Episode 47
Breathing His Last
A man lay breathing his last in the street. A reedy little man Joe knew to be a pimp named Ollie Nielson.
Blood pooled below him from two fresh holes in his chest. A Remington revolver lay by his quavering hand. Further along a cowboy leaned on a hitch rail for support, a crimson stain running down one leg of his chaps from a ragged hole punched in the leather. A pal stood by him offering words of comfort and sips from a bottle. A third drover stepped to the downed pimp, rifle in hand. He walked with a purpose, working the lever to jack a new round into the rifle’s chamber.
“He’s done. Leave him be,” Joe said, walking with right hand raised toward the angry drover.
“Just proddin’ him along,” the approaching man growled.
The drover raised his Winchester but not before Joe had cleared leather. The rifleman was staring into the steady gaze of the marshal over the barrel of the raised Colt. He let the rifle drop to his side, hand back on the neck of the buttstock away from the trigger. “He had no cause, marshal,” the drover said, voice husky with rage.
“No cause?” Joe scoffed. “You run a herd through town and trampled a bunch of his whores to raspberry jam. Man had a right to his redemption.”
“That was Twisted Tree beef. We’re Three Rivers.”
“I guess Nielson wasn’t feeling particular this morning.”
“You holding us, marshal?”
Joe looked about him to see folks stopped in the work of clearing away the wreckage of the morning. They stood watching the tableau before them. One man dead or nearly so. Another holed through the leg. The marshal, alone on the street, standing in judgement. Joe Wiley sighed and dropped his Colt back in place on his hip.
“Looks like self-defense to me. Get your friend to a surgeon,” he said. He continued to the jailhouse where the Dugans stood waiting on the front walk.
“Get the hell off the street,” he growled. The brothers stepped back into the jailhouse. Joe joined them.
“We heard shooting,” Les said.
“And both of you went to look making both of you targets,” Joe said. “From now on there’s two men watching the cells all the time. Come nights we all fort up in here.”
“Well, I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit in here ’round the clock smelling your farts,” Ben Temple said, rising from his chair.
“Nobody deputized you, Ben,” Joe said.
Ben stopped before Joe, placing a hand on the marshal’s arm.
“Even a blind man can see you’re in over your head here, son. Maybe a blind man sees it better than most.” Ben didn’t wait for a reply but turned and made it through the door unaided into the sun blasted street.
Joe stood in the bar of light cast on the floor and watched the old man make his way across the street toward the Majestic.
“I’m going to the telegraph office to send out some invites,” Joe said.
“You so sure we’re still on the town payroll?” Les said.
“I have a contract. Iron bound,” Joe said, turning to the brothers once he saw Ben had made it safe to the opposite boardwalk.
“You could have a coffin iron bound. And then what good’s your contract to me and my brother?” Les said.
Joe only snorted.
“You have a plan for how three guns are going to keep a lid on this town until you hear back?” Seth said.
“The Twisted Tree boys have their hands full gathering those runaways. Especially since they’re short-handed.” Joe nodded toward the men glowering his way through the bars. “It’ll be quiet for now until they work a bulge up again.”
“You know you’re a dead man,” Billy Carruthers said, grinning from the cell door.
“While I’m gone why don’t you throw a few buckets of soapy water over those boys? They stink to knock a fly off a shit wagon,” Joe said and stepped out onto the boardwalk.
