“I didn't exactly see him pull the trigger,” the man said, “but I heard his gunshot, and when I looked over he was lowering his pistol and Bryson was on the ground, deader than hell . . . shot in the head.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” said Frazier, dismissing the man. “If you didn't
see
me shoot Bryson, you'd do well to keep your mouth shut.”
Rhodes started to say more, but Sam cut him off, saying, “He's right. Unless you can truthfully swear that you
saw
him shoot your friend, you're wasting your breath.”
“And if I said I did see him do it, would you haul him off to jail?” Rhodes asked.
“Yes, but make sure you're not lying to me, mister,” said Sam. “Murder is a very serious charge.” He stared at Rhodes expectantly, until finally the man slumped in submission and said, “Hell, I didn't
see
it, even though I
know
he did it.”
“There you have it, Ranger, are you satisfied?” said Frazier. “Can you stop wondering about me, and get on after the real criminals?”
Sam turned and walked away toward the livery barn to join Maria. “What about my rifle, Ranger?” Rhodes asked, hurrying to catch up with him.
“I'll give it to you as soon as you're a safe distance from Bart Frazier,” Sam replied. “I've got enough to do without keeping you two from each other's throats.” Beside Sam the big cur walked along, observing the dirt street in both directions.
Chapter 13
Maria met the ranger at the livery barn where she had just finished watering and graining her horse. Sam turned his horse's reins over to a stable boy. He noted that neither Art Mullens nor Thesis Sweeney was present. He gave Maria a curious look.
“I sent them to the River Palace,” she said, without him having to ask.
“They were easier for you to get rid of than I thought they would be,” Sam remarked.
“I gave them enough money to buy themselves a drink,” she said, “after I convinced them of how much help they've been.”
Sam gave a thin smile. “Did they have anything else to say worth hearing?”
“No, they didn't,” Maria said. “But I thought it would be worth a drink to keep them out of the way while you finished talking to Sheer. Did he have anything else to say?”
“Not much,” said Sam. “He did say that he saw a stranger riding through Red Hill. Said the man avoided the trail and rode in the weeds and brush, like he didn't want anybody seeing him.”
“Stanton Parks?” Maria asked.
“I've got a feeling it was.”
“Why didn't he simply keep an eye on the saloon if he wanted to keep track of the drovers?” she asked.
“I figure he didn't want to start any trouble in Red Hill,” said the ranger. “I also figure he didn't want to tangle with these four young men alone. He was looking up Fred Mandrin, knowing Mandrin carried a badgeâor that he used to anyway. I can think of lots of schemes those two could've cooked up with a badge on their side.”
“You don't think the drovers killed Mandrin up at Three Forks,” Maria said, “you think Parks killed him.”
“Yep.” Sam nodded. “Parks killed him, once he saw the drovers had made out of Red Hill with the money, and he figured he'd no longer need Mandrin and his badge.”
“Interesting,” said Maria. “It sounds like all the four drovers are doing is trying to stay alive.”
“That's the way I'm calling it,” said Sam. “Unless something shows me otherwise, I think the drovers are the only honest players in a dangerous game.”
“SÃ
, and they are the ones holding the money,” Maria mused.
“Yep,” said Sam, “and I bet they have no idea Buckshot Parks is trailing them.”
“Which puts them in a bad position, honest players or not,” Maria added.
“Oh yes,” said the ranger. He took out the broken paper money band and examined it again. “Parks is not the only person out for their hides. I imagine that by now Davin Grissin is spitting fire over this, if Peyton Quinn and his two pals had the nerve to go back and face him after we took away their guns.”
“We need to catch up to these young men before somebody else does,” Maria offered, looking toward the livery boy as he grained the ranger's horse. “Do you think Frazier will send any more men after the drovers?”
“No, I think Frazier has learned his lesson, and so have the men he hired to capture the drovers,” said Sam. “Whoever these young men are, they seem to know how to look out for one another.” He gestured toward the door. “Let's go get some food ourselves, while these horses rest awhile.”
Three blocks from the livery barn, the two found a small restaurant and ate a hot meal of eggs, biscuits and gravy and thick-sliced bacon. When they had finished and paid for their meal, they walked back to the livery barn, saddled their horses and rode away. As they passed the spot where Bart Frazier sat rocking, he didn't so much as glance in their direction.
The pair rode upward along the high-reaching trail, following the newer hoofprints Sheer and his party had left when they'd ridden up and discovered Fred Mandrin's body. Reaching the Three Forks in the trail, Sam and Maria sat their horses for a moment, looking from one trail to another. “This is the perfect place for a group of riders to part company and lie low for a spell,” said the ranger.
“The question is, which riders went in which direction?” Maria stepped down and walked her horse from left to right, looking in turn out along each trail.
Examining the trail to the right, Sam noted the dark patch of dried blood on a rock and on the ground. He nudged his horse over, stepped down and gazed out along the meandering trail leading away from it. “It looks like one of the cowhands might've taken a bullet.”
“
SÃ
,” said Maria, studying the dark bloody spot alongside him. “From the looks of it, this one was bleeding bad.”
As the ranger spoke, the dog trotted purposefully back and forth, its muzzle to the dirt, picking up the familiar scent of Stanton Parks. “If they split up here, you can bet it won't be for long. These young men are going to stick together. They've learned the hard way that four guns are better than one.”
“They have themselves to be the bundle of sticks that cannot be broken . . . ,” Maria said with contemplation. “When the time comes, let's hope they will allow us to get close enough to show them that we are not their enemy.”
“Yes, let's hope,” Sam said. He watched the dog sniff out the various scents in the dirt beneath his busy nostrils. After a moment, the dog stopped and concentrated intently on one spot. “It looks like Sergeant Tom Haines has found something of interest.”
When the dog raised his nose from the ground he turned, facing the ranger and Maria, and barked as he bounced slightly on his front paws. He spun in the dirt, faced them and barked again, this time with more urgency.
“All right, boy, we're coming,” said Sam. To Maria he said, “I don't know if he's following the drovers or Buckshot Parks, but it doesn't matter. As long as these young men have Grissin's money, their trail and Parks' will be one and the same.” They turned and mounted and rode forward, seeing the big cur disappear around a turn in the trail.
Â
In Creasy, a small half-abandoned mining town that appeared to be clinging to a steep mountain-side, Mackenzie helped Holly Thorpe down from his saddle and to the door of a doctor's office along a dusty boardwalk. Thorpe had weakened with the loss of blood. He stood with an arm looped over Mackenzie's shoulder as Mackenzie beat urgently on a wooden door where a sign read DR. HIRAM ROSS, PHYSICIAN.
“Am I going to die on you, Mac?” Thorpe asked dreamily.
“No, you better not die on me,” said Mackenzie. “We're going to get you looked after by the doctor. You're going to be feeling better before you know it.”
“All right, boss. . . .” Thorpe's head lolled back and forth. He gave a weak half-conscious smile, a smear of blood on one spectacle lens. “Whatever you say.”
Before Mackenzie could knock again, a young woman opened the door. She only glanced at Mackenzie. But she looked Thorpe up and down closely.
Mackenzie spoke quickly. “Ma'am, my pard here has been shot. We've rode all the way here to see theâ”
“Bring him in,” the young woman said just as quickly, before Mackenzie could finish his words. She reached out to Thorpe as she spoke, helping Mackenzie get him through the doorway. “My father isn't here, but he'll be back shortly.”
“Much obliged, ma'am,” said Mackenzie as she looped Thorpe's left arm over her shoulder.
“Right in here.” The young woman guided them across a parlor and straight into the doctor's treatment room.
“Whoâwho are you?” Thorpe asked, giving her a weak sidelong glance.
“I'm Beth Ann . . . Beth Ann Ross,” the young woman replied as she and Mackenzie eased the wounded man onto a canvas surgical table.
“Like the woman who made the flag?” Thorpe asked, dreamily.
“Yes, only
her
name was Betsy, mine is Beth Ann,” she replied cordially. Yet as she spoke she deftly went to work. She plucked his spectacles from his face and laid them in a metal tray beside the surgical table. Crossing the room, she returned with a pan of water and a clean washcloth. She set the pan and washcloth down beside the metal instrument tray and began unbuttoning Thorpe's shirt. “Please remove his boots,” she said sidelong to Mackenzie.
“Yes, ma'am,” said Mackenzie, immediately doing as she instructed. “You said your father will be home real soon?” He took Thorpe's right boot toe and heel between his hands and pulled the boat from his foot.
“Please to meet you, Miss Beth Ann,” Thorpe said in a thick incoherent tone.
“And I you, sir,” Beth Ann said quietly, patting Thorpe's shoulder. To Mackenzie she replied, “Yes, he should be home soon. But not soon enough, I'm afraid.” She picked up a packet of gauze from the metal instrument tray. “Your friend has lost a lot of blood. I have to stop this bleeding right away.”
“You?” Mackenzie looked at her.
“Yes, me,” said Beth Ann.
“No offense, ma'am,” said Mackenzie, “but I brought Holly here to see a doctor.”
“And so he shall,” said the young woman, “just as soon as my father returns.” She dipped the cloth into the water, then wrung it and washed all around the wound as a thin braided stream of blood trickled steadily down over her fingers.
“Ma'am . . .” Mackenzie started to say something but his words trailed.
“Don't worry, I've done this before,” the young woman said without facing him. “What's your friend's name?”
“Holly Thorpe, ma'am.” Suddenly remembering his manners, he took off his hat. “Begging your pardon, ma'am, I'm Jet Mackenzie,” he said, watching her attend to the weeping dark hole in Thorpe's side. “It's not that I doubt you being capable ofâ”
“Hold this in place and help me roll him onto his side.” She held a square thick packet of gauze out to him.
“What's she doing to me, Mac?” Thorpe murmured. He appeared on the verge of trying to rise up on the table.
“She's taking care of your bullet wound, Holly, now lie still,” Mackenzie said firmly. “I'm helping her.”
“Here it is,” said Beth Ann, as the two settled Thorpe onto his side. “I hardly had to look for it.” She touched a finger gently to a raised and reddened welt on Thorpe's back.
“That's the bullet, in there?” Mackenzie asked in disbelief.
“Yes, that's where the bullet stopped,” said Beth Ann. She touched the welt appraisingly, pressing her finger on it carefully. “I'd say it's lying no more than an inch deep beneath, perhaps less.”
“But the hole is down here,” said Mackenzie, gesturing toward the spot of the bleeding wound in Thorpe's side.
“Yes, but bullets don't always travel in a straight line,” said Beth Ann, not stopping, not slowing down. She stepped away from the table, over to a cabinet and took out a small blue bottle of laudanum. “Nor are they always this easy to locate. Lucky for your friend this bullet has stopped near the surface. If it hadn't I would have had to widen the wound entrance and go in and probe for it in order to take pressure off and slow the bleeding. That would have been dangerous to a patient who has already lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh . . . then what will you do now?” Mackenzie asked.
“I'll sedate him very carefully,” she said. “After a moment when he's unconscious, I'll cut in, remove the bullet, let the wound drain from behind for a short time. Then I'll close it.”
Mackenzie watched her step back over with the laudanum bottle in hand. She poured a measured amount into a small metal cup and had Thorpe swallow it. “I'd like for you to be here with me while I make the incision in case the laudanum doesn't sedate him enough.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Mackenzie. He swallowed a dry, tight knot in his throat. “I'll help any way I can.”
Beth Ann smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Mackenzie.”
“Ma'am, you can call me Mac if you like, or Jet, either one.”
Beth Ann nodded. “When we're finished, we'll let him rest. My father will look in on him as soon as he returns home.” She put the cork back into the blue bottle, walked over to the cabinet and put the bottle away. As she walked back to the surgery table, she unbuttoned her long dress sleeves and rolled them up halfway to her elbows, ready to go to work.
“Let's get started,” she said calmly.