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Authors: Ford Fargo

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BOOK: The Taylor County War
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The image in the scope became
vanishingly small. No matter. He’d worked the calculations and he
knew his rifle. His finger curved to the trigger. There was an
eternity of memory in that one motion. The rifle bucked against his
shoulder slamming the telescopic sight into his eye. Old instincts
took over ticking off the seconds.

One . . .

He brought the glass back down on
the man again.

Two . . .

His brain sped though the
calculations. Five hundred and thirty grains . . .
fourteen hundred feet per second . . .

Three . . .

In the lens the rider’s arms flung
wide and he lurched from the saddle.

Marcus let out a long breath and
lowered the rifle. His eye stung from the impact of the sight, his
leg burned, but that wasn’t what concerned him. He looked over at
Frank, still standing over the body, that tiny pistol still in his
hands, his face drained of color.

The place smelled of sulfur. Jimmy
Spotted Owl came through the hellish smoke. He bent over Lanny and
then stood, shaking his head.

Billy Below limped over, holding a
bloodied hand to his butt.

“Never seen shooting like that,
teacher.” His voice was tight with pain

Marcus barely heard him. “You okay,
Frank?” he asked, turning the boy by his shoulders.

“I . . . I killed
him.”

“You saved my life.”

Jimmy rolled the man over and
whistled. “Right between the eyes.”

Marcus said, “That was fine
shooting, Mr. Miller.”

Frank looked up, his eyes shining.
“I was aiming at his horse.”

Jimmy walked over to the body of
the fourth T-Bar-B rider, the one Marcus did not know.

“Poor Lige,” Jimmy said. “He just
hired on a week ago. Poor Lanny, too, for that matter.”

“Mr. Sublette!” Ethan’s shrill tone
spun Marcus around, heart banging against his chest. Ethan was on
the ground under the wagon with Obie. Obie wasn’t moving.

“Obie’s hurt bad!” Ethan’s words
choked at the back of his throat.

Before he reached him, he knew it
wasn’t good. Obie’s shirt was red, his face white as flour. He
stared up at Marcus, trying to speak, but only able to move his
lips.

“Don’t talk.” Marcus found the
wound three inches below Obie’s shoulder, angling down and out
through the boy’s back.

“My God!” Billy groaned.

“Give me your shirt, Billy.”

Billy ripped it off. Marcus folded
it over and pressed it over the wound, leaning hard onto it.

“More!”

Ethan shucked his shirt too. Marcus
put it beneath Obie, putting pressure on the exit wound.
“Ethan.”

“Sir?”

“Get the team and hitch them
up.”

Ethan tried to stand and fell back.
Up until then he hadn’t been aware of the splinter of wood as big
around as a rake handle protruding from his thigh. “I’m hurt.”

The situation was getting worse by
the second. Jimmy and Frank seemed to be the only two of them who’d
managed to escape the battle unscathed. “Jimmy,” Marcus called.

Jimmy was at his side. “Catch up
our team and hitch them to the wagon,” Marcus said. “We need to get
these boys to shelter –I suppose the T-Bar-B ranch house would be
the best bet.”

Jimmy’s brow furrowed. “It’s rough
country between here and there for a wagon, and we have an old
line-shack that’s closer.”

“We’ll get them there, then.”

“Right.” Jimmy sprinted off for the
hobbled horses standing a little distance away.

“Billy, how bad are you hurt?”
Marcus asked the other cowboy.

“Creased my butt. Lots of blood,
but nothing like the hand poor Obie’s been dealt.” He grimaced.
“Just the same, I reckon I ain’t going to be sporting the ladies
any time soon.”

“Take over here, Billy. Keep
pressure on. We’ve got to slow the bleeding.”

“You got it, teacher.”

Marcus hobbled off a few dozen feet
and caught the reins to Lanny’s horse. “Frank, come here.”

The boy looked up from Obie, unable
to move.


Come here now, Mr. Miller.”
He used his teacher voice and that snapped Frank out of it. Marcus
swung Frank up on the saddle. “You must ride to Wolf Creek. Ride
like the wind, boy. Tell Doctor Munro what happened, and to come
out to Breedlove’s line shack, two miles east of here. That where
I’m taking Obie. Do you understand?”


Yes, sir.”

“Then find Sheriff Satterlee. Tell
him what happened. He’ll know what to do.”

“Yes, sir.” Frank repeated. He was
in shock. Well, he’d been anxious to grow up, and now was the time.
Marcus slapped the horse into motion.

“Billy, help me move Obie into the
wagon.”

In spite of the injury to his rear
end, Billy snapped to like a fresh-faced corporal at the captain’s
command.

Jimmy backed the horses into their
traces, and Marcus helped Ethan up into the wagon box. The boy
gritted his teeth, holding back tears. His wound was painful, but
there was little blood. That was a good sign. At least the splinted
shard hadn’t cut an artery.

Marcus glanced up as Billy went for
a nearby horse. “Where you going?”

“Wolf Creek. With the Miller
boy.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live.” Billy grabbed the
reins and stepped stiffly up into the saddle, standing in the
stirrups as he rode off.

“Billy’ll be okay, Mr. Sublette,”
Jimmy said, climbing onto the wagon seat and taking the reins.

Ethan looked pale. He leaned back
against the side boards, one hand gripping his thigh, the other
clutching Obie’s arm.

Obie’s eyes were open, moving, but
that was all.

The wagon lurched ahead. Ethan
looked up at Marcus. “Is he going to die?”

He’d never lied to any of his
students and he wasn’t going to start now. “It doesn’t look
good.”

Ethan swallowed hard. Something
akin to terror haunted his young eyes. “What hat you wearing now,
Mr. Sublette?”

Marcus grimaced, his throat so
tight the words didn’t get out. “One that I had hoped I’d put away
forever.”

CHAPTER TWO

Chuck Tyrell

Frank Miller rode like the devil
was after him. He hunched over the saddle horn and pounded the
heels of his brogans into his horse’s ribs like he was trying to
win the Fourth of July pony race.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Billy Below tried
to keep up with Frank, but the horse he’d taken was more than a
little slow, and Billy had to keep his knees locked as he rode to
keep his raw behind off saddle leather. Blood ran down his leg and
into his left boot. He’d said the wound was just a scratch, but
scratches didn’t keep bleeding like the gouge in his butt did.
Damn.

The Miller boy was nearly a quarter
of a mile ahead of Billy when he pounded over the bridge across
Wolf Creek at the northeast edge of town. By the time Billy made
the bridge, Frank was already past the AT&SE freight office. He
pounded on past the Whistlestop and turned south on Second Street,
headed for Doc Munro’s place.

Billy walked the horse across the
bridge, still standing in the stirrups. Damn. A little scratch on
the butt. Why’s it gotta bleed so goldam much? He turned south on
Fifth Street, and guided the rough-gaited horse to Miss Abby’s.
He’s spent enough time and money there to rate a bandage, he
figured. And maybe a shirt, to replace the one he’d donated to
bandage the injured Obie. More’n that, if he was lucky. Women had a
soft spot for wounded men, he’d heard. But he wasn’t sure if he’d
be able to respond if such were the case. Billy decided to let
things happen as they would. He reined the horse onto Useless Grant
Street and pulled him to a stop in front of Miss Abby’s. He stood
there in the stirrups for a minute, just looking at Miss Abby’s
house. Its shiplap siding had a fresh coat of grass green paint,
and all the gingerbread over the porch and the veranda gleamed in
pure white . . . very pure white. Sheesh.

When he lifted his leg to dismount,
something cracked on his butt and he felt the blood start running
again. He was shot, but nothing like Obie was shot. At least he
could still walk, still ride a cayuse if riding was what a man
would call standing in the stirrups all the way into town. Billy
got down, but was unable to stifle a little groan as his foot
touched the ground. Damn. With considerable effort, he mounted the
three steps to Miss Abby’s and pulled on the rope that rang the
bell that would bring someone to open the door.

“Yes? Oh. Hello, Billy.” Eva Mae
was one of the older women who worked at Miss Abby’s. She had a
motherly air, and Billy’d heard that her experience was not to be
scoffed at. She did not react to the fact he was in his
undershirt.

Billy pulled his hat off. “Miss
Eva, I been shot.”

“My Lord. Shot?”

“Yup.”

“Then why have you not gone to
Doctor Munro?”

“I came to see Brandy, that’s
why.”

“Really. And what can Brandy do for
you?”

“Maybe nothing, Miss Eva. But I
been shot and me and Brandy’s fairly regular so I thought maybe she
could patch up my bum for me and we could see what would
happen.”

“Your bum?”

“Yes, ma’am. I been shot in the
ass, er, bum. Had to stand in the stirrups all the way into town,
and that made me terrible tired. Brandy in?”

Eva Mae huffed. “Don’t know if
she’ll want to see a man who comes calling without even putting a
shirt on, and wants to be bandaged and solaced.”

“Yes, ma’am. Could I come in,
maybe? I’m not dangerous or nothing. And about the shirt, I had to
take it off to bandage poor Obie Wilkins. He got lung shot.
Bad.”

Eva Mae’s eyebrows shot up. “Obie?
Shot? Who’d want to shoot a child?”

Billy Below’s eyebrows knitted.
“Rollin’ R waddies done it. They come shooting without so much as a
‘fare thee well.’ We got some of ‘em, though. And Frank Miller’s
gone to get the doc. Brandy in?”

“Wait.”

“I need to come in, ma’am. I been
shot.”

“All right. Just the parlor,
though.”

“Call Brandy. Please.”

Eva Mae said nothing. She
disappeared through the door into the back part of the house where
Miss Abby lived. Brandy would be upstairs. Why Miss Abby? Billy
Below stood just inside the front door, the bullet gouge in his
gluteus maximus aching.

Eva Mae re-entered. Billy opened
his mouth, but she raised a hand and shook her head. She took the
broad stairway to the second floor and went toward the back of the
house. Billy could hear her footsteps on the hardwood floor.
Brandy’s room was second to the last on the right. Billy knew that.
He was up there every time he had the five bucks it took to see
Brandy.

“Billy!” It sounded like a scream.
“Billy?” Quick clicks on the floor made by feet much smaller and
lighter than Eva Mae’s, and then Brandy Oliver, if that was her
real name, stood at the top of the stair. “Billy? Billy? Miss Eva
says you’ve been shot.”

Billy nodded. She looked good as an
angel to him.

“Where’s your shirt?”

“Gave it to Obie Wilkins. He’s
lung-shot.”

“Why are you just standing there?
Come here. Come!”

“I’m broke.”

“Come here. Bullet wounds are not a
matter of money. Come.”

“Yes’m.” Billy climbed the stairs
and let Brandy pull him into her room. It smelled like roses, or
maybe violets. Flowers, anyway.

“Take your pants off,” Brandy
said.

“I’m broke,” Billy said again.

“Damn you, Billy Below. How in hell
am I supposed to look at your wound if you won’t take your damn
britches off?”

Billy held his hands up, palms out.
Brandy only swore when she was mad. “Awright, awright.” He
unbuckled his gunbelt and took off the rig, then slipped his arms
through his suspender straps, unbuttoned his fly, and let his pants
drop down around his boots.

Brandy let out a little squeak when
she saw the blood. A hole just below the beltline, another at
Billy’s side, a blood-soaked stripe down the backside of his union
suit disappeared into the top of his left boot. Brandy’s room had
little more than a double bed, a small table by its head, and a
cedar chest against the back wall.

She left Billy standing there
bleeding, with his pants down around his ankles. Brandy opened the
cedar chest and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Hope you’ve got
another union suit,” she said. “That one’s coming off.” And she
proceeded to slice around his middle so the bottom half of his
union suit would fall down.

“Stand still,” she said. “God,
you’re bleeding.”

“Know that,” Billy said. “Can you
stop it?”

Brandy nodded. “Yes. It’ll cost you
a sheet, though.”

“I’m broke.”

“You owe me a dollar, then.”

“Just do it. Gotta go to see the
sheriff. Spent enough time here already.”

Mumbling and spitting, Brandy
pulled a sheet off her bed and attacked it with her scissors. She
brought a pad, a length of flannel, and a bottle of Jameson’s.

“How come you got Mick whiskey?”
Billy asked, jealousy showing in his voice.

Brandy ducked her head and grinned.
“None of your business, Billy . . . Below. What kind of name is
that? Below.”

“Got it on a trail drive. Man gets
his name on the drive. Pards called me Billy Below. I like it.”

“I know how you like it,” she said.
She pulled the cork from the Jameson’s and took a mouthful, then
spewed it all over the bullet furrow on Billy’s butt.

Billy jumped. “Jaysus!”

“Hold still.” She slapped the pad
on the furrow. “Hold it there. Tight.”

Billy complied. “Damn. Mick whiskey
stings like hell.”

Brandy wrapped a length of sheeting
around Billy’s hips three times. Four. Then tied it off. Blood
showed through the wrapping but didn’t drip. She took another
length and wrapped again. The sheeting stayed clean. “There,” she
said. “You’re not bleeding anymore.” She stumbled over to the bed
and sat down. Her hair hung down over her face. Her hands made
fists in her lap.

BOOK: The Taylor County War
4.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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