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  “I sent the wire,” Rasmussen admitted grudgingly. “The judge probably won’t get it until tomorrow morning, though, so I don’t expect a reply until then at the earliest. The doc says you’ve got to stay here, but a deputy will be staying right with you, and there’ll be another posted outside. As for Mallette, he’s going back to his cell.” Rasmussen’s stern demeanor eased just slightly as he added, “He wanted to come along and make sure you were all right. Didn’t figure it would hurt anything as long as he was cuffed and unarmed.”

  “I appreciate it, too, Sheriff,” Mallette said. “Even though John here is the one who gave me this bruise on my jaw.”

  “I can explain that,” John Henry said.

  “In the morning,” Dr. Harmon said. “You can explain everything in the morning. For now, Sheriff, I think you should take your prisoner—your other prisoner—and clear out. This man needs rest more than anything else right now.”

  “All right,” Rasmussen said, “but Deputy Wheeler stays.”

  “As long as he doesn’t get in my way, that’s fine.”

  The sheriff motioned for Mallette to get up.

  As he did so, the gambler said, “Hope I see you again, John.”

  “You will,” John Henry promised. “You can count on it.”

  Harmon was right about him needing rest. His eyelids had gotten mighty heavy during the past few minutes. John Henry didn’t know if the doctor had given him something to make him sleep or if exhaustion had just caught up to him at last. Either way, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay awake much longer. He summoned up the strength to slightly lift a hand in farewell as Rasmussen ushered Mallette out of the room.

  Then John Henry drifted off into oblivion again.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Light woke John Henry. It was bright and warm and shining in his face, and when he forced his eyes open he saw that it was slanting in through the gap between a pair of curtains over the window.

  A graceful figure moved between John Henry and the window and threw the curtains open wide. He winced as more sunlight flooded into the room. The figure turned toward him, and while it was in silhouette and he couldn’t make out any details, the form was definitely female.

  “Good morning.” The woman’s voice was just about as bright and cheery as the sunlight.

  “Well, it’s morning, anyway,” John Henry said. To his ears, his voice sounded rusty as an old hinge. “And I’m alive, so that’s better than I expected. Is this . . .” His voice trailed off as he searched his memory for the name of the doctor he vaguely recalled from the night before.

  “You’re in a bedroom in Dr. Harmon’s house, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” the woman said as she moved around the bed. “He keeps his patients here. It’s the closest thing Kiowa City has to a hospital.”

  “Yeah, Doc Harmon,” John Henry said. The image of a middle-aged man with thick gray hair swam into his mind. “I remember him now. Likes to talk about redskins.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. But he’s a good doctor. I help him out some as a sort of unofficial nurse, you might say. I’m Clarissa Doolittle.”

  The name made John Henry take a better look at her. She was young, no more than twenty-two or so, with dark, thick, glossy hair and wholesomely pretty in a blue dress with white, lacy trim around the neck and sleeves.

  At first, he’d thought she might be Judge Ephraim Doolittle’s wife, but she was too young for that unless the judge was a randy old goat who had robbed the cradle. That was possible, of course, but he figured it was more likely she was Doolittle’s daughter.

  “The judge is your father?”

  “You mean Uncle Ephraim? He might as well be my father, I suppose. He and Aunt Mildred took me in and raised me after my folks died of a fever. My father was Uncle Ephraim’s younger brother.”

  Well, that clarified that, John Henry thought.

  However, other questions still remained, so he asked one of them. “It was just last night the sheriff brought me here to the doc’s house, wasn’t it? I got to worrying that I might have been out for more than one night.”

  “Set your mind at ease, Marshal Sixkiller,” Clarissa said. “It was just last night. You haven’t lost any days.”

  It took a second for everything she’d said to soak in on John Henry’s brain. Then his eyebrows rose in surprise. “You called me Marshal Sixkiller.”

  “Well, that’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but the last I recall, the subject was still open for debate as far as everybody else in town was concerned.”

  “Not anymore. Sheriff Rasmussen got a telegram from Judge Parker in Fort Smith early this morning.” Clarissa smiled. “Evidently it was worded in a rather blistering fashion. But it confirmed that Judge Parker sent a deputy United States marshal named John Henry Sixkiller here to Kiowa City, and it described you to a T, from what I heard.”

  That was a relief. Now he wouldn’t have to worry about being locked up again, John Henry thought.

  “The sheriff asked Dr. Harmon to send word to him whenever you woke up,” Clarissa added. “He wants to talk to you. I think it can wait, though, until after you’ve had some breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  “Ravenous.” John Henry realized that he really was. “And what I’d really like more than anything else right now is a cup of coffee.”

  “I think we can do something about that,” Clarissa said with a smile. “Wait right here.”

  John Henry returned the smile. “It’s not like I’m liable to run off anywhere.”

  Clarissa was back a little while later with a tray containing a cup of steaming Arbuckle’s and a plate piled high with hotcakes and bacon. She helped him sit up, propping pillows behind him in the bed. “Do you need help feeding yourself?”

  “I don’t think so, but we’ll find out.”

  The coffee was hot, black, and strong, just the way he liked it, and when he drank some he felt better immediately. As he ate and washed down the food with sips of the potent brew, he felt strength flowing back into him.

  He thanked Clarissa, then asked, “Has the doctor checked those bullet holes in my side this morning?”

  “Yes, and he said they looked like they were healing cleanly. No sign of infection yet.”

  “Good. I’ll be up and around before you know it.”

  “After losing so much blood?” she asked with a frown. “Dr. Harmon said you should rest in bed for at least two weeks.”

  “No offense meant to the doc, but he doesn’t know me. I’ll heal better on my feet.”

  “You’ll have to work that out with him. Should I send word to the sheriff now?”

  “That’s a good idea,” John Henry agreed. “I’ll be finished with breakfast by the time he gets here.”

  In fact, he was just draining the last of the coffee from the cup when Sheriff Rasmussen came in, trailed by Dr. Harmon.

  “I don’t want you wearing out my patient, Sheriff,” the doctor warned.

  “I’m not gonna wear him out, but he’s damned sure going to answer some questions.” Rasmussen took off his hat when he spotted Clarissa Doolittle sitting in the corner. “Pardon my language, Miss Doolittle.”

  “That’s all right, Sheriff. Uncle Ephraim can get rather salty in his language when he’s worked up about something, too.”

  She stood up. “I’ll be outside if you need me, Doctor.” With a smile for John Henry, she left the room.

  “Just take it easy on him, that’s all I ask, Sheriff,” Harmon told Rasmussen. Then he followed Clarissa out of the room.

  Rasmussun got the chair Clarissa had been sitting in, dragged it closer to the bed and sat down. “I heard back from your boss.”

  “That’s what Miss Doolittle told me. You’re convinced now that I’m who I say I am?”

  “I don’t reckon I have any choice but be convinced. Your story checks out, Marshal.” Rasmussen glowered darkly. “I just wish you’d told me who you were before I threw you in
jail.”

  “Well, if I’d done that, it wouldn’t have helped me get on the inside of the gang that’s going after blood vengeance for Henry Garrett, would it?”

  Rasmussen leaned forward, obviously interested. “That’s what those killings were really all about, just like I suspected?”

  “That’s what they’re all about,” John Henry confirmed.

  He spent the next half hour explaining everything that had happened since his arrival in Kiowa City a week earlier, starting with the fatal gunfight with Jimmy Deverill.

  “Deverill slapped leather because he recognized me as a marshal from Indian Territory. I arrested him a year ago for running whiskey to the Nations. Running into him here was a lucky break for me. I planned to start some sort of ruckus that would land me in jail, so I could break out later and pretend to be on the run. Killing Deverill achieved the same result, and at the same time it got rid of a low-down skunk who needed killing.”

  “So you figured all along on establishing yourself as an outlaw and working your way into the gang?”

  “Yep,” John Henry said. “Having Nick Mallette being locked up at the same time was another break for me. He knew where we needed to go.”

  He told Rasmussen about the Silver Skull Ranch, Lottie Dalmas, and her relationships with both Henry and Simon Garrett. The story continued through the rustling of the J/M cattle, the ambush planned for Jed Montayne and his men, and how John Henry had ruined that ambush and gotten wounded in the process.

  The sheriff’s suspicious frown eased as he took a cigar from his vest pocket and offered it to the deputy marshal. John Henry shook his head, so Rasmussen stuck the cheroot between his own lips and clamped his teeth on it, leaving it unlit.

  “I’ve heard rumors about some sort of outlaw haven around here,” he said around the cigar, “but I’ve never been able to track it down. Now that I know where it is, I’ll be able to get up a posse and do something about it.”

  “You try to hit the place head-on with a posse and you’ll just get some good men killed,” John Henry cautioned. “It may take the army to root Garrett and his bunch out of there. It’ll take some planning, at the very least.”

  “I didn’t figure on going off half-cocked,” Rasmussen growled. “But I’m not gonna let them get away with what they’ve done, either. You said Carl Baird’s their prisoner, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to abandon him.”

  “I can’t guarantee that Baird’s still alive. But if he is, I agree with you. We’ve got to get him out of there. Besides, Judge Parker sent me here to stop their campaign of terror and bring them to justice, and that’s what I intend to do.”

  “Doc Harmon says you’ll be laid up in bed for the next few weeks.”

  “Doc Harmon is wrong,” John Henry said confidently.

  “All right, there’s something else I’m curious about. Nick Mallette. He’s not really a special deputy, is he?”

  “Well . . . I suppose that depends on how you want to look at it.”

  “When he helped you break out of jail, when he escaped from custody himself, he didn’t know that you were a federal lawman, right?”

  “I figured it would be better if he didn’t know. He couldn’t accidentally give away anything that way.”

  Rasmussen chewed on the cheroot for a moment. “Then he’s really just a wanted murderer who broke out of jail and ought to be sent back to Missouri to hang.”

  “I think he was railroaded into that murder conviction, Sheriff. Somebody accused him of cheating at cards and drew on him first. Mallette was just defending himself.”

  “That’s what he told you, but you don’t have one damned bit of proof that it’s true.”

  “No, I don’t,” John Henry admitted. “But I’ve been around a lot of cold-blooded killers, and Nick doesn’t strike me as being one of them. I believe his story.”

  “A jury in Kansas City didn’t.”

  “The man he shot was the brother of a local politician with a considerable amount of influence,” John Henry pointed out. “As officers of the law, we’d like to believe that doesn’t make any difference, but you and I both know that in reality it sometimes does, Sheriff. Not only that, but Nick talked Garrett and the Flame into sparing Deputy Baird’s life and keeping him there as a prisoner instead of killing him. Nick risked his own life to help me when those outlaws tried to capture me yesterday, and then he gave up his freedom to bring me back here so I wouldn’t die from that bullet wound. Those don’t sound like things a murderer would do, either.”

  Rasmussen spread his hands. “Well, what do you want me to do? I can’t just turn him loose on your say-so!”

  “No,” John Henry agreed reluctantly. “You can’t.”

  “And I’ve got deputies from Missouri sitting over in the hotel who want to take him back with them. Their papers are all legal and in order. I can’t very well refuse to turn him over to them.”

  John Henry thought about it for a moment. “You can if you tell them that he’s being held here as a witness in a federal investigation at the special request of Judge Isaac C. Parker, pending the conclusion of said investigation.”

  “Will Parker go along with that?”

  “He will if I ask him to,” John Henry said, hoping he was right about that. “And when you get right down to brass tacks, it’s not far from the truth. Mallette was there when Lottie Dalmas and Simon Garrett were talking about getting revenge for Henry Garrett. He can testify about those things and about how they tried to bushwhack Jed Montayne and his men.”

  John Henry considered telling the sheriff about the suspicions he’d had regarding the connection between J.C. Carson and the attempt on Montayne’s life, but he decided that theory was too vague so far. Even if it turned out to be true, it didn’t really change things as far as the most pressing problem went, which was bringing Lottie, Garrett, and the other outlaws to justice.

  If Carson actually was mixed up in it, he could be dealt with later.

  “All right,” Rasmussen said after chewing on his cigar a little more. “I’ll keep Mallette locked up for now, and your pet judge can see about trying to get his case reopened. That suit you?”

  John Henry winced a little, but not from the pain of his wound. “That suits me just fine, Sheriff, but I’ve got one other favor to ask of you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t ever refer to Judge Parker as my pet judge where it could get back to him. If it did, I might wind up being thrown in his jail in the basement of the federal courthouse in Fort Smith!”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Despite John Henry’s confident statements about recovering faster than Dr. Harmon expected, the shock of being shot and the amount of blood he had lost couldn’t be shrugged off. For the next couple days he was too weak to get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time, and he kept going to sleep.

  That gave his body the chance to regain some of its strength. By the third day he felt well enough to sit up in a rocking chair most of the day.

  When Harmon changed the dressings and checked the wounds that night, he frowned. “I don’t understand it. The way these wounds are healing, you look like more than a week has passed since you were shot, instead of only a few days.”

  “Must be because I was raised by redskins, Doc. Heap big spirit medicine.”

  “I meant no offense by what I said the other day, Marshal. I just worried that you might not be able to handle the liquor.”

  “It’s all right, Doc. I’ve been called a half-breed and worse plenty of times in my life, and it hasn’t killed me yet. You might not know this, but some Indians will give a fella just as much grief for being half white as some whites will give him for being half Indian.”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Harmon admitted. “I don’t know what’s causing you to heal so quickly, either, but it’s astounding. If you want to call it spirit medicine I suppose that’s as good a description as any.”

  “I reckon that means I’ll be ab
le to get on about my business pretty soon.”

  The medico frowned. “I didn’t say that. I think you’d be wise to continue recuperating for at least another week before you attempt anything more strenuous than, say, walking to the table for meals.”

  “We’ll see.” John Henry’s tone made it clear that his recovery would proceed on his timetable, not the doctor’s. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you. Have you said anything to anybody about me being here?”

  “I’m not in the habit of discussing my patients with anyone, Marshal,” Harmon replied rather tartly.

  “I’d appreciate a straight answer to my question, Doctor. Does anyone besides Sheriff Rasmussen and Miss Doolittle know I’m here?”

  “Well . . . I believe the sheriff has shared the situation with Judge Doolittle. And the deputy who helped him bring you here probably knows who you are, too. Other than that, I really couldn’t say. But I can assure that I haven’t gone around town talking about you.”

  “That’s good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  John Henry hadn’t forgotten how Lottie had talked about using Mallette as a spy later on, when the gang had finished avenging Henry Garrett and set out to clean up all the loot in this part of Kansas. It was possible that Lottie already had spies in Kiowa City, too, and John Henry didn’t want the news that he was still alive getting back to her and Garrett.

  It was possible he might take them by surprise one of these days, and he wanted to keep that option open.

  Clarissa Doolittle spent quite a bit of time at Dr. Harmon’s house, helping out, and John Henry enjoyed her company. He didn’t have any romantic interest in her—there was a Cherokee girl back in Indian Territory with whom he had a sort of understanding—but it was natural for any man to be pleased to have a pretty girl nursing him back to health.

  The day after John Henry had had his talk with Harmon about spirit medicine, Clarissa brought her uncle to the doctor’s house to introduce him to the lawman.

  Judge Ephraim Doolittle was a rotund man with a round face and white hair parted in the middle of his head. The steely gleam in his pale blue eyes told John Henry the judge might not be quite as mild-mannered as he appeared.