Six Gun Justice (16 page)

“I just want to bring the man in to stand trial,” he said tiredly. “Have you seen him?”

Pulling at his lip the doctor mused for a few seconds before answering, “Yes, I have seen such a man. He was here yesterday. I treated him for a gunshot wound in leg. He was very fortunate that it was a clean wound. He told me he had shot himself when he was practicing with his gun. I thought at the time it sounded suspicious, but I said nothing. I thought he had something to hide, but it is not my place to do the work of the law.”

Jakes adrenaline pumped into his system, giving him renewed strength. He had hit pay dirt. He almost held his breath as he asked, “Did he give any indication where he was going?”

“He said something about having to get to Casa Grande. That was about noon yesterday, so I guess he had plenty of time to make it, though I advised him to take a couple of days and rest. I had to take at least ten stitches in his thigh and he had lost some blood. I can see by the bloodstain on your shirt that you too have had to seek medical attention. Was this caused by the man you seek?”

“Yes doctor, he tried to kill me, and I shot back. There were two of them and just one of me.”

“And where is the other man?” he asked softly.

“I left him for the carrion, after he tried to shoot me in the back. Now I want to find his partner and bring him in,” he lied.

The doctor looked at him with doubt written on his face, but he said nothing. he could tell by the big gringo in front of him,  that he was not the time to take his problems to the law. He was still staring at him when the woman Jake had seen hanging sheets came through the door. She was even more striking up close.

“Senor, may I present my wife Katrina Villanova,” he said. “And your name Senor?”

“Jake Killman ma’am. Pleasure meeting you, and thanks for your help doctor,” he said, turning to leave.

“Senor, before you leave, I would be honored if you would take some wine with us.”

“Thanks doctor, but I need to keep a clear head.”

“The offer is purely a medical interest Senor. The wine is good for building the blood you have lost. It is very low in alcohol, so it should not impair your…er…abilities. Besides, your man will wait for you, I’m sure. He too will have to rest soon, or he will die.”

Jake nodded, watching the doctor pour a couple of small glasses of wine for himself and his wife and a larger glass for himself. He thought about the weak state he had been in that morning and decided that wisdom was the better part of valor.

He accepted the proffered glass of wine and sipped at it. He had never been much of a wine drinker, but this was fine Madeira, very rare in this country. He savored the taste of the wine and could feel the renewed vigor it produced. He had heard something about fruit juices being good for replenishing blood, but never wine. But the man was a doctor, after all, so he must have more knowledge than Jake about what was good for him and what was not.

Finishing the wine, he again thanked the doctor, shook hands with the man and left. He felt better than he had felt for the last two days. Maybe there was something to that bit about wine replenishing lost blood. It was late evening when he left Phoenix, so within three hours darkness was fast approaching. He found a narrow strip of ground near a dry wash and set up camp.

His mind told him that trying to travel at night was a foolhardy thing to do, but his desire to catch up with Murdock was almost enough to overpower his logic. With a great deal of tribulation, he stopped for the night.

The next morning, he was on his way again before daylight had even started to break over the land. By noon, the city of Casa Grande was only a mile in front of him, and the sun was baking his brain and wrenching sweat from him, soaking his shirt. He was thoroughly miserable, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he was close to the end of his hunt.

The town was little more than a cross road in the arid countryside, with a street laid out along the main trail to Tucson and another laid out along the trail that led into the west, toward Yuma. Two sun bleached adobe structures sported signs on the front, pronouncing them to be saloons, with a livery alongside one, set under the biggest cottonwood Jake had ever seen. There was an eating-place of sorts, a small mercantile, with devil dogs dancing in the dusty street. It was truly a sight that was akin to hell.

A makeshift two-story adobe squatted nearest him as he entered the town. The faded sign had the plain legend HOTEL on the front. Stopping his mare in front, he swung from the saddle and tied the reins to the bleached out pole that served as a hitching post.

The inside of the hotel was cool compared to the blast furnace he had just left, but the décor was nothing more than bare walls, upon which a small scorpion scuttled. The front desk was nothing more than a section from some defunct bar shoved against one wall and a rack in back of it with six cubbyholes for the keys. The San Francisco Palace it wasn’t, he thought, but it would suffice for his short stay here in this God forsaken place.

He hit the small bell on the desk and a fat Mexican woman shuffled from a door that led to the rear of the main floor. She eyed him suspiciously, went behind the makeshift desk and turned a stained register around for him to sign, never having said a word. He scribbled his name in the book and quickly scanned the names on the page.

His pulse quickened as he spotted the name Harvey Murdock above his own. He had caught up with the bastard at last.

“Is Harvey Murdock in his room?” he growled.

The Mexican woman said nothing, just looked at him and shook her head. Jake had to admit that he had never met a person who said less than this mountain of flesh.

“Where could I find him?” he asked her, marveling that she did not sweat and seemed never to get excited.

Again she said nothing, just pointed up the street toward where the two saloons and the livery. There was little else in the town that would draw a human being, os he guessed Murdock was in one of the drinking holes. He took his key, looked at the number on the tag and went back outside. His horse was waiting with a bowed head.

Leading the animal to the livery, he spotted Murdock’s horse in one of the pens beneath the huge cottonwood, his blood beginning to dace through his veins in a dance of expectation. He unsaddled the mare, turned her into the corral, took the Henry carbine from its sheath, paid the hostler a quarter to rub down the animal and grain her.

The first of the salons was only a few steps to the left of the corral, so he headed in that direction. He was almost at the front of the saloon he had chosen, when Murdock exited the saloon across the street, his head bent and a hand shading his eyes from the sun. he did not see Jake until he was in the middle of the dusty street. He did a jerky double take, his hand starting for his pistol and then thinking better of it, he raised his hand clear of his gun, signaling his intent not to draw.

“Murdock!” Jake barked. “Fill your hand.”

“I’m not drawing against you Killman! I know I can’t beat you to the draw. It will be murder if you shoot me!”

“I always knew you were a chicken hearted coward. I’m taking you back to answer for your crimes against the people of the Mogollan Rim, but I would rather take you back across your saddle.”

“I’m not going any place with you Killman and you can’t make me.”

“We’ll see about that, Jake growled, closing the gap between them. “I don’t have to kill a snake like you to take you back.”

His hand drew the Colt from his holster quicker than Murdock could see. Before he knew what was about to happen, Jake had brought the pistol around in a vicious arc, slamming the barrel into the side of his head. Murdock slid to the dusty street with a moan, trying to grab Jake for support.

By the time he had dropped at Jake’s feet, a few men had come out of the saloon Murdock had just left, to see what all the ruckus was about. When they saw the man lying at Jake’s feet and Jake with a gun in his hand, they were unsure what to make of it. There had not been a shot, but there lay a man in the street, for all intents, looking as dead as a fence post.

“Hey mister, what the hell are you doing to that man?” a voice yelled from the front of the saloon.

“Taking him prisoner. Stay out of it cowboy, it’s none of your business,” Jake responded.

The man was momentarily taken aback, but he took another step into the street. His hand dropped to within inches of his gun as he stood spraddle legged in the hot sun. Jake could tell he was a working cowpoke and had no desire to kill the man. Having practiced with his Dragoon for many hours, becoming very proficient with it, he knew he could outdraw and out shoot most men.

“This is not your fight mister,” he rumbled. “You’d best leave it lay.”

With two of his friends now standing behind him, the cowboy felt he could not back down without looking like a fool, so he did the only thing he could to save face. He drew his pistol. The only thing he heard was the loud report of the dragoon and the blur with which the man had drawn, before he felt the sting of a bullet hitting his own gun, before he could even bring it to bear.

The cowboy grabbed his tingling hand, trying to stop the pain that was coursing through it, as he looked in awe at the stranger in front of him. He knew he was lucky. The stranger could have killed him just as easily as he had shot the gun out of his hand.

Jake reholstered his gun and said, “You’re lucky mister. Mixing other folks business can get a man killed. You just bought a little longer to live. This yahoo has killed some of my friends and tried to steal ranches that don’t belong to him. In my book that brands him as a killer and a down right thief. I’m telling you this, not because it’s any of your business, but because I didn’t come here looking for trouble.”

The cowboy nodded his stunned understanding and took a step back. Jake dropped the Colt back into its holster and grabbed a handful of Murdock’s collar, dragging him along the dusty thoroughfare, as though he was a dead coyote. He would tie the man for the night and collect his and Murdock’s horse in the morning. Right now, he needed rest and the salt from his sweat was causing his wound to burn and itch. He intended to follow the doctor’s orders and rest.

He dragged Murdock up the stone steps to his room and bound him hand and foot with a rope and left him on the floor beside the bed with a gag stuffed in his mouth. He shucked his gunbelt and lay back on the bed, which sagged in the middle, causing a sharp pain to lance through the wound in his side. At this point he could have cared less. His stamina had reached its peak. He was on a downhill roll and he let the lids of his eyes close as soon as his head was on the pillow.

He did not know how long he slept, only that he felt drugged as his mind made contact with the world around him and the incessant thumping that filled his head. Sitting up, he brought his feet to the floor, feeling the soft flesh of a body beneath them. Startled, he came to full alert, grabbing for his pistol hanging on the bedpost. As he bought it around, his mind cleared enough for him to realize that the body was that of his prisoner.

Releasing the hammer on the Colt, he dropped it back in its holster, rolled Murdock over, listening to the muffled murmur of his voice as he tried to talk around the kerchief stuffed in his mouth. The room was in dark shadow, so Jake figured it must be night. he fumbled around until he found the lamp sitting on an aging table, struck a match on the bottom and lit it, turning the wick up enough to emit a dim light in the room.

As he looked down at Murdock’s inert body, hogtied beside the bed, he could feel his anger rise against him. The thought of what this man had done, the damage he had caused sent a cold feeling through his stomach. He had the almost uncontrollable urge to shoot the man where he lay bound. But, this was not the way of a civilized man and above all else, Jake considered himself a step above such men as the one lying at his feet.

He bent and pulled the kerchief from his mouth, letting Murdock catch his breath. He could see the man trying to work some saliva back into his dry mouth, the croaking of his cracked voice scratching on his nerves as he waited. When he had sufficiently moistened his throat, his voice still cam out like a frog.

“I’ll get you for this Killman! If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get you for this! No man can treat me like a dog and live! No man!”

“If that’s all you have to say, I might as well stuff the rag back in your mouth, so I can get some sleep,” Jake said.

“No, wait Killman! If you untie me, I promise I will be quiet. You’ve tied me so tight, there’s no circulation to my hands.”

“You should have thought of that before you tried to run roughshod over the people who are my neighbors and steal my ranch. I should just kill you and drag your carcass back with me, but you would stink too bad before I could get you home.”

“Please,” he begged. “I’ll give you my word!”

“Your word isn’t worth spit. I wouldn’t trust you to honor it, because you’ve shown yourself to have no honor. I met men like you in the war, who had rather lie than to do the honorable thing. You’re not worth the bullet it would take to send you to hell, he said, spitting the words out as though they tasted bad in his mouth.

“Cou…could you at least give me a drink of water? I need some water, or I’ll die.”

Jake looked at him for a long time, then finally went tot eh pitcher and poured a glass of the tepid water for his prisoner and brought it back to him. Jerking Murdock to a sitting position, he shoved the glass close to his mouth. As he drank greedily from the water, Jake tilted the glass until it was all gone and picked up the rag to stuff back in Murdock’s mouth.