Double Cross!

“You’ve lost a chunk of meat off your ear,” Doc Brandy assessed the damage. “I can tidy it up or I can fix you a new one. Of course, it won’t match the other, ‘less you get a new pair.”

Jed shook his head.

“Don’t seem right, lopping off a good ear just to match a new one. I’ll bear my scars, Doc. A man shouldn’t be afraid to show what life has done to him.”

“Rich words for a nicked ear!” Brandy chuckled. “But it’s up to you. Your hair mostly covers it anyway.”

“So there’s no need for surgery.” Jed jumped down from Doc’s table. “How much do I owe you?”

“I keep telling you: your money’s no good here.” Doc tidied away his gauze and surgical spirit.

Jed shook his head. Every time the doc refused payment, the gunslinger felt uncomfortable. He hated being beholden to anyone. He hated the notion that free medical treatment was somehow his reward for all the troubleshooting. Jed would prefer just to carry on, like any other patient and pay his way, rather than this feeling of obligation to the doc, to the good folks of Tarnation, every time he caught a nick or a scratch.

“Mighty fine passel of horses you brought back,” Doc changed the subject before Jed could get his money out. “How’d you come by them?”

Jed looked at his friend - He supposed he could call Doc Brandy ‘friend’; well, he was the nearest to that category of acquaintance Jed had. Apart from Horse. He thought about not telling him - someone round here could not be trusted.

“I reckon Plisp will want them back,” he shrugged. “If he comes to collect, I’ll be waiting.”

“And if he don’t?”

“Then I’ll put them up for auction and the proceeds can go to Turpin’s widow. I’ll see you, Doc.”

He put his hat on, mindful not to graze his patched ear and left.

“You’re a good man, Jed,” Brandy said to the empty room.

***

The sheriff’s office was at the other end of the street, which probably added to the free and easy atmosphere in the Last Gasp. It was little more than a wooden shack with a more substantial jailhouse of stone behind it. Deputy Dawson was on the porch, whittling wood. Jed tipped his hat in greeting.

“Horses are all stabled,” Dawson got to his feet and shifted his gun belt on his skinny hips. “You reckon Plisp’ll make his move today?”

Jed’s eyes darted sideways, cautiously.

“I don’t care to discuss it in the street,” he said sternly. He walked past the younger man. Dawson followed, his cheeks red.

“Sheriff not around?”

“Ah, he rode up to Wheelhub a few days since,” Dawson explained. “Business.”

“Now what kind of business would take a sheriff away from his jurisdiction and all the way to the capital...” Jed was thinking out loud. The deputy gaped, unable to provide an answer.

“Sheriff reckoned things was quiet enough around here.”

“Did he go before or after the rustlings started? I’m guessing before.”

“I couldn’t say. Sheriff Marshall was called away. Telegram came.”

“Who from?”

“I cain’t say. But off he went.”

Jed could see the lad was trying to help as best he could. He gave him a tight-lipped smile and left, promising to return to discuss plans for the horses. He strode across the street, his long legs avoiding the worst of the mud and leavings, to the telegraph office. As he stepped inside, a bell rang out above the door. Jed turned the sign hanging in the window from ‘Yes, We’re Open’ to ‘Sorry, We’re Closed’.

He glanced around, taking in the counter that bisected the room; behind it shiny brass equipment stood proudly on a leather-topped desk. Rows of pigeonholes lined the walls with papers of various sizes poking out from most of them. A chalkboard displayed a tariff. Ten words a cent. Jed didn’t know enough about it to determine whether this was a bargain.

He cleared his throat. A man with stooped shoulders emerged from a back room. He wore a waistcoat and his shirtsleeves were rolled and pinned at his elbows. Sweat beaded his bald head and his sunken cheeks were framed by bushy sideburns. He peered at the gunslinger through half-moon glasses.

“Ten words a cent,” he gestured at the tariff with his thumb.

“I’m here to send a message, right enough,” Jed leaned an arm on the counter. The telegraph operator grabbed a pad and pencil. Jed snatched the pencil from him. “But not by telegraph.”

The man shrank back.

“There’s no money here,” he stammered. “I’ve just taken it to the bank.”

“I don’t want your money,” Jed tried to reassure him. “I just want you to get word to whomever it is that contacts you, that I have the horses in the Double Cross stables. They’re awaiting collection.”

“I don’t understand...”

“It makes not a lick of difference. Just deliver the message.”

“But - who - and how -“

“Either you’ll go to them or they’ll come to you. Whichever. You make sure you tell them.”

The man dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. Jed turned to go but startled the man by turning around again.

“One more thing. Sheriff Marshall got a telegram a couple of days back. Who sent it?”

The man looked affronted.

“I could never divulge...” he blurted.

“The message came in to yonder contraption? You would have written it out. What did it say?”

The man backed from the counter lest this frightening interloper reach out and seize him. “I couldn’t possibly reveal that.”

“Did it come from Wheelhub?”

The man’s unruly eyebrows dipped in a frown. That answered the question. Sheriff Marshall hadn’t been summoned to the capital. Perhaps he’d been sent there on a wild goose chase, leaving Tarnation and the surrounding districts without a lawman. Clearly, and no disrespect to the young feller, but Deputy Dawson was not a threat to the likes of Farkin Plisp.

Jed placed the pencil, unbroken, gently on the counter.

“Horses. Double Cross,” he reminded the quivering clerk. His departure was fanfared by the merry little bell. As soon as it stopped ringing, the telegraph operator fell to his machine and began to tap out an urgent message.

Jed could hear it from the street. He smiled to himself; the skittish little feller had already tapped out a dollar’s worth.

He went back to the jailhouse where Dawson was fixing a pot of coffee. Jed accepted a tin mug of the pungent black liquid but set it aside rather than drink it.

“I found this.” The deputy held out a piece of paper. Jed took it. His face broke out into a rare grin. It was the telegram Sheriff Marshall had received.

“’Daddy...come quick...I’m frightened...Want to come home...Please, Daddy...Love, Lilimae.”

“I reckon it’s from his daughter.”

“I reckon you’re right.”

So, it was family trouble that pulled Sheriff Marshall away...Jed rubbed his stubbly chin.

Where had he heard the name Lilimae before?

He would have to ask Horse. That critter’s memory was infallible. He instructed the deputy to meet him at the Double Cross at sundown. The deputy didn’t baulk at taking orders from an outsider. In fact, he seemed relieved to have someone to tell him what to do.

Jed went to consult Horse, in his humbler accommodation in a corral behind the saloon.

***

“Of course!” Jed exclaimed when Horse told him. One of the two girls with the old man had been called Lilimae.

“You reckon it’s the same girl?”

“Could be...” Jed scratched his chin. “I figure Lilimae Marshall, if it was her, could have made her way to Wheelhub and got herself into trouble by now. Quick message home to Daddy and he goes running.”

“You don’t approve,” Horse observed. “A man puts his personal life ahead of his professional duty. You never had family.”

Jed thought this over.

“It just all seems a bit fishy to me. Now, are you going to be all right here a mite longer? I don’t want you near the Double Cross tonight.”

Horse looked at the sky.

“I reckon it might not rain,” it said, with an air of self-pity.

“And how’s the grub?”

“Passable. Not quite the oat cuisine of the Double Cross...”

“What have I told you about making jokes?” Jed adjusted Horse’s blanket and checked the feeding tubes were securely attached. “I want you to conserve your energy for flight.”

“I’m getting an upgrade?”

“I mean a quick escape. Not ready to get you fixed with a pair of wings just yet awhile.”

Horse snorted derisively but Jed could tell it didn’t mean it. He gave it a pat and left it in the corral.

The sun was on the slant; the afternoon was drawing on. Jed decided against dining at the Last Gasp. Miss Kitty would be there. It wasn’t that Jed didn’t like Miss Kitty but the way things were playing out, he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. He opted instead for Ma Purdee’s coffee shop, for a pot that was more palatable than the deputy’s sorry excuse for a brew, and a generous slice of her pecan pie.

***

Jed was pleased to see the young deputy was already at the Double Cross stables well before sundown. The boy had the makings of a good lawman; he was just a bit of a greenhorn.

The Double Cross had stalls to house up to two dozen horses or Horses, depending on the customer’s needs. Along one side, the stalls were piped into a tank of Horse fodder, with tubes and attachments, some of which were in use by Horses - of an earlier model than Jed’s own, he was pleased to note. The other side, the smellier side, was heaving with natural horses. Here the floor was strewn with straw and their manure. A hand was shovelling in vain, fighting a losing battle against the apparently ceaseless supply. Good for the vegetables, Jed mused. The shoveller would have to be dismissed to get him out of harm’s way. Above these steaming stalls was a hayloft. Up there would be a good spot for the deputy. He’d be able to see everything below - and he’d be out of danger too, as long as he kept himself covered.

Jed preferred to work alone but keeping the local law enforcers involved gave his actions legitimacy in the eyes of others. Not that that concerned him unduly. He had his reasons for doing what he did - although he would be hard pressed at that moment to divulge what those reasons were. There were gaps in Jed’s memory that troubled him. Fortunately, folks didn’t seem to question the interference of a lone gunslinger in their affairs. Jed was regarded as one of the good guys. Folk don’t tend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He dispelled these thoughts and beckoned the stable hand over. The boy - younger even than the deputy - ambled up, covered in muck but beaming. Jed handed him a ten-spot. The boy’s grin turned to astonishment.

“Stables closed,” Jed intoned. “You got the night off. Go and eat. Get yourself a bath. Whatever.”

The stable boy looked forlornly around the stable. Jed snatched his shovel from him.

“Get!” he snapped. The boy got.

“Reckon up yonder’ll be a good spot for a stakeout.” Deputy Dawson had arrived and was craning his neck at the hayloft.

“I reckon you might be right,” said Jed. “Up you go.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to stay down here. Plain sight. Whites of their eyes kind of a deal.”

“Really?”

“No; not really. I’ll be in the stall at the end, biding my time. You remember: don’t give yourself away by shooting first.”

“I won’t. I mean, I will. I will remember but I won’t shoot first, I mean.”

The deputy flushed red, anxious to do right in the gunslinger’s eyes.

“Sun’s going down,” Jed pointed out. Young Dawson took this as his cue to climb the wooden ladder up to the loft.

Jed realised he was still holding the stinking shovel. He was about to lay it aside when he got an idea. He set to shovelling the grassy spheres of horse ordure. He even whistled while he worked.

***

The sun was well and truly gone to bed before anything happened. Jed had worked his way along the line of stalls; he reckoned the place had never been cleaner. It was a man’s job, not a boy’s.

The doors creaked as they closed behind a group of half a dozen men in the long coats and broad brimmed hats of the militia. Shotguns were crooked in their arms. One, at the forefront, had his cocked and ready.

“Hey, boy!” he called to the stooped figure working at the far end. “Looking for a no-account, lowdown, yellow-bellied gunslinger goes by the name of Jed. You seen him.”

The hunched figure continued his labours. For a few seconds there was only the sound of the shovel scraping along the floor. A horse, one of the half dozen brought back from Spit Valley, snorted. The foremost gunman turned and fired but one of his companions nudged his arm, sending the shot blast into a post, splintering the wood.

“Them’s our hosses,” the nudger hissed.

The ‘hosses’ themselves were stamping in their stalls. A couple of them reared up, kicking at the air and the doors that confined them. In contrast, the Horses opposite watched without blinking.

“Hey, where’d he go?”

The shovelling figure was no longer visible. The group of men spread out and made cautious progress between the stalls. All weapons were now at the ready.

“What say we take the hosses and make tracks,” whispered one.

This suggestion was ignored. The men split up to check the stalls, wary of the startled horses, disturbed by the impassive Horses.

“He ain’t here!” wailed one, sounding like a child denied a treat.

“Keep looking!”

The men’s nerves were beginning to show. The stable hand seemed to have disappeared, leaving nothing but his shovel and a steaming heap of horse-apples.

“Say...”

The men signalled to each other. One had spotted the hayloft. They all understood each other. Three trained their weapons on the hay. Three more headed to the foot of the ladder. One of these three began to climb.

A hole appeared right through his torso and he fell backwards onto his confederates. Two more blasts despatched the other two. The remaining three wheeled around and were surprised to see a hellish figure, a man of manure with his pistols aimed directly at them.

Jed spat out a mouthful of dung.

“Where’s Plisp?” he grumbled.

“There’s three of us and only one of him,” one of the men leaned towards the apparent leader’s ear. Jed shot his hat off, whirled his pistol around in his hand and aimed it again.

It was a standoff.

Jed could see in the edge of his vision the hay stirring in the loft. Good boy, he thought. With the deputy behind him, he might be able to get somewhere with these men rather than just blasting them to oblivion.

Unseen by the men, Deputy Dawson stood up, straw dropping from him. He raised his weapon.

But he aimed it at the gunslinger.

“I’m sorry, Jed,” the young man stammered. “You’re under arrest.”