Friends (29 page)

Doc come over and stood in front of me. "What happened to your forehead?"

I reached up and touched it, and it was swelled way out but not bleeding. "I don't know," I told him, kind of surprised myself.

Doc sat me down and put a wet cloth across it and leaned me back. "Gun came up and hit you," he said, looking in my eyes, one then the other. "I've seen it before. I'm surprised you're still walking around."

That was the strangest bang on the head I ever got. It didn't hurt much, except if I pressed on it, and I didn't remember nothing hitting me at all. At the same time, I didn't feel entirely right, either. Sort of like I was standing outside myself watching things happen to me. Doc made me sit there while he fussed around some with his heart-listener and what-all.

He was still fussing over me when Clete opened the door without knocking and walked right up, looking at me as worried as a mother hen missing a chick. "Damn, Willie, are you all right?"

"I think so," I told him.

"Bad bump on the head," Doc said, putting his gear away. "He'll be fine in a day or two."

"You able to ride?" Clete ask.

"Yeah, I guess. Where are we going?"

He looked at me mighty peculiar, but damned if I could figger out where he wanted to go. "He'd be better off not to," Doc said, going back to work on Sam. Bullock come in then and wanted to know what'd happened, so Sam and me and Doc pieced it together between us.

"He's dead? That little runt who followed me back at Marsh's? Banty Foote?" Clete looked like he couldn't believe it and was maybe wondering if I'd been seeing things that wasn't there.

I explained how Banty'd showed up that morning, wanting to help us some more.

"That sonofabitch," Clete said, meaning DuShane, though I thought at first he meant Banty, that's how addled I was. "I'm going after him. Can you trail him with a lantern, Willie?"

"I don't know, I never done it. I'll give it a try."

"Like hell you will!" Doc Sayles said. "You're staying here tonight so I can keep an eye on you. This man has probably bruised his brain, Sheriff. Time enough to get after your killer tomorrow."

"Maybe not," Clete said, and then set his jaw.

"Let's go take a look," I said, "down at the-the, uh … What the hell's that word?"

"What do you mean?" Clete ask, looking at me strange.

"Aw, you know, where they keep the horses. I could use some air, anyway." Damned if I could remember that word.

"Don't you go off anywhere," Doc Sayles yelled after us. Bullock got us a lantern and then went back to talk to Sam. Clete and me walked down to where my gun'd haywired. I found the cylinder nearby and my hat too, but the barrel was way over beside the livery fence.

I stood and tried to put my .36 back together, but the pieces didn't seem to want to fit.

After a while Clete handed me the lantern, put my gun together himself, and give it back to me. "You all right, Willie?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I almost forgot, though. I found out DuShane's first name. It's Jezrael. Woman at the Red Bird told me." Then I spelled it for him, best I could.

"Jezrael?
What the hell kind of name is that?"

"Damned if I know, but that's what it is." I looked at Jezrael DuShane's tracks beside the trough. A spot of blood the size of a silver dollar was soaked into the dust almost where he'd got on his horse. He had fell down first, though, before he rode off, for I seen the same handprints as was on Banty's bedspread and where he was on his knees a minute.

"Yeah, you hit him," Clete said. "Put a groove in him, it looks like. Think you could ride?"

"I believe I could, but we'd best wait 'til morning."

Clete twisted his mouth up, but then relaxed it some before he spoke. "You feeling that bad, huh?"

"No, I'm all right, and it ain't because the doc said not to. Remember, it'll be damn slow going for us and fast for him. We'll get tired out sooner than him too, because we'll be walking and he'll be riding. I might be able to trail him carrying a light, but not riding my horse I couldn't. Besides that, if he was to lie in wait for us somewheres, we couldn't be no better targets, holding a damn lantern. He'll have to sleep some time, and we can catch up to him when we can see good. We'd be smarter to sleep now and start at first light."

Clete pushed his hat back. "I guess you're not as brain-scrambled as I thought."

Clete and me walked back towards Doc Sayles' place, where I was going to spend the night. Suited me all right, because I didn't think I'd get much sleep upstairs at the hotel anyway, where Banty Foote'd got his throat cut. When we walked in, I seen somebody'd moved Banty's body out of the sick room. Clete said he'd get our things together tonight and come around for me early. I tossed and turned some in one of Doc's narrow little cots after he left, but at least that miner with the busted foot didn't snore much.

Seemed like I'd hardly fell asleep when Clete was shaking me awake.

"What time is it?" I ask him.

"After four," he said, turning the lamp up some. "You better now?"

"Yeah, I'm all right." I felt pretty stiff getting up and into my clothes but my head didn't hurt none.

When we went outside I seen it was still pitch dark, the stars shining bright and rolled way over toward summer. Clete'd brought our horses up to the rail there, all saddled and loaded and ready to go. "I thought we'd travel light and do without a pack horse," he said, untying the gray. "We'll make better time. That all right with you?"

"Sure, but it's still too early to read the sign."

"I know," Clete said, leading Whatever away from the rail and starting up the street. "We've got something to attend to before we go."

I untied my bay and followed him, no idea at all where we was going. That was the quietest I heard Deadwood since we rode in. Wasn't but about three or four saloons still open, and I thought about getting a wake-up shot of rye before we left.

We went up the street a block or two, and I seen lots of horses tied outside one place and it all lit up inside. I thought at first it was another saloon, but when we got closer and I read the sign over the door, I seen it was an undertaker's parlor. I knowed then what we was attending to.

We tied up and went inside. Seven or eight men stood there, yawning and shuffling their feet and looking half asleep. Bullock was there too, so I thought maybe they worked for him. "Strange time for a funeral," Bullock said. "We're all ready except to load him."

Three men stood aside and there lay Banty Foote in a wooden box, his face all sober.

Clete and me walked up and looked him over. In the button hole of the new coat they had on him was a big red flower. Dressed in a dark striped suit, he was, his neck still bandaged, and laid out in the fanciest silk-lined coffin I ever seen. Only it was also the biggest coffin I ever seen, too, both width and length.

"Seems a little large for him, don't it?" I ask.

A fellow I took to be the undertaker sidled up to us. "I'm dreadful sorry for that," he said, twisting at a big diamond ring. "It was the only one we had on hand at such short notice. God knows what I'll do with Mr. Thompkins now, and his funeral's at ten."He glanced at Bullock, worked on his ring some more and shook his head a couple of times. "Does he look all right, gents?" he ask.

"Yeah, I guess he looks about as good as a dead man can," I told him, which was true and seemed to make him a good deal more comfortable.

"Well, let's get this done with so I can get the rest of my sleep," Bullock said.

The undertaker and his man nailed the lid of the coffin down tight and then some of Bullock's men carried it out the back door. I followed Clete out the front and pretty soon a glass-sided hearse come around the building pulled by a matched pair of blacks with black plumes sticking up between their ears, its four lamps at the comers all lit and flickery.

Another of Bullock's men was handing out lanterns for everyone to carry as they rode, and then we started off after the hearse two abreast. Up the street and then off to the left and then up a long steep hill. That hill kept going up and up and getting steeper and steeper. After a while I thought maybe we was going to deliver Banty right up to the Pearly Gates.

When we got to the top I seen two men digging by lantern light. They said they wasn't quite done, but Bullock decided it was deep enough. Clete and me helped the four men carry Banty's coffin. But when we went to put it down in the hole with ropes, we seen right away the hole was too short. First we tried putting the foot end in and slanting it up, but the head end was nearly up to the sod. And then we all heard Banty slide down that slick silk and go thump against the footboard, and that surely wouldn't do.

"Take it out and dig it longer, down at the narrow end," Clete said after a minute, so that's what they done.

While they was digging, I took my lantern and read what was carved on a tall marble gravestone nearby. I was surprised to see a name I reconized and pointed it out to Clete.

"James Butler Hickok," he read out loud. "Yeah, I forgot he was buried up here. Banty'd probably like the idea of being planted close to Wild Bill, wouldn't he?"

"I suspect he would," I told him.

When the gravediggers finished, we lowered Banty in again, all the way down this time. The undertaker said a few words and then handed Clete a spade. He pitched a shovelful of dirt in and then I done the same. We left the rest of that work for the men who'd dug the hole in the first place and then we all rode down the hill just as it was starting to get gray toward the east, Clete dropping back with Bullock.

When we was almost in town a young fellow brought his horse up beside mine. "Are you Sheriff Goodwin?" he ask me.

"No, I'm just a deputy," I said, "but my name's Goodwin. Who's askin'?"

"Bret Roth," he said, lifting his derby hat. "Please excuse me, Mr. Goodwin. I work for the
Pioneer.
Did you know the man who was buried?"

"Yes, I did," I told him.

"Was he a lawman, Mr. Goodwin? Mr. Foote, I mean. The reason I'm asking is that I'm writing up the killing and the funeral for the
Pioneer.
It's my first story and I'd like to get it right."

"Yes, he was a lawman," I said. "One of the best damn deputy sheriffs in the West. You write it up that way and you'll have it correct. Most men, the only name they make for themself is the one on their tombstone. But he was something, was Banty Foote. And spell his name right. Be sure to put an
e
on the end of it. Nothing worse than a man's name spelled wrong in his own obituary."

"I will, sir," he said, tipping his hat to me again. He rode off quick-to write his story while it was still fresh in his head, I guess.

We got back to the undertaker's and Clete had a word with Bullock, handed him some money, and then we mounted back up.

"Thanks again for your help, Seth," Clete said.

"No trouble," Bullock said, and then yawned. "Won't change your mind about taking more men?" he ask. "It's probably against the law, as you said, but nobody would care much."

"No, we can handle this," Clete said.

"Well, good luck. Remember what I told you, Goodwin," Bullock called as we went down the street, headed toward the livery stable.

As it turned out, I
did
read sign by lantern light, since it was still too dark to see good from up on my horse. But I walked little more than a mile 'til it was light enough to read and ride. DuShane'd climbed the ridge right above town and then followed the spine up the opposite way, eventually coming back to the big gulch Deadwood was in, but further up. We surely would of got lost in the dark trailing him, even with a light. His track went on up that vee and then turned left, up the ravine of another gulch, higher than the one Deadwood sat in, mining camps spread out wherever there was water. That gulch petered out close to the top of what you could almost call a mountain and at the peak his tracks turned south, heading downhill, following ridge and valley through some pretty rough country, all of it covered with pine and smelling as fresh and sweet as the second week after creation.

We rode all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon without stopping, eating jerky and bread, drinking from our canteens as we went, and gaining on him a little with every hour. We come onto a couple places where his horse had just stopped and stood a piece, and I couldn't figger it out for a while.

"I think he fell asleep riding and let his horse pick the way," I told Clete. "This here's one of the places his horse must of just stopped 'til DuShane woke up and nudged him on again." Wasn't far beyond that we come to where he'd built a fire and slept on the ground. Where his head had laid was quite a few spots where he'd bled into the dirt.

Clete stirred the ashes with a stick and found a few little red coals. "Three, maybe four hours."

"Maybe less, since he was burning pine," I said.

We started right off again, but gained no more on him than we did before, though we pushed pretty hard. By sundown I was tired and raw in the seat, and I seen Clete nod off a time or two. He give me no argument when I said I couldn't see the sign clear no more. We camped in a grassy little clearing up from the stream a ways, so the mosquitoes wouldn't get at us. Clete boiled coffee and we ate some more jerky and bread after we spread out our bedrolls.

When we finished our meal, I took the last of the coffee, lit my pipe and sat watching the fire, just as Clete was doing. The wind stirred the pines some and you could hear the creek from down below, but that was all.

"Shit!" Clete yelled.

I looked around quick, but nothing had moved and Clete sat just where he was before, still looking into the flames. "What is it?" I ask him.

He looked up. "I just figured out where that money is, the gold and cash Wilson stole from the Two Scalp Bank, and I'm a fool for not thinking of it sooner. His horse came back, so he
had
to have froze out there. Since he rode out toward the south, that's the direction I looked. But he didn't go south. If you were shot and freezing and discovered you were riding in a circle, what would
you
do?"