Common sense told him that there was little chance of success in continuing the chase. Valuable time had been lost while he had crossed the ridge on foot to get back to his horse. The only thing he had to go on was the direction in which the shadowy figure had disappeared. But Matt was determined to find the remaining member of the gang. His determination had been for Ike until this night. Now it was for Crooked Foot. He had his mind set now to finish the job they had started.
Starting out from the point where he had taken a shot at Eli, he crossed over the creek, and made his way along the other bank, taking the easier route through the hills. With no light to follow a trail, he figured his best bet was to take the most direct path, counting on the idea that Eli would have done the same in his haste to escape. Holding Blue to a steady pace, he pushed on through the night until reaching a wide stream that bisected a narrow valley. Here, he was forced to pause. The man he trailed could have taken any of a number of directions. There was no choice but to wait until first light, and try to pick up the trail. Pushing his frustration aside, he settled where he was, and prepared to wait. It was not a sure bet that he was even on the outlaw’s trail at this point. The thought that he may have been wasting time riding around in the dark was worrisome at the least.
With the first rays of light, he was scouting the edges of the stream, looking for some sign that his blind gamble had not been for naught. The sandy bank was smooth and undisturbed. No horse had passed this way. Matt stood looking first upstream, then downstream, feeling totally defeated, but still unwilling to admit it, even to himself. His only hope of catching Eli had been to follow his trail. He had only seen the man through a veil of darkness as Eli sped away in the night. Although he had been one of the men sitting at the poker table back in Springfield, Matt realized that he wouldn’t be able to identify him if he saw him in a crowd.
With no options open to him, he climbed aboard Blue, and crossed to the other side of the stream. Within twenty feet of the point where he came out of the water, he saw the hoofprints. “Well, I’ll be damned” he blurted, at first unable to believe his luck. He dismounted to take a closer look. Judging from the direction from which the tracks left the water, it appeared the outlaw had been riding down the stream, probably from a good distance back, in hopes of losing anyone pursuing him. “And I just happened to stumble on his tracks right where he came out,” Matt murmured, still finding it hard to believe. With a trail to follow, he wasted no time getting back in the saddle. Time was important. According to what Ike had told him, Topeka Landing and the Kansas River were not far from where he now was. He wanted to catch up to Eli before he reached the settlement and decreased the odds of finding him.
As the sun climbed to brighten the morning sky, Matt rode through a land of rolling hills and tree-covered slopes, following a trail that was becoming easier and easier to follow. That fact in itself should have served to give him concern, but his mind was on cutting the distance between himself and the man he pursued. Pushing Blue hard, pausing only now and then to study the tracks, he entered a long narrow ravine. In the next moment he was startled by a dull sound, like the sound of a fist hitting solid flesh. He saw the hole that suddenly appeared in Blue’s neck an instant before the sound of the rifle penetrated the morning stillness. He immediately flattened himself against the confused horse’s neck. Blue reared back in pain, and a second shot smacked into the blue roan’s chest. The horse screamed in panic, and lunged forward as if to gallop, but took no more than three strides before its front legs folded and horse and rider went crashing to the ground.
Matt stayed with the horse, taking care to remove his foot from the stirrup to avoid being pinned beneath Blue’s weight. Using the horse as cover, he pulled his rifle from the sling, and scanned the ridges that formed the ravine, searching for the source of the shots. In a few moments, two more shots rang out, the slugs thudding dully into Blue’s belly, and Matt was able to spot his assailant. He brought his rifle to bear on a clump of juniper surrounding a large boulder near the top of the ravine and opened fire, sending three slugs glancing off the rock.
That son of a bitch, Eli thought as he ducked back behind the boulder. He cursed for having missed Matt with his first shot and hit the horse instead. And then the big roan had reared up, causing him to miss with his second shot. One thing for sure, I sure as hell stopped him from coming after me. That thought brought some satisfaction. However, Eli wanted the man he knew as Shannon underground. So he moved to the other side of the boulder, hoping to get a different angle and a clear shot. His prey was almost totally protected by the carcass of the horse. The only target available to him was one moccasined foot left exposed at the rump of the dead horse. Eli rose up slightly, took dead aim at the foot, and pulled the trigger. He saw a little puff of dirt inches away from the moccasin, but before he could fire again, he was suddenly spun around by a slug slamming into his left shoulder.
“Damn you!” Eli roared in anger as he clutched his shoulder and ducked back down behind the rock. He had been tricked into exposing himself. The shot that found his shoulder had come from behind the dead horse’s neck. In all his years of raiding, murdering and pillaging, he had never been shot before. At first, his reaction was unbridled fury, and he moved to the other side of the boulder and emptied his rifle into the carcass of the horse. But as his sleeve became soaked with blood, he was struck with the thought that he had better do something to stop the bleeding. Several scattered thoughts bombarded his brain as he looked for something to stuff against the wound. It was beginning to throb, and the blood would not stop. Topeka Landing was at least five miles away. Maybe he should get himself to a doctor. At the same time, he hated to leave while he had Shannon pinned down behind his horse. Another thought told him that Shannon could hold him off until dark, and then it might be a different game. In the end, he decided he was more concerned about the wound.
Lying low behind Blue’s body, Matt figured he was in for a long siege before darkness gave him an opportunity to go on the offensive against his attacker. For that reason, he was surprised when he heard the sound of a horse galloping away from the ridge. Peering out from his fortress of horse flesh, he saw Eli riding down the side of the ravine on a buckskin horse, the sleeve of his shirt red with blood. Lucky shot, he thought, and got to his feet, watching until Eli disappeared past the north end of the long ravine. “Well, he won’t be hard to identify now,” he said before turning back to look at his horse. He and Blue had been partners since the war. It was hard to imagine that the big blue roan was gone. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” he said, shaking his head sadly as he gazed at the bullet-riddled carcass. Now there was one more reason to finish the job. He picked up his moccasin and put it on, removed the cartridge bag from the saddle pack, and with some great effort, managed to pull his saddle from the horse. Then he set out on foot, following the direction Eli had taken. Near the end of the ravine, he found a dense thicket in which to hide his saddle. Once that was taken care of, he continued on his quest.
He wasn’t sure how far he had walked when he saw the buildings of Topeka, but it was now late in the afternoon. The place had evidently developed a great deal since Ike had been there, for now it appeared to be a town. Tired, but not weary, Matt walked with a deadly determination, bent upon one task only. He took no notice of the two men standing outside the stables as he passed by. They paused in their conversation to gawk in curiosity at the lone man in buckskins walking down the middle of the street, rifle in hand.
Matt’s attention was suddenly captured by something at the end of the street. A small house stood alone beyond the general store and a saloon. A buckskin horse waited patiently at the hitching post in front of the house. Matt headed straight for the horse, certain that it was the same buckskin he had seen galloping down the ridge. When he walked up beside the horse, he paused for a moment to read the sign nailed to the fence beside the gate: JONATHAN P. MANNING, M.D. Matt cranked a cartridge into the chamber of the Henry rifle, and entered the doctor’s office.
Inside, Matt found himself in a tiny waiting room. A short hallway led past several doors before ending at the back door of the cottage. He was there for only a second when an elderly woman came from one of the doors, carrying a basin filled with bloody water. She barely glanced at the tall, broad-shouldered young man in buckskins, but turned down the hallway toward the back door. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she called back over her shoulder. “The doctor’s busy at the moment.” Pushing the back door open with her foot, she added, “A man was shot by robbers.”
Matt went immediately to the room she had come from. Inside, he discovered the doctor bending over his patient, who was freshly bandaged and sitting on a couch against the wall. Both patient and doctor were momentarily stunned by the sudden appearance of the stranger in the treatment room. “Wait outside,” Dr. Manning said. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
There was no hesitation on Eli’s part. He pulled the pistol from his belt, at the same time grabbing for the doctor with his wounded arm, attempting to use him as a shield. Matt, reacting equally as fast, dropped to one knee, and Eli’s bullet passed over his head, imbedding in the plastered wall. The Henry spoke but once, leaving a small black hole neatly centered between Eli’s eyes, about three quarters of an inch above his eyebrows.
The doctor, having been shoved off balance by Eli’s attempt to shield himself, recovered his footing, but stood stone still, fearful that he might be next. He relaxed when Matt ejected the spent shell and lowered his rifle. They stood there staring at each other for what seemed a long time before either man moved. Finally deciding that the buckskin-clad executioner had only one victim in mind, Dr. Manning broke the leaden silence, even as his wife rushed into the room. “It’s all right, Agnes,” he said, to calm the alarmed woman. “It’s all over.” Then he looked at Matt. “It is, ain’t it?”
Matt nodded and then replied, “It is.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “That’s the last of ’em.”
A bit more confident now, the doctor complained. “I sure wasted a lot of time patching up that shoulder.” He looked at Matt. “I wish you’d waited until he paid me.”
Matt thought about it for a moment, then walked over to the body, and began emptying Eli’s pockets. “How much does he owe you?”
“Ten dollars,” the doctor replied, giving his wife a sideways glance. She remained expressionless.
“Ten dollars, huh?” Matt responded. “Here’s fifty,” he said, giving the doctor all the cash he found in Eli’s pockets. “I figure he owes you somethin’ for cleanin’ up.”
Mrs. Manning stood watching in disbelief during the exchange between her husband and the stranger. When it appeared that Matt was preparing to take his leave, she spoke up. “We’d better go get the sheriff.”
“What for?” Her husband cut her off. “I mean, he shot in self-defense. The deceased fired the first shot. I saw it.” He nodded toward Matt reassuringly. Then, seeing his wife’s wide-eyed, questioning expression, he quickly said, “I mean, of course we’ve got to get the sheriff, but there’s no hurry.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, for this intrusion,” Matt said to the bewildered woman, “but it was somethin’ that had to be done.” That said, he turned on his heel and strode down the short hallway and out the front door. The doctor and his wife followed Matt out to the porch, and stood watching as he untied the buckskin horse from the post. “He owes me a horse,” Matt offered in explanation, then wheeled the powerful gelding, and rode out of town the same way he had walked in, leaving Dr. and Mrs. Manning to ponder what had just taken place.
In the short time it took to return to the thicket where he had hidden his saddle, Matt decided that the man he had just killed had ridden a fine horse. The buckskin devoured the miles with seemingly no effort, his stride long and his gait smooth and constant. While deciding which saddle he would keep, Matt took a few moments to take a closer look at his newly acquired mount. After a brief inspection, he could not help but admire the animal—his broad chest, strong quarters, and depth of girth. And unlike his former master, there appeared to be no evidence of a deceitful nature. He almost felt guilty for admiring Blue’s replacement so openly. As for the saddle, he decided to keep Eli’s. It was no better than his own, but appeared to be a bit newer, and the buckskin was already accustomed to it. He transferred the rest of his belongings to the new rig, and after a final farewell to Blue’s carcass, set out to find Ike and Crooked Foot.
* * *
Ike stood over the wounded Cherokee boy, staring at him in consternation, helpless to do anything to alleviate his pain. Ike had already done everything he could to stop the bleeding, but it looked as if it could start again at any moment. The bullet from Eli’s rifle had crushed the boy’s breastbone, caving it in and shattering his ribs. What amazed Ike most was the fact that the Indian boy was still alive. The bullet had somehow missed the heart, but it must have torn into his lungs, because Crooked Foot periodically coughed up blood. Ike feared the boy was choking to death, so he lifted him up to a sitting position against the side of the gully, hoping it would keep the blood from entering his throat. From time to time, Crooked Foot’s eyes would flutter open, only to stare far off into the distance. Each time his eyes closed again, Ike wondered if it was for eternity. But the boy would not give in to the beckoning of the Great Spirit.
Turning away from the wounded boy for a few moments, Ike’s thoughts turned toward his partner. At that moment, he wondered if he would ever see Matt Slaughter again. His young friend had been gone almost twenty-four hours now, and the sun was sinking low on another day. He looked back at Crooked Foot again. What to do? It was difficult to decide. The boy was dying, Ike was certain of that. How long should he remain here waiting for Matt?
In the next moment, his question was answered, for a rider suddenly appeared on the far bank of the creek, some five hundred yards away. Ike’s eyes were not as keen as they used to be when he was young, so he picked up his rifle and moved to the side of the gully. Straining hard, he tried to focus on the man. It could be Matt, but this man was riding a buckskin, so Ike kept a steady aim on him. When the rider closed the distance to two hundred yards, Ike could say for sure that it was indeed his young friend. A great sense of relief swept over him.
“Hello the camp,” Matt called out before crossing over the creek.
“Come on in, Matt,” Ike returned, and put his rifle down.
Ike followed the gully down to the water where his horse and Crooked Foot’s pony were hobbled. He waited there while Matt pulled up and dismounted. “He got Blue,” Matt said, answering the question on Ike’s face, “but I got him.”
“Well, I reckon that about takes care of business,” Ike said, after hearing Matt’s accounting of the death of the last outlaw they hunted.
“How’s Crooked Foot?” Matt inquired.
“You look,” Ike replied abruptly. “He don’t look good a’tall. Matter of fact, I thought he’d go under before you got back.”
This was sorrowful news indeed to Matt. He had developed a fondness for the spunky Indian boy. He hobbled the buckskin, and followed Ike back up the gully, seeing at once that Crooked Foot was as badly wounded as Ike had said. The Cherokee boy gave no indication that he was even aware of Matt when he bent low to examine the wound. “Damn!” Matt uttered softly when he saw the extent of the damage. He stood up and turned to Ike. “We need to get him to a doctor.”
“It’s a long ways back to Springfield,” Ike said. “He might be dead before we made it back there.” Topeka was a lot closer, but after hearing the circumstances of Eli’s execution, he assumed it would not be wise for Matt to return to that town.
Matt did not give the matter a second thought. “There’s a doctor no more than six or seven miles from here. We’ll take Crooked Foot to Topeka. The doctor’s never seen you. You can take Crooked Foot in.”
The boy was far too badly wounded to sit a horse, so Matt and Ike cut a couple of young saplings to use as poles for a travois. They fashioned a platform of tree limbs, and lashed them together with a coil of rope that was on Eli’s saddle. It was a rough ambulance to say the least, but they figured it would serve to haul the wounded boy to Topeka Landing.
The trip was slow and extremely painful for the suffering patient. By the time they arrived on a hill overlooking the Kansas River, the boy appeared too weak to continue. “This looks like a good place to make camp,” Matt said. “Maybe we’d better stop right now and bring the doctor here. I’m afraid we’re gonna kill him if we go any farther.” Ike agreed, and they lifted Crooked Foot from the travois, and laid him as gently as they could manage under a cottonwood tree. By the time they had him settled, it was beginning to get dark. “I expect you’d best go on into town and fetch the doctor,” Matt said.
* * *
Boyd Jenkins glanced up when his eye caught sight of a rider approaching his stable. Pausing to see who it was, he became immediately alarmed, for it was another buckskin-clad stranger—the second one that day. When the first one had passed his stables earlier in the afternoon, a man was killed soon after. This one looked a lot bigger than the first one, and maybe even a bit wilder. Boyd didn’t hesitate. He dropped the sack of oats he had been carrying, and ran out the back of the stable, figuring it best to alert the sheriff.
Cutting across behind the saloon and the general store, Boyd made good time reaching the jail, a small stone building just off the main street. Sheriff Sam Baldwin was still in his office, judging by the light in the window. Boyd hesitated at the doorstep to watch the stranger pass the general store, apparently headed for the doctor’s office.
“What the hell’s chasin’ you, Boyd?” Sam Baldwin grunted when his office door was suddenly flung open, and a panting Boyd Jenkins burst into the room. The half-empty whiskey bottle on the desk was testimony to the melancholy fits the sheriff occasionally suffered. Everybody in town knew of Sam’s dependence on alcohol. He needed it to bolster his courage to face a complaining, domineering wife every night when he went home. On some nights, when his melancholia was more severe, he had been observed staggering a little when he locked up his office for the night. Boyd took no notice of this in his excitement to give the alert.
“Sam!” Boyd blurted. “There’s another one of them wild-lookin’ fellers headed for Doc Manning’s place!”
Sam did his best to think soberly when he responded. “What happened? Did he do somethin’?” He had already had to deal with one man shot in the head that day by a wild-looking stranger who just blatantly walked into the doctor’s office and blazed away.
“Well, not yet,” Boyd answered, surprised by the sheriff’s apparent lack of excitement. “But this one looks like that first feller, only this one’s big as a bear and looks a lot meaner.”
“Well, it ain’t against the law to go to the doctor’s office,” Sam said, still trying to overcome the alcohol in his brain.
Disappointed by Sam’s reaction to his warning, Boyd stood there shifting his weight from one foot to the other for a few moments before speaking. “I just thought you’d wanna know there was another gunman in town.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, his mind still spinning. “Yeah, you done the right thing. ’Course I’d wanna know. I ain’t about to let no wild murderers think they can run roughshod over my town.” He pulled a rifle out of the rack on the wall, and proceeded to load the magazine. “Where’d you say he was headin’?”
“Doc Manning’s place,” Boyd replied, “just like the first one did.”
“Right. We’ll just see what’s on his mind,” he stated, his words still a little slurred.
* * *
The light had almost faded completely when Ike guided his horse up to the doctor’s gate and stepped down from the saddle. He had no sooner tied his horse to the fence when he was surprised by the sheriff coming around the corner of the fence with a rifle aimed at his belly. “Hold on there, big’un,” Sam demanded. “Just where do you think you’re goin’?”
Ike paused to consider the rifle aimed at his mid-section. His eyes fixed on the weapon, he paid little attention to Boyd Jenkins standing behind Sam. “I’m goin’ to see the doctor,” he finally stated.
“What for?” Sam demanded. “Are you sick?”
“I reckon that’s me and the doctor’s business,” Ike replied without emotion.
“Is that so?” Sam blurted. “Well, I think we’ll go down to the jail, and find out whose business it is.”
By this time, Ike realized that the sheriff was half-drunk. “Is it against the law to go to the doctor in this town?” Ike had no time to waste on a drunken sheriff, but the rifle in Sam’s hands had no sense of right or wrong. A bullet from a drunken sheriff was equally as deadly as one from a sober one.
“It’s against the law to smart-mouth the sheriff,” Sam said. “Now, you just untie them reins, and lead that horse down to my office.”
By this time, Sam’s loud voice had been heard inside, and Doctor Manning came to the door to investigate. Upon seeing Sam holding a rifle on the huge man in buckskins, he inquired, “What’s the trouble, Sam?”
“Nothin’ much, Doc,” the sheriff replied confidently. “We’ve just got us another one of them wild ones in town—only this time I aim to see what he’s up to before somebody else gets shot. One killin’ a day is enough for this town.”
“What’s he doing on my front step?” Manning wanted to know.
Before Sam could reply, Ike answered him. “I was comin’ to see you. I ain’t done nothin’, ain’t committed no crime. I was just tryin’ to see the doctor.”
“Why? Are you ailing?”
“Well, it ain’t that.” Ike hesitated to give the reason for the need for a doctor. “I just need to talk to you, and it ain’t none of the sheriff’s business.”
“I reckon I’m the one decides that,” Sam snorted, and motioned with the rifle. “That way. Get movin’.”
Dr. Manning could readily see that the sheriff had been nipping generously from the bottle. And he knew Sam well enough to know that he could be mighty belligerent when he’d had a few drinks. The big man did have a wild, even dangerous, look about him, but maybe he really was seeking medical advice. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for me to talk to him, Sam.”
Sam considered it for a moment, knowing that he held all the cards while he had his rifle on him, and the man looked capable of raising all kinds of hell. “We’ll just go down to my office, and find out a few things about this feller. If I think he’s not up to somethin’, I’ll let him go.” He turned to Ike. “All right, start walkin’.”
Ike could see little choice but to do as he was told. Thoughts of Matt waiting back up in the hills with the wounded boy made him consider jumping the sheriff if the opportunity presented itself. But Sam was careful to keep an eye on his prisoner every step of the way. Once inside the jail, he directed Ike into one of the two cells, and locked the door. “You just cool your heels for a spell. I’m gonna check my notices first, and then you and I’ll have us a little talk.”
Ike at once berated himself for allowing the sheriff to lock him up. I shouldn’t have ever let him get me inside this building, he thought. But it was too late now. He only hoped there was no old Wanted notice in the stack of papers Sam took from his desk drawer. It was bad luck to have been spotted riding into town. Maybe it should have occurred to him that the town was edgy after Matt had so brazenly executed a man in the doctor’s office. If he had thought more about it before, he would have at least waited until darkness set fully in. It was bad luck all right, and he was about to find that it would only get worse.
“Well, lookee here,” the sheriff sang out gleefully. He extracted one notice from the rest, and walked over to the cell door for a closer look. “This here’s a dang good likeness.” He chuckled to think of the catch he had just made. “Yessir, this description fits you like a glove, too. You’d be Mr. Ike Brister, wanted in Missouri for murder.” He looked at Ike and grinned. “And you just come ridin’ right in—mighty accommodatin’, Mr. Brister, mighty accommodatin’. By God, this calls for a drink.” He poured himself a drink from the bottle, now less than half full, saluted Ike with it, then tossed it back. “Yessir, wait till I tell the judge in the mornin’. We ain’t never had a real famous outlaw in our jail before.”
Ike remained a stoic witness to the sheriff’s gleeful exhibition. He was angry, more so at himself than the sheriff, for not anticipating the presence of a Wanted poster in the jail. Even with a rifle pointed at him, he might have taken a chance at jumping the sheriff if he had given it more thought. His concern now was for Crooked Foot, maybe bleeding to death, waiting for his return with the doctor. There was nothing he could do about it at this point. It was just plain dumb, letting himself get caught like this. He had let the boy down.
“Well, Mr. Brister, I think I’ll go get my supper. I hope you don’t mind stayin’ here by yourself for a little while.” Sam’s spirits could hardly get much higher. “Since you’re such a famous man, I might even bring you a plate.” He stood in the middle of the room, grinning broadly at his prisoner. When there was no response from Ike, he chuckled and turned to leave. Unable to resist one last taunt, he said, “The key to the cell door is right here in my desk drawer if you have to leave before I get back.” Content with himself, he went out, closed the front door and padlocked it, feeling confident that nobody would be able to get in before he got back. That done, he headed for the hotel and supper.
“Oh Lordy,” Ike moaned to himself. “Now what am I gonna do?” He went around the cell, checking the strength of the bars. They were all solidly in place. There was no window in the cell, so there was little he could do but sit down and wait with images of a dying boy to torment his mind.
* * *
Matt paced back and forth across the brow of the hill, watching for sign of Ike’s return with the doctor. It was now well past dark. Ike should have been back by now. Hearing a low moan from Crooked Foot, he moved quickly down to the cottonwood tree where the boy lay. The wounded boy mumbled a series of words barely above a whisper, speaking in the Cherokee tongue. Even though Matt spoke no Cherokee, he soon surmised that it was no more than senseless mumbling. Crooked Foot was still unconscious. He looked bad. Matt was at a loss as to what he could do to ease his pain. Crooked Foot suddenly cried out in pain, then appeared to sink back in sleep. Afraid that the boy had just passed, Matt bent close over him. Crooked Foot was still breathing. Matt got to his feet again. “Gawdammit!” He blurted in frustration. “Where the hell is Ike?” Climbing back up to the brow of the hill again, he watched the road below him for a few minutes longer before making his decision.
Something had happened. Ike wasn’t coming back. Matt returned to the cottonwood once again, his mind made up. Crooked Foot uttered no protests when Matt picked him up and placed him on the travois once more. After making him as comfortable as possible, Matt climbed aboard the buckskin, and led Crooked Foot’s pony down to the road into town. He could afford to wait no longer.
* * *
Only a few people noticed the silent procession that rode slowly down the middle of the darkened street, and these were mostly men talking outside the saloon. It was a curious sight, had anyone been sufficiently interested to take a close look—the somber and determined man on the buckskin, leading a body on a travois, a ghostly procession passing through the patches of light from the windows of the saloon. Though noticed, no one saw fit to make much of it, so Matt passed quietly by the hotel and the general store toward the doctor’s office at the end of the street.
He saw no sign of Ike, and as he approached Dr. Manning’s house, no sign of Ike’s horse. That observation worried him, and he again feared that something bad may have happened to his friend. He was determined to find out, but his first priority was to get Crooked Foot to the doctor.
He pulled up to the fence in front of the little whitewashed cottage, and stepped down. Crooked Foot had not made one sound of protest during the ride down from the hill. Matt only glanced at him before going up to the front door and knocking. He held his rifle in his hand in case the doctor needed convincing to look at the boy.
“Oh . . . you . . .” Manning sputtered, at once alarmed to see the broad-shouldered young man at his door again.
“I brought you a patient,” Matt said. “He’s bad hurt.”
Manning looked beyond him at the travois at the gate. “What happened to him?”
“Gunshot,” Matt replied.
“Well, can you bring him inside? I can’t see what I’m doing out there in the dark.”
“I reckon,” Matt responded.
“Put him on the couch there,” Dr. Manning said when Matt returned carrying Crooked Foot in his arms. He stepped back to give Matt room.
“John?” A voice called from the back of the house.
“It’s all right, Agnes,” Manning answered, “it’s just a patient.” He bent over the couch to examine Crooked Foot. “My Lord,” he gasped when he saw the wound in the boy’s chest. He worked over the boy for a few minutes, then straightened up and looked at Matt. “I don’t know what you want me to do. You bring a dead boy in here—there isn’t anything I can do for him.”
“Dead!” Matt was stunned. “Are you sure? Can’t you do somethin’ for him?” The doctor’s verdict hit him hard. He couldn’t help but feel that if he had not wasted so much time waiting for Ike, Crooked Foot might have been saved. “How long has he been dead?”
Manning shrugged. “I don’t know—quite a while, I guess. Rigor mortis is already starting to set in.” He could see the guilt in the young man’s eyes. “I don’t think there was much I could have done for him if you had brought him in any sooner—too much damage to the lungs and heart.” He paused, then asked, “How’d it happen?”
Matt just shook his head sadly, and continued to stare down at the dead Cherokee boy for a few minutes. Finally, he looked up at Manning and said, “The man I shot in here, he did it.” Only then did he remember to ask, “There was a man supposed to come fetch you before—a big man with a bushy beard—did he come here?”
“Was he a friend of yours? I should have known. He never got past my front gate. The sheriff arrested him, and took him to jail.”
“Jail?” Matt asked, startled. “What for?”
“I don’t know,” Manning answered honestly. “When I came out to see what the fuss was about, your friend just said that he wanted to see me. Sheriff Baldwin said something about asking him some questions.” He looked at Matt apologetically. “I think it was because he was dressed in animal skins like you.”
“Where’s the jailhouse?” Matt asked. When Manning told him, he said, “Much obliged,” and picked Crooked Foot up from the couch.
“John?” Agnes Manning called out again when she heard the front door close and the bolt locked.
“I’m coming, Agnes.” To himself, he muttered, “Wild men and wild times. It’s a wonder any of us survive the day.”
* * *
Still in a cheerful mood, and feeling a little more steady on his feet since he got some food in his belly, Sam Baldwin walked down the narrow side road to the jail. He carried a plate of beans and corn bread in one hand, and as he walked, he was thinking about the reward he was entitled to for capturing Ike Brister. Not to mention the horse he was riding, he thought. With ideas of his own for Ike’s horse, he had purposely left it tied up by the jail instead of taking it to the stable. Now as he approached his office, he was surprised to see two additional horses tied up to the post beside Ike’s and his own mare. One of them was pulling a travois. Curious, his attention was attracted to the horses, so he didn’t notice the man standing in the shadows of the porch until he stepped up to the door.
“Damn!” Baldwin exclaimed. “You gave me a start. I didn’t see you standin’ there.” He started to say more, but stopped short when he saw the Henry rifle pointing at him. Matt stepped into the light then, and Sam could guess at once that he was a friend of Ike’s. “Now, wait a minute, mister, you don’t wanna go makin’ a big mistake here,” Sam said.
“Open up,” Matt replied.
“I brought your friend a plate of supper,” Sam said, trying to sound as cordial as possible. “Hold it for me while I find my key.”
Matt couldn’t help but smile at the sheriff’s feeble attempt. “Just set it down on the floor.”
Sam did as he was told. “I just didn’t want it to get no dirt in it,” he muttered lamely. He worked the key in the padlock, and opened the door. Looking closely at Matt then, he asked, “You’re the feller that shot that man in the doctor’s office, ain’t you?”
Matt didn’t answer the question. He motioned toward the cell with his rifle. “Get him out of there.”
“I figured it was just a matter of time,” Ike said in way of greeting to his partner.
Sam hesitated. He knew he was going to take Ike’s place in the cell, and was reluctant to do so. “I ain’t got the key to the cells here. I left it home.”
“It’s in the desk drawer,” Ike said. “What about Crooked Foot?”
“Dead,” Matt replied, then frowning at Sam, he warned the sheriff. “If you don’t quit wastin’ my time, I’m just gonna shoot you and be done with it.”
From the look in Matt’s eyes, Sam didn’t doubt he meant what he said. He went to the desk, and pulled the drawer open. Matt could not see if there was anything else in the drawer or not, so to be safe, he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and took point-blank aim at the sheriff. It was more than enough to discourage any slight of hand by Sam if, indeed, there was a gun in the drawer.
“The boy went under?” Ike asked as he stepped out of the cell. Matt nodded. “I swear, that’s a damn shame,” Ike said, shaking his head sadly. “Maybe if I’da been able to get back with the doctor in time . . .” He didn’t finish, knowing that things happened the way they were supposed to happen. Still, he needed some outlet for his frustration over the loss of the Cherokee boy. So he turned and administered a stout kick in the pants to the sheriff as Sam entered the cell.
“The doctor said Crooked Foot was too far gone to save, even if he had seen him earlier,” Matt said.
“I reckon that’s the way of things,” Ike said, reconciling it in his mind. He reached down and locked the cell door, and held the key up for Sam to see. “Well, sheriff, if you have to leave before we get back, the key’s in the desk drawer.”
“There’s a plate of supper outside the door,” Sam replied. “How ’bout leavin’ it here for me—there ain’t no tellin’ when somebody’s gonna get me outta here.”
“Why, shore,” Ike said. “It’s the least we can do to repay you for your hospitality.”
Outside, they paused long enough to remove Crooked Foot’s body from the travois. Then they dropped the travois poles, and tied the body across his pony’s back. “It’s a damn shame,” Ike repeated when the body was secured.
Ready to depart Topeka for good and all, they stepped up in the saddle, and prepared to ride. “What about the plate of food?” Matt asked.
Ike grinned. “He said to leave it for him. We left it. You don’t suppose he wanted us to slide it in the cell, do you?”