A Town Called Fury

“Key-rist,” Ward repeated.

“First thing in the morning, you make him go over to the bank and have Megan put it in the vault. I mean it this time, all right? I don’t like him walkin’ around town with it on him. Liable to fall through a hole in his britches.”

Ward stared out the front window. “Check, boss.”

Jason stubbed out his smoke and stood up. “I’m goin’ home.”

Later that same evening, while Jason was at home having one of those good “Jenny dinners” and Wash was still at the saloon, Ward Wanamaker was making his evening rounds, checking that everything that was supposed to be locked up was locked up, and that everything was pretty much in its place. He paused, halfway through, when he got up to the gate. It was being left open at night these days, in case something should happen —Heaven forfend—and the wagon train members needed to get inside in a hurry.

He leaned against one of the posts and rolled, then lit a smoke, breathing out a hazy plume into the crisp night air. The sun had barely set, but nights on the desert were cold, and this looked like it was going to be a real toe- and-finger freezer.

He was almost finished with his smoke and about to stamp it out and get on with his rounds, when he spied movement out there, in the expanse to the south. He waited a moment, which was just enough time for the movement to turn into a horse and rider, a rider who was moving like a bat out of hell.

He was yelling something, too, but Ward couldn’t make it out. All he could hear was somebody shouting something, and all he could see was that same somebody flapping his arms and fanning his horse and riding like sixty.

“Who the heck’s that?” a voice, much closer, asked. Ward looked toward it and saw Riley, the wagon master, strolling over toward him.

“Dunno,” Ward replied with a shrug. “Mighty odd. Guess we’ll have to wait till he gets close enough that we can hear what he’s—”

“Indians! Apache! Help!” came the cry, finally clear.

“Sayin’,” Ward finished. “And don’t go getting’ yourself in an uproar. I reckon it’s just one of MacDonald’s men. Apache don’t attack at night, but MacDonald sees Indians like other men see tumbleweeds.”

Riley folded his arms and stared out toward the rider galloping toward them. “He’s gonna ruin that horse.”

“Probably.” Ward ground out his smoke. “Reckon I’d best go round up the marshal. The U.S. Marshal, that is. Me and Jason, we ain’t got no jurisdiction out at MacDonald’s ranch.”

Riley said, “Well, good luck, then,” and wandered back toward his wagon while Ward started down the street, to the saloon.

That dang Matt MacDonald sure had a way of messing up his evenings.

Abe Todd was minding his own business, getting smashed at the saloon and keeping an eye on Sampson Davis, when the batwing doors burst in and two men shouldered through. Ward was one of them, and he raised a hand to acknowledge him. He didn’t expect Ward to come over to his table, though, but that’s what he did next, followed by the shorter man who’d come through the door with him.

The shorter man stared at the badge on Abe’s chest just long enough for Ward to say, “Sorry, Abe,” and shrug before the other man—a boy, really—started in.

He elbowed Ward aside and said, “I’m Steven McCord, sir, and I work for Mr. Matt MacDonald down south at the Double M, and we got Indians, a passel of Indians, the Apache kind, and he sent me to come get help right away and the town law ain’t never any help, so I come straight to you.” His long sentence finished at last, he leaned forward, catching himself on the tabletop as if he were exhausted.

Abe didn’t move, except to tilt his elbow and take another slug of bourbon. “At night?” he finally said. “You got Apache attacking you at night?”

McCord nodded his head frantically.

“Anybody actually shoot an arrow at you?”

McCord’s features bunched up. “What? No, but they’re comin’! Mr. MacDonald, he seen their dust cloud on the horizon.”

Abe studied his glass. “He did, did he?”

“Yessir! C’mon! Time’s wastin’!”

Abe leaned back in his chair and Ward sat down, probably to watch the show. Abe let the edification begin.

“Son, the Apache aren’t attackin’ your boss’s ranch. They don’t attack at night, for one thing. And for another, if they wanted to attack you, you wouldn’t see ’em comin’. They’d just be there, and you’d be dead—or wishin’ you were.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts’ about it,” Abe cut in, and lifted his glass again. He polished off the last of his bourbon. “Now, go on back home. Or sit down and have a drink. Your choice. But I ain’t runnin’ out there like some dumb cluck with my head cut off.”

“But—”

“Sorry, Steve, but that’s all she wrote,” Ward said, standing up, putting a hand on both of the young man’s shoulders, and turning him back toward the door. “Your boss’s imagination is runnin’ off with him again. That’s all there is to it, and this time, we ain’t gonna play, all right?”

Steve McCord, a nice kid who had come in with the wagon train before last, walked out the door, dejected. Ward called, “And you walk that horse for at least a mile, McCord.”

A muffled, “I know, I know,” came from the direction into which he’d disappeared, and then he was gone. Ward pulled out a chair again, wondering if Jason’d shoot him if he had a beer.