Imposter (14 page)

The elder Simpson grimaced. “I reckon we have to see him. But I'm not looking forward to it. I've arranged for John Whitter to represent him.” Again he grimaced. “For all the good it will do.”

“Go on in, Ed,” Tom said. “The cell block door is open. We'll wait out here. Help yourselves to coffee. It's fresh. I just made it.”

“Thanks,” Big Ed said. He took a deep breath and pushed open the office door. He and his wife stepped inside, closing the door behind them.

“What a change in those two,” Tom said, sitting down on the bench.

“I couldn't believe it myself,” Doc Evans said. “But sometimes, a family tragedy will do that to people.”

“I think it's a miracle,” the marshal said.

“How's your head feeling?” Doc Evans asked.

“Just fine, Doc. When can you take off this big bandage?”

“Today, if you like. I want to look at the wound anyway.”

“Suits me. I been missin' wearin' my hat.”

A single shot cracked from inside the jail.

“Oh, hell!” Tom yelled, jumping up just as Elsie screamed.

Precious seconds were lost as the three men jammed each other up trying to get inside the office. When they did manage to get in, they ran into Elsie, almost knocking her down.

“Big Ed's been shot!” Elsie squalled. “Little Ed grabbed his gun and shot him. He run out the back door. The little shit shot his own father! I can't believe it!”

Frank ran around to the side of the jail and cussed. The new fence blocked him, and of course there was no gate. He ran back around to the front and down the small alleyway, finally reaching the rear of the jail. Little Ed had vanished into the thick timber that lay only a hundred or so yards all around the town. In many places that timber and its underbrush were very nearly impenetrable.

“I'll get a posse together,” Tom said, walking up behind Frank. “For all the good it will do. That timber is thick. With dozens of places to hide. A mile further on they's caves. Doc's with Big Ed. I'll see you, Frank. Take care of things.”

Frank met Doc coming out of the office. “He's hard hit, Frank. I don't want to move him just yet. Stay with him. I've got to get some things from my office.”

Big Ed motioned for Frank to kneel down beside him. “You're gonna have to kill him, Frank. I see that now.”

“Don't talk, Ed. Save your strength.”

“No. Listen to me. The boy's half crazy. He's kill-crazy. I've seen it in other men, and so have you. I should have seen it sooner. But he was my son. You understand, don't you, Frank? Don't you?” he pleaded.

“I understand, Ed. I really do.”

Elsie was sitting on the floor next to her husband, weeping into her hands.

“Don't give him no chance at all, Frank,” said Ed, “If you do, he'll kill you. He can't be trusted. Boy that would shoot his own father . . .” He coughed and grimaced in pain. “I never dreamed he'd try to grab my gun.”

Elsie turned to her husband just as Doc Evans entered the office. “Don't you die on me, you big bastard!” she sobbed. “I love you, and you know I do.”

“I know, baby,” Ed whispered. “I know you do, and I love you.” He tried to laugh. “We sure picked some funny ways to show it, didn't we?”

“All that is gonna change, Ed. I promise you, it will. I need you, Ed. We need each other. Don't we?”

“We sure do, baby.”

“Elsie,” Doc Evans urged, “get out of the way. I've got to work on Ed. Go make me a pot of hot water for these instruments.”

Elsie got up and sniffed a couple of times. She wiped her eyes and her nose with the back of her hand. “Right away, Doc.”

“Get me some blankets, Frank. I've got to work on him right where he is. I don't want to move him. I've got to probe for that bullet.” He looked at Frank. “And you've got to hold him down while I do so.”

Frank nodded his head. “I've seen it done before.”

“I imagine you have.”

It was a nerve-racking and very painful next few minutes. Big Ed finally, mercifully, passed out from the pain. Doc Evans located the bullet and extracted it from Ed's chest, then leaned back and wiped his sweaty face, laying aside his bloody instruments.

“Will he live, Doc?” Elsie asked.

“He's got a chance, Elsie. A small one. I won't lie to you about that. But Ed is strong as a mule, and that will work in his favor. In a few minutes, we'll get some men in here and move Ed to a bunk here in this building. I don't want to move him around any more than is absolutely necessary. Not for the next twenty-four hours, at least.”

“I'll stay right with him all the time,” Elsie said. “I promise you I will not leave his side.”

“I know you won't, Elsie.”

“How about some coffee, Doc?” Frank asked.

“Sounds good. I think I could drink a whole pot.”

Big Ed was moved into the small room where Frank was going to sleep, and made as comfortable as possible in the bunk. A rocking chair was brought over by Jack O'Malley for Elsie. Frank made another pot of coffee and, while the grounds were settling, stepped outside to sit on the bench and roll a cigarette.

Lara walked over from the hotel to sit beside him. “Is Big Ed going to make it?” she asked.

“It's touch and go right now.”

“Very difficult for me to believe his very own son shot him.”

“Ed admitted to me that Little Ed is crazy. Told me I'd have to kill him. And don't give him any chance at all.”

“How awful!”

“Yes. Especially about your own son.” Frank shrugged his shoulders. “But this mess has sure brought Ed and Elsie close together.”

“I heard. And that is also hard to believe.”

Frank smiled. “It was a shock to me and Tom too.”

“It'll be dark soon. Tom and the posse should be riding in any time now. I hope they found Little Ed.”

“I'd bet they didn't. That's rough country Ed took off in. Lots of places for a lone man to hide.”

“That means you'll have to go after him, doesn't it?”

“Probably.”

She touched his arm with her small hand. “I hate that. I worried about you every day you were gone.”

“It's good to know somebody worried about me. It's a good feeling, but not a feeling I'm accustomed to.”

“Get used to it.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Frank replied with a laugh.

The two of them sat close together on the bench in silence for a few moments, enjoying the coolness of twilight time. The town was closing up and settling down for the evening. Over at the Purple Lily, a woman laughed at something, the shrill sound drifting to the couple seated on the bench.

“I don't think that was a very happy laugh,” Lara said. “It sounded . . . well . . . rather sad to me, I suppose.”

“Paid laughter, Lara. A drink of bad whiskey. A silver dollar given for a few moments of company.”

“That makes it even sadder.” She looked at him in the waning light. “Have you ever paid a woman for company?”

“No. I always figured that would be very questionable company at best.”

“I'm glad” was her only reply.

Frank looked up the street. “Here comes Tom and the posse. I don't believe they found Little Ed.”

“That means you'll go after him. When will you leave?”

“If I go, probably in the morning.”

“If
you go?”

“I'll tell Tom my thoughts on it. And they are that it will be useless to go after him. Little Ed will show up around here. I don't think it will be long either. He'll come back for clothes and food and money. But he'd better not count on his mother giving it to him.”

“What do you mean? You think she'll turn him in?”

Frank shook his head. “I think she'll shoot him.”

* * *

Big Ed rallied early the next morning and opened his eyes. Elsie called for Frank to please go get Doc Evans. She didn't want to leave her husband's side.

“How do you feel, you big ox?” Doc Evans asked, sitting down on the side of the bunk.

“Like a man who's been shot, you old quack,” Ed replied, his voice low.

Doc Evans smiled at that. “Now that sounds like the Big Ed I know. Let me take a look at that wound.”

Doc Evans looked at the wound and clucked his approval. “No signs of infection. I think you're going to be all right, Ed.”

“Oh, I'm going to make it, Doc. I want to kick the snot out of that worthless son of mine and then turn him over to Tom.”

“After I get done kickin' his ass,” Elsie said.

“Now, now, Elsie,” Big Ed told her. He looked at Frank. “Morgan, I want you to know I never sanctioned no hangin'. That was all Little Ed's doin's. I run off some nesters, yeah. I admit that. But I never shot none, and I damn sure never hanged none.”

“Both of us talk big, Morgan,” Elsie added. “But mainly it's just talk. There's been a lot of rumor about us, and that's mostly all it is, rumor.” She shook her head. “Except for our runnin' around on each other. I got to admit, that's pretty much true.”

“Done out of spite,” Big Ed said. “Pure stupid spite against each other.” His voice was getting weaker. “I got to rest some. Don't leave me, Elsie.”

“I won't, Ed. I promise you I'll be right here when you wake up.”

Frank walked outside with Doc Evans. “Really baring their souls in there, aren't they, Doc?”

“Sometimes getting real close to death will do that, Frank. I've seen it happen more than once. Whether it'll stay with them after Ed gets on his feet is another matter.”

“You know, Doc, I think it will.”

“You just might be right, Frank.”

“Here comes Tom. You want to have some coffee?”

“Sure. More than that. I haven't had breakfast yet.”

“I'm sure Tom will join you in a snack.”

“If I pay for it, yes.”

“And you will.”

“Of course. I always end up doing that.”

In the café over breakfast, Doc Evans looked at Frank and said, “Mind if I ask you a personal question, Frank?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Are the rumors true that you're a wealthy man?”

“Moderately so, yes.”

“Yet . . . you still drift aimlessly around the West.”

“Doing what I want to do, Doc.”

“Are you? Really?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“Why don't you go abroad, Frank?” Tom asked. “Like maybe, oh, I don't know. France. See the country.”

“I don't speak the language.”

“How about Italy?”

“I don't speak that language either.”

Both Tom and Doc Evans laughed at Frank's replies. Doc Evans said, “You don't have to speak the language to enjoy the country, Frank.”

“I reckon they've got grass and trees and valleys and mountains and hills, Doc. So do we right here. They've got rivers and creeks. So do we. They got fancy food in the cities of France and Italy, so I've heard tell. But I bet none of them has ever sat down to a buffalo steak cooked over a campfire while the wolves sang in the background. I bet none of those fancy city folks over there has ever camped in the mountains and cooked and eaten a fresh-caught trout and been entertained by camp-robber birds and squirrels or watched an eagle soar high in the sky. None of those folks ever sat out a bad storm in an Indian village, talking sign while eating Injun stew, then rolled up in a buffler robe and slept while the storm blew itself out. They got old buildings over there, so I'm told. So what? Who the hell wants to sail across the ocean to look at an old building? Boys, I've seen canyons down in Northwest Arizona Territory that will take your breath away. They're damn near unbelievable. And the redwood trees you've got right here in California are a sight to behold. Beautiful. Almost spiritual. And I'm not a religious man. But I'm told some of those trees have been here for a couple of thousand years. That'll make a man start thinking about God. At least it did this man. I'd go visit New York City maybe, 'cepting those folks have had their freedoms took from them by all the rules and regulations and laws. Man can't be a man back there. Hell, you can't even carry a gun back there. You get in trouble, you have to call for a police officer to settle it for you. That's nonsense. I'll saddle my own horses and kill my own snakes. I don't need nobody else to do that for me. I don't want nobody else to do that for me.”

“That's the longest comment I have ever heard you make, Frank,” Doc Evans said. “In its own way, it was quite eloquent.”

“Wasn't meant to be, Doc. I was just stating a fact.”

“But are you happy, Frank?” the doctor asked.

“I've been asked that before, Doc. Happy? I don't know. But I do know I'm content.”

“The contented wanderer,” Doc Evans mused. “Sounds like the title of a book.”

“Or a song,” Tom added.

“Let's get off the subject of me,” Frank suggested. “And get on to more important things. Tom, have you heard anything else about Val Dooley?”

“Not a word, Frank. And that sort of worries me. But there was a wire delivered to my house early this morning. Sheriff Davis and those deputies of his give up looking for his sister. They headed on back home. Said to tell you thanks for your help.”

“She's close by,” Frank said. “I'd take a bet on that. And she's not done with me or this town yet.”

“That thought doesn't make me very happy,” Tom said sadly. “ 'Cause if she comes back here again, shootin' up the place, somebody is gonna put lead in her.”

“I hope not, Tom,” Doc Evans said. “The woman is obviously deranged.”

“I don't know about deranged, Doc,” Tom said. “But I do know she's actin' as crazy as a preacher in a whorehouse.”

Both Frank and Doc Evans had a laugh at that, Frank saying, “Tom, did you wire the judge about Little Ed's breaking jail?”

“Yes. He put off his trip here. Readin' between the lines of his wire, I got the notion the judge would be happy if we'd just shoot Little Ed and be done with the matter.”

“The judge doesn't like to travel,” Doc Evans said. “He has gout. And when it flares up, he can be very testy.”

“I don't believe we'll take Little Ed alive,” Frank said. “Not again. I think he'll go down shooting.”

“Be good for all concerned if he does just that,” Tom said. “Put an end to the matter.” He drained his coffee cup and stood up. “I'll be at the office. I want to get some food to take to Elsie. I don't think she's eaten since Big Ed got plugged.”