18
At about four-thirty in the morning, Jason was awakened by a spate of gunshots coming from the east. Down by the jail, he thought, and muttered, “Crap!”
He sprang up from the bed, tugged on his clothes, and ran from the house and up the street to the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance, headed south.
“Ward!” he called as he kept running, down toward the office. “Ward!”
There was no answer except from Mrs. Kendall, who was out on the street in her nightclothes and shouted, “What happened?!” as he ran past.
“Don’t know!” Jason shouted over his shoulder, and shoved open the jailhouse doors. The lamp on his desk was lit and there were signs of a struggle, and Sampson Davis’s cell was empty.
Muttering, “Damn it,” and then shouting, “Ward!” again, he heard a soft moan coming from in front of the other cell. Rushing toward the source, he nearly tripped over Ward’s body. He knelt to it, saw that he was still breathing, but that he had one bullet hole, bleeding profusely, in his chest, and another in his shoulder.
“Dear God,” he said, and went back to the door, throwing it wide. “Call Dr. Morelli!” he shouted to Mrs. Kendall, still where he’d left her. “Ward’s been shot!”
He scurried back inside again, and knelt beside Ward. His deputy’s breathing was shallow, but steady, he thought. He said a silent prayer that Ward would make it—what would they do without him?—and waited for the doctor to show up.
Morelli was there faster than he could have hoped, dressed in his nightclothes but carrying his black bag. “What happened?” he asked.
“Don’t know. The shots woke me. But somebody was galloping hell-bent for leather out of town when I was running up here, and Davis is gone.”
“I heard the shots, too. There were four of them, altogether.”
“So Ward fired back. He’s a dead shot, Doc. At least one’a those slugs of his had to connect.”
“We’ll hope. Right now, help me get him across the street. He needs surgery, right away.”
The door burst open again just as Jason and Morelli managed to get Ward halfway up.
It was Abe, who had his gun out, ready for anything. But he stuck it back in its holster once he took in the situation and said, “Oh, Christ. Not Ward! Is he . . .”
“Not yet,” said Jason. “Give us a hand with him, all right?”
Abe grabbed Ward around the middle, and the three of them managed to get the deputy across the street and into Morelli’s surgery. Once Morelli had ushered them back out into the waiting room and closed the drape between them, Abe asked, “Davis did it, didn’t he?”
Jason, on the verge of tears, nodded. “Morelli said he heard four shots, and only two of ’em are in Ward. One’s in the wall beside the clock, which means that Davis has got one of ’em in him.”
“How the hell’d he get a gun?”
“Good question.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Outta town, riding south.”
“What’re we waitin’ for, then?”
Abe’s eagerness fired up Jason rather than sinking him down into deeper despair, and he jumped up and headed out the door and home to saddle up Cleo.
Once Cleo was tacked up—and in record time—Jason rode up to the livery to find not only Abe, but Rafe waiting for him. Jason eyed Rafe. “You sure you wanna come?”
“’Course I’m sure.”
“But—”
Rafe waved him off. “Let’s go!” He wheeled his mount and took off through the gates, heading due south.
“How’s he know where to go?” Jason shouted to Abe.
“I told him!”
They followed Rafe nearly all the way to the Double M, where he slowed and searched, in the dawning light, for a hint in the brush. He finally found one, and held up his hand. “This way!” he said, pointing to the west, and then took off again.
Jason and Abe followed, although it was obvious that Abe had more confidence in Rafe’s tracking skills than Jason had. As for Jason, he was busy being torn up by Ward’s near death, and praying that he’d survive. This would kill Jenny, he knew. It was already killing him.
Damn the West, anyway! It was nothing but a place where men went to die when they could have stayed back East and lived long, productive lives.
He was continuing this train of thought when Rafe suddenly reined up. He and Abe did, too.
“What?” he asked.
“He’s up ahead.”
“Of course, he’s up ahead! We’re followin’ him!”
“No,” said Rafe. “Right up ahead. Behind those rocks, on the right.” He indicated a tumble of large boulders, each as tall as a man if not taller.
Jason considered this possibility. “Then why doesn’t he shoot us right now?”
“Sun’s in his eyes,” Abe said quietly. “He’s waitin’ for us to get closer or the sun to rise a little higher, whichever comes first.”
“I say we don’t give him time for either one,” Jason said. “Can we sneak around the far side of those rocks? Way back up there, on the north?”
“Better’n waitin’ to get shot like Ward. C’mon, Rafe,” Abe said.
Rafe turned toward them, skirted a bed of manzanita, and began to follow them back to the north.
They took a wide, circuitous route that Jason hoped would keep them out of range—pistol range, anyway—and at last came to the northern-most point of the rock pile. Jason signaled the men to be quiet and on their guard. He couldn’t be certain that Davis hadn’t figured out their plan. Davis could easily be waiting for them, his guns drawn, ready and willing to commit triple homicide.
Jason dismounted, ground-tied Cleo, and tentatively walked to the edge of the last boulder. He peeked around the back side of it.
He saw nothing. Not a man, not a horse, nothing.
But there were plenty of nooks and crannies in those boulders for Davis to hide in, and hide his horse in, too. He beckoned to Abe, who ground-tied Boy, too, and joined him.
“Crud,” Abe said quietly, after a moment. “You think he took off the other way while we was bein’ all sneaky?”
Jason shook his head and whispered, “No. We would have heard him. Sound carries like crazy out here.”
Abe nodded. “I know. Well, who goes first?”
“I do. It was my deputy that he gunned down.”
“Yeah,” said Abe, “but that was back in your jurisdiction.”
Rafe suddenly appeared between them and asked, “What’re you two cookin’ up over here?”
“Shhh!” hissed both Jason and Abe.
Rafe rolled his eyes. “You want Davis, he’s out here.”
Jason beat Abe to the edge of the rocks and sure enough, saw the silhouette of a rider jogging further south.
“You any good with that rifle of yours?” he asked Abe.
“Yeah. But Rafe’s a mite better.”
“Rafe! Consider yourself temporarily deputized.”
“But I—”
Abe cut him off. “He wants you to shoot Davis. He’s makin’ like he’s no good with a rifle.”
“Well, I’m not. Hurry up, he’s getting away!”
Rafe said, “Okay, okay!” and pulled his rifle from the saddle’s boot. Jason watched nervously as he sighted on Davis, then slowly—it seemed like a lifetime!—squeezed the trigger.
The blast took them all by surprise, Rafe included. But it took no one more off guard than Sampson Davis. He continued on a few steps, then slid awkwardly from his horse, disappearing into the tall weeds with a slump.
Abe clapped Rafe on the shoulder. “Helluva shot, kid, helluva shot! Your daddy’d be spit-polish proud!”
Rafe was staring at his rifle and didn’t look up. “I ’bout forgot how loud it was.”
“Well, let’s go pick him and his horse up.” Abe was already mounting his roan.
Jason hadn’t yet moved. “What if he’s not dead?” he asked, his voice flat. “What if he’s just lying there in the weeds, waiting for us to get close enough for him to pick us off?”
Abe tilted his head. “Good thinkin’, Jason. But if he is, there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it, ’cept get shot. C’mon, you two! Let’s move!”
Davis proved not to be dead, but he wasn’t far from it.
They loaded him on his horse, tied him down (after they relieved him of his firearms), and Jason found the gun he’d used to shoot Ward. It was a snub-nosed handgun, stuck down inside his boot—the one place Jason supposed Rafe and Lew hadn’t patted down when Davis was arrested the first time. When Rafe saw the gun, he at least had the good grace to look sheepish.
They started back. At a walk this time, not a gallop. Davis remained out cold, though Jason checked on him from time to time. His breathing was shallow but regular, so far as he could tell, and his color looked good. But he wasn’t taking any chances. He watched Davis like the proverbial hawk.
They were riding along when Abe said, out of the blue, “Y’know that creek we crossed on the way out?”
Jason looked over. “What of it?”
“It seem to you like it was some deeper than back in town, and quite a bit slower?”
Jason scratched the back of his head. “Come to think of it, yeah.”
“Somebody’s got ’er dammed up farther down the line, I reckon.”
Jason froze. Of course! What else would cause the Apache to attack at night? And it sure explained why Matt was so nervous! He spat, “Crap! MacDonald’s got it dammed up for his cattle so that it’s not reaching the Apache camp!”
He figured he’d go shoot a few arrows into MacDonald, too, if he cut off the water supply to Fury!
Abe nodded and said, “Thought so.”
Rafe jogged up from behind. “What you boys jabberin’ about up here?”
Jason filled him in, and he repeated Abe’s sentiment almost word for word. Then he said, “Don’t s’pose we could go check it out, could we?”
“Gotta get Davis back. Gotta check on Ward. After that . . .”
Rafe nodded. “Gotcha, Marshal. Me, I’m wantin’ to look in on ol’ Ward myself.” Then he brightened. “Did you see? He got Davis in the side, shot him right through the meat. Served the rat bastard right!” He spat into the weeds, as if to underscore what he’d just said.
“Only thing that would have served him better,” Abe said, “was if Ward had got him straight through the heart.”
Jason tended to agree with Abe, but said nothing, except, “Well, he’s sure shot now.”
“Think we can move this up into a jog, Jason?” Rafe asked. “I’m growin’ weary of ploddin’ along, and I wanna get back and see how ol’ Ward’s doin’.”
Jason goosed Cleo into a soft jog and the others followed suit, with Rafe muttering, “Thank God.”
Davis survived the trip back to town (more’s the pity), and Ward was still breathing, although Morelli wasn’t any too hopeful about his recovery. “The one in his shoulder isn’t too bad,” he told Jason, “but that other one went right through his lung. Patched him up the best I could, but . . .” He shook his head.
Ward lay there on Morelli’s table, with tubes coming out of him, tubes that drained pinkish fluid into glass jars. He looked like a ghost, he was so pale, and Jason said a silent prayer over him in the hope that somebody, somewhere, was listening.
They left Davis on a bench outside the surgery, and Morelli, after a cursory examination, said he didn’t look good at all, not with that slug in his side, and not with Rafe’s bullet having just missed his heart. He said he’d try, though.
It was all Jason could ask.
He wanted somebody left alive to hang.
And every one of them, to a man, got so wrapped up in Ward’s situation, dangling between life and death, that all thoughts of MacDonald and the dammed creek flew clean out of their heads.
For the time being, anyway.