When the Time Comes
I knew something about those two wasn't right when they rode into camp the other day, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. When you head up a trail drive and find yourself always short on drovers, you have a tendency to push your intuitions to the back of your mind. The cattle have to make it to the railhead. People depend on you. It's that simple. I'm Gil Favor, trail boss and on a drive my word is law. I'm not God, but I'm as close to it as a man gets out here.
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"Pete, we need water and we need it yesterday. Find it. Don't come back until you do. Better get Wish to part with some food. Take a rifle."
Pete Nolan nodded. There was nothing to say. He had a job to do and like always, he'd do it to the best of his abilities. Gil Favor knew it, so did the rest of the drovers. They relied on the long-time scout for direction, for water and often for their lives. Ranging out far in front of the drive, he was its eyes and ears.
"Take more than one canteen, Pete. We can spare that much. 'Sides, you'll come up on water soon."
"Always the optimist, Wish. I'll take the water. Something tells me I'll need it," Nolan took the canteens and draped them over his saddle horn, "If for no other reason than to wash down all that jerky you're stuffin' into my saddlebags."
Wishbone gave Nolan a wry, "you'll see. You'll be back before sunset. I know what I'm talkin' about."
Pete knew better than to argue with the cook. Besides, Wish's attention was already focused on cleaning up the breakfast mess while hollering with ageless enthusiasm at the slow moving Mushy.
Nolan swung up into the saddle and turned his mount north. The terrain was hilly, the grass sparse and what little there was of it, dry as tinder, crackling beneath the horse's hooves. As much as he wanted a smoke, Pete thought better of it. A single careless match could start an inferno from which there was no escape for man or beast.
Coming up on the northern most tip of the herd Pete passed one of the last men hired by Mr. Favor. What he was doing at the front of the drive was a mystery. New hires nearly always started out on drag. It was only fair that a new man should eat dust until he'd earned his spurs. Pete thought to ride over and ask, but figured it wasn't his business, besides, he felt an unaccustomed pang of jealousy. The new man, Artie Lee, sat the finest saddle he'd laid eyes on since before the war – not flashy with lots of silver conchos and the like, just top-of-the-line quality materials and workmanship – hand-carved in a lush floral pattern by a master and rubbed to a sheen so deep you swore you could see yourself in it and padded to boot! His own saddle was more than adequate or so he told himself and though years of wear had worn it a good fit to his less-than-well-fleshed-out backside, it had seen better days. Pete sighed once and kicked his mount into a fast trot. It didn't do to think about things a man couldn't change and only wasted time. For Nolan and the herd, there was no time to waste.
With the morning over and afternoon already half used up, Pete thought there was no way Wishbone would be right in his prediction. Although he'd ridden fast and far, Nolan was no closer to water than he'd been at daybreak. From a low rise he scanned the prairie through his field glasses, panning west to east and back. There was something to the east, a speck of green, trees perhaps and trees signaled a source of water – a spring, a creek, a river, a lake. But from this distance, he couldn't be certain of what he was seeing. Stowing the glasses in their leather case and draping them over the saddle horn, Pete spurred his horse down off the ridge and into the valley.
Some time later found him on his knees at the edge of a spring fed lake tentatively tasting water he'd scooped up into his hands. His horse showed no trepidation, burying its nose into the cold sweet stuff and drinking deeply. The lake wasn't the largest body of water he'd ever seen, but it surely was the most welcome. Wading out past his knees, Pete judged the middle to be way over his head. "Deep and cold...it'll do. Let's ride, Jughead."
Nolan swung his long lean body easily into the saddle. He felt light as a feather with success tucked under his belt. He would've broken into song if he'd judged himself much of a singer. "Now if I had my guitar...."
A sound wrenched him back to reality and he pulled up short on the reins. Listening carefully he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It sounded like a voice, whispered words he couldn't quite make out. Pete kept his horse in check, closed his eyes and listened. Naturally he heard nothing at all. He opened his eyes and listened... still nothing, but wait...yes, there it was and Pete knew he wasn't the only one who heard it! Jughead's ears swiveled forward.
He urged the horse into a walk. Whoever was talking had to be close and the only place a man might hide where Nolan hadn't spotted him was in the brushy growth near the water on the far side of the lake. Cautiously, he laid a hand on his holstered pistol.
When the voice came again it was startlingly near. Pete dismounted, drawing the gun. Poking around in the bushes was dangerous business and he took no chances, but he needn't have worried. Half obscured beneath a copse of thorn-covered blackberry bushes lay a body and in a southerner's unmistakable drawl, a youngster called plaintively for his mother.
Instantly, Pete was dragged, kicking and protesting, back to the War where soldiers, broken and dying on battlefields from Manassas to Petersburg, regardless of age or rank, Reb or Yank, cried in just such a piteous way for their mothers. With considerable effort he pushed aside the memories. This was here and now and no battlefield...or was it? Again, Pete felt his flesh crawl and the hairs on the back of his neck rise in alarm. Instinctively, he went into a low crouch, scanning the area for signs of what, an ambush, a sniper, Indians? Yet he had not been fired upon. Seeing nothing, he holstered the pistol and turned to the boy. Being as gentle as possible, Pete pulled the boy out from beneath the bush where he must have crawled for what cover it provided.
The youngster looked about sixteen with pale unruly hair and fair, sun-freckled skin. His clothing was ordinary but relatively new. Out of his senses, he mumbled nonsense in between asking for his mother. The left side of the boy's shirt was black with blood from two bullet wounds, one in the shoulder and the other a graze running parallel to the ribs. "Bushwhacked, uh kid?"
The boy gazed up at his rescuer, a confused expression on his face - probably wondering what his fever had conjured up this time in order to devil him.
"Well, you're safe now. My name's Pete...Pete Nolan." Pete rocked back on his haunches. "First things first - get the bleeding stopped."
There was little enough in his saddlebags for such an emergency, but the only clean shirt he owned quickly turned into a washcloth and bandaging and the second-to-last pair of new socks, padding.
The shoulder wound was by the far the more serious since it was still bleeding and showed no sign the bullet had exited. A lead slug left in the body was certain death - a long drawn out agony of fever and pain. The bullet would have to come out, but Pete would leave that up to Wishbone. As decent a cook as the old fussbudget was, his skills as a medic were superior. From broken bones to burns to snake bite, Wishbone worked wonders. For now, direct pressure, a thick pad and tight dressing would have to do.
The graze, although it looked messy and painful, had already scabbed over which led Pete to believe the youngster had been shot not hours earlier, but days. Any ham-handed efforts at cleaning the wound might cause it to open up, so it received only a bandage.
Through it all the boy remained stoic. Only during the most painful part, when Pete pressed down hard against the wounded shoulder to staunch the bleeding did he cry out and then only once. "You're doin' fine, kid, just fine," Pete soothed.
He left the boy and crouched at the lake, filling his empty canteen with cold fresh water. His notion that the boy had been wounded some days before solidified when he noticed where the youngster had dragged himself down to the water's edge to drink, not once but several times, probably until his strength gave out. He wondered what low-life scum would shoot a kid, most likely for his horse, then leave him to die alone and scared, knowing it would take days to do so, easy prey for coyotes or wolves. Thinking about it turned the scout's stomach and since the war it took something pretty revolting to do so.
The boy took the water eagerly; it sloshed down his chin and wet his shirt and when Pete took the canteen away for fear he'd get sick taking too much too fast, the boy's hurt expression tugged at the scout's heart. "In a minute...you can have more in just a minute."
Many slow sips later, the boy's thirst was slacked and he rested easier, Pete's blanket tucked tightly in around the lanky frame, head pillowed on Pete's rolled up jacket. He floated in and out, able to answer several questions, none of which provided Nolan with a whole lot in the way of information.
His name was John Henry, though whether or not that was a first and last name wasn't clear. Everything he owned had been stolen – horse, saddle, rifle and what he valued most – a pocket watch given him by his mother, his deceased mother, though her death hadn't stopped the delirious boy from calling for her. Eighteen carat gold, the watch carried the boy's initials cleverly incorporated into the elaborate floral motif engraved on the front of the case. Clenched in his right fist was all that remained of the keepsake – a three inch length of heavy gold link chain and the fob. When the robber jerked the timepiece from the wounded boy's grasp, the youngster had held on for all he was worth. Across his palm was incised the mark of a stubborn nature – a deep slice into the flesh. Pete took the remnant of chain, wrapped it in what was left of his only clean shirt and tucked the memento into the boy's breast pocket for safe keeping.
John Henry had been face to face with his attacker, but could not describe him other than to say he was dark-haired and clean shaven. Pete thought as how that described half the men he rode with, himself included.
The ambush occurred on Tuesday. Today was Friday. Pete had been correct in his thinking, but the knowledge gave him no joy. "You laid out here three days, boy." He got no answer and expected none.
Nolan found himself in a dilemma. He had to get word back to the drive about the lake and the boy to help and accomplish both as fast as possible without jeopardizing either. He thought about building a travois, but quickly gave up the idea as too time consuming. Next he thought about putting the boy up on his saddle with him riding behind. That, too, was given up. The boy was far too weak. The solution was not one he was very happy with, but seemed the only way. He would leave the boy at the lake and ride hell bent for the herd, returning immediately on a fresh mount and with Wishbone. The going wouldn't take nearly as long as the coming. In the search for water he'd taken a roundabout route – zigzagging east to west while moving constantly north. He'd covered close to forty miles, but a straight line back might be closer to fifteen. Leaving the helpless boy alone again was wrong and sat heavy on his mind, but there was no choice.
Trying to explain his reasoning to a youngster half out of his head with fever and pain was impossibly difficult. The boy did not understand why Pete was leaving him and begged him not to go. Even when Nolan told him, "I'll be back in four hours – four hours," the boy shook his head in denial, reaching out weakly to clutch at Pete's sleeve.
Pulling a battered silver-plated watch from the breast pocket of his waistcoat Nolan pressed it gently into the boy's good right hand. "Here...I know it ain't as fine as yours, but it keeps good time for a dollar watch. Four hours from now I'll be back. I give you my word."
"Four hours," the boy whispered, "your word."
Now that he'd made the decision, Pete was eager to ride. He left the boy a full canteen, placing it tight against his right side so he could feel the solid presence and almost as an afterthought, slipped his Colt from the holster and placed it within the boy's easy reach. "In case of varmints," he said, adding "the hammer's on an empty chamber so you've got five rounds...just in case." The boy looked at him, eyes swarming with tears, but any words he kept to himself. It hardly mattered. Pete heard them as plainly as if they'd been spoken aloud. 'Come back.'
By the time the herd was reached a red sun wavered just above the horizon. Ignoring Rowdy's wave and hallo, Pete spurred the exhausted Jughead on leaving the ramrod scratching his head and muttering to himself about the odd behavior of certain people.
Pete rode into camp, skidding to a stop directly in front of Gil Favor and raising a cloud of caliche which was not appreciated by drovers attempting to eat a meal without swallowing any more dust than they already had that day. Amid much cursing and not a few raised fists, Nolan dismounted. "Hey Soos, saddle two horses, the fastest, most rested in the remuda – one for me and one for Wishbone and hurry it up!"
The young Mexican wrangler, a plate balanced on his lap, a spoon in one hand, a tin coffee cup in the other and his mouth full of Wishbone's tasty beef stew, looked to the boss for the word. Should he do as Senor Nolan ordered or could he finish supper first?
Gil Favor had known Pete long enough to recognize when something was important to him. He recognized it now. "Do as he says, Hey Soos. Mushy'll keep your supper warm." Favor handed the scout his own cup of steaming coffee and waited until Nolan drank it down to question him. Exhausted and bedraggled, Pete looked like he could use more than coffee.
"Found water, Boss, two hours ahead, northeast – a spring fed lake, clear and cold. Found somethin' else there, too – a shot up kid. Somebody bushwhacked him and left him for dead. He's too bad off to move so I came for Wishbone. We gotta make time, Mr. Favor. I promised the boy I'd be back in four hours. He's expectin' me. I can't be late." He drained the cup. "Wishbone, I...'
"You don't have to tell me, I heard ya. By the time Hey Soos gets the horses saddled I'll be packed and ready. You take time to eat somethin' or you won't be good for nothin' yourself." Wish untied his apron and draped it over the wagon tailgate. As he tossed items he thought he'd need into a small black satchel, he issued orders to Mushy concerning evening clean-up and breakfast in the morning. Wishbone was nothing if not organized and expected the same of those around him, usually ending up disappointed.
Hey Soos led out the saddled mounts while Pete sopped up rich warm gravy with the last bite of biscuit. Still hungry, he grabbed up two more, stuffing one of the light flaky confections into his mouth and the other into his shirt pocket.
"Where's your pistol?" Wishbone asked as he climbed into the saddle, securing the satchel's double handles over the pommel. Seeing the scout without his sidearm was definitely a novel sight and worthy of comment.
Tired as he was the question took Pete by surprise causing a panicky split second until he remembered. "I left it with the boy...varmints." He spurred the chestnut gelding into a mile-eating lope, Wishbone right on his heels.
Pete pushed hard, his rawhide tough body used to the saddle and the beating of mile after mile against bone and muscle required by the job. Wishbone, on the other hand, was not used to such punishment. He'd certainly wrangled his share of beeves, spending hours on the back of a horse so that he figured he was no longer a man but some sort of crossbred man/horse, but that time was past. More used to the relative comfort of a wagon seat – replete with a thick shock- absorbing cushion, the relentless pace set by the scout set his teeth to clenching in his jaw and his aging joints to aching.
Just when Wishbone believed he couldn't stand one more mile of Pete's relentless pace, it was over. Nolan was off his mount before the animal came to a complete standstill and over the low rise to the lake where a body lay and from where Wish stood, it appeared just that, a body with no life. It must've seemed so to Pete as well. Standing above the blanket wrapped boy, he slowly removed his hat. Sweat dripped from his stubbled chin but he made no move to wipe it away.
"He's dead, Wish. I'm too late," he murmured.
Wishbone grabbed the satchel off the saddle horn and hurried down the short incline. "Don't be so sure a yourself. You ain't no doctor!" he growled, as much to cover his own emotions as to give hope to the scout, no matter how fleeting.
He knelt next to the figure, reaching out to touch the pulse point beneath the boy's chin. "He's alive, barely, but he's alive and that's what counts." Wish glanced up at the tough cowboy. He wasn't for sure certain, but he thought he saw tears in the dark eyes. "Did ya hear me? I said he's alive," he repeated.
Nolan acknowledged the news with a nod and a relieved half- smile. "Tell me what I can do to help."
"Get a good fire goin' so I can see what I'm doin'. Then just keep outta the way." Wishbone removed the .44 caliber slug from the boy's shoulder with little difficulty. When Nolan commented on his skill, Wish shrugged it off, "All in a day's work for a cook."
The boy had yet to come around and Pete sat close, smoking an endless succession of harsh hand-rolled quirlies, watching, waiting and pestering Wishbone. "Think he'll wake up soon? Think he'll be alright? Where do you think he came from? I know he's a southern boy, but... Hey, Wish...?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There now, are you satisfied? I think you been around Mushy too long. His bad points are beginnin' to rub off on you. Use to be you was the quiet one of the bunch." Wishbone occupied himself cleaning the used instruments, packing them back into the satchel and starting what he considered a proper fire. He needed a cup of good strong coffee and figured Pete might appreciate one as well.
Night wore on and Pete felt he was the only one awake in the whole world. A few yards distant Wishbone snored contentedly away. The boy still hadn't stirred and although Wish figured it was of no account, Pete found it worrisome. Far off, a night bird called and close in some small nocturnal creatures foraged noisily beneath the bushes. He closed his eyes for an instant and....
"Pete?"
He wasn't sure how many times the boy called his name before he heard and responded. "Right here, kid. Right here. How you feelin'?" Pete leaned over the boy and appraised his condition, difficult to do with the fire burned down and it not quite dawn, but the boy's eyes seemed clear if a bit too fever bright and if he wasn't mistaken, the youngster appeared pleased to see him. A faint smile, there and gone, was welcome as a cool breeze on a hot day.
"Better, I think," the boy answered. "I could use a drink, though."
Nolan grabbed a cup and went to the water's edge to dip it full. This time the boy drank slowly, pausing between sips and Pete took note. John Henry wasn't someone who needed telling twice.
"Wishbone, he's cook on the trail drive I scout for, well, he's more than a cook, more a Jack-of-all-trades, well, he took the bullet outta your shoulder; said you'll heal fast if you take it easy." Pete put the cup aside. "He's asleep, but you'll see him soon enough. Wakes with the birds, like most old folks I'd imagine."
"I heard that, Pete Nolan!" Wishbone's voice, muffled by the blanket was loud if not clear.
The boy held out his hand. On the open palm lay Pete's watch. "Thanks for the loan of it. You were right. It keeps good time."
Nolan closed the boy's fingers around it. "Keep it till you get yours back."
After breakfast, Pete assisted Wishbone in moving the camp some two hundred yards upwind of the lake to a low knoll, carrying the boy out of the way of three thousand thirsty longhorns.
Saddling the chestnut, tightening the cinch and slipping the rifle into the boot, Pete mounted up. "I'm gonna go out and lead the drive in. Won't be gone too long unless Mr. Favor has other ideas." Nudging the gelding in the ribs, he was off. Though he'd had little sleep, he felt no worse for it. He'd found water. He'd gotten help for the wounded boy. Things were looking pretty darned rosy, if he did say so himself, but in his line of work things were apt to change pretty quickly and often not for the best.
He rode in some hours later in the company of Mushy and the chuck wagon. Mushy got down to the business of filling the water barrels before the cattle arrived without having to be prodded by Wishbone, nearly causing Wish to faint dead away at the novelty.
The supply wagon came next, driven by one of the new men whose name Pete had forgotten. In fact he wondered if he'd ever known it to start with. Spending such a limited amount of time actually in camp once caused him to go an entire month without crossing the path of a new hire. That he meant to change. Riding up to the wagon he stuck out a hand and introduced himself. He was totally ignored. His first reaction was anger; his next, indifference. A man had the right to keep to himself after all, though it made for long empty nights around the campfire.
After seeing to his horse, Pete went to check on John Henry. Wishbone just finished changing the bandages. The boy took it well though it pained him considerably and Wish thought it best to give him a spoonful of laudanum left over from the time Quince broke several ribs in a fall. "He's asleep now and I want him to stay that way. You can talk to him later. Besides, you look like hell. Try sleepin' some yourself. I heard you movin' around most of last night. Maybe I should dose you with laudanum."
Nolan remembered the taste of the vile stuff from years back and the very thought of it made him gag. "That's alright, Wish. I believe I can sleep without it."
"Take yourself over there, under the supply wagon. Less chance some fool drover'll run over you when I ring the bell for chow."
Nolan reached into the wagon for a blanket. He wished he had a pillow. He always wished for a pillow. Of all the things he longed for that reminded him of home, a pillow was at the top of the list with clean sheets a close second. But dog tired as he was now that he'd given in to it, he figured he could go without. As usual, his saddle made do.
Not cattle, not hungry drovers, not even Gil Favor's barked orders woke Pete from a sound sleep. Dawn did that. A cup of hot coffee quickly drained, a biscuit sandwich in hand and a bag of grub from Wishbone and Nolan dragged himself up onto the saddled mount. As usual, Hey Soos chose well. Pumpkin was a good horse, lots of stamina with an easy lope. He'd be grateful for both by the time he was through. Three days and nights gone, long days and longer nights skirting Kiowa hunting parties, searching out the best route for the herd with good graze and water; a cold camp and no smokes; Kiowa could smell tobacco for a mile and were every bit as partial to it as white men. Tired and more tired, Pete rode back into camp, made his report and sought out Wishbone for news on the boy.
"I thought he'd be chipper by now, but he's not healin' as well as I'd hoped. Fever's still on him and I opened his shoulder this mornin' sos it could drain. I got a nice poultice in the makin' and that should help. He's been callin' for you, Pete."
Grabbing a cup of coffee, Nolan walked over to the supply wagon where Wish had made the youngster more comfortable, up off the ground and resting on a pile of spare blankets; as close a thing to a real bed on you could get on the trail.
"How ya doin', kid?" Pete smiled at the boy, but the smile was a false front he hoped wouldn't be noticed, a cover for his worry. Wish was right. John Henry appeared little improved. If anything, he looked more wasted, eyes sunken into the sockets and smudged with dark circles, complexion gray, blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, but there was still a ready smile.
"You've been away some time, Pete. Wish said I wasn't to worry about you...that you always found your way home."
"Sometimes the way is a little roundabout, but I always turn up, sorta like a bad penny....Talkin' about home," Pete leaned over the wagon edge, closing the gap between them. Knowing he was about to step over the bounds of butting in where he was pretty certain he wasn't welcome, Nolan wanted the conversation kept private. "Where's yours, John Henry? I know it's south; that's plain enough by your way a talkin'. I'm thinkin' Alabama or maybe Georgia. You said your maw was gone, but your father...don't you think he's worried? I could write a letter; you could tell me what to say. There's a town about twenty miles east. It'd be no trouble for me to ride over and see about sendin' it or maybe there's a telegraph..."
The boy turned his face away and bitterness crept into his voice. "Don't bother. He doesn't care...never did. Mother wasn't gone three months and he up and marries a girl closer to my age than his! He didn't miss mother and he doesn't miss me. Don't bother, Pete, not on my account."
"It'd be no bother. I'd be glad..."
Facing Pete, the boy shook his head. Weak as he was the strength of conviction was in his words. "Don't, please."
"Alright, we do it your way." Nolan changed the subject. "I'm gonna get some chow. How 'bout a plate? I'd be glad for your company and I've plenty to tell you about where we're headed – some pretty interesting sights comin' up."
"No food, but I'd enjoy the company." John Henry managed a smile. It was genuine.
Rowdy Yates handed out night hawk duty and there was more than the usual griping. Artie Lee had what amounted to a temper tantrum, tossing his coffee cup into the fire, swearing loudly and cursing, of all people, Pete Nolan.
"Why in hell can't HE take night hawk? Like sleepin' Jesus he is while the rest of us gotta spend the night a horseback!" For emphasis Lee crouched down to jab a grubby finger at the scout rolled in a blanket beneath the supply wagon, kicking dirt at the sleeping man for good measure. Nolan slumbered on, oblivious to the commotion. "Who the hell does he think he is anyhow?"
"He thinks he's the scout of this outfit and he'd be right!" Favor had had enough. Usually Rowdy handled things pretty well, but there was the rare occasion when he allowed the men too free a rein. This was not a democracy.
"Where the hell were you when he was out three days and nights? Asleep in your bedroll here in camp with a full belly, safe, that's where. While you slept comfortable and ate three hot meals a day, he ate cold and kept watch. In case you aren't aware of it – this here is Kiowa country. Shut your mouth, Lee and do your job. If you don't like it, quit. It's that simple."
While most men would've been cowed by Favor's anger or at the very least subdued, Lee was neither. Pulling a watch from his pocket he made a show of checking the time. "It's eight o'clock right now. I expect to be relieved at twelve midnight – sharp!" For emphasis he showed the watch around the circled drovers, face out.
Rowdy walked over for a closer look. "That's a mighty pretty timepiece, Lee. Where'd somebody like you get such a fine watch anyhow? It wouldn't be a Waltham, would it?" The watch was fine indeed and like Yates appreciated a beautiful girl or a blooded horse, his appreciation of the better things in life included gold watches. He never got a closer look. Hastily, Lee closed the cover and shoved the timepiece back into his pocket. Rowdy shrugged his shoulders, commenting, "A friend a mine from down Val Verde way once said there's nothin' prettier than a fine gold watch or a woman from anywhere. He was right, too."
"You stay clear a me, Yates. This watch comes up missin', I'll know who took it."
Rowdy balled his fists, advancing on the other man. "Nobody talks to me like that, especially not...!"
Favor stepped in and broke it up before Rowdy got a chance to prove his statement. "You're fired, Lee. Get your gear and get out."
"You need me, Favor! You said so when you hired me on, me and Kemp!" Lee stuck his chin out in defiance. "You need me!"
"There you're wrong. Trouble I don't need." The discussion officially ended when Favor turned his back on Artie Lee. The obvious slight did not go unnoticed.
Lee saddled his horse, his anger made all the more obvious to any within earshot by an extensive use of choice epithets directed not only at Favor, but Yates, Nolan and even Hey Soos, the latter for not cutting his horse out quickly enough.
"You're a damned fool, you know that?" Kemp shook his head, disgusted at his partner's lack of anything remotely resembling good sense. "Not only did you get yourself kicked off a cattle drive in the smack middle of Indian country, you drew attention to that fancy watch you stole off that kid! What a damned fool!" Kemp shot a wad of tobacco juice a good six feet, wiping his chin against a perpetually stained shirt cuff.
"Yeah, well, I mighta stole the watch, but you did the shootin' and that damned Nolan...what's the chance of him findin' that kid and alive?" Lee glared at his partner.
Kemp was smug. "You're the only face that boy can point out. He never saw me. It's your neck in the noose he wakes up enough to look around. He talks and you're dead. Favor won't wait for no judge and jury. Out here he's the law."
"What do you want me to do, beg the boss man for my job back?" Artie Lee leaned into the saddle, the stolen saddle, his thoughts in a whirl. He'd made a big mistake running his mouth when he only thought he had the upper hand. Favor held the aces. "Even if I do and Favor takes me back...what the hell do we do about the kid? What if he does get better? What if he talks?" Lee turned to face his partner. "What do we do, Kemp, huh?" Panic crept into his voice.
"Just hush a minute and let me think." Kemp chewed and spat several times before the answer came. "You go back. Tell Favor you acted the fool. Apologize. Play on whatever the hell sympathies he might have about turnin' a man out alone in Kiowa country. Say whatever it takes, but get the job back!"
"That's all well and good, but what about the kid? What if he don't die?" Lee's voice quavered and broke. He was scared and he had reason to be. He'd hang for something his crazy partner did. They'd needed the boy's horse, but it could've been taken without bloodshed, easily.
"Oh, he'll die alright, just up and expire and if he don't...well, he'll get some help. One way or the other, he won't give us up." Kemp grinned and Lee felt something inside him go cold. He'd almost rather face the Kiowa than go against a man like Kemp – almost. Artie unsaddled the horse and then went looking for the boss.
"You sure you did the right thing – takin' Lee back I mean?" Rowdy kept his voice low. He surely didn't want any of the drovers overhearing and maybe thinking he was trying to second guess Mr. Favor. Dissention in the ranks made for poor work.
"No, I ain't sure, but what's done is done. Let's give it a rest, huh, Rowdy?" As Yates turned to walk away figuring the conversation over, Favor stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Watch yourself," he warned.
"You do the same," Rowdy replied.
Something spooked the herd. It must've been out of the ordinary to stir up a bunch of cattle that had spent the last several days grazing, drinking cool spring water and just finding ways to be lazy. But spooked they were, moving all together, like a great bovine wave, bawling and edgy, on the verge of stampede. Gil Favor called out the hands. All hands save Mushy and Pete Nolan turned out. Mushy was little good with cattle and somebody had to keep the fire going and the coffee hot. Pete was asleep. In the confusion of the moment no one thought to look under the supply wagon.
Kemp and Lee circled their horses back around, riding into the nearly empty camp at the side farthest from the fire and the witness. Dismounting, Kemp suppressed a laugh. "Sure was easy gettin' them cattle stirred up. Cut one just enough to get the blood flowin', the rest smell it and right away think wolf or some such and get to panicking. Easy as pie! We got all the time in the world now, Artie. Do the kid, get back out onto the range and none the wiser! It's a cinch!" He spat out a long string of tobacco juice, grinning at the uncanny simplicity of his plan.
Artie's stomach lurched. "How you plan on doin' it, killin' the boy, I mean? It's gotta look like he just died."
"Simple. You pinch off his nose, like this." Kemp used himself as an example. Using a thumb and forefinger, he pinched his nostrils closed. "Then you cover his mouth good and tight at the same time. Can't breathe outta his nose or mouth. Couple a minutes later and he's dead as a mackerel and no one the wiser!"
"You said you...you pinch his nose, like you meant I should kill him! If that's what you meant, I don't ...."
"You'll do it, Artie. You'll do the kid or I'll do you. Take your pick. It's time you backed up your mouth with action. Besides, you might like it, close up and personal... watchin' him squirm, like a worm on a hook, wriggling."
Lee swallowed back the need to vomit, but when Kemp snuck into camp, he followed, like always.
Mushy tended the fire, his rapt attention focused on the few simple tasks at hand, oblivious to everything else. Kemp and Lee crept up to the supply wagon unnoticed. Kemp signaled Artie to go ahead while he kept watch.
Lee peered over the wagon's low side at the sleeping boy. "Why didn't you just up and die like a good kid stead a puttin' me to all this trouble?" he whispered. The youngster's eyes opened and no surprise, the boy recognized him and made ready to scream. Lee smothered the effort with a dirty hand across the mouth, the other pinching the nose shut. As Kemp told him, the boy twisted and wriggled, trying to free himself, not easy with one arm in a sling and little strength to draw on. He also banged his feet on the wagon bed, but the blanket-mattress effectively smothered the sound. Mushy worked on.
Like the drovers, Kemp and Lee forgot Pete Nolan. Beneath the supply wagon he woke to the boy's feet thumping against the padded bed and the sounds of a life and death struggle. Rolling away, he was up in an instant and around the wagon, tearing the killer's hands from the boy's face. Down to the ground in a jumble of arms, legs and flying fists, Lee and Nolan fought viciously, Lee having a weight advantage over the slim scout, Nolan's reach advantage of little use in the close quarters. Pete managed to get Lee over and onto his back where he throttled him, his hands around Lee's throat, squeezing, cutting off his air. Lee's reaction was as expected – he fought like a wild animal, clawing and scratching, going for Pete's face and eyes, but Pete only squeezed the harder. Lee's strength faded and Nolan believed he had him beat. In a fair fight it would have been true.
A blow to the kidneys sent a shock wave arcing through Pete's body, but still he hung on, like a bulldog whose teeth can't be pried from the other dog's throat until death releases both. Another blow and another and he was paralyzed, his hands dropping from Lee's throat, his vision a mesh of dancing black spots. Nausea washed across him. He heard rifle shots and vaguely Mushy's voice calling from some distant place. Hands were on him then and again Mushy's voice calling his name. When he asked, "how's the boy?" he got no answer, at least not one he heard.
"You hear that, Rowdy? Shots – two at least! You hear it?" Wishbone yelled over the sea of moving cattle. For a man past middle age his hearing was excellent.
"No, I didn't. You sure, Wish? Where?"
"Sure I'm sure...back at camp." Without waiting for permission, Wishbone put spurs to hide. It was probably nothing important. Mushy probably saw a shadow, but low as that boy was on common sense, even he knew enough not to fire a gun around spooky cattle. The more Wish thought on it the more worried he got and the more he spurred.
Camp was chaos. The wounded boy somehow managed to get out of the wagon and was standing, legs trembling and about to give out, his wide-eyed gaze focused on a figure near the fire. He was yelling, but then so was Mushy, loudly, with Wishbone unable to make sense of either. Mushy seemed on the edge of madness, twisting this way and that, starting and stopping, searching for help, screaming and covered in blood. In his arms he held Pete Nolan as limp as a child's rag doll and the source of the blood.
Dismounting, Wishbone walked up to Mushy slowly, very slowly, his hands held out, palms up so not to frighten the terrified young man. "I'm here, Mushy. Everything'll be okay now. I'm here."
Mushy stood stock still, arms extended, offering Wishbone Pete's body, as if Wish might take the burden from him. "He's hurt awful bad, Mr. Wishbone, awful bad, cut up by that Kemp fella - stabbed in the back." Mushy's eyes filled with tears. "I think he's dead, Mr. Wishbone."
-----
Pete woke slowly, forcing his eyelids open. Bright sun forced them closed.
"You think you might stay awake this time?" The familiar voice gave him the impetus he needed to try again.
"Maybe," he whispered, voice scratchy and foreign to his own ears. Slowly, the eyelids reopened. Propped onto his side by rolled blankets, Pete had a clear view of his visitor. John Henry grinned.
"You sure look better than I feel," Pete commented, relieved to see the boy alive. From what he remembered of the attack, precious little, he wasn't sure of the outcome. For a while he wasn't even sure he was alive.
"I'm feeling spry enough," the boy said. He rested his good hand on Pete's shoulder. "The other night makes twice you saved my life. Thank you."
"It's more Mushy you should thank than me. It was him with the rifle...wasn't it?"
"It was and I already thanked him. He's a big hero around camp and not taking it too well – a reluctant hero, I guess you'd call him. Seriously though, Pete... thanks."
Fumbling in his pocket John Henry pulled out the gold watch on a newly repaired chain. "I'd like you to have it," he said.
Nolan was deeply touched. "I can't take that. I know what it means to you. Besides, a fine watch like that out here, well it wouldn't be practical. Just give mine back and we'll call things square. That watch come from Lee or Kemp?"
"From Lee. He had my horse and saddle, too. Kemp had the wallet and rifle.
"Could I see those fancy initials a yours," Pete asked, "the ones hidden in the scrollwork? I'm curious."
John Henry angled the watch just so, pointing out the J and the H and the last H. Difficult to see if you didn't know where to look, once shown, they were clear as day.
"So John Henry isn't your first and last name. You gonna keep me wonderin'?" Pete grinned.
"I guess I never told you because I was afraid you'd get in touch with my father somehow and I wasn't ready to go back. Wasn't sure I'd ever want to. I'm John Henry Holliday and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Pete Nolan."
"Likewise, Mr. Holliday." Pete pondered a moment. "Have you decided to go home?" Though he was losing steam fast, Pete didn't feel he could rest easy until he had an answer. From the corner of one eye he saw Wishbone watching, wearing a scowl to go with his apron. Palaver time was coming to an end.
"I have. I don't think my future lies in the west. I'm not sure it lies in Georgia either, but that's something I need to find out for myself. My father...he is that and I respect him because of it, but I don't like him. Perhaps that will change if I give him half a chance. Of the many things I've learned here, 'life is short' stands out. It's too short to hold a grudge. Wish me luck, will you, Pete?"
"Good luck, kid."
-----
"Saddle my horse, Hey Soos! It's been so long since I've been outta camp, I feel like a prisoner." Pete grinned from ear to ear and stretched out his long lean frame, arms above his head, back arching like a cat's and there was no pain. "Wish, you're a miracle-worker," he praised.
Wishbone pooh-poohed, the kind words appearing to roll off his back like water off a duck, but Pete knew by the slight smile and quick come-back that the man was pleased. "Don't overdue it or all my hard work will be for nothing!"
Nolan laughed. "Don't worry. I know my limitations." He turned around and so doing missed Wishbone's wry face and mouthed comment.
"Yeah, right."
Pete bent to check the cinch, drawing it up tight before he noticed. "Hey Soos, this isn't my saddle. It's..." He looked it over carefully, noting the fine craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the padded seat. "This saddle belongs to..." He didn't get to finish .
Hey Soos walked over, smiling broadly, teeth white and even in a tanned face. "It's yours, Senor Pete – a gift from the boy, from Senor John Henry. It's yours. Is it not a beautiful thing?" Hey Soos rubbed a calloused hand over the tooling.
"It is...a beautiful thing," Pete agreed.
-----
The men rode into Dodge City, money jingling in their pockets, new life flowing through their veins. The town had changed a great deal since Pete and his companions began coming some eleven years ago. For one thing it smelled better - fewer buffalo hides drying in the hot prairie wind, fewer heaps of bone piled sky high and fewer buffalo hunters as well. And the town had grown, bursting at the seams, mostly due to the influx of the Texas cattle herds. Saloons lined the streets south of the railroad tracks offering all sorts and manner of entertainment and refreshments for those so inclined.
Pete, Rowdy, Quince, Mushy and Hey Soos were just so inclined, but first there was a long anticipated bath and the choosing of new clothing. For the men it was a right of passage and came accompanied by a great deal of clowning and laughter. When bathed and dressed in the height of 19th century fashion, the five might pass each other on the street without a hint of recognition.
Ready for whatever fate sent their individual ways, the men separated – Rowdy and Mushy to find some ladies with which to share their money, Hey Soos to the telegraph office to send most of his pay back to his wife and mother on his spread in Texas and Quince and Pete to the gaming tables to try their luck, though Pete squirreled away most of his cash to pay off his Nebraska ranch, allowing just so much mad money to squander at will.
Over the next twenty-four hours the friends ran into each other repeatedly as interests waxed and waned, raising more than one toast to missing comrades. Gil Favor was gone, drowned some three years before while crossing a swollen river and Joe Scarlet with him, leaving Rowdy as trail boss. Wishbone, having retired, died just the winter before. Stubborn as always, he froze to death seated on Pete Nolan's front porch in a rocking chair he'd dragged out of the house in the middle of a frigid February night, for what reason only he knew.
Late in the day found Pete and Mushy in the Long Branch Saloon on Front Street, the classiest joint in town and for ample reason. The liquor wasn't watered and the varieties were enough to boggle the mind of an ordinary cowboy; the same with the beers. The ladies were the prettiest and most social and the games honest.
In the dozen or so years Pete Nolan had known Harkness 'Mushy' Mushgrove III, Mushy had changed little and was still just a big good- natured kid at heart, never meaning any harm, never a sharp word for anyone who didn't deserve it. Pete, playing poker and raking in one big pot after another was less than happy to have the game broken up by a brawl over at the bar. With everyone on their feet, cheering on the combatants with whiskey-induced enthusiasm, well Pete just had to see for himself.
In the center of the fight was Mushy, swinging away, but landing few blows. His opponent was a railroad man or so said a bystander and a born hater of drovers in any way shape or form, even one as big as Mushy. Though smaller in stature, the railroad man was certainly getting the best of the drover. Blow after blow staggered the bigger man, but being Mushy, he never gave in or gave up.
Through the batwing doors of the Long Branch appeared the law. In a voice loud enough to be heard over the din, he ordered the pair to "Break it up!" Naturally Mushy, in the heat of battle, did not hear and was in the process of taking yet another ineffectual swing at his opponent when a gun butt crashed down against his skull. He hit the floor like he'd been pole-axed. The lawman poised, pistol raised, about to crack him again if he so much as twitched.
"Hey, wait! Don't hit him again! He didn't hear ya is all!" Pete pushed through the crowd and crouched at Mushy's side. Blood streamed down his face from half a dozen scrapes and cuts, but by far the worst was the tear in his scalp courtesy of the deputy's buffaloing.
Pete glared up at the lawman. "He didn't hear, is all. He woulda quit fightin'. There was no call for you to hit him that hard." Nolan pulled a new white handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the head wound. Mushy groaned and blinked a couple times. Pete felt relief. At least he was alive.
"Couple a you men grab this cowboy and drag him over to the marshal's office."
Pete got to his feet and watched as Mushy was half-dragged, half- carried away. He turned to the lawman. "You gonna send for the doctor? He's in pretty bad shape and I..."
He was interrupted. "Doc McCarty's out of town. Won't be back until tomorrow."
Pete stepped in close. He wanted to know just how far he could push without being shoved, as Mushy had been. Slowly he appraised his opposition; tall, but not as tall as he, more solidly built but not heavy by any means, ashy blond hair and thick tawny mustache, but the eyes – they were blue ice. If these were the mirrors of this man's soul, woe be it to his enemies. Pete changed tact. "When can I bail him out?"
"Tomorrow at the earliest. Judge has to set bail." While Nolan was sizing up his opposition, the opposition was doing the same. He too changed tact. "If you want to tend him, drop by. I'll be there off and on till midnight."
Pete nodded. "I'll be around."
"Best not mess with that deputy," a well-meaning slightly inebriated cowboy confided as the lawman dropped his pistol into his coat pocket, looked around the Long Branch a final time and exited the way he'd entered. "Crack your head good, yup, crack your head good!"
"I ain't seen him before. He new?" Pete collected his winnings from the poker table, folded the bills and stuffed them into a trouser pocket.
"Been here nearly a year. Name's Wyatt Earp. He's hard, that one, deputy marshal to Charlie Bassett. Stay outta his way." The cowboy grinned and swayed.
Pete handed him four bits. "For the information." The cowboy grinned all the wider, tipped his hat and disappeared into the crowd at the bar.
Nolan stepped out onto the boardwalk and walked down a ways. The night air felt good, like an old friend. He wasn't used to smoke and confined spaces. Overhead the sky was lit with stars. Walking further on, he stopped to roll and light a quirly in the yellow glow of a streetlamp. Across the street the Lady Gay was in full swing and if he wasn't mistaken, Deputy Earp, making good use of the taxpayer's money, was going about his appointed rounds. He walked into the Lady Gay and out again, moving slowly up the boardwalk, jiggling door knobs and peering into darkened windows.
Pete lit up, inhaling the acrid smoke.
"Wyatt! Look out!" A gunshot followed hard on the heels of the warning. Other shots followed, too close together to count. At the shout, Earp went into a crouch, drew the pistol from his coat pocket and returned fire.
Pete followed suit, his hand automatically going for his own Colt. He'd forgotten. No guns allowed within city limits. "Damn!"
Shadowy figures darted from one darkened alleyway into another, scattering like so many rats. Two fell and didn't move. One hit the ground and attempted to crawl off. It was over.
A lone figure walked over to Earp. Quiet words were exchanged and the stranger tucked a pistol into a holster beneath his frock coat. Plainly, he was the man who had shouted the warning and fired off the first shot.
Pete dropped the cigarette and moved to grind it out in the dirt. The movement caught the lawman's eye and he swiveled, gun leveled and ready to fire.
The other man also turned and in an action almost too fast to follow, shoved Earp's gun hand down. The Colt fired, the slug traveling harmlessly into the ground. "What the hell you do that for, Doc?"
"He's not one of them, Wyatt!" Doc shook his head. "He's not one of them."
"I had a run-in with a friend a his over at the Long Branch not fifteen minutes ago! How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know him, is how. He saved my life." Doc walked across the street, hand extended, a welcoming smile on his face.
"John Henry Holliday...well, I'll be damned!" Pete shook the outstretched hand, and then pulled the young man into a bear hug. "I'll be damned!" he whispered.
"Not today you won't!" John Henry laughed. "Trouble just trail you up from Texas or are you through with cattle drives, dust and bad pay?"
Pete pushed back and looked Holliday up and down. The face had changed but slightly. Perhaps the blond hair was less pale, the freckles faded, but the blue-gray eyes snapped with intelligence and the smile, though partially obscured by a thick pale moustache, was exactly as it had been – sincere and welcome as water in a desert. If the cheek bones appeared more pronounced and the framing upon which hung the finely tailored gentleman's clothes, a bit too slim, it wasn't worth mentioning. "I'm through with trail drives as of yesterday; got me a spread outside Grand Island, Nebraska; run horses and a few cattle. Got a nice little wife too and a couple a kids, girls. What are you doing here? You a lawman? Didn't think that was in your future. Last I heard you were goin' north to school."
Across the street a crowd gathered. One would-be assassin was hauled off to the undertaker, two dragged off to join Mushy in jail. Wyatt waved at Doc as he moved off down the street to book his newest acquisitions. Holliday returned the salute, but his attention quickly focused back onto an old friend. "Let's go over to the Dodge House and talk," he said to Pete.
"I'd like that, but first I need to go over to the marshal's office, Mushy's there. Last I saw him he looked none too good."
"Mushy's here and in jail? What happened?" Holliday lit a cigarillo, offering one to Pete who declined.
"Your deputy friend buffaloed him in the Long Branch. Mushy got into a sort of one-sided fight, didn't hear the order to break things up and got a gun butt alongside the head for his trouble. I'd like to see if he's doin' okay. He was bleedin' copious-like when they took him off."
"Doctor McCarty's out of town, but I've been known to suture an injury or two. I've also got some clout with the law in this town. Perhaps we can spring Mushy." Holliday steered Pete in the direction of the marshal's office and they talked along the way. "I did go to school, dental college in Philadelphia and graduated. Father and I remained at odds, so when I returned to Georgia, I decided to travel a bit before opening my first practice. Of course I ended up in Texas! Can't seem to get away from that place. Here we are." John Henry opened office door and allowed Pete to enter first.
Seated at the paper-strewn desk, Earp glanced up. Seeing Pete and Doc together, he laid aside the pencil, pushed back in the chair and although he didn't quite smile, his expression became almost pleasant. "I'd ask what you need, Doc, but then I'm pretty certain I already know. If that drover's your friend," he indicated Pete, "I'll just bet the one I've got locked up must be one, too and...you want him out."
"I'd be foolish not to back that bet, Wyatt. You're a regular psychic." Holliday dropped the butt of his smoke into the spittoon, grinning at the confused expression on Earp's face. "A psychic is someone who predicts future events. You are correct on both counts. Mushy is my friend. In fact, I owe him my life by way of the same incident that involved Pete here. This might be a good spot to make introductions. Deputy Wyatt Earp, I'd like you to make the acquaintance of Pete Nolan." The pair shook hands, not warmly but firmly. "And Pete's not a drover. He's a scout. There is a difference."
"About twenty dollars a month, I'd say." Pete observed.
"Well, I was just getting around to filling out the papers for the judge. Since I haven't yet put my name to 'em, they're not yet legal documents. Doc, if you guarantee this Mushy's actions while he's in town, and I hope he leaves soon, I'll release him into your custody. And uh, glad as I am for your help at the Lady Gay, if you're gonna remain within city limits, ditch the guns."
Holliday and Nolan exchanged relieved grins as if both thought things were going better than imagined. Doc opened his coat, removing a .45 caliber nickel-plated Colt from the shoulder holster and a .41 Colt double-cocker from an inside coat pocket and handing them over, butt first, to Earp. "Whatever you say, Wyatt; you are the law."
Earp shoved the pistols into the bottom desk drawer, grabbed up the keys and led the way to Mushy's cell. Mushgrove looked a sight, face swollen, new shirt spotted and striped with fast-drying blood, but he managed a lopsided grin through split lips when seeing first Pete and then John Henry. Tears came into his eyes; tears precipitated by too much to drink and exacerbated by a soft heart. "John Henry...that you? You're a sight for sore eyes, boy!" He struggled to rise from the low cot. Pete grabbed one arm, Holliday the other.
"Don't suppose there are any more of your 'friends' in town, Doc? Anybody else requiring leniency from the law I should know about?" Earp stood poised over the desk, pencil in hand as if to write up a list. He believed he was being funny, but when Holliday looked over at Pete, burdened by the grinning, swaying Mushy, Nolan shrugged and gave out the list.
"Rowdy Yates, Jim Quince and Hey Soos Patinas, but I don't think they'll be causin' trouble."
"Rowdy, Quince and Hey Soos, I can spell those for you, Wyatt, if you're having difficulty?" Holliday swung Mushy's arm across his shoulders and between him and Pete got the drover at least moving forward, if not in a straight line.
Earp's expression was one of defeat. "Get the hell outta here, before I lock all three of you up for disturbing my peace of mind."
The two block walk from the marshal's to the Dodge House was fraught with perils and obstructions, some of those provided by Mushy as he tripped over anything and everything in his way. "Good thing he ain't wearin' shoelaces or he'd be trippin' over them, too." Nolan observed as the drunk, battered Mushy dragged them all to the ground for the third time courtesy of a nail head protruding from the wooden boardwalk.
"Finally!" Holliday pushed open the double doors of the Dodge House with a free hand and the three stumbled inside.
The clerk looked less than thrilled at their appearance, probably believing them all to be under the influence. He stopped just short of wagging his finger in Doc's face like a reproving parent, apparently remembering a bit of news which bore repeating. "Heard you did some fancy shootin' tonight, Doc!"
Holliday, perspiring freely, pushed his hat back with a free hand and hitched Mushy up, getting a more secure hold on him with the other.
"News sure travels fast around here," Pete observed.
"Too fast. People enjoy gossip and I don't mind it myself... if it's not at my expense." John Henry quipped.
Leading the way up the stairs to the second floor, he slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door wide with his foot. Passing through a combination bedroom/parlor and into what was obviously an office, Holliday and Nolan eased Mushy down into John Henry's dental chair. Holliday turned to stoke up the small stove, filling a copper kettle with water from a pitcher on a low table and putting a match to the lamp which hung over the chair. A warm yellow glow lit the room. He then set about cleaning his patient's face and checking the scalp wound. Pete hovered close, curious.
"You need a few stitches, Mushy. It shouldn't hurt too badly." Turning to Pete he confided, "Especially in his condition."
Pete laughed and settled his lanky frame into a chair by the bank of windows. During the day they let in sufficient light for a dentist to work by; at night they showcased brilliant stars and a full moon.
"Since gossip was brought up, I've heard my share all up the trail...never put two and two together until now. John Henry is Doc Holliday." Pete rolled a smoke and lit it, inhaling deeply.
"It's gossip, Pete. What would you have me say, that I've never killed a man? It's true. I never have. I won't say I haven't come close on several occasions, tonight being one of them." He turned from his work to look at Nolan, his expression serious, somber and somehow surprised as he realized the conclusion he'd come to. "I would have killed tonight. I would have killed to protect Wyatt...or you. I'm very relieved indeed that it did not come to that."
Pete leaned forward, the cigarette dangling from his fingertips, the ash precariously close to falling. "I never asked for an explanation and I'm sure not one to judge. Gossip is pure hate. Nothin' good ever came of it. There's no reason for me to believe any a what I heard, John Henry, 'cause you see, I know the man and it don't matter which name he goes by, he's still the same, inside, where it counts." Nolan flipped the cigarette butt into the spittoon at Holliday's feet. "You don't owe me any explanations, not ever."
Holliday seemed relieved, even attempting a smile. Pete nodded. "Now how's the patient?"
As if in reply, Mushy began to snore, loudly. Holliday put in a final stitch and the job was finished. "He'll probably sleep till morning." With the flick of a lever, he lowered the back of the chair; another lever raised the feet, putting the patient into a prone position. Mushy snored on. "There's a spare blanket in the chifferobe in the other room. If you'd cover him while I clean up?"
Leaving Mushy to sleep, albeit with the door locked, Holliday and Nolan went in search of Rowdy, Quince and Hey Soos. They weren't particularly difficult to locate after Pete remembered Rowdy's penchant for ferreting out the prettiest girls in town, which of course led the pair to the Long Branch, scene of Mushy's earlier debacle and Nolan's winning poker streak. "Now that's a game I can give pointers on." Holliday rubbed his hands together. "Care to take a chance, Pete...Jim...Hey Soos?"
By early morning Holliday had not only given the men pointers, he'd astonished them with his skill and acumen. 'Poker face' must've been coined just for him. Cards or men, he read them equally well. "Like you can see exactly what I'm thinkin'!" Quince observed, shaking his head as he lost yet another pot to Holliday. Luckily, they played penny ante. A single hard feeling among friends wasn't worth the largest pot in town.
"You've learned a lot, John Henry and most of it wasn't in school, I'll wager!" Rowdy, a girl on either arm, poked his nose into the game, though he didn't sit in on any hands.
"That's a sucker bet, Rowdy," Hey Soos grinned.
"Well, since I'm the big winner in this high stakes game, it will be my pleasure to invite you all out to breakfast. We can take Mushy's to him on a tray. That's if he feels up to eating." Holliday pocketed the one dollar and eleven cents in winnings, rose to his feet and stretched. Sunlight streamed in through the one undraped window in the Long Branch caused him to blink painfully in the unaccustomed brightness. "I'm usually in bed at this hour. Now I see why."
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out an intricately engraved gold watch. Flipping open the cover, he checked the time against the clock on the wall of the saloon. He shook his head and angled the watch face toward Pete.
"Never did keep time as well as yours. Now that...that was a good watch." Holliday snapped the case closed and tucked the timepiece away. "Who's for breakfast?"
As the lighthearted group exited the saloon, Pete slipped a neatly folded note into Holliday's coat pocket. "Hope you don't mind. I used a piece of paper I tore outta your book – the small leather- covered one in your office. It's the address a my ranch in Nebraska. If you ever feel the need to get away from things, gossip, people...the door is open. Stay a week or a year...heck stay permanent. Understand?"
Holliday nodded. "I understand...and I thank you for the offer. You never know, Pete....You just never know." There was unaccustomed sadness in the voice, almost a longing and suddenly the young man looked old, old beyond years.
But Pete did know...he knew he'd never see the boy again, the boy turned young man, turned old. Not in this lifetime.
-----
They were far from Dodge, each lost in his own thoughts when Rowdy rode in close to Pete. He rode close for nearly an hour without saying a word, his posture hangdog. The prolonged silence became awkward with Pete casting sideways glances at his shadow, finally turning in the saddle to confront him.
"If you got something to say, spit it out, Rowdy. This...this not talkin' when I know you want to is drivin' me loco!"
"He asked that I not tell you until we were far enough outside Dodge. I reckon we're far enough."
"He who...who asked you to tell me what?" Exasperated, Pete gave Yates what he hoped was a sufficiently impatient glare. Mushy, Quince and Hey Soos rode on ahead as if issued some silent order to do so by their boss. Pete felt suddenly queasy. "What the hell's wrong, Rowdy? Spit it out!"
Yates drew up on the reins, bringing his horse to a standstill. Pete did the same. "John Henry wanted me to tell you...he's sick...dying. He couldn't say it to your face...said he couldn't bear it. He's got the consumption and it's just a matter of time before it kills him. He said to tell you..." Rowdy thought for many long seconds before going on... "He said to tell you 'life is short and there's no time to waste.' He wanted you to have this." Rowdy reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a bandana-wrapped object which he placed reverently into Pete's outstretched hand.
The scout had trouble seeing what the parcel contained with his suddenly blurred vision and burning eyes; he was pretty sure he already knew. Carefully he unfolded the fabric. Nestled in the center were a familiar gold pocket watch, chain and fob. Within the elaborate scrolling on the front cover he sought out the three initials, barely visible in the worn embellishment.
Pete handed Rowdy back his scarf, unbuttoned his old fob and chain and tucked it away with the silver watch. It took a moment what with his fingers refusing to do what he told them to fasten the gold Waltham in its place. Turning in the saddle he looked back toward Dodge, as if he could see past low rolling hills and miles of lonely prairie, see back into a man's soul. With heavy heart he sat in silence until finally, to no one in particular he said, "When the time comes, I'll have to remember to thank him...and it will come, of that I'm certain."
END
I knew something about those two wasn't right when they rode into camp the other day, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. When you head up a trail drive and find yourself always short on drovers, you have a tendency to push your intuitions to the back of your mind. The cattle have to make it to the railhead. People depend on you. It's that simple. I'm Gil Favor, trail boss and on a drive my word is law. I'm not God, but I'm as close to it as a man gets out here.
----
"Pete, we need water and we need it yesterday. Find it. Don't come back until you do. Better get Wish to part with some food. Take a rifle."
Pete Nolan nodded. There was nothing to say. He had a job to do and like always, he'd do it to the best of his abilities. Gil Favor knew it, so did the rest of the drovers. They relied on the long-time scout for direction, for water and often for their lives. Ranging out far in front of the drive, he was its eyes and ears.
"Take more than one canteen, Pete. We can spare that much. 'Sides, you'll come up on water soon."
"Always the optimist, Wish. I'll take the water. Something tells me I'll need it," Nolan took the canteens and draped them over his saddle horn, "If for no other reason than to wash down all that jerky you're stuffin' into my saddlebags."
Wishbone gave Nolan a wry, "you'll see. You'll be back before sunset. I know what I'm talkin' about."
Pete knew better than to argue with the cook. Besides, Wish's attention was already focused on cleaning up the breakfast mess while hollering with ageless enthusiasm at the slow moving Mushy.
Nolan swung up into the saddle and turned his mount north. The terrain was hilly, the grass sparse and what little there was of it, dry as tinder, crackling beneath the horse's hooves. As much as he wanted a smoke, Pete thought better of it. A single careless match could start an inferno from which there was no escape for man or beast.
Coming up on the northern most tip of the herd Pete passed one of the last men hired by Mr. Favor. What he was doing at the front of the drive was a mystery. New hires nearly always started out on drag. It was only fair that a new man should eat dust until he'd earned his spurs. Pete thought to ride over and ask, but figured it wasn't his business, besides, he felt an unaccustomed pang of jealousy. The new man, Artie Lee, sat the finest saddle he'd laid eyes on since before the war – not flashy with lots of silver conchos and the like, just top-of-the-line quality materials and workmanship – hand-carved in a lush floral pattern by a master and rubbed to a sheen so deep you swore you could see yourself in it and padded to boot! His own saddle was more than adequate or so he told himself and though years of wear had worn it a good fit to his less-than-well-fleshed-out backside, it had seen better days. Pete sighed once and kicked his mount into a fast trot. It didn't do to think about things a man couldn't change and only wasted time. For Nolan and the herd, there was no time to waste.
With the morning over and afternoon already half used up, Pete thought there was no way Wishbone would be right in his prediction. Although he'd ridden fast and far, Nolan was no closer to water than he'd been at daybreak. From a low rise he scanned the prairie through his field glasses, panning west to east and back. There was something to the east, a speck of green, trees perhaps and trees signaled a source of water – a spring, a creek, a river, a lake. But from this distance, he couldn't be certain of what he was seeing. Stowing the glasses in their leather case and draping them over the saddle horn, Pete spurred his horse down off the ridge and into the valley.
Some time later found him on his knees at the edge of a spring fed lake tentatively tasting water he'd scooped up into his hands. His horse showed no trepidation, burying its nose into the cold sweet stuff and drinking deeply. The lake wasn't the largest body of water he'd ever seen, but it surely was the most welcome. Wading out past his knees, Pete judged the middle to be way over his head. "Deep and cold...it'll do. Let's ride, Jughead."
Nolan swung his long lean body easily into the saddle. He felt light as a feather with success tucked under his belt. He would've broken into song if he'd judged himself much of a singer. "Now if I had my guitar...."
A sound wrenched him back to reality and he pulled up short on the reins. Listening carefully he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It sounded like a voice, whispered words he couldn't quite make out. Pete kept his horse in check, closed his eyes and listened. Naturally he heard nothing at all. He opened his eyes and listened... still nothing, but wait...yes, there it was and Pete knew he wasn't the only one who heard it! Jughead's ears swiveled forward.
He urged the horse into a walk. Whoever was talking had to be close and the only place a man might hide where Nolan hadn't spotted him was in the brushy growth near the water on the far side of the lake. Cautiously, he laid a hand on his holstered pistol.
When the voice came again it was startlingly near. Pete dismounted, drawing the gun. Poking around in the bushes was dangerous business and he took no chances, but he needn't have worried. Half obscured beneath a copse of thorn-covered blackberry bushes lay a body and in a southerner's unmistakable drawl, a youngster called plaintively for his mother.
Instantly, Pete was dragged, kicking and protesting, back to the War where soldiers, broken and dying on battlefields from Manassas to Petersburg, regardless of age or rank, Reb or Yank, cried in just such a piteous way for their mothers. With considerable effort he pushed aside the memories. This was here and now and no battlefield...or was it? Again, Pete felt his flesh crawl and the hairs on the back of his neck rise in alarm. Instinctively, he went into a low crouch, scanning the area for signs of what, an ambush, a sniper, Indians? Yet he had not been fired upon. Seeing nothing, he holstered the pistol and turned to the boy. Being as gentle as possible, Pete pulled the boy out from beneath the bush where he must have crawled for what cover it provided.
The youngster looked about sixteen with pale unruly hair and fair, sun-freckled skin. His clothing was ordinary but relatively new. Out of his senses, he mumbled nonsense in between asking for his mother. The left side of the boy's shirt was black with blood from two bullet wounds, one in the shoulder and the other a graze running parallel to the ribs. "Bushwhacked, uh kid?"
The boy gazed up at his rescuer, a confused expression on his face - probably wondering what his fever had conjured up this time in order to devil him.
"Well, you're safe now. My name's Pete...Pete Nolan." Pete rocked back on his haunches. "First things first - get the bleeding stopped."
There was little enough in his saddlebags for such an emergency, but the only clean shirt he owned quickly turned into a washcloth and bandaging and the second-to-last pair of new socks, padding.
The shoulder wound was by the far the more serious since it was still bleeding and showed no sign the bullet had exited. A lead slug left in the body was certain death - a long drawn out agony of fever and pain. The bullet would have to come out, but Pete would leave that up to Wishbone. As decent a cook as the old fussbudget was, his skills as a medic were superior. From broken bones to burns to snake bite, Wishbone worked wonders. For now, direct pressure, a thick pad and tight dressing would have to do.
The graze, although it looked messy and painful, had already scabbed over which led Pete to believe the youngster had been shot not hours earlier, but days. Any ham-handed efforts at cleaning the wound might cause it to open up, so it received only a bandage.
Through it all the boy remained stoic. Only during the most painful part, when Pete pressed down hard against the wounded shoulder to staunch the bleeding did he cry out and then only once. "You're doin' fine, kid, just fine," Pete soothed.
He left the boy and crouched at the lake, filling his empty canteen with cold fresh water. His notion that the boy had been wounded some days before solidified when he noticed where the youngster had dragged himself down to the water's edge to drink, not once but several times, probably until his strength gave out. He wondered what low-life scum would shoot a kid, most likely for his horse, then leave him to die alone and scared, knowing it would take days to do so, easy prey for coyotes or wolves. Thinking about it turned the scout's stomach and since the war it took something pretty revolting to do so.
The boy took the water eagerly; it sloshed down his chin and wet his shirt and when Pete took the canteen away for fear he'd get sick taking too much too fast, the boy's hurt expression tugged at the scout's heart. "In a minute...you can have more in just a minute."
Many slow sips later, the boy's thirst was slacked and he rested easier, Pete's blanket tucked tightly in around the lanky frame, head pillowed on Pete's rolled up jacket. He floated in and out, able to answer several questions, none of which provided Nolan with a whole lot in the way of information.
His name was John Henry, though whether or not that was a first and last name wasn't clear. Everything he owned had been stolen – horse, saddle, rifle and what he valued most – a pocket watch given him by his mother, his deceased mother, though her death hadn't stopped the delirious boy from calling for her. Eighteen carat gold, the watch carried the boy's initials cleverly incorporated into the elaborate floral motif engraved on the front of the case. Clenched in his right fist was all that remained of the keepsake – a three inch length of heavy gold link chain and the fob. When the robber jerked the timepiece from the wounded boy's grasp, the youngster had held on for all he was worth. Across his palm was incised the mark of a stubborn nature – a deep slice into the flesh. Pete took the remnant of chain, wrapped it in what was left of his only clean shirt and tucked the memento into the boy's breast pocket for safe keeping.
John Henry had been face to face with his attacker, but could not describe him other than to say he was dark-haired and clean shaven. Pete thought as how that described half the men he rode with, himself included.
The ambush occurred on Tuesday. Today was Friday. Pete had been correct in his thinking, but the knowledge gave him no joy. "You laid out here three days, boy." He got no answer and expected none.
Nolan found himself in a dilemma. He had to get word back to the drive about the lake and the boy to help and accomplish both as fast as possible without jeopardizing either. He thought about building a travois, but quickly gave up the idea as too time consuming. Next he thought about putting the boy up on his saddle with him riding behind. That, too, was given up. The boy was far too weak. The solution was not one he was very happy with, but seemed the only way. He would leave the boy at the lake and ride hell bent for the herd, returning immediately on a fresh mount and with Wishbone. The going wouldn't take nearly as long as the coming. In the search for water he'd taken a roundabout route – zigzagging east to west while moving constantly north. He'd covered close to forty miles, but a straight line back might be closer to fifteen. Leaving the helpless boy alone again was wrong and sat heavy on his mind, but there was no choice.
Trying to explain his reasoning to a youngster half out of his head with fever and pain was impossibly difficult. The boy did not understand why Pete was leaving him and begged him not to go. Even when Nolan told him, "I'll be back in four hours – four hours," the boy shook his head in denial, reaching out weakly to clutch at Pete's sleeve.
Pulling a battered silver-plated watch from the breast pocket of his waistcoat Nolan pressed it gently into the boy's good right hand. "Here...I know it ain't as fine as yours, but it keeps good time for a dollar watch. Four hours from now I'll be back. I give you my word."
"Four hours," the boy whispered, "your word."
Now that he'd made the decision, Pete was eager to ride. He left the boy a full canteen, placing it tight against his right side so he could feel the solid presence and almost as an afterthought, slipped his Colt from the holster and placed it within the boy's easy reach. "In case of varmints," he said, adding "the hammer's on an empty chamber so you've got five rounds...just in case." The boy looked at him, eyes swarming with tears, but any words he kept to himself. It hardly mattered. Pete heard them as plainly as if they'd been spoken aloud. 'Come back.'
By the time the herd was reached a red sun wavered just above the horizon. Ignoring Rowdy's wave and hallo, Pete spurred the exhausted Jughead on leaving the ramrod scratching his head and muttering to himself about the odd behavior of certain people.
Pete rode into camp, skidding to a stop directly in front of Gil Favor and raising a cloud of caliche which was not appreciated by drovers attempting to eat a meal without swallowing any more dust than they already had that day. Amid much cursing and not a few raised fists, Nolan dismounted. "Hey Soos, saddle two horses, the fastest, most rested in the remuda – one for me and one for Wishbone and hurry it up!"
The young Mexican wrangler, a plate balanced on his lap, a spoon in one hand, a tin coffee cup in the other and his mouth full of Wishbone's tasty beef stew, looked to the boss for the word. Should he do as Senor Nolan ordered or could he finish supper first?
Gil Favor had known Pete long enough to recognize when something was important to him. He recognized it now. "Do as he says, Hey Soos. Mushy'll keep your supper warm." Favor handed the scout his own cup of steaming coffee and waited until Nolan drank it down to question him. Exhausted and bedraggled, Pete looked like he could use more than coffee.
"Found water, Boss, two hours ahead, northeast – a spring fed lake, clear and cold. Found somethin' else there, too – a shot up kid. Somebody bushwhacked him and left him for dead. He's too bad off to move so I came for Wishbone. We gotta make time, Mr. Favor. I promised the boy I'd be back in four hours. He's expectin' me. I can't be late." He drained the cup. "Wishbone, I...'
"You don't have to tell me, I heard ya. By the time Hey Soos gets the horses saddled I'll be packed and ready. You take time to eat somethin' or you won't be good for nothin' yourself." Wish untied his apron and draped it over the wagon tailgate. As he tossed items he thought he'd need into a small black satchel, he issued orders to Mushy concerning evening clean-up and breakfast in the morning. Wishbone was nothing if not organized and expected the same of those around him, usually ending up disappointed.
Hey Soos led out the saddled mounts while Pete sopped up rich warm gravy with the last bite of biscuit. Still hungry, he grabbed up two more, stuffing one of the light flaky confections into his mouth and the other into his shirt pocket.
"Where's your pistol?" Wishbone asked as he climbed into the saddle, securing the satchel's double handles over the pommel. Seeing the scout without his sidearm was definitely a novel sight and worthy of comment.
Tired as he was the question took Pete by surprise causing a panicky split second until he remembered. "I left it with the boy...varmints." He spurred the chestnut gelding into a mile-eating lope, Wishbone right on his heels.
Pete pushed hard, his rawhide tough body used to the saddle and the beating of mile after mile against bone and muscle required by the job. Wishbone, on the other hand, was not used to such punishment. He'd certainly wrangled his share of beeves, spending hours on the back of a horse so that he figured he was no longer a man but some sort of crossbred man/horse, but that time was past. More used to the relative comfort of a wagon seat – replete with a thick shock- absorbing cushion, the relentless pace set by the scout set his teeth to clenching in his jaw and his aging joints to aching.
Just when Wishbone believed he couldn't stand one more mile of Pete's relentless pace, it was over. Nolan was off his mount before the animal came to a complete standstill and over the low rise to the lake where a body lay and from where Wish stood, it appeared just that, a body with no life. It must've seemed so to Pete as well. Standing above the blanket wrapped boy, he slowly removed his hat. Sweat dripped from his stubbled chin but he made no move to wipe it away.
"He's dead, Wish. I'm too late," he murmured.
Wishbone grabbed the satchel off the saddle horn and hurried down the short incline. "Don't be so sure a yourself. You ain't no doctor!" he growled, as much to cover his own emotions as to give hope to the scout, no matter how fleeting.
He knelt next to the figure, reaching out to touch the pulse point beneath the boy's chin. "He's alive, barely, but he's alive and that's what counts." Wish glanced up at the tough cowboy. He wasn't for sure certain, but he thought he saw tears in the dark eyes. "Did ya hear me? I said he's alive," he repeated.
Nolan acknowledged the news with a nod and a relieved half- smile. "Tell me what I can do to help."
"Get a good fire goin' so I can see what I'm doin'. Then just keep outta the way." Wishbone removed the .44 caliber slug from the boy's shoulder with little difficulty. When Nolan commented on his skill, Wish shrugged it off, "All in a day's work for a cook."
The boy had yet to come around and Pete sat close, smoking an endless succession of harsh hand-rolled quirlies, watching, waiting and pestering Wishbone. "Think he'll wake up soon? Think he'll be alright? Where do you think he came from? I know he's a southern boy, but... Hey, Wish...?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There now, are you satisfied? I think you been around Mushy too long. His bad points are beginnin' to rub off on you. Use to be you was the quiet one of the bunch." Wishbone occupied himself cleaning the used instruments, packing them back into the satchel and starting what he considered a proper fire. He needed a cup of good strong coffee and figured Pete might appreciate one as well.
Night wore on and Pete felt he was the only one awake in the whole world. A few yards distant Wishbone snored contentedly away. The boy still hadn't stirred and although Wish figured it was of no account, Pete found it worrisome. Far off, a night bird called and close in some small nocturnal creatures foraged noisily beneath the bushes. He closed his eyes for an instant and....
"Pete?"
He wasn't sure how many times the boy called his name before he heard and responded. "Right here, kid. Right here. How you feelin'?" Pete leaned over the boy and appraised his condition, difficult to do with the fire burned down and it not quite dawn, but the boy's eyes seemed clear if a bit too fever bright and if he wasn't mistaken, the youngster appeared pleased to see him. A faint smile, there and gone, was welcome as a cool breeze on a hot day.
"Better, I think," the boy answered. "I could use a drink, though."
Nolan grabbed a cup and went to the water's edge to dip it full. This time the boy drank slowly, pausing between sips and Pete took note. John Henry wasn't someone who needed telling twice.
"Wishbone, he's cook on the trail drive I scout for, well, he's more than a cook, more a Jack-of-all-trades, well, he took the bullet outta your shoulder; said you'll heal fast if you take it easy." Pete put the cup aside. "He's asleep, but you'll see him soon enough. Wakes with the birds, like most old folks I'd imagine."
"I heard that, Pete Nolan!" Wishbone's voice, muffled by the blanket was loud if not clear.
The boy held out his hand. On the open palm lay Pete's watch. "Thanks for the loan of it. You were right. It keeps good time."
Nolan closed the boy's fingers around it. "Keep it till you get yours back."
After breakfast, Pete assisted Wishbone in moving the camp some two hundred yards upwind of the lake to a low knoll, carrying the boy out of the way of three thousand thirsty longhorns.
Saddling the chestnut, tightening the cinch and slipping the rifle into the boot, Pete mounted up. "I'm gonna go out and lead the drive in. Won't be gone too long unless Mr. Favor has other ideas." Nudging the gelding in the ribs, he was off. Though he'd had little sleep, he felt no worse for it. He'd found water. He'd gotten help for the wounded boy. Things were looking pretty darned rosy, if he did say so himself, but in his line of work things were apt to change pretty quickly and often not for the best.
He rode in some hours later in the company of Mushy and the chuck wagon. Mushy got down to the business of filling the water barrels before the cattle arrived without having to be prodded by Wishbone, nearly causing Wish to faint dead away at the novelty.
The supply wagon came next, driven by one of the new men whose name Pete had forgotten. In fact he wondered if he'd ever known it to start with. Spending such a limited amount of time actually in camp once caused him to go an entire month without crossing the path of a new hire. That he meant to change. Riding up to the wagon he stuck out a hand and introduced himself. He was totally ignored. His first reaction was anger; his next, indifference. A man had the right to keep to himself after all, though it made for long empty nights around the campfire.
After seeing to his horse, Pete went to check on John Henry. Wishbone just finished changing the bandages. The boy took it well though it pained him considerably and Wish thought it best to give him a spoonful of laudanum left over from the time Quince broke several ribs in a fall. "He's asleep now and I want him to stay that way. You can talk to him later. Besides, you look like hell. Try sleepin' some yourself. I heard you movin' around most of last night. Maybe I should dose you with laudanum."
Nolan remembered the taste of the vile stuff from years back and the very thought of it made him gag. "That's alright, Wish. I believe I can sleep without it."
"Take yourself over there, under the supply wagon. Less chance some fool drover'll run over you when I ring the bell for chow."
Nolan reached into the wagon for a blanket. He wished he had a pillow. He always wished for a pillow. Of all the things he longed for that reminded him of home, a pillow was at the top of the list with clean sheets a close second. But dog tired as he was now that he'd given in to it, he figured he could go without. As usual, his saddle made do.
Not cattle, not hungry drovers, not even Gil Favor's barked orders woke Pete from a sound sleep. Dawn did that. A cup of hot coffee quickly drained, a biscuit sandwich in hand and a bag of grub from Wishbone and Nolan dragged himself up onto the saddled mount. As usual, Hey Soos chose well. Pumpkin was a good horse, lots of stamina with an easy lope. He'd be grateful for both by the time he was through. Three days and nights gone, long days and longer nights skirting Kiowa hunting parties, searching out the best route for the herd with good graze and water; a cold camp and no smokes; Kiowa could smell tobacco for a mile and were every bit as partial to it as white men. Tired and more tired, Pete rode back into camp, made his report and sought out Wishbone for news on the boy.
"I thought he'd be chipper by now, but he's not healin' as well as I'd hoped. Fever's still on him and I opened his shoulder this mornin' sos it could drain. I got a nice poultice in the makin' and that should help. He's been callin' for you, Pete."
Grabbing a cup of coffee, Nolan walked over to the supply wagon where Wish had made the youngster more comfortable, up off the ground and resting on a pile of spare blankets; as close a thing to a real bed on you could get on the trail.
"How ya doin', kid?" Pete smiled at the boy, but the smile was a false front he hoped wouldn't be noticed, a cover for his worry. Wish was right. John Henry appeared little improved. If anything, he looked more wasted, eyes sunken into the sockets and smudged with dark circles, complexion gray, blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, but there was still a ready smile.
"You've been away some time, Pete. Wish said I wasn't to worry about you...that you always found your way home."
"Sometimes the way is a little roundabout, but I always turn up, sorta like a bad penny....Talkin' about home," Pete leaned over the wagon edge, closing the gap between them. Knowing he was about to step over the bounds of butting in where he was pretty certain he wasn't welcome, Nolan wanted the conversation kept private. "Where's yours, John Henry? I know it's south; that's plain enough by your way a talkin'. I'm thinkin' Alabama or maybe Georgia. You said your maw was gone, but your father...don't you think he's worried? I could write a letter; you could tell me what to say. There's a town about twenty miles east. It'd be no trouble for me to ride over and see about sendin' it or maybe there's a telegraph..."
The boy turned his face away and bitterness crept into his voice. "Don't bother. He doesn't care...never did. Mother wasn't gone three months and he up and marries a girl closer to my age than his! He didn't miss mother and he doesn't miss me. Don't bother, Pete, not on my account."
"It'd be no bother. I'd be glad..."
Facing Pete, the boy shook his head. Weak as he was the strength of conviction was in his words. "Don't, please."
"Alright, we do it your way." Nolan changed the subject. "I'm gonna get some chow. How 'bout a plate? I'd be glad for your company and I've plenty to tell you about where we're headed – some pretty interesting sights comin' up."
"No food, but I'd enjoy the company." John Henry managed a smile. It was genuine.
Rowdy Yates handed out night hawk duty and there was more than the usual griping. Artie Lee had what amounted to a temper tantrum, tossing his coffee cup into the fire, swearing loudly and cursing, of all people, Pete Nolan.
"Why in hell can't HE take night hawk? Like sleepin' Jesus he is while the rest of us gotta spend the night a horseback!" For emphasis Lee crouched down to jab a grubby finger at the scout rolled in a blanket beneath the supply wagon, kicking dirt at the sleeping man for good measure. Nolan slumbered on, oblivious to the commotion. "Who the hell does he think he is anyhow?"
"He thinks he's the scout of this outfit and he'd be right!" Favor had had enough. Usually Rowdy handled things pretty well, but there was the rare occasion when he allowed the men too free a rein. This was not a democracy.
"Where the hell were you when he was out three days and nights? Asleep in your bedroll here in camp with a full belly, safe, that's where. While you slept comfortable and ate three hot meals a day, he ate cold and kept watch. In case you aren't aware of it – this here is Kiowa country. Shut your mouth, Lee and do your job. If you don't like it, quit. It's that simple."
While most men would've been cowed by Favor's anger or at the very least subdued, Lee was neither. Pulling a watch from his pocket he made a show of checking the time. "It's eight o'clock right now. I expect to be relieved at twelve midnight – sharp!" For emphasis he showed the watch around the circled drovers, face out.
Rowdy walked over for a closer look. "That's a mighty pretty timepiece, Lee. Where'd somebody like you get such a fine watch anyhow? It wouldn't be a Waltham, would it?" The watch was fine indeed and like Yates appreciated a beautiful girl or a blooded horse, his appreciation of the better things in life included gold watches. He never got a closer look. Hastily, Lee closed the cover and shoved the timepiece back into his pocket. Rowdy shrugged his shoulders, commenting, "A friend a mine from down Val Verde way once said there's nothin' prettier than a fine gold watch or a woman from anywhere. He was right, too."
"You stay clear a me, Yates. This watch comes up missin', I'll know who took it."
Rowdy balled his fists, advancing on the other man. "Nobody talks to me like that, especially not...!"
Favor stepped in and broke it up before Rowdy got a chance to prove his statement. "You're fired, Lee. Get your gear and get out."
"You need me, Favor! You said so when you hired me on, me and Kemp!" Lee stuck his chin out in defiance. "You need me!"
"There you're wrong. Trouble I don't need." The discussion officially ended when Favor turned his back on Artie Lee. The obvious slight did not go unnoticed.
Lee saddled his horse, his anger made all the more obvious to any within earshot by an extensive use of choice epithets directed not only at Favor, but Yates, Nolan and even Hey Soos, the latter for not cutting his horse out quickly enough.
"You're a damned fool, you know that?" Kemp shook his head, disgusted at his partner's lack of anything remotely resembling good sense. "Not only did you get yourself kicked off a cattle drive in the smack middle of Indian country, you drew attention to that fancy watch you stole off that kid! What a damned fool!" Kemp shot a wad of tobacco juice a good six feet, wiping his chin against a perpetually stained shirt cuff.
"Yeah, well, I mighta stole the watch, but you did the shootin' and that damned Nolan...what's the chance of him findin' that kid and alive?" Lee glared at his partner.
Kemp was smug. "You're the only face that boy can point out. He never saw me. It's your neck in the noose he wakes up enough to look around. He talks and you're dead. Favor won't wait for no judge and jury. Out here he's the law."
"What do you want me to do, beg the boss man for my job back?" Artie Lee leaned into the saddle, the stolen saddle, his thoughts in a whirl. He'd made a big mistake running his mouth when he only thought he had the upper hand. Favor held the aces. "Even if I do and Favor takes me back...what the hell do we do about the kid? What if he does get better? What if he talks?" Lee turned to face his partner. "What do we do, Kemp, huh?" Panic crept into his voice.
"Just hush a minute and let me think." Kemp chewed and spat several times before the answer came. "You go back. Tell Favor you acted the fool. Apologize. Play on whatever the hell sympathies he might have about turnin' a man out alone in Kiowa country. Say whatever it takes, but get the job back!"
"That's all well and good, but what about the kid? What if he don't die?" Lee's voice quavered and broke. He was scared and he had reason to be. He'd hang for something his crazy partner did. They'd needed the boy's horse, but it could've been taken without bloodshed, easily.
"Oh, he'll die alright, just up and expire and if he don't...well, he'll get some help. One way or the other, he won't give us up." Kemp grinned and Lee felt something inside him go cold. He'd almost rather face the Kiowa than go against a man like Kemp – almost. Artie unsaddled the horse and then went looking for the boss.
"You sure you did the right thing – takin' Lee back I mean?" Rowdy kept his voice low. He surely didn't want any of the drovers overhearing and maybe thinking he was trying to second guess Mr. Favor. Dissention in the ranks made for poor work.
"No, I ain't sure, but what's done is done. Let's give it a rest, huh, Rowdy?" As Yates turned to walk away figuring the conversation over, Favor stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Watch yourself," he warned.
"You do the same," Rowdy replied.
Something spooked the herd. It must've been out of the ordinary to stir up a bunch of cattle that had spent the last several days grazing, drinking cool spring water and just finding ways to be lazy. But spooked they were, moving all together, like a great bovine wave, bawling and edgy, on the verge of stampede. Gil Favor called out the hands. All hands save Mushy and Pete Nolan turned out. Mushy was little good with cattle and somebody had to keep the fire going and the coffee hot. Pete was asleep. In the confusion of the moment no one thought to look under the supply wagon.
Kemp and Lee circled their horses back around, riding into the nearly empty camp at the side farthest from the fire and the witness. Dismounting, Kemp suppressed a laugh. "Sure was easy gettin' them cattle stirred up. Cut one just enough to get the blood flowin', the rest smell it and right away think wolf or some such and get to panicking. Easy as pie! We got all the time in the world now, Artie. Do the kid, get back out onto the range and none the wiser! It's a cinch!" He spat out a long string of tobacco juice, grinning at the uncanny simplicity of his plan.
Artie's stomach lurched. "How you plan on doin' it, killin' the boy, I mean? It's gotta look like he just died."
"Simple. You pinch off his nose, like this." Kemp used himself as an example. Using a thumb and forefinger, he pinched his nostrils closed. "Then you cover his mouth good and tight at the same time. Can't breathe outta his nose or mouth. Couple a minutes later and he's dead as a mackerel and no one the wiser!"
"You said you...you pinch his nose, like you meant I should kill him! If that's what you meant, I don't ...."
"You'll do it, Artie. You'll do the kid or I'll do you. Take your pick. It's time you backed up your mouth with action. Besides, you might like it, close up and personal... watchin' him squirm, like a worm on a hook, wriggling."
Lee swallowed back the need to vomit, but when Kemp snuck into camp, he followed, like always.
Mushy tended the fire, his rapt attention focused on the few simple tasks at hand, oblivious to everything else. Kemp and Lee crept up to the supply wagon unnoticed. Kemp signaled Artie to go ahead while he kept watch.
Lee peered over the wagon's low side at the sleeping boy. "Why didn't you just up and die like a good kid stead a puttin' me to all this trouble?" he whispered. The youngster's eyes opened and no surprise, the boy recognized him and made ready to scream. Lee smothered the effort with a dirty hand across the mouth, the other pinching the nose shut. As Kemp told him, the boy twisted and wriggled, trying to free himself, not easy with one arm in a sling and little strength to draw on. He also banged his feet on the wagon bed, but the blanket-mattress effectively smothered the sound. Mushy worked on.
Like the drovers, Kemp and Lee forgot Pete Nolan. Beneath the supply wagon he woke to the boy's feet thumping against the padded bed and the sounds of a life and death struggle. Rolling away, he was up in an instant and around the wagon, tearing the killer's hands from the boy's face. Down to the ground in a jumble of arms, legs and flying fists, Lee and Nolan fought viciously, Lee having a weight advantage over the slim scout, Nolan's reach advantage of little use in the close quarters. Pete managed to get Lee over and onto his back where he throttled him, his hands around Lee's throat, squeezing, cutting off his air. Lee's reaction was as expected – he fought like a wild animal, clawing and scratching, going for Pete's face and eyes, but Pete only squeezed the harder. Lee's strength faded and Nolan believed he had him beat. In a fair fight it would have been true.
A blow to the kidneys sent a shock wave arcing through Pete's body, but still he hung on, like a bulldog whose teeth can't be pried from the other dog's throat until death releases both. Another blow and another and he was paralyzed, his hands dropping from Lee's throat, his vision a mesh of dancing black spots. Nausea washed across him. He heard rifle shots and vaguely Mushy's voice calling from some distant place. Hands were on him then and again Mushy's voice calling his name. When he asked, "how's the boy?" he got no answer, at least not one he heard.
"You hear that, Rowdy? Shots – two at least! You hear it?" Wishbone yelled over the sea of moving cattle. For a man past middle age his hearing was excellent.
"No, I didn't. You sure, Wish? Where?"
"Sure I'm sure...back at camp." Without waiting for permission, Wishbone put spurs to hide. It was probably nothing important. Mushy probably saw a shadow, but low as that boy was on common sense, even he knew enough not to fire a gun around spooky cattle. The more Wish thought on it the more worried he got and the more he spurred.
Camp was chaos. The wounded boy somehow managed to get out of the wagon and was standing, legs trembling and about to give out, his wide-eyed gaze focused on a figure near the fire. He was yelling, but then so was Mushy, loudly, with Wishbone unable to make sense of either. Mushy seemed on the edge of madness, twisting this way and that, starting and stopping, searching for help, screaming and covered in blood. In his arms he held Pete Nolan as limp as a child's rag doll and the source of the blood.
Dismounting, Wishbone walked up to Mushy slowly, very slowly, his hands held out, palms up so not to frighten the terrified young man. "I'm here, Mushy. Everything'll be okay now. I'm here."
Mushy stood stock still, arms extended, offering Wishbone Pete's body, as if Wish might take the burden from him. "He's hurt awful bad, Mr. Wishbone, awful bad, cut up by that Kemp fella - stabbed in the back." Mushy's eyes filled with tears. "I think he's dead, Mr. Wishbone."
-----
Pete woke slowly, forcing his eyelids open. Bright sun forced them closed.
"You think you might stay awake this time?" The familiar voice gave him the impetus he needed to try again.
"Maybe," he whispered, voice scratchy and foreign to his own ears. Slowly, the eyelids reopened. Propped onto his side by rolled blankets, Pete had a clear view of his visitor. John Henry grinned.
"You sure look better than I feel," Pete commented, relieved to see the boy alive. From what he remembered of the attack, precious little, he wasn't sure of the outcome. For a while he wasn't even sure he was alive.
"I'm feeling spry enough," the boy said. He rested his good hand on Pete's shoulder. "The other night makes twice you saved my life. Thank you."
"It's more Mushy you should thank than me. It was him with the rifle...wasn't it?"
"It was and I already thanked him. He's a big hero around camp and not taking it too well – a reluctant hero, I guess you'd call him. Seriously though, Pete... thanks."
Fumbling in his pocket John Henry pulled out the gold watch on a newly repaired chain. "I'd like you to have it," he said.
Nolan was deeply touched. "I can't take that. I know what it means to you. Besides, a fine watch like that out here, well it wouldn't be practical. Just give mine back and we'll call things square. That watch come from Lee or Kemp?"
"From Lee. He had my horse and saddle, too. Kemp had the wallet and rifle.
"Could I see those fancy initials a yours," Pete asked, "the ones hidden in the scrollwork? I'm curious."
John Henry angled the watch just so, pointing out the J and the H and the last H. Difficult to see if you didn't know where to look, once shown, they were clear as day.
"So John Henry isn't your first and last name. You gonna keep me wonderin'?" Pete grinned.
"I guess I never told you because I was afraid you'd get in touch with my father somehow and I wasn't ready to go back. Wasn't sure I'd ever want to. I'm John Henry Holliday and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Pete Nolan."
"Likewise, Mr. Holliday." Pete pondered a moment. "Have you decided to go home?" Though he was losing steam fast, Pete didn't feel he could rest easy until he had an answer. From the corner of one eye he saw Wishbone watching, wearing a scowl to go with his apron. Palaver time was coming to an end.
"I have. I don't think my future lies in the west. I'm not sure it lies in Georgia either, but that's something I need to find out for myself. My father...he is that and I respect him because of it, but I don't like him. Perhaps that will change if I give him half a chance. Of the many things I've learned here, 'life is short' stands out. It's too short to hold a grudge. Wish me luck, will you, Pete?"
"Good luck, kid."
-----
"Saddle my horse, Hey Soos! It's been so long since I've been outta camp, I feel like a prisoner." Pete grinned from ear to ear and stretched out his long lean frame, arms above his head, back arching like a cat's and there was no pain. "Wish, you're a miracle-worker," he praised.
Wishbone pooh-poohed, the kind words appearing to roll off his back like water off a duck, but Pete knew by the slight smile and quick come-back that the man was pleased. "Don't overdue it or all my hard work will be for nothing!"
Nolan laughed. "Don't worry. I know my limitations." He turned around and so doing missed Wishbone's wry face and mouthed comment.
"Yeah, right."
Pete bent to check the cinch, drawing it up tight before he noticed. "Hey Soos, this isn't my saddle. It's..." He looked it over carefully, noting the fine craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the padded seat. "This saddle belongs to..." He didn't get to finish .
Hey Soos walked over, smiling broadly, teeth white and even in a tanned face. "It's yours, Senor Pete – a gift from the boy, from Senor John Henry. It's yours. Is it not a beautiful thing?" Hey Soos rubbed a calloused hand over the tooling.
"It is...a beautiful thing," Pete agreed.
-----
The men rode into Dodge City, money jingling in their pockets, new life flowing through their veins. The town had changed a great deal since Pete and his companions began coming some eleven years ago. For one thing it smelled better - fewer buffalo hides drying in the hot prairie wind, fewer heaps of bone piled sky high and fewer buffalo hunters as well. And the town had grown, bursting at the seams, mostly due to the influx of the Texas cattle herds. Saloons lined the streets south of the railroad tracks offering all sorts and manner of entertainment and refreshments for those so inclined.
Pete, Rowdy, Quince, Mushy and Hey Soos were just so inclined, but first there was a long anticipated bath and the choosing of new clothing. For the men it was a right of passage and came accompanied by a great deal of clowning and laughter. When bathed and dressed in the height of 19th century fashion, the five might pass each other on the street without a hint of recognition.
Ready for whatever fate sent their individual ways, the men separated – Rowdy and Mushy to find some ladies with which to share their money, Hey Soos to the telegraph office to send most of his pay back to his wife and mother on his spread in Texas and Quince and Pete to the gaming tables to try their luck, though Pete squirreled away most of his cash to pay off his Nebraska ranch, allowing just so much mad money to squander at will.
Over the next twenty-four hours the friends ran into each other repeatedly as interests waxed and waned, raising more than one toast to missing comrades. Gil Favor was gone, drowned some three years before while crossing a swollen river and Joe Scarlet with him, leaving Rowdy as trail boss. Wishbone, having retired, died just the winter before. Stubborn as always, he froze to death seated on Pete Nolan's front porch in a rocking chair he'd dragged out of the house in the middle of a frigid February night, for what reason only he knew.
Late in the day found Pete and Mushy in the Long Branch Saloon on Front Street, the classiest joint in town and for ample reason. The liquor wasn't watered and the varieties were enough to boggle the mind of an ordinary cowboy; the same with the beers. The ladies were the prettiest and most social and the games honest.
In the dozen or so years Pete Nolan had known Harkness 'Mushy' Mushgrove III, Mushy had changed little and was still just a big good- natured kid at heart, never meaning any harm, never a sharp word for anyone who didn't deserve it. Pete, playing poker and raking in one big pot after another was less than happy to have the game broken up by a brawl over at the bar. With everyone on their feet, cheering on the combatants with whiskey-induced enthusiasm, well Pete just had to see for himself.
In the center of the fight was Mushy, swinging away, but landing few blows. His opponent was a railroad man or so said a bystander and a born hater of drovers in any way shape or form, even one as big as Mushy. Though smaller in stature, the railroad man was certainly getting the best of the drover. Blow after blow staggered the bigger man, but being Mushy, he never gave in or gave up.
Through the batwing doors of the Long Branch appeared the law. In a voice loud enough to be heard over the din, he ordered the pair to "Break it up!" Naturally Mushy, in the heat of battle, did not hear and was in the process of taking yet another ineffectual swing at his opponent when a gun butt crashed down against his skull. He hit the floor like he'd been pole-axed. The lawman poised, pistol raised, about to crack him again if he so much as twitched.
"Hey, wait! Don't hit him again! He didn't hear ya is all!" Pete pushed through the crowd and crouched at Mushy's side. Blood streamed down his face from half a dozen scrapes and cuts, but by far the worst was the tear in his scalp courtesy of the deputy's buffaloing.
Pete glared up at the lawman. "He didn't hear, is all. He woulda quit fightin'. There was no call for you to hit him that hard." Nolan pulled a new white handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the head wound. Mushy groaned and blinked a couple times. Pete felt relief. At least he was alive.
"Couple a you men grab this cowboy and drag him over to the marshal's office."
Pete got to his feet and watched as Mushy was half-dragged, half- carried away. He turned to the lawman. "You gonna send for the doctor? He's in pretty bad shape and I..."
He was interrupted. "Doc McCarty's out of town. Won't be back until tomorrow."
Pete stepped in close. He wanted to know just how far he could push without being shoved, as Mushy had been. Slowly he appraised his opposition; tall, but not as tall as he, more solidly built but not heavy by any means, ashy blond hair and thick tawny mustache, but the eyes – they were blue ice. If these were the mirrors of this man's soul, woe be it to his enemies. Pete changed tact. "When can I bail him out?"
"Tomorrow at the earliest. Judge has to set bail." While Nolan was sizing up his opposition, the opposition was doing the same. He too changed tact. "If you want to tend him, drop by. I'll be there off and on till midnight."
Pete nodded. "I'll be around."
"Best not mess with that deputy," a well-meaning slightly inebriated cowboy confided as the lawman dropped his pistol into his coat pocket, looked around the Long Branch a final time and exited the way he'd entered. "Crack your head good, yup, crack your head good!"
"I ain't seen him before. He new?" Pete collected his winnings from the poker table, folded the bills and stuffed them into a trouser pocket.
"Been here nearly a year. Name's Wyatt Earp. He's hard, that one, deputy marshal to Charlie Bassett. Stay outta his way." The cowboy grinned and swayed.
Pete handed him four bits. "For the information." The cowboy grinned all the wider, tipped his hat and disappeared into the crowd at the bar.
Nolan stepped out onto the boardwalk and walked down a ways. The night air felt good, like an old friend. He wasn't used to smoke and confined spaces. Overhead the sky was lit with stars. Walking further on, he stopped to roll and light a quirly in the yellow glow of a streetlamp. Across the street the Lady Gay was in full swing and if he wasn't mistaken, Deputy Earp, making good use of the taxpayer's money, was going about his appointed rounds. He walked into the Lady Gay and out again, moving slowly up the boardwalk, jiggling door knobs and peering into darkened windows.
Pete lit up, inhaling the acrid smoke.
"Wyatt! Look out!" A gunshot followed hard on the heels of the warning. Other shots followed, too close together to count. At the shout, Earp went into a crouch, drew the pistol from his coat pocket and returned fire.
Pete followed suit, his hand automatically going for his own Colt. He'd forgotten. No guns allowed within city limits. "Damn!"
Shadowy figures darted from one darkened alleyway into another, scattering like so many rats. Two fell and didn't move. One hit the ground and attempted to crawl off. It was over.
A lone figure walked over to Earp. Quiet words were exchanged and the stranger tucked a pistol into a holster beneath his frock coat. Plainly, he was the man who had shouted the warning and fired off the first shot.
Pete dropped the cigarette and moved to grind it out in the dirt. The movement caught the lawman's eye and he swiveled, gun leveled and ready to fire.
The other man also turned and in an action almost too fast to follow, shoved Earp's gun hand down. The Colt fired, the slug traveling harmlessly into the ground. "What the hell you do that for, Doc?"
"He's not one of them, Wyatt!" Doc shook his head. "He's not one of them."
"I had a run-in with a friend a his over at the Long Branch not fifteen minutes ago! How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know him, is how. He saved my life." Doc walked across the street, hand extended, a welcoming smile on his face.
"John Henry Holliday...well, I'll be damned!" Pete shook the outstretched hand, and then pulled the young man into a bear hug. "I'll be damned!" he whispered.
"Not today you won't!" John Henry laughed. "Trouble just trail you up from Texas or are you through with cattle drives, dust and bad pay?"
Pete pushed back and looked Holliday up and down. The face had changed but slightly. Perhaps the blond hair was less pale, the freckles faded, but the blue-gray eyes snapped with intelligence and the smile, though partially obscured by a thick pale moustache, was exactly as it had been – sincere and welcome as water in a desert. If the cheek bones appeared more pronounced and the framing upon which hung the finely tailored gentleman's clothes, a bit too slim, it wasn't worth mentioning. "I'm through with trail drives as of yesterday; got me a spread outside Grand Island, Nebraska; run horses and a few cattle. Got a nice little wife too and a couple a kids, girls. What are you doing here? You a lawman? Didn't think that was in your future. Last I heard you were goin' north to school."
Across the street a crowd gathered. One would-be assassin was hauled off to the undertaker, two dragged off to join Mushy in jail. Wyatt waved at Doc as he moved off down the street to book his newest acquisitions. Holliday returned the salute, but his attention quickly focused back onto an old friend. "Let's go over to the Dodge House and talk," he said to Pete.
"I'd like that, but first I need to go over to the marshal's office, Mushy's there. Last I saw him he looked none too good."
"Mushy's here and in jail? What happened?" Holliday lit a cigarillo, offering one to Pete who declined.
"Your deputy friend buffaloed him in the Long Branch. Mushy got into a sort of one-sided fight, didn't hear the order to break things up and got a gun butt alongside the head for his trouble. I'd like to see if he's doin' okay. He was bleedin' copious-like when they took him off."
"Doctor McCarty's out of town, but I've been known to suture an injury or two. I've also got some clout with the law in this town. Perhaps we can spring Mushy." Holliday steered Pete in the direction of the marshal's office and they talked along the way. "I did go to school, dental college in Philadelphia and graduated. Father and I remained at odds, so when I returned to Georgia, I decided to travel a bit before opening my first practice. Of course I ended up in Texas! Can't seem to get away from that place. Here we are." John Henry opened office door and allowed Pete to enter first.
Seated at the paper-strewn desk, Earp glanced up. Seeing Pete and Doc together, he laid aside the pencil, pushed back in the chair and although he didn't quite smile, his expression became almost pleasant. "I'd ask what you need, Doc, but then I'm pretty certain I already know. If that drover's your friend," he indicated Pete, "I'll just bet the one I've got locked up must be one, too and...you want him out."
"I'd be foolish not to back that bet, Wyatt. You're a regular psychic." Holliday dropped the butt of his smoke into the spittoon, grinning at the confused expression on Earp's face. "A psychic is someone who predicts future events. You are correct on both counts. Mushy is my friend. In fact, I owe him my life by way of the same incident that involved Pete here. This might be a good spot to make introductions. Deputy Wyatt Earp, I'd like you to make the acquaintance of Pete Nolan." The pair shook hands, not warmly but firmly. "And Pete's not a drover. He's a scout. There is a difference."
"About twenty dollars a month, I'd say." Pete observed.
"Well, I was just getting around to filling out the papers for the judge. Since I haven't yet put my name to 'em, they're not yet legal documents. Doc, if you guarantee this Mushy's actions while he's in town, and I hope he leaves soon, I'll release him into your custody. And uh, glad as I am for your help at the Lady Gay, if you're gonna remain within city limits, ditch the guns."
Holliday and Nolan exchanged relieved grins as if both thought things were going better than imagined. Doc opened his coat, removing a .45 caliber nickel-plated Colt from the shoulder holster and a .41 Colt double-cocker from an inside coat pocket and handing them over, butt first, to Earp. "Whatever you say, Wyatt; you are the law."
Earp shoved the pistols into the bottom desk drawer, grabbed up the keys and led the way to Mushy's cell. Mushgrove looked a sight, face swollen, new shirt spotted and striped with fast-drying blood, but he managed a lopsided grin through split lips when seeing first Pete and then John Henry. Tears came into his eyes; tears precipitated by too much to drink and exacerbated by a soft heart. "John Henry...that you? You're a sight for sore eyes, boy!" He struggled to rise from the low cot. Pete grabbed one arm, Holliday the other.
"Don't suppose there are any more of your 'friends' in town, Doc? Anybody else requiring leniency from the law I should know about?" Earp stood poised over the desk, pencil in hand as if to write up a list. He believed he was being funny, but when Holliday looked over at Pete, burdened by the grinning, swaying Mushy, Nolan shrugged and gave out the list.
"Rowdy Yates, Jim Quince and Hey Soos Patinas, but I don't think they'll be causin' trouble."
"Rowdy, Quince and Hey Soos, I can spell those for you, Wyatt, if you're having difficulty?" Holliday swung Mushy's arm across his shoulders and between him and Pete got the drover at least moving forward, if not in a straight line.
Earp's expression was one of defeat. "Get the hell outta here, before I lock all three of you up for disturbing my peace of mind."
The two block walk from the marshal's to the Dodge House was fraught with perils and obstructions, some of those provided by Mushy as he tripped over anything and everything in his way. "Good thing he ain't wearin' shoelaces or he'd be trippin' over them, too." Nolan observed as the drunk, battered Mushy dragged them all to the ground for the third time courtesy of a nail head protruding from the wooden boardwalk.
"Finally!" Holliday pushed open the double doors of the Dodge House with a free hand and the three stumbled inside.
The clerk looked less than thrilled at their appearance, probably believing them all to be under the influence. He stopped just short of wagging his finger in Doc's face like a reproving parent, apparently remembering a bit of news which bore repeating. "Heard you did some fancy shootin' tonight, Doc!"
Holliday, perspiring freely, pushed his hat back with a free hand and hitched Mushy up, getting a more secure hold on him with the other.
"News sure travels fast around here," Pete observed.
"Too fast. People enjoy gossip and I don't mind it myself... if it's not at my expense." John Henry quipped.
Leading the way up the stairs to the second floor, he slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door wide with his foot. Passing through a combination bedroom/parlor and into what was obviously an office, Holliday and Nolan eased Mushy down into John Henry's dental chair. Holliday turned to stoke up the small stove, filling a copper kettle with water from a pitcher on a low table and putting a match to the lamp which hung over the chair. A warm yellow glow lit the room. He then set about cleaning his patient's face and checking the scalp wound. Pete hovered close, curious.
"You need a few stitches, Mushy. It shouldn't hurt too badly." Turning to Pete he confided, "Especially in his condition."
Pete laughed and settled his lanky frame into a chair by the bank of windows. During the day they let in sufficient light for a dentist to work by; at night they showcased brilliant stars and a full moon.
"Since gossip was brought up, I've heard my share all up the trail...never put two and two together until now. John Henry is Doc Holliday." Pete rolled a smoke and lit it, inhaling deeply.
"It's gossip, Pete. What would you have me say, that I've never killed a man? It's true. I never have. I won't say I haven't come close on several occasions, tonight being one of them." He turned from his work to look at Nolan, his expression serious, somber and somehow surprised as he realized the conclusion he'd come to. "I would have killed tonight. I would have killed to protect Wyatt...or you. I'm very relieved indeed that it did not come to that."
Pete leaned forward, the cigarette dangling from his fingertips, the ash precariously close to falling. "I never asked for an explanation and I'm sure not one to judge. Gossip is pure hate. Nothin' good ever came of it. There's no reason for me to believe any a what I heard, John Henry, 'cause you see, I know the man and it don't matter which name he goes by, he's still the same, inside, where it counts." Nolan flipped the cigarette butt into the spittoon at Holliday's feet. "You don't owe me any explanations, not ever."
Holliday seemed relieved, even attempting a smile. Pete nodded. "Now how's the patient?"
As if in reply, Mushy began to snore, loudly. Holliday put in a final stitch and the job was finished. "He'll probably sleep till morning." With the flick of a lever, he lowered the back of the chair; another lever raised the feet, putting the patient into a prone position. Mushy snored on. "There's a spare blanket in the chifferobe in the other room. If you'd cover him while I clean up?"
Leaving Mushy to sleep, albeit with the door locked, Holliday and Nolan went in search of Rowdy, Quince and Hey Soos. They weren't particularly difficult to locate after Pete remembered Rowdy's penchant for ferreting out the prettiest girls in town, which of course led the pair to the Long Branch, scene of Mushy's earlier debacle and Nolan's winning poker streak. "Now that's a game I can give pointers on." Holliday rubbed his hands together. "Care to take a chance, Pete...Jim...Hey Soos?"
By early morning Holliday had not only given the men pointers, he'd astonished them with his skill and acumen. 'Poker face' must've been coined just for him. Cards or men, he read them equally well. "Like you can see exactly what I'm thinkin'!" Quince observed, shaking his head as he lost yet another pot to Holliday. Luckily, they played penny ante. A single hard feeling among friends wasn't worth the largest pot in town.
"You've learned a lot, John Henry and most of it wasn't in school, I'll wager!" Rowdy, a girl on either arm, poked his nose into the game, though he didn't sit in on any hands.
"That's a sucker bet, Rowdy," Hey Soos grinned.
"Well, since I'm the big winner in this high stakes game, it will be my pleasure to invite you all out to breakfast. We can take Mushy's to him on a tray. That's if he feels up to eating." Holliday pocketed the one dollar and eleven cents in winnings, rose to his feet and stretched. Sunlight streamed in through the one undraped window in the Long Branch caused him to blink painfully in the unaccustomed brightness. "I'm usually in bed at this hour. Now I see why."
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out an intricately engraved gold watch. Flipping open the cover, he checked the time against the clock on the wall of the saloon. He shook his head and angled the watch face toward Pete.
"Never did keep time as well as yours. Now that...that was a good watch." Holliday snapped the case closed and tucked the timepiece away. "Who's for breakfast?"
As the lighthearted group exited the saloon, Pete slipped a neatly folded note into Holliday's coat pocket. "Hope you don't mind. I used a piece of paper I tore outta your book – the small leather- covered one in your office. It's the address a my ranch in Nebraska. If you ever feel the need to get away from things, gossip, people...the door is open. Stay a week or a year...heck stay permanent. Understand?"
Holliday nodded. "I understand...and I thank you for the offer. You never know, Pete....You just never know." There was unaccustomed sadness in the voice, almost a longing and suddenly the young man looked old, old beyond years.
But Pete did know...he knew he'd never see the boy again, the boy turned young man, turned old. Not in this lifetime.
-----
They were far from Dodge, each lost in his own thoughts when Rowdy rode in close to Pete. He rode close for nearly an hour without saying a word, his posture hangdog. The prolonged silence became awkward with Pete casting sideways glances at his shadow, finally turning in the saddle to confront him.
"If you got something to say, spit it out, Rowdy. This...this not talkin' when I know you want to is drivin' me loco!"
"He asked that I not tell you until we were far enough outside Dodge. I reckon we're far enough."
"He who...who asked you to tell me what?" Exasperated, Pete gave Yates what he hoped was a sufficiently impatient glare. Mushy, Quince and Hey Soos rode on ahead as if issued some silent order to do so by their boss. Pete felt suddenly queasy. "What the hell's wrong, Rowdy? Spit it out!"
Yates drew up on the reins, bringing his horse to a standstill. Pete did the same. "John Henry wanted me to tell you...he's sick...dying. He couldn't say it to your face...said he couldn't bear it. He's got the consumption and it's just a matter of time before it kills him. He said to tell you..." Rowdy thought for many long seconds before going on... "He said to tell you 'life is short and there's no time to waste.' He wanted you to have this." Rowdy reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a bandana-wrapped object which he placed reverently into Pete's outstretched hand.
The scout had trouble seeing what the parcel contained with his suddenly blurred vision and burning eyes; he was pretty sure he already knew. Carefully he unfolded the fabric. Nestled in the center were a familiar gold pocket watch, chain and fob. Within the elaborate scrolling on the front cover he sought out the three initials, barely visible in the worn embellishment.
Pete handed Rowdy back his scarf, unbuttoned his old fob and chain and tucked it away with the silver watch. It took a moment what with his fingers refusing to do what he told them to fasten the gold Waltham in its place. Turning in the saddle he looked back toward Dodge, as if he could see past low rolling hills and miles of lonely prairie, see back into a man's soul. With heavy heart he sat in silence until finally, to no one in particular he said, "When the time comes, I'll have to remember to thank him...and it will come, of that I'm certain."
END