Short Grass/Chapter 21
Dunham rammed his gun against the wounded man's ribs, but there was no further thought of fight in him. He stood nursing his crippled hand in his sound one, looking at the damage with that rueful expression one sees in the face of a woman when she picks up the fragments of a valued cup. There was a splotch of blood on the scoundrel's thigh which showed he had tapped himself deeper than the skin.
The shooting had brought such of the town's inhabitants as were out of bed into the street, and many who were late sleepers by reason of nocturnal habits to the windows in their slumber garments. A general, but somewhat cautious, movement set in toward the livery barn, which became almost a rush when MacKinnon came tearing over, consternation in his face.
"You've been workin' that gun again, Bill!" he said, viewing the result of the combat with expression so sorrowful it might have been thought some of his friends had fallen. "I hoped to God I could get you out of here before you could work that gun again!"
"Now, give me the straight of this thing!" Dunham demanded, shoving the wounded man against the barn, gun against his tank. "Did that man have any claim on my horse, or was this a put-up job?"
The surly fellow glowered, but kept his mouth shut. Blood was streaming from his shattered hand, blood was creeping over his boot out of the fold of his trouserleg at the knee. Men came running up with beefsteak gravy and egg on their chins, some of them chewing the bite they had put into their mouths the moment before starting. They pushed up, silent, staring, to look at this desperate Bill Dunham who was loose again with his fateful gun.
"They said I stole their horse, they crowded it on me," Dunham turned to MacKinnon to explain.
"It's a terrible job you've done among 'em, Will-ium!" MacKinnon said, shuddering at the sight.
"Did your pardner ever own that horse?" Dunham pressed the question, twisting his gun-barrel into the bleeding rascal's bowels.
"He said he did; that's all I know about it," the man replied.
"Everybody in this town knows I bought that horse from the liveryman," Dunham said, glowering around on the crowd that seemed to side with this chipped scoundrel. He kicked the fellow's gun out of the way, and slipped his own into the scabbard. "Somebody take this man to a doctor before he bleeds to death," he said, shoving him roughly toward the crowd.
The doctor was on hand, ready for such business as the wreckage might yield, as well as Schubert, who was craning his neck to see, stroking his whiskers with eager hand. When Schubert saw that it was an even split between him and the doctor, he went off to fetch his board.
Dunham drew MacKinnon into the barn, where he told him briefly how the two strange men had accosted him, and charged him with having stolen property belonging to the one who had paid for the false claim with his life.
"I believe it was a framed-up job. He couldn't tell me the brand on that horse. Do you know either of them?"
"No, they're strangers to me. But it's dreadful, Will-ium, the way you've got to go on killin' and slayin'. I wish to God—"
"So do I, but that don't help me any now. I tell you, MacKinnon, those two men were sent here to get me."
"I don't doubt it. And what are you goin' to do now?"
"I'm goin' on my way if nobody else shoves in to stop me. I wonder where that damn horse went?"
Plainly it had gone through the barn and out the door left open by the liveryman in his hurry to escape being drawn into the quarrel. Dunham expected to find the animal in the corral back of the building, wondering why the liveryman had shown such panic over the fuss, when no blame could attach to him. He had acted as agent for the cowboy who left the horse there to be sold. His bill of sale stated as much, in the cautious custom of those days, when the discrimination of ownership was not so very finely drawn by certain gentry who rode horses round about the land.
There were no horses in the corral, the gate of which swung open, and Dunham's horse was nowhere in sight. There was plenty of territory for a horse to throw its feet in behind the scene of Pawnee Bend's principal street, and Bill Dunham's horse must have stepped lively. There wasn't a clump of bushes big enough to hide a horse within the limit of human vision; not a ravine, not a hill. The land spread away there toward the east as level as if the sea which once covered it had drained off only a little while ago, such a little while, indeed, that the grass had not got much of a start.
Nearly every building along the street had its shanty stable in the back, for that was a country where a man's legs were very short in the vast spaces between spots on the map. Dunham was unable to account for the rapid disappearance of the horse. Only a few minutes had passed since he turned the animal into the barn. It could not have gone far, perhaps across the railroad, where it might be picking around behind the string of boarding cars.
But it was not there. The same red-armed, manly woman who had refused to feed him a few days before, and the bleary, hairy, ashy consort who had ordered him to make tracks for the favored point of consignment in Pawnee Bend, answered his inquiries graciously, even eagerly. They came down out of the car in their desire to show friendly coöperation, for Dunham was known to everybody on both sides of the tracks by that time, by name and fame, if not by sight. He was a man to be propitiated. They would have set a special table for him in the boarding train that morning if he had asked for a meal.
No, they hadn't seen a horse with saddle and bridle on roaming around over there. Toward the south the land began to rise in the swells that became broken country near the river, but it was considerable distance to the first rise big enough to hide a horse. The animal had not come that way, Dunham was certain, but where it had gone was a puzzle.
Dunham was not thinking very clearly just then, his faculties being in a state of readjustment after the pulling strain of the fight. He was hazy and dizzy, a heavy numbness blunting his reasoning powers, which lumbered around like a clumsy driver trying to back a wagon into a barn door. He went back to the barn to see if the horse might have dodged into a stall and passed his notice, a throbbing in his temples, a sinking dull feeling of melancholy bearing down on him like a sodden load.
It was a terrible thing to have to kill a man, even a vicious, mean-grained villain who was out to have your life. It pulled down on a man's heart; it saddened him, it made the sun smoky and the day obscure.
After another fruitless search of the barn, Bill ranged along the back shanties, thinking the fool creature might have run into an open door somewhere. No sign of him there, nothing standing open to invite a vagrant horse. Bill went up one side of town and down the other, his trouble increasing at every step. He skirmished among the outlying scattered small houses, inquiring of frowsled women who appeared in the doors, or of sluggardly men who hoed and weeded in anemic small gardens, or stripped lean cows in dooryard lots.
Nobody had seen a horse, but they all picked up with lively interest when they recognized the notorious Bill Dunham with his infallible pistol hanging on his hip. Some of the men trailed along with him, eager to do a service to such a notable character; women lingered in doors to look after him, dumbly awed by the passing of a man whose name was so terrible, as they simply and confidently believed, in the ears of cattlemen that he could walk through a hundred of them without ever throwing hand to his gun.
Dunham must have put in nearly an hour tearing around looking for that blamed horse. The fool thing had disappeared as completely as if a seam had split in the prairie and enveloped it. Bill came poling out on the railroad fully convinced that the horse had not accomplished such a complete disappearance unaided.
Somebody had grabbed that horse when it left the corral, and either ridden it off or hidden it in some shed. But that belief hardly would warrant him in going around demanding stable owners to show him what horses they were harboring that morning. Trouble would attend such a proceeding, and he was a man who had trouble enough on his hands for one day.
He headed back to the livery barn to see if the owner had returned, thinking he'd be in a hell of a fix if he couldn't find that horse. His new slicker, his coat, his blankets, grub, rifle and ammunition were on the horse, which was at once his ticket and his conveyance to a point far distant from the troubled atmosphere of Pawnee Bend.
Bill stood on the station platform, almost where he had stood on the day of his first arrival in Pawnee Bend, looking up the street, thirtking resentfully of the trick somebody had turned on him, vaguely conscious of the strange quietude of the town. The street was deserted; there was not a boot-heel thumping the board sidewalks its entire length. The hitching-racks were empty, but that was to be expected so early in the day. A woman was coming out of the butcher shop, turning toward the railroad, the sole person abroad in the length of that sunny street.
It looked like a trifling, unsubstantial place, Bill thought, spread out like a spatter of something dropped in a dusty road. A mean looking town, as ugly as botch carpenters could build it and hot sun could warp it out of shape; a place a man ought to be happier for leaving than living in, not one thing about it that even success could endear.
The woman was coming over that way, her dress blowing in the wind that always set in about eight o'clock. The sun flashed on a ring she wore on the hand that held her package of meat, and she came along nimbly, bending a little to shield her eyes from the sun. The agent's wife, he recognized her, a young, comely woman whom he had seen helping her husband at the telegraph keys.
She looked pale and agitated, Dunham thought, as she hurried across the rails, coming to the platform where it sloped wedge-like to the ground, a few yards from where he stood. Her eyes were big and frightened as she came up to him, and Dunham turned away, feeling a debasing sweep of shame for the notoriety of his name that made a woman afraid to pass him by.
Dunham heard her stop, and her voice, almost a whisper:
"Mr. Dunham! Mr. Dunham!"
He turned in surprise. She was standing near, one hand at her throat as if fright or emotion oppressed her, panting through her open lips. Whatever had given her that turn, Dunham saw at once, it was not the sight of him.
"They're after you!" she whispered, pointing up the street where all seemed so placidly empty. "You must go—quick, quick!"
"After me?" he said incredulously, forgetting MacKinnon's warning in his astonishment.
"In the livery barn—a crowd of them with guns! Get out of town, quick!"
She flitted past him, out of sight in a moment around the corner of the depot, her friendly fear for his safety no greater-than her concern that somebody had seen her warning him, and would lay up a grudge that would make life unendurable for her and her husband in that town.
Dunham understood now why the street was empty. They expected him to pass along there from his horsehunt, his movements having been spied on all the time. Nobody wanted to be seen speaking to him, even to the exchange of the slightest word, for fear of the taint of treason that might attach.
He was angrily contemptuous of the crowd that had collected to give him a rough handling—how rough he plainly understood—waylaying him in the barn, to which they expected him to return when he had failed to find his horse, as they knew quite well he should do. Taking his horse was part of the scheme to cut off his legs, so to speak, and trap him in that miserable hole.
There was no use attempting to follow the woman's advice and go, for an attempt to get away now would bring the bunch of them whanging bullets at his heels. It was a long way to the next water-tank where trains stopped, a matter of sixty miles, too much of an undertaking in cowboy boots. The only thing to do was let the horse go—no, he'd be damned if he'd let that horse go!
But how was he going to compel them to hand over the horse? They'd stick together, nothing could be done. The better course would be to carry along the pretense that he believed the horse had run away, tell the liveryman to turn it over to MacKinnon if it was taken up and returned. When a train came along going his way, he'd ride out of town, but no bunch of tin-horn gamblers and four-flushers was going to tell him when to leave.
What was there about him that led people to believe he was easy to ride? There must be a flaw in his face that his partial eyes never had discovered. Did he carry the unmistakable brand of meekness, the mark of the under dog? That was where people made their mistake. He had turned the position of under dog. His teeth were grown, his eye-teeth were cut, his wisdom-teeth were an inch long.
That was where they made their mistake, taking him for the under dog, thinking him an easy man to roll. Invariably they brought it on themselves. Those two men had persisted in making the same fool blunder a little while ago and brought it on themselves. Now these fellows over in the barn, whoever they were, seemed determined to repeat the mistake. It was his business to show them he wasn't that kind of a man.
There he stood in plain sight of all the street, making these foolish cogitations, when he no doubt should have been burning up the road getting away from there. If he had realized his danger fully he probably would have attempted to make a quiet exit, but he was so scornful of that gang he couldn't reason straight.
He'd go over there and let them know he was wise to the fact they'd made away with his horse, and tell them he would take his own time about leaving that town. With this thought all ready in words behind his teeth he stepped off the platform, considering, as his foot struck the track, that he'd better ask the agent when the next train west was due. It wouldn't do to fiddle around over there and miss it.
Bill turned to go back and consult the agent and, turning, felt something slap his left shoulder like the flip of a bough when one rides through the woods. There was the quick, sharp sound of a rifle in the quiet of the morning, and Bill Dunham stumbled and caught himself from a fall by throwing out his hands to the platform boards.
Dunham was up in an instant, and facing the livery barn, gun in his hand. Nobody was in sight there; nothing to tell where the shot that got him in the shoulder came from but a little drift of blue smoke outside the opening in the gable for hoisting baled hay. He threw two quick shots in there, stepped to the platform and dodged over to the corner of the building, ducking for shelter as fast as he could go, a burst of shooting behind him, bullets splintering the planks at his heels.
His left arm felt numb, but there was no pain; blood was pouring out of the wound down his sleeve. Thinking of getting the agent to help him, not knowing how serious his wound might be or how long he could keep going, Bill headed for the telegraph office. He was about to enter when the agent, white and scared to the rims of his eyeballs, slammed the door and locked it.
"Don't come in here!" he yelled through the door, his high-keyed unmanly voice quavering. "For God's sake, don't come in here!"
It was more a supplication than a command. Dunham saw the woman's piteous face at the window, her eyes pleading forgiveness for this inhospitable barring of refuge to a forsaken man. He turned away, thinking what next.
He thought of MacKinnon and the hotel, of fighting his way over there, win or lose, but doubted, when he came to the decision, whether he would be any more welcome there than in the railroad office. His conscience was so entirely unclouded that he found it hard to realize himself an outlawed man.
They had got him pretty well up in the left shoulder, above the lung he believed, as there was no blood rising in his throat. Maybe it was only a slight wound, but it began to feel as if it might be serious. He must cut for some shelter where he could stand them off while he examined it, and tried to do something to dam up that waste of blood that was soaking his shirt and running down into his boot.
There was a car of baled hay on a siding about forty feet from the station platform, a little way below the depot, which the liveryman had begun to unload that morning. The door was open, showing tumbled bales of hay. Dunham headed for it, watching back as he ran. The wound was beginning to burn like a hot rod driven through him; blood squashed in his boot when he stepped.
As he swung into the car Dunham heard the pelting of feet on the platform. Somebody yelled, "We've got him! Come on!" Bullets thumped the bales of hay as he rolled out of the door to shelter behind them.
Dunham's pursuers stopped where they could take shelter behind the depot, from the corners of which they shot into the side and open door of the car. Dunham quickly arranged bales of hay, making his situation safe for the time. He couldn't see the shooters from where he lay, and didn't like to bang loose blindly for fear of hitting the agent or his wife.
His silence led them to think they must have got him. They came around the corners and peered cautiously, Dunham arranging his bales to make a slit through which he saw their movements. When some of the more adventurous had come far enough to clear the depot, Dunham threw a shot close to their feet to show them he was still in business and able to account for himself if they should attempt a rush.
There was a scramble for cover; they put the depot between him and themselves again. There they lurked, somebody cracking away at him every time he moved a bale of hay.
Dunham felt the numbness going out of his arm, which began to tingle to the ends of his fingers with the increasing pain of his wound. He reloaded his gun and worked fast to make himself secure while his strength lasted, arranging hay bales to give him command of both doors, only one of which was open.
Examination of his wound disclosed that the bullet had passed cleanly through his shoulder about opposite his armpit. From the burn of it inside him he believed it must have nipped the lung. It was bleeding scandalously, he thought, for such a little wound, and it was in such an awkward place there didn't appear to be a thing he could do to help. But with teeth and sound hand he tied the blue handkerchief that he wore around his neck as tightly as he could draw it, under his arm and over the wound, hoping the compression might assist nature to some degree in shutting off the blood.
That was all he could do, and he realized it was not much. Having done it, he sat on a bale of hay, well protected behind his bulwark, to try to figure out, as he put it to himself, exac'ly where he was at.