had been there, for now it appeared to be a town. Tired, but not weary, Matt walked with a deadly determination, bent upon one task only. He took no notice of the two men standing outside the stables as he passed by. They paused in their conversation to gawk in curiosity at the lone man in buckskins walking down the middle of the street, rifle in hand.

  Matt’s attention was suddenly captured by something at the end of the street. A small house stood alone beyond the general store and a saloon. A buckskin horse waited patiently at the hitching post in front of the house. Matt headed straight for the horse, certain that it was the same buckskin he had seen galloping down the ridge. When he walked up beside the horse, he paused for a moment to read the sign nailed to the fence beside the gate: JONATHAN P. MANNING, M.D. Matt cranked a cartridge into the chamber of the Henry rifle, and entered the doctor’s office.

  Inside, Matt found himself in a tiny waiting room. A short hallway led past several doors before ending at the back door of the cottage. He was there for only a second when an elderly woman came from one of the doors, carrying a basin filled with bloody water. She barely glanced at the tall, broad-shouldered young man in buckskins, but turned down the hallway toward the back door. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she called back over her shoulder. “The doctor’s busy at the moment.” Pushing the back door open with her foot, she added, “A man was shot by robbers.”

  Matt went immediately to the room she had come from. Inside, he discovered the doctor bending over his patient, who was freshly bandaged and sitting on a couch against the wall. Both patient and doctor were momentarily stunned by the sudden appearance of the stranger in the treatment room. “Wait outside,” Dr. Manning said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  There was no hesitation on Eli’s part. He pulled the pistol from his belt, at the same time grabbing for the doctor with his wounded arm, attempting to use him as a shield. Matt, reacting equally as fast, dropped to one knee, and Eli’s bullet passed over his head, imbedding in the plastered wall. The Henry spoke but once, leaving a small black hole neatly centered between Eli’s eyes, about three quarters of an inch above his eyebrows.

  The doctor, having been shoved off balance by Eli’s attempt to shield himself, recovered his footing, but stood stone still, fearful that he might be next. He relaxed when Matt ejected the spent shell and lowered his rifle. They stood there staring at each other for what seemed a long time before either man moved. Finally deciding that the buckskin-clad executioner had only one victim in mind, Dr. Manning broke the leaden silence, even as his wife rushed into the room. “It’s all right, Agnes,” he said, to calm the alarmed woman. “It’s all over.” Then he looked at Matt. “It is, ain’t it?”

  Matt nodded and then replied, “It is.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “That’s the last of ’em.”

  A bit more confident now, the doctor complained. “I sure wasted a lot of time patching up that shoulder.” He looked at Matt. “I wish you’d waited until he paid me.”

  Matt thought about it for a moment, then walked over to the body, and began emptying Eli’s pockets. “How much does he owe you?”

  “Ten dollars,” the doctor replied, giving his wife a sideways glance. She remained expressionless.

  “Ten dollars, huh?” Matt responded. “Here’s fifty,” he said, giving the doctor all the cash he found in Eli’s pockets. “I figure he owes you somethin’ for cleanin’ up.”

  Mrs. Manning stood watching in disbelief during the exchange between her husband and the stranger. When it appeared that Matt was preparing to take his leave, she spoke up. “We’d better go get the sheriff.”

  “What for?” Her husband cut her off. “I mean, he shot in self-defense. The deceased fired the first shot. I saw it.” He nodded toward Matt reassuringly. Then, seeing his wife’s wide-eyed, questioning expression, he quickly said, “I mean, of course we’ve got to get the sheriff, but there’s no hurry.”

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am, for this intrusion,” Matt said to the bewildered woman, “but it was somethin’ that had to be done.” That said, he turned on his heel and strode down the short hallway and out the front door. The doctor and his wife followed Matt out to the porch, and stood watching as he untied the buckskin horse from the post. “He owes me a horse,” Matt offered in explanation, then wheeled the powerful gelding, and rode out of town the same way he had walked in, leaving Dr. and Mrs. Manning to ponder what had just taken place.

  In the short time it took to return to the thicket where he had hidden his saddle, Matt decided that the man he had just killed had ridden a fine horse. The buckskin devoured the miles with seemingly no effort, his stride long and his gait smooth and constant. While deciding which saddle he would keep, Matt took a few moments to take a closer look at his newly acquired mount. After a brief inspection, he could not help but admire the animal—his broad chest, strong quarters, and depth of girth. And unlike his former master, there appeared to be no evidence of a deceitful nature. He almost felt guilty for admiring Blue’s replacement so openly. As for the saddle, he decided to keep Eli’s. It was no better than his own, but appeared to be a bit newer, and the buckskin was already accustomed to it. He transferred the rest of his belongings to the new rig, and after a final farewell to Blue’s carcass, set out to find Ike and Crooked Foot.

  * * *

  Ike stood over the wounded Cherokee boy, staring at him in consternation, helpless to do anything to alleviate his pain. Ike had already done everything he could to stop the bleeding, but it looked as if it could start again at any moment. The bullet from Eli’s rifle had crushed the boy’s breastbone, caving it in and shattering his ribs. What amazed Ike most was the fact that the Indian boy was still alive. The bullet had somehow missed the heart, but it must have torn into his lungs, because Crooked Foot periodically coughed up blood. Ike feared the boy was choking to death, so he lifted him up to a sitting position against the side of the gully, hoping it would keep the blood from entering his throat. From time to time, Crooked Foot’s eyes would flutter open, only to stare far off into the distance. Each time his eyes closed again, Ike wondered if it was for eternity. But the boy would not give in to the beckoning of the Great Spirit.

  Turning away from the wounded boy for a few moments, Ike’s thoughts turned toward his partner. At that moment, he wondered if he would ever see Matt Slaughter again. His young friend had been gone almost twenty-four hours now, and the sun was sinking low on another day. He looked back at Crooked Foot again. What to do? It was difficult to decide. The boy was dying, Ike was certain of that. How long should he remain here waiting for Matt?

  In the next moment, his question was answered, for a rider suddenly appeared on the far bank of the creek, some five hundred yards away. Ike’s eyes were not as keen as they used to be when he was young, so he picked up his rifle and moved to the side of the gully. Straining hard, he tried to focus on the man. It could be Matt, but this man was riding a buckskin, so Ike kept a steady aim on him. When the rider closed the distance to two hundred yards, Ike could say for sure that it was indeed his young friend. A great sense of relief swept over him.

  “Hello the camp,” Matt called out before crossing over the creek.

  “Come on in, Matt,” Ike returned, and put his rifle down.

  Ike followed the gully down to the water where his horse and Crooked Foot’s pony were hobbled. He waited there while Matt pulled up and dismounted. “He got Blue,” Matt said, answering the question on Ike’s face, “but I got him.”

  “Well, I reckon that about takes care of business,” Ike said, after hearing Matt’s accounting of the death of the last outlaw they hunted.

  “How’s Crooked Foot?” Matt inquired.

  “You look,” Ike replied abruptly. “He don’t look good a’tall. Matter of fact, I thought he’d go under before you g
ot back.”

  This was sorrowful news indeed to Matt. He had developed a fondness for the spunky Indian boy. He hobbled the buckskin, and followed Ike back up the gully, seeing at once that Crooked Foot was as badly wounded as Ike had said. The Cherokee boy gave no indication that he was even aware of Matt when he bent low to examine the wound. “Damn!” Matt uttered softly when he saw the extent of the damage. He stood up and turned to Ike. “We need to get him to a doctor.”

  “It’s a long ways back to Springfield,” Ike said. “He might be dead before we made it back there.” Topeka was a lot closer, but after hearing the circumstances of Eli’s execution, he assumed it would not be wise for Matt to return to that town.

  Matt did not give the matter a second thought. “There’s a doctor no more than six or seven miles from here. We’ll take Crooked Foot to Topeka. The doctor’s never seen you. You can take Crooked Foot in.”

  The boy was far too badly wounded to sit a horse, so Matt and Ike cut a couple of young saplings to use as poles for a travois. They fashioned a platform of tree limbs, and lashed them together with a coil of rope that was on Eli’s saddle. It was a rough ambulance to say the least, but they figured it would serve to haul the wounded boy to Topeka Landing.

  The trip was slow and extremely painful for the suffering patient. By the time they arrived on a hill overlooking the Kansas River, the boy appeared too weak to continue. “This looks like a good place to make camp,” Matt said. “Maybe we’d better stop right now and bring the doctor here. I’m afraid we’re gonna kill him if we go any farther.” Ike agreed, and they lifted Crooked Foot from the travois, and laid him as gently as they could manage under a cottonwood tree. By the time they had him settled, it was beginning to get dark. “I expect you’d best go on into town and fetch the doctor,” Matt said.

  * * *

  Boyd Jenkins glanced up when his eye caught sight of a rider approaching his stable. Pausing to see who it was, he became immediately alarmed, for it was another buckskin-clad stranger—the second one that day. When the first one had passed his stables earlier in the afternoon, a man was killed soon after. This one looked a lot bigger than the first one, and maybe even a bit wilder. Boyd didn’t hesitate. He dropped the sack of oats he had been carrying, and ran out the back of the stable, figuring it best to alert the sheriff.

  Cutting across behind the saloon and the general store, Boyd made good time reaching the jail, a small stone building just off the main street. Sheriff Sam Baldwin was still in his office, judging by the light in the window. Boyd hesitated at the doorstep to watch the stranger pass the general store, apparently headed for the doctor’s office.

  “What the hell’s chasin’ you, Boyd?” Sam Baldwin grunted when his office door was suddenly flung open, and a panting Boyd Jenkins burst into the room. The half-empty whiskey bottle on the desk was testimony to the melancholy fits the sheriff occasionally suffered. Everybody in town knew of Sam’s dependence on alcohol. He needed it to bolster his courage to face a complaining, domineering wife every night when he went home. On some nights, when his melancholia was more severe, he had been observed staggering a little when he locked up his office for the night. Boyd took no notice of this in his excitement to give the alert.

  “Sam!” Boyd blurted. “There’s another one of them wild-lookin’ fellers headed for Doc Manning’s place!”

  Sam did his best to think soberly when he responded. “What happened? Did he do somethin’?” He had already had to deal with one man shot in the head that day by a wild-looking stranger who just blatantly walked into the doctor’s office and blazed away.

  “Well, not yet,” Boyd answered, surprised by the sheriff’s apparent lack of excitement. “But this one looks like that first feller, only this one’s big as a bear and looks a lot meaner.”

  “Well, it ain’t against the law to go to the doctor’s office,” Sam said, still trying to overcome the alcohol in his brain.

  Disappointed by Sam’s reaction to his warning, Boyd stood there shifting his weight from one foot to the other for a few moments before speaking. “I just thought you’d wanna know there was another gunman in town.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, his mind still spinning. “Yeah, you done the right thing. ’Course I’d wanna know. I ain’t about to let no wild murderers think they can run roughshod over my town.” He pulled a rifle out of the rack on the wall, and proceeded to load the magazine. “Where’d you say he was headin’?”

  “Doc Manning’s place,” Boyd replied, “just like the first one did.”

  “Right. We’ll just see what’s on his mind,” he stated, his words still a little slurred.

  * * *

  The light had almost faded completely when Ike guided his horse up to the doctor’s gate and stepped down from the saddle. He had no sooner tied his horse to the fence when he was surprised by the sheriff coming around the corner of the fence with a rifle aimed at his belly. “Hold on there, big’un,” Sam demanded. “Just where do you think you’re goin’?”

  Ike paused to consider the rifle aimed at his mid-section. His eyes fixed on the weapon, he paid little attention to Boyd Jenkins standing behind Sam. “I’m goin’ to see the doctor,” he finally stated.

  “What for?” Sam demanded. “Are you sick?”

  “I reckon that’s me and the doctor’s business,” Ike replied without emotion.

  “Is that so?” Sam blurted. “Well, I think we’ll go down to the jail, and find out whose business it is.”

  By this time, Ike realized that the sheriff was half-drunk. “Is it against the law to go to the doctor in this town?” Ike had no time to waste on a drunken sheriff, but the rifle in Sam’s hands had no sense of right or wrong. A bullet from a drunken sheriff was equally as deadly as one from a sober one.

  “It’s against the law to smart-mouth the sheriff,” Sam said. “Now, you just untie them reins, and lead that horse down to my office.”

  By this time, Sam’s loud voice had been heard inside, and Doctor Manning came to the door to investigate. Upon seeing Sam holding a rifle on the huge man in buckskins, he inquired, “What’s the trouble, Sam?”

  “Nothin’ much, Doc,” the sheriff replied confidently. “We’ve just got us another one of them wild ones in town—only this time I aim to see what he’s up to before somebody else gets shot. One killin’ a day is enough for this town.”

  “What’s he doing on my front step?” Manning wanted to know.

  Before Sam could reply, Ike answered him. “I was comin’ to see you. I ain’t done nothin’, ain’t committed no crime. I was just tryin’ to see the doctor.”

  “Why? Are you ailing?”

  “Well, it ain’t that.” Ike hesitated to give the reason for the need for a doctor. “I just need to talk to you, and it ain’t none of the sheriff’s business.”

  “I reckon I’m the one decides that,” Sam snorted, and motioned with the rifle. “That way. Get movin’.”

  Dr. Manning could readily see that the sheriff had been nipping generously from the bottle. And he knew Sam well enough to know that he could be mighty belligerent when he’d had a few drinks. The big man did have a wild, even dangerous, look about him, but maybe he really was seeking medical advice. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for me to talk to him, Sam.”

  Sam considered it for a moment, knowing that he held all the cards while he had his rifle on him, and the man looked capable of raising all kinds of hell. “We’ll just go down to my office, and find out a few things about this feller. If I think he’s not up to somethin’, I’ll let him go.” He turned to Ike. “All right, start walkin’.”

  Ike could see little choice but to do as he was told. Thoughts of Matt waiting back up in the hills with the wounded boy made him consider jumping the sheriff if the opportunity presented itself. But Sam was careful to keep an eye on his prisoner every step of the way. Once inside the jail, he directed Ike into one of the two cells, and locked the door. “You just cool your heels for a spell. I’m gonna check my n
otices first, and then you and I’ll have us a little talk.”

  Ike at once berated himself for allowing the sheriff to lock him up. I shouldn’t have ever let him get me inside this building, he thought. But it was too late now. He only hoped there was no old Wanted notice in the stack of papers Sam took from his desk drawer. It was bad luck to have been spotted riding into town. Maybe it should have occurred to him that the town was edgy after Matt had so brazenly executed a man in the doctor’s office. If he had thought more about it before, he would have at least waited until darkness set fully in. It was bad luck all right, and he was about to find that it would only get worse.

  “Well, lookee here,” the sheriff sang out gleefully. He extracted one notice from the rest, and walked over to the cell door for a closer look. “This here’s a dang good likeness.” He chuckled to think of the catch he had just made. “Yessir, this description fits you like a glove, too. You’d be Mr. Ike Brister, wanted in Missouri for murder.” He looked at Ike and grinned. “And you just come ridin’ right in—mighty accommodatin’, Mr. Brister, mighty accommodatin’. By God, this calls for a drink.” He poured himself a drink from the bottle, now less than half full, saluted Ike with it, then tossed it back. “Yessir, wait till I tell the judge in the mornin’. We ain’t never had a real famous outlaw in our jail before.”

  Ike remained a stoic witness to the sheriff’s gleeful exhibition. He was angry, more so at himself than the sheriff, for not anticipating the presence of a Wanted poster in the jail. Even with a rifle pointed at him, he might have taken a chance at jumping the sheriff if he had given it more thought. His concern now was for Crooked Foot, maybe bleeding to death, waiting for his return with the doctor. There was nothing he could do about it at this point. It was just plain dumb, letting himself get caught like this. He had let the boy down.