J.D. and Kate squeezed off shots in vain after the badmen. A pounding of hoofbeats. Swirling of dust, and horseshoes were clattering across the wooden bridge over an arroyo at the edge of town.
Silence hung heavy for half a moment before folks started shouting to each other, including the mothers and their children, emerging from where they'd sought cover.
Kate ran to the fallen sheriff.
It gnawed at J.D.'s craw to hear the receding hoofbeats of the bank robbers, but a life was more important than hunting varmints. He hurried to join Kate.
Sheriff Minton was a good man. That was J.D.'s assessment when, upon arriving in Horseshoe, he and Kate made their first priority a stop at the sheriff's Office to introduce themselves as a courtesy. Small town lawmen preferred to know when a practiced gunhand was passing through. It's the way things were done.
The call on the sheriff yesterday had been part business too. J.D. and Kate were professional bounty hunters when work was slow hiring out their guns. It didn't hurt to check over the wanted posters kept in a lawman's office. You never knew who you'd cross trails with.
Minton now clumsily propped himself up, sitting with his back against the bank's doorframe. A splotch of blood soiled his sleeve, high on the left shoulder. He grimaced.
"Drilled me right through the shoulder! Didn't hit bone but I'm down." He pinned his eyes on J.D. "Go get 'em, mister."
J.D. bit back a curse. "Our horses are stabled."
Minton indicated an aged but sturdy strawberry roan tethered at a nearby hitching post.
"That's my horse, old Thunder. Take him. Get them varmints. I've got money in this bank and they're makin' off with it!"
"Right you are, Sheriff." J.D. turned to Kate, "You've got a knocked-out lady on the ground and a winged sheriff. If I'm not back by sunset, I'll see you tomorrow in Whiskey Bend."
Kate stopped him with an arm tug that brought J.D. around and into her waiting arms.
"I'll be waiting for you, big man. Be careful." She gave her husband the sort of kiss a man remembers.
The sheriff chuckled in spite of his wound.
"You two make quite a couple, sure 'nuff."
J.D. was in the middle of the street when he realized that he still wore the Santa Claus getup! He sacrificed valuable seconds shucking the costume, doing his best to ignore the wide-eyed stares of the townspeople. But there was no denying the innocent concern and confusion on the part of the children.
"Mommy, Santa's taking his clothes off!"
"Hush, child. Children, avert your eyes!"
J.D swung into the saddle, undoing the loose tether from the hitching post.
Thunder needed no urging and took off at a full-speed gallop.
Kate sent J.D. a wave as he rode past. She was leading the sheriff over to where she intended to revive the unconscious woman. A few the townspeople came forward to help while others stood and gawked.
Hoofbeats again clattered across the wooden bridge and J.D. and the strawberry roan were racing after the bank robbers...who were nowhere in sight! Trail dust lingered in the distance where the trail made its way around a towering formation of rocks, disappearing from view.
"Come on, boy," J.D. urged in the horse's ear.
Thunder broke into a long-legged stride that rapidly ate up the distance, following the trail.
The outlaws were waiting right around the corner of the towering rock formation, crouched behind rocks to either side of the trail. They opened fire in unison with their Winchester rifles.
Damn damn damn!
J.D. had expected them to do the natural thing, to keep riding hell-for-leather, not draw up and wait to pick off whoever gave chase. A fatal error?
The first bullet zinged inches from his ear. The second bullet went wild. There followed a loud salvo of saffron muzzle flashes barking from the rocks.
Thunder reared back on his hind legs, emitting a frightened whinny. J.D. reached for one of his guns. But then the old horse wheeled about and Thunder was suddenly galloping off, full-speed, back in the direction of town.
This startled the hell out of J.D. He commenced working the reins, attempting to regain control of the panicking steed.
"Whoa, Thunder! Whoa, boy! Whoa!"
No good. Thunder had a mind of his own and only galloped faster, carrying a futilely protesting J.D. around the towering formation, out of the ambushers' line of fire.
Through the pounding of Thunder's hooves, J.D. faintly heard the receding, mocking laughter of the outlaws.
Chapter 4
The Waddell brothers rode hard and fast. Digging in their spurs, whipping their horses mercilessly. Riding the dusty trail hell for leather. They rode so fast that the chill of the wintry afternoon cut through their coats and burnished their faces.
Eventually they had no choice but to let the horses rest.
Nothing but open prairie stretched in every direction from a valley where the San Pedro flowed. The horses drew water. The brothers drank from their canteens and refilled them. They reloaded their weapons under a cluster of bare cottonwoods. This was unsettled, wild land. Rugged mountain ranges reared up in the distance, the higher peaks dusted with snow. The valley looked like an easy enough ride.
Skid Waddell was excited, unable to remain still. The younger of the brothers, in his early twenties, he possessed a wiry manner that animated a sandy-haired, scrawny frame. Despite the chill in the air, Skid's eyes held a feverish glow. He danced a little jig.
"Doggone, big brother! Reckon we can say we done it all now. I'll be horn-swoggled if we didn't get ourselves chased by Santa Claus! Dang, that was funnier'n hell. Reckon that puts us on the naughty list, huh? What do you say, Les? Big fun, eh?"
Despite a facial resemblance, Les Waddell was hefty, broad-shouldered. The beginning of a gut hung over his belt.
Les had never been able to stand the little brat that was his kid brother. Skid was barely worth having around in a fight and he'd probably lose a game of checkers to a church mouse if church mice could play checkers. Skid wasn't quite right in the head. Slow was the word his teacher used to explain it away in the little one-room schoolhouse they'd attended back home in Wallow Hollow. But that was a spell ago.
He and Skid were the last of the Waddells. Their daddy taught them how to change brands and all about the best ways to get the jump on people. Dad was long gone, strung up by vigilantes up Nevada way. The old man must have trusted wrong. Every badman needs backup. Dad Waddell had drummed that into his boys. Maybe Dad trusted the wrong backup. Dad was smart but anyone could be double-crossed. Look at what Judas Iscariot had done! So Les endured having Skid as his saddle buddy and accomplice.
He responded to Skid's exhilaration with a narrow-eyed surveillance of their backtrack and the vista of big sky and desert spread out before them.
Les said, "What would I say? I'd say let's rub down these horses and not spend a whole lot of time palaverin.' We need to keep putting distance between us and Horseshoe."
Skid made a dismissive, carefree gesture. "Aw, I'd say we done plenty of that already, leavin' ol' Santa in the dust. Reckon he should've brought along a passel of them reindeer and maybe he'd of caught us."
"You didn't recognize him, did you?"
"Uh, no."
"Ever hear of J.D. Blaze?"
"'Course I have." Skid's response bordered on the indignant. "The fastest gunslinger in the West. You must think I'm totally stupid."
"Let's not get into that. Well, if you heard of J.D. Blaze, then you know what happened."
Skid said, "Uh, what do you mean what happened? He's one of them made-up characters you hear tell about like Paul Bunyon or some such. You know me, Les. I'm like Pa. Never had me much use for the written word."
Les sighed mightily.
"You chucklehead. J.D. Blaze is alive as you or me."
"Now why would you say a think like that?"
"Because that was J.D. Blaze hot on our trail! Seen a photograph in a newspaper when we were up in
Denver. He faced down the Plummer boys. Left every one of 'em face down, bleeding their lives onto a barroom floor."
Skid's brow furrowed.
"So if he is real, what did happen to him?"
Les said, "J.D. Blaze is the fastest man alive with a gun. Thing is, he met up with the fastest woman with a gun. You've heard of Kate Aragon?"
"I did down El Paso way. Female gunslinger and cardsharp, if that don't beat all."
"They hitched up," said Les. "Married. Husband and wife. All legal-like. They work for the law and hire out their guns when they ain't stalking bounty."
Skid whistled low. "I'll be go to hell." His brow crinkled into yet deeper thought. "Wait a minute. How did you recognize him in that Santa get-up?"
"Knew it was them when we walked into the bank but it was too late to say anything and he looked busy enough playing Santa."
"But how—?"
"I didn't recognize him exactly," said Les. "But when we tied our horses at the hitching rail, I got a look at the blonde that was sitting there near him and it's her I recognized. That was Kate Blaze. She's not only the second fastest gun in the West, second only to her husband and some claim they're equals, but she's also one of the finest looking women in the whole wide West. I don't forget a pretty face."
Skid said, "Reckon we was lucky at that. Got to hand it to you, Les. You're the brains between the two of us."
"You think so?"
"Heck, yeah. What gave us the edge in busting out of that town was your idea of having that drunken old woman as a decoy. That's what gave us a clean getaway."
"Thing is," said Les, "I'm hoping using that drunk biddy was a good idea in the long stretch."
"Now how could that cause us trouble?"
Les said, "I don't know. And I don't cotton to tarrying around and finding out. Let's ride."
Chapter 5
Kate stood in the doorway of the sheriff's office. Her eyes stayed riveted on the end of Horseshoe's single street. The spot where she'd last seen J.D. Her stomach was a knot of anxiety that she tried to ignore. She could not ignore the impulse that flowed through her veins to be doing something. She had intended to remain with the sheriff and the woman she'd knocked unconscious, who lay in a cell, still KO-ed. But that intention was rapidly evaporating.
Kate threw a glance at the lawman.
"I can't abide this standing around any longer, Sheriff. I'm heading over to the stable, and then I'm riding out to find my man."
Sheriff Minton sat behind his desk. A nearby pot-bellied stove emanated warmth.
"Can't say as I blame you." The sheriff gestured with his arm in its sling and indicated with his jaw the patchwork of bandages on his upper arm. "Doc says I won't be an invalid. Just won't be rough riding for a spell. But I'll interrogate Mrs. Mitchell when she comes around."
On a bunk in a cell with the door left open, the disheveled woman snored like a buzz saw whining through wood.
The town of Horseshoe did have what passed in these parts for a doctor. Doc Young was a wizened fellow in his sixties whose lean frame might once have been spry and limber but was now stooped, slow in manner.
He arrived promptly, drawn by the sound of gunfire. He had made quick work of tending to the sheriff's wound.
Decent medical care was not exactly abundant in frontier towns like Horseshoe. If there was any medical practitioner at all, he generally fell into one of two categories. There were the sturdy young fellows fresh out of Harvard whose age and times dictated that they savor the adventurous life of what the newspapers were beginning to call the wild west. Many of these young chaps became respectable members of their community, providing the best treatment allowed by place and circumstance. Then there were the older men like Doc Young. Men whose souls had been sucked dry after decades of tending to the maladies of the human condition; in particular, most medical men of his age had seen battlefield service during the War. What surgical skill was needed to saw off a conscious and screaming man's legs or arm? Medical veterans of that conflict like Doc Young had witness the very pits of human hell. Alcohol was often their avenue of escape from images, sounds, smells and horrors that forever haunted them. They provided as best they could.
"Bullet went clean through." The doc had tried to whistle upon first examining but poorly fitted false teeth made a whistle impossible, thus resulting only in sprayed spittle. "Take 'er easy for a spell, Sheriff, and it won't be nothing but a bothersome ache when the weather's fixing to change."
"What about Mrs. Mitchell?" the sheriff asked.
The doc entered her cell. He listened to the woman's snoring. He took her pulse. He touched the spot where Kate had tapped her skull with a six-gun.
"Seems to be all right. Nothing I can do for her." Doc Young uncorked a pint bottle. He took a swig and burped. "If she croaks, call George. I'm be taking a siesta. Don't bother me with it."
Kate found herself muttering, "And a Merry Christmas to you too."
The doc ignored her sarcasm.
"I can't heal the dead, young lady. George, he's a right fine barber but he's even better at tapping together a coffin. Ain't that right, Sheriff?"
Doc hadn't waited for a response. He excused himself with a bleary-eyed nod.
That's when Kate's restlessness made itself known. Her place wasn't here, watching after a recuperating sheriff who would be just fine and an unconscious drunk. Her place was feeling the wind in her face. Riding with her man. She and J.D. had shared thick and thin since teaming up. They were never far from each others' side. He had saved Kate's life in more than one gunfight and Kate had reciprocated nearly an equal number of times.
This could be one of those times...
When she was halfway to the livery stable, something seen from the corner of her eye caught her attention. She cast a glance down the street, expecting only to see the normal movement of folks and wagons in the wake of the robbery.
She saw J.D. riding into town astride the old horse, Thunder. The horse trotted toward her, its head drooped in a way that Kate could only think of as the horse equivalent of a hang-dog look.
Her heart soared. She felt the ear-to-ear grin pull at her face. Unable to contain her relief, she ran up to her husband as J.D. swung down from the saddle. She came into his arms, her momentum swooping her off the ground and halfway around in his embrace.
"Oh, J.D.! I was worried about you."
He set her down. He chuckled in her ear.
"I see that. But dang, girl, let's not give the folks a show!"
In the sheriff's office, J.D. delivered a concise report of what happened after he and Thunder caught up with the outlaws.
Minton sighed. "Sorry about that, J.D. Ol' Thunder's always been skittish as a colt around loud noises, especially thunder. Uh, that's how he got his name. I ride him around town some. My real horse is Henry, over at the stable with your'n. But Thunder was tied up right there and ready to go. Reckon the gunfire spooked him."
J.D sighed. "Reckon so. Well, what's done is done. The robbers got away."
Kate said, "For now."
"I recognized 'em," said Minton. "The Waddell boys, Skid and Lester." He snagged a wanted poster from the wall and placed it on his desk for Kate and J.D. to view. He said, "I've got an idea."
Kate said, "And I reckon I know what it is. You want to deputize me and J.D. to hunt those jaspers down."
The sheriff nodded. "You two are the best there is. I've heard tell you've rode for the law before."
J.D. said, "Been known to. I reckon we can—"
Kate held up a hand.
"Hold on, Sheriff. Tell us about those Waddell fellas. Any reward being offered on 'em?"
"Well, yeah. Wells Fargo is offering a grand apiece."
Kate nodded approvingly.
"That's our meat. Sorry, Sheriff. With a reward out for those boys, me and hubby here are better off riding our own trail. Hunt down those Waddell boys for the Wells Fargo money." She gently elbowed J.D. in the ribs. "Aren't I right, J.D.?"
J.D. said, "As always, darlin'." He added for Minton's benefit, "No offense, Sheriff."
"None taken." Minton touched the dressing over his wound and winced. "And if you bring 'em in dead, tell those punks I said hello before you send 'em over."
"We can catch up with the Waddell boys if we hit the trail right now."
A fearful coughing erupted from the front cell.
Kate said, "Hold on, J.D. I want to hear what that lady has to say."
Sheriff Minton rose to reach for the coffee pot that rested atop the stove.
"She's gonna need some of my mud to sober her up." He shook his head slowly, frowning. "I just can't figure what got into Mrs. Mitchell. She runs a respectable boarding house on the main road out of town. Business has been slow. Widowed five years back. Got herself a boy helps her run the place. Never even seen that woman tipple. Getting drunk and causing a ruckus, it just don't add up unless she was in cahoots with them fellas and that don't seem likely."
In the cell, Mrs. Mitchell sat up, steadying herself.
J.D. said, "But honey, there's two thousand dollars riding off down the trail. It was you that said—"
Kate said, "Men. Always so consistent." She started toward the cell. "Come on, let's help Mrs. Mitchell get in here so she can have a seat and try some of the sheriff's coffee."
Minton poured a cup of coffee.
"It sure will be interesting to find out why she done what she did."
Kate said, "Maybe I'm too full of the Christmas spirit."
"Maybe," agreed J.D.
"But I aim to find out why Mrs. Mitchell decided to get drunk and kill Santa Claus."
Chapter 6
Alma Mitchell's story
Those hardcases you call the Waddell brothers.
They rode up to my place at dusk.
That isn't particularly unusual. That's the time of day many of my boarders show up. Mostly folks passing through. Couple of times a year the stage breaks down or is running late and old Billy Combs doesn't want to make Red Bank Pass after dark so I'll have a houseful of folks.
Blaze! The Christmas Journey Page 2
