Boon Ed Kurtz (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📖

had to help Les up. The sheriff wasn’t about to compromise himself by occupying his hands with it. With Earl behind us, Les and I struggled through the mud up to the boardwalk, where he mostly bounced on his one good leg with one heavy arm draped around my shoulders.

“I’m bleedin’ like hell,” Les said.

“I’ll get the doc,” Earl said. “Bring him to your cell.”

“Cell?” Les said. “Hell, Earl. You gonna lock me up?”

“I am,” Earl said.

Les grunted. He was getting blood all over my boots, or at least all over the mud that was caking my boots. I strained to look back in the direction of the train station to see if maybe Boon had seen any of that and, if she had, would she do anything about it. I couldn’t really manage it and didn’t really think she’d stuck around that long. Seemed to me she’d be on the next train to Santa Fe before old Earl ever let me out of his jailhouse.

I didn’t even know the name of the town I was in.

Chapter Eighteen

The jailhouse in whatever town it was had two cells in the back, around a corner so the sheriff didn’t have to look at whomever he locked up in there. I sat in one of them and the sawbones tended to Les in the other. The blade had sunk deep into his thigh. By sheer luck, I’d found just about the softest part of his leg to stab. He pissed and moaned the whole time the doc was in there with him, washing the wound and suturing it up with catgut before wrapping his upper leg with what seemed like every inch of bandage in the Southwest. Once he was done, the sawbones left, Earl locked Les in there by himself, and the doctor and sheriff retired to the front office to discuss payment out of the town funds.

“That sumbitch married my sister,” Les said after a while.

“Who?” I asked him.

“God damn Earl, that’s who.”

“The sheriff is your sister’s husband?”

Les nodded.

“My brother-in-law. Locking up his own kin for getting stabbed by a drifter.”

“Well,” I said, “I am sorry about that. You talked ill of my friend and I got sore.”

“I got a mouth on me,” Les said. “Always did have.”

“Probably better to talk less than more,” I said. I was thinking of Boon.

Apparently, so was Les.

“Why’d she knock you down, anyhow?”

“She’s sensitive about things,” I said.

“You ever met a woman who wasn’t?”

“I never met anybody who wasn’t.”

“Reckon so,” he said with some hesitation. “She a breed?”

“Sort of,” I said. “I guess.”

“That what she’s sensitive about?”

“Sort of. I guess.”

“Your woman?”

“She ain’t anybody’s woman.”

“That kind,” Les said.

“Sure,” I said. “That kind.”

The drover snorted. I realized I wasn’t used to his smell yet, so I moved a little closer to the opposite wall. It didn’t help.

“Just as well,” he said. “I only just got my pay chit from the trail boss this morning. The drive was hell and I’m not sure I’ll do it again, so mayhap it’s best I sit here and save my money ’stead of spending it all on wine and women.”

“Driving cattle is a job of work,” I said.

“Almost got to fighting the paymaster in yonder tally shack for shorting us boys,” he said. “Two of us didn’t make it, so way we see things their pay ought to be split up among the rest of us.”

“You’d of ended up here one way or the other.”

“Yep,” he said. “Least I didn’t get kilt like them poor bastards, though.”

My heart jumped a little inside my chest and I wondered if it could be that those dead drovers were the same boys who came at me and Boon outside Red Foot. I didn’t consider it wise to admit any knowledge of the incident, though, so I kept my mouth shut for once.

“Tough business,” I said. “Driving cattle.”

“Job of work,” Les said. “Like you said.”

In the afternoon, the cells got darker than they already were, with the way the sun must have ducked down behind the buildings. The only light we got came in from the front office, and it wasn’t much to begin with. I got to pacing the little cell, waiting for the sheriff to complete whatever investigation he was doing so I could get on with finding Boon—assuming she hadn’t already left on the train and got halfway to California by then.

Someone did visit the cells around that time, but it wasn’t Earl. It was a middle-aged woman, plump and red-faced in a matching cotton dress. She lighted a couple of lanterns for us to see by and brought us each a basket of victuals, the warmth preserved by lacy white towels over the top. Les set into his food immediately, stuffing the bread into his face while getting a hunk of beef ready in his hand to follow. I set mine on the bunk.

“Where’s the sheriff?”

“Having supper with his family, I should imagine,” the woman said.

“Did he talk to them witnesses?”

“Do I look like a deputy to you?” she snapped.

“I ain’t got any idea who the hell you are, lady,” I said. “But a man’s only worth his word, and I’m starting to think your sheriff ain’t worth what’s stuck to a shitkicker’s boots.”

The red-faced woman’s red face turned a lot redder. She sputtered for a minute, trying to come up with something to say, but in the end, she just stomped away and slammed the door on her way out.

“Preacher’s wife,” Les explained.

“I don’t care much for preachers,” I said. “What is this damn town, anyway?”

“Used to be called Agujero Seco when it was Spanish,” said Les. “Means dry hole or some such. Now it’s just Revelation.”

“Revelation, Texas?”

“Boy, you are dumb,” he said. “This here is Revelation, New Mexico.”

“I wasn’t sure if I’d crossed the line or not.”

“You crossed it.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I reckon I’d just about had my fill of Texas.”

“Well, if you change your mind about that, it ain’t but spittin’ distance from the train station.