But Not Forgotten

Chapter One

"Harper."

My boots stopped on the lower step of the saloon. Whenever someone says my name in that kinda tone, I know it ain't a friend coming to call. That it came after sundown, I was even more certain that trouble was about to take a firm kick to the seat of my pants. While fear's flinch coulda wandered all over me from top to bottom leaving a lasting shiver, I reckon the only part of me that actually made a move was my hand. It inched toward my gun with the definite intent to use it.

"Nuh-uh. Keep yourself nice and natural. Please note the emphasis on you being nice."

It woulda been easy to disobey. It woulda been even easier to get shot, so I forced my fingers to not dangle over my holster. "Sure, like you're gonna be?"

"I know how to keep the rules."

"To what game?"

"You'll find out."

Nesting my chin on my shoulder, I tried to see the fella that went with the voice, to know if he was already holding iron, just waiting to rock the hammer back with his thumb and press the trigger. Dadgummit, though, he was right where I expected him to be, stuck in the saloon's shadows where it was too dark to know what, if anything, was held in his hand. "All right, I'll bite. Whaddya want with me?"

"I have a message for you."

"Well then, deliver it. Or are you waiting to stop by the Post Office on your way outta town?"

The chuckle wasn't fake, but it was clipped, like the man suddenly realized this ain't no place for laughing. More like it was a place for dying. Narrowing my eyes a bit more to search again for the kinda flash that lantern light made on a pistol barrel, I suddenly heard the crunch of a boot coming up behind me. Now, this one I didn't have to look for to know if there was a bullet testing out which part of my flesh to enter. I felt the iron's tip go directly into my ribs.

My deep breath did nothing to soften the gravel that was building in my throat. "I see you've brought friends."

"Looks as if I have. Well, Harper? That message I mentioned."

"I'm listening."

"Sure, but not here. Curtis, bring him on back here to the alleyway. I'd imagine what's to be said is rather private. Oh, and take his gun. Harper just might not be as obliging if he's still wearing it."

I've always hated losing a coupla pounds like that. I'd rather not eat for a day or two and then have that kinda lighter than usual feeling on my body. Watching the hand that held my gun, I hoped that it'd get chucked to the ground in case I needed to take a leap where it landed, but I wasn't the only one changing weights that night. The fella behind me gained the same amount I'd lost, right at his belly as he tucked my iron into his pants.

The jab into my side was intended to make me walk. It did, but since I was in no hurry to get what was coming to me, I didn't take my full stride. Curtis didn't approve of my stalling and that single jab turned into a shove, hard enough against my spine that my body sprawled into the dirt. Skidding to a stop, my lashes batted the dust off and when the last blink was completed, my eyes found focus on a bunch of boots. A coupla shufflings of each and I was surrounded. Dadgum, how many messengers were there?

I lifted my gaze to who musta been the number one. "You were gonna tell me what's what."

"So I was," he answered and then quickly added another response, his boot tip into my skull. "And this is it."

The grunt of pain through my teeth with a hiss, a pair of hands reached for my collar and held me upright. Someone else rammed his fist into my belly and since I couldn't bend with the blow, the balled up rock went right back into my stomach. Considering how many scars I've given men over the years, and the memory of a bullet ain't what I mean, I ain't one that just stands there and takes what's being thrown at me. Kicking and punching, maybe even sinking my teeth into some no-account's flesh, that's how I usually go down in a fight. There ain't much I can do right now. My front was being held up, my back just as firm, another fella was down low holding onto both legs. That left me kinda vulnerable to the man that was showing me what all he could do with his fists. And dadgum, that pair of shots to my stomach was only him getting warmed up. My jaw, my nose, my cheeks, my temple, dadgum, let's just say my entire face got hit so many times I wouldn't've been surprised if I ever get a chance to look in a mirror again that part of me's gonna be permanently distorted. I coulda sworn I saw my nose break right off and plop between my boots. But then again, how could I see proper? My eyes were swelling shut with the blackness of this very night. It's gonna get blacker, too. The way that last blow came close to caving in my lungs, I've gotta be close to being beat to death.

"All right, let him go."

When more'n one set of hands pulled back, I did my dadgummedest to not drop, to merely sway against the assault so I could look my opponents in the eye, but in five seconds I was a failure. Honestly, I mighta had assistance in getting down. Everything hurt so much maybe I really couldn't feel another hit to my head. But when I landed, from a new strike or all the ones before, I knew I wasn't gonna be getting up in the same amount of time. I just might die right here.

"That's good, boys, but don't let all the way up. Keep him still while we have our little chat."

Still! Ain't he smart enough to see that I ain't going anywhere? Sure, my body might wanna recoil some, but that ain't the next step in me getting my feet underneath me and jumping in the saddle. I'm hurt, dadgummit! All I can do is writhe against the pain and hang onto what body part's screaming the most. I reckon they don't care how bad I've got it, for there musta been a boot pressed into almost every part of my hide. One perched atop my shoulder, another sat on my belly, two more held down my legs, and the last one was poised on my gun hand. If that particular jackal had a mind to, all he would have to do is give a stout grind and every bone in my palm and outward would be destroyed.

While I coulda stared at that fella, giving the slits of blue enough fire to make him take a flying leap off my hand and go straight into hell, it was the other one I wanted to get a view of. The apparent leader, the one that was gonna take home the fattest wad of dough before this night was through was who took my longest, hardest stare. Although who my eyes shoulda really been focused on wasn't there at all.

I knew better to think that it was this leading fella or any in his group that was out for my blood. This was just somebody's hired hand, some snake that only slithers close enough to his victim to insert his poison and then make a fast dart right back underneath the rock he crawled outta so the law or no one else'll ever see. Considering the kinda ground I've ridden on, there could be more than one boss ready to dip his fingers inside his pocket when this cousin of a rattlesnake returned with the news that his job'd been done. Real well done, I might add.

"I think you're ready for the full message." Seeing my sparks, he squatted to be nearer me, to make me read his lips in case the roar of pain in my ears was too loud to hear what he had to say. "Get out of Laramie, Harper. And stay out."

"Oh, yeah?" It angered me that I had to pause, spitting blood to the ground just so I could keep talking with grit instead of garble. "Suppose you tell me who says it?"

"I understand you know who it is."

"I know more'n one name in your kinda business. Spell it for me if you know how."

"I know how to spell his name. I bet you know each letter by heart, too."

I woulda been a liar if I said my mind wasn't knocking on some doors of my past, but I was too blamed mad to wait for whoever it was to open wide for the mighty reveal. I wanted to know now. Right now. "If you're wanting me to guess, you're gonna wait a long time to grow a smirk, 'cause I ain't spouting off any names."

"All right. The man that wants you to get out of his life forever is named Slim Sherman."

My lashes wanted to stay lowered, in fact they were begging to stay down and shut out the throbbing by escaping into oblivion. I swear nothing else coulda made them spring wide and stay that way. "What?"

"And here you said you know all kinds of names. You act as if you've never heard of him before."

"I don't hafta hear of him. I know him. You're lying."

"Am I?"

"If Slim wanted me gone, he'd up and kick me out himself and not send some deadbeat with a bunch of tagalongs to do it."

Hand inside his vest, the man pulled out a sheet of paper. In one motion, he had the folded piece wide open. In the next motion, he was shoving it in front of my face. "What's this say?"

I didn't have much in my life. A poor education was one of the few. For the first time since my six-year-old self was bellowing at ma that learning letters and numbers was for sissies, I wished I'd never been taught at all. It was Slim's signature, all right, sitting in its perfect scroll underneath the same kinda pen's scratch that agreed to pay five hundred dollars when I was forced outta the territory.

Slim. My partner, my best friend. My sudden enemy?

It didn't feel right enough to be true, yet I still had to offer up the question. "What's the reason?"

"Sherman didn't tell me that. He just said to convince you to go. Oh, and that merely pointing a finger any direction except his ranch wasn't gonna be enough. He said you'd need some persuading. Five hundred dollars worth to be exact. Tell me something, Harper. Did we give you what Sherman paid for?"

"No. That kinda beating ain't worth fifty cents."

I knew that was a mistake. Dadgum, they already came close to killing me once with fists and boots alike. If I thought I was gonna be given four hundred, ninety-nine dollars and fifty pennies more thrashings just to satisfy my sassing, I surely wasn't gonna live to tell about it. Although maybe I don't wanna live to tell about anything at all. Slim's doing this to me?

"You're lucky Sherman doesn't want you dead," he said, crashing his boot heel into my mouth, the added stamp making me taste dirt and something extra. "Otherwise this last shot would've been with a bullet and not my foot. Now, are you going?"

The kick to my ribs stole enough air outta my lungs that I couldn't voice my reply. As the men let their weight off me, I tucked my frame toward my middle, rocking in pain, gasping for the same reason. And while I wanted to keep retaliating, I gave in and bobbed my head twice. I'll leave.

"Very good, Harper. But there's one thing to keep in mind. I'll be watching to make sure you do."

It took awhile after the sound of their steps diminished before I could pick myself outta the dirt. Although when a body's stuck in suffering, a single minute could be declared that awful, long while. But I knew plenty of time passed while I was balancing on wakefulness and being deep down in the land of nowhere. If the shift of the moonlight wasn't enough to tell me, what I was lying behind was timetable enough. The saloon had gone quiet. There was no booze sloshing into a cup, no piano music to tap a toe with, no flies hovering over a snoring drunk's open mouth, just silence.

Both hands against the dirt, I slowly pushed up and bent my legs so each knee could raise high enough to support me. There was no way I actually straightened. My head hung close to my chest, my shoulders were sagging and my middle, it felt as if every rib on each side of my waist was busted loose. Coulda been that, but in reality, every button on my shirt had been popped free. The wind was only rustling with my undershirt, not my open flesh.

After a coupla swallows, a firm shake of my skull and hanging onto a gut full of determination, I stood. It was a good thing the back wall of Stockmen's Palace was within an arm's reach. I needed to slam my hand into the side just so my body didn't do the same thing with the dirt again. Inching my way along the wall, when my fingertips finally came to the edge of the building, I let it go and looked to the locked door.

Too bad Freddy wasn't still in there mopping up. While I'd dumped a beer down my throat before this night turned ugly, I could sure go for three or four glasses of the harder stuff. Dadgum. I could drink an entire bottle's worth. While taking that much poison into my system might ease the pain for the rest of this night, I knew whiskey and its aftermath wasn't gonna take it all away.

My life would still be experiencing its worst kinda ending. My best friend's betrayed me.

Dadgum.

Picking up my discarded hat, I covered up a disheveled mix of blood and brown and walked toward my horse. I never did turn my eyes toward the doctor's shingle, but I did debate going to Mort Cory's. It turned out that my inner dispute was a short one. I didn't want Slim to be jailed. If he was really behind this beating, then that's exactly where the Laramie law'd put him. Or maybe I was the one that belonged inside a square of iron bars. That could be it. I might not have any idea what I'd done, but the law could. There've been more'n one poster printed with my name and face on it before. Maybe there's a new one or even an old one making the rounds again. If that was true, the law might want me gone just as badly as my best friend. No, he wasn't that anymore. Not if Slim could do this to me.

Hauling myself into the saddle, I shifted my mount to the north. Even when given a nudge, Traveler didn't take a step. "Yeah, I know. You wanna go home. We can't."

But then my thoughts couldn't help but go there. The house, the barn, the corral, the surrounding hillside, I wasn't making them burn up like the fires of hell had been let loose. It was like I always viewed it, the most serene picture I'd ever seen. Why shouldn't I go back to it? Sure, that mangy coyote said he'd be watching to make sure I followed orders, but there was too much silence around me to believe in his presence. Dadgummed liar. I knew there wasn't any eye, whether a lash-lined set or the black circle of a gun trained on me.

Offering my horse the right direction, I sighed and let him walk.

My brain wasn't in the best condition, yet I still wracked it, trying to understand. I can't think of anything I've done to make Slim turn into something he ain't. He's good and loyal, kind to those who don't deserve a handout, and he's more law-abiding than most. Dadgum, he ain't even the type to spit in public. But something musta changed inside his heart, something that made him forget what was right and what was wrong. Even more, something musta changed to make him hate me.

But what?

There ain't no woman standing between us, that's an absolute fact. The last skirt I twirled was at the Laramie dance, and considering how fast I turned the Widow Evan's ruffles onto the next fella with open arms, she couldn't've given me the kinda thoughts to make my cheeks go crimson. If Slim really is looking for someone to mend his socks, he should be punching Doug Lintott, not me.

So no woman.

I wondered about my job. I work hard, sometimes doing enough for ten hired hands. But just as I can boast about how many steers I can brand in a day, I can say the opposite as well. There are times I slack. I admit it. I haven't been away from my old way of living long enough to get it outta my system. I like to run around everywhere and nowhere. But I also like to sit still. Dadgum it's nice to stick a piece of straw between my teeth, lay my head back and watch the clouds go by.

But surely Slim ain't gonna do more than dock my pay for that.

My heart took a leap in my chest when I thought about Andy. I always figured he'd be safe from my roughneck ways there in St. Louis. Jonesy was there, too, watching over his shoulder to make sure more'n the figures on his paper were adding up. He was doing right well there, in fact they both were. At least that's what the last letter said. I remember when Slim opened the envelope. He read it aloud so I could hear it and then he took it in a second, maybe third time in silence. He was smiling as he tucked the page inside the family Bible and then I ducked my head so I could say with dadgummed honesty that I didn't see Slim swipe at the tear that fell.

With that memory as fresh as a week ago, I knew this couldn't be about Andy.

Then what? My mind feeling like a blank stare, I was running outta ideas. But how could I possibly nail it when I wasn't even holding a hammer? It seemed impossible how Slim could suddenly give me such a rough boot that he hadta pay someone else to do the kicking. It just ain't possible!

I suddenly pulled up on the reins and for a few moments, I didn't even let my haggard breaths make a sound. Nothing returned to me except nature at its quietest. There was no one out there. Not a single, dadgummed tarnished soul existed other'n mine.

That filthy liar! Beating me and then leaving me with an empty threat. What a fool I was to think that any of this was real. If he lied about keeping an eye on me, then he could lie about Slim. It didn't matter if the note with Slim's signature was sitting over my vision hotter than how a branding iron would be pressed into my hindquarters. There was something even hotter to breathe in. Fear. Or maybe I should call it truth. Because this could be the dadgummed answer I've been looking for. What if there'd been a gun sitting against Slim's temple when he wrote that out? And what if a trigger was pulled right after?

Slim! Stuffing my pain deep enough into my middle that I could forget about its constant throb, I pressed my spurs into Traveler's sides and begged the blur around me to turn into the ranch house. I would have to go three more miles before that request could be fulfilled, but as I rode into the yard, I pulled up on the reins and immediately let those fearful thoughts get buried.

Slim really had done this to me. There was no other truth than what I was looking at.

There at the hitching post were my belongings. Not nicely hanging from the rail, but strewn over the ground. My extra shirt, pants, jacket and chaps. Dadgum, that's my Sunday suit and vest wadded up as if it ain't fit to wearing for a pig's party. My special hat and boots that I only wear for dances and the like were also flung into the garbage pile. And my gun. Straight outta my past that iron was, and there it was lying in the dirt as if the last two years were as forgotten as that far off past was. There was something else there. My pay.

Slowly dropping outta the saddle, I walked among the discarded and reached down for the ten dollar piece shining in the moonlight. Now I reckon I understand how Sandy Cale felt when Sam Bronson dumped what he was owed on the ground in front of him. But unlike Sandy Cale, I didn't have anybody to pick up my pay for me. Anger overwhelming me, I slammed the money back on the ground.

Slim can pick up his own dadgummed coins. I don't need it. I don't need him.

Everything I owned now on my horse or me, I took up the reins. There was reason why I couldn't hop right into the saddle, and having bent ribs, a possible busted jaw and whatever else a doctor would diagnose me with had nothing to do with it. Well, kinda. I woulda had to make more'n one hop to get me into leather, for sure.

I hadta hear it from Slim direct. I hadta know why I was gonna ride off this night and never come back.

The front door was given such a slam as I slapped it with my palm that the lace curtains were still swinging back and forth a full minute after. "Slim!"

The bedroom door feeling the same kinda storm, I stopped beside Slim's bunk, ready to turn it and him completely over. It was empty. The entire room felt that way, too. Even kinda cold, without a window being open and my eyes were staring at the reason why. My bed was gone.

My boots pounding hard on the floor, I went into the kitchen. The only thing on the stove was the coffeepot. I lifted it, but at the barely noticeable slosh in the bottom, I slammed the pot back down, leaving a dent so deep that it'd never boil coffee again. That'd serve him right. Come dawn and he wouldn't be able to make a single cupful. Although I reckon it'd serve me right even harder. I'm the one that takes in more coffee a day than Slim fills up on in an entire week.

Fist formed, I whacked the top of the stove, damaging the coffeepot further as it rattled to the floor. "Dadgummit, Slim, where are you? Ain't you man enough to have it out with me right here and now?"

I turned the corner and stopped. With Slim's hat and chaps removed from the peg by the door, I reckoned he was out with an overnight chore. That happened sometime. After all, a rancher's life went well beyond what a man considered the normal daily grind. It was usually me that volunteered to get no sleep, though. But that was just me, the kind that'd rather be moving around outdoors no matter what hour it was. Like where this one musta sat.

My eyes darted for the clock above Slim's desk, made brighter by the lamp that was lit there. Two-forty in the morning. Curiosity pulling me closer to the light, I stared at the open ledger lying there. Not that there was much doubt at war with my anger anymore, but if getting kicked in the teeth was really Slim's way of telling me to go, this'd tell me true. And it did. There it was. The five hundred paid. At least reading down the column gave me the name of who'd been hired. Heckard Channing. Nobody I'd heard of, but I reckon my body'll know him well enough. I'll be wearing a coupla his scars for the rest of my life. But in truth, they were Slim's scars. He really paid the five hundred. He really wanted me gone.

With a puff through my mouth, I blew out the lamp, leaving the house darker than whatever sin I'd committed there. I reckon I'll never know what, but I reckon it doesn't matter. I was back in the saddle now, horse fully turned in the direction I didn't wanna go and then gave Traveler's sides a rough kick. As we sped away, I knew there was no point looking back.

The life I'd known the last two years was gone.

But not forgotten.