“He’s your boss?”
“Yeah. He ramrods the whole outfit.”
“Gus, what will I do in the city where the marshal is hanging his hat?”
Crane smiled. “Go to school, I reckon. Learn how to read and cipher.”
“I’ve already learned that.”
“There’s still a lot of stuff you don’t know.”
“Will you marry me in Virginia City, Gus?”
The marshal laughed. “No, you’re far too young for that and for me.”
“Then will you adopt me?”
Crane rose to his feet, the basin with its pink-stained water in his hands. “Sarah, you ask too many questions.”
He placed the basin on the dresser. “I’ll empty that later,” he said.
“Reuben Stark wants to marry me in the worst way.”
“I know. Did he . . . harm you?”
The girl shook her head. “No, but he told me he plans to keep me as a breeder. He wants many sons and he said I’m young enough to have a dozen litters before I’m worn out.”
Sarah’s words hit Crane like a punch in the gut. He tried not to let it show but failed because suddenly the girl looked frightened. “Will he come for me, Gus?”
“He might try. If he does, I’ll kill him.”
“He hates you. He told me that.”
“I guess you could say the feeling is mutual.”
Crane stepped to the girl’s bedside. “Now, you close your eyes and get some sleep. I’ve got to ask that uppity doctor about Masterson. The man just won’t listen to advice.”
Sarah’s eyes misted. “Paul will die,” she said. “But not in his bed—he won’t let that happen.”
“How do you know this?”
“I see it in my mind. It’s very clear, like a picture in a book.”
“I won’t let him die, Sarah. He’s an irritating man and I’m looking forward to the pleasure of gunning him myself.”
“That’s not true, Gus. You like him a lot.”
“Is that another picture in your book?”
“No, I can see it in your eyes. You’re worried about him.”
“You go to sleep.”
“Gus, you’ll stay close?”
A small joy in him at Sarah’s trust, Crane said, “You bet I’ll stay close.”
As Crane walked along the boardwalk toward the doctor’s office a scarlet sky rode point for the oncoming day.
Now the storekeepers were astir and one of them, his glasses as far down his nose as possible, watched him draw near, his eyes full of speculation.
The marshal stopped and spoke to the man. “Tell the mayor to arrange a town meeting for eight o’clock. And I want every able-bodied man who can shoot a rifle to be there.”
“That’s early, ain’t it?”
“It might be too late.”
“I’ll tell Mayor Reddy, but he won’t like it.”
“Tell him that Ben Hollister was right and that Reuben Stark is coming. Mayor Reddy either comes up with fifty thousand dollars or loses his town. The chances are he’ll see it burn anyway.”
This time the storekeeper made no objections. He hurried away, his face troubled.
Doc Preston must have seen Crane coming, because the door to his office opened immediately when the marshal arrived.
“Get inside,” the physician said abruptly.
He led Crane past the surgery and into a small parlor at the end of a hallway.
“Take a seat,” he said, ushering the marshal onto an overstuffed tapestry sofa. “Can I get you coffee?”
“I could use some.”
Preston rang the small brass bell that sat on a table next to his chair. A pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman appeared at the door.
“Martha, coffee for two please.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
After the woman left, Crane showed Preston the makings. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Please do. I’m told by colleagues in Texas, where cowboys and Mexican vaqueros are much given to the habit, that tobacco is very good for congestion of the lungs and ailments of the throat.”
Crane took time to build a smoke, putting off the time he had to ask the question. He lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, then asked it. “How is he, Doc?”
Crane’s heart beat once, twice, three times. Then Preston said, “He’s dying, Marshal.”
The middle-aged woman bustled inside and handed Crane and the physician a cup and saucer. She filled the cups from a flowered coffeepot, which she then set beside Preston.
“Will there be anything else, Doctor?”
“No, nothing, Martha. Thank you.”
The woman walked out and Crane said, “Paul Masterson is a tough man, Doctor. He’s mighty hard to kill.”
“He is indeed. If he weren’t, he’d be dead already. In time, he could recover from the knife wound, but a bullet is still inside him and it’s deep. I don’t have the skill to go digging for it, and even if I did, the surgery would surely kill him.”
The coffee steaming forgotten in his cup, the marshal drew deep on his cigarette and said, “Doc, there has to be a way.”
“There is no way.” Preston looked tired, as though all the life had been drained from him. “The bullet smashed the sheriff’s spinal column, then ranged upward. His legs are paralyzed, both lungs are damaged and I believe he has suffered a heart injury.”
The doctor sipped his coffee with all the apparent enjoyment of a condemned man eating his last meal. “Marshal Crane, your friend has only hours to live.”
Crane absorbed the blow, but, like that of a punch-drunk pugilist, his head reeled. Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he stubbed out his cigarette in his saucer, drank coffee, then began to build another smoke.
Finally, his hands still, he said, “Sarah saw it. She saw it all.”
“Saw what, Marshal?”
“She saw Paul’s death, like a picture in her mind. But she said he wouldn’t die in his own bed, that he wouldn’t let that happen.”
“He won’t die in his own bed, Marshal. He’ll die in my surgery. I don’t want him moved.”
“Can I see him?”
Preston rose. “Of course.”
Crane shoved his half-built cigarette into his pocket and he too got to his feet.
The physician led the way down the hallway, opened the surgery door and stepped aside. “I’ll leave you alone with him. All I can do for him now is to ease his pain if it gets bad.”
His heart thumping in his chest, Crane stepped into the surgery.
Chapter 33
Masterson was lying on a steel cot, covered by a spotless white sheet and a gray blanket.
He was completely still and for a moment Crane thought he was asleep or dead.
“Come in, Gus. I’d recognize the thump of those big feet anywhere.”
The marshal stepped to Masterson’s bedside. Like everyone who visits the sick, he frantically ransacked his mind for something uplifting to say.
“Relax, Gus. I know I’m dying,” the sheriff said, solving Crane’s dilemma. “I asked the doc to give it to me straight and he surely did.”
“I’m sorry, Paul.” It sounded inadequate, but it was all the marshal had.
“Is the town getting ready for Stark?”
“I’ve had the mayor call a meeting for eight in the Texas Belle.”
“That’s late, Gus. It’s already daylight. Stark could attack at any time.”
Masterson’s face was ashen, and blue shadows were gathering under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. His voice was a pained, wafer-thin whisper.
“Get scouts out, Gus,” he said. “The town will need a warning.”
“I’ll do that.”
“How many fighting men can we muster?”
“I don’t know.” Crane shrugged. “Maybe a couple dozen, or less than that. I really have no idea.”
“Well, we’re starting with two good men. You and me.”
“Paul, you’re not g
oing anywhere. Doc Preston wants you to rest.”
“Yeah, he wants me to rest in peace. Gus, I’m not going to die in bed, looking down at the holes in my socks and wondering how in hell I ended up like this. I want to go out in a moment of hell-firing glory with Reuben Stark in my sights.”
Crane had no decorated words that would change Masterson’s mind.
Tense, his mouth dry, he knew that in the sheriff’s place he would have said the same thing.
Now he uttered an admission of defeat in a voice that flattened every word. “What do you want me to do, Paul?”
“Help me into my boots, bring my gun belt from the chair over there by the window and we’ll head for the Texas Belle.”
“How you plan on getting there?”
“You’re gonna carry me, Gus. Now, help me sit up and get me my hat. My head feels nekkid.”
Crane manhandled the sheriff to a sitting position and Masterson looked at him with fevered eyes. “Before we start out, Gus, I got something to tell you.”
“About the money?”
“Yeah, about the money. It’s at the mission. I told the nuns that some mighty bad men might be searching for it and they should keep it until I asked for it back.”
Masterson’s lips were white as life took its own sweet time to drain from him. He managed a smile.
“It wasn’t too difficult to convince the sisters. I told them they could keep a thousand dollars to expand the school and put a new roof on the building. Even nuns aren’t above a little larceny when it’s used for God’s work.”
“All that searching . . . but nobody thought to look in the mission.”
“I know. Why do you think I left it there?”
Now Crane understood why a nun had visited Masterson late at night. She was probably reassuring him that the money was still safe.
“Would you have kept half of it, like you said?” he asked.
“Hell yeah, maybe all of it less the thousand.”
The sheriff was holding on to his life by a sheer effort of will. Crane wondered how long it would take before he gave up and descended into darkness.
“Gus, I’m an outlaw who happens to be temporarily wearing a lawman’s star. I can no more change my ways than you could turn in your badge and start selling women’s corsets.”
Crane made no answer and Masterson said, “If any of us are still alive after this is over, get the money from the nuns and give it back to the bank. Don’t forget the thousand for the roof.”
The marshal nodded. Then he said, “I don’t think you would have kept the money.”
“Now you’ll never know, will you?”
“I guess I won’t.”
“Then let’s get out of here. This place is enough to clabber a man’s blood.”
Augustus Crane was a big man and it took little effort to lift Masterson and carry him to the door.
Dr. Preston was waiting for them.
He made no comment but opened the door wide and let Crane pass with his burden.
“Doc, I—,” the marshal began, pausing in the doorway.
“It’s all right,” Preston said. “I understand.”
A disciple of science though he was, the physician was a Westerner and he accepted all that implied, the unwritten code that required a man to ask no more and give no less than courage, honesty, loyalty, generosity and fairness, courage uppermost.
He understood Masterson’s decision, respected it, and would not demean the man’s grit by standing in his way.
“Good luck,” he said. “Good luck to both of you.”
Procrastination is a thief of time and just another way of concealing cowardice.
Crane’s opinion of the citizens of Rawhide Flat was low, and procrastination was what he expected . . . talk, delay, whispers of surrender, flight.
In that, he was wrong.
It was not yet eight, but a large number of men were already piling into the Texas Belle. Behind Crane the mission school bell was ringing and children were walking inside, but there were no half-grown boys among them.
Masterson tense and alert in his arms, the marshal’s boot heels thudded along the weathered boards of the walk as he headed toward the saloon.
But stunned, he stopped in his tracks as a magnificent vision in gray stepped out of the Texas Belle.
Mayor Ed Reddy wore the uniform of a Confederate brigadier general, the French blue of the infantry at his collars and cuffs, gold braid on his sleeves. A plumed hat sat rakishly on his head and a sword was buckled around his waist.
The uniform had transformed the little, unprepossessing man into a figure of considerable authority and poise.
“No time for a meeting, Marshal,” he snapped. His eyes dropped to Masterson, but he made no comment. “I’ve already given my orders and the boys know what to do. I have pickets out to the north, all of them good, steady men.”
As if to underscore his point, a gangling teenager stepped beside Reddy and touched his forehead. “Gen’l, my pa’s compliments, an’ he says do you want us to start on the barricades now?”
“Yes, son, right away. Tell him to take ten men and get to work. I want works on both sides of the sheriff’s office. Tell him to close off the entire street. Use barrels, hay bales, wagons, whatever he can find that will stop a bullet.”
“How ’bout bob wire, Gen’l?”
“Can’t hurt, son, and it might help if you can find any.”
Reddy turned back to Crane. When he realized the extent of Masterson’s wounds, some of the ramrod stiffness went out of his back. “What happened?”
“Reuben Stark’s men,” Crane said, feeling no further explanation was needed.
“Bring him inside,” Reddy said.
“No,” the sheriff said. “Get a chair out here. I want to be where the fight is.”
Reddy stepped to the door of the saloon. “One of you men bring a chair out here.”
A Southern voice from inside said, “It’s a-comin’, General.”
The chair was set on the walk and Crane gently eased Masterson into it. He straightened and said to Reddy, “How many do we have?”
The mayor waited until the men spilling out of the saloon ran past him. Then he said, “Including you, Sheriff Masterson and me, forty-three men and boys. That includes storekeepers, bank clerks, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. We also got a couple of Ben Hollister’s wounded cowboys, some dance hall loungers and three gamblers. The light-fingered gentry ain’t up yet, but they’re all good with a gun and they’ll be here when we need ’em.”
“Ed, will your men stand?” This came from Masterson.
“They’ll stand. About half of them boys fought in the War Between the States, on both sides.” Reddy nodded his reassurance. “They’ll stand and steady the rest.”
The little mayor drew himself up to his full five foot six and directed his remarks to both lawmen. “Not a penny for tribute, Marshal. We’ve talked and all have agreed to make our fight on this ground.”
Crane made no answer.
He didn’t know how many men Stark had lost in Sullivan Canyon, but if there were any grieving widows at the old man’s camp, he didn’t remember seeing any.
Stark must still have well over 250 riflemen.
The odds were not in Rawhide Flat’s favor.
Chapter 34
The morning passed and grew into a hot, oppressive afternoon that smelled of dust and man-sweat.
Ed Reddy, his face flushed above the collar of his splendid uniform, had finally deployed his men to his satisfaction. Three pickets were out, twenty men and boys manned the barricade at the end of the street and another ten horsemen had been sent on a wide flanking movement to the east and north.
It was the general’s intention that after the fight began, those riders would hit the enemy from the rear and sow confusion and death among their ranks.
Except for the gamblers, the remaining men were at the barricades as a reserve should the attack come from a different directi
on, as Crane suspected it would.
He doubted that a man as savvy as Stark would recklessly charge down the street into rifle fire. His men would probably hit the town from the four points of the compass and try to overwhelm the defenders by sheer weight of numbers.
Rawhide Flat was a city without walls, but right now it needed ramparts, bulwarks, towers and a mighty big citadel. And maybe a better brigadier general in charge.
Crane stood beside Masterson outside the Texas Belle. The gamblers, pale, taciturn men with cold, calculating eyes, were inside, determined not to expose their sensitive skins to the sunlight until the fight started.
Masterson was weakening. He had refused the doctor’s offer of laudanum but was easing his pain with a bottle of whiskey.
“Gus, where is Stark? My clock is running down fast.”
“I don’t know. The pickets just reported that they’ve seen no sign of him.”
“We can’t beat him here in town.”
Crane smiled. “I know, but I don’t think we can beat him anywhere, so making a stand on this ground is as good as any.”
“You scared to die, Gus?”
“Yeah.”
“You thinking about it?”
“Some.”
“I’m thinking about it. I don’t know what happens . . . afterward.”
“I don’t either. Nobody does. Maybe you go back to being what you were before you were born.”
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a real helpful man, Gus.”
“I surely try.”
“Gus?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t bury me here in Rawhide Flat.” Masterson’s eyes scanned the sky as though he were seeing it for the first time. “Take me into the mountains, huh? I want to sleep under the pines and hear the wind.”
“Well, that’s a dang chore an’ no mistake.”
“Will you do it? Take me to the mountains?”
Crane looked down at the dying man, a bleak kind of sadness tugging at him.
“I guess you figure on being an irritating man right to the end.”
“Will you do as I ask?”
The marshal nodded. “Yes, Paul. If I’m still alive I’ll take you to the high rim country.”
Rawhide Flat Page 18
