Bad Medicine

Will’s head was still throbbing. The stitches seemed to be holding well, weeping only minute bits of blood. He ordered a bucket of beer and walked over to a table with his bucket and an almost empty schooner, and rolled himself a smoke.

There were eight, maybe ten, men in the saloon—no women. A couple were playing checkers at a table. The balance were standing at the bar in various states of intoxication, from the gent stretched out on the floor to those who stood straight to those who looked like they’d join their colleague on the floor before long.

The storm was like a living thing, with its massive paws around the saloon. The entire building shook when blasts of wind struck it, beams groaned, and the sounds of shingles ripping from the roof sounded like heavy cartridges striking. The rain—now sheets rather than drops—was lashed almost parallel with the ground by the snarling, howling wind.

Will was building another cigarette when the batwings slammed open, one ripped from its hinges, and three horsemen, as wet and dripping as they’d be had they been dragged across a wide river, swung down from their saddles and hauled off their ponchos. “Whiskey—lots of it,” one rider said, using his hand, curved as a scoop, to sluice water off his horse.

“You can’t bring them horses . . .” the bartender called. “I ain’t gonna clean my floor in the . . .”

The rider who’d dismounted first drew his .45 and put a slug into each of the prominent, almost crab-apple- sized nipples on the nude poster over the bar. The ’tender went back to pouring liquor.

Will stood—somewhat shakily—and faced the horseman. “You never did have no manners,” he said. “Ridin’ yer damned horse into a fine place like this an’ then shooting at the only tits we got to look at. Why hell, I oughta kick yer ass back out into the rain.”

The gunman swung toward Will, crouching a bit, planting his boots one a foot ahead of the other, his Colt already in his hand—and then his hard, bearded face broke into a broad smile and he ran to Will. The two men embraced, cursing one another, pounding each other’s backs, laughing.

“Yer jus’ as ugly as you ever was,” the gunman shouted. “You still chasin’ them sheep when you get lonely?”

“Seems to me you put the wood to the fattest, ugliest, smelliest whore in Fort Worth an’ then never paid the poor heifer. Ain’t that right, Austin?”

“Paid her? Why hell, I give her the biggest thrill in her life!”

The other men were shedding their ponchos and dragging the saddles from their horses. They were young, perhaps eighteen or twenty, but it was obvious to Will that these boys were gunfighters—or at least, young fellas who knew about killing.

Will nodded in their direction. “Who’s the crew?”

“They ain’t mine. We done a little bank together and that’s the end of it. We split equal four ways an’ then we’ll ride off in four different ways.”

“How about you pull the saddle offa your horse an’ we’ll set at a table an’ drink some beer an’ talk things over?” Will said.

“You betcha,” Austin answered. “Hell, I ain’t seen you in . . . what, six, seven years? Not since you—”

“Closer to eight,” Will interrupted, moving to a table. He watched as his friend pulled cinches.

There’d been four of us figurin’ to take the Wells Fargo stage. Rumor had it the coach was carrying pay for silver miners—American bills, not army script. The trail at one point was a long, sweeping curve around a marsh and there were trees on both sides. We heard the rumble and rattle of the coach long before it came into sight. Each of us outlaws pulled his bandanna up over his nose, covering most of his face.

“Don’t feel right,” I said quietly, our horses standing together.

“Why? It ain’t the shotgunner’s nor the driver’s money. They ain’t gonna die for it.”

“I dunno. Seems like we been tappin’ coaches a little too hard around here, Austin. This one’s it for me—I’m takin’ my split an’ haulin’ ass.”

Austin thought that over as the sounds of the stage grew louder. “Might could be you got a good idea there, Will.”

We had planned the heist out pretty thoroughly. Austin and me would come out from the trees in front of the coach and hold our guns on the shotgunner and the driver. The other two men would drag out any passengers and get the cash box secured under the front-facing seat. We’d collect the guns any passenger might be carrying—and those of the shotgunner and the driver—and ride off, rich, happy, without having spilled a drop of blood.

That’s when the plan went straight to hell.

The fellow riding shotgun raised his weapon toward me and I shot him in the chest. The driver reached for a holstered Colt and Austin put a slug into his shoulder, slamming him off the seat and onto the ground.

There was a barrage of pistol shots and the percussive boom of a shotgun at the passenger door, and both of our partners went down. Three Pinkertons shoved their way out of the coach and opened fire on Austin and me. Austin’s horse—a strong, fast bay—caught a bullet that tore off one ear and a good piece of his head, and he went down, hard. Austin did his best to push off, but his horse came down on his lower left leg and boot, pinning him. He fired at a Pinkerton as he struggled to get free, but missed. His second round took the man in the stomach. He screamed and went down. The Pinkerton with the shotgun was looking for me, butt of the weapon to his shoulder, but the coach horses were between us. The battle was over. We were outgunned, and Austin, although he was able to free himself, was a target for a pair of angry, bloodthirsty hired guns who’d just seen their partner gutshot.

I spun my horse away from the carnage and slammed my heels into him. Then, after a couple of long strides, I hauled back on the reins, rolled the horse back over his haunches, and pounded back to the stagecoach, thinking what a damned fool I was. I wrapped the reins loosely around my saddlehorn, pulled my hide- out derringer, drew my rifle from its scabbard at my right knee, and rode in firing and shouting like a goddamn madman.

The Pinkertons hustled to the rear of the coach. Austin, face as pale as that of an alabaster doll, leaned against the open stagecoach door, his left foot held off the ground. I galloped directly at him, my good horse picking up speed, coming at Austin like a runaway train. Austin latched onto my horn with both hands and swung on my horse behind me. A cluster of pellets from the shotgun snarled by us like a swarm of angry hornets, and a couple of pistol rounds weren’t too far off—but we made it.

“My foot’s busted,” Austin yelled into my ear, “but I can ride OK.”

“Ya damned idjit,” I called over my shoulder. “You let that pissant Pinkerton kill your horse . . .”

“I figured I’d git us a bottle of rotgut, too.” Austin grinned as he set a tray of beer and the bottle of whiskey on the table.

“I shoulda warned you,” Will said. “The whiskey here tastes like it run straight outta Satan’s boot.”

“Don’t make no matter. Booze is booze, no?”

“Not this dragon piss.”

Austin drank off a half schooner of beer and poured from the whiskey bottle until the mug was full. He tasted it and smiled. “Ain’t bad this way,” he said.

“Well.”

The silence between the two men settled in very quickly and very uncomfortably.

“Look,” Austin said, “I never seen you since you dumped me off onto that sorrel stud. He was a good horse.”

“Yeah. He was. Best in our crew—’cept mine. His owner didn’t have no use for him, not with all that Pinkerton lead in him.”

“Mmmm. What was that feller’s name—you recall?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Decent fella, though.”

Will took a sack of Bull Durham from his vest pocket, offered it to Austin, who refused, and rolled himself a smoke.