Chapter 39
That Night

That afternoon Doc had to come out to our place to tend two patients.

After leaving Becky with Mrs. Parrish in town, Little Wolf had ridden to our place instead of home, like Zack had said. He wanted to see if we were there, to tell us Becky was safe and where she was. But by the time he arrived, he was so weak and faint that he couldn’t go another step.

I ran toward him yelling, “Where’s Becky? What happened? Are Pa and Zack safe?”

Little Wolf told me later he didn’t hear a word I’d said. The moment I reached him he half-fainted and collapsed off the side of his pony into my arms. It was all I could do to keep from toppling over with his weight!

All he was able to whisper was, “Becky . . . safe . . . with Mrs. Parrish . . .”

Katie saw through the window and rushed out to help me. We carried him inside, found his wounds, and dressed them as best we could.

He must have been hit more than just that first time. It looked to me that he had a dozen little pieces of shot scattered in his leg and arm, and his clothes were covered with blood. It was no wonder he was faint!

When we got him laid down, I reminded Katie about the gun, told Emily to lock the door behind me, and said I was riding into town to get the doctor and see how Becky was.

I got back in about half an hour. Doc’s buggy was about fifteen minutes behind me, and by the time he had most of the shot out of Little Wolf’s leg and ointment and bandages on the wounds, Uncle Nick and the sheriff were riding in. So he started right in on Pa.

By evening Pa was on the mend too. Doc gave Pa two or three glasses of whiskey, and after it had taken effect and Pa was half-asleep, he dug the slug out of his leg. I could hardly stand it. I thought I would throw up a couple of times. There was more bleeding, and Pa yelled out. But when it was over, Doc said the wound was clean. He dressed it, and told Pa to stay off it for a couple of weeks.

“Stay off it, Doc?” Pa exclaimed, wide awake now after the painful surgery. “I can’t lay around for two weeks!”

“Then all I can say, Drum,” replied the Doc, “is keep your weight off it if you can. Use a cane or a crutch or something. The more you use it, the longer it’ll take to heal.”

Little Wolf wanted to go home, but he was even weaker than Pa. He had not only lost blood, the exertion from the long ride had worn him out and he remained pale all day. Doc said we should keep him at our place at least overnight.

“Keep him in bed, warm, and get as much of that soup down him as you can. I think I got all the shot out. He’ll be much stronger tomorrow.”

Zack rode over to his place to tell his pa what had happened.

Not long after the Doc left I suddenly remembered about the money.

“Pa,” I said, “what about the money and Mrs. Parrish?”

“You’re right, little girl,” said Pa, rolling over in the bed and facing me. “I plumb forgot.”

“I’m scared of that man Royce, Pa.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“Mrs. Parrish got the money from him, Pa.”

“From his bank. Outta her account, like anyone else. I went with her to get it.”

“Pa, I think there’s more to it than that.” It was the first chance I’d had to tell him about seeing her go to the bank with those papers, and the look on Royce’s face afterward.

Pa was already half out of his bed by the time I finished. “Why, that woman!” he said, “I hope she ain’t gone and done nothing foolish! Here, Corrie, help me with this leg!”

He was already struggling to stand.

“Pa, the doctor said you had to—”

“Never mind the Doc! I gotta get that money back to town.”

“Lay back down, Drum,” said Uncle Nick, who had wandered over to see what the commotion was all about. “I’ll take it to her.”

“No, this is something I gotta do myself. What’s gotta be said’s something nobody but me can say.”

“I’ll take in the money with a letter from you,” suggested Uncle Nick.

“Don’t you understand? That woman saved our hides, and this place of ours too! You don’t thank somebody for that with a letter. Besides, she may have just—”

He stopped, fumbling to get his arm through his coat sleeve “Well, never mind that—we’ll just hope it’s not too late.”

He grabbed the single crutch the Doc had left him, grabbed his hat, and made for the door. “Somebody come and help me up the horse. Nick, where’s them saddlebags?”

Uncle Nick brought him the money and boosted him on top of Blue Flame, who was still saddled from Zack’s ride to Little Wolf’s father’s. Pain filled Pa’s face from his swollen leg, but there was no talking him out of what he knew he had to do.

“Can I go with you, Pa?” I asked.

Pa looked down at me, thought for a moment, then shrugged and said, “I don’t reckon there’d be anything wrong with that. Sure, come on.”

I flew into the barn and saddled Snowball as fast as I could. I didn’t want Pa to think of some reason for changing his mind.

It was well into evening when we rode into Miracle Springs, but the June sun still had another hour of life left. The town was quiet. A few people who saw Pa ran over to greet him with smiles and shouts and congratulations, but Pa just kept walking Blue Flame straight down the dirt street, hardly so much as acknowledging the well-wishers who came out to greet him. He had a determined look in his eye and he rode straight for Mrs. Parrish’s.

When we got there, he dismounted without any help, although when his legs hit the ground his face twitched from the pain. He slung the saddlebags over his shoulder, stuck the crutch under his armpit, then said to me, “Corrie, I know you like to be around all that’s goin’ on so you can write everything in that journal of yours. But this here’s somethin’ I gotta do alone. So you just wait here.”

He went inside and I waited.

Fifteen minutes later he came back out, without the saddlebags. His face was wearing a look I wish I could describe, but I could write for two pages and not get it right. I’ll have to be satisfied to remember it in my mind.

He didn’t say a word. As he was getting on the horse, I saw Mrs. Parrish come to one of the windows and pull aside the curtain and look out, just like the banker had done.

I smiled and gave a little wave. But she didn’t seem to notice. I guess she wanted to make sure Pa got on his horse okay. When I glanced over again a moment later, she was no longer there.

As we rode back through town again, word must’ve spread around that Pa was there because now all sorts of folks were out on the streets. Riding there beside him, I felt like we were in the kind of parade I’ve read about in New York City! Everyone was shouting and calling out things to Pa as if he was some kind of town hero. And this time he was laughing and returning the greetings and waving back. I guess whatever had been on his mind before was taken care of now.

I couldn’t help but think it seemed a mite strange. Here all these folks came out to see Pa, treating him like he’d saved the town from destruction. And back home where we were headed a houseful of folks were celebrating Becky’s rescue, and there was food and good smells and lively talk, and everybody was feeling happy. And yet back in town Mrs. Parrish was all alone, and nobody even seemed to know that she’d been the real hero of the day. It didn’t seem just fair that she wasn’t part of the celebrating.

Just then we saw the minister walking down the sidewalk. He waved, and we waved back. But Pa had stopped to talk to the sheriff for a minute, so Rev. Rutledge kept going without pausing for a chat. He was walking in the direction of Mrs. Parrish’s. I was glad. Maybe she wouldn’t have to spend the evening alone after all.

As we continued on our way a couple of minutes later, I glanced back for one last look at Mrs. Parrish’s house before we turned up the street that led out of town. She was on the porch with Rev. Rutledge. It looked like she was explaining that she was just leaving, because he turned around and walked away.

Mrs. Parrish went out toward the little stable beside her house where Marcus Weber was standing waiting for her, holding the reins of a saddled horse. She was carrying the saddlebags Pa had brought her.

Mr. Weber helped her up, then she dug in her heels and went flying away out of town to the south. I turned back, and Pa and I rode north past the last of the buildings, and up the hill toward our place.

The rest of that night was spent in celebrating, waiting on the two invalids in the cabin, and hearing all the stories there were to tell—starting with Becky’s version of events, then Zack’s and Little Wolf’s, then Pa’s.

“But I’ll tell you something,” said Pa as he finished his account of the gunfight at Deadman’s Flat, “when I crawled to my feet and stumbled down the hill to see if Zack was safe, and I saw Buck Krebbs lying in the dirt, there wasn’t any joy in my heart.”

It was a somber way to end a day that had turned out better than we might have hoped the night before.

“No sir, a dead face is an awful thing to see, especially when I knew it was my hand that took his life. God forgive me, I had to do it, else he’d have killed Zack for sure. But don’t any of you kids ever think killin’s a right thing. It’s a dreadful thing, I’m tellin’ you! Buck was our enemy, but I’ll never forget that look on his dead face, and I pray God can do somethin’ better with him now than he was able to down here. He was a bad man, but that don’t make killin’ him a pleasant thing.”

We all went to bed late that night with plenty to be thankful for, and also a lot to think about.

I didn’t know if it was a right thing to do or not, but I couldn’t help praying for Buck Krebbs one last time. I remembered the Bible verse that said we were to pray for our enemies.

Maybe it was too late, but I figured I ought to do what the Book said. So I did.