Bad Medicine (26 page)

“Where'd you learn to throw like that?” Will asked.

“My pa.” Ray said he was about half Cree. “They like their knives. They hunt with 'em an' so forth—an' not jus' rabbits, neither. Three or four good men could bring down a deer faster'n a arrow would. See, a arrow is liable to miss a vital spot. These Cree knife men don't miss.”

“You think you could maybe teach me?”

“If we live long enough, sure I can.”

“Fair 'nuff. Look, we done some good work. Wanna call it a night?”

“Hell, no! Let's go over to the other side of the rim an' see if we can't make sure one a them guards sees Wampus. In this kinda light, he even scares
me
.”

They walked, saying little, setting a good pace, Wampus slightly ahead, tasting the air for scents. The wolf dog stopped suddenly and at the same moment bits of stone and dirt spit into the air around the men. It was mostly pistol fire, but there were rifle
reports as well. A couple of slugs snarled over their heads.

“We got no goddamn cover!” Ray cursed. “Sonsabitches . . .”

There was a slight dune of a rise a hundred yards away. It wasn't much, but it was better than no cover at all. “We'd best haul ass,” Will shouted. “C'mon, Wampus!”

Wampus was ready to do battle, already advancing toward the gunfire, but he responded to Will's call.

“Maybe you shoulda let him go—scare them snakes off,” Ray gasped, running hard.

“Not if One Dog is there, an' I suspect he is. His crew wouldn't have the balls to fire on us and the wampus if Dog wasn't pushing them real hard. Come on, Ray—run!”

They threw themselves over the dune, panting, their legs feeling like rubber and their lungs screaming for air. Their cover was barely enough to stop slugs and keep the men—at least to some degree—hidden.

“We gotta git to the horses or we'll git circled—and then we're screwed,” Ray said when he had enough breath to speak.

“Maybe not—r'member, we got the wampus and there's a ton of fear that goes back lots of years on the parts of them loonies—particularly the Indians,” Will said. He reached next to him and rubbed Wampus's back. “This boy could be our bes' weapon.”

Ray began to respond when a voice sounded from the outlaws. Will peeked over the dune.

One Dog sat—bareback, of course, on a gray stud horse that was decorated with war symbols:
handprints, arrows, fire, dead enemies—slightly ahead of his crew.

“Hear me,” he bellowed. “Your wampus is a wolf dog—not an evil spirit. He obeys you like a cringing camp cur. The wampus obeys no man. My medicine is far stronger than that of an egg-sucking dog. A bullet will take down your cur—your phony spirit you used to frighten the trash I ride with—who will die with you both.”

“You're a feeble woman, One Dog,” Will yelled back. “You ride with cowards—and you, too, are a coward. You crawl under the blankets of your cowards at night and play the woman for them. I will kill you, Dog, just like my partner an' me have killed your drunken guards and outriders. And my wolf dog has more courage than the whole godforsaken bunch of you swine!”

One Dog hawked his throat and spat. “This is for your dog. I will tear his heart out and piss in his chest. Such is what a sneaking chicken killer deserves.”

“Think we can get a shot at him?” Ray asked.

“Not with a pistol. He's outta range.”

“OK. Let's git to our horses. If they decide to charge, we're well and truly screwed.”

They backed away from the dune, jumped to their feet, and began to run, hoping the renegades' line of vision was broken. Will tripped, fell, and got a face full of dirt—and knocked the breath out of his lungs.

“I'm . . . gettin' . . . mighty . . . tired of this . . . running shit,” he gasped.

“Ain't far now. An' tomorrow night we won't be doin' no runnin'.”

The day that followed was interminable, and as
hot as a smith's-forge fire in hell, to boot. Wampus, tongue lolling, moved frequently, following the stingy patches of shade afforded by the desert pine.

Will rolled and smoked cigarette after cigarette, one after another, lighting the next one from the nub of the last.

Ray, his Colt resting on his chest, more or less slept.

Finally, Will spoke, his voice unusual in its tone—neither accusatory nor conciliatory.

“I . . . uh . . . seen your initial on that Indian,” he said.

“Yeah. I figured you would.”

“You had no goddamn right to do that, Ray.”

“I killed him. He was mine, jus' like when a man takes down a deer or elk.”

“That's not the point.”

Ray's voice was tight, heated. “Then what is the point?”

“This: That little pissant
R
was too small and was in the wrong place. It shoulda been the size of the big letters and tagged right on the
HW
—shoulda been
HWR
.”

Ray's smile could have lit up a very dark night. “You mean . . . ?”

“Yep. I give it lots of thought. I surely do mean it.”

“I . . . I got nothing to bring to a spread, Will.”

“You lazy, Ray? Stupid? You gonna steal the operation blind?”

“Why hell no. I ain't none of them things. You know that, Will.”

“There ya go, then.”

“HWR,” Ray repeated, almost reverently. “Damn, if that don't sound good.”

“Sounds good to me, too.” Will held out his hand and Ray took it in his own. They shook solemnly, as if they were sealing a pact or maybe a major business deal—which, in fact, they were.

“One more thing we gotta settle,” Will said. “One of us is goin' to kill One Dog. We don't know how the battle will go—there's no way to tell where Dog'll be. There's only one rule we need to agree to. Whoever kills him can't use a rifle and drop him from a hundred yards away. One of us has got to look into that pig's eyes as he dies—whether we kill him with a knife, a pistol, or a damn club don't matter. But One Dog's gotta know it was one of us, and why he's dying.”

“I want him awful bad, Will,” Ray said.

“An' I don't? Like I said, it all depends on how the final battle works out. I'll take him if I can; so will you. But face-to-face.”

“Well hell,” Ray said, “it ain't impossible that the pair of us get our asses shot off an' One Dog rides off with our hair after chowin' down on our hearts.”

Will grinned. “I'd say that
is
impossible—but I guess we'll see.”

The day dragged on. Will dozed, smoked, and dozed again. Ray piddled around with his equipment, not because it needed attention but because he needed something, anything, to do. There was a tension in the air—a storm coming, although not of the natural sort—that both men pretended to ignore. It was an anticipatory kind of desire/dread; neither of them was frightened, and neither was terribly confident.

Once, as Will dozed, Wampus sat up and flapped his rear paw under his ear, chasing a flea. Will's Colt
was in his hand before he was actually awake, with the hammer thumbed back. Ray looked away as Will reholstered his pistol.

In the late afternoon Ray tossed his saddle on his horse. Will watched through sleepy eyes. “Where ya goin'?”

“I'll be back in a bit—an' I'll bring a meal.” He stood next to his horse and took a roll of latigo from his gear. It was half an inch wide and maybe twenty feet long, and it was very nicely tanned and oiled. A knife appeared in Ray's hand and he centered the latigo on the blade and began easing it through. The leather split into two equal-width pieces its entire length, as neat and clean as if it'd been cut by a coat-maker's machine. He gathered up the latigo, mounted, and rode off at a jog.

Will dozed again, his mind playing with the leather strips.
Trip wires? Neck busters?

When Ray rode in less than an hour later, his bow was strung and swung across his back.

He held a decent-sized jack by its ears.

Will got a cook fire going. “Screw the smoke. After tonight smoke ain't gonna matter, anyways.”

“Well, yeah. But we got a problem,” Ray said.

“Oh?”

“Your wolf dog, Will. The crazies know now that he ain't a spirit from hell—One Dog said so. Them renegades will fill Wampus with enough lead to bust a damn bridge.”

“Damn.”

“We can sink a post, Will. I got some metal-core rope—not much, but enough—an' I got some laudanum, too.”

“I hate to do it,” Will said quietly.

“So do I. But we'll dope him first an' then take care of the post an' rope.”

Will shook his head. “Suppose the two of us get killed?”

“Then all three of us played our cards wrong, Will.”

The deeply buried post was a fine idea—except there was nothing that would serve as a post. The men decided they would secure the wire-cored rope around the base of one of the desert pines, the only option they had. Getting the laudanum into Wampus presented no problem. Ray poured all of his remaining jerky into a pile and then dumped the laudanum over it. The label on the brown bottle read:

Dr. Lucian Golden's Positive Cure For All Human Ailments

(Being a highly efficacious medication absolutely guaranteed to treat and cure cancer, blindness, disruption of the bowels, vapors, rickets, pneumonia, tuberculosis, flatulence, male performance problems, malaise, and all other problems that afflict men and women.)

Directions:

Ingest up to three tablespoons of Dr. Golden's Elixir several times per day, as required. Upon even the first dosage, the patient will immediately notice a recession of symptoms and a sensation of good health and physical and emotional well-being.

—Dr. Golden's Elixir is available in convenient one-quart glass containers—

 

“Hey!” Will said, looking at the bottle. “Wampus ain't sick! He don't need no medicine. Why do you want to go an' give him . . .”

“Will,” Ray said, “this stuff ain't no more medicine than rotgut whiskey is. Fact, it's almost pure laudanum. It'll give Wampus a nice ride whilst we're gone.”

“You sure?” Will asked dubiously.

“Positive.”

Will waved the drooling wolf dog to the jerky. The medicinal/alcohol scent didn't deter him for a second. He gobbled down all the jerky as if he hadn't eaten for a month and looked at Will for more. When none was forthcoming he began to walk to a blotch of shade—and began weaving, as if he couldn't keep his balance, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, with a singularly goofy look in his eyes. He collapsed halfway to his piece of shade. Will picked him up, grunting at the wolf dog's weight, and carried him to the desert pines. There he took a double wrap around Wampus's neck and did the same with the best of the poor selection of trees. Wampus slept without moving, snoring sibilantly, his breathing even and strong.

“How long is Wampus goin' to be out?” Will asked.

“Hard to say—a few hours, at least. We'll be back or dead by the time he wakes up. If we're dead he'll get through that rope after a good bit of work an' maybe a couple busted teeth.”

Will nodded. He didn't like the idea, but it was all they had.

Dusk was beginning to turn to night when the men saddled up. “I guess we might jist as well have at it,” Ray said.

“Let's ride, pard.”

“I s'pose,” Ray said, “you was wonderin' what I was doin' except fetchin' a jack when I rode out.”

“I figured you'd tell me sooner or later.”

“I'll show you in a bit, is what I'll do.”

Although not as bright as the previous night, there was good light. The shadows were a bit deeper and visibility wasn't quite as long, but it was a good night to hunt outlaws—or be hunted by them.

When they were a hundred yards from the rim, they saw the first outrider. Ray held up his hand to indicate a halt. The man on horseback could barely be seen, but his movement made spotting him easier.

“Watch,” Ray said quietly.

He slid his bow off his back and pulled an arrow from the quiver attached to his saddlehorn and handed it to Will. Will looked at it carefully. An eightinch piece of black-powder composition was lashed neatly to the shaft of the arrow with latigo.

Ray wet a finger in his mouth and held it up over his head. “No breeze 'tall. That's good.” He nocked the arrow to the bowstring and pulled the string back to full draw, bending the stout bow so far Will was certain it was going to snap. Then he released the missile, aiming high.

For a couple of seconds nothing happened. Then a slash of light as bright as a photographer's magnesium lit up the sky and all that remained of both the horse and the outrider was an explosion of dirt and rock and a reddish pink mist that faded with the residual light of the flash.

“Holy God,” Will said. “You got enough arrows?”

“Plenty.”

“Then let's git them sonsabitches!”

They rode on a short distance and left their horses secured to rocks. The stink of scorched hair and
burned flesh and leather hung heavily in the still air as they walked to the rim.

Twenty or so renegades stood in front of their saloon, many looking dazed, others firing pistols and rifles uselessly toward where the explosion had taken place.

Ray began firing arrows as smoothly and with as much accuracy as a good rifleman operates his weapon. The saloon was immediately ablaze and several men ran out through the batwings on fire, screaming.

A cluster of a half dozen men partially hidden by the charred hulk of the freighter went up like Fourth of July skyrockets, arcing ten feet into the air, clothes and hair flaming, ammunition in their gun belts firing from the intense heat.

Will was prone, firing his .30-30 quickly but carefully, aiming each shot and rarely missing. Dead and dying outlaws littered the street—and burning things that may or may not have once been men were scattered about.