CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By mid-afternoon I was back sitting in my office. The heat
was back and almost unbearable. The kid was off with Shiloh again, though
they’d be back any minute. They were just rubbing down Clay Richard’s strawberry
roan, which the kid had taken quite a shine to. The kid hadn’t stopped talking
all night about my little run-in with Rance. He wasn’t able to understand my
not shooting it out with him. I tried to explain, but it fell on deaf ears. I
was worried about that kid.
Chester was sitting on the long couch in the office, across
from my desk, where I sat with my feet up. We were both staring out of the
closed screen door.
“Sure is hot today, Mr. Dillon.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Rain sure didn’t cool it off for long,” said Chester.
“Nope.”
“Used to get hotter in Sweetwater, though.”
“Texas?”
“Yessir,” he said. “But I wasn’t there very long.”
“What’d you do there, Chester?”
“Oh, I was a salesman, Mr. Dillon.”
“Salesman? Well, what’d you sell?”
“Lightnin’ rods.”
“Lightning – ? Oh…” I started to laugh.
“Well, now, they’re good things to have, Mr. Dillon. Why, I
had a line of lightnin’ rods…”
“Don’t explain it to me, Chester. It’s too hot.”
“Maybe if’n Howard’d had a lightnin’ rod out away from ‘im,
he wouldn’ta died the way he did.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But then where would you and I be, Chester?”
Chester thought about that for a minute or so. “That’s a fair
point, Mr. Dillon. A fair point indeed.”
“Chester,” I said. “It’s too hot to talk.”
Chester nodded. “Well, I’ll go get us some beer, maybe
that’ll help.”
“I don’t think I want any beer, Chester.”
“Well then, why don’t you go take a siesta, Mr. Dillon? I’ll
stay here in the office.”
I chuckled. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
Chester shrugged. “Alright, Mr. Dillon.”
We sat. After awhile Chester whistled a little tune. I
recognized it, but couldn’t place it until he started it up again. It was the
same tune he’d been humming while Howard’s men had been shooting at us.
“What’s so funny, Mr. Dillon?” he asked.
“Nothing, Chester,” I said. “You just go right on whistling.”
Chester looked at me dubiously. “No, sir,” he said. “Reckon
I’m finished.”
Doc came in the screen door and closed it behind him quickly
to keep the flies out. “Marshal…” he said anxiously, but with a gleam of
wickedness in his eye.
“Yeah, what do you want, Doc?”
“Couple of cowboys are feelin’ their liquor, over at the
Texas Trail,” he told me.
I shrugged and fanned myself with an unopened letter. It was
from the government, so it couldn’t have been all that urgent. “That’s what
saloons are for, isn’t it?” I said.
“They’ve been givin’ Kitty a bad time,” said Doc.
I stopped fanning myself and placed my feet on the floor.
“Oh?”
“She got rid of them, though,” Doc added. “But they’re down
at the end of Front Street now, makin’ remarks and pesterin’ the town ladies.
It just might lead to trouble.”
I put my feet back up on the desk. “Well, I’m not gonna walk
down there in this heat to lecture a couple of hard-nosed cowboys.” I figured
after last night – hell, the past couple days – I’d proved myself enough.
Chester was still laying on the couch. He looked at me. “I’ll
go, Mr. Dillon,” he said.
“Oh, good, Chester,” I said, closing my eyes. “You go, huh?
Just tell them to take it easy and leave the ladies alone.”
I heard the couch springs creak as Chester stood up. “Yes,
sir, I will, Mr. Dillon.”
“Stick around, Doc,” I said. “It’s too hot to be doing
anything much but sitting around.”
“True enough, Matt. As long as you’re not giving me any more
patients to doctor, I might as well pull up a chair.”
The cards lay out where Chester and I had left them the night
before. I heard Doc start to shuffle them. “Ah – want to play a hand or two?”
I opened my eyes. “Why not?”
A few minutes later I heard a ruckus outside as a couple of
horses raced past the window, but I didn’t see anything more than a couple of
cowboys. They shouted and looked like they were racing. At least they were
leaving Dodge.
“Chester must have gotten rid of them,” said Doc.
“Yeah,” I said. “Call.”
We laid down our hands, and I saw Doc holding three kings. “I
swear, Doc,” I said, “I’m gonna start insisting that we play in shirtsleeves.
That way I’ll know you’re not slipping cards in on me.”
“It’s your deck,” he said, sliding his cards over to me with
one hand as he snatched up my two bits with the other. “And your deal.”
The kid came running into the office through the front door.
“They got Chester, Marshal!”
I looked at him blankly for a second. “Wha – ? Who got
Chester?”
Shiloh came in behind the breathless kid and said, “Couple of
cowboys, they roped him an’ dragged him outta town!”
I jumped out of my chair and grabbed my gunbelt off the wall.
“Well, which way?”
Shiloh pointed. “West!”
Doc was already out the back door. I followed him, and both
Shiloh and the kid raced along at my heels.
I started pulling at my horse’s bridle and freed the reins.
“Stay here!” I shouted at the kid.
He shook his head, a huge smile on his face. “I’m goin’ with
you! I can catch ‘em faster! Gimme a gun!”
“No,” I said, climbing into my saddle. The boy and Shiloh
were both running for Moss Gremmick’s stables to grab a pair of horses.
“Hurry!” cried Doc, clambering up onto the back of Chester’s
horse. “Draggin’ll kill a man!”
I kicked hard. There wasn’t time to argue with the kid. I
angled my horse out of town and tried to see the tracks of the horses that’d
pulled Chester along behind them. “C’mon, boy!” I shouted, and kicked again.
The trail wasn’t hard to follow. There were the tracks of two
horses, and behind one of them were the marks of a body being dragged. It was
hard to think of that being done to Chester. I’d seen the results of dragging.
I’d even seen the body of a man who’d been drawn and quartered. I tried not to
think of it. All I was focused on was catching up to the cowboys. And finding
Chester.
Shiloh and the kid caught up to Doc and me pretty quick.
Shiloh had a good grip on the lead to Clay Richard’s strawberry roan, so the
kid couldn’t race out ahead of us. I don’t know how Doc managed to keep up –
the pace was brutal, and it couldn’t have been doing his old bones any good.
But, as I’d said the night before, nothing gets between Doc and a patient.
Especially if that patient is a friend.
I was looking at the tracks, glancing up every few seconds to
check the landscape ahead. One of those glances up showed me two figures. I
blinked, and they were still there.
“There they are!” I shouted.
Shiloh’s eyes must have been better than mine, because he
said, “But they’re not draggin’ anything!”
He was right. They were riding right out, with nothing
holding them back. “They must’ve cut him loose. Slow down!” I called, waving a
hand.
We scanned the trail ahead, and I saw him. “Yeah, there he
is, by that sagebrush there!”
I reached him first, almost jumping off my horse to reach his
side. I rolled him over and saw what they’d done to him. They’d lassoed his
feet, so for the whole last three miles he’d been dragged on his back and
shoulders and chest and head. It showed.
“Chester! Chester?”
He didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell if he was even alive.
Shiloh knelt down next to me. “How bad is it?”
“Get that rope off his feet,” I said. “Chester?”
Chester’s mouth opened a crack and his eyelids fluttered –
though it was hard to tell through all the blood.
“He’s alive!” I shouted. “Doc, get over here!”
“Ah…” said Chester. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to talk.
I think he was too far gone to put words together.
Doc came running up. “Let me see him,” he said. I was amazed
at how calm he sounded.
I took a step back and watched as Doc examined Chester. “Look
at him,” I said, my voice choked. “He’s bleedin’ all over. They cut him to
ribbons!”
Shiloh looked at me. “I’ll stay with ‘im and Doc, Marshal, if
you’d like to…”
I knew what he was going to say. “No, Shiloh,” I said. “You
and the kid go get our horses. We’ll gotta get him back to Dodge right away.”
Shiloh watched me for a second, then said, “Alright,
Marshal.”
“Matt!” called Doc.
“How is he, Doc?”
“We’ve got to get him back to my office.”
I reached down and lifted Chester up in my arms. “But how is
he?”
Doc shook his head. “We’ve got to get him back,” was all he’d
say.
Chester groaned again. I hoped that was a good sign. “It’s
over now, Chester,” I said. “I got you now. We’ll be at Doc’s real soon.”
He didn’t do much more than groan in Shiloh’s arms as I
mounted. The kid wiped his face with a water and a handkerchief. When I was in
my saddle Shiloh handed Chester up to me. There was a twinge from my wounded
shoulder. I ignored it.
“Easy, Chester,” I said. “Easy, fella. Easy, now.” There was
an evil rasp to his breathing that scared me more than all the blood.
The others mounted and we started off at a slow pace back to
Dodge.
As we rode, Shiloh pulled his horse up next to mine. “I’ll,
ah, carry him when you get tired, Marshal,” he said.
“I won’t get tired, Shiloh,” I said. “Not for a long time.”
