Guns on the Prairie Page 11

Worried about Grant, Stone continued on. The lance bumped a log, and he tripped. More pain exploded up through him, but at least he didn’t fall.

  “What in the world are you tryin’ to do, Deputy Stone? Kill yourself?”

  Startled, Stone looked up. In his dazed state, he hadn’t heard Grant come up, and with the horses, no less. “I was comin’ to help you,” he croaked.

  “I didn’t need any,” Grant said, sounding surprised that he hadn’t. He swung down. “Here. I’ll get you on your horse and we’ll take you back.”

  “What about the Sioux? Did they run off or are they dead?”

  “They’re no longer a worry.”

  “You killed both of them?” Stone said in some amazement.

  “Believe it or not.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Stone said. “You’ve done right fine, Deputy Grant.”

  “It doesn’t feel fine,” Grant replied. “I didn’t want to do it, but it was them or me.”

  “That’s usually how it goes,” Stone said. Trouble, when it came, usually happened fast. Deputies learned to be quick with their wits and their guns, or died.

  “Let me boost you onto your saddle,” Grant offered, and slid his shoulder under Stone’s arm.

  “I’ll be sure to tell Marshal Hodder how well you’ve done,” Stone said. “He’ll be pleased that you’ve justified his faith in you.”

  “Enough of that,” Grant said. “If I never think about this night again for as long as I live, fine and dandy.”

  Stone frowned. Grant’s attitude was still cause for concern, but he had a more pressing concern to contend with: his leg. Straddling the saddle nearly caused him to black out. Gripping the horn, he clung on as wave after black wave washed over him.

  “Can you make it?” Grant asked.

  “Watch me,” Stone said. It wasn’t in his nature to give up. He weakly clucked to his horse and winced when it moved. “Hold on to that lance. I might need it later on.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Stone took a moment to give thanks for their deliverance. The two of them against six Sioux—the outcome could have been entirely different. As the saying went, someone “up there” was looking out for them.

  As if Grant were reading his thoughts, he remarked, “We were lucky as can be, weren’t we?”

  “You can say that again,” Stone said.

  “And you do this law work day in and day out? I don’t know as I can.”

  “Hold on, son,” Stone said. “In all my career, I only ever fought redskins two times. Not countin’ this. That’s hardly a lot.”

  “Once was enough for me.”

  “Look on the bright side. This could be the only time you’ll ever have to.”

  “You and your bright sides. I keep wearin’ this tin star, it could be fifty times for all you know.”

  “So that’s it,” Stone said. He’d seen this before, in other young deputies. “You’re goin’ through a phase, is all. Where somethin’ awful happens and you doubt you’ve made the right choice.”

  “My choices of late have been nothin’ to crow about,” Grant said.

  “You’re alive.”

  “Don’t try to cheer me. I’m in a funk and I’ll stay there a while, thank you very much.”

  “Just don’t do anything rash,” Stone advised. Like quit the marshal’s service when he’d proven he had the mettle to make it as a lawman.

  They reached the clearing, and even with the younger man’s help, dismounting took a lot out of Stone. He was glad to sink onto his good side by the fire, and not have to move.

  “Now we take that arrow out,” Grant said.

  “First put the water on,” Stone said. “We’ll need it good and hot.” Wearily closing his eyes. he tried not to dwell on the ordeal to come. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do most of the work. I won’t be of much use.”

  “This has been some day,” Robert Grant grumbled.

  Stone didn’t see what Grant had to complain about. Grant wasn’t the one with the arrow in his leg.

  * * *

  Alonzo had never treated an arrow wound in his life, or any wound, for that matter. When it came to blood and the like, he’d always been squeamish. He’d always reckoned he’d have made a terrible sawbones.

  Now he went about filling his coffeepot, then added broken branches to the fire so the water would heat that much sooner.

  Stone appeared to be asleep.

  “You old goat,” Alonzo muttered. This was all the old lawman’s fault. They should have left the Sioux alone. So what if the warriors were on the warpath and would likely have added to their scalp collection?

  Alonzo wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knee. This was, without a doubt, the worst pickle he’d ever been in. Once he was rid of Stone, he would head for Denver and spend a month visiting saloons and bawdy houses, just to forget.

  Closing his eyes, Alonzo imagined himself savoring a whiskey or indulging in a game of cards, or maybe with a warm, laughing dove on his lap. Life’s little pleasures, that at the moment seemed like everything to him. He envisioned the dove leaning in close, her breath warm on his neck, about to say something about inviting him to her room.

  With a start, Alonzo sat up. He’d almost fallen asleep. Stiffly rising, he checked the coffeepot. The water was steaming hot. Moving around the fire, he crouched next to Jacob Stone. “You awake?”

  Stone didn’t respond. His face was pale, and he was wet with sweat.

  Alonzo examined the wound closely. The arrow had gone clean through, and the barbed tip jutted about an inch out the back of Stone’s leg. He figured the best way to remove it was to break the tip off, then grip the feathered end and slide it out.

  “How do I get into these things?” Alonzo said. Gripping the end below the tip, he felt his fingers grow sticky with blood. He tried to bend the arrow to see how easy it would be to break; he could barely bend it. Whatever the Sioux made their arrows from, the wood was strong.

  “Better and better,” Alonzo groused. If he had a saw he could cut the arrow. Or if he had a big knife, perhaps. If, if, if.

  The feathers were from a hawk, Alonzo suspected, and about five inches in length. As near as he could tell, they had been attached using a strand of animal sinew. Buffalo sinew, maybe, since Indians used buffalo parts for so much else.

  At the other end, a notch appeared to have been cut, the arrowhead inserted, and then more sinew used to secure the arrowhead in place.

  Arrows seemed so primitive compared to guns, and yet Indians used shafts just like these to kill bears and buffalo and their enemies all the time. He noticed a groove that ran the length of the arrow. A blood groove, he thought it was called. Appropriate, since it was filled with Stone’s blood.

  Alonzo pondered. Short of breaking the shaft, his best bet was to remove the barbed point and then pull the arrow out. With that in mind, he took a folding knife from his pocket, opened it, and proceeded to slice at the sinew. It proved hard to cut. He persisted for long minutes, and eventually the strands parted.

  Stone stayed unconscious the whole while.

  Alonzo felt a drop of sweat trickle into his eye, and wiped his brow with his sleeve. He didn’t realize he was sweating so much. Carefully gripping the arrowhead, he pulled, but nothing happened. Changing tactics, he twisted and turned until the arrowhead came loose.

  Once again, Stone remained out to the world.

  Alonzo was growing anxious. The old man should have woken up. He must hurry so he could clean the wound.

  Shifting, Alonzo gripped the fletched end of the arrow, wrapped his fingers good and tight, placed his other palm against Stone’s leg, and pulled. If he thought the arrow would slide right out, he was mistaken. It wouldn’t budge. He wondered if it was lodged in Stone’s thigh bone, in which case he might never get it out.


  Frustrated, Alonzo pulled harder. The arrow moved, a smidgen. Stone groaned but didn’t revive.

  Taking a deep breath, Alonzo bunched his shoulder and pulled with all his might. The arrow was slow to move but it moved. A fraction at a time, but it came. His hand slipped, and he caused the leg to jerk. Jacob Stone groaned.

  Alonzo wiped his palm on his pants and went at it again. His shoulder hurt but he stuck with it. The next instant, without any sign that it was coming loose, the arrow practically popped out of Stone’s leg. It threw Alonzo off-balance, and he fell onto his backside so close to the fire that flames licked at his pants. He felt searing heat, and scrambled to his feet.

  Smiling, Alonzo held the arrow up. He’d done it! Blood smeared his hand and was trickling down his wrist. Oddly, it didn’t bother him at all. Setting the arrow down, he wiped his hand on the grass.

  Jacob Stone stayed out to the world.

  Something was clearly wrong. Alonzo put a hand to Stone’s forehead. Stone might have a fever; he wasn’t sure. “Deputy Stone?” he said, and lightly shook him.

  At last the older man’s eyes fluttered open. Licking his lips, he said thickly, “What is it, son?”

  “I asked you to stop callin’ me that,” Alonzo reminded him, and gestured. “I got the arrow out.”

  Stone looked down. “I’ll be switched.”

  “We need to clean the wound,” Alonzo reminded him. “Do you take your britches off or do I cut them?”

  “Cut,” Stone said, and closed his eyes.

  “Jacob?” Alonzo used his first name for the first time. “Talk to me. I don’t like you passin’ out like this.”

  Stone hadn’t. “You can do it, son,” he said so softly that Alonzo barely heard him.

  “Damn it, Jacob. Please.”

  “Don’t cuss. Cussin’ is for folks who are too lazy to think of the right words to use.”

  Alonzo thought that was preposterous. “You’re ramblin’. You need to stay awake while I work on you.”

  “Sure thing,” Stone said, and slumped, unconscious.

  Alonzo got to work cutting Stone’s pant leg. He had a towel on his packhorse that he used to wash and clean the entry and exit holes. The flesh wasn’t discolored, which was encouraging.

  By his reckoning it was pushing two in the morning when Alonzo finished and sat back, tired as could be. Strips cut from the towel sufficed for bandages, and he hadn’t done badly, if he said so, himself.

  Alonzo added more firewood, then gratefully sank onto his back. Between the fight with the Sioux and now this, he was about done in. He supposed it would be wise to stand guard the rest of the night, but he didn’t have it in him. He was exhausted. His eyes refused to stay open.

  Alonzo let sleep claim him. If more Sioux came along, it was too bad. A man could only do so much.

  Often during the night, Alonzo dreamed. Not this night. He slept the sleep of the dead, a sleep so deep and so black, he was aware of nothing at all until a slight sound roused him. He had the illusion of being at the bottom of a deep pit, and clawed toward a distant faint light.

  The sound was repeated.

  Puzzled, Alonzo felt his sluggish brain churn to life. He blinked in the harsh glare of the bright morning sun and rose onto his elbows, too befuddled to think straight. “What?” he said. “Jacob?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” a voice said.

  Alonzo raised his head higher—and found himself staring into the muzzle of a rifle.

  15

  Alonzo woke up in a rush, every sense alert. For a few harrowing moments he feared his head was about to be blown off.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  Alonzo looked up. With all the shocks he’d had recently, he’d have thought he’d be used to another surprise, but no. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, and he blurted, “It can’t be.”

  “Can’t be what?” demanded the person holding the rifle.

  “You’re female!” Alonzo exclaimed.

  “Your eyes work. How about your brain?”

  She was young, about his age, with a teardrop-shaped face, vivid green eyes, red lips formed in a perpetual pout, and high cheekbones. She appeared to be amused by his reaction, but there was nothing amusing about her Winchester, or the fact that the hammer had been cocked.

  “You’re dressed like a man!” Alonzo said. And she was, in a man’s shirt and man’s pants, with suspenders instead of a belt. Her short-brimmed hat was the kind men wore and her boots, although uncommonly small, were the type men wore. She even wore spurs. A gun belt was strapped around her waist, and in her holster nestled a Colt.

  “Nothing escapes you, does it?”

  Alonzo could only stare. Her hair was as black as the night. At first he thought she’d had it cropped short, but no, he realized she’d tucked it up under her hat.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Alonzo found his voice. “Why are you pointin’ that rifle at me?”

  “So you’ll behave. I know how men are, after what happened.”

  “How’s that again?” Alonzo said.

  “Plus, you’re a lawman,” she said, nodding at the tin star on his vest. “What a shame, you being so young and handsome and all.”

  “Wait? What?” Alonzo wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming. He couldn’t remember a woman ever calling him handsome before.

  “You need to catch up. They could show at any time, and there’s no telling what they’d do to you and your hurt friend, except that it won’t be pleasant.”

  “Who?”

  “At last. An intelligent question,” she said, and laughed.

  Alonzo was more confused than he could ever recall being, and that took some doing. “Look. Can I sit up? And will you stop pointin’ that thing at me? It makes me nervous.”

  “Where are you from?” the woman asked.

  “I’ve been wanderin’ all over,” Alonzo began.

  “No. I mean where were you born and raised,” she clarified. “You have a cute Southern sound.”

  “Cute?” Alonzo said.

  “Born,” she repeated. “As in where your mother gave birth to you. You didn’t hatch out of an egg, right?”

  “God Almighty,” Alonnzo said.

  “Born,” she said. “Where?”

  “Missouri,” Alonzo said, and stopped himself before he revealed more. He hadn’t told anyone where he was really from since he took to impersonating to fill his poke. “As if it’s any of your business.”

  “Prickly gent, aren’t you? Here I am, trying to save your life, and you treat me like I’m a sister you can’t get along with.”

  “I don’t have a sister.”

  “Lucky her.”

  “How can she be lucky if I don’t have one?”

  “Slower than a turtle.” She glanced at Jacob Stone. “Did you bandage him? You didn’t do a very good job.”

  “Hold on,” Alonzo said. “Forget about him for a moment.”

  “Forget that he’s been hurt, apparently by one of the dead Indians lying about? Isn’t he your friend? How can you forget about him?”

  “I want to know about you.”

  “Call me Jenna.” She smiled and dipped at the knees in a curtsey. “Get up and redo his bandage and we’ll whisk you out of here before it’s too late.”

  Alonzo was galled by her bossing him around. “We’re not goin’ anywhere until you explain a few things.”

  Jenna sighed. “Why do so many men act like they’re ten years old?”

  “I do not.”

  Her Winchester held steady, Jenna stepped back. “On your feet. They could be here any minute.”

  “Who are we talkin’ about?”

  “Since you’re a lawman, I’d imagine you’ve heard of the Grissom gang?”

  “Cal Grissom
?”

  “No, Sydney Perceival Grissom.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Jenna snickered. “You worry me, handsome. You truly do. Of course I mean Cal Grissom. Him, and his killers. You must have heard of them, too. That awful Weasel Ginty? Fletcher? Spike Davis? Kent?” She paused, and shuddered. “And last but worst, Willy Boy Jenkins.”

  “Why is he the worst?” Alonzo asked, and then thought of a better question. “And how is it you know so much about them?”

  “Is there a brain between those ears?” Jenna replied.

  “Quit insultin’ me,” Alonzo took umbrage. “My brain works just fine, I’ll have you know.”

  “Says the gent who just tangled with the Sioux. There are safer ways to earn a living, you know.”

  Alonzo was about fit to burst with impatience. “You need to explain who you are and what you’re doin’ here.”

  “And you’re like a dog worrying a bone, but there isn’t time for that.” Jenna pointed at Jacob Stone. “If you’re not going to redo his bandage, then get him on his horse and you get on yours and ride like the wind. Please. Before it’s too late.”

  Alonzo wasn’t about to leave without learning more about her. “If you’ll stop pointin’ that rifle, I’ll fix his bandage.”

  “And have you jump me and arrest me?” Jenna shook her head. “I think not. On your feet. You’re leaving whether you want to or not.”

  “Whatever you say.” Holding his hands out in front of him to show he wouldn’t do anything rash, Alonzo slowly rose and sidled to Stone. The bandage was, in fact, loose. “Sometime durin’ the night it must have come undone,” he mentioned as he knelt to retie it.

  “What’s your name?” Jenna asked.

  The answer was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “Alonzo.”

  “I like that. It has a nice, masculine sound,” Jenna said. “Is it your first name or your last?”

  Just then Jacob Stone groaned and mumbled and started to roll over, but Alonzo stopped him so Stone wouldn’t get dirt in his wound. “Jacob? Can you hear me?”

  The old lawman opened his eyes. “Robert? What’s goin’ on?”

  “I’m fixin’ your bandage,” Alonzo said. “How do you feel?”