Cimarron Strip: "The Death Of A Legend"

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Things sure seemed to be changing fast now for Jim Crown.

One moment he was freezing—the next he was frying.

One second he seemed to be moving—the next he seemed to be stationery again.

One moment he was feeling incredibly weak—the next incredibly weaker.

So it went, as the Comanche's special guest spent the remainder of his eighth evening with them, drifting in and out of consciousness.

The blurry image of a quarter moon overhead, the crackling sounds of a campfire somewhere close by, and the comforting feel of someone clutching his left hand, were the only constants the critically ill cowboy was aware of...besides his painfully throbbing head, aching body, queasy stomach and perpetually parched throat, that is.

Speaking of which...

The cowboy swallowed hard and then tried drawing his very heavy eyelids up.

John Two Rivers tensed as Jim Crown came around, for what the Indian figured could be, one final time. For, despite he and Grey Dog's best efforts, his feverish friend just kept right on slipping away. John gripped the young cowboy's hot hand hard and willed him to live.

Jim's blinking, blurry eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light of his strange, new surroundings, and he stared disbelievingly out at a truly spectacular vista! The blanket litter he'd been placed upon had been leaned up against a tall, rock wall and the angle at which he was lying allowed him to gaze upon some glorious scenery!

Directly below him, down a steep, stone-strewn, sandy slope, the Cimarron serenely snaked its way along.

He felt a cool, damp cloth on his forehead and turned to the person who had put it there. "I...gotta hand it...ta ol' Grey Dog," he whispered with a faint smile, "I...couldn't'...a'...picked...a...better...'better place'...myself." He glanced around again, feeling positively exhilarated by the breathtaking beauty that surrounded him.

But then, he probably would have been pleased with any view other than 'lodgepoles'.

Right smack dab in front of him, where the horizon met with the river's opposite bank, the cowboy could just barely make out a soft, pink glow that was, apparently, the first hint of an approaching dawn. "It appears...we got us...some front row seats...to a sunrise," he commented a bit further, but then had to stop. He couldn't believe the tremendous effort it now took just to talk. What little energy he'd had had been quickly drained from him, with just the simple exertion of speech. It suddenly dawned on Jim that, at the rate things were now going, he probably wasn't gonna be around to watch the show.

John watched helplessly as his friend's look of eager anticipation, and his faint smile, slowly began to fade. Once again, he could see their fire's light being reflected in the cowboy's glistening, damp eyes.

"Watch the sun come up for me...Wayo...wasuyen," Jim Crown quietly requested and swallowed hard, again.

"We will watch the sun rise together, Windrider," the Indian assured him. His voice was equally soft—and had an equally hard time swallowing.

The cowboy turned back in the young brave's direction and shot him a 'hold that thought' glance. "Thanks...for bein'...my...friend...John Two Rivers," Jim told him with another even fainter smile. "You've been a...a...goo-ood...friend."

"I am proud to have been...and always shall be your friend, Jim Crown," John vowed, and gave his forever friend's feverish hand a reassuring squeeze.

Jim shot his good friend a grateful glance and even somehow found the strength to give the Indian's cool hand a weak squeeze back. But then his grip gradually relaxed, his drooping eyes closed, and his burning body went completely limp again.

The young brave gasped in frustration, as the young cowboy lapsed back into unconsciousness for the umpteenth, and possibly last, time. The Indian stared blurrily down at his dying white friend for awhile and then gasped again, this time in complete exasperation.

Dawn would find the two friends still together all right. But only one of them would be watching the sun rise.


The brave left Jim's side only once, in fact, and that was only briefly.

In order to keep their campfire, and the now shivering uncontrollably cowboy, alive, John had to leave him to find wood. The Indian couldn't understand how anyone who felt so hot could possibly be so cold.


It was a good thing the brave's absence was brief because, when he returned from his forced firewood gathering expedition, he found Crown's ex-woman creeping up on the still unconscious cowboy—with a knife in her hands!

John crept quickly up behind the girl and then dropped his armload of wood so he could wrestle the weapon away from her. "The she-wolf should not be so impatient!" he shouted a bit breathlessly. "He will be dead soon enough!" he added, his angry voice filled with bitter sarcasm.

"No-o!" the girl shrieked, her trembling voice filled with genuine concern. "I have not come here to take his life—but to save it!"

John glanced from the girl to the knife to the girl, looking extremely skeptical.

The girl saw the look and struggled to pull her wrists free. "Please! You must believe me! We must act quickly! As you have said, there is little time left!"

John suddenly noticed the tone of deep concern in the girl's voice. Ah, yes...but was it genuine? He decided he'd better drag her over to the dying embers of their campfire and find out, before letting her go.

Sure enough! That look of blind hatred was now gone from her smoldering, dark eyes. There, reflected in the dim light of their dying fire, and the rapidly breaking dawn, was a look that not only matched, but maybe even exceeded the concern he'd already heard in the girl's voice.

John drew a deep breath and gradually released his hold on Koree-Ray-ohn's wrists.

The girl drew a deep breath as well. Then she straightened up and held out her hand.

The brave glanced from the knife in his hand to his dying friend and back to the knife in his hand. He had no other choice but to trust her. So he sighed and reluctantly gave the girl back her weapon.

Koree-Ray-ohn breathed a silent sigh of relief herself and then stepped quickly up to the dying young white.

John watched nervously, as the girl dropped to her knees and then carefully rolled the unconscious cowboy onto his side. He continued watching, even more nervously, as she pulled Jim Crown's shirt up out of the way and then uncovered his closed-up wound.

The girl hesitated for only an instant before plunging the blade of her knife deeply into the young white's back.

John overcame his shock and horror just in time to be even more shocked and even more horrified as the girl gave the knife that was now deeply embedded in his friend's back a sharp twist.

The brave was about one instant away from tackling the cowboy's assassin when he finally realized the girl wasn't killing Jim after all, but merely creating an opening that would allow the festering wound to drain freely.

"His flesh is on fire!" the woman stated, finally pulling the knife free. "We must get him down to the river! Quickly!" she urged. The girl got up and started walking off.

By 'we', John assumed the girl meant 'he', and so 'he' carefully picked the unconscious cowboy up in his powerful arms and started carting him off down the steep, sandy, stone-strewn slope. The footing was treacherous, but the girl stayed at his side and steadied them.


When they reached the bottom of the bank, Koree-Ray-ohn waded out into the river up to her knees and then turned back in John's direction.

John watched, in stunned silence, as the girl suddenly sat down in the icy stream and then braced herself against its strong current.

"Bring him to me!" she ordered, sounding impatient.

John stared disbelievingly down at the girl.

She wasn't going to stab his friend to death. No-o, she was going to drown him!

"Hurry!" Koree-Ray-ohn called up to the man holding the cowboy in his arms. "You must bring him to me! No-ow!" she added a bit breathlessly, her shouted voice cracking from the cold.

The brave drew another deep breath and then obediently stepped down into the stream—the icy stream. John gasped as the cold took his breath away, "Are you s-sure about this?" he cautiously inquired, and carefully waded out into the river to the spot where the girl was sitting.

"If we do not bring the fever down, he will be dead before the day breaks!" Koree-Ray-ohn replied, even more impatiently, and held her arms up to the brawny brave standing over her.

John glanced up at the horizon. That soft, pink glow was now a brilliant splash of bright orange. Time was indeed running out for his feverish friend. The Indian sighed again and began carefully lowering the cowboy's burning body down into the icy water.

Koree-Ray-ohn locked both arms about the young white's chest and kept his face 'above' the surface.

So the unconscious cowboy just sort a' floated there in her arms, with the Cimarron's strong, cooling currents constantly flowing over, and all around, him.

John braced his feet in the stream's sandy bed and then held on to the girl who was holding on to his friend—for dear life.


It was well after daybreak before the girl finally shouted, "It is enough!"

Which called an end to their chilly torture.

Jim Crown was unconscious, and John was only submerged up to his knees, so the two of them hadn't suffered too terribly. But the Indian had no idea how the girl, who had been sitting in the cool current up to her neck the entire time, had managed to survive the icy ordeal.

"T-T-Take him!" she ordered tersely. "I cannot m-m-move!" Her limbs had been exposed to the cold for so long that her muscles were now too numb to respond.

So the brave carted the cooled down considerably cowboy out of the river and then laid him on the bank, so he could go back for the girl. John didn't like the looks of either of them.

Their lips were very blue. They were breathing kind of funny and both of them were now shivering uncontrollably.

John carried them both back up the bank and then went to work building a blazing campfire.

Koree-Ray-ohn went to work creating a little heat of her own. She crawled stiffly under the buffalo robe blanket that Jim Crown was now buried beneath and embraced the cowboy's trembling body with her's. "Bring me s-s-some shan-ta-say m-m-moss!" she bossily ordered, "a lot of it! And some ara-quay root! As m-m-much as you can f-f-find!"

The young brave balked at the woman's commands.

"Please!" she pleaded. "If you want your friend to l-l-live, you m-m-must do as I s-s-say!"

Of course John wanted his friend to live! But where was he going to find 'shan-ta-say moss' and 'ara-quay root' around there? He wasn't. The Indian sighed resignedly, and placed another dry branch on his now roaring fire before getting slowly and stiffly to his still half-frozen feet. "Windrider had better be alive when I get back," he warned and started walking wearily over to where their horses were tethered.


Koree-Ray-ohn did not know why the requested moss and roots worked to heal wounds and strengthen sick bodies. She just knew that they did. So she made a poultice out of the damp moss and placed it over the wound in the young cowboy's back.

Then she made a paste out of the ara-quay root and smeared it all over the young cowboy's body.

The drying moss drew the infection out of the wound, while the molds it contained kept it from infecting further.

The root paste contained simple, basic proteins which were readily absorbed through the skin, and supplied critical nourishment to one who was otherwise too ill to eat.


So, not only was Windrider 'alive' when Wayo-wa-suyen returned from his foraging later that same afternoon, but the cowboy was also 'alive', and doing incredibly well, two long, extremely anxious afternoons later.


John Two Rivers was seated at Jim Crown's side—sound asleep.

The brave had just about wore himself out searching for the elusive ara-quay root. He was certain they'd just exhausted the area's entire ara-quay root supply. However, if it meant that they might save Jim Crown's life, then he figured it was well worth all the effort.

The unconscious cowboy's ex-woman suddenly let out a shriek of delight and then announced to Windrider's startled awake friend that the fever had finally broken.

John exhaled a long sigh of relief, which quickly turned into a yawn. The brave then watched, in absolute amazement, as the girl proceeded to take the still critically ill young cowboy up into her arms and start rocking him back and forth.

"Com-pa-ay-oh-ne-ey-ey-ey," she chanted, thanking the Great Spirit for sparing the young white's life. "Tu-lu-ray-me-ee-ee-shee-bar," she continued, urging the young man in her arms to draw strength from his surroundings. The rocks, the wind, the sun, the river—all held healing powers...if he would just tap into them.

John wasn't sure if Jim had just tapped into his surroundings, or if it was all that 'rocking and chanting' that was causing the cowboy to come around. At any rate, his no longer feverish friend let out a long, pitiful moan and then tried, and kept on trying, to lift his eyelids.

Jim finally managed to get his eyes to stay open.

But John could tell, by the blank look in them, that while the man's team did indeed appear to be harnessed, there was still no driver in the man's 'buggy'.

Jim Crown gradually came completely around and very nearly suffered a coronary! For the first thing he realized, when the connections between his brain and his body were finally re-established, was that he was lying in the clutches of that beautiful Comanche girl! The one who had such a passionate hatred for 'whites'—for him! The terrified cowboy stiffened and then made a rather pitiful attempt to pull himself free.

But the girl's arms tightened their hold on him. "Daku-mahn-nah!" his captoress pleaded and tried her best to keep the still critically ill cowboy from moving around. "Pley-ee-ah-kowh!...Tee-say!"

"She says," Jim Crown heard John Two Rivers say, "'to stop wriggling around! You are not well enough to be wriggling around...yet!"

But Jim, who didn't have the strength to struggle anyways, had already stopped wriggling around. In fact, at the sound of Koree-Ray-ohn's voice, the cowboy had frozen—completely. It was the first time he'd ever heard his ex-woman speak, and he instantly liked what he heard. Yes sir, the very pretty girl, with the very pretty name, had a very pleasant sounding voi—. The terrified expression slowly left Jim Crown's gravely ill face, and the cowboy just laid there...peacefully...looking sort a' puzzled. The 'tone' he'd just heard in the girl's voice, and the message contained in her interpreted words, just didn't add up to the 'look' he was so used to seeing in her eyes. He shot the brave seated beside him his confused look and then finally summoned the courage to chance another glance in the girl's direction. Sure enough! Instead of a 'she-wolf', Jim now found a 'little fawn' staring down at him, with a deeply concerned look in her wide, dark eyes. The cowboy's vision blurred as tears started stinging at his own drooping, dark eyes. "I-I..." he began, but then his whispered voice broke. So he blinked a few new tears of joy from his eyes, swallowed hard and then began again. "I never thought...I'd ever live...ta see...that...'look'...gone...from yore eyes..." he finished finally and flashed the 'little fawn' a faint smile. Jim waited patiently for his Indian interpreter to pass his quiet comments along, but John Two Rivers remained silent. The cowboy turned back in the brave's direction and found his friend glaring angrily across at the girl, who was still cradling him in her arms.

"You very nearly didn't!" John icily stated.

Jim slowly reached out and placed a hand on his angry friend's arm. "But I did," he reminded Wayo-wa-suyen, with another faint smile.

"She was just going to sit there and let you die!" John reminded Windrider and gave the girl another angry, annoyed, disgusted glare.

"But she didn't," Windrider reminded him and somehow mustered the strength to give Wayo-wa-suyen's wrist a weak squeeze.

John thought both of his very forgiving friend's reminders over for a few more silent moments before politely translating the young white's words into Comanche.

However, Koree-Ray-ohn had already gotten the 'gist' of Jim Crown's whispered comments. The girl was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and regret. She, too, felt like shedding a few tears just then. But she didn't dare let the cowboy catch her crying, for she knew the kind and compassionate young man would share her pain...and he had suffered enough pain already...more than enough! She struggled desperately to regain her crumbling composure and finally succeeded in assuming an almost carefree pose. "Ee-ee-tek!" she ordered rather sternly and motioned for the brave to bring her a bowl of 'something or other' from over by their fire.

"She says," John Two Rivers translated with a grin, "'to shut up and eat!'"

Jim's weak smile widened and he obligingly did as he was told.

Koree-Ray-ohn kept the cowboy cradled securely in her arms and forced two bowls full of an interesting tasting herbal broth down his hatch. Then she reluctantly released her hold on the man and began concocting another even more potent, and even less palatable, root remedy for him. She paused in her preparations to shoot her still perfectly still patient a concerned glance.

The young white was just lying there quietly...watching her work.

The girl looked a little bashful and suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. She smiled shyly, and Jim returned her smile. She turned her attention back to her recipe.

Jim turned his attention back to his translator. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me," John advised his still smiling, and very grateful sounding, friend. "It was she who saved you."

"Yeah...well...if she did...then it must a' been becuz...a' somethin'...you...said ta her," Jim Crown calmly rationalized.

"I only repeated what you said," the Indian assured him, equally calmly.

"Then...it had ta a' been...the wa-ay...that you said it," the cowboy continued to rationalize. "'Cuz I jes'...woke up ta...a whole 'nother woman...thanks ta you," he repeated, interpreting the real reason for his undying gratitude. "I tole you yah had a real...wa-ay with words now...didn' I," he added, his smile widening into a grin.

The brave looked a bit bashful, and embarrassed, and annoyed, and—at least for the moment—at a complete loss for 'words'.

Koree came crawling back over to them just then, with another bowl of 'something or other' in her hands and conveniently supplied exactly the right words for him. "Ah-rah-ee-ay-ho! Ee-ee-tek!" she requested, the sterness returning to her very pleasant voice.

"I know...I know," Jim informed his now smiling interpreter. "Shut up...an' eat...Right?"

The brave's smile broadened and he nodded.

The girl managed another shy smile as well.

Jim's weak smile widened into a grin again and again he did as he was told. Well, for one mouthful, anyways. The young white's gravely-ill face filled with a grimace and he quickly turned his head aside.

Before the cowboy could spit any of the bowl's bitter contents back out, the brave seated beside him managed to clamp another hand over his mouth. "Swallow!" John ordered down to him.

Jim shot him up a look which said, 'You mus' be out a' yore mind!' and then shook his head slowly from side to side.

Koree glared down at the suddenly uncooperative cowboy and let loose with a rather long-winded diatribe.

Which John Two Rivers mercifully condensed into, " She says that if you do not drink this—you will die!"

Jim gave them both a look which said that, at the moment, he preferred 'death' to 'swallowing'.

Seeing as how he had such a way with words and all, Wayo-wa-suyen tried to talk his friend into taking his medicine. "Of course, the choice is yours. But you would make everyone much happier if you would choose to live. Especially Grey Dog. Imagine how disappointed he would be if you were to die here...of all places."

Jim's drooping eyes got an amused glint in them, but he still couldn't bring himself to swallow. Talk about yore bad medicine! Why, compared ta this stuff, Ole Dan's elixir tasted downright yummy!

"Plea-ease?" the brave, who was not above begging, pleaded. "If you do not drink this, that means that I will be forced to go and find more ara-quay root for you...and I have grown so...weary...of looking for ara-quay root, these days," he added rather pitifully.

Jim, who didn't seem to mind the thought of disappointin' ol' Grey Dog one bit, apparently drew the line at inconveniencin' a friend. Because he shot the young brave a look of surrender and finally permitted the pretty girl's unpalatable potable to pass down his parched throat. Surprisingly enough, it stayed down.

So the Indian, at last, unclamped his hand.

"Uh-uhhhhgh!" the cowboy commented, when he finally stopped shuddering.

Koree completely ignored her patient's opinion of her cooking and pressed the bowl of bitters back up to his now pouting lips.

The young white moaned in protest and then quickly switched his gaze from her to his interpreter again. "How do you say...'Will you hold my nose for me?'...in Comanche?" he rather irritatedly inquired.

John Two Rivers grinned and obligingly pinched his friend's nostrils shut.

Jim Crown closed his watering eyes and obligingly re-opened his definitely not watering mouth. He decided he might be able to withstand the ordeal better if he was to keep his mind focused on something else—something positive. But the only positive aspect about his being slowly poisoned, was that the beautiful young girl had taken him back up into her arms to do it. The cowboy felt very...comfortable, lying there in her arms.


It was a good thing that he did, too. Because that is where he spent the better part of the remainder of his time with the Comanche—locked in the lovely young lady's arms.


And that is where his partner found him--nine days later.


Luther Nyman didn't care much for his current assignment. Truth is, in the clearing where the two men claimed to have found and buried the murdered Marshal's mutilated body, was the last place on earth that Luther Nyman wanted to be. Yet, there he was...in the dark...standing beside some dumb, unbelievably deep grave...with a loaded gun in his right hand and a lit lantern in his left.

The lantern was attracting all sorts of flying insects, at which the flustered fellow continuously swatted and swung.

Besides being bug-bitten and incredibly cold...and tired...and hungry, the bodyguard was also terribly on edge. Every little movement of the light caused eerie shadows to leap about. In among all those eerie dancing shadows, Luther Nyman started seeing 'things'. The darting light and his tired eyes were playing tricks on him. "C'mon! C'mon! Will yah!" he urged, giving voice to his unease and discomfort.

Doctor Jarrod Micheal Ellis wasn't exactly enjoying himself, either! The tired young man paused in mid-pitch to glare angrily up out of the grave. "If you want this dirt to fly any faster, then I suggest you get down here and fling it yourself! I'm a doctor—not a grave digger! My hands have never held a shovel in them before today! Their skills are limited to scapels! And much more delicate work!"

"Believe me," Dave Fisher declared, sounding angry as well, "if we'd a' known we were gonna have ta dig up the Marshal's remains, we would a' placed 'em in a lot shallower grave!"

What they said made sense...sort of.

So, Luther shut up.

Seeing as how Mr. Nyman had stopped his nagging, the two peeved dirt-pitchers resumed their shoveling.

"Wait a minute!" Doctor Ellis exclaimed less than a minute later. "I just hit something..."

"What?" Dave wondered.

"I don't know," Jarrod answered uneasily. "But it didn't feel like dirt."

"Let's use our hands from here on," the Senator suggested, setting his shovel aside. "The man's body has been mutilated enough!"

Actually, they didn't want Mr. Nyman to hear their shovels clunking on their corpse's very hard, thick skin.

"Pass us a light, will you!" the doctor requested. "So we can see what we're doing down here!"

Actually, they wanted the light so that 'Mr. Nyman' could see what they were doing down there.

Luther obligingly lowered his lantern into the hole.

The already loosened soil was easily shoved aside, and in practically no time a...body began to appear.

The two men continued clawing away at the soft earth which had entombed the 'Marshal' until, at long last, they had the decapitated cadaver completely uncovered. Last to be unearthed was a badly stained burlap bag.

"Empty the sack!" the bodyguard ordered, displaying no emotion what-so-ever on his rough-featured face, or in his loud, gruff voice. It didn't bother Luther Nyman in the least to view the lawman's badly mutilated body. There was no love loss between he and the murdered Marshal. After being disarmed, almost literally, by a bullet from Crown's Colt, his gun hand had hurt him something fierce, for one solid week!

The two men down in the grave glanced gravely down at the sack, which had been buried between the headless lawman's shoulders.

"What's inside there?" Jarrod nervously wondered, speaking beneath his breath.

"An inside-out hare," the Senator whispered back and reluctantly picked up the sack. "Here," he said, handing the bag up to the bodyguard, "I'm afraid we don't have the stomach for it."

Luther took the lantern from the doctor and the sack from the Senator and had himself a little look-see. But, what with the dancing light, and the leaping shadows, and the biting bugs, and all that dried blood and all, Luther couldn't clearly identify the face that he was looking at. Truth is, he couldn't even tell if it was, in fact, a face that he was looking at. One thing he was sure of though, the young doctor was right.

Whatever was in the bottom of that bag, was not a pretty sight to behold. "Lift his left leg up!" the bodyguard ordered, passing the bag and the lantern back down into the ridiculously deep pit.

The two men exchanged grave glances again.

"The Marshal's legs won't move," Jarrod calmly announced. "The man's been dead for several hours. I'm certain rigor mortis has set in by now."

"Riga—what?!" Luther wondered.

"Rigor mortis," the physician impatiently repeated. "It's a naturally occurring condition in which all of the muscles in a dead body become completely rigid."

"They don't call dead men stiffs for nothin', yah know," Dave added by way of a reminder.

"Well then pull his pant cuff up out of the dirt and hold the light up to it!" the flustered fellow bellowed. "I wanna see if it has those silver do-dads on it—like the Marshal always wore..."

The doctor did as he was told and, low and behold, there on the dead man's flared black pant cuff, were four shiny silver conchos...just like the ones the Marshal always wore.

The two men in the grave glanced up to witness Mr. Nyman's reaction to the do-dad discovery.

But the gun-toting, gullible goon was gone.

The two men in the grave exchanged victorious grins and exhaled audible sighs of relief.

Never having seen an inside-out hare before, Jarrod opened the bloodstained bag lying at his feet and then shedded some light on its contents. "You know," he said upon glimpsing the disgusting glob of rolled-up rabbit guts, "when I was a second year medical student, I dissected something that looked a lot like that."

Dave gave the unbelievably morbid-minded young man a disgusted glare, and then the two of them helped one another up out of the hole.

"I think it went rather well," Jarrod said, once the two of them were topside. "Don't you?"

"I'll let yah know," the pooped politician promised, "when we're through!" he added, tossing the optimistic young man a shovel.

The doctor caught the tool, in self defense, and then stared glumly down into the grave. The hole really was ridiculously deep, and he found the thought of having to refill it, horrifying. Every muscle in the entire upper half of his body ached with fatigue. Jarrod drew in a breath as deep as that hole and began shoveling the dirt he'd just dug out of it back in to it.

The thought of Miss Coopersmith in the company of those no-good men back at the Marshal's Office was even more horrifying! The exhausted young doctor's desire to be speedily reunited with Dulcey infused new strength into his aching arms and shoulders.

While the 'Stranger's' body was busy shoveling, his brain was busy formulating just the right reply to give to the little 'Lady'.


Speaking of the little 'Lady'...

As the door to Jim's office opened, so did Dulcey's closed eyelids—but just a crack.

It was the missing bodyguard. The man had returned—alone. No doubt to file his report.

The little 'Lady' was extremely apprehensive about that report.

"We-ell?" the positively loathsome man who was seated behind Jim's desk impatiently demanded.

"It was all there, Mister Mareck," the bodyguard told his boss. "Just like they said. The little clearing...the fresh grave...the body. The man's head had been blown off and there was a bullet hole in the center of his chest...just like they said. It was all there."

Dulcey had to close her eyes to keep them from widening in surprise.

"Yes, yes, but was it the Marshal?!" Roger Mareck wanted—needed to know for a certainty.

"Yes, Sir!" the bodyguard answered in the affirmative.

And the girl's eyes nearly flew open again.

"I believe it was."

"You believe?!" his boss bellered. "You mean, you couldn't positively identify the body?"

"The man had a face full a' buckshot!" the grave robber stated in his defense. "But he was wearing a white shirt—like the Marshal's. And he had on a pair a' those black, Mexican-looking pants. You know, the ones with all those fancy, silver do-dads sewn on the outsides of the cuffs. And I just checked at the livery. The Marshal's horse did come racing back to town without him. And there was a lot of dried blood on his saddle."

There followed, a period of complete silence.

Finally, a relieved sigh came from the vicinity of the dead lawman's desk. "Where are those two men, now?"

"Back at that clearing," the bodyguard replied, "reburying the Marshal's remains," he added, breaking into a broad grin.

"The train out of Shades Wells should be here in about ten minutes," Mr. Gordon told 'Mister' Mareck, as the tipsy man started getting to his unsteady feet, "if you want to leave town tonight," he conditionally tacked on.

"I'm not leaving without my twenty thousand dollars!" Mareck reminded his anxious-to-leave henchman. "I don't care if I have to take it out of this miserable little hole-in-the-wall's hide!" the man vowed, his menacing voice seething with vengeance.

There was the sound of shoes shuffling towards the exit.

The door to the street was opened and shut.

Then complete silence returned to the Marshal's Office once again.

TBC