Will slid the cylinder of his pistol to the side, let the empties drop to the ground, and replaced them with fresh cartridges. He holstered the Colt and raised the fingers of his right hand to his cheek. Blood was gushing, cascading, onto his neck and shirt.
A quick flash of a thought flicked into his mind and he forgot his wound and his flowing blood. He set out at a clumsy run to the saloon where he’d asked questions about One Dog. He pushed through the batwings and breathed a sigh of relief. The ’tender was peeking over the bar, unmoving.
“I’m glad you’re OK,” Will began as his vision cleared in the dreary light. “Those two boys . . .”
He looked more closely. The bartender’s head was planted on the handle he used to draw beer from a barrel. Will looked closer, wiping blood from his face. A long tube of bloody, glistening intestine snaked out of a lengthy gash in the man’s stomach. His pants were at his knees; his groin was a bloody, sexless mess.
Will turned away, gagging, choking, bile burning in his throat, dizzy from what he’d just seen and from his loss of blood.
He stumbled out of the saloon and down the street to the barber’s place. The usual thick scent of ganja filled the room. The barber was in his corner chair, almost invisible behind a shroud of smoke.
“How screwed up are you?” Will asked. “I need some stitches bad.”
The barber smiled. “I’m jus’ havin’ my mornin’ smoke, is all. I can sew you up right fine.” He laughed then, totally inappropriately. “I seen what happened. Them Injuns was for sure handy with the arrows. An’ you—”
Will stepped closer and backhanded the barber—hard. “You drink a pot of coffee an’ then git to work on my face ’fore I bleed to death. Hear? You don’t, I’ll gun you as dead as them bodies out in the street.”
“I don’t need coffee. I can stitch you up just fine. Thing is, it’ll hurt like a bitch. How about you take a few sucks on my pipe—relax a bit, kill the pain?”
“No. Jus’ do your sewin’.”
“Maybe some booze? Like I said, this is gonna hurt bad.”
“Goddammit . . .”
“OK, OK—no need to get feisty an’ outta sorts.” He fetched a leather kit box such as surgeons used during the War of Northern Aggression and selected a hooked needle and a long length of suture material. “Too bad I don’t have some chloroform, but I don’t. See, chloroform will put a man to sleep an’ he’ll—”
“Do your work an’ shut the hell up,” Will interrupted.
“Yessir.”
The suturing was an ordeal that had Will digging his fingernails into his palms until they bled. After an eternity the barber placed the last of thirty-seven stitches and tied off his handiwork. “Gonna leave a scar, but what the hell,” he commented. “You wasn’t all that pretty to begin with. Now—here’s what you gotta do. Go over to the mercantile an’ pick up a quart of redeye an’ a clean bandanna. Every mornin’ you soak the bandanna in booze and wash down the wound.
“Take a nip if you want—the cleanin’ is gonna sting some. After maybe twelve, fourteen days, cut the first suture an’ pull the whole length out. Don’t yank—kinda use steady pressure an’ she should come right on out, slick as can be.”
Will stood up from the chair woozily, but quickly regained his balance. The side of his face felt like a mule had kicked him. He handed the barber a gold eagle. “Thanks. You quit burnin’ that weed an’ you might could make a good sawbones.”
The barber pocketed the coin and mumbled something that ended with “. . . an’ the horse you rode in on.”
Will strolled on over to the mercantile, weaving slightly but walking fairly well. It was the messiest, most poorly kept store he’d ever been in. The storekeeper was a large—very large—woman who quickly brought the image of a Brahma bull to Will’s mind. He wandered the aisles until he came to an uneven pile of bandannas and pulled one out from the bottom of the pile. He went to the counter. “I need a quart of decent whiskey,” he said, “an’ this bandanna.”
“What happened to your puss?” the woman asked. There was no sympathy in her whiskey-and-gravel voice, only mild curiosity.
“I bit myself,” Will said. “How much for the booze an’ the bandanna?”
“Say—ain’t you the gunman who put an’ end to them three this morning?”
“No.”
“Yes ya are—I seen it from my window right here. Ornery sumbitch, ain’t you?” She turned and plucked a bottle from under the counter. “This here’s a good sippin’ bourbon,” she said. “Aged.”
Will looked over the bottle. The label was slightly crooked, and the print on it was fuzzy and next to impossible to read. “Old . . . old what?” he asked. “I can’t read this.”
“Says Ol’ Kaintuck Home—brung here all the way from Kaintucky.”
“Brung all the way from the barrel of this crap you got in the cellar—right? Aged maybe part of a day?”
“Buy it or don’t buy it—makes no nevermind to me. You ain’t gonna git a chance to drink it ’fore One Dog rips yer guts out, anyways.”
“You pretty sure of that?”
“Damn right. You pissant gunsels don’t scare Dog none.”
Will dropped some coins on the counter. “You talk to One Dog, do you? Tell him he doesn’t have long to live.”
The woman laughed, and it was a cruel laugh—like one would give to a fool. “You ever had yer nuts ripped off when you was alive? You ever git to see how long your guts is? You ever had yer head boiled while you was tied upside down over a fire?” She laughed again, that same witchlike laugh. “Yer a fool—an’ right soon yer gonna be a dead fool.”
Will smiled. “Jus’ tell him, OK?” He tipped his hat. “Been real nice doin’ business with you an’ chattin’ with you, too.” He took his bottle and his bandanna and left the mercantile. The air outside smelled very good after being in the store.
Slick was out in the small pasture the stablekeeper maintained for his own stock and for the horses he boarded who’d kick hell out of his stalls out of boredom. That, or cribbing—chewing on the crosspieces of their stalls. The swallowed chunks of wood could kill a horse, and it made his stalls look terrible.
As usual, Slick was a good bit away from the other animals. He’d either mounted them or fought them, and they wanted no part of him.
Will leaned against the fence, his face throbbing as if he’d taken a punch every few seconds. He soaked his bandanna with whiskey and gently rubbed it along the line of stitches. It felt as if he’d lit the wound on fire.
“Dammit,” he said, tossed the bandanna to the side, and took a long suck from the bottle. It wasn’t as bad as the saloon booze, and even if it were, it cut the pain. Will took another suck and put the cork into the bottle. That’s when the arrow buried its head in the board he’d been leaning against. He dropped to the ground, Colt already in his hand, and saw an Indian riding toward him, a fresh arrow already nocked. Will’s finger was on the trigger and the muzzle of his pistol was chest high to the galloping attacker.
He lowered his weapon and put a slug into the Indian’s knee. The bow and arrow dropped into the dirt of the street; the man screeched and grabbed at his leg with both hands and tumbled from his war pony.
Will walked to the Indian, his Colt steady in his hand, muzzle centered on the Indian’s head.
“Bad shot,” Will said. “Now I can send you away, no? To the place where all your relatives will shun you, laugh at you, and you’ll be alone, eating snake and prairie dog, no woman, no horse—no pride. Why? ’Cause you’re a coward who was scared off by a white eyes you didn’t even know.”