Chapter 9
How long he was out, he had no idea. All he knew was that he came to with a splitting headache and the sight of the right half of the porch roof hanging down within a yard of the ground. The post that had formerly held it up was lying out in the yard where it had fallen.
For a long few moments he lay still without moving, trying to feel his body, wondering if anything was broken. This was no country to break a leg or a hip or anything else that would leave you unable to mount a horse, much less catch one and saddle it.
He gazed along the length of his body and saw his bottle of whiskey lying overturned. So was the coffeepot. Further on, the chair lay on its side. The right leg appeared to have broken at a knot halfway down its length. He thought, inanely, that he was getting good at making three-legged chairs. He’d been in two line cabins and he’d made three-legged chairs out of all the available furniture. Come fall, the returning line riders were going to wonder who’d been assaulting their sitting material.
The roof gave a groan and seemed to settle a little more. It brought Longarm alert. Ignoring his body’s aches and complaints, he quickly reached in and grabbed his coffeepot and cup and the bottle of whiskey, and then scuttled backwards into the doorway of the cabin. Surprisingly enough, the blanket was still on his shoulder, though it was now draped like a serape. He knew he hurt, but he wouldn’t let his mind think about it. He uncorked the whiskey and had a long, medicinal pull. He gasped when he took the bottle away from his mouth. He didn’t normally take that much down at a time, but he knew he was going to need it to oil up his joints and shoulder and back, which he was pretty sure was broken.
He looked down at the manacles on his wrists. If he had to he could operate while wearing them, but he was hopeful that the key in his canvas jacket pocket would unlock them. If not, he’d have to find a town with a blacksmith and get the smith to just cut the chain. It would be inconvenient, but he could do his work.
He sat there. He felt a swelling desire to get on Shaw’s trail, take after him while the scent was still hot, but he couldn’t make himself move. He looked up at the porch roof. Fully half of it was now drooping down, the right corner no more than a foot off the ground. He was amazed at what he had lifted. Individually the parts didn’t weigh much, but connected, they came to a sizeable amount. He shook his head and shuddered, very glad to be free from the post. He didn’t stop to think what he would have done if he hadn’t gotten loose. He didn’t want to think about that. As near as he could tell, the remote cabin wasn’t on the way to anywhere, and he could have been there until he cured in the sun. Shaw had said he would telegraph back to a sheriff, but whether he would have or not was open to question. As was whether or not some sheriff would have ridden fifty miles on the dubious validity of a telegram.
He was about to get up, dreading it, when he happened to glance down at the right side of his right boot. It had split. Where the leather of the boot was sewn to the sole, the stitching had broken. He could see little tufts of it sticking up from his sole. He could wiggle his right toe and see it move through the split. “Damn!” he said aloud.
There was nothing for it but to get up and see if the key fit. If it didn’t, then it was saddle a horse and take off with his hands a foot apart. He rolled over and came to his feet. For a second he swayed and little white spots danced in front of his eyes. He stayed still, willing all the parts of his body to take control. After a second the dizziness passed. He took a step and felt like his hips were breaking.
“Damn!” he said aloud, driving the word through his gritted teeth.
The next step wasn’t any easier, nor the next. He said aloud, “Hell, I feel two inches shorter. Maybe three. Maybe four.”
He could feel the pain as a constant, beginning in his right shoulder, jumping over to his backbone, and then spreading downward all the way through his hips, then down to his knees, and finally to his ankles and feet. “What a job,” he said wearily. “But it shore beats working.”
He made it to his blankets, and then eased himself to the ground. For a moment he sat very still, letting the pain do its best, letting the pain just go ahead and consume him as he relaxed his body into it. He had learned a long time ago that you only made matters worse if you tried to fight pain. If you tried that, all you did was stiffen up and make your muscles rigid, and wear yourself out in the fight. And it was a useless fight because the pain was going to win no matter what you did. The best way to handle it was to sit back and let it come, accommodate yourself to it. That way, after a while, it got to be a part of you so that you didn’t notice it so much anymore. But you had to be willing to be patient and sit there and relax and get used to it.
It didn’t make it hurt any less, but after a while you got so you didn’t notice it so much.
He took another hard hit off the bottle, but did it slowly and resolutely. He was very conscious that had many hours ahead of him with the sun beating down on his head. That, at least, was a good thing. The sun might not do him any other good, but it would at least bake some of the hurt out of his bones and muscles and joints.
Finally he reached back over his blankets, got his canvas jacket, and dragged it to him. The key was still in the right-hand pocket. It was a round steel key with teeth on the end and little wings to turn it with. It was about the size of a pistol cartridge. In the dim light he could see numbers die-stamped on the side of the key. He looked for a matching set on the manacles. There was a set of numbers, but they didn’t match those on the key. He contemplated the keyhole in his left manacle. It was a round little hole with notches that hopefully matched the teeth on the round little key. Hopefully he stuck the key into the hole. It fit. He tried turning the key to the left. Nothing happened. He frowned. With not much optimisum he turned the key to the right. It went halfway around and he felt something click inside the manacle releasing the ratchets. He felt the cuff come loose.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. He opened the cuff and removed his left hand. To the inside of the little cabin he said, “What the hell they put numbers on ‘em for if they all fit the same?”
With confidence he transferred the key to his left hand and tried the right cuff. The key went into the hole with no trouble, but nothing happened no matter which way he turned it. “Aw, hell!” he said aloud. “Now what the hell am I supposed to think. Damn it!”
He kept jiggling the key back and forth in the hole, turning it left and right, trying it in different positions. Nothing seemed to work.
For a moment he stared at a far corner of the cabin. He was damn near better off cuffed than like this. He’d have two feet of cold steel swinging off the end of his right wrist. That ought to make for some exciting times, trying to saddle a horse or use a revolver.
He got up and went over to the fireplace. His jackknife was there. He opened it, but the blade was too thick and not sharp-pointed enough to go in the hole. He was on the point of giving up when he saw the fork lying in the tin plate that Shaw had used. He picked it up. By tilting it sideways he could get two of the tines deep inside the lock.
He prodded and pushed the fork into the hole, slowly working it around the circle. Nothing happened. Sometimes when he would press with the fork a certain way he’d feel something give, like it was being pushed into place. He kept up the poking and pushing, circling and circling the keyhole. All at once the cuff released. He felt the ratchet bar that encircled the bottom of his wrist come loose. He said, “Well, now I will be damned. Any prisoners I take from now on are going to eat with a spoon.”