Dead Trouble (2 page)

The man with the shoulder-length hair sitting at the table in the corner of the bar room spluttered into his beer and half-choked. He coughed and spat and wiped at his mouth and streaming eyes with a kerchief,
clearing
his throat as he glared at the kid standing by his table.

‘
What
?’ he croaked. ‘He was
what
?’

‘A Ranger,’ repeated Kid McKittrick, still flushed with excitement from what he had pulled off in the room out back of the saloon. ‘A goddamn Texas Ranger, Long!’

Everyone had heard the shooting but no one had gone to investigate. Red Flats was that kind of town. It was healthier that way for all concerned.

‘Suspected him right off. When he left to go after Kel, I went through his saddlebags, found a badge pinned to the inside of the flap. Figured it was best to kill him.’

The long-haired man stood slowly, his small eyes mere glinting dark dots in his face now as the lids pinched down. He was aware that the other drinkers were watching – and listening. He spoke to them
without
taking his gaze from the kid who showed signs of unease now, hands sweaty against the rifle he still held.

‘You know what this crazy bastard has done?’ the long-haired man asked the room and, not waiting for an answer, added, ‘He’s gone and back-shot a Texas goddamn
Ranger
!’

If McKittrick expected applause and
congratulations
, he was mighty disappointed. There was a stunned silence at first, then cusses from every corner of the crowded room, then shouts and a few fists were shaken. McKittrick swallowed, turning to face the men who were yelling at him.

‘Damn fool kid!’

‘Chris’sakes, we’ll have a whole blame troop comin’ in here lookin’ for him!’

‘Jesus, kid, din’ no one tell you you
never
kill a Ranger!’

‘Might’s well put a gun to your own head!’

Flushed and his heart hammering, McKittrick yelled,

‘I never killed him! He’s dyin’, I guess, but …’

That seemed to make matters worse. The kid looked to Longhair for some sort of guidance. ‘He come lookin’ for Kel – you know what hell Kel an’ his pards’ve put us all through lately.’ He stopped to clear his throat. ‘I for one was fed up with all the beatin’s and kickin’s I was gettin’ an’ the way he was playin’ round with my wife. No one seemed game to go up agin him, so I figured let that big sonuver who rode in take care of him
– then I shot him, too.’

‘You made one big mistake, kid,’ Longhair said quietly.

McKittrick was sweating, saw there was no help here from anyone. Instead of being looked on as some kind of hero, they seemed ready to kill him. He brought up the rifle, lever clashing, and started to back towards the door, eyes wild.

‘You try to stop me an’ I’ll shoot! I
will
!’

No one tried to stop him: the sooner he was out of town the better.

They heard him go not five minutes later, forking the sleek buckskin he had prepared for the Ranger, his wife trailing him on a slower dun, skirts and hair flying.

‘What the hell we gonna do?’ a man asked Longhair. ‘We’ll have to get rid of that Ranger. Someone’ll come lookin’ for him.’

Longhair pointed to a man who was obviously the worse for drink slouched in a corner. He was
middle-aged
, unshaven, dressed in soiled frock-coat and
grey-flannel
trousers that had seen better times.

‘Throw a bucket of water over him and drag him out to look at the Ranger. Kid said he ain’t quite dead yet.’

‘Hey! The hell you got in mind!’

Longhair’s eyes were tight and small again. ‘Like you said, Blackie, they’ll come lookin’. That we don’t want.’ He jerked a thumb to the drunk in the chair. ‘He used to be a sawbones – killed some kid on the operatin’ table back East an’ crawled into a likker bottle and been livin’ there ever since—’

‘Christ! He couldn’t do nothin’. Anyway, what the hell you want him to do?’

‘He can tell us if the Ranger can travel. If he can, we take him down to Big Hat and dump him at the
infirmary
there. Better if the Rangers find him alive or bein’ looked after than dead. We all swear he never come here. They might still come but it won’t be the same, like if they’re lookin’ for someone who killed one of their kind, but we can tell ’em it was Kid McKittrick shot him if we have to, give ’em a trail to follow, get ’em away from here.’

The men looked dubious.

‘Risky, Long,’ said Blackie.

‘Sure. But better’n havin’ to close down the whole blame town and clear out – or have it done by Rangers out for blood! It’s our only chance, way I see it. Now get that old has-been sobered-up as much as you can and get him on his feet. Chuck, Mungo, you come with me and we’ll see what we can do for the Ranger till Doc has a look at him.’

They thought he was mad. But now that McKittrick was dead, Longhair was the most feared man in Red Flats. They moved to obey.

The drunken ex-sawbones let out a strangled,
choking
yell as someone tipped a pail of cold water over him. Someone else hauled him out of his chair and slapped his face until his eyes began to focus. Then they shook him, took him out to the horse-trough, dunked him half a dozen times, and dragged him out to the room where five dead men and one dying awaited him.

They found Longhair and Mungo crouched over Deke Cutler.

‘How’s he doin’, Long?’ asked Blackie, holding one arm of the sagging, drenched doctor who was swaying
from side to side, wondering what was happening to him.

‘Don’t think he’s gonna make it,’ Longhair said grimly. ‘Slap that sawbones around until he knows where he’s at.
Do
it, goddamnit! If this son of a bitch dies we’re all in more trouble’n you can shake a stick at!’

Blackie’s hand smacked back and forth across the doctor’s slack face. He moaned and protested feebly but didn’t seem any more aware than previously.

‘Ahhh! It ain’t no good, Long! He ain’t gonna help. You ask me, we better bury the Ranger and quit the Flats before a troop comes ridin’ in and kicks us out! We’re finished here!’

Doctor Hugo Farraday was a burly man who wheezed a lot. His fingers were stained darkly with nicotine, as was the bushy moustache under his large nose. Anyone coming out of chloroform and seeing that face looking down at them could be forgiven for thinking they had ended up in Hell.

But when he spoke, his voice was soothing, quiet, gentle – as were his big hands.

‘Deke? That right, they call you “Deke”?’

Cutler’s heavy-lidded eyes fluttered a little and he was some time before he nodded. He tried to talk but his voice was too raspy for anything to be understood. Doc Farraday’s right hand pressed him gently back against the bedsheets.

‘Try to relax. Just wanted to make sure you were coming out of the anaesthetic. It’ll be some time yet before you can speak or do anything much except lie
there and moan and groan.’ He smiled, the yellowed moustache masking much of the smile. ‘My name’s Doctor Farraday. They brought you in from Red Flats. Someone shot you in the back and you’ve taken a bullet in your right arm which has made quite a mess of all the things that go to work it smoothly. I’ve done what I can and you’re too weak to be moved anyplace that can do better, so I’m afraid you’re between that legendary rock and a hard place. Are you understanding any of this?’

The eyes fluttered partly open again. There was a faint gargling sound and then the slightest movement of the head: a nod.

‘You are a very tough man, friend,’ Farraday said with undisguised admiration in his voice. ‘How you survived the ride from Red Flats hanging over a horse, I’ll never know. But I have to tell you, Deke, that’s it’s going to be a long, long time before you get on a horse in any manner. Your left lung has been nicked, splinters of bone have been driven into your muscles. It’s going to hurt like red-hot hell once you try to move things around. But that won’t be yet awhile. Not trying to depress you. I just believe that patients should know their condition and what may or may not happen to them.’

Deke Cutler continued to look up through slitted eyelids. His left arm was strapped across his chest. His right was heavily bandaged from wrist to bicep. He managed to lift one finger of his right hand, the index one, and he scratched at the sheet several times.

Farraday frowned.

‘You want something?’ A slight sideways movement of the head.
Scratch, scratch, scratch!
‘Er … you want to
know
something? Want me to tell you …’

A nod.

‘I – see. Now what do you wish to know? Of course! How long before you are better? Am I right?’

Another slight nod and an obvious straining to open the eye further, a quickening of the breathing. Farraday reached down and gently squeezed his right hand.

‘I can’t tell, Deke. By rights you should be dead. Whatever you did before – cowhand, stage driver, or whatever – well, I doubt you’ll be fit for even light work under six months.’

Deke Cutler’s big body went rigid under the sheet covering him. There was a deep frown, the head moved back and forth. Farraday made gentling sounds, leaning over him, drawing the sheet up to his chin.

‘Don’t you worry about it – I’ll pull you through, with your help. Just accept that it may –
will
– be quite a long time and that you might have to think about some new kind of work. It will be easier in the long run if you do that.’

Deke Cutler’s mind was still too fuzzy and dizzy from the chloroform and he couldn’t have put the words together if he wanted to.

But something deep down told him clearly that he
would
pull through and he would go back to Rangering –
even if it killed him!

Even though still only semi-conscious, he felt like laughing at this last.
Even if it killed him!

Christ! His life was already hanging by a thread.

Mrs Farraday, a plumpish woman with silver streaks in her hair and a smiling face, opened the door to the big,
dusty man who wore the circled-star Texas Ranger badge on his vest.

Her smile warmed.

‘Well, you look as if a cup of coffee and some of my biscuits wouldn’t go amiss. Come you in.’

The big man smiled, hat in hand now, sweat-tousled black hair pasted to his high forehead. He murmured, ‘Thank you, ma’am’ as he shuffled into the room. She led him through to the kitchen and proceeded to get him some vittles. He apologized for his appearance.

‘Ridden out from San Angelo, ma’am. My, that coffee sure smells good. Ma’am, I b’lieve your husband has a patient here named Deke Cutler? I’m Ranger Dal Beattie, by the way.’

‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Yes, we have Mr Cutler here.’ Her smile had faded now. ‘Very poorly, I’m afraid. Fever has him in its grip and Doctor Farraday is afraid the infection will turn to pneumonia.’

Beattie frowned. ‘We heard he was bad hit – but he’s been here a month or so now, ain’t that right?’

‘Yes. But the doctor will explain. You eat up and I’ll fetch him.’

Doc Farraday shook hands briefly with Beattie as his wife poured him a cup of coffee and left the room. He told the Ranger about Cutler’s wounds.

‘By rights, ought to be dead. ’Bout the toughest man I’ve ever seen and I used to work the Cherry Creek goldfields in Colorado.’

‘He is gonna make it though, Doc?’

Farraday obviously didn’t want to commit himself and the Ranger grew impatient as he hedged.

‘All right. What happened to him?’

‘Brought in by some of the men from Red Flats. They were very eager to stress that they found him lying beside the trail from Big Hat here to their town, but I rather think Deke Cutler was … injured in Red Flats.’

Dal Beattie’s mouth was taut now as he accepted a fresh cup of coffee from the doctor.

‘Red Flats. We been lookin’ at that dump for a long time. Deke must’ve gotten a lead. He was after Kel McKittrick …’ He stood abruptly. ‘I reckon it’s time we closed down that damn outlaw nest.’

‘I am surprised it hasn’t been done before, Ranger.’ There was censure in the medic’s voice.

‘Well, Doc, it suited us to know of a place where outlaws gathered. We could keep an eye on ’em, but it’s been gettin’ too damn big lately. There a telegraph office in town?’

Farraday told him how to get to it, wondered why Beattie hadn’t asked to see Cutler. The Ranger merely said he didn’t want to disturb him.

He sent off his wire and by noon the eight Rangers who had been waiting at the Butterfield way station on Mad Dog Mesa drifted into Big Hat one by one during the course of the afternoon, a couple arriving after dusk.

By midnight they were in position around Red Flats, and by sun-up the first fires were started.

The heavily armed Rangers waited in their hiding-places. They didn’t have to wait long before the raw-eyed men below, nursing rotgut hangovers, began coming out of the trash-built shanties and lean-tos. The smoke made them cough and when they saw how many fires were burning – ten in all – it even pentrated their
hangovers that this day brought big trouble, About the same time, the Rangers opened up, shooting to kill, aiming to put Red Flats off the map for ever. The outlaws fell and scattered, running for horses, but found the livery almost totally consumed by now, the horses having been driven out and up the slope to spread out amongst the timber.

They could only turn and flee.

It was brief and bloody – and complete. Two Rangers went down, one never to rise again, the other with a leg wound. Longhair seemed to survive right to the end and finally it was he and Dal Beattie who confronted each other behind the charred and still-blazing ruins of the saloon.

Longhair was bleeding from two minor bullet wounds, one a scalp crease, and his face was streaked with blood as the big Ranger stepped out from behind a charred, sagging door.

‘Been a long time since Fort Kelso, Long, you son of a bitch!’

‘Not long enough for you, Beattie!’ Longhair
triggered
his shotgun and Beattie jumped back behind the door. But buckshot chewed a large hunk out of the woodwork and some of the balls took him in the neck and upper body. He stepped out, working lever and trigger on his rifle with the butt jammed against his hip.