Bury the Hatchet Read online

  And with Hagen and Hawkeye wounded, Buck Trammel was on his own.

  Same as always.

  CHAPTER 17

  In the aftermath of shoot-out, the elegant lobby of the Clifford Hotel had been transformed into something of a field hospital. While Emily worked on Adam Hagen’s right shoulder on the great table in the dining room, Mrs. Welch finished wrapping the bandage around Hawkeye’s head. His deputy had suffered nasty cuts from the window shattering when the men returned fire. He had also hit his head on a chair as he fell and had been dizzy ever since.

  Trammel stood vigil just inside the doorway of the hotel. Both his Winchester and the Peacemaker in his shoulder holster were fully loaded. He had plenty of spare ammunition tucked in his pockets and on his belt, too.

  Main Street was uncharacteristically quiet. Not even the tinny pianos and bawdy singing of the drunks from the saloons along Main Street broke the unsteady silence that had settled over the town of Blackstone.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t more useful to you and Mr. Hagen,” Hawkeye said. “Guess I was in a deeper sleep than I thought.”

  Trammel kept an eye on the street. “You did fine. Probably saved Adam’s life. You definitely saved mine.”

  “You really think so?”

  Mrs. Welch admonished him for fidgeting and ruining her attempt to bandage him. “Sit still or this bandage will come out crooked. And I’ll not have any man I tended to walking around town with a sloppy bandage.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Welch,” Hawkeye said. “Did you mean what you said just now, Sheriff? You really think I saved your life?”

  “I know you did.” Trammel went on in an effort to make the boy feel better. “That last shooter had me dead to rights out there and you finished him off. I owe you one, Deputy.”

  Mrs. Welch said, “You’re all lucky to be alive, if you ask me. Why, if this boy had been standing one inch to the right, his head would’ve stopped that bullet instead of the windowpane.”

  “I’ll pay for the window, Mrs. Welch,” Hawkeye said. “I didn’t mean to cause anyone any trouble on account of my mistake.”

  “You won’t pay for anything, young man,” the mayor’s wife said. “Lucky for you I was a nurse in the war, or else you’d have to wait for Mrs. Downs to finish with Mr. Hagen before you could be tended to.”

  Trammel had seen the gash on the boy’s forehead and knew it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse. That shard from the busted windowpane could’ve just as easily gone into his eye as crease his head. But he didn’t like to dwell on what could have been. He didn’t want Hawkeye to dwell on it, either. And lucky for him, he was still young enough to believe he didn’t have to. “You think he’ll live, Mrs. Welch?”

  “He’ll live,” she assured him. “But he’ll likely have a scar to remind him how lucky he is to still be alive.”

  Hawkeye would’ve pulled away from her if she hadn’t held him still. “A scar? On my forehead where everyone can see it?”

  Trammel grinned at the vanity of youth. “It’s okay. You’ll find women tend to be awfully fond of scars. And the stories that go with them.”

  That seemed to simmer the boy down a bit. “I guess they are, at that, aren’t they?”

  Mrs. Welch sighed. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

  Trammel went on. “Gives you something to tell the grandkids about years from now while you’re sitting in your rocking chair in front of the fire. You can tell them how you got that from a bullet creasing your head way back during the Battle of Blackstone in the winter of eighteen seventy-six, by God, when you gunned down thirty men single-handed right out there on Main Street.”

  “But it was just a piece of glass,” Hawkeye said.

  Mrs. Welch and Trammel laughed.

  The mayor’s wife said, “Don’t worry, honey. The years have a tendency to add grandeur even to the most boring of tales.”

  Trammel looked up when the door to the dining room opened and Emily came out holding a white towel covering the front of her dress. “Sheriff, may I see you for a moment?”

  Trammel’s gut clenched. He knew from her tone that it was not good news about Adam Hagen.

  Trammel shut the dining room door behind him to keep anyone in the lobby from looking in. Hagen deserved his privacy.

  He saw his friend lying unconscious on the main table of the dining room. The sheets beneath him were soaked with blood and the bandage around his right arm was already growing red. Though he already knew the answer to the question, he had to ask. “How is he?”

  “Not good,” Emily told him. “I know it might not look like it, but I’ve managed to stop most of the bleeding. I’m afraid he has already lost a lot of blood.”

  “What brought him down?”

  “Buckshot,” she said. “A single bullet wouldn’t have caused so much damage. Judging by the number of pellets I was able to pull from his shoulder, I’d say he caught half of the blast. He would have been dead otherwise.”

  “Do you think you got them all?”

  “I won’t be sure until I re-dress the wound in a couple of hours,” she admitted. “These things have a habit of taking time to come to the surface. But by then, it might not matter.”

  Trammel felt the room tilt around him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s an excellent chance that I may have to take his arm, Buck.”

  “Is it that serious?”

  “It could be. I’ve done what I can to stop the bleeding, but his shoulder still suffered a lot of damage from the blast. Even if he keeps the arm, I would be surprised if he ever regained full use of it again.”

  Trammel looked down at the once-proud man laid low and bleeding on the same table where he had held many a feast with his friends since returning to Blackstone. The same man who had been on top of the world only seconds before leaving his office and walking into a wall of gunfire. The man who was delighted by the prospect of bringing down his father was now in a battle for his life.

  And he had still managed to kill some of the men who had done this to him.

  This man who had once been nothing more than another drunk in the Gilded Lily in Wichita had since become Trammel’s friend. This man had led him to a place he could finally call home in the godforsaken world.

  Despite all of their differences in all of the months since, Trammel still considered Adam Hagen his friend.

  “What can I do?”

  “There’s nothing any of us can do for the moment,” Emily confessed. “I’m not enough of a surgeon to do more than I’ve already done. And I don’t know what more I can do. If he loses his arm or dies, I—”

  Trammel drew her close to him and held her. She was not crying, but close to it.

  “This isn’t your fault,” he whispered. “You didn’t shoot him, and you didn’t put the bounty out on his head or mine. You’re the only reason he’s lived this long, and I bet not even the finest army surgeon could’ve done a better job of patching him up. You know that and I know that. Adam will know that, too, in time.”

  Emily wrapped her arms around him, but kept her hands away from him. “I have blood on my hands.”

  “So do I. More than you.”

  “It’s a miracle you weren’t shot, too.”

  “I don’t think I qualify for miracles, but it’s nice to think so.” He gently eased her away from him. “Mrs. Welch is tending to Hawkeye right now. Why don’t you take a break and check on him and let her come in here to keep an eye on Adam for a while?”

  “And what will you be doing?” A look of fear came to her eyes. “You’re not going out there alone, are you?”

  “Not a chance. I’ve got the mayor and some of the others watching Somerset over in the jail. I’ll head over there and send them here so you’re protected. I’ll just be across the street, I promise.”

  “But Buck—”

  “They built the place like a fortress, remember. No one can get me while I’m in there. As long as you’re safe, I’m happy.”

 
; She moved away from him and dried her eyes on her sleeve. It was the least graceful, yet most beautiful gesture he had ever seen her make. “Just make sure you don’t get yourself shot, Sheriff Trammel. I’m pretty tired right now and can’t promise I’ll perform to the peak of my abilities.”

  Trammel smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind, Doctor.”

  His smile faded when he looked at his friend lying atop the bloody sheets on the dining room table. Don’t die on me, Hagen. Don’t die.

  CHAPTER 18

  Trammel pulled his Peacemaker when he heard a heavy pounding on the jailhouse door. Despite the stench that still hung heavy in the air, he had thought it best to shut all of the doors after that night’s attack by bounty hunters.

  He ignored the sound and sat quietly, hoping whoever it was would just go away. He hoped it had been thunder. The drizzle that had started a couple of hours ago had turned into a full-blown storm. A visitor at that time of the night could not possibly be good news. He’d already had his full share of bad news for one day.

  When the pounding came again, Trammel knew it wasn’t thunder.

  He cocked his Peacemaker and aimed it at the door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Charles Hagen,” the voice said. “Let me in.”

  Trammel didn’t lower the pistol. “You alone?”

  “Yes, damn you. Now let me in out of this godforsaken weather!”

  Trammel went to the door, unbolted it, and quickly stepped aside. He kept the Peacemaker leveled at the door. “It better just be you who comes in, Hagen. Anyone else gets shot.”

  The rancher strode into the jail like he was sleepwalking. His clothes were soaked and a steady stream of rainwater ran from the brim of his hat. Trammel quickly slammed the door and bolted it without checking to see if anyone else was outside. His Peacemaker trailed the rancher’s movements.

  Hagen looked at the pistol. “Haven’t you had enough blood for one night, Trammel? Put that damned thing away.”

  Trammel eased the hammer down, but didn’t put the pistol away. “You took a hell of a chance barging in here this time of night. Especially after how we left things.”

  The rancher showed no sign of hearing him. He wore a blank expression and his arms hung limply at his side. “Is he still alive?”

  Trammel took him to be asking about Adam. “He’s over at the Clifford Hotel. Why don’t you go see him for yourself?”

  “Because I’m in here asking you. Is he alive?”

  Trammel decided the rancher had not come to cause trouble and tucked the Peacemaker back under his arm. “He was alive when I left him a couple of hours ago.”

  Hagen nodded slowly. “Will he live?”

  “I don’t know,” Trammel admitted. “He caught a hell of a shotgun blast to the shoulder. It looked pretty bad to me. Doctor Downs did what she could to stop the bleeding, but there’s a good chance his right arm will never be the same. He might even lose it.”

  “Doctor Downs, is it? The Widow Downs is more like it. Her husband was the real doctor. She’s nothing more but a damned veterinarian’s assistant who picked up some doctoring from looking over her late husband’s shoulder.”

  Hagen’s obvious grief was the only reason why Trammel didn’t beat the rancher to within an inch of his life for talking about her that way. “Emily was enough of a doctor to save your son’s life. I’d say you should be grateful.”

  “I’ve sent one of my men to Laramie,” Hagen told him. “A couple of doctors will be here as soon as the horses can get them here.”

  “I know Emily sure could use the help.”

  Mr. Hagen ignored that. “Who did this to him, Trammel? Was it the damned Pinkertons? Who were they?”

  “No. Just bounty hunters. Five of them. They’re all dead now, so we don’t know where they came from. But they weren’t Pinkerton men, you can be sure of that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I used to be one,” Trammel reminded him. “And we’d both be dead if they were.” Trammel didn’t know if it would help, but he added, “Adam fought bravely. He took down at least two of them by my count, even with his left hand.”

  Hagen’s head lifted a bit, and he said with a bit of pride in his voice, “That was my doing. Taught the boy how to shoot equally well with both hands as soon as he was old enough to hold a gun. Served him well at West Point, from what I was told. His skills with a horse and a gun were the only reason he graduated.”

  Trammel had no way to know if that was true and did not care. “Your son is across the street right now on a dining room table clinging to life. I’d go see him now while you still can.”

  The rancher looked in Trammel’s direction. “Too ashamed to see him yourself?”

  Trammel sat behind his desk. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Hagen pointed at the star on Trammel’s chest. “I gave you that thing in the hope that you might bring some law and order to this town, but all you’ve brought is violence and death. Why, since the day you rode in here, the shootings and killings have gotten worse. It’s more of a sewer now than it was when Bonner had that star.”

  Trammel knew the man was grieving for his injured son the only way a powerful man knew how—by lashing out at the nearest target.

  But Trammel had never agreed to be the rancher’s whipping boy and he would not start. “Aside from the trouble Adam and I brought with us when we got here, Blackstone’s been a peaceful place until now. Old Man Bowman and that damned bounty he put out on us is the reason for this, not me.”

  Hagen turned on him and roared. “My boy would be alive and well if it wasn’t for you and that trouble you caused in Nebraska!”

  Trammel remained calm in the face of the rancher’s rage. “Your boy would have been dead and buried in a shallow grave in Wichita for the past six months if it wasn’t for me. And I wouldn’t be getting shot at now if it wasn’t for him.” He slowly got to his feet. “But Adam wouldn’t have been a drunken rambler in Wichita or anywhere else if you’d treated him well when he was a boy. We can chase that dog for the rest of the night if you want to, Hagen, or you can spend that time with your son. You should be there—like a father should be—in case he wakes up.” Trammel couldn’t help but add, “Even a father like you.”

  Hagen glared at him.

  Trammel glared back.

  And, as had happened before, the rancher looked away first. “He’s not my son.”

  Trammel closed his eyes. “For God’s sake, Hagen. He might be dead in the morning. You don’t have time for this nonsense.”

  Hagen’s eyes glazed over as he looked deep into something that could only be seen in his own mind. “I mean it, Trammel. Adam was my sister’s boy. She died bringing him into this world.”

  Trammel found himself slowly sitting back down in his chair. “What?”

  “Adam’s father,” Hagen continued, “his real father, if you could call him that, was a sweet-talking no-account who lived in town. He had his fun with my sister and turned her out without a second thought for her or what he had done to her. I took her in before the baby came and promised to raise him as my own before she breathed her last. Saw to it that the man who threw her away was swinging from a tree before her body was even cold.” Hagen nodded to himself. “Me and Johnny Bookman did that bit of work together. Saw to it the wolves scattered that no-account’s bones clear across Wyoming, by God.”

  Trammel watched a single tear streak down Hagen’s weathered cheek. “My sister was the only person in this entire world who made me human, Trammel. The only one who knew the real me. She kept my damned temper in check. Hell, my own wife couldn’t even do that. When my sister died, she took a large piece of me with her.”

  Trammel had no words. He had heard a lot of stories in his time as a lawman and a detective. Confessions often came with the job, especially when a man was slapped in irons or staring down the barrel of a gun. He’d heard begging and boasting and lying at the worst moments of people’s li
ves. But he had also heard the truth enough times to know when he heard it, which was why he knew he was hearing it from King Charles Hagen.

  Adam Hagen was not his son.

  And suddenly, the entirety of a haunted man’s life made sense.

  It explained Adam’s exile. It explained why Charles favored the other boys over Adam and why Hagen had sent him away at such a young age. He reminded the rancher too much of the indignity suffered by his dear sister and the loss of her as a result.

  The sudden weight of this knowledge almost crushed Trammel. He could not imagine the impact it would have on Adam if he ever learned of it. When he could find the words, the only thing Trammel could ask was, “Does he know?”

  The rancher barely shook his head. “I doubt it. He might have an inkling somewhere in the back of his mind, seeing as how he’s so much different from me and my other boys. Any family resemblance is passing and comes from my sister, not me. No, he’s got the look of his father. His unfortunate temperament, too. Must run in his blood stronger than any Hagen blood in his veins, by God, much to his misfortune.”

  Hagen looked at Trammel. Whatever fire that may have been in his eyes when he had first walked into the jail that night was gone. “My late wife knew, but the only people who know the truth about Adam are me, John Bookman, and now you, Sheriff. I’d appreciate it if we could keep it that way. No matter what happens to him now or in the coming days.”

  Trammel sat quietly while he listened to the rain hammer the jailhouse roof and Somerset’s snoring in the back. It would have been almost peaceful if it had not been for the dour Charles Hagen standing in the middle of the room without saying a word.

  Trammel was not sure there was anything to say, but he came up with something. “Go see your son, Mr. Hagen. He’s as much yours as he is anyone else’s in this world. And whatever he is, it’s because of how you decided to treat him. I’ll keep your secret, but not your conscience. If he dies before you see him again, that’s your burden. Go to the hotel or go back home, but I won’t tolerate your presence in my jail anymore.”

  King Charles Hagen did not look very much like royalty as he shuffled toward the door, unbolted it, and opened it. Trammel watched him framed in the doorway, standing there waiting, almost as if he hoped someone might take a shot at him, too. He reluctantly stepped out into the night, with only the cold wind and rain to greet him.