Gun Country

Once a bucket brigade had extinguished the fires at the barbershop and out in front of the stage line office, Jane unhitched the wagon horses and looked them over good while both animals whinnied and chuffed and tried to shy away from her. “Sorry about that, fellows,” she said, seeing the animals take frightened note of the ancient shotgun in her hand. “Seems like I shoot every damn thing except what I’m supposed to.”

Jane leaned the shotgun against a post and continued to inspect the less anxious horses. Seeing that both animals were going to be all right, she led them to the livery barn and left them for the hostler to attend to. On her way back through the alley behind the sheriff’s office, she saw a bloody smear leading across the dirt, and she followed it to the rear of a woodshed, where she heard a voice saying from inside, “Help . . . Somebody help me.”

Her hand instinctively slapped against her empty holster. “Damn it . . . ,” she growled to herself. But then she said through the partly opened door of the woodshed, “Who’s in there? How bad are you shot?”

“It’s me, Dent Parker,” the wounded outlaw said in a strained voice from within the darkness of the shed. “I’m bleeding . . . something awful.”

“So you need some help, eh Dent?” said Jane, looking all around to see if there were any armed townsmen near enough for her to wave down.

“Yeah . . . ain’t that what I told ya?” Parker managed to say with a cross edge to his weakened voice.

“Watch your smart mouth, Dent Parker,” Jane warned him, “else we’ll leave you in there to bleed out like a split pig.”

“Yeah, Dent, it’s me,” said Jane. “Looks like I’m the one who found your bloody ass. I saw your white-faced roan wandering around in the street. I’m surprised that horse stuck with you this long.”

“He’s your horse now, Janie,” said the pain-racked voice, “if you can . . . help me out here.”

Jane let out a bothered breath. “All right. Throw out your guns. We’ll see what we can do for you.”

“Is there more than . . . one of yas out there?” Parker asked as if checking his odds first.

Jane watched a Remington pistol sail through the partly opened door and land near her feet. She grinned to herself, reached down, picked it up and sized it up in her hand. She cocked it. “I managed to do that much right,” she said proudly to herself.

“Nothing,” Jane replied in a raised voice. On a hunch she said, “Reach down, pull that pig sticker out of your boot and toss it out too. This is not a time to be holding out on us.”

She heard him grumble and curse under his breath. Then a long knife arced out the doorway and fell to the dirt. “There, I’m all in,” said Parker. “You all come ahead and get me. I promise not to . . . fight yas.”

“See to it you don’t,” Jane said in a firm tone. Shoving the door open all the way, she watched sunlight fall in a wide strip upon Parker’s bloody face, his chest and his raised hands. “Keep them bloody claws up where we can see them,” Jane instructed, stepping inside.

“Hellfire, Janie!” Parker said. “You bluffed me. There ain’t . . . but one of yas.” He looked past her and saw no one else. He noted the empty holster on her slim right hip, and his own Remington pistol in her hand. “Unarmed at that . . . ,” he added in disgust.

“What did you think it would take, an army to bring your lousy ass in?” Jane said. “You think much too highly of yourself.” Seeing how badly he was wounded, she holstered the Remington and stooped down to help him up. “Besides, I thought you were wanting to give yourself up.”

“Hell . . . I am giving up,” said Parker, looping his arm over her shoulder as she struggled and stood up with him at her side. “But these old habits . . . die hard, don’t they, Janie?”

“Don’t ask me, Dent, I still got all mine,” Jane replied, turning with him toward the shed door, “all the bad ones anyway.”

“I haven’t seen you . . . since Deadwood,” Parker said, his voice growing weaker. “Are you . . . still going all moony-eyed over gunslingers?”

“Keep talking, Dent, like as not I’ll finish you off myself,” Jane cautioned him, helping him along the alleyway to the street.

On the street, Caldwell turned when he saw an angry townsman point and say, “Here comes another of the lousy sonsabitches, still alive!”

Hurrying over to Jane, Caldwell said, “It might’ve been best to leave this one where you found him. This is the maddest bunch I’ve seen for a while.” He looked at Parker’s bloody chest and asked in a lowered voice, “Are you the one who shot Dr. Wheeler?”

“I shot somebody back there . . . hell, I don’t know who he was,” said Parker. “He pointed a rifle . . . what do you expect?”

“Dent, you stupid turd,” Jane said sidelong to the wounded outlaw. “You’ve shot the one man who might have saved your damned life.”

“You and Colon will be lucky if these folks don’t lynch you both,” said Caldwell, seeing the townsmen mill and stare behind Sheriff Watts. Beside Watts stood a big man with his arm around the shoulders of the boy who had shot Colon in the back. The man held the small gun in his big hand. He squeezed the small gun’s handle as Jane and Caldwell led Parker closer.

“For now,” said Caldwell. “Without a doctor I don’t expect he’ll be planning his future.”

“Me neither,” said Parker, “but I hate to hang . . . as close as I am to dying anyway.”

Caldwell gave Jane a look, then said to Parker, “In that case you need to start telling everything you can about Corio’s gang and what they’re up to. Maybe we can keep a rope from circling your neck until you die peaceably.”

“Mama always said . . . I’d hang someday,” Parker reflected. “I’ve always done everything . . . to prove that old hag wrong.”

“Then here’s your last big chance to frost her over, Dent,” Jane said. The three of them walked on through the angry, slow-parting group of townsmen to a boardwalk, where Dawson had dragged Albert Colon out of the sun—hopefully out of the townsmen’s reach.

“We’ve got another one here who wants to tell us about Corio to keep from getting rope burnt,” Caldwell said to Dawson as the two stepped up and laid the wounded outlaw down beside his fellow gunman.

“Really?” said Dawson. He eyed Colon up and down. “That’s too bad. Albert here doesn’t want to hang either. He’s told us nearly everything about Corio except his birthday.”

“Trouble is,” said Parker, “Albert here don’t know shit.” He turned his bloody face, looked at Colon and added, “No offense intended.”

Colon either ignored him or didn’t hear him. He stared straight ahead with a blank expression taking over his face and said to Dawson, “I can’t . . . feel my toes. That snot-nosed kid . . . ruined me. . . .” Dawson, Jane and Caldwell watched his eyes glaze over. He let out a long, even breath and made no attempt at replacing it.

Dawson looked out into the street at the gathered townsmen, then said to Parker, “It’s all you now, Dent. You better start telling us what Corio’s up to. These men are starting to buzz like hornets.”

Parker gave Jane a worried look, then said to Dawson, “Marshal, I wish I knew . . . something to tell you, but the fact is I don’t. Whatever Madden Corio is up to, he’s keeping it . . . all to himself.”

“How many men is riding with him these days?” Dawson asked, trying to get some kind of an idea about the outlaw’s plans.

“I’ve seen as many as fourteen lately,” Parker said, speaking quickly, making nervous glances toward the crowd in the street. “That’s not counting men like myself or Albert here. We come and go as the next job requires.” Among the men stood the town blacksmith, Irvin Broward, busily looping a hangman’s noose with a hemp rope.

“There’s smaller gangs that Corio brings in to do his dirty work,” said Parker, his eyes flickering across the angry townsmen as he spoke. “I’ve seen lots of them lately, enough to tell me there’s something big in the works.”

“Marshal,” the blacksmith called out to Dawson from the middle of the street, “if you’re through with those two, we’re ready to send them to hell, where they belong.”

“Yeah,” said another townsman, “they’ll lie to you all day long if it’ll keep them from getting their necks stretched.”

“One of them is already dead,” Dawson offered. “This other one isn’t far behind. Anything I can find out from him is worth knowing.”

“That’s bull!” said a townsman. “It was you two lawmen who led them here to begin with. If it hadn’t been for you, Doc Wheeler would still be alive.”

“Staley here is right, Marshal,” said the big blacksmith. “You two brought them here. Now turn this one over to us. We’re avenging our beloved doctor, whether you like it or not.”

“There’s not going to be a lynching,” Dawson said, his Colt slipping from his holster and hanging loose but ready in his hand. “I’m advising every one of you to get off the street, let me and my deputy question this man and go on with our business.”

“Yeah, Broward, you thickheaded son of a bitch!” Jane bellowed. “If I have to I’ll kick you worthless balls up into your—”

“Jane, no!” said Caldwell, grabbing her and clamping a hand over her mouth. “Let the marshal handle this,” he added closer to her ear. “All that kind of talk will do is make things worse.”

Jane slung her head and grumbled under his hand until he finally released it from her mouth. “All right,” she said. “I just couldn’t stand here and listen to that big turd make his threats.” She glared at the blacksmith.

On the boardwalk behind her, Dent Parker said in a failing voice, “Jane . . . come here.”

“Damn it, Dent,” Jane said under her breath, reading the dark pleading in his eyes, “that’s a lot to ask for a horse and a gun.”

Parker only stared at her through fading eyes, until finally Jane gave a determined look and said quietly, “All right, Dent, here goes, okay?”

She slipped the knife she’d taken from him out of her fringed shirtsleeve and slid it back down into his boot well. Dent watched her with a weak knowing smile. “Okay,” he replied.

Straightening, turning back toward the crowd, Jane slipped the Remington from her holster and watched the blacksmith and the rest of the townsmen advance a step forward as one. Their rifles and pistols were poised and ready; so were Dawson and Caldwell’s. Sheriff Watts stood off to the side, torn between his loyalty to the town he’d sworn to protect and the lawmen with whom his profession bonded him.

“Broward, stand down!” Watts finally called out to the big blacksmith, seeing that neither side was about to give an inch. “The marshal’s right. There’s not going to be a lynching here! I cared as much for Doc Wheeler as anybody here. But hanging a dying man ain’t going to bring him back.”

“We’re all through talking, Sheriff,” said the blacksmith. To the rest of the townsmen he said, “Come on, men, let’s get this done.”

Jane saw by the look on Dawson’s and Caldwell’s faces that the lawmen would be firing onto the townsmen at any second. She saw the blacksmith lead the townsmen forward and knew that at any second he would break into a run and charge the boardwalk. Watching, she cocked the Remington and took a deep breath, knowing every second counted. Do it . . . , she told herself.

Just as it appeared that nothing would keep the fight from commencing, she spun around quickly toward Dent Parker as she shouted, “Watch out, Marshal! Behind you!”

Parker lay with his eyes closed. Jane had no idea if he was dead or alive. But she fired the Remington into his chest and watched his body jerk upward from the shot’s impact. “There, you sneaking bastard!” she shouted, staring down at the sprawled body.

The townsmen and the lawmen stood frozen in place. A stunned silence loomed as Jane looked all around. Finally Caldwell said, “Janie, what have you done?”

“What have I done?” Jane appeared indignant about the matter. “Hell, he was going for a knife, Undertaker. Had you been watching him instead of studying what these fools were about to do, you would’ve seen it.”

“A knife, your drunken lying ass, Jane,” said Broward, hurrying forward and staring down at both Parker’s and Colon’s bodies. “You’ve denied this town our rightful vengeance.”

As she and Broward stood fuming at each other, Sheriff Watts stepped in, reached down and jerked the knife from Parker’s boot well. “Looks like you owe her an apology, Broward,” he said, pitching the weapon at the blacksmith’s feet.

All eyes went to the knife, then to Jane. She stood glowering at Broward. “I don’t want this metal-bending monkey’s apology.” She shoved the smoking Remington down into her holster and said to Dawson with a tone of sarcasm, “Ah, hell, Marshal, don’t bother thanking me for saving your life.”

Dawson replied to her under his breath, “Parker couldn’t have raised a hand if he had to.”

“Tell them that,” Jane whispered back to him. “Maybe you can get another lynching started.”

Dawson turned to Caldwell and said quietly, “Let’s get our supplies and get out of here.” He then studied Jane skeptically. “Are you sober enough to come along with us? I’ve got a feeling you’ve worn out your welcome around here.”

“I’m sober enough to ride,” she said. She reached down onto the boardwalk beside Albert Colon’s body and picked up his battered hat and slapped it against her thigh to dust it. “I’m sober, I’ve got a gun and horse. What more does a gal like me need?”

Before she could put the floppy hat down onto her head, Raidy ran in as if from out of nowhere, handed Jane a towel and said, “Here, dry your hair first.”

“Obliged, ma’am,” said Jane. She took the towel and rubbed it back and forth roughly on her head. “It’s kind of you to think of me,” she said.

Dawson and Caldwell gave each other a look, then turned to Sheriff Watts, who had stepped in closer now that the tension had begun to relinquish its hold on the townsmen. “I want you to know these are good people here, Marshal,” he said to Dawson. “It’s not every day they lose a man like Doc Wheeler.”

“I understand, Sheriff,” said Dawson. “This was thrown upon them too suddenly. They did the best they could with it.” As he spoke he stared straight at Broward. The blacksmith lowered his head and backed away a step.

“Some of yas come with me,” said Watts to the townsmen, taking charge. “Let’s get Doc’s body out of my office and ready to bury.” He eyed the outlaws’ corpses. “A couple of yas stay here and help drag these carcasses off the street and get them underground.”

Dawson and Caldwell watched as Jane walked away to a hitch rail, where one of the townsmen had gathered the outlaws’ horses and secured them. Raidy followed along close to her side, one step behind her.

“I don’t even want to guess,” said Dawson. “With Jane you never know what to expect. Don’t worry, she’s only with us until we catch up to Shaw. She’s his problem then.”

“I’m wondering how long that’s going to take,” said Caldwell. “There’s no telling what Shaw is up to out there, if he’s even still alive.”

“That’s what I’m determined to find out,” Dawson replied. “Shaw’s never let me down yet.”

“The bullet’s not in his head,” Dawson said with the trace of a wry grin. “You heard the doctor—his head’s just split open and badly bruised. His brain is badly bruised, the doctor says.”

“Damn,” said Caldwell, “what a shape for a gunman like Shaw to be in. For all we know, he’s wandering around not knowing his own name.”