Cimarron Strip: "The Death Of A Legend"
Chapter Twenty-Six
U.S. Marshal James Crown came out of his drug-induced coma s-l-o-w-l-y...and by degrees—one discomforting degree at a time.
Katelyn was still seated at the lawman's side, holding his limp left hand tightly in hers.
Suddenly his grip tightened.
His nurse tensed.
Her pained patient let out a loud, involuntary groan and tried again to clench his fist.
The woman winced in pain as well and tried to slide her hand free. But she couldn't get it to budge. It was like her fingers were caught up in a vise.
The Marshal moaned softly. Then he gasped and mercifully began relaxing his grip.
Katelyn gasped, too, in relief and quickly slid her squished appendage from his grasp.
Her patient groaned again.
She glanced up and saw that he was now determined to clench his jaw.
Crown clamped his teeth tightly together and began tossing his hot, hurting head from side to side—gasping all the while.
Sensing that the heat was about to rise in the room, the nurse closed her book and then hurried off to fetch the legend's doctor and self-proclaimed handler.
Jim Crown took his time coming to. For, to regain consciousness meant to regain pain.
His head felt like there was a blacksmith inside of it, trying to hammer his way out through the top of his skull. His chest felt like it had just been kicked in by a mule, and his shoulder—his right shoulder felt like that mule was still standing there, right on top of him—with all four of its feet!
The lawman let out another, long, pitiful moan and tried to pry his tightly shut eyes open. His first few atttempts failed. But then he finally, reluctantly, fully regained consciousness. "Oh-ohhh...oh-ohhhh... Oh-oh-ohhhhh..." he groaned. His left hand started reaching for his chest, but then changed course for his shoulder and finally ended up on his throbbing forehead.
His skin felt sort of strange...all cold and clammy li—. Something gradually occurred to the groggy lawman. He latched onto and then began lifting the cool, damp cloth that had been placed across his brow and over his eyes.
A cozy little lamp lit room appeared. But no mules.
The Marshal found himself to be lying, fully clothed, under a stack of blankets on a double bed in one of the cozy little room's corners—with his gun in his hand?
He flipped the covers off the upper half of his body and slowly drew his right hand up. Correction, with his empty gun in his hand! He wasn't completely clothed, either. His boots were missing, as well as his bullets.
He was about to start looking for the way out, when a section of the room's wall just up and opened.
Instinctively, he drew on the sudden movement and tried drawing his right leg up as well.
Another mistake!
Crown cried out in agony as the limb remained locked in place, apparently leg-ironed to the foot of the bed!
Jerking his leg produced a bone-jarring jolt to his ribs—which, in turn, produced a pain so severe that it took his breath away.
The pain gradually subsided. His eyes gradually reopened...and his breath gradually returned. "Don' worry," he told the lovely lady who was staring uneasily down at the barrel of the gun—which was pointed directly at her, "it ain't loaded." Then, seeing as how the woman now seemed surprised, he obligingly added, "After a while...you sort a' develop a 'feel'...for such things." Now, Mrs. Edwards owed him an explanation—or two. "What're you doin' here?! Better yet, what am I doin' here?! An' whose 'idea' was this?!" he demanded, giving his ankle chain a tug.
Doctor Jarrod Michael Ellis saw his patient flinch in pain, and winced as well. The time had come for him to 'take the heat'. So he stepped out from behind Nurse Edwards and reluctantly began raising his hand.
Crown watched as the cowering kid doctor uneasily claimed responsibility. "Where's the key?!" he cooly inquired, seeing that his vest was off.
But both his nurse and his doctor remained silent.
"Let me rephrase that: Give me the key!" The shouting Marshal grimaced and gasped in pain, "No-ow!" he added less loudly but even more firmly.
"Sorry," Jarrod said, "but we can't do that. Not just yet, anyways," his handler added, sounding very determined. "You've been hit with bullets before," the cocky kid continued, seeing his patient's anger giving way to confusion. "I know. I can tell by the scars. So I don't have to tell you how sick it can make you—too sick to deal with anybody...or anything!"
The lawman looked slightly distressed, but not the least bit impressed. "Yeah. Well...when—an' if—that time comes, I'll be the one who decides who or what I can or cannot deal with! Now, give me the key!"
"You're not a doctor!" Jarrod reminded him. "What makes you think you're qualified to make such medical decisions? If you knew the least bit about medicine, you'd realize that you are in no condition right now to leave that bed!"
"An' you're not a lawman!" Crown countered. "If you were you'd realize that I'm the only one 'qualified' ta stand up ta Mareck! So, now, may I please have the key...so's I kin 'stand up'?!"
But the young doctor remained firm. "The only thing that concerns me right now is the health and welfare of my patient. And I'm convinced that you'll stay a lot 'healthier' if you stay right where you are!"
"The only thing that concerns me right now is the health an' welfare a' the people a' this town! An' they'll all stay a lot 'healthier' if you give me the key!" The Marshal gasped in exasperation as his captor shook his head 'no'. That clinched it! The lawman had reached the limits of his patience. "Do you know what the penalty is for interferin' with a United States Marshal?!"
Jarrod looked thoughtful. "Nope! But I imagine it's probably a lot like the penalty a United States Marshal gets for interfering with his doctor," he announced, tapping the 'legend's' leg-iron. "And I can live with that. And, more importantly, so can you! I intend to do everything within my power to keep you a living 'legend'!" he determinedly added. He tapped the chain on his patient's ankle one last time and turned to go.
The doctor's departure caused the 'legend' to panic. "Well, jes' how lo-ong do you intend ta keep me livin' here?!"
Jarrod stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. "That depends entirely on you, Marshal. On how sick you get and how soon you recover," he paused to pull out his pocket watch. "It's been almost a full day. The germs had a five hour headstart.. So, if the wound's going to infect, we'll know soon."
"An' if it doesn't...you'll let me go?" the 'legend' hopefully inquired. "You've seen me in action," he added, seeing the physician pondering his situation over. "I kin take care a' myself!"
"Oh-oh, you were fast all right..." Jarrod had to admit. "And speed is nice. But a certain lawman, who is an absolute 'living legend' with a gun, once told me that, when it comes to gun battles, accuracy is even better! And, speaking of accuracy, you weren't quite 'accurate' this morning were you, Marshal. I mean, when you said that there was a mad dog loose out there. There isn't just one now is there. There's a whole pack of 'em out there! Still, in a fair contest, I don't believe there's a one of them that could match your speed. But, since it's not too likely that they're going to just obligingly line up and let you take them on one at a time that brings us back to the even greater importance of accuracy. Doesn't it. When the time comes that you can point that gun at the ceiling there, and then draw an accurate bead down its barrel, then, and only then, will I consider 'letting you go out there' not quite so much as 'complicity to commit murder'."
Crown had no choice but to comply with his very determined doctor's terms. So he raised the gun up to eye level with both of his arms and drew an accurate bead down its barrel.
The cocky kid doctor was momentaraly crushed. "I meant with one arm," he added, the smile and smugness returning to his face.
The 'legend' tossed the Colt into his left hand, raised it up to the ceiling and drew an accurate bead down its barrel.
His captor rolled his eyes. "I meant with your right arm."
The Marshal hesitated a moment or two before tossing the weapon back into his right hand. Three quarters of the way up, his badly injured shoulder gave out. His arm froze up and he stifled a shout of sheer agony.
"That wasn't too bad," Jarrod told him, "for your first attempt. You jes' go right on practicin'...and let me know when you're ready to try it again," he taunted and then turned to go.
"Do-oc'?!" Crown regained his breath and his composure and called him back. "You talk about 'complicity ta commit murder'. Well, how fair a fight do yah figure it'll be when they find me here...chained up like this...with an empty gun?!"
The Doc' turned back and smiled again. "But that's the beauty of it. Nobody is even looking for you. As far as everyone—but a handful of your closest friends—is concerned, you rode out of town earlier this afternoon and didn't say where you were going or when you'd be back. Now, none of your friends intends to tell anyone where you are. And we did such a good job of stashing you safely away, that I'll bet you don't even know where you are right now."
Crown glanced around the unfamiliar room again. "Doc' Kilghrens?" he guessed, and accurately, too by the crushed look on the cocky kid's face. "I only gave you one set a' keys. Remember? The other one, you stole! An', in the off chance that that pack a' mad dogs somehow manages ta sniff me out...?"
"I hid your key. She hid your gun belt. You can use one of your bullets to shoot this lock off. There'll be a fast horse tied up behind the shed out back. It'll be all saddled and bridled and ready to make tracks," Jarrod promised his still upset patient. Then to Katelyn he said, "He's all yours, Nurse. If you need me for anything more, I'll be right downstairs, unpacking."
The nurse nodded and the doctor disappeared back out that hole in the wall.
"Where are my boots?!" Jim Crown demanded, venting some of the fury and frustration that he was still feeling in the Nurse's direction.
"On the floor at the foot of the bed," Katelyn stated defensively. "Why?"
The Marshal completely ignored her question and came back with another one of his own. "Where's Jamie?"
"I left 'im with Mr. Fitzsimmons and his wife, Helen—a wonderful woman. She has such a 'way' with children. But then, surely you must know her. After all, she is yore 'deputy's' mommy," Katelyn teased, in an attempt to get Danny's boss in a little bit better mood.
"What are you doin' here?!" Jim Crown inquired again, the bitter tone remaining in his voice. "You were in such an all-fired rush for Jamie ta meet his Auntie, I figured the two a' you would be half ways ta Sain' Louie by now."
Realizing that her first attempt had failed, miserably, Katelyn tried again to lighten the angry lawman's mood. "I heard you needed nursin'," she replied rather sweetly. "An' I'm a Nurse. So-o..."
"An' jes' how did you 'hear' I needed nursin'?" Crown cautiously inquired.
"We, uh...ran inta one a' yore other deputies at the river crossin' this mornin'."
"Now, that would a' been kind a' difficult. Considerin' you were s'posed ta be headed towards Hardesty. An' Mac would a' been comin' from Cimarron. An' the two a' you wouldn' a' been usin' the same crossin'. Unless, a' course, one a' you had changed 'her' mind!"
"So what if I did!" Katelyn stated, the sweetness now gone from her voice. "This is a free country. Remember? I got a right ta change my mind!"
"A 'right'? A 'ri-ight'?! With you women, it seems more like an obligation! An', of all the times for you ta be exercisin' yore 'rights', why no-ow?! I tole you it wasn' safe for the two a' you here, in Cimarron!"
Katelyn wanted to shout 'That didn't stop you from comin' here!', but she didn't. This wasn't just a 'living legend' that she was dealing with here. No-o, this was the man she had somehow managed to fall in love with.
"Lady," Jim Crown continued, "you couldn' a' picked a poorer time ta pay this town a visit!" He turned back to the woman, looking both confused and curious. "What happened, anyways? I thought you were real anxious ta see yore sister again."
"I was," she softly assured him. "Still am." The nurse picked the damp cloth up from off the bed and dropped it into the bowl beside her on the dresser. "I guess there must a' been someone else...that I wanted ta see again...even more," she rather candidly confessed, and picked the lawman's left hand back up. It felt so good to be hearing that distinctive voice...and seeing that familiar face...and staring into those dreamy, dark eyes of his again. "After you left us yesterday," Katelyn calmly continued, carefully taking a seat beside her somewhat perplexed looking patient, "I got ta thinkin'. An' I suddenly realized that I had forgotten ta give you my sister's address. An' well, St. Louie' is an awful big place. An' it occurred ta me that, should it have ever occurred ta you to...Well, it might a' taken you forever ta find us there! An' I didn' want ta have ta wait that long ta see you again. I couldn't wait that long ta see you again. So...here we are," she finished in a whisper.
Jim Crown stared wonderingly up at the woman that he had fallen in love with. Then he blinked his blurring vision clear and finally forced a quiet comment of his own. "Katelyn...what I tole you before...about there not bein' much of a future with me—"
"—So, forget the future!" the little lady interrupted, and flashed him a smile. "I'm willin' ta settle for 'now'...right 'no-ow'!"
"Right 'no-ow' you're talkin' to a target! Remember?! I got bull's-eyes drawn all up an' down the front, back an' sides a' me! "
"I realize that. But it doesn' matter."
"It matters ta me-e!" the man she loved sadly said and directing his blurred vision toward the dresser...and his vest. "Wearin' that badge has made me a lot a' enemies, Katelyn—sworn enemies! Some are dead...some are behind bars...some have prob'ly forgotten by now 'what' they'd sworn they'd do ta me. But some—" the lawman stopped and looked even sadder. "We-ell...let's jes' say that Roger Mareck ain' the only man out there, who'd like ta see me dead." His sad eyes turned back in the lovely lady's direction. "Right 'now', I'm livin' on borrowed time, Katelyn...an' nobody but me is gonna be payin' the interest."
"Begged, stolen or borrowed—I don' care where the time comes from! Jes' so long as we spend every second of it tagether!"
Jim Crown aimed his anguished gaze up at the ceiling—to which he might as well be talking—and gasped twice, once in complete exasperation, and then again—in pain. "Weren' you listenin'?! It's too dangerous! There's no future in hangin' around a man who has ta keep crashin' headlong into his past!"
The little lady looked more than a little exasperated herself. "Weren' you listenin'? I told yah, it don' matter if there wouldn' be much of a 'future' for a 'Mrs.' Marshal. Because I'm not askin' for no 'long term' commitments here! Remember? I'm willin' ta settle for 'now'. However long, or short, a time that may turn out ta be. Yah see, I've learned that it ain't the amount a' time, but how you choose ta spend it, that really counts! Jonathan an' I managed ta cram a whole, glorious lifetime inta jes' two short years."
The Marshal kept his blurry vision focused up at the ceiling, and suddenly looked even sadder still. "I can't even promise you two short da-ays."
"I know," the woman assured him, her own eyes watering, her whispered words sounding a bit shaky. "An' it still doesn' matter. I'll still take quality over quantity, any day!" she declared with a sad smile and gave the lawman's hand a firm squeeze.
The Marshal heard the determination in the lady's voice and felt the firmness in her grip, and finally realized something. "You really mean that," he declared, locking his dark green eyes onto hers.
The woman's smile widened and she whispered, "Yes...I really do!"
The lawman managed a sad smile as well, and gripped her hand tightly in return. "Then hold me, Katelyn Edwards. 'Cuz I really need someone ta hold me right now."
"Then I'll hold you, Jim Crown," Katelyn vowed, carefully taking the man she loved up into her arms. "An' we'll hold on ta each other...for jes' as lo-ong as we can!"
The Marshal wrapped his arms around the woman and pulled her close to him—a little too close, as far as his ribs were concerned, and yet not nearly close enough. So he clamped his teeth tightly together and held her even closer. Crown found this close encounter of the Katelyn kind completely overwhelming! In fact, holding her made his insides feel so goo-ood that he soon forgot about his aching outsides. "You're right, yah know..." he told the woman softly, following a long comfortable silence. "Sain' Louie is a big place. An' it kin be an even bigger place, when you're lookin' for someone. An' it prob'ly would a' taken me quite awhile ta find the two a' you. But I would've found you!" he vowed.
Katelyn's eyes opened and she pulled back so she could aim her amazed gaze at him. "You would've?"
"Oh-oh yea-eah..." Jim Crown assured her, and gazed longingly into the little lady's lovely dark eyes. "An' I think you should know how much I appreciate all the time an' trouble you saved me, by comin' here like you did," he continued, pulling her gently back into his arms.
"I di-id?" Katelyn managed to whisper before he kissed her. There was that same gentleness and controlled passion that she had found so appealing before. But, while the man's manner may not have changed, there was a definite and drastic difference in his temperature. "Doctor Ellis was right!" she declared, cutting their kiss short. "You do feel 'warm'! Real 'warm'!" she added rather alarmedly.
"Yea-eah..." the man was forced to admit. "I've noticed you sort a' have that effect on me." He flashed her a wry smile and pulled her back into his arms, to kiss her again.
But again she cut it short. "You're burnin' up!" she announced, pulling back to study her patient's face for any further indication of illness or pain. "Are you sure you're feelin' up ta this?"
The Marshal stared back up at her, looking tremendously disappointed. "Do I look dead ta you?"
The woman smiled and shook her pretty head no.
The lawman's wry smile returned. "Well, then there's yore answer." He took her back into his arms and tenderly kissed her.
This time, she kissed him...and kissed him...and kissed him...and kissed him.
"You were right about somethin' else, too," Jim Crown commented when the two of them finally came up for air. "You're never gonna get ta Sain' Louie at this rate."
Katelyn obviously found his comment highly amusing, for she fell down onto the bed beside him and then lay there, laughing.
The lawman loved the sound of her laughter and he lay there, praying that there would be many, many more opportunities for him to hear it. But, if right 'now' was to be all the time that they would have together, then they would make the most of every single moment of it! The Marshal propped himself up on his left elbow and then leaned over to do just that.
"You're hurting!" Katelyn anxiously realized, right in mid-giggle, as the pain took her patient's breath away. "An' don' say that I have that effect on you!" she warned.
"All right," Crown conceded with a grimace and a gasp. "But you do." He smiled, as the lovely lady was forced to smile.
"You ever heard of a woman's intuition?" Katelyn wondered.
The lawman thought the woman's question over for a moment and then nodded.
"Do you believe in it?"
"Why not?" Jim replied, with a one-shouldered shrug. "Durin' the entire forty years a' my existence, women have never ceased ta amaze me," he told the even more amused looking 'woman' truthfully, and tenderly began taking her back into his aching arms.
"From the first moment we met," the lady continued, locking her arms about the lawman's broad shoulders, "I jes' knew that you were gonna turn out ta be someone that I was never gonna want ta say 'goodbye' to. That's why I couldn't a' kissed you 'goodbye'—no matter how many times we would a' tried!"
"I know what yah mean," the lawman confessed, staring lustfully down at the very lovely lady who was now all locked up in his arms. "When I fers' saw you, I broke a commandment or two, mysel—" his lips stopped moving as they met with her's.
'Wo-ow!' Katelyn thought, as once again the gentle man's manner inspired her to give as she got.
In no time at all, the two of them had fanned the flames of passion into a full-scale bonfire!
"Whoa-oah!" the woman requested a bit breathlessly.
Her equally breathless, passionate partner put a stop to his amorous advances and then withdrew from the woman jes' far enough away to enable him to look down at her.
The Marshal's eyes reopened and the lady tensed. That same look was in them that was there when they closed. "You may not look dead," she said, trying hard not to look or sound too terribly nervous, "but you don'' exactly look like you're feelin' up ta 'that' jes' yet, either! Besides, what if the doctor was to walk in on us?"
Crown felt the tension in the lady's body more than he saw it in her face or heard it in her voice. "Relax. You got nothin' ta worry about. Remember? I said I wasn' about ta start rapin' and pilligin' now, an' I meant it."
The gentleman's calm reassurances put her somewhat at ease. "Sorry. I guess I must a' misread that 'look' in yore eyes."
"You didn' misread a thing," Crown continued to assure her, that 'look' returning to his dreamy, dark eyes.
The tension returned to the little lady's lovely body. "But...you jes' said—"
"—I sai-aid," the gentleman interrupted, "that I would never do anything like that. I didn't say the thought never crossed my mind...a couple a' dozen times," he confessed unashamedly, and that wry smile of his reappeared.
The woman untensed some and then managed a rather wry smile of her own. "'Any man who looks at a woman, so as to have a passion for her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart," she reminded the man—who had already just confessed to 'coveting his neighbor's wife'.
Jim's smile broadened and he managed another, one-shouldered shrug. "It's like I been tellin' yah all along," he reminded her. "I'm no angel!" The amused look vanished from his eyes and once again they became filled with equal measures of 'love' and 'lust'.
The little lady's smile faded and she found herself returning his 'looks'. "Yeah...well," Katelyn tensed as that old bonfire began blazing back up again—hotter than ever! "I'm only human, myself," she confessed and began drawing back from their embrace. "So's I bes' keep my distance. I don' have no 'broken bones' or 'chains' stoppin' me-e."
The lawman caught the lady and kept her there—firmly, yet gently, locked in his arms. "Neither do I-I..." he assured her very deliberately.
Then Katelyn watched, somewhat in awe, as the man she loved winked...and then released her.
Crown planted a kiss on the pretty lady's forehead and then carefully eased himself back down onto the bed, leaving his left arm draped about her shoulders. "Now shu-ush!" the Marshal ordered sharply. "You don' look too lively, yoreself. So we should at least try ta get some shut eye," he added and aimed that wry smile of his up at the ceiling.
"Good old Uncle Wes'...an' The Good Book," Katelyn Edwards whispered beneath her breath. Then she snuggled cozily up beside the bossy 'legend' and obligingly shut her eyes.
If Jim Crown had caught the woman's quiet comments, he would've noticed how tremendously relieved—and extremely disappointed—the little lady sounded.
The couple's bonfire eventually became dying embers and they did, somehow, manage to drift off...eventually.
TBC