Torture of the Mountain Man Read online

“No, thank you, George, but we’re going to join my sister and brother in law, Marjane, Uncle Kirby, and Pearlie down at the Palace Café,” Dalton answered.

  George chuckled. “Well, I can’t say as I blame you, Deputy. Not only is the company good, but the food will be much better. I’m afraid that bacon, beans, and cornbread is about all you can get here. I eat down at the Palace myself, from time to time.”

  Down at the other end of the bar, Slater, even though he had turned away so that he couldn’t be easily seen, had been listening carefully to the conversation. He smiled, because his strategy of visiting the four saloons had paid off. He now knew that they planned to take their meal at the Palace Café. He couldn’t have learned more if they had been talking directly to him.

  “Is there a privy out back?” Slater asked.

  “No, it’s out in the middle of the street,” George replied with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s back there.”

  Slater knew exactly where the privy was. He had asked the question for only one reason. By inquiring about the privy, he was establishing the alibi he would need for carrying out the rest of his plan. Slater set his drink down then started toward the back door as if he were going to the privy. The half-drunk beer supported the belief, by those who watched him leave, that he would be coming back.

  It had gotten considerably darker since he arrived in town earlier this same evening, and because there weren’t any streetlights in the alley it was dark indeed. The waste drums in the outhouse had not been emptied for a couple of days, and as a result the odor behind the saloon was quite foul.

  Anxious to get away from the stench, Slater started moving north along the alley, quickly leaving the back of the saloon. If the deputy sheriff and Cal said they were going down to the Palace Café, he knew the perfect place to set up the ambush.

  Leaving by the back door had not only enabled him to leave the saloon without being noticed, it also provided him with the cover of the alley. There was virtually no ambient light in the alley, so Slater was able to proceed to his destination without being seen. Shortly after leaving the saloon, he reached the opening between the Sikes Hardware store and the Buckner and Ragsdale Mercantile. This was halfway between the Blanket and Saddle Saloon and the Palace Café. There were no windows on the adjoining sides of either store and the space in between the two buildings was pitch-black dark. Slater saw that he could stand no more than a few feet back from the street and be totally invisible. He got into position and waited for the two deputies.

  Slater didn’t have to wait very long before he heard the two men laughing and talking as they came from the saloon.

  “I hope Pearlie hasn’t eaten everything in the café,” Cal teased. “I don’t believe I’ve ever known anyone else with an appetite like his.”

  Dalton laughed. “Well now, I recall that you seemed to hold your own with him when Marjane had us all over for dinner.”

  “Yeah, well, Marjane does make a real good pot of chicken and dumplin’s,” Cal said.

  This was the man he wanted, this was Cal. Slater drew his pistol and stepped up to the front of the opening, as far as he could get without exposing himself. Slowly, so as to make it the action as quiet as he possibly could, Slater cocked the pistol.

  Just a few more steps, he thought. Yes, that’s it—bring the five hundred dollars to papa.

  “But I sure don’t eat like Pearlie. I learned a long time ago not to ever get behind him in the chow line if you want . . .”

  Cal’s sentence was interrupted by the loud bang of a pistol shot, and for an instant, the dark space between the two buildings was illuminated by the brilliant light of a muzzle flash.

  “Uhhn!” Cal groaned and he went down.

  Dalton saw the flame pattern of the muzzle flash, and he heard the sound of a gunshot. Drawing his pistol, he fired back into the darkness, even though he had no real target. He heard the sound of someone running, and he thought about giving chase, but he didn’t want to leave Cal.

  “Cal!” he shouted, kneeling beside him.

  A few others came outside then, some from The Watering Hole, and some from Ace High, both saloons being the closest occupied buildings. They had been drawn to the scene by the sound of the gunshot, and looking up at the anxious faces, Dalton recognized one of them.

  “Phil, run down to the Palace Café. Dr. Whitman and a man named Smoke Jensen are having dinner there. Tell them I asked them to come, and tell them that I said it’s an emergency!”

  “Is he still alive?” Phil asked, nodding toward Cal’s supine form. “You know they’re going to ask me that,” he said to justify his curiosity.

  “I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. But if he is, he won’t be alive long unless the doctor can see to him. Now, please, hurry!”

  Phil nodded, then began running toward the café as Dalton took off his own shirt, then held it over the wound to stop the bleeding.

  “Cal, answer me!”

  Cal’s eyes were shut, and he lay where he fell, without moving and without making a sound.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Immediately after he saw his target go down, Slater ran back up the alley to the rear of the Blanket and Saddle saloon. Then, going back into the barroom, he began hitching up his trousers, doing so in order to complete the illusion that he was just returning from the privy. Seeing that his beer was just where he left it, he stepped up to the bar and lifted it to his lips.

  “I was about to pour your beer out,” the bartender said.

  “Do you do that often? I mean, throw a feller’s beer out when he steps out to the privy.”

  “No, it’s just that you . . .”

  “Hey!” someone called out as he stepped in through the batwing doors. His shout interrupted the bartender in mid-comment.

  “Bledsoe was right! That was a shot we heard, and that feller Cal, the one that’s helpin’ the deputy, ’n the one that was just in here? Well sir, he just got hisself kilt, is what he done.”

  “Where’s he at?” one of the saloon patrons asked.

  “He’s lyin’ down there in front of Sikes Hardware, deader ’n all hell.”

  Several of the customers hurried out of the saloon then. Slater, rather casually, drained the rest of his beer, then went out front and mounted his horse. He took a look down the street and saw that a crowd was gathering quickly. The excited shout of the man who had come into the saloon but a moment earlier replayed in his mind.

  “Well sir, he just got hisself kilt, is what he done.”

  “Five hunnert dollars now, ’n five hunnert dollars to go,” Slater said with a little chuckle, as he rode away.

  * * *

  Pearlie had just told the story of pulling Kenny and Lou out of the quagmire, and there was laughter around the table when someone came running into the café.

  “Is there a Dr. Whitman here?” the man shouted.

  “I’m Dr. Whitman,” Tom said, looking up at the agitated man who was calling out for him.

  “You better come quick, Doc. Deputy Conyers is with a man that just got hisself shot, ’n he’s askin’ for you. He’s askin’ for a feller by the name o’ Smoke Jensen too.”

  “Cal!” Pearlie said. “Cal has to be the one who was shot!”

  “Oh, heavens!” Sally said, the expression in her voice showing her concern. “The man who was shot! Was he killed?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am, but it looks to me like he most likely was kilt,” Phil replied. “I mean he’s just lyin’ there ’n he ain’t sayin’ nothin’, ’n he ain’t moving none, neither.”

  “Oh, Smoke!” Sally was on the verge of tears.

  “Don’t go jumping to conclusions yet, Sally,” Smoke said. “If he had been killed, I don’t think Dalton would have sent for Tom.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right, isn’t it?” Sally replied, the tone of her voice now, more hopeful.

  At Phil’s summons, everyone at the table was on their feet and they all followed the messenger out of the café. He didn’t h
ave to lead them to the spot because as soon as they were outside they saw a gathering crowd, and they hurried toward it.

  “Make way!” Smoke shouted. “Make way for the doctor!”

  The crowd parted and Tom hurried through to kneel beside Cal.

  “Cal, can you speak to me?” Tom asked.

  “Hi, Tom. Look’s like I’m going to need a little of your doctoring,” Cal said.

  “Oh, thank God!” Sally said.

  Tom felt of Cal’s pulse.

  “How is he, Tom?” Smoke asked.

  “His pulse is strong.”

  “I’ve done what I could to stop the bleeding, Tom,” Dalton said.

  “You did well,” Tom replied. “Let’s get him down to Dr. Palmer’s office.”

  Smoke and Pearlie each took an arm, Dalton took one leg and Phil the other, and they hurried Cal down to the doctor’s office. Because it was after duty hours, the office was closed, but Dr. Palmer had given Tom a key so he could check in on Sheriff Peabody and by the time they got Cal to the office, Tom had already opened the door. They were met by Dr. Palmer, who, upon hearing the commotion had lit a lantern and was now standing in his reception room.

  “Sorry to break in like this, Egan, but we have a good man who has been shot,” Tom said.

  “Take him back into the operating room,” Dr. Palmer said. “Everyone else, stay back,” he added.

  “I’ve assisted my husband as a nurse, from time to time,” Becca said.

  Dr. Palmer looked at Tom.

  “Yes, I would like to have her with me,” Tom said.

  “Then by all means, go. Deputy, we don’t need all these people here,” Dr. Palmer added.

  “The rest of you please, wait outside,” Dalton said to the others.

  By now there were at least fifteen townspeople who had been drawn by curiosity. “Not you, Smoke, Miss Sally, Pearlie, Marjane, you all can wait here.

  “The deputy is right, there is no need for us to be crowdin’ in here,” Phil said, responding to a look from Dalton. “We should make room for the folks that actual knows the feller that got shot.”

  “Thanks, Phil,” Dalton said as Phil ushered the merely curious, out.

  “What happened, Dalton?” Smoke asked. “How did Cal get shot?”

  Dalton told of the shot that had come from the dark.

  “I don’t know, maybe I should have gone after him,” Dalton said. “But I was worried about Cal.”

  Smoke shook his head. “No, you were right to stay with him. By stopping the bleeding, you probably saved his life.”

  “Oh, Smoke if... if Cal . . .” Sally started.

  “Don’t be making yourself sick with worry, Sally,” Smoke said. “You heard Tom say that Cal’s pulse was strong.”

  “And I can tell you for a fact that, that boy has the constitution of an ox,” Pearlie said. “He’s goin’ to be all right, I know he is.”

  “I think so too,” Sally said. “But a prayer certainly can’t hurt.”

  “Prayer helped with my father,” Marjane said. “I believe it with all my heart.” She looked over at Dalton and smiled. “That is, prayer, and you asking your brother-in-law to come tend to him.”

  “That’s one thing Cal has going for him for sure, Sally. Tom Whitman is here, in Audubon, right when we need him,” Smoke said.

  “Yes,” Sally said. “That certainly is a positive thing.”

  “Dalton, you got a good look at the wound. How bad do you think it is?” Pearlie asked as they waited in the front of the doctor’s office. It was obvious by the expression on his face that he was very concerned about the injury to his friend.

  “There was blood all over his shirt and pants,” Dalton said. “All I could tell was that he was hit right about his waistline.”

  “Where, exactly, was that?” Smoke asked.

  “Seems to me like it was right about here,” Dalton said, pointing to his own upper thigh.

  “That’s good,” Sally said. “If it’s there, it’s too low, and too far to one side to have hit the intestines, or any of his vital organs.”

  “He’ll be all right, Miss Sally,” Dalton said. “Look at Sheriff Peabody, he had a bullet right next to his heart and would have died if Tom hadn’t of gotten it out. Tom is the best surgeon in the country.”

  “I know, I know,” Sally said. “It’s just that, well, I have a very special place in my heart for Cal.”

  Sally sat there with her hands drawn up into fists, waiting, patiently, for further word on Cal. And as she waited, she recalled her first meeting with him.

  It was back in Big Rock. She had just come out of a store with her purchases and was putting them away in the surrey when she heard a voice, a young voice, behind her . . .

  “Put your hands up, lady, don’t move, and give me all your money.”

  Turning toward her assailant, Sally saw a young man who could not have been much over fourteen years old.

  “Now, how am I supposed to give you all my money, if I also have to keep my hands up, and not move?” Sally asked.

  “Oh. Uh, well, you can move.”

  “Thank you,” Sally said, and in a lightning move she drew her pistol and pointed it at the young man.

  “How did you do that so fast?” the young man asked.

  “Oh, I’m quite good at this,” Sally said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I would say that you are.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Sally asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t shoot you. Well, the truth is, I wasn’t really going to shoot you anyway, even if you didn’t give me none of your money.”

  “Any.”

  “What?”

  “It isn’t ‘give me none of your money’ the correct way to say that is, ‘give me any of your money.”

  “I ain’t never had much schoolin’.”

  “We can take care of that.”

  “Ma’am? What do you mean we can take care of that?”

  “When did you eat last?”

  “I had me a biscuit and a piece of bacon yesterday or else maybe it was the day before. I don’t rightly recollect.”

  “Give me your gun,” Sally said, holding out her hand.

  “You goin’ to take me to jail?”

  “No, young man, I’m going to take you home and give you a good meal. I’ll also have my husband give you a job, if you want one.”

  A huge smile spread across the young man’s face. “Yes, ma’am, I’d purely love a meal, and a job.”

  “What is your name?”

  “It’s Cal, ma’am. My name is Cal Wood.”

  “Cal, my husband and I own the Sugarloaf Ranch, and as of now, you ride for the brand.”

  As Sally sat quietly, remembering that first encounter with the young man who had, for all intents and purposes, become a son to her and Smoke. Cal was, at this very moment, being attended to in the back of the office, in the little operating room. Becca stood to one side of the operating table, holding a mirror in such a way as to catch the light of a kerosene lantern, and sent a bright beam right onto the purple and red hole in the flesh that marked where the bullet had entered. The wound was on the lower abdomen, just where the leg joined the trunk, and to get to it, Cal’s trousers and drawers, both very bloody, had to be removed. His modesty was preserved by means of a towel.

  Using a retractor, Tom opened the wound and looked inside.

  “It doesn’t look like the bullet hit anything vital,” he said. “But I am going to have to go in for it.”

  “Here are the forceps,” Dr. Palmer said, handing the surgical instrument to Tom.

  “Suction,” Tom said, and using a small, bulb-operated suction tube, Dr. Palmer sucked out some of the blood.

  “Good, good, I see the bullet,” Tom said and he went in with the forceps. It took but a second, and the bloody slug was removed.

  “Becca, if you would, please, clean and disinfect the wound,” Tom directed.

  Rebecca poured carbolic acid onto a clean towel,
then used it to clean around the wound until all that could be seen was the puffy red and purple hole. She lay layers of gauze over the wound, then expertly applied a bandage and began holding it in place with adhesive tape.

  “Looks to me like you’re going to have to get him some new trousers,” Sheriff Peabody said.

  “Andy, what are you doing out of your bed?” Dr. Palmer scolded.

  “I just wanted to see what was going on.”

  “Get back over there now,” Dr. Palmer ordered. “Unless you want to wind up on this table again.”

  “All right, all right,” Sheriff Peabody agreed. “It’s just that I recognize him as one of the men I just deputized, and seein’ as he was shot, I feel a little responsible is all.”

  “I’d better go out front and give everyone a report,” Tom said. “I expect there are a bunch of worried people out there.”

  “I’ll be out there as soon as I finish with the bandage,” Becca said.

  “You go on out there too, Mrs. Whitman,” Dr. Palmer said. “I can take care of this, and I’m sure you’ll want to visit with your friends.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  As soon as Tom and Becca stepped out into the reception room, everyone stood in anticipation of his announcement. Sally didn’t have to ask about Cal, she could tell by the smiles on Tom and Becca’s faces.

  “Cal is going to be just fine,” Tom said.

  “Oh, thank God,” Sally said and she turned to get an embrace from Smoke.

  As Sally was hugging Smoke, Marjane hugged Dalton.

  “I’m sure glad he’s going to be all right,” Pearlie said. “But I’m feelin’ a little left out here in the huggin’ department.”

  “Well, I can take care of that,” Sally said, as she hugged Pearlie.

  “Me too,” Marjane said with a happy smile, hugging Pearlie in turn.

  “When can I see him?” Sally asked.

  “You can step back there now if you want,” Tom said. “But he won’t come out from under anesthesia for several more minutes, and even when he does, he’ll still be a little groggy.”

  “But he’ll know that it is me?”

  “Oh yes, he’ll know that it’s you.”