Killing Halfbreed (28 page)

Mounted, I groggily considered my options, but I had none.  Every door in Cottonwood would still be closed to me.  Nobody knew about my experience on the mesa, nor would they care.  The Sheriff had stood by me, but he was either dead or wounded.  I was half-dead myself and wouldn’t make it for long on my own.  I had to get somewhere I could be cared for.

God, if you still want me to live, you’ll have to provide, because I don’t know where to go.

Suddenly, I had an idea.  A strange and unconventional idea. Maybe one born from the mind of a delusional man.  Still, something told me it was my only choice.

***

I trembled as I rode.  Not from cold, for there was not a chill in the air.  It could have been fear, or nervousness, or simply having lost so much precious blood.  My clothes were sticky with it.  My dirt-soaked, shredded shirt clung limply to my torso.

Such thick pain can be unpleasant enough by itself, but when trimmed with a never-ending general discomfort, it can get downright torturous.  Coagulated blood had glued the ripped fabric of my jeans to my wounds.  So, when I dared take a step, or my horse moved too sharply, the cloth pulled and ripped at them, provoking annoying twinges of pain to buzz around my mind like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I swayed with my mount as he trod onward.  My body felt weaker than at any other time in my entire life.

Few men get shot seven times and live to tell about it. To me, that meant whatever God had for me to do, I obviously hadn’t done it yet, because he had stepped in once more to save me from the guillotine.  The Lord knew I wasn’t doing much myself in the way of avoiding it.

I had to pause my horse at the halfway point to my goal.  The pain in my leg had grown unbearable.  Every step of the animal’s gait seemed to inflame it more, and I felt a fever coming on.

I dismounted and hastily built a crude fire to relieve some of my shivering.  Once I had some flames going, I realized it really wouldn’t be big enough to help much, and I was in no shape to search for more fuel.

I could feel a bullet embedded in the muscle of my thigh.  Either Doc hadn’t been very careful, or he’d been drunker than I thought, because he’d sure missed a pretty obvious piece of lead.

If I let it be, I was sure to develop a serious infection, and at a minimum, I’d lose my leg.  I needed to get that bullet out — and fast.

I sterilized my bowie knife in the tiny fire, and began to prod.  Flames of searing pain barreled up my leg and hip.

I forced myself to concentrate in spite of its intensity.  I could not afford to faint or pass out.  I dug deeper until I located the spent bullet, a dull grey slug bathed in a pool of bright red.  It felt lodged against the bone.

With a sudden jerk, I tried to flick it out of my leg. Agony roared, and I lost consciousness.  There was no way of knowing how long I was out, but it couldn’t have been too long, because my leg was still bleeding pretty steadily when I awoke.  A red puddle had formed around my knee in the dirt.  The bullet lay in the dust next to the fire.

Dragging myself over to my saddlebags, I took out a small tin of whiskey and poured some of it on the hole in my thigh.  I manipulated the wound, opening and closing it to get the whiskey down into it.  In addition to being an antiseptic, it would have a slight numbing effect.

Very
slight, apparently, because I almost passed out again.

I had some whiskey left, so I distributed it among my other inflamed wounds.  Every little bit would help.

Next, I tore my shirt into several strips and tied them around the worst of my injuries to slow the bleeding. 

After taking a few minutes to catch my breath, I tried to get moving again, but found I couldn’t stand up on my leg.  No matter what I did, I kept falling back to the ground helplessly.

So, I dragged my broken form through the dirt over to my horse and grabbed the stirrup for support.  I tried to use it to pull myself up, but the horse shied away a few steps, dragging me with him and evoking immense waves of new pain.

If I wasn’t careful, he’d spook and run off.  Then, what would I do?  So, I tried again, as slowly and as patiently as I could manage in my condition.

Finally, I gained enough support to pull myself into a half-standing position, leaning into the steed.  Blessedly, he stood still, seeming to sense my agony.

I swung into the saddle, and pain and blood flowed from the holes in my shoulders and side.  I was beginning to lose hope that I would make it after all.

My mind swam as I rode, not able to focus on anything specific, even if I strained for it.  The pain screamed so loud any rational thought was drowned out.  Mercifully, the ride soon devolved into a numb, stuporous journey.

I wasn’t even aware of it when I reached the ranch.  I just felt rough hands pulling me from off my horse.

After that, I blacked out completely.

As he approached, Jinny Logan watched his figure sway loosely in tune with the rocking of his horse.  The copper tones of his bare chest stood in stark contrast with the dark gray skies behind him.  Pale, green grass waved before the wind, brushing against the horse’s flanks as it moved forward.

Rivulets of cold rain trickled down and across his well-defined muscles.

She knew him.

In fact, she knew him instantly, and had it been any other man, the vision in front of her would have been an attractive one.

But this man had killed her father.

Around his limbs were tied bloody rags which looked to cover several awful wounds.  He rode unconscious.

Anger, fear, hate, pity, indecision. All these ran through her in a strange, confusing river.

Love?  She had loved him once, hadn’t she?  Did she still?

Jinny swept up her skirts and hurried back inside to get her mother.  She would know what to do.

When Sarah Logan realized who was on that horse, the same look of hesitation crossed her face.  Her husband’s killer was here, at their mercy.

The horse walked directly to them and stopped short of the house by about thirty feet.  He had tied himself into the saddle with a long, scarlet-soaked strip of cloth.  It had probably been part of his shirt.  Blood oozed from a couple of wounds and ran down his legs and the side of the horse.

Up close, he looked much paler than he had when framed by the brewing storm clouds.  It was amazing he was still alive.

No matter how they felt about him, the duty of a Christian was clear.  There was
some
good in the man anyway.

Memories of him playing cards and laughing with her in her parent’s kitchen flashed through her mind, if ever so briefly.

Those had been simpler times.  Better times.

She and her mother untied him and did their best to lower him gently to the muddy ground.  He was burning up with fever.

They called for help and a couple of hands carried him into the guest bedroom of the house.  They would have no choice but take care of the man until he healed.

Sometimes, God seems to send us more than we can even bear
, Sarah thought.

It would be a long couple of weeks.

***

I awoke in a warm, clean bed in a bright room with white walls.  Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating small dust particles as they floated in and out of its beams.  I recognized the bedroom as the guest room in the Logan house.  Relief and shame entered together with this realization.

This
had
been my intended destination, though I hadn’t been sure I would make it.

I thanked God I had, yet, I also felt like the world’s biggest heel coming here.  I was the last person on earth the Logan women should have to nurse back to health, but I’d had no other safe alternatives, and a man will act mighty selfish when he’s trying to save his own skin.  I’d gambled that no matter how much they despised me, they wouldn’t send me off to die.  They were too good a people, and it looked like I’d guessed right.

The door cracked open.  Seeing I was awake, Mrs. Logan came all the way into the room.  Her face looked tired and strained.  No smile graced her lips, nor did any light fill her eyes.  She was a different woman from the one I remembered, full of the world’s burdens, burdens I had hitched onto her back with some pretty tight knots.

“I see you’re awake.”

It was said matter-of-factly, with no enthusiasm.

“Mrs. Logan,” I croaked, my throat raspy and dry.  “I’m so sorry…for coming here.  I’m the last person who should ask you for help.  I truly had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, you’ve been out for three days.  Your fever’s finally broken, and all of your wounds are healing nicely.  I expect you’ll be well enough to leave on your own in another week.  That will make me happy enough.”

She quickly felt my forehead, and, not finding any trace of the fever, stood to leave. There'd been no love in the gesture.

“Mrs. Logan, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your husband.  I know I can’t undo it, and nothing can fix it, but I never got to tell you I was sorry.”

She froze at the words.  When I finished, she continued silently out the door without a further glance.

***

For the next few days, I remained too weak to leave.  In spite of my efforts, my body wouldn’t let me fool myself into believing I was better.  I was determined to cease being a burden to these two women as soon as possible, but until I healed a little more, I was stuck.

I didn’t see Jinny even once while I was there.  Mrs. Logan brought me all my meals, three times a day, and those were the only times I saw her.  She did stay in the room with me while I ate at least, though those soon became some of the most intolerable minutes I’d experienced.

I tried the first few times to converse lightly, but she ignored me.  I didn’t blame her, not one bit, not either of them, but I soon found myself hurrying through my soups and meals as fast as possible just to be alone again.

She would change my bandages while I ate lunch.  She was not gentle, but neither did she hurt any of my injuries further.

The one positive thing in all this was that I had hours and hours to think.  One thing that Mrs. Logan did tell me was that Sheriff McCraigh hadn’t been killed, but was laid up like I was.

The Talon gang was finally out of commission.  I didn’t have to worry about them anymore, at least.  I still had a bunch of people in this valley who didn’t like me, though, and one man, or several, who were out to kill me.  Priority number one was to flush that killer out.

He’d murdered my brother, paid to have Jessica chased off their land, and murdered Elizabeth in the street while trying to kill me.  The Talons had been involved with the cattle rustling ring, but I didn’t think they were the head of it.  Somebody else had been the boss.  That boss could have been one and the same with my would-be killer, or the killer could be giving the Talons’ boss orders.

Three possibilities came to mind for that role.  Carlton Andrews, Bill Hartford, or Rob Murphy.  Any one of the three could have been behind the rustling.  Carlton Andrews could have used his bank to hide the money from the sale of stolen cattle, but he would have needed somebody on one of the ranches to run the operation.  So would have the Talons for that matter.

I didn’t think Murphy was capable of planning, running, and concealing a sophisticated operation such as that, not by himself.  He didn’t seem intelligent enough.

Either Andrews or Hartford could have been his boss through it all.  Could one of them also be the killer I was looking for?  I’d considered Dunagan and his ranch too, but he didn’t strike me as the type, and something kept drawing my attention to the Hartford ranch.  It occurred to me that even if Hartford was the boss, he couldn’t run a rustling ring on his own ranch without his foreman knowing.  That meant one way or the other, Rob Murphy was in on it.  As soon as I was able, the Hartford ranch would be my next stop.

I turned and took a glass of water from the window sill where Mrs. Logan had left it for me.  Sipping, I pondered all the possible outcomes of my visit there.