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Sands of Sedona
Copyright 1982-2003 TrixiePixGraphics
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Sands of Sedona -- Western Fiction
Approx. 67962 Words
Chapter Seven
John slept only two hours. Too much weighed on his soul; he got up in the night and made the sixty miles back to Paydirt by late afternoon.
He handed Chowder over to Kelly, to be bedded down and fed in the stall. The horse was nicely worn, for John generally covered ground without delay. Chowder was still strong and could go the distance.
"Will you be needing the stall as well, Mr. Hannal?" Kelly asked in an almost taunting way. There was no obvious malice in her voice, but no friendliness either.
"My name is John," John said. "And no ma'am, I will not."
Kelly did not appreciate being called a ma'am. That was for older women-- for unattractive women. She liked it as little as John liked being called "Mr.".
John mustered his determination and solidified his plan. He would go to the Elkhorn and nose around, and come up with a plan for getting the deputy aside. Then he would kidnap the deputy. He would act the moment his plan was formulated, perhaps that very night. His resolve was now unwavering.
He was surprised that on his way to the saloon a strikingly attractive, well dressed lady with a wholesome face smiled at him. She had plainly made sure to pass him closely, and she had looked straight at him for an instant while she smiled. Then she blushed and looked away, and walked on. He was so surprised that he stopped cold on the boardwalk. What could it mean? He turned and looked after her. The lady still continued on; no words were spoken. It seemed she'd been on the verge of saying something, yet had not. If she'd had something to say, why hadn't she gone ahead and said it? John wondered.
He watched her walk away. She did not look like a whore. No woman in John's recollection had ever smiled at him for no apparent reason, though Wendy had always told him women were after him. He didn't believe a word of it, however, and always assumed she was just trying to make him feel good. That men were continually looking at Wendy, nevertheless, was not a matter to be argued. He didn't like it, but he tolerated it to a point.
John did not consider himself attractive at all, and doubted any woman did either. His six foot four inch frame carried his two hundred and forty pounds well enough. He was not fat, like a farm pig. Rather, he thought, he was solid, like a wild pig. His figure didn't seem to sport any of the curves that even men were supposed to have. It was just mostly straight, like the sides of a wild pig that was in good shape from running around a lot.
John's face, he had heard, was handsome enough-- some of the whores called him cute. Even though he didn't feel large, he'd always considered himself to be too large to be attractive to the ladies.
With whores, it was different. They found an attractive aspect to almost any man-- it was their business to do so, he felt, for how else could they give themselves to so many men? John could not give himself to a woman he wasn't attracted to. Neither could he give himself to a woman he didn't feel love for. He figured it worked the same for girls. There were some women, he knew, who were not whores who charged money, but who still liked many men. He didn't understand them, however.
John had never been to see a whore. He had talked to some of them on the street, and that had caused him no end of troubles at home when Wendy found out. He had just been trying to be polite, and, after all, some of them were interesting, and they had led interesting lives. Many of them were grossly uneducated, but that didn't mean they weren't smart. Only those folks who were incapable of learning, or who refused to learn, John considered stupid.
He'd never paid a whore for her professional services, however. They had nothing for sale that he wanted. He might have wanted their love, but they couldn't sell their love to him, and whores generally parted with nothing they couldn't charge for.
Still, John enjoyed talking to them on occasion, when he felt it was safe to do so. He would not have automatically or irrevocably turned away a whore just because she was a whore, if he'd ever had occasion to fall in love with one. He never had fallen in love with one-- it was hard to even get to know one if a man didn't frequent their place of employment, and since they didn't often go out in the daylight. Still, if it had somehow happened that he fell in love with a whore, he would have looked at the prospects of marrying one on a case by case basis.
Once in the Elkhorn, John was disconcerted to hear that the deputy had not been seen in two days and a night, and was on the verge of being considered missing. What the hell could the man be up to? John wondered. Perhaps Erin was trying to warn the rest of his murdering gang. Or perhaps, John thought, Erin had followed him when he left Paydirt the morning before. If that was the case, it was likely the deputy was still riding, for John had not encountered a horse in the territory that could keep up with Chowder in rough country.
The more he thought about it, the more the latter prospect seemed likely. John smiled to himself to think of the deputy's hard ride, always half a day behind him, which would only lead him straight back to town anyway. He settled in to wait for the deputy's return, which he guessed would be by the following morning. He hoped the deputy had been deprived of his sleep altogether.
About midnight John strolled out of the Elkhorn and headed to the stable. He would spend the night with his horse. He'd had a few drinks, which was unusual, since he hardly drank at all, and for that reason they'd gone to his head and he was foggy. Chowder did not particularly like to be around him when he'd been drinking; it was the smell of it on his breath, he assumed. Fortunately, he seldom drank.
John stopped to lean on a hitching rail to steady himself. The night was truly hot-- he felt flushed. The scent of sweet flowers filled the air. It reminded him of his little ranch near Walker. He could just hear a herd of toads croaking from under a porch down the street. It was an exceptionally pleasant evening with just the hint of a breeze that one could barely feel on the cheeks.
John remembered all the warm evenings just like this one, when he and Wendy had sat out on the porch, watching the broncs romp on the grass, or listening to the coyotes whoop and howl down at the bog where the frogs croaked so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. The girls would giggle as they concocted some reputedly tasty dish or other in the house, few of which were ever actually edible, though he did his best.
He occasionally missed the rough old days, before Wendy. He'd been often hungry in those days, though it had not bothered him overly at the time. He was often lonely in those days too, and that did bother him. Some men didn't seem to need female companionship like he did. He felt it was his one greatest weakness. Most times he preferred the company of women to men, and that had caused him some grief in life.
Sometimes, in those days, he wished he didn't love Wendy so much, or even that she didn't love him so much. Sometimes he wished Wendy wasn't so damned pretty. On the days when she wasn't so pretty, he wished she wasn't so good to him, and on the days she wasn't so good to him either, he thought about somehow getting back to the old days, when he felt freer and not so domesticated and perhaps a little more of a man. During the bad times with Wendy he felt as though he was in a marriage that was not good enough to stay in, but not quite bad enough to leave. Before he could dedicate much serious thought to escape, however, a few days would pass and he'd find that Wendy was pretty again or that her mood had passed and she was nice again, and then he no longer thought about the rough old days when life was simpler and he'd had much less to lose. He often did, however, feel like a moth about a flame.
Sometimes he and Wendy and the girls sat up late at night, especially if the night was pleasant and there was a full moon. John would tell them ghost stories, to which the girls and Wendy would squeal and scrunch down under the quilt beside John, and from their hiding place they'd beg for more. Sometimes he'd tell merely inspirational stories about honor or true love. Often he thought his stories were exceptionally bad, or worse, corny. Sometimes they were too bloody, but regardless, he begged the girls to never repeat them. Still they seemed to love them, and sometimes they asked for the same stories several nights in a row.
Wendy had perhaps resented Chowder, though she knew that John loved Chowder long before he loved her. She wasn't a jealous woman, but John did spend a lot of time with the animal. Wendy was understanding of it to a point, for she maintained a good relationship with the little paint, Crazy Eyes. It was unusual for a city raised woman like Wendy to really understand horses, John thought, though she did. She only objected to the hours John's horse stole from her.
For a time, when their lives were happy and they'd not had any trouble with bad men in Walker for a while, John fell into a routine of going out to talk with his horse after dinner. Chowder fell into the schedule too, and he'd be waiting at the gate at exactly the prescribed appointment every evening. John would unlatch the gate while Chowder raced around the pasture a couple of times to show John how fast he could run that day. When John slipped into the pen, Chowder would gallop to him and slide to a stop, and rear and whinny. Wendy was always sure the horse would kill her husband with a stray hoof as he pawed at the air not a foot from John's head, but the stallion never nicked him.
Sometimes Chowder would rear and wrap his front legs around John in a kind of hug. Why John tolerated such behavior Wendy could never comprehend. That he enjoyed the horse was obvious. She had never seen a horse take to a man like that, and she knew that Chowder was something special. Still, she vowed that if the wild bronc ever seriously hurt her man, she'd kill it with a rifle.
John remembered the night his mustang was so restless he thought he would break down the fence. John had wanted to stay with Wendy on the porch. The girls were cleaning up their mess around the stove, and John hoped for an intimate time with his wife there on the porch when the girls finally went to bed.
"That damned horse," Wendy said. John took notice for Wendy never said damn. "He's going to break down your new fence."
"Let 'im," John replied, and nibbled Wendy's neck. "He won't go far."
"But you'll have to build a new fence if he does, and I don't want to listen to you cuss that horse tomorrow," she said. "Why don't you take him for a ride. It's a beautiful full moon. He's got too much energy pent up in him."
"What about you?" John asked. "Don't you have some energy pent up in you? I was hopin' to use some of it after while..." Just then there was a louder screech from Chowder's pen. He'd succeeded in getting a board off.
Wendy looked disgustedly toward the pen, though John could not see her expression in the dark. "I'm tired." Her voice was suddenly flat. "You go ride your horse. I'll help the girls and then go to bed." After a slight hesitation she added, "You come and snuggle when you get home." She pushed him away and got up and turned toward the door to the house.
"Well, maybe I'll go ride that bronc, or maybe I'll go hide in the bushes and wait for your boyfriend to show up," John snickered. He knew he was treading on delicate ground, but Wendy's lack of interest in him had peeved him. Wendy just gave him a snooty, irritated look and went into the house.
John sat awhile longer, but Chowder was getting more abusive on that fence, and Wendy, it was clear, was going to be no fun that night. He found himself strolling down to the pens where Chowder now had two boards off the gate.
In a few minutes John had him saddled up. He was a quivering, explosive hunk of horseflesh, already soaked with sweat.
John let him have his head and he bounded over the sage like a rabbit. John normally rode him to the south pastures several times a week, seven miles down the range and across the Rio Puerco. Chowder thought they were going to work that night, and all John had to do was relax and enjoy the mustang's smooth, careful lope.
At four miles out he steered his pony onto a new trail. It cut to the left, up along a hillside, with a broad, deep valley falling off to the right. In the silvery moonlight it was a prehistoric scene.
When he had gained some elevation he pulled up and swung Chowder near the edge so he could look out upon that magnificent valley. The air was hot and he remembered thinking how much he liked the smell of dust, sweet sage, and horse sweat.
Suddenly Chowder whirled to face something on the trail. Wendy trotted up after a few minutes on her little wild pony, Crazy Eyes, wanting to know if she could ride along after all. Chowder was pleased to have the company.
They rode another mile up that trail together, until they were six hundred feet above the valley. Again they stopped to look over the side. It was one of those times that makes a man realize he's alive. It seems as though every event of his life has been leading up to that one moment, and he tries to draw it in, to hold it, and to remember it for all time.
Chowder's ears perked up, then a minute later Crazy was alerted. There was a low rumble in the distance in the valley. If John stared at a point without moving his eyes, he could see a huge cloud of dust moving deliberately across the valley floor, two miles away. As it drew closer and rose up into the moonlight it began to look like a rolling fog bank.
Chowder stamped a foot, then nickered. He moved a step closer to the edge, his body tense with excitement, then he stopped and gently tugged at the bit. John and Wendy watched the stampeding wild horses another minute. Then Chowder moved another step closer to the rim, to see if John would stop him. John knew he would let him go. The mustang sensed it too.
Crazy Eyes shuffled her feet, agitated by the sounds of thundering hooves and whinnies below, which became distinctive. It had become hard to hear over the thundering roar. Wendy murmured "my God".
Chowder took another tentative step. John told him that he loved him, then quietly whispered the word, "go", and he did.
In a bound he was over the edge, sliding and striding down the loose sandy hill, losing his footing, then finding it again, barely in control, like foam tumbling down the face of an ocean breaker. John thought he would fall, but the horse was more in his element than John realized. Chowder heard the call of the desert range, the spirit of the West, and he ran headlong for it.
At the bottom he broke into a full gallop toward the mustang herd. He was, perhaps, unaware that John still rode him. John gave him a free rein, and Chowder was an untamed stallion again, running wild under a hot midnight moon, running on into the night to fight for the mares.
As they drew nearer the herd Chowder whinnied even as he galloped, a long and throaty, rending appeal to the mares, a battle cry to the stallions.
As they drew within a half mile the herd became wary. The lead stallion began to move them out. Chowder kept on and presently they merged with the stragglers.
John wasn't sure what to expect and was surprised that he could even get so close to the herd. A few months prior, while trying to recapture a domestic mare that had been stolen by the mustangs, John was able to lay down on Chowder's back as he walked quietly through the outer edges of a smaller herd. He reclaimed the mare, who still wore her halter and lead rope. John returned the mare to her owner, who cried openly to have her back.
At once the dominant stallion galloped up and challenged Chowder. Both horses reared and struck out. The stallion spun and kicked Chowder in the ribs, just behind John's leg. The mares ran back and forth in different directions and at times the dust was so thick he couldn't see the ground. He felt Chowder lunge and run, stop, spin, buck, and kick and strike. The scene, for John, was like a drunken kaleidoscope of twisting, disjointed horse bodies, thudding hooves, flying manes, gnashing teeth and wild eyes.
A thunderstorm erupted though no rain fell. Lightning spackled the valley with intense bursts of light. Thunder boomed in the distance. Hooves pounded the dry sand and horses grunted and whinnied; brush cracked and was annihilated.
At cues unseen, the herd would break into a gallop and thunder across the valley floor for half a mile, the faster horses stretching out, covering ground like prized Thoroughbreds. Then, at some new signal they would stop and mix together, pushing and shoving, fighting and playing-- John left his reins slack over the horn.
Studs of lesser stature joined in the assault on Chowder. John felt bites at his legs and the swish of air as flying hooves barely missed his head. Up until now the ruckus had seemed like just rough fun, but the stallions turned more aggressive and it became obvious that Chowder, domesticated those last few years, could not hold his own anymore.
The herd began to move away. Chowder struggled to keep up, but without effort they outdistanced him. John let him have his head until he thought he would collapse from exhaustion, then he took up the reins and asked the horse to turn away.
Finally Chowder began to accept John's cues again. The herd galloped toward the top of a distant hill. Lighting flashed to silhouette them against a black thunderhead one last time. Then they were gone.
The moon was paler now, and setting. John stood there a long time with Chowder, while the mustang caught his breath. The wind was colder, whistling through the scrub pines and sage. Wendy was no where in sight. It would be daylight soon. Chowder looked again and again to the hilltop where he'd last seen the mustang herd. He knew he would never again catch them. The valley was deserted but for John and his horse. For the first time John understood the loneliness of a mustang, displaced from its herd. John drew a long breath and straightened up from the hitching rail outside the Elkhorn. It seemed such a long time ago....
He continued down the boardwalk, again bound unsteadily for the stable. Halfway to the barn a bundle of rags in the doorwell of the hardware store moved, then he heard a groan. He went for his gun, for he was somewhat edgy, but in his compromised state he missed the grip altogether and would have easily been gunned down had there been any threat to his life.
He stepped to the huddled mass in the doorwell and gently turned it over. It was old Sid, and blood ran from his mouth. He held his side tightly and John could not pry his hands away from a wound there. The old man mumbled for a moment, for he was drunk as well.
"Aye matey, I'm stabbed sure," said Sid, then he strained to look more closely at John's face. "Aye, it's you is it then," he said. He coughed deeply and blood spattered onto John's face and coat. "im afraid they got me good. They'll get you too, if'n ye don't get out of this 'ere snake den. They'll get ye just like they got me and that deputy too."
"The deputy?" John asked. "Someone killed the deputy?"
"Aye, or whatever he was. It was Billy what kilt him in the bar with that fancy six-shooter. Aye, he's as dead as they get, me friend." The old seaman's breath had begun to produce a gurgling sound when he tried to talk. Even in the darkened doorwell his color was ghastly.
John was confused and thought the old man was losing his grasp of things as he died. He tried to make sense of it.
"What deputy?" John asked again. "It wasn't the deputy that got shot in the Elkhorn. Who was it, Sid?"
Sid visibly struggled to compose his thoughts, for thinking was becoming difficult. "It was a marshal," he said again weakly. "The man---shot in the bar---it was a Federal---Marshall. He was lookin'.......Injuns......killers......" Sid coughed and hacked and tried to clear the blood from his throat, but it was no use. As fast as he could swallow it down or spit it out, more flowed into it. It seemed to John the man had an abundance of blood to spit up.
"Billy was hired," Sid choked out. "Erin--- He--- I heard it all. I--I--"
For a second he looked past John and his eyes became wide. He stiffened and clenched John's arm tightly. His mouth worked but no words came out. He apparently saw his death coming and was terrified by it.
The captain slipped into unconsciousness even as John held him higher and tried to revive him. Sid's head fell to one side and his eyes partly closed. John was now slippery with blood and wrought with confusion. He heard a click next to his ear and he heard the words, "Don't blink or I'll blow your blamed head clean off." There was barely controlled glee in the voice, and rage. It was Erin, the hot dog deputy. He smelled sweaty and he was some out of breath. His horse just then came meandering down the street from around the stable, trailing its reins. Erin had a fancy forty-four pressed square against John's temple. "I'll be takin' you in for murder," he said.
John turned his eyes slowly to see Kelly step onto the boardwalk. She hesitated an instant, then moved directly to Erin's side and stayed there. Erin's smile became positively demonic.
A second later young Joey stepped up as well and took his place next to his mother. Kelly gave John a long, hard look, but said nothing at all. The boy looked as though this was all he could handle. His eyes were wide and he was pale; he was almost panic stricken and he trembled visibly. Joey was about the same age John had been when he had his unfortunate experience with the Sheriff's kid's pony. That was, he figured, not nearly as bad as this.
Kelly put an arm around her boy but it didn't seem to help.
John felt low. In a soft voice he said, "It's all right son. It'll be okay."
It was then old Sid passed away with a shudder that made the boardwalk beneath them quiver.
Kelly insisted on accompanying Erin and John to the jail. As they passed by the Elkhorn, Erin made a point to yell into the bar that he'd caught a murderer. This brought the house outside, and when it was discovered that old Sid, a man who was generally liked if not understood, had been murdered, and that John was his accused murderer, the crowd became ugly. Had Sid been the town child molester, the crowd still would have become ugly, for that's what most of the patrons of the Elkhorn and every other saloon in town lived for-- the rare opportunity to become righteously indignant.
John feared for his life at the hands of a mob. It was obvious to him that Erin was purposely inducing the crowd to that end. He did not know that Kelly saw it too.
Fortunately it was only two doors from the Elkhorn to the jail, and Erin had found no good or legal excuse to stop along the boardwalk. He reluctantly entered the Sheriff's office with Kelly, her son and his prisoner, and closed the door behind them. Kelly had been forced to bully her way in.
Erin roughly shoved John into a cell.
John could hear Erin and Kelly talking in soft tones around the corner where they were out of sight. He didn't know what Kelly's interest was in the whole affair. He figured she was Erin's girl.
John settled into a hard bunk, wondering if this was to finally be his end. Erin had John to himself now. All Erin had to do was shoot him like a dog in his cell, and tell the town he'd tried to escape.
Poor little Joey was left to stand by the door. He stood and faced John's cell, and looked at him squarely, never changing expression. The boy seemed not even to blink.
Suddenly Kelly was almost shouting. John jumped to his feet. Kelly had squared off to Erin as though she meant to fist fight him. John watched the development intensely. To his chagrin, for there was no more inappropriate time to realize it, he found himself noticing that from certain angles, Kelly was not a bad looking woman.
"I saw the man stab Sid," she shouted. With that, John's hopes evaporated.
"I saw him run across the street toward the undertaker's," she continued. "I could have almost shot him myself, and I might have, if I'd known what he did! It was after that that John came out of the saloon and found him. I saw the whole thing!" Kelly was nearly hysterical.
John's hopes rose again. Erin was like a little boy who might put his hands over his ears to keep from hearing something he didn't want to hear. He had plans and he didn't want them interfered with. The truth would greatly hamper his blueprint.
John realized that if Kelly wasn't on his side, at least she was on the side of truth, and that was just as good. Erin became more agitated with every word. Kelly was red faced from shouting. Erin was red from trying not to hear her. Erin pounded his fist on the desk and started to say something, but Kelly cut him off, "I saw the whole thing!" She screamed again. "What do you think you're trying to do here!?"
There was a silence. Kelly nearly exploded with exasperation. Then she got an odd look on her face. Erin noticed that she was suddenly looking at him strangely; it was as though the wheels of her mind were about to fly apart.
"You came from the undertaker's after John found Sid," she hissed out after a moment. She stepped back and looked at the deputy as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes grew wide. "You...." She managed again, as she mentally compared the dark image of the man she saw leaving Sid, to the man who stood before her.
John remembered that Erin's horse had wandered out from behind the undertaker's shed as well, and it had been trailing its reins, as though it had untied itself and gone in search of its master or some feed.
Erin could take no more. With an animal growl he flew at Kelly and knocked her down. She skidded across the floor for a yard. She was a stalwart woman, and might have offered more resistance had she not been so preoccupied with her new revelation regarding Erin. He had killed Sid, of course. The truth left her momentarily numb and vulnerable.
Erin leaped at her but she rolled away and he landed flat on his stomach, which knocked the wind out of him. Kelly had time to flash John a pleading, wide eye'd look from across the office, but John was trapped in his cell. He shook the bars involuntarily. He was helpless, and he could do nothing but watch as a wild animal tore this woman apart.
Kelly made it to her feet and fled across the room toward John's cell, but Erin was also up and he tackled her and took her to the floor again. Kelly's blouse was ripped mostly off, and even in the frenzy of a fight for his life Erin noticed her naked breasts which swung violently in the struggle.
Kelly kicked the deputy in the groin but hit no vital parts. Still, it unnerved him enough that she could regain her feet again. She snatched at a ring of keys that hung on the wall, and then drew back to throw them at John. John held his hands through the bars to catch them. She started to throw and John could almost feel them in his hands already, but the ever nimble deputy was back on his feet; he lunged and deflected the throw. The keys flew across the room to the opposite wall from the cell, and almost hit little Joey in the face.
"Run!" Kelly screamed at her son. "Run outside Joey! Get some men from--" But Erin had cold cocked her solidly in the jaw. She was out before she went down. Her body crashed into a set of shelves that stood against the wall and it toppled with her in a horrendous crash. Joey was out the door.
Erin instantly turned his attention to John. The deputy was so enraged that he did not take the time to fetch the keys to the cell, but lunged headlong for John, who stood at the bars with his arms stretched through them. As Erin closed the distance John grabbed him and drew him even harder toward the cell, and Erin's head rang hard against the steel bars. Dazed, the deputy stumbled back. John snatched at him as Erin backed away from the cell, shaking his head, trying to remember where he was, but John missed and Erin stumbled out of range.
When he'd shaken off the blow the deputy stopped to think for a moment. His gun hung in its holster across the back of the chair. He looked at John, then at his gun, then moved deliberately toward it. John knew he had seconds to live. He looked frantically about the cell for some cover, but there was none.
Suddenly Erin hit the floor with a crash. Kelly had come to and had wrapped her arms around his legs. He went down cursing, but was immediately able to kick Kelly in the head and put her out again. Then he completed the scramble for his gun. He drew it and spun toward the cell. He cocked it as the barrel rose, and when he was sure John was in its sights, he fired. The bullet hit a bar and shreds of lead flew like shrapnel in a hundred pieces about the cell, spattering John with bits of metal that stuck in the skin of his face.
John had stumbled back and was struggling to see, when Kelly crashed a chair over the back of Erin's head. He had sensed it coming just before it hit, and managed to fend off most of the blow. Still, it put him on the floor again. His gun skittered across the floor and Kelly tried to reach it first but was too far away. Erin snatched the six-shooter and was back on his feet like a cat.
The deputy decided that rapid fire was the answer. He brought his left hand up to fan the hammer while his right hand brought the gun to bear on John again. He cocked; then his mind told his hand to fire. There was a bang that sounded something like a book smacking the floor, then a louder boom. The deputy stood still a moment. He tried to bring his left hand up to fan the hammer again, but couldn't quite get it high enough. It fell limp, then his right hand dropped the gun. Blood began to pump out of his Adam's apple, and with his eyes wide open, just like that pony's, he fell flat onto his face on the floor, dead.
John stood wavering in his cell with a smoking, Ivory gripped lady's gun in his hand. The grip had two pieces missing from it-- just small imperfections in an otherwise glitzy piece of armory. The deputy had been foolish enough to leave it wrapped in its bundle in the cabinet that fell by John's cell. John was certain the gun had been used in the killing of his family and in the barroom gunning of the Federal Marshal. Now it had served a higher purpose.
Kelly came to and groggily got to her feet. Then she saw Erin lying dead on the floor. The blood was nearly through leaking from his neck; not much was left to pump out.
Just then half a dozen men burst through the door, guns drawn. The Sheriff was first. He saw his deputy on the floor, then he saw John in the cell, obviously a prisoner, with a smoking gun in his hand. His conclusion was quickly formed.
"Why you son of a bitch," the Sheriff growled. He cocked his gun and had it nearly leveled at John when Kelly, still naked above the waist, threw herself over his arm. The gun discharged but the round went into the floor.
"He didn't do it!" She screamed at the Sheriff. The Sheriff looked puzzled but stopped to listen.
"I mean, he did do it, but he had no choice," she corrected breathlessly. "Erin was going to kill him in the cell. And Erin killed old Sid too." Her voice pleaded for reason.
The Sheriff looked even more confused. "Sid?" He said. "Sid's dead?"
"Yes, and both John and I would have been dead, if John hadn't shot Erin." She looked again at the twisted form on the floor half a yard from her. She could have reached him to kick him; she almost did.
The Sheriff relaxed a little. He relaxed his gun arm, which Kelly still had a good grip on. There were witnesses everywhere, John noted. Unless they were all crooked, the Sheriff couldn't very well take up where his deputy had left off, even if he was in on the whole thing. That gave John a fleck of hope.
"You boys go on out of here," the Sheriff told the curious men who'd pushed their way into his office. "I reckon I can sort this out myself. Anybody seen Charlie? Somebody go and fetch Charlie and tell him he's my new deputy. I expect him here in twenty minutes, if he wants to keep his job."
"I'll get him," someone from the crowd on the boardwalk shouted.
The last of the men flushed out of the office and the Sheriff motioned for Kelly to sit down.
"I got a kid to find," she said defiantly as she covered herself. She was tired of men trying to tell her what to do and where and when to sit. But just then little Joey pushed his way into the Sheriff's office against the tide of men who were leaving. He ran to his mother. She sat down in relief and accepted him with open arms.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Yep," he replied, and then buried his head in her lap. A moment later he remembered John, and he looked up to see if his friend was still alive in the cell. Then the boy looked horrified as his gaze caught the bloody figure of Erin on the floor. He put his head back in Kelly's lap but continued to stare at Erin as if mesmerized. John knew the look.
The Sheriff started to sit down, then also remembered the man he had in his cell, who also had a gun and who'd just used it to kill his deputy. He walked over to John and asked, "You mind if I take that?"
John looked at the fancy weapon. "Not at all," he said. "Not one Goddamned bit, provided you let me out of here first."
The Sheriff thought about it a moment. He looked at Kelly, who only shrugged, then he fetched up the key ring and opened the door. John deftly flipped the gun, butt forward, and handed it to the man. Then they all sat down for a long talk.
The Sheriff knew only that John Hannal had killed his deputy in self defense, there in the jail. Self defense had been a good enough reason to kill the man. The Sheriff did not know that John had other reasons to see Erin dead-- reasons that were to John far more valid than simple self defense. The Sheriff puzzled over it, but John offered no enlightenment. No one knew why Erin murdered Sid. John didn't bother to tell the Sheriff what Ansel Wells was either. He figured there was no point in showing any more of the cards than was necessary. And anyway, John didn't know what Ansel Wells had been up to in Paydirt.
In the end, the Sheriff wrote up his report, which dealt with the facts as he knew them. John checked it for accuracy and signed it. The Sheriff reluctantly said there would be no charges filed.
John inquired as to the whereabouts of the red bearded shooter from the Elkhorn two mornings before. The Sheriff grew a puzzled expression and looked up at the cell. It was, of course, empty. The Sheriff put his face in his hands and groaned.
"Damned if I know," he said. "He was here an hour ago." He took his hands away, leaned back in his chair and disgustedly took some papers out of his lap and tossed them onto the desk; then he gave John a blank stare and shrugged. Likely, John thought, the deputy had simply turned Billy loose and had planned to later claim he escaped. No one would ever see the killer again, or know the difference. The Sheriff certainly didn't seem to be too concerned. John supposed that killers escaped out of Paydirt all the time.
John was still unsure as to the Sheriff's loyalties in the entire affair. Perhaps, he thought, the Sheriff had no loyalties at all, but was just a blowing tumbleweed, always taking the path of least resistance. Many small western Sheriffs evolved to that, in time.
John had been lucky. Had it not been for Kelly's guts and determination, he'd have been dead. He knew he'd misjudged the woman. He'd been ready to rank her with the worst of the outlaws. He wanted never to make a mistake that serious again.
The only lasting bad that had come from the whole ordeal was that that weasel of a deputy was dead, and along with him, John's very last lead.
John and Kelly walked back to the stable while Joey ran ahead. It was still an hour to sunup and it was still warm in the street.
Neither spoke. Kelly went to her end of the barn, and John again made his bed next to Chowder's stall. There he slept until noon.
He woke up sweating. The barn was so hot that even Chowder had wet patches on his coat as he stood still in his stall. John wondered absentmindedly how the danged flies could fly when it was so hot.
Someone was working a few stalls down. It was Joey, shoveling horse shit out of stalls and dumping it out back, into the arroyo that ran behind the barn. Most of the inhabitants of Paydirt also dumped their trash there. It stank, and Kelly tried to reason with them. Their logic was, however, that horse shit stank just as much as rotting garbage, if not more. Several times a year a flash flood cleaned out the dump, though the garbage was only washed a couple of miles downstream, where it dried and stank in the sun again, once the flood was over. Still, it was better that it dried and stank out in the open desert, a few miles out of town. Since Kelly's barn was the major producer of horse shit in the town, the town felt she should not mind the lesser stench of rotting garbage; it was only there between rains, they argued. And that's where the issue stood.
John got up and made his way toward the Mermaid Hotel to buy a bath. For a few minutes it seemed like a wonderful day, just strolling along the boardwalk, anticipating a hot bath, which he was sorely in need of. Life was always bright after a much needed bath, and he looked forward to the sensation. He promised himself he'd stay in the Mermaid that night.
He still had money in the bank from the sale of his ranch, down by the Rio Grande. He did not have to worry about spending money on the hotel, or for meals, or for anything else.
Much of his life had been spent worrying about money. He was always broke when he was riding rustler patrol in Nevada, when he was scarcely out of his teens. Rustlers paid by the head, and rustlers were usually extremely hard to catch. It was common to run across rustlers out on the range, but you had to catch them actually rustling before you could bring them in and get paid for them. Sometimes rustlers didn't rustle for long periods of time; a man couldn't follow each one of them around for a year out of his life, just waiting for the man to round up someone's cows. The better method was to try and second guess them, to anticipate where and when they'd hit a herd, and then sit in wait for them. But that was tedious as well. John reflected that the loneliness of rustler patrol was worse than the fact that he made no money at it. He'd never been interested in money anyhow, and in some respects, the more of it he'd had in his life, the more unhappy he'd been. He'd been happiest as a saddle bum, roaming the West, exploring, making friends with crazy old miners or Indians. Some Indians he genuinely liked. Some he had no respect for whatever. He had thought rustler patrol to be glamorous at first. Then, after a while, he just thought of it as lonely. He'd been involved in a couple of gun spats while thus engaged, but had never been hit, and so far as he knew, had never hit a rustler, either. For all his efforts he doubted he'd made much of a dent in the overall statistics of rustling.
He contemplated those thoughts on the way to the Mermaid Hotel, but upon entering, came face to face with the Sheriff. Suddenly he remembered where he was and why he was there. His family was dead; he was tracking its killers, and two were left. His life was not happy after all --could not be happy, perhaps ever again. He slipped back into a dark and gloomy mood.
The Sheriff touched his sleeve as John attempted to walk past him in the lobby of the Mermaid. John turned to face him, but the Sheriff motioned him over to a quieter part of the lobby where they would not be overhead.
"How do you know Ansel Wells?" The Sheriff asked plainly.
John didn't have to think before he answered, "I didn't know him at all."
The Sheriff paused for a moment, contemplating his next question. "Did you know what he was?"
John hesitated to answer that query. He knew the man had been a Federal Marshal who'd been sniffing around the town like an old hound dog, uncovering even more than he'd hoped for. What he didn't know, was whether he wanted the Sheriff to know it, if the man didn't know it already. "No," John replied.
"He was a Federal Marshal."
John feigned mild surprise. "You mean a Federal Marshal was gunned down right here in your town?"
The Sheriff regarded John more intently. At first, he'd appeared to be asking honest questions of John. Now, his demeanor changed to one of suspicion, and he barely disguised it.
"I'll ask you again how you knew the man," the Sheriff said. John sensed the man was running out of give.
"I had never so much as talked to the man on the street," John said honestly, for he had not.
The Sheriff pushed a piece of paper at him. "This was found on the Marshall," the Sheriff said. It was hastily written on a scrap of paper torn off a larger sheet. John recognized the paper as that which old Sid used for his figurings, after the saloon was closed at night. John took it and read it quickly. Written in Sid's scrawling handwriting, it said simply, 'John Hannal--bunks in barn.' John was genuinely puzzled.
"Now," the Sheriff continued. "Suppose you tell me how you knew the man, and don't bullshit me again." The Sheriff's tone was now devoid of all pleasantness.
John still couldn't answer for, in fact, he did not know the man at all. "I haven't a clue." John finally offered. As he studied the Sheriff's face he wondered if the man's interest was in doing his job and catching the man who shot the Marshal, or if it was more in the vein of figuring out what kinds of connections John might have, and how dangerous he might be to those with evil plots. If the Sheriff was crooked, that would be his motivation.
John handed the paper back to the Sheriff. "I tell you flat out," John said again. "I never met the man." John looked him straight in the eye. He felt that the Sheriff was beginning to believe him.
John turned and walked to the desk and asked for a room. He heard the Sheriff walk softly past him and out onto the boardwalk.
No rooms were available, but once in his bath, he was free to ask himself the same questions the Sheriff had wanted answers to: How did Ansel Wells know him? John wished old Sid was still alive.
Next Chapter
Sands of Sedona, Chap 1
Sands of Sedona, Chap 2
Sands of Sedona, Chap 3
Sands of Sedona, Chap 4
Sands of Sedona, Chap 5
Sands of Sedona, Chap 6
Sands of Sedona, Chap 7
Sands of Sedona, Chap 8
Sands of Sedona, Chap 9
Sands of Sedona, Chap 10
Sands of Sedona, Chap 11
Sands of Sedona, Chap 12