Blood at Sunset (A Sam Spur Western Page 3

  He walked carefully into the barn, praying that there wasn’t a man asleep in there. There were several stalls and five horses in them. None of them was the mare. He swore silently to himself. Over near the door in a beam of moonlight, he found a rope. He picked it up and went back through the doorway. He decided if he managed to catch up a horse, he would make his escape through the barn rather than go out by that clumsy gate. Opening that would most likely wake all the inhabitants on Boot Hill.

  He built a noose and headed gingerly for the horses. They stood in one corner for the time it took him to take three careful paces, then they shifted to the far corner of the corral. He swore again. They seemed to make a lot of noise as they did it.

  He tried again.

  As he approached this time, a sturdy bay tried to cut out past him. He dabbed the noose home and dug in his heels. The animal strained to escape, turned and quietened at once. That was a relief.

  Murmuring horseman’s sweet-talk, he climbed up the rope and breathed into the horse’s nostrils. Then he quickly fashioned a hackamore. He would delay to find a saddle, so he’d go out of there bareback as fast as he could go.

  He led the, animal out through the door into the barn, reached the barn door and stopped to listen. The town seemed as quiet as the dead.

  ‘Stand, boy,’ he said softly to the horse and vaulted on to its shining back. It pitched once and he held it firm. It stood quiet. He urged it forward and stooped under the doorway and came out into the moonlight of the yard. Now he felt completely exposed and it was not a sensation he liked. He walked the horse gently forward, angling to the left toward the gate that led to the street.

  He reached the gate and turned right in a westerly direction. The sooner he reached Crewsville and some real law, the better. He lifted the bay to a trot.

  By God, he thought, I’m going to make it.

  A shadow moved to his right.

  Hold up!

  He kicked the horse and yelled to it. The animal jumped and ran.

  From behind him, Spur heard the slam of a rifle. The lead hummed over his head, allowing him to live by six inches. He lay along the horse’s neck and gave it the end of the rope hard. The animal stretched out.

  He didn’t hear the second shot. But he felt it. It fell like a hammer blow on his left shoulder and nearly tore him from the back of the horse. He felt his face driven into the coarse hair of the mane.

  Shadows moved ahead of him. They were shouting. Waving their arms. Startled, the horse swung to the right. It collided with an upright supporting a cover on the front of a building. It jarred Spur’s leg and once more he was nearly torn from the animal’s back. The horse whinnied and turned back the way it had come.

  All right, Spur thought dazedly, if I can’t go one way, I’ll go the other.

  He yelled to the horse and belted it with the rope again. It bolted. A man ran out from a building with a rifle in his hands. Maybe the man who had shot at him. Spur directed the bay at him and he jumped clear. The bay hammered away down the street. They were level with the livery again now.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, the horse went out from under Spur. He felt himself going all arms and legs through the air. Vainly he tried to use his horseman’s instinct to land on his feet, but he failed. He fell badly and he fell heavily. He knew that he was too badly winded to run, but he tried just the same. The horse was on its back, screaming and kicking violently. Spur staggered to his feet and headed for the nearest patch of shadow.

  He ran into a man and the man struck at him with something hard. Spur swerved insanely off to one side, tripped and went down.

  When he looked up, he saw the gun within inches of his face. The weapon was cocked. You didn’t argue with a cocked gun.

  A voice said: ‘For Chrissake, somebody shoot that horse.’

  A moment later there came a shot and there was a dead silence.

  A man said: ‘On your feet.’

  It was Gaylor.

  Spur wondered if he could get to his feet. He stopped wondering when somebody kicked him. He rose slowly to his feet and saw there were four men there.

  A man said: ‘We shoulda hung him when we caught him.’

  ‘You have good ideas, Stace,’ Gaylor said. ‘Go check on Jim. Most likely this bastard killed him. How’d you git out, Spur?’

  ‘I dug a hole and crawled out,’ Spur said.

  ‘You touch the guard?’

  ‘He was asleep.’

  A man came running down the street. When he came up, he demanded: ‘What happened?’

  ‘Your prisoner,’ Gaylor said. ‘He just escaped.’

  The man gaped and started to make excuses. Maybe he dropped off for a minute. Hell, it had been a long day.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Gaylor said. ‘Right now, we have to decide where we hold this sonovabitch.’

  ‘There’s only Mangan Carson’s store,’ Stace said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gaylor. ‘His rear room is a real strong-room. That’ll hold him.’

  The man Jim said: ‘He’ll eat real good in there.’

  ‘Not when we have him in irons,’ the sheriff said. ‘Stace, you git them irons like I said.’

  Stace said he’d do that and walked off. There were people coming out of their homes now asking what the shooting was about. Gaylor told them that the murderer had tried to escape. He picked out a rotund man in the small crowd and said:

  ‘Mangan, I’d take it as a personal favor if we could lock this hombre up in your back room.’

  ‘Well, I—’ the man looked uncertain.

  ‘Thanks, Mangan,’ the sheriff said. ‘I knew we could bank on you. He’ll be well-guarded this time. You don’t have nothing to be scared of.’

  ‘Well, Sheriff,’ the man said, ‘there’s my daughter. I don’t think-’

  ‘She don’t need to even see him,’ Gaylor said. ‘Git him over to Mr. Carson’s place, boys. Watch him close now, he’s a real desperate character. Nobody ain’t safe around here till we git the irons on him. Then a kid would be safe with him.’

  They pushed him across the street. The crowd followed and the storekeeper, Mangan Carson, hovered, worried.

  When they got him inside the store with a least three guns pointed his way, he was confronted by the girl. Even in his state, weak and slightly in shock from the wound he had taken in his shoulder, he couldn’t deny that she was one of the most stunning examples of American womanhood he had ever clapped eyes on. The sight of her stopped him dead in his tracks and he gaped at her.

  She was taller than average and came an inch or more above Spur’s shoulder. She had been roused from sleep and there was sleep still in her eyes. The lines of her face were soft with sleep. She had flung a robe on hurriedly and the fine white column of her neck was exposed. Her hair was down for the night and cascaded in a flood of gold to her shoulders. Her fine gray eyes were wide with alarm and wonder, her generous lips were slightly parted. Her figure was superb. Why a woman like her should be in this God-forsaken one-horse town was beyond his comprehension.

  Her eyes met Spur’s. It was one of those moments that do not often come to a man. In that moment she seemed to understand him and he to understand her. There is no explaining such moments.

  ‘Why,’ she said, ‘he’s wounded.’

  The others seemed to see the blood on him for the first time.

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ Gaylor said off-handedly. ‘He was tryin’ to escape, Miss Lydia. This is the man who murdered ole Rube Daley.’

  ‘A fact yet to be proven,’ said Spur, ‘in a court of law.’

  ‘You shet your mouth,’ Jim said.

  ‘Girl!’ cried Mangan Carson asserting himself as a father. ‘You go to your room.’

  ‘But I must do something about that wound,’ she said. ‘The poor man could bleed to death.’

  ‘Save us a hangin’,’ said Jim.

  Carson exclaimed: ‘We’ll have none of that kind of talk in front of decent women, sir.’ He seized his daught
er and turned her toward the stairs to the left of the big room. ‘Up to your room with you, miss.’ He turned to Gaylor, ‘I’d be obliged if you’d get that man out of sight, Sheriff.’

  Spur watched Lydia Carson go up the stairs. Halfway up, she turned to look back at him. He managed a grin for her. Carson saw it and yelped in rage. Strong hands seized Spur and propelled him forward.

  Next moment, he was in Carson’s store-room. Not long after Stace Golite appeared with the clanking irons in his hands. With him was a big man with all the marks of a blacksmith on him.

  Not long after, Gaylor looked down at him with some satisfaction. He was chained by the feet and hands. They tied a rope to the chains that fastened his wrists together and fastened the rope to a beam in the roof. He could sit down, but only if his hands were above his head. This seemed to amuse the sheriff. Gaylor said the blacksmith could go home and get some sleep.

  Spur said: ‘You want I should bleed as well as starve to death?’

  The sheriff looked at him in some puzzlement and thumbed his black hat on to the back of his head. He leaned forward and inspected the wound.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Bleedin’ like a stuck hog. We’re sure goin’ to lose him if we don’t stop that. Too bad.’

  A voice said: ‘You fix that wound, Gaylor.’

  They turned and saw Charlie Doolittle standing there.

  ‘Christ,’ said the sheriff, ‘you still here? I thought you took your nose outa my business.’

  ‘Your business is to see that a prisoner has proper medical attention.’

  ‘A Goddam do-gooder,’ said Stace.

  ‘All right,’ said Gaylor. ‘Who can patch wounds around here?’

  They looked at each other.

  Jim Tabor, the deputy, grinned and said: ‘Sounds like Juanita from the cantina.’

  Stace said: ‘That’s quite an idea. You think her old man’d let her patch up a gringo? He sure do hate gringos.’

  Jim laughed and said: ‘He wouldn’t let his pure li’l ole Mex gal out among the nasty rough Anglos.’

  Stace said: ‘Bet he comes with her to watch she come home whole.’

  Gaylor said: ‘Jim, go git the girl. Tell her old man if she don’t come, I’ll close him down.’

  Jim said: ‘Keno,’ and went off.

  They waited around. The men built smokes. Carson said for them to be careful, he didn’t want his place burned down.

  Gaylor said: ‘You don’t have to wait around, Doolittle.’

  ‘I’ll wait just the same,’ Doolittle said.

  Spur leaned against some shelving. His legs were buckling under him, but he didn’t fancy sitting on the floor with his hands above his head with them looking on. His shoulder was starting to throb now and he could feel his little remaining strength going from him. He prayed that he did not pass out in front of them.

  It wasn’t long before there came the sound of footsteps from the store. A small squat man appeared in the doorway. He had shaved the week before and his moustaches were magnificent. His eyes were black and they looked with distaste at the men there. The only man he greeted was Doolittle. He was about thirty pounds overweight, but he had some presence. When he spoke, his English was so heavily accented that it was hard to understand. Gaylor jerked his head in Spur’s direction. The Mexican said in Spanish: ‘My God, they have him chained like a wild animal.’

  ‘The animal,’ said Spur in his excellent Spanish, ‘is not at this moment feeling very wild.’

  The girl came forward then, took one look at him and said: ‘Pobrecito.’

  He liked the way she said that. It contained all the traditional compassion of the Mexicans for those who suffer. He liked the way she looked and couldn’t credit that this town could contain such fine-looking women as Lydia Carson and this Mexican girl. There was nothing frail and appealing about this one, none of your chocolate box beauty. This one was all woman, sturdy, the hands small and shapely like the feet, but there was strength in her fine rounded body. The eyes were large, black and direct. She held her head up as though she were proud to be a greaser in a world of whitemen who despised them.

  She at once inspected Spur’s wound, pulling back the torn cloth of his shirt with firm but gentle hands. When she saw the wound, she drew in her breath sharply through her strong white teeth. He turned his head and met her eyes. There was pity in hers.

  ‘Will I live long enough to be hanged?’ he asked with a little smile.

  She did not smile back. Her eyes registered the fact that she noticed his perfect Spanish. In the same language, she said: ‘The bullet struck the bone. That saved your life. If the lead had stayed in there, I perhaps could not have saved you. Now I will clean it and stop the bleeding.’

  Gaylor said: ‘Talk American.’

  Her father said: ‘She speaks her own language. That is everybody’s right.’

  ‘Since when did a Mex have rights?’ Stace demanded. He and the other men were eyeing Juanita’s body.

  ‘I must have hot water,’ the girl said in English.

  ‘You heard her, Mangan,’ Doolittle said to Carson. ‘Hot water.’ Carson grumbled, but he went. On one of the shelves that ran down the center of the room and covered all the walls, the girl laid a small pouch of soft leather decorated in the Indian fashion. An aromatic smell came from it. She demanded a knife and Doolittle gave her his. Gently she cut away Spur’s shirt from the wound. From her wide skirts she produced clean white rag and placed it by the pouch. Spur clung to the shelves because he could feel his senses slipping from him. He hoped he wouldn’t faint and show himself weak in front of the girl.

  After a while, Carson returned carrying a bowl which steamed. From it arose the smell of carbolic. The girl took it from him, placed the bowl on a shelf and tore off some of the rag. When she had dipped the rag in the water, she carefully washed out the wound. It smarted like hell and roused Spur to something like full consciousness. He gritted his teeth. She then inspected the wound carefully again, cut away his shirt entirely and dropped the bloody rag on the floor.

  ‘He will need a new shirt,’ she said in English. They looked at Carson who had a store full of them.

  ‘He don’t get a thing from me,’ he said.

  Doolittle went out.

  The girl made a pad of some clean rag and pressed it hard against the wound, then asked her father to hold it there firmly for her. She opened the pouch and took out some dried leaves. She then took the pad from her father replaced it by the leaves and put the pad back over them. Her father held it in place again while she carefully bandaged the shoulder, taking the bandage over the shoulder and around Spur’s chest. She was very close to him and it was pleasant having her there. Her face was close to his and she smelled nice like the sun on a field of growing corn. When she was through, she patted his good shoulder and said with a small smile: ‘Now you will live, my friend.’

  ‘A thousand thanks,’ he told her. ‘It is good to find Christian folk among barbarians.’

  Manuel Morales, her father said: We shall bring you food, señor.’

  ‘What’s he say?’ the sheriff demanded.

  ‘I said,’ Morales told him, ‘that we shall bring the prisoner food.’

  Gaylor said: ‘You don’t bring him nothin’.’

  ‘It is the tradition among my people,’ Morales said.

  ‘Your tradition don’t mean a goddam thing to me.’

  Doolittle came back. He held a clean shirt in his hand and said: ‘Get this on you, Spur.’

  Stace said: ‘He don’t need no shirt. He ain’t goin’ no place.’

  ‘He cain’t git no shirt on with them chains on him,’ Gaylor said.

  That was true. Doolittle draped the shirt over Spur’s shoulders and buttoned it once in front.

  ‘How about some water?’ Spur asked. He might as well get what he could while he had some support.

  ‘You’ll git water when I say so,’ the sheriff said.

  Doolittle walked out and returned a m
oment later with a pitcher of water. He placed it on the shelf near Spur so that he could reach it.

  Morales and his daughter prepared to depart. The Mexican said: ‘We will bring you some food.’

  ‘You’ll only bring trouble on yourselves,’ Spur told him.

  ‘Trouble is not new to us.’

  The girl gave Spur a last lingering look, then she followed her father out of the store.

  Doolittle said: ‘I’ll be in to see you tomorrow, Spur.’

  Gaylor said: ‘Nobody sees him. He’s incommunicado.’

  ‘Like hell he is,’ Doolittle said and walked out.

  The other men followed him and stopped outside the door. Spur listened to the murmur of their voices, but he couldn’t make out the words. He reached for the pitcher and took it in his hands with some difficulty. He gulped the lukewarm water down and spilled a lot down his chest. It felt wonderful. Stace walked back into the store-room, drew his gun and smashed the pitcher with the barrel. When Spur looked at him with despair and rage, he laughed and walked out again. Spur heard the key turn in the lock.

  He leaned against the shelf. The water had done him some good, but he felt terrible just the same. He was so weak that the weight of the chains was like a continuous torture. He sat down and rested his back against some shelves, but the discomfort of having his arms above his head was too much to bear. He stood up, emptied a shelf in front of him and with the greatest difficulty climbed on to it. Here he found that he could lie on his back and let his arms hang by the chains almost on his own level. It was the best he could do. His shoulder was hurting like hell now.

  Slowly, utter weakness took over and he sank into a troubled sleep.

  Chapter Four

  The following morning Jim Tabor and Stace Golite, the deputies, came to see that he hadn’t been up to anything during the night. They hauled him off the shelf and dumped him on the floor. They laughed when he cursed them, went out and locked the door. A short while after he heard a woman’s voice and knew that Juanita Morales had brought him food. Her voice became raised in anger. After a while she went away. Spur crawled back on the shelf.