39

Doctor Cobb called it an unlikely outcome. Sophia called it a miracle. I couldn’t say who was right or why, but I didn’t lose my leg and barring some unforeseen infection or heavy fever, I would live.

I had been so ready to die that this news seemed almost too late. I didn’t even smile.

“Oh yes, by all means,” said the doctor, throwing his hands up. “I bring cowboys back from the dead every day. No need to thank me, and certainly don’t be too happy about all this.”

“I apologize, doc. I guess I didn’t plan this far ahead.”

He rolled his eyes and left the room and as soon as the door was shut Sophia climbed into the bed and kissed me and the jostling of the mattress made me wince and she stopped and said sorry but then started up again.

I lifted my good arm and put my hand on her shoulder to steady us both.

“Anybody come asking after us?”

She shook her head.

“Any posters?”

“No. I looked at many of the buildings and saw nothing.”

“What about the law? Doctor probably had to tell somebody something.”

“He says he did not. But if the sheriff comes I will tell him you are a Mexican bandit and I am here to arrest you and take you back to Mexico to hang.” She grinned.

“I’m serious,” I told her. “We can’t stay here. We gotta keep moving.”

“The doctor Cobb says it will be a week until you can move. Probably longer until you can use your leg again.”

“They’ll be here in a week. They won’t stop hunting us. Ain’t that what you’re always telling me?”

Her smile faded.

“Give me two days,” I said. “Then we gotta get.”

She nodded.

“Three days,” she insisted.

The first two days passed with little excitement. The pain in my leg seemed worse than it had before, though my chest and shoulder were healing nicely. I tried to stand and fell and caught myself on the bed and cussed and told Sophia I didn’t need to be able to walk, just to sit a saddle.

We heard other patients coming in and out for various illnesses and medicines and the doctor seemed preoccupied with a woman down the hall. Sophia didn’t know much but said the man Finch who helped the doctor had let slip that a very rich man had paid a large sum of money for the doctor to look after her. He didn’t say whether she was young or old or sick or dying.

On the morning of the third day I was able to put enough pressure on the leg to stand, but walking was still a mighty challenge and even so I told Sophia to saddle the horses.

The doctor had thrown up his hands a second time when we told him of our lack of money but we offered a horse as payment and he accepted and when he left the room Sophia cursed him in Spanish and said that in her country doctors would help you no matter if you could pay or not and I reminded her this was not her country.

Sophia had gone to the stables where our horses were being kept. She would saddle two, trade one for food and supplies, and give the last one to the doctor. My only task while she did all of this was to put on my shirt and hat, as she had already helped me pull on my pants and boots. I was midway through the grueling process when the door opened and a man dressed like a caricature of a cowboy entered the room.

He wore brown canvas pants with black boots and silver spurs. His shirt was a striped hickory and his vest hung open over his ribs. His hat was black felt with a tall crown and a strip of brown leather hung around the crown and was studded with copper coins. A gun belt hung loose at his waist.

“You Caleb Bentley?”

“Who?” I asked, grimacing as I tried to swing my leg over the side of the bed.

“Just stay put now,” the man warned, and he touched the heel of his pistol. “I’m Hollis Hayes, and I’m taking you in.”

“Listen, bud, I’m not Caleb whoever you said. And I’m about to call the sheriff.”

The man stood. The sunlight shone through the window and the thin white curtains and cut across his lower half. His upper body was shrouded in shadow.

“My wife’s about to be back and whatever game you’re playing at, it’s gonna sure enough scare the devil right out of her.”

The man slowly pulled a folded paper from his pocket and studied it. He smiled.

“Just so you know, Bentley, it was the doctor who gave you up. Funny thing, don’t you think? A man would save a life just to turn around and give it up.”

“Sir, I honestly don’t know—”

“Save it, son. You can either let me put these chains on you, or I can kill you where you sit.”

“Would you at least let a prisoner get his shirt buttoned?”

“Well, seeing as you ain’t got nowhere, or no way, to run. You go on and take your time.”

The man pulled a pouch of tobacco from his vest and buried some in the deep pocket he’d dug over time between his teeth and the inside of his cheek.

“You’re gonna have to help me stand and walk,” I told him and as he moved toward me I readied myself for the coming fight. But there was no fight to be had.

The man tilted his head down to spit juice onto the floor and instead he grunted and the dark liquid spilled from his lips and ran down his chin. He held both hands to his heart, where the knife in his back had come out, and looked at it and looked at me and never has a face seemed more puzzled.

“Let’s go,” Sophia said and she lifted me and I moaned but we moved as one out of the room and down the hallway and my breaths were short and painful and she told me everything was going to be alright.

Outside I used my good leg to spring up toward the horse and Sophia helped push me the rest of the way into the saddle. Three other men entered the doctor’s office as Sophia mounted her horse. I leaned over and gritted my teeth and snatched the reins of the third horse.

“That is the doctor Cobb’s horse,” she said.

“Not anymore, darling.”

“There’s that sumbitch, yonder,” someone shouted from the porch.

We rode wide open down the thoroughfare as shots rang out behind us.