Chapter Four

"Oh, dadgum." The wince went across Jess' entire face and spread to his limbs, the cringe so hard he nearly shivered. Except that kind of reaction would have been impossible, for Jess' skin was pulsating with such heat it might have still been ablaze. "Dadgum!"

"Shhh." A wet cloth ran across Jess' forehead. "Don't talk."

"Why not?"

The smirk was there, even if it was unseen by his patient. "Doctor's orders."

"Oh, sure. Like I ever follow them."

"Well for once, try." Doctor Sweeney dabbed more ointment onto Jess' mouth in a gesture to both silence him and soothe him.

With his lips blistered and split, the swelling worse than the sting he received as a kid for sampling a honeybee's hive with multiple buzzers still present, Jess had to admit talking added more pain to what he was already enduring, but he hated being stifled. He hated being hurt. And he had just been thrust into the worst of the two, for Doctor Sweeney had just completed the sealing off of his vision. Jess didn't want his tongue to be as muted as his vision now was.

"But Doc…"

The door's burst was that as if a boot had attached to its center, but when it was caught by the handle to prevent its slam, it was obvious the entrant had just given it a hard push, backed by friendship and a heavy dose of concern.

Slim's steps took him straight to the exam room, his knuckles barely attaching to the inner door before fully entering. "Doc?"

"He's all right, Slim."

"Speak for yourself," Jess said, his voice thickened by the swelling, yet his natural gravel hadn't changed.

"Now what'd I say? No talking. That salve I put on your mouth won't do your insides any good if you get a lot of it in you."

Slim stared at Jess, his partner's eyes completely blank. "Doc, can he…?"

"Yes, he can see, the eyes were spared, but to heal his eyelids and the surrounding skin, I want them covered. Too much blinking will only irritate that delicate area more than it already is."

"Well, that's a relief," Slim said, although the pummeling of his heart wasn't holding hands with his words just yet. "How about the rest of him?"

"Nuh-uh, Jess." Doctor Sweeney put his finger up to Jess' mouth when his lips parted. "I'll tell it. There aren't any serious burns, Slim. His face and hands took the brunt, and how his eyes themselves were spared, I won't understand. Burns like he has all the way up to singing off most of his lashes, if his eyes had been exposed to it, would have blinded him."

Jess knew, but even if he would rather bite the finger off that hovered near his mouth so he wouldn't be continuously silenced, with this kind of response, his tongue would be stilled anyway. Yet nothing could stop his mind from running. Just as it did when he was looking up into the snapping flames.

His eyes had slammed shut with the memories. The scent, the crackling, the heat. All took him crashing back to that most horrific day during his fifteenth year. And then came the screams, first from his own mouth, then the pitch quickly turned feminine. His mother. Followed by the squall of a young child. More than one. And when the flames became too intense to bear, everything around him turned silent. The silence of death.

Jess gripped his belly with his bandaged hand, trying to prevent the pitching inside from recoiling all the way outside. But a single massage wasn't going to work. There was still too many memories right here in this room, even if he couldn't see beyond a tight bandage. The smell of smoke lingered on his clothing, his hair reeked of being singed, and then there was the throbbing heartbeat next to him. Slim's. Jess could only notice such a thrum because his other senses were taking the place of his vision, and it eerily resembled the traumatic pulse of the only brother to make it out of that house alive.

"Jess?" Slim's hands suddenly braced his partner as he started to rise.

"I wanna go home."

"I'd rather you stay the night here," Doctor Sweeney said, surprised at the change of emotions in his patient.

But Slim wasn't. He might not be able to look into his partner's eyes, but he could read the signs and in his understanding, helped ease Jess' frame away from the exam table. "All right, Jess. I'll rent a buckboard from the livery. I'm sure Daisy will have some broth cooking before we get through the front door."

"Broth?" Jess grimaced, once again hiding behind humor's safety net. "I'd rather have a steak."

"We'll see what Daisy has to say about that. Come on, Pard."

Slim purposely kept the roll of the wagon wheels slow as to not jostle Jess' frame and increase his ache, but after a couple of miles at that pace when Jess told him a snail could beat him in a race, Slim's hands gave the reins a slap. Yet it still felt like it took forever to go the most familiar route in the world. Maybe it was because Jess' eyes were sealed off from the view. Or maybe it was because both men's thoughts kept traveling backward, to Laramie.

Jess bent his left ear toward the sounds of home. No chickens squawking, but he could hear the hoof beats still dancing around in the corral. "What time of day is it, Slim?"

"Evening."

Jess turned his head toward Slim, seeking even though he knew he wouldn't find the matching blue. "You're gonna head on back to town anyway, ain't you?"

"Yeah, Jess." Slim shifted the weight of his iron in its holster, up and then down again. "Now it's my turn."

.:.

His first night quiet, the morning bearing even softer notes, Slim took his horse out of town. He wouldn't have been a good lawman if he wasn't alert to his surroundings, but even while Slim's eyes and ears didn't miss a beat of nature, there was nothing abnormal to note. There was so much of the nothingness around him that he needed to see the one man that would understand the kind of dead end he had been on.

Slim's handshake with Mort brought Slim into the chair beside the sheriff's bed. "You're looking better, Mort."

"I feel it too, Slim," Mort said, settling his back into the fluffed cushions. "How's Jess?"

"Sore. Angry."

"Which one's tops?"

"He's probably more angry than sore, but with both of his hands bandaged up to his wrists and most of his face covered up, that could be a fair argument that it's the latter."

"From what the doc told me this morning, I'd say he's lucky that it wasn't worse."

"He is." It came out so dry that Slim had the sudden urge of downing an entire bottle, or drowning in it, whichever the case may be.

"What's wrong, Slim?" Mort's eyebrows rose with concern. "Jess' injuries get to you that much?"

Slim slowly shook his head. "I'm losing men, Mort."

"Oh." Mort held out the note, understanding.

Slim held up his hand, leaving only two fingers upright. "Just two were willing to ride out with me to where Jess was burned last night."

"Find anything?"

"Only the blackened bits that were left of the tumbleweeds. Maybe I should've waited until morning to go out there instead of searching by lantern light, but I didn't want the man to sweep everything clean at midnight. Looks as if he did anyway. I couldn't find a single track where he must've been throwing the fireballs down."

"Since I can't do anything but think, I've been wracking my brain about all of this. I believe the man's local."

"Or just hiding out in the rocks someplace. You and I both know how extensive the terrain is around Laramie and beyond. There's more than one cave out there that an outlaw could call home."

"Yeah. I've thought of that, too. But the more I've let things simmer, Slim, the more I'm leaning toward a local man."

"How so?"

"Between the first time he hit and the second was about a week, right?" Mort waited until Slim's head finished its bob. "Now, just because he's doing his jobs on foot doesn't mean he doesn't have a mount. We know it's possible he's just hiding a horse someplace, and if he is, then he could be gallivanting all over the territory and playing the same hold-up game. Considering that thought, I had Jess send some wires a couple of days back and the answers he got were that no other town is seeing this kind of outlaw. Sure, there are troublemakers all over the place, but there isn't anywhere other than Laramie that's seeing a thieving man in black, on foot."

"But that still could point to cave-sitting."

"I'm getting to that. The first point I made, remember? A week's span between robberies. He has to be doing something in that time. No one could keep company with bats for that long without going bats."

"Could be that you're right, Mort, but there's got to be a lot of locals living in Laramie's range."

"And I can't come up with anybody that would stoop that low, or be that caliber of a professional. Which puts us not far from being right back to the beginning of this. Another dead end. And by gosh are they ever a lonely place to stand at."

"And that's exactly what brought me out here this morning." Slim couldn't stifle the sigh that had been building. "And the dose of irritation that goes with seeing a bunch of men shaking their heads when asked to go with me on the hunt."

"I'm sorry, Slim. I'd do most anything to get out of bed and join you."

The friend in him made Slim's hand reach out to give Mort's shoulder a gentle rub, but in the same breath, Slim's friendship had to add a gentle warning. "You do, and you just might have to sink right back into it."

"I know. Doc's been scolding so I stay penned. He must think I'm Jess or something."

The chuckle started out hearty, and then faded to a mere breath as Slim looked past the frilled curtain. "If that man strikes again, and I'm certain he will, until Jess can sit a saddle again, I'm afraid no one will ride out with me."

"Fear's a powerful enemy."

"Don't I know it," Slim answered, his thoughts seemingly far away to wherever an outlaw might be dwelling, but then just as quickly as the wandering images came upon him, Slim's focus sharpened to the man a foot away. "How much longer are you going to stay here at the Claycamp's?"

"Not much longer. And neither are they."

"What do you mean, Mort?"

"They've had an invite from their son and daughter-in-law to move on up to Billings with them. I guess since their pockets don't even have enough to jingle together, they're going to go ahead and leave. Finley told me they'll be packing up this weekend."

Slim shook his head. "Such a shame. Why, the Claycamp's were here about the same time as when my pa's wagon first rolled into town."

"I know."

Slim's hand grew into a tight ball. "If only I can get a crack at that man and give back what he stole!"

"You probably will, Slim. But it's apparent he doesn't like badges. When he hits again, he'll try to remove yours, too."

"Yeah." Slim's fingers splayed back open to rest on two of the points attached to his vest. "And with the way I feel right now, go ahead and let him try."

.:.

In the first few days of being the lone lawman in Laramie, it was easy for Slim to feel the bursts of anger, or perhaps what it might have better been defined as the burning desire of revenge. But after the sixth day, Slim was struck with a different kind of emotion, this even more hated, discouragement.

He sat outside of the sheriff's office, so bored in the sameness around him that Slim ticked off the time by rolling a rock from toe to heel with his boot. A meaningless fidget, yet it was better than kicking the stone, which Slim felt the desire to do when he thought of the reason why he was sitting there in the first place. But if Slim took his emotions out in a foot-forward swing, the rock would have likely sailed directly into the hotel's front window.

"That would certainly change the tune a bit. I'd be hearing a squawk for sure." Slim's eyes lightened when he thought of Firth, running out of the hotel to seek the culprit, cheeks all ablaze. "But I'm not all that bored."

But Slim couldn't help but wonder if he was going to see the kind of action that made his skin prickle. Despite the thoughts that made sense to them that Mort and Slim had put out in the open, the outlaw might not be following their mind's process. The man could have left the territory, quit robbing altogether, or he could be gearing up for the proper day. Maybe even today.

Suddenly Slim jumped out of his seat, the face in front of him wearing a broad smile. "Mort!"

"Yeah, it's me all right. Doc's graduated me to getting a few steps in a day. Since I returned home, I kind of got tired of doing circles around the pigpen and decided to come see how Laramie looks."

Slim waved his arm toward the road. "Well, as you can see, it's quiet."

"I'd rather it stay that."

"Me too."

But both stars weren't going to get their wish. Cy's burst out of the telegraph office turned both of their heads, when the man started to run, Slim's long stride was quick to catch up with him.

Slim reached for the telegram, but wasn't going to wait to read it. "What's happened?"

"The northbound stage never reached the Donahue Relay Station. The agent there went out looking and found it wrecked and robbed. Both men in the box are dead. The passenger, a woman, was banged up but she's gonna make it. She said the man that did it was…"

"Dressed in black and on foot," Slim interjected, getting a vigorous nod out of Cy as he finished. "So if he wasn't wearing the label before, our man's a murderer."

"Any strongbox on that load?" Mort asked, looking first to Cy and then to Slim.

Slim shook his head. "Nothing was locked on it when I watched it leave here around eight this morning. But the woman, being the banker's niece, I'd assume her purse was lined rather well."

Cy straightened his spectacles. "Took her purse clean off her wrist, or so the Donahue agent said in the telegram."

Mort's eyes trailed to the sun. Well after the noon hour. "Even though it would've happened hours ago, better get some men together, Slim."

"If they'll go," Slim said, watching as Cy started back to his office. Not that the operator could have gone with him anyway when he needed to stay close to the key, but the rapid departure was just as good as a rejection. The sigh was so quick to build that Slim couldn't prevent its hard release.

"I wish I could ride with you, Slim."

"I know, Mort. But this kind of riding is going to be hoof-pounding. Your insides would be jarred beyond recognition before we hit the first mile."

"Maybe so, but one thing's for sure, at least I'll be back in my office chair. No way am I gonna go home now."

His eyes might have lit at Mort's reply, but Slim's lips couldn't follow. It was time to put his star into motion, and his stride took him into the street's middle. Already men and women were hurrying to a safer place, out of the view of the one that wanted to call them to a posse's mount, or in their eyes, to their deaths.

"All right, men. The stagecoach was robbed outside of the Donahue station. Both the driver and shotgun were killed. I need as many as will ride with me."

Crickets would have been louder. His own breath held more volume than his replies as Slim's tongue went around the edge of his mouth.

Eyes roaming around town, Slim's gaze paused at the only man in motion, his step coming out of the store with a pair of new work boots tucked under one arm. "What about you, Oates?"

David Oates kept the flinch from his face, but he couldn't prevent the shuffle of his feet as his eyes found the badge on Sherman's chest. "What about me?"

"Ride on the posse with me. I need as many men as I can get."

Dark gaze flicking from the left to the right to view the vacant spots beside the deputy, he almost smirked. "I'm sorry, Sherman. I would, but you see, Mona's been ailing. I gotta get back home as soon as I can."

"Sorry to hear that," Slim said. Sorry in more ways than one. Now he just might have to go pound on some doors to get men to respond, or drag them out one by one from the saloon.

The last part not being such a bad idea, Slim's long legs made the trip across the street short. Parting the batwings with a bang, Slim stood at the end of the bar, his presence enough to silence every tongue. Even the liquid went silent as it was stilled in multiple mid-pours.

"I'll be satisfied with three," said Slim, along with that amount of fingers up in the air. While his throat was closer to a grizzly's than his own, he expected the badge to carry its own kind of grit and get the proper response to his request, but they might as well both been whispering. No one even shuffled their boot forward. Slapping his hand on the counter, Slim turned, his exit through the doors so hard that a hinge would need replacing. "So be it!"

There must have been a dozen eyes upon him as he left town. At least that was the count Slim put inside of his head. He knew he felt someone's. Mort's, most likely, but Slim couldn't help but insert a small dose of hope into his system that a couple of men would feel the gut-twist of guilt and ride after him. By the time he reached the third bend and the crook in his neck was causing real pain, Slim stopped looking to his rear. No one was going to follow.

It was close to evening's dimming glow when he reached the crash site. Even if the man had left tracks this time, they were destroyed by Donahue, and whoever had driven the wagon with the two corpses inside. Trying to not allow the mounting frustration hinder his next move, Slim slowly rode his horse along the road, watching for any sign in the rocks above him where the man had lit out.

He almost missed the very place, and not because there was so much heat in his core it was difficult to breathe. It was just plain hard to spot. If the setting sun hadn't been splashing orange hues onto the rocks, igniting a clump of Queen-Ann's lace that grew at the top of the path, Slim would have never dismounted.

Keeping his horse tied at the base, Slim climbed almost straight upright, needing both hands to ease his way during the final stretch. Once his legs were spread over the flower that had pointed him there, he looked for any telling marker that he wasn't the first one standing there that day. The dust here was minimal, but not so little was spread over the rocks that Slim couldn't notice where a hand had brushed it clear.

His eyes wandered east where the erased tracks should have continued and seeing a scraggly limb far out to where his vision started to blur, Slim felt excitement change the rhythm of his heart. This could put him onto something.

And it would.

Slim stood with his hands attached to his hips, not in irritation, but satisfaction. A horse had been tied here, all right. By the way the dead wood had started to crack in more than one place, it appeared that the horse had pulled on its line to reach the little bits of scrub brush that was brave enough to grow through the rock crevices. If the animal had been hungry enough to sample the autumn-tinged leaves, then it hadn't been there a few minutes.

Kneeling, Slim traced his fingers into the places where the hooves should have imprinted. Since the man was careful enough to wipe his own tracks, he certainly wouldn't be leaving a trail with his mount. Slim was determined to discover any slip up and know which direction the outlaw had rode out on, and his knees remained attached to the ground, searching for the tiniest of mark.

After enough pebbles had stabbed into his lower legs to prompt the lowering of his hand and rub, Slim finally saw a shape on the ground. It wasn't quickly followed by another, yet Slim could make out the same circle.

Touching the print, Slim's eyes stretched out to the land before him. There was an obvious pass where the man had entered and exited, but beyond that particular point was void of any roadway. Only grass, and shortened, withered blades at that. Not a track would be seen in that kind of carpet. This that was underneath Slim's fingers was as close as he would get to an answer today. But what was it?

The wind starting to tug on his hat, Slim raised his hand to tap it firmer in place, but his arm wouldn't get all the way up before slapping back down onto the ground. A small strip of cloth, tinted with the color of the earth fluttered between his closed fingers.

With a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, Slim nodded as the marks on the ground now made sense. "So this is how he's been doing it."

Tying rags around a horse's hooves wasn't an unheard of trick, but it was one that could only be done on the most docile of animals. And one that didn't need to race out in any hurry.

He couldn't follow now. Darkness would meet him long before he got his horse back up to this place. He would try again in the morning. Maybe by then he would be able to convince a volunteer to ride along. Maybe.

Retracing his steps in a hurry so that the entire trip to town wouldn't be done with crystals hanging in the sky, Slim's breathless pant began to tug hard on the back of his throat. One lick of his lips proved how dry he felt and created an intense longing for something wet. His pace increased even more. When he stood over the last stretch, instead of taking the slower course to aid his steps, he jumped. Boots hitting the ground sent a puff of dirt toward his face, pushing his thirst to an even higher level.

The water slung over his saddle seemed to shout as Slim reached for it, or maybe that was an internal drumbeat, a warning that shouldn't have been ignored.

Slim put the canteen to his mouth, the pour done so swiftly the flavor didn't register in his mind until it was too late. Hand clutching his throat, Slim gagged what remained behind his lips onto the ground and then took a step back as if what was in the dirt could come up and grab him.

Poison. But how? He had filled the canteen himself before he left Laramie. Slim turned the canteen onto its side and then back again, familiar with its every dent. It belonged to him, all right. The switch wasn't in the canteen itself, but what was in its contents. Slim shifted his gaze back to the ridge he had been traipsing upon. So that's when it was tainted. And the man responsible had been here. Right here!

Determined to catch a glimpse of black that had to be close, Slim rushed forward onto the road. He wouldn't get far. His belly wailing in protest, Slim's hand was quick to press into his middle. And then just as quickly rise up to meet his lips.

"Oh, no."

He had to get to the ranch. No, he had to get to town. It was closer and Doc would know more about the foulness of his canteen than Daisy. Reaching for the pommel, Slim pulled himself into the leather. Maybe he should have stayed flat. The bend of his middle would only hurtle another portion of his guts back onto the ground.

Hand rising to wipe the beads of sweat that were on his forehead, Slim's glove returned to the reins soaked, for his skin had turned into a waterfall. The shake he gave his head to release the drops from the hairs that had escaped his hat only made it worse. Now he was suffering from an intense pound behind his eyes, the precursor to a visual swirl.

Not even a mile of the roadway could pass underneath his mount. Toppling from the dizziness and everything in between, Slim's body slid out of the saddle, but entering straight into oblivion would be prevented by the violent cramps in his middle.

Lips parting against the soil, turning wet with his own saliva, Slim groaned. "Oh God, help me."