CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
In recent days, Clint Cooley had broken the habit of a lifetime by rising before noon and stationing himself on a chair, his eyes fixed on the trail into town from the south. He spotted Dan Caine and two others and then as they rode closer, identified the Kiowa and a young woman that he took to be Jenny Calthrop.
A cautious man, Cooley’s British Bulldogs were in his shoulder harness, his mistrust of the murderous Chance Hurd running deep.
Cooley rose from his chair and walked toward the riders. Under a high, noon sun they met outside Ma Lester’s Guest House for Respectable Christian Gentlemen. Ma herself stood on the front porch, a tall, rangy, and wide-shouldered woman who looked as though she lived on a diet of scripture and prune juice. Her dress was black with white collar and cuffs, her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun, and her steel trap of a mouth was tightly shut in disapproval. Two wounded men, one of them a savage, with a ragged girl could give her place a bad name.
Dan drew rein and, his voice a weak whisper, said, “Howdy, Clint.”
Cooley nodded. “I see you lost your shirt. Got into a poker game with Black-Eyed Susan, huh?”
“She’s dead,” Dan said. He was as pale as bleached bones. “She got a bullet into me.”
“You don’t say. You have to tell me about it sometime when I’ve got nothing more pressing to do,” Cooley said. “In the meantime, let’s get you off that horse and into bed.”
Ma Lester’s intolerant eyes flew open. “Not one of my beds. He’s all bloody.”
“Lady, he’s your deputy sheriff,” Cooley said.
“Not any longer. He resigned his situation and took up with outlaws.” She sniffed. “And just look where that’s gotten him.”
“Who told you Deputy Caine had joined outlaws?” Jenny said. “Was it Sheriff Hurd?”
“You just never mind who told me, missy,” Ma Lester said. “Pete Doan keeps a bed for drunk cowboys behind his store. Take him there.”
“He needs a proper bed and plenty of rest,” Jenny said.
“Not in my house,” Ma said. “I run a respectable place here.”
Then Jenny Calthrop surprised the hell out of everybody and scared the living daylights out of the stubborn proprietress.
Jenny reached out, jerked Dan’s Colt from his holster, pointed the gun at Ma, and thumbed back the hammer. “Lady, I’ve already shot one woman and another sure as hell won’t make any difference.”
“I’ll pay for the room,” Cooley said, smiling. “That way there will be no gunplay.”
Visibly shaken, Ma Lester drew her remaining dignity around her like a tattered cloak and said, “I don’t have accommodation for the savage. There will be no Hindoos in this house, and I am adamant on that.”
“The Hindoo has his own cabin,” the Kiowa said. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
This was a day of surprises for Ma. She’d been threatened violence by a slip of a girl and now she’d met a savage who spoke like a gentleman. The woman shook her head. She didn’t know what the world was coming to.
“Bring Deputy Caine inside,” Ma said. “No credit, pay in advance . . . no women in the rooms after ten . . . no spurs on the beds . . . meals will be charged whether eaten or not . . . and last but not least, no profanity, singing, or dancing. Now haul him in.”
* * *
Dan Caine lay on a narrow cot in a small, boxy room with two wall hooks to hang clothes, a washstand with a blue and white porcelain jug and basin, and a chamber pot of the same color. A narrow, six-paned window, dusty and flyspecked, looked out on a brown landscape as drab and boring as staring at a brick wall.
Under the sheets, apart from his bandage, Dan was as naked as a seal, stripped by Clint Cooley and the Kiowa, men who knew no shame. He was aware of how feeble he was, too weak to object to their manhandling, and badly in need of a couple of days’ rest. Cooley allowed Estella Sweet, Cornelius Massey, and young Holt Peters a short visit. Holt, conscious of his recently acquired adult status, shook hands, Estella stained Dan’s face with her tears, and Massey brought a special issue of his newspaper “hot off the press” and held up the front page with cascading headlines that promised a hair-raising and greatly exaggerated account of their battle with Clay Kyle:
A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER
GREAT SLAUGHTER IN THE
SIERRA DEL CARMEN
Dozens of Outlaws Bite the Dust
Gallant Thunder Creek Vigilantes
Destroy the Dreaded Kyle Gang
Deputy Sheriff Dan Caine Badly
Wounded and Lies at Death’s Door
Drink Dr. Drake’s Bitters
for Serene Slumbers
Dan didn’t like the line about his imminent demise, but he felt too worn-out to object.
After everyone left, all of them promising to return the next morning, Ma Lester surprised him when she shook him awake and insisted on spoon-feeding him a bowl of beef broth.
The window rattled in its frame, and a high wind restlessly prowled around the eaves of the building. “The wind is coming from the south, and it’s blowing sand,” Ma said. “Like you, Mr. Caine, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Well, that will be two-bits for the broth. It’s against house rules, but I’ll make a bill for Mr. Cooley for services rendered during your convalescence.”
The woman was right about the coming sandstorm. As the day drew into evening the wind grew in strength and intensity and cartwheeled through the house, banging doors like a drumbeat.
Dan slept fitfully, then woke with a start. The wind still raged, loud and aggressive, and the old frame boardinghouse creaked and squeaked and groaned with every whipping gust.
Then another noise in the hallway outside.
Slow footsteps and the measured chink, chink of spurs. Coming closer. Dan’s gunbelt hung from a hook in the wall. He tried to rise, and a wave of pain and nausea swept over him. Exhausted his head hit the pillow again.
The door handle turned slowly, and little by little the door opened, rasping on the wood floor . . .