I Always Pay My Debts

I don’t know how long I was out. The horse was dead. My hands were tied and lashed to the saddle horn. My left leg was trapped under the horse, but it wasn’t broken. That was lucky.  

By bending forward and straining mightily I could just reach the rope around my wrists with my teeth. I’m not sure how long it took me to get my hands free. While I was working on it, the sun climbed high into the clear sky. The air was still and the sand beneath me was hot. The nearby brush did nothing to shade me. There was dust in my mouth and I was really thirsty. I stopped sweating. I knew that was a bad sign. When I finally got my hands free, I found my canteen. I drank a little water. That was good. I had to make that water last so, I only drank a little of it.

Getting my hands free was only the first problem. Being trapped under the horse was the second. My leg was numb, right up to my hip. I found my Bowie knife which, luckily, was in the one saddlebag that was not trapped under the horse. The animal was dead a long time before I started cutting into it. The blood was starting to thicken and most of it had pooled near the ground. I cut the horse near my leg and let the blood run out. It was thicker than I thought it might be, but it was still fairly slippery. I smeared a lot of the blood on my leg, working it as far under the horse as I could get. It helped some. I carved some of the horseflesh away and started pushing and struggling. I did this repeatedly and eventually, little by little, I managed to struggle free.

At first, I just lay there with the hot afternoon sun beating down on me and waited for the blood to flow back into my leg. There was a lot of tingling pinpricks and throbbing. It was probably an hour before I felt like I could try to get up. I hobbled around, limping painfully, and took stock of what was left to me. 

There was only a little water in the canteen. As dry as I felt, I didn’t drink any more of it yet. There was dead brush all around. Limping and wincing, I gathered some of it into a small pile and got a fire going. The sun was going down and the shadows in the canyon were long and cool. I cut off a slab of meat from the horse and held chunks of it over the fire on the point of my knife to cook. I drank some more water.  

My leg was still throbbing. There were spikes of stabbing pain that shot right down to my foot with every heartbeat. I removed my pants to have a look. It was dark but the fire gave me enough light to see that my knee was swollen and there was a nearly black bruise that went from the middle of my thigh all the way to my ankle. The knee was swelling some more and I had a hard time getting my pants back on. Sit hurt and walking hurt even more. I knew that after sleeping, the leg would really stiff and it would even more.

In the morning I’d try to get my saddle bag out from under the horse and then start walking to town. It was only about fifteen miles to town. Unhurt, I may have made that walk in one long day. As it was, the walk would be be slow and painful. Still, I figured if I drank small amounts and carried some of the horse meat with me, I could make it. The way my leg felt, it may take a couple days, maybe three or four. I would have to find some water. I knew this sort high desert country pretty well. I knew where to look of for water. Even a small puddle down between some rocks would help, if I could avoid getting bitten by snake. I would make it alright. In the meantime, I wanted to rest and think. I wanted to think about Bill Ferney. Bill Ferney had to die. 

#

Five days later, in the dark of the night, I stood on the sidewalk planks looking into one of the big windows of the Iron Bell Saloon. Bill was playing poker and drinking whiskey. One of the ladies was attending to him. She was pouring his whiskey, listening to him talk, and laughing at his jokes. I think she was hoping he wouldn’t lose all of his money before he could take her upstairs and spend some of it on her.

Having no gun was a problem I needed to solve.

The dry goods store was at one end of town. The proprietor and his wife had their living quarters in the back of the building. I stood on the opposite side the street, hidden in shadow between the livery stable and the doctor’s office, and threw a fist sized rock. My aim was true. The window in the top half of the door shattered.  

A short time later the proprietor came to investigate the noise. He looked up and down the street. There was nobody in sight. Except for the saloon toward the end of the street, everything was dark and quiet. His wife and his daughter soon came out onto the sidewalk with him. He spent more time trying to get them to go back inside than he did investigating. After they obeyed him, he stood looking at the broken windowed, shaking his bald head. He never saw me coming. I had a stick in my hand when I crept up behind him. I locked my arm around his neck and shoved that stick into his his lower back. He let out a frightened little yelp.

“Don’t say anything or you die. Now go inside, real quiet like. We don’t want your wife and the little miss to get involved.” I said.

He opened the door and we went inside.

“Keep your hands up where I can see them. I’ve got this pistol.” I said, jabbing him with the stick for emphasis. “I need a rifle. Where do you keep them?”

“I only have two of them for sale right now. They’re under the counter over there.” He pointed at the counter which ran down the longest wall of his little store.

“Let’s go have a look. Don’t try anything.”

We went behind the counter.

“Where?”

He pointed. I felt around under the counter while keeping the stick in his back. I pulled out one of the rifles.

“I need bullets, too.”

“On that shelf.” He pointed at the shelf next to us, behind the counter.

“Get them for me. No fast moves or it’s all over for you.”

He reach over with one arm and got a box of shells and set them on the counter.

“Open the box. And hand me one of the bullets.”

He did it.

Quickly, I backed away from him as I loaded the bullet into the rifle. He turned. I dropped the stick on the floor and leveled the rifle on him.

“Oh, shit.” He said.

“Sorry about this. I needed a gun and this was all I could think of.”

“You could've just knocked.”

“No. I wasn’t sure asking would work.”

“Now what? Are you gonna shoot me?”

“It’s not you I want to kill. Light a lamp and get some paper.”

He did that.

“What’s you name?”

“Joe McCarthy.” He said. 

“I want you to write up a bill of sale saying that I will pay you for the guns. My name is Taylor. Mark Taylor. I’ll sign it. I may be a lot of bad things, Mr. McCarthy, but I’m no thief.” 

“A bill of sale for the riffle and one bullet?”

“I need a revolver and I need a box of bullets for it. I also want a gun belt. I’ll leave the rifle here when I go. Now write.”

He wrote.

“Put everything on the the counter.”

I used one hand to hold the rifle on Joe and the other to load six rounds into the gun. It wasn’t fast or easy, but I got it done. I unloaded the rifle and dropped it on the floor. Now I held the gun on Joe instead. I signed the bill of sale.

“With any luck Joe, I’ll be back to pay you tomorrow after I get my money back from Bill Ferney.”

“If your shadow ever falls on my door again, it will be too soon. Just leave.” He spat on the floor as I backed out the front door. I guess I couldn’t blame him.

#

I went back across the street and into the safety of the shadows there. Working quickly and mostly by feel, I put all of the bullets into the little storage loops on the gun belt. I put the belt on and holstered the revolver. I drew it fast a few times and and adjusted the belt on my hips and tied the thong around my thigh. I felt ready.

There’s something about a gun belt that seems to make a man walk straighter and taller. My leg even felt a little better. I walked behind the buildings until I found the alley that was closest to the saloon. I went down the alley and walked across the street to the window.

Bill was at the table, still playing poker.

I walked around to the swinging doors at the corner of the saloon and pushed through them, gun drawn.

“Bill Ferney!” I yelled loudly to get his attention. The man playing the piano stopped and everyone looked in my direction. The place was dead silent.

“You robbed me and left me for dead. I’ve come to get the money.” I said, holding the gun aimed at his head.

Calmly, he put down the cards. He picked up his shot glass and downed it.

“Just keep your hands where I can see them, Bill.”

He laid his hands flat on the table and looked at me.

“So, are you gonna murder me in front of all these nice folks?” He asked. His hands slid to the edge of the table.

“Not quite. I’m taking you to the sheriff’s office. A judge can decide this.”

“I don’t like that idea, Mark.”

“What you like or don’t like aint my concern. Now stand up slow and easy. Let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” He said. “I’ll tell you what, if you want your money, your gonna have to take it from me.”

With explosive swiftness, Bill flipped the poker table over and stood up. Money and cards and whiskey bottles and shot glass flew everywhere. His hand drew out his gun. His other hand came up to cock the hammer. I shot him right between his eyes.

Most of the people in the saloon were frozen in place. It happened so quickly that nobody really had a chance to react. Some of the men had risen to their feet. A couple of them had their hands on their guns, but none of them had drawn.

“You all saw this.” I said. “It was a fair fight. The man stole from me and, just now, he drew on me.”

One of them stepped forward a couple steps. I pointed the gun at him. “Don’t come any closer.”

He held his hands up. “I’m the sheriff around here. Bill Ferney was nobody’s friend. It was fair fight. You can take the money and go.”

“I want my money and his horse and I’ll be taking the body too.”

“Sure, uh, Mark. It’s Mark, right?”

“Mark Taylor.”

“Alright, Mark. No one will stop you from taking what you’ve said you want, the money, the horse and the body. But just tell me something. The money and the horse, I understand. Wanting to take the body seems odd. Why do you want it?”

I holstered my gun. People visibly relaxed. The sheriff and I walked over to where Bill’s body was lying. 

“For two years, Bill was my friend. About a month ago, I got a parcel from my sister, back east. My father died and he left me a thousand dollars. She sent it to me with a letter.”

“And Bill wanted your money.” He said, nodding his head.

“He never said so. I thought I could trust him. I did trust him. I shouldn’t have.”

“You don’t need to take his body. We can bury it for you. Just give old Ned his undertaking fee.” The sheriff said.

I squatted and started gathering up the money on the floor.

“No. There’s a spot about fifteen miles from here where I will bury him.”

I stood up and faced him. I then told the sheriff about how Bill had stolen my money and left me for dead trapped under my dead horse.

I must have looked ragged to him. I was dirty from walking for days and half covered in dried horse blood.

“You’ve had a hard time of it.” The sheriff said.

“There is one more thing, I need to tell you sheriff. It’s about Mr. McCarthy down at the dry goods store.”

“Oh yeah? What about him?” the sheriff was looking at me hard again.

“Well, I scared him pretty bad.” I told him everything. “I need to make sure to pay him but I don’t think he will want to see me after what I did.”

The sheriff thought about that for minute. “Don’t worry about it. What you did was wrong. But considering what you’ve been through these past few days, well, I might have done something like that myself. I’ve known Joe for a long time. You just give me what you owe him and I’ll pay him for you.”

I gave him a handful of the money I picked up from the table. “That should cover the guns and the broken window. I always pay my debts.” I said.

“You told me what happened. You never told me why you want to bury this man fifteen miles from here.”

“That’s where my dead horse is. I’m gonna dig a large, deep hole. I’m gonna put Bill in the bottom of that hole and then I’m gonna roll that damned horse in on top of him. He can spend the rest of eternity underneath that horse.”

The sheriff looked me in the eye for a long moment. Then his face widened into a big friendly grin.

“Rest here tonight. In the morning, I’ll saddle up. We can ride together and I’ll help you dig the hole. I’ll even bring the shovels.”

He slapped me on the back and laughed.