The Outlaw Takes a Bride (40 page)

“Well, be careful,” Johnny said. “If they’re done shootin’, bring the sheriff here.”

Eph scouted around the corner and then walked out into the open.

Johnny leaned in close to his old comrade. “Cam, Fred got a wire from Denver saying they’re looking for you for Red Howell’s killing.”

Cam’s face twisted. “So, somebody figured it out.”

“You mean it’s true? I didn’t want to believe it.”

Cam grimaced and closed his eyes. “Like I said, it was bound to come to this.”

“But you told me you’d go with me to help me.”

“Just lookin’ out for my hide. Look where it got me.”

Johnny stared down at him. At last he said, “I’m sorry.”

Cam’s mouth twitched. “
You’re
sorry? You dumb kid. You never shoulda listened to me.”

Fred Jackson strode around the corner, with Eph in his wake.

“You all right, Johnny?”

“Yes, sir.” Johnny stood slowly. “It’s Cam Combes. I thought you’d want to know. He’s shot bad.”

“My fault,” Eph said. “He was shootin’ at Mark. I mean Johnny.”

“Don’t fret about it,” Jackson said. “Whyn’t you see if Rilla can make a place for him in the house? She’s got Bill Hood in there already. Maybe she can take this’un, too.”

“Bill’s hurt?” Johnny said.

“One of ’em winged him.” Fred crouched beside Cam and put a hand to his throat. “I’m not feeling a pulse.”

Johnny froze. Had Cam slipped away while they stood here talking?

After a long moment, Fred looked up and nodded. “He’s gone. Can we use your wagon, Eph?”

“Sure. There’s one over yonder in the juniper, too.” Eph nodded toward the other downed outlaw.

Fred stood with a sigh. “One of them said there’s a couple of bodies back at your place, too, Johnny.”

“What?” Johnny stared at him.

“That’s what they tell me. Flynn and another man were killed when they attacked your house. Two of them here are wounded.”

Johnny turned and ran for Reckless.

“Someone’s coming,” Ma yelled down the well.

Sally, up to her neck in the water, was holding her father with his head above the surface. She had brought a short board down to drape his arms over, and so far she had kept him from going under. But he had drifted in and out of sensibility, and she didn’t know how much longer she could support him.

“Go get the rifle! It could be one of the outlaws.” She stared up at her mother’s shadowed face. Her voice echoed off the close walls of the well. There was barely room enough for her and her father. She held doggedly to the rope with one hand.

“I think it’s your man,” Ma said after a moment. “Hold on.”

Sally grimaced as her aching hand cramped. Far away, as though from the end of a mine shaft, she heard Johnny say, “Ma’am, how do? I’m John Paynter. Where’s Sally?”

A moment later, he poked his head over the berm. “Sally, gal, what are you doing down there?”

“Trying to keep my pa from drowning.” She hadn’t meant to, but she burst into tears, and the last, broken word came out with a sob.

“Your pa?” Johnny’s head disappeared, and she heard a low, earnest discussion going on. After a minute, he was back. “I’m coming down.”

“No,” she yelled. “There’s not room enough. We’d all be stuck in here like sardines in a tin.”

After a pause, he said, “Can you hold on to the well rope, and I’ll hoist you up?”

“I can’t let go of Pa. He’ll go under.”

“Is he conscious?” Johnny asked.

“Sometimes, but he’s hurt bad. He’s awful weak, Johnny. You gotta get him out of here.”

“I will, I will. Help’s coming.”

Sally’s arms ached. She’d been down here at least half an hour, clinging with one hand to the rope. Her other arm encircled her father’s shoulders and chest. Her feet kept losing touch with the bottom, causing her to bob. She had taken off her shoes before descending, and her toes felt rocks and muck when she let herself sink six inches or so. She tried not to flail around much, as she was uncertain how stable the bottom of the well was or if it would hold when pressure was exerted.

Her mother called down to her, “Hang on, Sally. He’s gone to get his lasso.”

A moment later, Johnny’s rope, stiffer than the one they used in the well or the clothesline, appeared. A loop about four feet in diameter descended to her. Bumping the sides of the well.

“Am I supposed to put that on?” she yelled.

“No. If you can, get it around him under his arms. Then I can hold him steady while you climb out. I think.”

“I’ll try.”

Sliding the loop over her father’s head and shoulders was easy, but getting his arms through it was another matter.

“Pa, come on. Help me here. Let’s get your arms through this. We’re going to get you out.”

He moaned when she took his arm and tried to change his position.

“Are you awake?” she asked. “Come on, Pa.”

She worked first on his left side, as his wound was more toward the right. Even so, he flinched and moaned with each little movement.

“I hate to hurt you, but I have to do this.” She struggled to work the rope over his arm and get it into the loop. Every time she moved, she hit the wall of the hand-dug well. The top six feet or so was lined in stonework, but down here the sides were just earth. Whenever her flailing arms hit the wall, clods of dirt tumbled into the water that was already murky with dirt and blood. At last she had his left arm through. Her father’s head rested against her shoulder.

“Johnny,” she gasped. “I don’t think I can get his other arm in.”

“All right, can I get a ladder down there? Is there room?”

“You mean a wooden one?” she asked.

“Yeah. There’s one in the loft that Cam and I built.”

So that was where he had stored it. She ought to have climbed up there and looked first thing. Wearily, she lifted her face to gaze up at him. “I think so.”

“Hold tight. I’ll go get it. Your ma’s going to hold the end of the lasso to help you a little.”

Sally couldn’t see that it was any easier now to keep Pa’s head out of the water, especially since he had slipped into unconsciousness. The board wasn’t helping at all. She willed her numbing arms to hold on and her back and legs to keep supporting both of them.

A few minutes later, her mother called, “Someone’s coming. Someone in a wagon.”

“Thank You, Lord,” Sally whispered. She could hear distant voices as Ma explained the situation to the newcomer.

Johnny reappeared above her. “Eph Caxton’s here, Sally. He’s going to help me get the ladder down. Stay over to the side now.”

Mr. Caxton poked his head over the edge of the well.

“Miz Paynter?”

“Yes. Hello.”

“I’m going to help your husband. We’ll put the ladder down easy if we can, but we might have to take off the windlass. I misdoubt the ladder’s long enough to reach bottom, though.”

Sally pushed back against the side of her prison, holding her father as close to her as she could. The space was tight, but his legs had stopped helping support him long ago, and she knew he would sag beneath the surface if she loosened her grip.

Johnny and Eph managed to work the ladder into the well without dismantling the windlass. They let it down slowly until they held it by its top rung. The bottom hung a few inches above the top of the water.

“I’m going to let go,” Johnny said.

The ladder plunked downward, wobbled, and stood against the wall of the well. Sally felt her father’s body move. The ladder must have hit his feet.

“All right now, let go of him,” Johnny said. “Eph will hold his head up with the lasso.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Sally asked doubtfully.

“Then we’ll have to hurry.”

She reached for the floating board and tried to rest Pa’s head on it, but his face still flopped into the water.

“Hold him up,” she cried. “Johnny, I can’t do it. He’ll drown if I leave him.”

“Take it easy. Can you lay him on his back and put that board under his head?”

She wasn’t sure it would work or if there was room enough to shift his position that much, but she tugged at him until he lay back against her shoulder again.

“Pa, wake up.” She fumbled for the board and pushed it underwater and beneath his head. “Pa, can you hear me?” She pulled away from him, and his body floated for the moment.

“That’s it. Hurry, now,” Johnny said. “Climb the wooden ladder, but hold on to the rope.”

Feeling slightly befuddled, Sally grasped the well rope and put her weight on the bottom rung of the wooden ladder. It wobbled and tipped but then seemed stable. She climbed to the second step, then the third.

“How’s he doing?” she asked. The brightness above her made it hard to see any detail below.

“He’s all right. Come on up until you can reach my hands.”

Johnny leaned over the side and extended his arms down the well, but he was still several feet above Sally. She climbed another step. Water streamed from her clothing. The ladder had only two more rungs, and the top one was a good eight feet below the berm.

“It’s not high enough,” she said.

“Use the rope.”

She balanced carefully, with nothing to hang on to this high up but the well rope. The loops were too low to help her. If she could reach them, they might make the difference.

“I made loops,” she gasped. Johnny’s face was only a few feet away now.

“Loops?” he said, frowning.

“Like on the clothesline. For Pa, but he couldn’t use them.”

“Hold on to the ladder,” Johnny said. “Let go of the rope.”

She released it and clung to the top of the ladder’s sides, hunched over and shaking. Johnny cranked the well rope up with the windlass, while Eph kept the lasso taut around her father’s torso. Johnny caught the lower part of the rope and slid the knots Sally had made upward along the wet rope.

“All right, now you can use these for steps.” He let the rope fall back down where Sally could reach it. The lowest loop hung a foot above the ladder rung she was standing on.

She grabbed the rope and held it for a moment, feeling stupid and slow. After a couple of deep breaths, she guided the loop and carefully fitted her shoeless foot into it. She grimaced and clung to the rope so she could step up into the next loop with her other foot.

“Now move the bottom one up,” Johnny said.

“My feet hurt.”

“Can you reach me now?” He leaned over and stretched to grasp her fingers.

Sally let go of the rope with one hand and strained upward. Their hands met.

“Good girl! Give me your other hand.”

The rope loop bit into her arch as she pushed up on her top foot and gripped his other hand.

“Yeah! On three,” Johnny, said, grinning. “One, two, three!”

He hauled her up to the berm by brute force, and Sally plummeted out onto the dirt beside the well. Her mother immediately wrapped her in a blanket. It felt good, despite the searing sun.

“Let’s get you inside and find some dry clothes for you,” Ma said.

“We have to get Pa out.” Sally pulled back against her guiding hand.

“I’m going down now.” Johnny was already lowering himself over the edge of the well. “You go get dried out. Eph, you ready?”

“Ready,” Eph said.

“Come,” Ma whispered. “You’re not decent.”

Sally looked down at her dripping chemise and petticoat and drew the blanket closer about her. “All right, but you stay with Pa. Make them bring him in to our bed.”

Sally picked up her shoes and staggered toward the house. The bottoms of her feet still hurt, and her arms and legs felt tired to the point of uselessness. Still, she managed to get inside the house. At the sight of the outlaw’s body, she pulled up short. Did Johnny even know this man was in here? “Dear God, help us!”

She lurched to the bedroom and closed the door. As quickly as she could, she peeled off her drenched clothes and threw them in a pile on the floor. Her fingers, still stiff and uncooperative, balked at the corset strings, and she cast the garment aside and pulled on a fresh dress.

Knocking came at the door before she could take her hair down to comb it.

“Sally, dear, are you ready?” her mother called. “They’ve got him out. Johnny’s carrying him inside now.”

Sally opened the door. “They’ll have to overlook my appearance.” At least she had a complete dress on. She rushed to the bed and flung the quilt back.

“No, leave that,” Ma said. “I’ll have to strip his clothes off, and we don’t want to get the mattress wet from them.”

Sally helped pull it back in place as Johnny and Eph carried her father in and stretched him out on top of the quilt. Johnny began at once to pull Pa’s shoes off, and Eph set to work on his shirt. Pa’s face was stark white, and Sally could barely make out the movements of his chest as he breathed.

“Who’s that feller out in the kitchen?”

Johnny’s terse question reminded Sally of the earlier events.

“I believe it’s Flynn.”

Johnny dropped Pa’s second shoe and stared at her. “Their leader?”

“Yes. And Cam seemed ready to take over that position when Flynn fell.”

“Well, Cam won’t be doing any more terrorizing,” Johnny said. “If I lug Flynn outside to Eph’s wagon, can you heat some water and make some strong tea for your pa?”