Shotgun Charlie (22 page)

Then he heard another voice, a different voice. It was Marshal Wickham. The shots stopped. Charlie peered around the base of the big rock, saw Wickham rise like a black-coated ghost, standing tall in the snow. His coal-colored duster flared and his rifle was pointed, cocked, and ready to deliver.

“Haskell, you cowardly no-account dog spawn! Come on out of there while you still can! This is Marshal Dodd Wickham and my posse has you surrounded! Surrender now or die soon!”

Wickham didn't wait for a response. He cranked shot after shot into the flimsy little cabin. Splintered chunks of raw planking erupted like startled birds from the walls. Charlie propped himself up, sent a shotgun blast at his side of the shack, and was pleased when it tore a ragged hole straight through. He thought, for the briefest of moments, that he saw someone inside spin and drop out of sight.

Excited, Charlie looked to his right. “Marshal! Get down!”

But Wickham wasn't listening to Charlie Chilton. He was thumbing shells into his repeating rifle, even as Haskell recouped inside the shack and began firing back at the marshal. Charlie guessed that the man must be gauging distance, though it made little sense, since the distance was not all that far. But his bullets were chewing up furrows in the snow, ever closer to the lawman.

“Get down, Marshal!”

Marshal Wickham ignored his shouts and looked up, regarding each encroaching shot with a cool regard before glancing back down at his task at hand—refilling the rifle. Wickham was also grinning.

Something happened to Wickham's rifle, though, because he thumbed the hammer and jerked the lever hard a few times, trying to free some bit that had jammed. It would not comply. And then, as Charlie shouted again, one of Haskell's bullets drove into the lawman's left thigh, above the knee. The old man howled in agony, threw down the rifle, and clutched at the raw wound.

Blood sprayed the freshly churned snow. Time seemed to slow as Charlie watched Wickham fight to keep himself upright. Even as more of Haskell's shots laced the air around the old lawman, he shucked a revolver with his right hand and cranked the hammer back, sent a bullet at the cabin, then another. The shooting from the shack stopped, and as the snapping echoes of gunfire dwindled in the little ravine, Charlie heard unintelligible but angry oaths snarling from within the shack.

“I don't bleed. . . . I don't bleed!”

What did Haskell mean by that?

Then, like a rabbit, a boot appeared, retreated, reappeared in one of the holes in the west wall, kicking, sending fractured, bullet-pocked boards sagging outward.

“Ain't the way it was supposed to happen, dang you all!”

As Haskell ranted from inside the shack, Charlie jammed in another shell, snapped the shotgun closed, and hustled toward Marshal Wickham in a low run.

He'd covered half the distance when the marshal's gun cracked again. The man's face was a carved gray mask of pain and teeth-gritted satisfaction, even as a shot drove into his breadbasket, then another behind it higher up into his chest.

He snapped upright, spun in a half circle, and faced Charlie, his eyes wide, as if the lawman was about to tell him some great secret. Blood streamed out the sagging left side of his mouth and even before he fell, Charlie lunged two, three great strides toward the shack. Through the hole in the wall Haskell had kicked wider a second before, Charlie saw a face peer out, eyes wide, then disappear.

Charlie bellowed, “Haskell!” as he brought the shotgun to waist height. He didn't wait for a response, but snapped his finger hard on the gun's trigger. It barked smoke and flame, tearing the hole in the shack wall even wider.

As he spun and bolted down the short rise to Marshal Wickham, he tossed the shotgun aside, barely heard the gagging, clotted sounds coming from within the shack.

“Marshal!” Charlie dropped to his knees five feet from the old man, who lay stretched on his side in a blanket of churned red snow, eyes staring skyward.

“Marshal Wickham!” shouted Charlie, crawling the few final feet. He gently laid the man on his back, held his face in one hand. “Marshal? You hear me? It's Charlie Chilton, Marshal.”

For a moment nothing happened. Charlie looked to see if the man's chest showed signs of movement. It didn't seem so, but then again the man wore a whole lot of layers. Then Wickham's eyes snapped closed, opened again, and a long breath escaped his lips. “Charlie,” he said in a relieved whisper. “Is he . . .”

“Yes, sir, I reckon he's done for. You done him in.”

“Good, good. Charlie?”

“Yes, sir, rest easy. I'll get the horses and we'll make it back to town in quick shape, you'll see.”

“No, Charlie. Stop that. I'm too old to listen to lies.” He smiled weakly. “Charlie, drag me to that tree there. I want to sit up.”

“You sure that's—”

“Charlie, don't argue. I am the law, after all.”

“Yes, sir.”

As gently as he was able, Charlie curled his hands beneath the man's arms and dragged him backward through the snow the few yards toward a decent-sized pine. The lawman gritted his teeth and held his breath until they made it to the tree.

“Charlie, listen to me. Come close.”

The big young man leaned in. “Yes, sir? What can I get you? I'll build a fire. . . .”

“Charlie, listen.” Wickham licked his bloody lips then spoke in a slow, measured manner, stopping and gritting his teeth now and again. “You don't need to prove anything. You got to promise me you won't tote my old carcass back there to Bakersfield. Them folks don't know a good thing when they got it anyway. My being there won't make a whit of difference.”

But Charlie knew, from the way the man spoke on the trail, that Bakersfield, for all its faults, was the place the marshal considered home. That he had no one else, and nowhere else to go. “I can't promise that, sir. No, sir, can't do it.”

“Confound it, boy, you . . . oh, I'm in no shape to argue with a man as big as you.” He cracked a smile, offered one slight wry chuckle. “Dig out my flask, will you?”

Charlie patted the old man's coat, felt how thin Wickham was. He unscrewed the top, held it to the marshal's lips.

Wickham sipped, pulled a wide sour look. “No, no. I don't need it. Got no taste for it. Isn't that something, after all these years, when I could use it, I don't want it?” He chuckled. “Life is a funny thing, Charlie.”

“I reckon it is, sir.”

“I'm no sir to you, Charlie. I'm Dodd. Dodd Aloysius Wickham, God rest my sainted mother's soul for naming me such. Always gave me highfalutin airs.” He coughed, got control of it, then said, “Now, look, Charlie, if you won't leave me be out here, where I belong, then for your own good, don't go back there. It's a fool's errand, Charlie. Those people want blood. Your blood, my blood, doesn't matter.”

He grimaced, blew out a mouthful of air. “They'll take what they can get. You're already on the short list of bad men they got pinned to their walls. You go back there and you'll end up at best going through some sham trial, and then you'll be swinging by a rope. A darn big rope, judging from the size of you. But it'll be a rope, nonetheless, Charlie. There's no way it can end good.”

Charlie said nothing, but his furrowed brow told Wickham the big man was at least considering what he'd said.

“Just go, get gone, Charlie. You've paid whatever debt you may have earned because of the crime.”

A moment later, Charlie shook his head. “No, sir. I reckon I'll head back to Bakersfield, just the same.”

“Confound it, boy, the judge will send you to prison.”

“Maybe so. I reckon if that's what the law sees fit to do with me, then that's the way I'll head. I won't be talked out of it, won't be a man who runs from his duties, his obligations in life. Some of the choices I made weren't good, some not so bad, but I never ran from a one of them. Once a thing's decided, it's decided.”

Marshal Wickham sighed, sank back against the tree, tired. As if the conversation had taken too much from him. His eyelids fluttered closed and his breathing grew shallower.

Charlie bent low over him. “Sir? Marshal?”

The dying man opened his eyes. His voice came soft, faint, but Charlie heard it. “Glad to know you, Charlie Chilton. You're a good man. Frustrating as all get out . . . but a good man.”

“Well, I don't know. I reckon I'm trying.”

Marshal Dodd Wickham seemed to relax then, and a soft smile spread on his face. He closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed to a thread, then stopped, and his wiry frame sagged slowly against the tree.

Charlie stood, still staring at the old man. A tight weight filled his chest, his throat. Why did it happen to these men, the good ones, the ones who seemed worth knowing? Why couldn't he have had more time with them? Why were there men like Grady Haskell in the world? Men who fouled all the good things, the nice things, for the rest of the people trying to do what they needed each day, week, month, year, just to be happy. That's not a lot to ask, he thought. Not much at all.

Charlie's jaw tightened as he turned his gaze toward the shack, visible in the rock-knobbed draw. Haskell was still up there. Charlie hoped the man was alive, holed up like a sick animal, the sort of beast who needed to be put down lest he infect others, over and over again.

Charlie felt a new, hot anger burn in him, burn like a hot fire up a chimney, clean up from his guts to his throat, to his nose, and into his brainpan. Felt it fill him. He ground his teeth together, his cheek muscles bunching. He walked straight toward the little cabin they'd been firing at.

From this distance it looked unchanged, as if no one had moved inside. Part of him hoped Haskell was dead, good and dead. Part of him secretly wished the man was still very much alive so that he could put him down himself. Finish off the hydrophobic beast once and for all, come what may to himself.

He stared at the shredded cabin a moment more, then gathered air and bellowed, “You in there, Haskell?”

The response was slow, but it was there. And it was unmistakable. Haskell was still alive.

“That you, Charlie boy?”

The words were faint but loud enough that Charlie heard. And they ended with a wet cough, as if Haskell was trying to spit but couldn't. It didn't sound to Charlie as if the man was faking.

“Come what may,” said Charlie to himself, and strode toward the bullet-riddled, splinter-boarded miner's shack, unarmed save for his Green River skinning knife. And that he left sheathed at his side.

He walked right up to the door and kicked it hard. It spasmed inward, bounced off the wall, and settled, hanging from its top hinge. Directly opposite, Grady Haskell lay propped against the wall, a revolver in his hand, drawn dead to rights on Charlie.

Grady's bloody hand shook, the pistol wagging as if the man had a palsy. Sweat stippled his blanched face, and a wide, crooked grin twitched at the corners. Finally his hand dropped, the revolver clunking to the floor. Grady's eyelids fluttered, and then he pulled in a deep breath and looked at Charlie and smiled.

Charlie saw a long, thin man with his guts a churned mess from a shotgun blast and numerous other wounds. The big young man crossed the small room and with a boot toe nudged the revolver from Haskell's grasp.

“No!” Haskell's bloody fingers groped feebly for the gun. He dragged the hand to his lap and cringed as some inner pain racked him.

Charlie scanned the room, took in two rifles, a knife, and four revolvers. As he slowly circled the little room, gathering them, he spoke. “A gut-shot man, so I've been told, Grady, takes a long, long time to die. And what's more . . .” Charlie tossed the guns out the door. He turned, regarded the bloody man, and rubbed his chin as if he were about to launch into a particularly exciting engaging story. “I hear tell that the pain is one of the most, maybe even the most horrible, excruciating pains a man can possibly endure on this earth.”

“Charlie,” said Haskell, trying to grin despite his obvious pain. “You are a cruel sort of fella—you know that? Now give me that gun, Charlie boy. It's the least you can do for me. One bullet's all I need so's I can do for myself. I can't take much more of this. . . .”

Charlie went on, ignoring the man's words. “Now, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, am I? You being a man of the world, and do correct me if I'm wrong, Grady, but you're also a killing man, right? A man who I'm sure has shot more than his fair share of people in his day. Right, Grady?” Charlie pulled a wide, false grin, as if the two men were sharing a big old laugh.

“You . . . you're meaner than I had you pegged for, Charlie boy.” Haskell grimaced as shards of hot pain needled into him from all sides. It felt as if he were being roasted alive and being eaten by fiendish stinging insects, all at once.

“Oh, Grady, you in some pain, huh . . .
boy
?”

“Yeah. . . . Oh Lordy, but it hurts like the dickens, Charlie boy. . . . I can't hardly stand it.” He pulled his left hand away from his gut and held it up. The hand was barely recognizable, so much blood spooled off it, as if it were a hand dipped in a vat of gore. “Oh, Charlie . . . boy . . . make it stop. I can't hardly stand it no more.”

“Make it stop? Hmm, no, that's plumb interesting. Makes me wonder what that little girl back in Bakersfield—you know, the one you trampled with your horse in the street?—makes me wonder what she was saying to her family. . . .” Charlie's voice cracked, but he knew he had to go on, for her sake, for all their sakes.

“When her family was gathered around her bedside and the doctor said there wasn't nothing they could do for her, except for them to all stand there and watch that young thing die. A child, Grady, with so much promise, from good people who wanted nothing but good things for her.”

Charlie's big bull nostrils flexed and he leaned in close. “You got me, mister? And all them people who loved that little girl had to watch her die, awake and confused and bleeding and in agony? Oh, Grady, I sincerely hope such agonies are visiting you now, tenfold. You hear me . . .
boy
?”

Charlie stood, paced in a circle around the little busted-down, shredded-board, shot-to-ruin cabin. Outside he heard a bird of some sort warbling out a random string of night notes, the call of a far-off coyote drifting high and away. All around them life was going on, and death too. He looked through the tattered rag in the window and pulled a draft of fresh air into his lungs.

Then he heard a dry, cackling sound, soft but there it was. It was Haskell. The man had been silent and Charlie half hoped he'd expired. The fiend was laughing, a quiet wheeze, but even as blood oozed out his nose and mouth, he laughed.

“You find it all so funny, don't you? You think that little girl's death is a funny thing? I didn't think it was possible, Grady Haskell, but you are even more low-down than I ever could have imagined you'd be.”

“I'm not laughing about the girl, Charlie boy. Though . . .” He coughed. “. . . I don't recall stomping a child—don't sound much like me. Likely she was in the way anyway. Wasn't me, it'd been somebody else. Children, in my experience, are often underfoot.”

Charlie's blood boiled anew. He looked down at the wreck of a man—not much of a man to begin with—and though Charlie had no sympathy for the beast, he did hope Haskell would die soon so he wouldn't have to listen to any more of his foul chatter.

“No, Charlie boy . . . I was . . .” Another wave of pain coursed through Haskell. The man stiffened, convulsed, his blood-gloved hands clawing at his gut. He groaned low, too far gone for screams.

“Charlie. . . .”

Charlie turned his back on the man and strode out the door, his heavy weight springing the spent boards of the floor, creaking them as he walked out. He filled the doorway a moment, his back to the room.

Haskell croaked, “Charlie boy, Charlie . . . boy, don't leave me like this, don't . . . Charlie boy. . . .” The “please” dissolved into a long, gagging groan, wet with blood and the imminence of death.

Charlie stepped off the sill to the hard-packed earth and breathed deep of the cool night air. It seemed he could not get enough of it.

He balled his big hands into fists, tight, realized he still held a revolver in his right, and looked at it, then tossed it away into the scrub brush. He'd had enough of such things. Had enough of everything, it seemed.