21
Unable to start a fire, Pearlie and Cal spent the night in the cave bundled in their ground blankets, and even covered themselves with brush and pine needles to try to keep from freezing. Luckily, the space was small enough that the warmth given off by the two horses helped keep the temperature bearable.
When he awoke, just after dawn, Cal felt as if his leg was on fire. He pulled the blanket off, and was alarmed to find his thigh swollen to almost twice its normal size.
Pearlie rolled over and glanced at Cal, sitting upright, staring at his leg.
“What's goin' on, pardner?” he asked, yawning widely.
Cal quickly covered his limb and said, “Nothin', just tryin' to wake up.”
Pearlie climbed stiffly out of his blankets and walked to the cave entrance. Snow had drifted to a depth of three feet, and had almost covered the hole in the rocks.
Pearlie kicked and dug his way out into bright sunshine, grateful for the warmth of the sun, though the temperature was still below freezing.
He clambered back into the cave. “Damn,” he said, “the weather is clearin'. I'd kind'a hoped the storm would stay around for a while to give us some cover.”
He fished around in his saddlebags and pulled out a couple of biscuits and one piece of fried chicken left from the night before.
Turning to Cal, he held them up. “Looks like we got to share one lonely piece of chicken an' two sinkers.”
Cal tried to get to his feet, but his leg collapsed beneath him and he fell to the ground, his face furrowed with pain.
Pearlie rushed to his side. “What's the matter, Cal?”
“It's my leg, Pearlie. It hurts somethin' fierce an' it's kind'a swollen.”
Pearlie, noticing the flushed appearance of Cal's face, put his hand on his friend's cheek. “Damn, boy! Yo're burnin' up with fever.”
He pulled the blanket down and winced when he saw Cal's swollen thigh.
“Git those pants down an' let me take a look at that wound, Cal.”
Cal unbuckled his belt and struggled to get his trousers down over the swollen leg. When it came into view, Pearlie gasped. The thigh was bright red, swollen, and there was pus flowing from the furrow the bullet had dug in Cal's flesh.
“Shit, boy. You done got suppuration in that bullet wound.”
Cal laid his head back, breathing through his mouth. “It'll be all right, Pearlie. Just help me get up on my horse so's we can see what the outlaws are doin'.”
“I'll get you up on your hoss, Cal, but we ain't gonna bother with no outlaws this mornin'. We gotta git you back to Jackson Hole so the doc can fix that leg.”
Cal shook his head. “We cain't, Pearlie. We gotta keep an eye on them so we can warn Smoke when they leave.”
“Bullshit, Cal,” Pearlie said as he helped pull Cal's pants up. “If'n we don't git you some doctorin', yo're gonna end up losing that leg.”
Cal's head lolled back, and he almost fainted from the pain when his trousers moved against his swollen flesh.
Pearlie quickly moved to their horses and began to lead them from the cave. “I'll git the hosses saddled an' then I'll come back for you. You stay still now, you hear?”
* * *
It took the boys until almost noon to make their way down the mountain through the heavy drifts of snow. Several times Pearlie had to grab Cal's shoulder to keep him from passing out and falling off his horse.
By the time they reached Jackson Hole, Cal was almost unconscious from the pain in his leg and Pearlie was having to support his full weight to keep him in the saddle. He reined the horses in when they got to the doctor's office, and let Cal fall off Silver into his arms. He had to carry him into the doctor's waiting room.
Doctor Josiah Curry glanced up from his position in front of a cowboy with a swollen red jaw. The doc had a pair of dental pliers in his hand, and was fixing to pull an infected tooth.
“Doc,” Pearlie said as he stood there with Cal cradled in his arms, “my friend's got a bullet wound that needs takin' care of.”
“Take him in the other room and I'll be there directly,” Dr. Curry said. He turned back to the cowboy, stuck the pliers in his mouth, and yanked a bloody tooth out of his gums.
“Yeow-w-w,” the cowboy wailed, grabbing his jaw with both hands.
The doc stood up, threw the tooth into a wastebasket, and said, “That'll be twenty-five cents, Joey.”
Joey released his jaw long enough to fish in his pocket and hand the doctor some change, then bolted from the room.
“You might want to wash that mouth out with some good whiskey,” Dr. Curry called to his retreating back.
A muffled retort came from the cowboy. “Goddamned right!” he said, heading straight for the Cattleman's Saloon down the street.
Curry wiped his bloody hands on his coat and strolled over to look down at Cal on the table.
“When did this happen?” he asked as he pulled Cal's trousers down over the swollen thigh.
“Yesterday afternoon,” Pearlie answered. “It 'tweren't much more'n a scratch so we didn't think nothin' of it till it started to swell up.”
“How did it happen?” Curry asked, probing the area around the bullet wound gently with his fingers.
Pearlie scowled, wondering what the hell that had to do with fixing the leg. “He was shot,” he answered in a tone of voice that indicated to the doctor that foolish questions weren't going to be tolerated.
The doctor raised his eyebrows, looked at the expression on Pearlie's face, and decided not to ask anything else.
He placed the back of his hand on Cal's forehead and whistled softly under his breath. “This boy's burning up with fever. The wound is seriously infected.”
Pearlie nodded. Even he knew that much. “Is there anything you can do fer him, Doc?”
Curry probed the area of the wound again, shaking his head. “Well, I can drain some of the suppuration from the muscle. The latest medical books say that helps some, an' there's a new medicine out called aspirin that's supposed to be good for fever and such. That and some laudanum for the pain should do the trick.”
“You think he'll get better?” Pearlie asked, not liking the paleness of Cal's skin.
The doctor shrugged. “If he doesn't respond within twenty-four hours, I may have to take the leg off.”
Pearlie gritted his teeth. “He's young and he's strong, Doc, an' he's been shot plenty of times before. He'll do just fine.”
Curry pursed his lips. “I hope so, 'cause if I have to take his leg off that high, he probably won't survive the surgery.”
He turned to a metal tray of instruments and pulled out a long shining scalpel. “Now, why don't you go get some breakfast while I do my work? This is not something you want to watch.”
Pearlie put his hand on Cal's shoulder, squeezed it, then picked up his hat and walked out of the room. He headed toward Aunt Bea's Boardinghouse, uttering a silent prayer that Cal would be all right.
* * *
Pearlie was on his second helping of flapjacks, eggs, and sausage when Sheriff Walter Pike sat down at his table.
“Howdy, son,” Pike said, motioning to Aunt Bea to bring him some coffee.
He built himself a cigarette while he waited, not saying anything, but staring at Pearlie as if he might frighten him into confessing to some crime.
Pearlie ignored the sheriff, concentrating on finishing his food so he could get back to the doctor's office to see how Cal was doing.
After Pike got his cigarette going and sampled his coffee, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, still staring at Pearlie.
“A cowboy over at the Cattleman's said you brought in your friend with a gunshot wound.”
Pearlie took the last bite from his plate, put his fork down, and picked up his coffee cup. He glanced at the sheriff over the rim.
“That's right,” he said, offering no more information.
“How did that happen to occur?” the sheriff asked.
“It didn't happen in town, Sheriff, so I can't see as it's any of yore business how it happened,” Pearlie answered, staring back at Pike.
Pike nodded. “You sure you want to play it that way, son?”
Pearlie shrugged.
Pike took a deep drag of his cigarette and let the smoke trail from his nostrils as he talked. “A man came into town yesterday evening from the hole-in-the-wall. He said a couple of men had attacked some cowboys up there and killed four men. He also said one of the killers had been wounded.”
“That so?” Pearlie said.
“You boys wouldn't happen to have been up near the hole-in-the-wall yesterday, would you?”
“Like I said, Sheriff, this didn't happen in town. Are you sheriff of the hole-in-the-wall, too?” Pearlie asked. “From what I hear, there ain't nothin' but outlaws and men ridin' the owl-hoot trail up that way. Are you paid to watch out for them galoots?”
“No, son, I'm not paid to bother with the hole-in-the-wall. But Big Jim Slaughter has offered a five-hundred-dollar reward for any information on the men who've been attacking him up there.”
Pearlie nodded. “Five hundred dollars, huh? That's a right sizable chunk of change.”
“More'n I make here in a year,” Pike answered.
Pearlie stood up and threw some money on the table. “Maybe you ought to think about changing jobs then, Sheriff, if money means that much to you.”
“Goddammit, son, I don't give a shit about the money!” Pike answered, standing up also. “But Slaughter has a couple of hard cases here in town who are gonna be awfully interested in anybody with a bullet wound.”
Pearlie shrugged. “Let 'em come, Sheriff. I can take care of myself.”
Pike stuck his finger in Pearlie's face. “I told you, I'm paid to keep the peace here in Jackson. I don't want any gunplay where innocent citizens might get hurt.”
Pearlie gave a slow grin. “Don't worry none, Sheriff. If'n I'm forced to draw iron, won't no innocent people get kilt.”
“Your name's Pearlie, isn't it?”
Pearlie nodded.
“I want you to get your friend and get the hell out of my town as soon as he's able to travel.”
“You got my word on that, Sheriff,” Pearlie said as he walked out of the boardinghouse dining room without looking back.
When he got to the doctor's office, he found the doctor washing off his instruments.
“How's Cal, Doc?” he asked.
“I got about two cups of pus out of that leg,” the doctor answered, “and the swelling's gone down quite a bit. I've given him some laudanum, so he's resting quietly for now.”
Pearlie stepped over to stand next to the table on which Cal lay. The boy's face was covered with sweat and he was mumbling in his sleep, turning his head from side to side.
“I've got a room in the back where you can keep him,” the doctor said. “You need to keep feeding him beef broth and soup and keep his strength up if he's going to fight off the infection.”
Pearlie nodded. “I can do that,” he said.
“The next twenty-four hours should tell us if he's going to make it or not.”
The doctor and Pearlie picked Cal up and carried him into the back room, placing him on a bed.
After the doctor left, Cal's eyes flicked open and he stared at Pearlie, his pupils pinpoints from the laudanum. “Howdy, Pearlie,” he mumbled through dry, cracked lips.
“Hello, Cal. How're you feelin'?” Pearlie asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Cal's lips curled in a half grin. “I been shot, you fool,” he answered. “How do you think I feel?”
Pearlie forced himself to grin back, though he felt more like crying seeing his friend so sick. “Well, hell, Cal. You been shot so many times before, I'd've thought you'd gotten used to it by now.”
He reached down and wiped sweat off Cal's forehead. “I guess we gonna have to paint a big ol' bull's-eye on your carcass, make it easier for the outlaws to hit next time.”
“Hell, pardner,” Cal answered, “they don't seem to have no trouble hittin' me as it is.”
“I done tole you, boy, you a magnet fer lead,” Pearlie said.
“Pearlie, I want you to leave me here an' go warn Smoke about Slaughter. He needs to know what's goin' on.”
“Don't you worry none 'bout Smoke, Cal. He's got Louis an' Muskrat with him. They can take care of theyselves.”
“But . . .”
“No buts, Cal. You rest now while I go over to Aunt Bea's an' git you some grub. The doc says you got to eat so's you can git over this wound.”
“All right, Pearlie,” Cal said, letting his eyes close. “I am a mite tired . . .”
When he lapsed into unconsciousness, Pearlie stood up and walked out to the doctor's front room.
“You take care of my friend, Doc, money's no object,” Pearlie said.
Dr. Curry smiled. “It's not a question of money, mister. It's in God's hands now. All we can do is wait to see what He's decided to do with your friend.”
“Well, while God makes up His mind, I'm gonna go over to Aunt Bea's an' git him some grub so's he can get better,” Pearlie said, his face grim.
22
Smoke stood on a promontory overlooking the trail leading from the hole-in-the-wall toward Colorado, his binoculars to his eyes.
Muskrat Calhoon stirred the small fire they'd built under the overhang of a group of boulders. The temperature was rising after the freezing chill of the snowstorm last night, but the air was still cold enough to freeze water in a canteen. “You see anythin', Smoke?” he asked.
Smoke shook his head. “No, but I figure Slaughter will be getting his men moving before too long, else he's going to have some heavy winter storms to deal with on his way to Colorado.”
Louis poured himself another cup of coffee and leaned back on his ground blanket, lighting a long, black cheroot off a burning twig from the campfire. “I'm a little concerned that we haven't heard from Cal and Pearlie, Smoke.”
Smoke nodded. They'd all heard what they took to be distant gunfire from the direction of the hole-in-the-wall the night before, and were worried that perhaps Cal and Pearlie had been discovered watching the outlaws' hideout. “Me too, Louis. If anything's happened to those boys, I don't know what I'd do.”
Muskrat cut a piece of tobacco off a twist he pulled from his coat pocket. “Don't you worry none 'bout those two young'uns, Smoke. âPears to me they got enough hair to look out for theyselves.”
“That's the trouble, Muskrat,” Smoke answered, stepping down from his perch on a boulder. “They're too brave for their own good. I just don't want them to get hurt because of their loyalty to me.”
Louis drained his cup. “This isn't just about you, Smoke,” he said. “Both Cal and Pearlie are doing this for Monte and Mary. They hate an injustice as much as we do, and taking a man's wife to settle an old score just isn't done.”
“I understand that, Louis, but would you want to try and explain it to Sally if either one of them is shot? She thinks of them as our sons.”
Muskrat grinned. “It ain't never easy to 'splain nothin' to a woman, Smoke, 'specially if'n it concerns one of her pups.”
Smoke smiled. Mountain men had a way of getting right to the heart of the matter, he thought. They were men of little or no formal education, but their years in the high lonesome seemed to endow them with knowledge of life and death that far outstripped men with college degrees.
“Sally's as tough as any man I know, Smoke,” Louis said. “If worse comes to worst, she'll understand.”
Smoke took a biscuit out of the frying pan sitting on red-hot embers and popped it into his mouth. “Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that. Cal and Pearlie are both too brave for their own good sometimes, but they're also smart and crafty. I believe it'll take someone smarter than Jim Slaughter to get the drop on them.”
* * *
Back in Jackson Hole, Pearlie was staying out of sight as much as he could to keep from running into the men Slaughter had sent to look for them. Other than his frequent trips to Aunt Bea's for food for himself and Cal, he spent all his time sitting by Cal's bed, talking to him and forcing him to eat the beef soup and broth so he could heal properly.
Doctor Curry was encouraged that the swelling in Cal's leg had gone down and not returned. The redness of the surrounding tissues was getting better hour by hour and his temperature had returned to normal, both good signs according to the doctor.
By the morning after his surgery, Cal was feeling fit enough to try to walk around the room on his injured leg, though the doctor forbade any longer journeys.
“Walking short distances will help get rid of the stiffness,” he'd said, “but don't overdo it and undo what healing is going on.”
As Pearlie watched Cal's appetite return, he began to have hope there would be no long-lasting effects from the wound and infection in his leg.
On the morning of the second day, Doctor Curry said it would be all right for Cal to mount a horse and ride, as long as he took frequent breaks and stopped if the swelling or redness returned.
“I've done all I can, boys,” Doc Curry said. “Now it's just gonna take some time for the final healing to occur. You take it easy on that leg for the next couple of weeks, young man,” he said to Cal.
“Yes, sir,” Cal answered, glad to finally be given permission to ride out of town. Like Pearlie, he was concerned that Slaughter and his men would be on the move before they both could leave the area.
“C'mon, Cal. Let's go git a final breakfast at Aunt Bea's, then we can hit the trail,” Pearlie said.
Cal nodded. “Good, I'm 'bout ready for some eggs and flapjacks 'stead of that damned beef soup you been forcin' down my gullet.”
Pearlie grinned. “Forcin', hell! You sucked that stuff down like it was honey.”
Pearlie forced a handful of greenbacks into the doctor's hand, thanked him again, and they set out for Aunt Bea's place.
An hour and a half later, they were just finishing their final cups of coffee when Sheriff Walter Pike stepped through the rear door of the dining room.
He made his way toward their table, a worried look on his face.
“Uh-oh,” Pearlie said. “I don't like the way Sheriff Pike's lookin' at us, Cal.”
“Me neither,” Cal said, unconsciously unhooking the hammer-thong on his Colt Navy.
Pike stopped in front of their table. “Boys, I got some bad news for you.”
“I kind'a figgered that from the sour look on yore face,” Pearlie drawled, taking a drink of his coffee.
“Slaughter's men talked to Doc Curry. They found out about your bullet wound and they're waiting in front of the Cattleman's Saloon for you to try and leave town.”
“How many of them are they?” Cal asked.
“Four.”
Pearlie grinned. “Sounds like fair odds to me.”
Pike shook his head. “You don't understand. These are hard men, hired killers every one.” He hesitated, looking over his shoulder out the window. “Why don't you let me sneak you out of town the back way?”
Pearlie pursed his lips. “I don't know. What do you think, Cal?”
Cal shrugged, pulling his Navy out and flipping open the loading gate to check his loads. “Seems to me if we take care of 'em now, it'll be four less men Smoke will have to worry about later.”
Pearlie nodded and stood up from the table. He put his hat on, pulling it down tight on his head. “Thanks for the offer, Sheriff, but I think we'll go out the front door after all.”
“You boys are crazy!”
Cal grinned. “We've been told that before, Sheriff.”
They walked out the front door. A slight limp in Cal's gait was the only sign of his injury.
As they stood next to their horses, four men stepped off the boardwalk in front of the Cattleman's Saloon and spread out in the street.
“Hey, you there,” one of the men called, his hand hanging next to his pistol. “We want a word with you.”
Cal and Pearlie squared around, facing the men. “I got the two on the left,” Pearlie said under his breath.
Cal nodded, not speaking, his eyes watching the eyes of the men in the street. Smoke had taught him not to look at the hands, for the eyes would give the first signal a man was about to draw.
Sheriff Pike stepped out of the dining room door. “I don't want no trouble in town, boys,” he called to the men.
“It's too late for that, Sheriff,” one of the men said. “Slaughter offered to pay you for your help, an' you should'a taken him up on it. Now it's our play.”
As the outlaw's eyes narrowed, Cal and Pearlie crouched and stepped apart, to give less of a target, then filled their hands with iron.
Pearlie fired a fraction of a second faster than Cal, but the two shots were so close together they sounded as one.
Two of the men across the street grabbed their chests as they were blown backward, one landing in a water trough, staining the water red with the blood that spurted from a fist-sized hole in his chest. Neither had managed to clear leather before they were dead.
“Goddamn!” one of the remaining bandits yelled as he clawed at his pistol.
Pearlie's second shot took him in the throat, blowing out the back of his spine and almost taking his head off as he spun and flopped on the ground like a chicken with its neck wrung.
The fourth man was a mite faster on the draw, managing to get off a shot that missed Cal's head by inches and splintered the wooden post next to him.
Cal thumbed back the hammer on the Navy and without consciously aiming put a bullet between the man's eyes, snapping his head back and dropping him like he'd been poleaxed.
Sheriff Pike had his gun only half out of his holster when it was all over.
“Jesus, Mary, Mother of God,” he exclaimed at the sight of four men blown to hell in less than three seconds.
Pearlie and Cal looked around, still holding their pistols out in front of them, making sure there were no more outlaws who wanted to ante up in this hand.
Bystanders on the street, who'd ducked for cover at the sound of gunfire, returned from their hiding places to gather around the outlaws' bodies, staring over at Cal and Pearlie as if they'd never seen anything like them.
Pearlie holstered his pistol and turned to the sheriff. “Sheriff Pike, if you have no further need of us, we'll git on our way,” he drawled, as if shooting down four men was an everyday occurrence in his life.
Pike removed his hat and sleeved sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. “Uh . . . no, I don't think you need to stay around.”
He glanced at the bodies lying sprawled on the dusty street. “In fact, I'd be obliged if you'd get out of my town and not return,” he said with a sickly grin. “You're givin' boot hill too much business to hang around.”
Pearlie swung into the saddle. He tipped his hat at Pike. “From what you say, Slaughter pays pretty good. There ought to be enough money in their pants to pay for their burials.”
Pike nodded.
Cal inclined his head toward Aunt Bea's dining room as he stepped into his stirrups. “Give what's left over to Aunt Bea an' tell her we 'preciate the good grub.”
As they rode slowly out of town, the mayor of Jackson Hole walked up to Sheriff Pike.
“Who the hell were those men, Sheriff?” he asked.
Pike shook his head. “I don't rightly know, an' I didn't ask. But I'm sure glad I'm not the one they're after.”
“You mean Jim Slaughter?”
Pike nodded. “Yeah, an' I'd be willin' to bet we won't be seein' Big Jim Slaughter and his Marauders back here next year, not if those two are any indication of what he's gonna be facin' in Colorado.”