Dorothy Garlock (6 page)

“If it’d been me, you’d be dead.”

“Name’s Corbin Appleby.”

“Ya know yore name, do ya? It’s a good sign. Thought maybe ya whacked yore head, ya was out so long. Do ya want a drink of water?”

“I sure do.” Corbin closed his eyes and didn’t see the man go to the water pail beside the door. He was drifting toward the blackness when he felt a touch on his shoulder.

“Don’t ya be fadin’ away again. I’m a gettin’ tired talkin’ to myself.”

A large hand beneath his head lifted it, and a cup was held to his mouth. The water was cool and good. He had to resist the urge to gulp. The liquid slid down his dry throat like fine wine.

“Not too much to start. I ain’t wantin’ to be cleanin’ up no puke.”

“Am I hurt bad?” Corbin’s head sank wearily back down on the blanket.

“Bad enough to keep ya sleepin’ off an’ on most of the day.”

“My head feels like someone is pounding on it with a sledgehammer.”

“Don’t doubt that a bit. Ya got a goose egg up there big as a good-sized horse turd. Yore head found a rock when ya fell.”

“My legs!”

“They’re still there.”

“Did the bullet hit a bone?”

“Don’t think so. Ya moved it when I dug the bullet out and yelled like a kid gettin’ his butt whopped. Ya ain’t goin’ to be dancin’ on it for a while.”

“My shoulder?”

“Bullet went in and out. Scraped yore shoulder blade is all.”

“Who shot me?”

The man shrugged. “Somebody that didn’t want ya messin’ around.”

“Shit! I wasn’t looking for a still.”

The black-bearded man chuckled.

Corbin’s hand moved to his belly. He was naked. “Where’s my britches?”

“Ya goin’ some’ers?”

“Dammit, I’m buck-naked!”

“Ya ain’t got nothin’ I ain’t seen a hundred times. What ya squawkin’ about?”

“I’ve got to get up and go pee.”

“Try it, and ya’ll keel over. There’s a peach can under the bed ya can use.”

“I can’t use it layin’ down.”

The man chuckled again. “I ain’t much for touchin’ another man’s talley-wacker.” He held out a rusty can. “You’ll have to handle it yoreself.”

Corbin reached for the can and groaned when he moved his left arm. He eased it down and reached for the can with his right. He screwed his face into a scowl at his helplessness and tried to figure out who had shot him and how he had come to be here.

His heart pounded with the effort it took to merely sit up and relieve himself in the can, then set it back on the floor. A bandage was wrapped around the thigh on his right leg. Fear knifed through him. One of his greatest pleasures was long-distance running. He had been running since his school days.
Would he ever run again?

“Hungry? I got to get ya on your feet. I ain’t sunk so low as to shoot a man flat on his back.”

“Why do you want to shoot me?”

“Why not? I ain’t shot nobody for a while.”

“I wasn’t snooping around. I stopped to pee.”

“What was ya doin’ up here anyhow?”

“Lookin’ at the scenery. Where’s my car?”

“It’s down there in the woods. Ya couldn’t get a car up here without wings on it. I toted ya up here belly down on my horse.”

“My belly feels like it.”

“Feel like eatin’?”

“Right now I feel like I could eat the ass out of a skunk.”

The man chuckled, something he seemed to do often. “I can do a bit better’n that.”

“What’re you called? My name’s Corbin Appleby.”

“Ya already told me that. Ya can call me Boone ’less there’s somethin’ else comes to mind.”

As Boone walked away, Corbin set his teeth and closed his heart against the appetite that had begun to rage in him. The man returned with a grilled trout on a tin plate.

“Best sit up to eat it. I ain’t wantin’ ya to choke on a bone.”

“Yeah, I know. You want to get me on my feet so you can shoot me.” Corbin struggled to prop himself up on one elbow.

When he had picked the last of the flesh from the small fish, he drank the water Boone brought to him and surrendered to sleep.

Two days passed before Corbin could sit in a chair in the front of the cabin without his head feeling as if it would explode. It was such pleasure to feel the sun beating against him, warming his body, and to see the birds flying and the clouds billowing like huge ocean waves. He could sense his own strength welling up in him like a fountain.

The one-room cabin sat high in the hills and back from a clear stream that flowed down to the Mississippi River. Surrounding the cabin were thick woods. In a small patch at the side, a horse was staked out to eat the grass.

He still had no other name but Boone to put to the man who had saved his life. Nor did he know why Boone wanted to shoot him unless he was a whiskey runner and assumed that because Corbin carried a firearm he was a Fed.

This morning Corbin was able to move around with the help of the crutch made from the branch of a young sapling. Boone had left the cabin shortly after daybreak. He returned in the evening; and, although Corbin never heard a gunshot, Boone brought back a wild turkey that he quickly cleaned and put in the oven of the cookstove.

Another day after Boone left the cabin, Corbin got up the nerve to strip naked and ease down to slide into the stream. The water was cold, but nothing had ever felt as good as washing his entire body. He sat for a long time while the sun dried and warmed him. Later he hobbled back to the cabin, found a razor in a dresser drawer and shaved, observing that nothing restored a man’s confidence like a bath and a clean-shaven face.

That same day he watched his companion coming toward the cabin in long purposeful strides. Over his shoulders was stretched the burden of a full-grown stag. Boone came to the stream’s edge and cast down the two hundred pounds of fresh meat.

“Brought ya a little snack to eat before supper.”

“Good of you. I suppose you expect me to clean it.”

“’Less you want to eat it with the hide on. Gut it here by the stream, then I’ll string it up so you can skin it.”

“My days of lazing around are over.”

“Ya got it. I ain’t feedin’ no freeloaders. Like a little fish first?”

Chuckling, Boone picked up the little spear he’d fashioned from a straight shaft of seasoned ash. On the end of it was a barbed head of steel. He went upstream and knelt on a rock. Swift death shot down to meet the movement of a fin in the furtive shadows of the pool formed in the bend of the stream.

Later Corbin watched and marveled as his companion prepared a spit on which to turn the saddle of venison. It was not the skill alone, it was the quiet, quick way he moved that amazed Corbin and made him wonder how long Boone had lived this life in the hills along the river.

“What are you going to do with all this meat?” Corbin asked.

“It ain’t nothin’ for ya to worry ’bout.”

On the fourth day Corbin felt his sap rising, but still the soreness in his leg and the limited use of his arm held him back. And so he ate and slept while the red blood in his veins grew richer.

Corbin was alone at the cabin for long hours at a time. When the two men were together, they did not talk a great deal. There seemed to be no need for it. Corbin had not thanked Boone for saving his life, nor had he asked for his reason for wanting to take it.

When at the cabin, Boone constantly worked at something. He caulked the cracks in the cabin walls with clay to make them tighter. He chopped several cords of wood and stacked it beside the house.

One afternoon he cleaned his two guns and the one he had taken from Corbin’s car. He took them apart, cleaned and oiled them and reassembled the parts with hands that could have done it if he were sightless.

“Are you expecting Geronimo to ride out of the woods and attack?” Corbin casually asked that evening as they sat in front of the cabin.

“It’d more likely be a nosy lawman,” Boone answered without looking up.

“You hiding something?”

“Ain’t ever’body?”

“I’m not a lawman.”

“Yeah?”

“Is that why you’re going to shoot me? You think I’m a Fed?”

“Ain’t decided yet.”

“Have you heard of a boy named Jack Jones?”

“What’s he look like?”

“Sandy hair, blue eyes, strong for a kid his age. He’s got a real hankering to be a baseball player.”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“His folks asked me to look for him. Last letter they got was from St. Louis.”

“Big town.”

“But I found him. Fellow told me he was there trying out for their team. He said the kid was good, but not good enough, and told him to go home and come back again in a year or two. He thought he headed north.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Jack didn’t go home. That was four months ago.”

“Maybe he didn’t wanna go home.”

“His folks want to know if he’s all right.”

“I didn’t think it was the business of the law to look fer kids what didn’t want to go home.”

“I’m not a lawman now. I’m a friend of the family. I went down to Springfield to see my folks and came on over this way on my way back up north.”

“Yo’re not a Fed?”

“No. I’m not a marshal either. I was a police chief of a town up in the northwest part of the state for several years. You worried about the Feds?”

“Who isn’t?”

“I’m not.”

Boone looked him in the eye. “You about able to move on?”

“You’re not going to shoot me?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“Who did shoot me?”

“I figure it was one of the hillbillies who has a still in the hills.”

“Why didn’t they take my car when they had the chance?”

“’Cause I’da shot ’em if they had.”

“You wanting it?”

“Hell, if I’da wanted it, I’da took it an’ left ya to bleed to death.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I appreciate what you did for me.”

“Why’d ya quit bein’ a lawman?”

“I never planned to make a career of law enforcement. I took the job to catch the man who killed the girl I was going to marry.”

“Catch him?”

“In a way. He’s dead.”

“I may know the kid yo’re lookin’ for.”

“The hell you do? Why in the hell didn’t you say so? Where is he?”

“Ain’t sayin’. When yo’re ready to leave, go into Henderson and I’ll brin’ him to ya.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yeah. So far.”

“What do you mean by that? Is he in trouble?”

“Not yet. He’s in hog heaven, lappin’ up the attention of a pretty woman.”

“Goddammit, Boone. Give me some straight answers. Is he in a whorehouse?”

“I can think of worse places to be.” Boone’s dark eyes shone with amusement.

“The kid’s fresh off the farm, for God’s sake.” Corbin wasn’t amused.

“Yeah. He seems like a good enough kid. Needs to be home with his folks.” Boone got up and stretched. “Ya can ride my horse down to yore car in the mornin’. I’ll put a blind on ya. Don’t want ya findin’ yore way back up here. You got a problem with that?”

“No. It’s better than being shot.”

The horseback ride down the mountain was anything but enjoyable. By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain, Corbin’s leg felt as if it were being probed with a hot poker. The wound in his shoulder kept him from supporting his thigh and he had to use his other hand to grasp the saddle horn in order to stay in the saddle.

They finally stopped.

Corbin blinked and squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight when Boone untied the blindfold. The man was gentle as he helped him from the house.

“Stay here while I take the horse and see if anyone’s nosin’ ’round the cars.”

Minutes later, Boone was back on foot and led him to where his car and a flatbed truck were hidden amid thick foliage.

“Where’s the horse?”

“I got a little place up there where I stake him out. He’ll be all right if the damn Carters don’t find him.”

“Carters?”

“Hills are full of ’em.”

“It’s a wonder I didn’t bleed to death when you took me up that mountain on that damn horse,” Corbin grumbled.

“Ah, I knowed ya warn’t goin’ to die or I’d not busted a gut gettin’ ya up on the horse.”

Corbin reached his car and sank gratefully down on the passenger seat. It was hot. Insects were buzzing around his head. He reached for his hat, which was still lying on the seat, and slapped it down on his head.

“Are ya up to drivin’?”

“Fine time to ask me that.”

“I’ll back her outta here and get her pointed toward the road to Henderson. There’s a couple roomin’ houses there, a hotel and a right good whorehouse. I ain’t been there, but any whorehouse is better’n none.”

Corbin had become used to the big man’s sense of humor. His mouth twitched in an effort to be serious, his eyes shone and the tone of his voice changed. Corbin was well aware he owed Boone plenty. The bootlegger had saved his life. He had no doubt that Boone was guarding a stash of illegal alcohol that had come downriver and that from time to time he would take a load out in his truck.

When Boone stopped the car, Corbin got out and came around to get under the wheel. He held out his hand and Boone took it.

“Thanks, Boone. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me know. I’ll find a room in Henderson, see the doc and wait for you. Tell the boy Corbin Appleby from Fertile wants to see him.”

“Give me a day or two or three. Good luck, Appleby.”

“Same to you, Boone. The way I see it, you’re in more danger from the hillbillies with the still than you are from the revenuers.”

Boone grinned. “You may be right.” He touched his hand to the bill of his cap and walked quickly back to where he had left his truck.

Jack sat at the table and tried not to wolf down the eggs and biscuits. The good food he’d eaten and the sleep he’d gotten in a comfortable bed had helped put him back on his feet. Now he had to regain his strength. He still looked gaunt and had dark bruises beneath his eyes.

“Ma’am, I just got to do something to pay for this food.”

“Tell me about your family, Jack.”

“Nothing exciting to tell. We live on a farm on the edge of town. Never lived anyplace else until I left home. I went to Chicago first. I just had to see Wrigley Stadium. For the price of a ticket to see the game, I helped clean up afterwards. I even got to see Rogers Hornsby.”