Dotty Things

He policed his camp and his person with what seemed like incredible slowness. There wasn't much to do and it took a long time to do it. When it was done, he lay down and slept again, with the Russian in his hand and the carbine along his leg. Habit.

* * * * * * * * *

He had just finished eating the last of the bread and some side meat, and drinking coffee laced with tinned milk, when they came down the trail. He listened for a few moments. Two, coming on foot, trying to be stealthy. He waited until they'd nearly reached the cup's level floor, then got to his feet and silently faded back - something at which he was quite good - behind the oak, toward the ducks. The Russian was in his hand.

He waited.

It took them a while to work through the scrub oak, so they were a long time in coming into the open, pistols in hand. One - a chunky, baby-faced blond cowhand - carried a beat up Colt Dragoon and wore scarred batwing chaps. The other was a thin, dark wiry man in a Mexican sombrero, with a brass-studded belt and holster on his hip. There was no charm about either of them, but the man with the hat particularly brought the word lizard to Dolan's mind.

They were not good at this. They looked around the camp from a cautious distance. The babyface said, in a loud whisper, "He ain't here."

"He is here," Hat returned scornfully. "He is coiled like a rattlesnake, waiting for you or me to step on him."

The younger man cocked an eyebrow at him. "Well, it don't look like he's hurt, just like Cassie said. Least he ain't now. I'll say that, as I would not like to think Cassie had lied to me."

Hat grunted. "A woman - she does what she is best at. Keep your voice down, amigo. You would like him, maybe, to know where we are?"

It was almost funny. They stood in plain sight, their guns hanging at the end of limp arms, men with no idea of how to look for trouble. Dolan stepped out from behind the oak.

"He already knows where you are."

They froze - a commendable action. The younger man looked at him curiously and said, "Damn. You are Brin Dolan."

He was a little surprised that the girl had told them. She'd left in a fury, but he hadn't thought her so spiteful. Something in his middle withered. He said, "Yes. Don't do that."

Hat froze in the middle of raising his pistol.

The young cowhand said, "Hat, keep your shirt on. I reckon Mr. Dolan knows why we come. It might be he'd wanta do this thing peaceable. Quiet like. Mr. Dolan, I reckon you know what our interest in you is."

"I do."

"You oughta know there's a man with a rifle, up top."

The oaks still had an abundance of colored foliage that screened nearly the entire floor of the valley. The largest of them was directly at his back. The best a rifleman could hope for would be a lucky shot. Mentally, he shook his head. These were just babes.

"I'm awful scared," he said dryly. "Before you do anything stupid, you oughta know there are papers in my saddlebag that rescind the reward offer."

Hat's little eyes seemed to draw closer together. "What is this 'ruh-sinned'?

"Rescindir," Dolan translated obligingly.

"What you are saying? That the bounty is no good?"

"Sí. Es verdad."

Hat snorted. "That is a good joke."

The younger man was watching closely. Some brains, there, behind the inexperience and baby face, Dolan thought. He said, "It's no joke. Take it to heart. You're lookin' for trouble and you're gonna find it. If there's gunplay here, and by some unusual and unlikely way it happens that you're alive afterwards, you'll find those papers say what I've told you and it was all for nothin'. ¿Saben?" He turned his face, though not his eyes, toward the younger man. "You'd be Tiger Boyd."

"Yep." Boyd looked amazed.

"John Freeman told me about you. He thinks a mighty lot of you. I don't think he'd like you dead. Least of all by my hand." He gentled his tone. "You want to think this through again, son?"

Hat shifted slightly to one side. "Let us see them papers, Mister. Maybe it is not necessary to be disturbed about this."

Dolan hesitated a moment, a warning finger tickling the back of his neck, then he murmured, "Alright." He turned his body slightly and the set-up fell apart.

Hat's gun hand slithered up, full.

Boyd shouted, "Dolan - watch it!" and threw himself back out of the line of fire.

From up on the lip of the cup, there came a shriek the like of which Dolan had never heard before, with the sound of a rifle going off, as he dropped to one side, wide-legged, and squeezed off two shots.

His first shot was a hair high. The second caught the man called Hat in the right shoulder. He spun away, his big hat flying over his back, but came back up, his shots coming fast, high, and wild. Then, without anyone having to do one other thing, he obligingly fell on his face and lay still.

Above, on the rim, there were sounds of brush breaking, a yell, then Dolan distinctly heard John Freeman's daughter using language that was less than ladylike. A split second later - a body came rolling, arms, legs, and rifle flying, down the steep, brush covered side of the cup, to land with a thud and a groan against the trunk of a young oak.

At last... silence. Hat lay, unmoving, at the edge of the open ground, near the trail opening in the scrub oak. The mysterious falling body was still.

Dolan put out his free hand and caught at the oak's trunk. He felt more than anything like sitting down, but didn't dare. His ears told him someone was coming down the trail, double time, light footsteps. He could guess who those belonged to. He swayed slightly while he watched Boyd leave his big pistol on the ground and crawl the few feet that separated him from the other Crown rider.

Boyd turned Hat over. After a brief examination, he pulled a bandana from his pocket and stuffed it inside Hat's shirt. He looked up.

"Don't reckon it's mortal. Hurt plenty, I 'spect."

Dolan nodded. He hadn't been after mortal. Before he could say a word of agreement, the man at the bottom of the tree began to moan. He heard the girl coming through the scrub and, suddenly needing to know, he asked, "Boyd, who told you it was me down here?"

The cowhand had stood and was moving, hands kept carefully in sight, toward the gentleman who had joined them from above.

"Nobody told me. It's yer hoss. I knowed when I seen it and that mule that there was somethin' about 'em. Took me three or four days to recollect where I'd heard about a man who rode a speckled Palouse and packed a mule, and who he was. When I did," he added gruffly, "I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Got greedy. That true, what you said about there bein' no reward?"

"Is this November fourth?"

"I reckon. Ain't seen a calendar in awhile."

"Then, yes. As of midnight last night." He felt a sudden lightening inside himself. "Who's your friend?"

"Kyle Freeman. Big John's son."

"Oughta be spanked."

Boyd grinned sheepishly.

The girl came out of the scrub oak like an angry bee. She paused to cast a long look toward Dolan, then headed toward Tiger Boyd and her brother. Boyd knelt beside Kyle Freeman, who was rubbing his back and muttering. The girl attacked from the rear with a furious noise in her throat, laying a fist across Boyd's broad back. When he turned in amazement to see what demon had pounced upon him, she swung a roundhouse left and punched him in the arm.

The cowboy yelped. "What the dickens do you think you're doin'?"

She avoided his grasping hand and took a swipe at her dazed brother. "In all my life, I've never been so ashamed to have to admit that I knew somebody. I can't believe my own eyes! I thought you were decent men - not a bunch of back-shooting, sneaky thugs!"

She turned her back to them and marched toward the man called Hat. She stood over him, then grudgingly bent down and lifted his shirt and Boyd's bandana. He moved slightly and his eyes opened. The girl said, "You'd better lie still, buster, or I'll shoot you myself." She replaced the pad over the wound, then straightened. For just one moment, Dolan thought she might be going to kick that man. Instead, she swung aside, her gray skirt swirling around her. Rather slowly, she came toward him. Something in her expression reminded him of his mule.

He was sweating. He slid his spine to rest against the oak's trunk. The Russian was still in his hand. Sharp scented smoke still hung around him.

The girl came near and stopped, looking up at him with her very blue eyes. The freckles that trooped across her little nose invited his closer attention.

She said, in her strange, hoarse voice, "If you didn't look like a rabbit could slap you silly with one leg, right now, I'd do it myself! You could have saved us all a lot of misery if you'd just told me what was going on. You liar, you!"

He said quietly, "I never lied to you."

"You told me you had no secrets!"

"That was a joke, not a lie. Ain't a man in the world don't have secrets."

"A - joke!" She stared at him. He thought her cheeks colored a touch. "Well, why didn't you tell me about the amnesty?"

"I told you I couldn't tell you. I'd gave my word. I'd promised not to let anyone know till midnight last night. The deal was off if I did. And, I'd gave my word."

"Given. You'd given your word! And fat lot your word meant! You broke it to tell my father. That didn't seem to bother you any!"

He gave her a quizzical look. "How'd you know about the pardon, anyway?"

"My father told me. Though I had to drag it out of him!"

"He didn't tell you everything. I didn't tell your fath-"

"He told me about-"

"I didn't tell your father," he persisted. "I didn't have to. He was part of it. He was there. He helped persuade the governor."

She stared at him, her mouth slightly open and her blue eyes wide. Then she closed those eyes and said, "He made a trip to Denver alone, awhile back."

"Yes."

"He helped - arrange everything?"

He nodded. It forced her to open her eyes to see his response.

"Who shot you?"

He sighed and rested his head back against the trunk. Tiger Boyd and Kyle Freeman were hauling Hat to his feet, readying themselves for assisting the wounded man up out of the valley. He caught an unloving look from the man he had shot and returned it with bland unconcern.

"Don't know," he said after a few moments. "It was night. There was a moon. John was in a hurry to get home. We rode late. Next I knew, I was lyin' on my back, lookin' up at the stars. Your father chased him but lost him. It was your father dug the slug out of me."

She swallowed. "And had you come here? Where you'd be trapped by a single entrance, and where it's chill and damp? Why didn't he bring you to the house?"

"Too many people, in the first place. I don't reckon he fancied havin' this happen in his parlor." With a wiggle of his finger, he indicated the scene just passed. "Second place, I liked it down here. Good grass, plenty water, and no man could sneak in without my hearin'. Third place, I think John didn't want me gettin' too near his little girl. Bad influence, I 'spect."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Is that, also, a joke?"

"Prob'ly." At the corner of his mouth, tiny lines quivered into life. He pointed at the log, where his rumpled bed still lay intersecting it. "You don't object, I'm gonna sit before I fall."

His knees felt like they had ideas of their own. They just barely got him across the small space to the log. He sat on it, the Russian dangling from his hand like a broken limb. His ears were humming. He sat with his head bowed until the shakes went away.

When he straightened, the men were disappearing into the scrub oak. The girl stood over there, her fists on her hips, a forbidding expression on her face, watching them. She remained that way long after they had gone out of sight and could be heard struggling up the trail.

At last she came back across to him.

"Not a whole brain between the three of them," she said softly. "For my brother and for Crown Ranch, I apologize." There was loathing in her eyes. "They're a disgrace."

"When Hat threw down on me, Boyd warned me. He's likely not a bad man. Just easy led. Your brother, too, maybe. Didn't get much chance to judge him.... What'd you do to him up there? I thought a banshee'd showed up."

"That was me squawking." She smiled faintly. "I was coming to see you - because of what my father had just told me about you and - to see if you needed anything. And, there was Kyle, hunkered down on the rim, there. When I tried to tell him there was no bounty, he wouldn't believe me. He said they were going to get the reward - twelve hundred split three ways."

Her funny little voice did an interesting wobble. He looked at her sharply.

"Well," she continued, slightly defensive, "he made me so angry! I tried to get the rifle away from him. We - scuffled a bit, then he shoved me - so I shoved him back - and he went over the edge. I didn't mean - I mean, he is my brother, and he could have broken his neck."

"He didn't."

Sighing, she rubbed her forehead, leaving a small dirty streak there. "You know, what I don't understand is why you would promise not to say anything about the amnesty."

"It was part of the deal."

"You said that. But why? Why that, and why until midnight last night, like some kind of peculiar - witching hour?"

He leaned down carefully and placed the Russian on his blanket.

"It's an election year."

She looked puzzled. "It's?..."

"Governor didn't think, if folks heard he'd extended a pardon to a man of my - dubious reputation - they'd vote for him. Might be right, too."

"So - do I understand? - he allowed you to go on, with that bounty hanging over your head like an axe, for - how long? Weeks? So that, today, voters would go to the polls and obliviously vote for his re-election - never mind that somebody might have killed you for the money meanwhile?"

Something odd was happening. She was blinking rapidly. Tiny drops clung to her lashes. He gave her a long look, though her glance slid away from his this time. He said softly, "That's about it. Pretty simple."

"Pretty cruel," she corrected passionately. She put fidgeting fingers into her skirt pockets. She was, he thought, waiting for him to say something. When he didn't, she murmured, "I suppose all's well that ends well.... I'd take out a big ad in all the papers, if I were you. 'Brin Dolan announces that nobody is looking for him and nobody will pay any money for him, any time, any place, any more.' Or something. Like that." She looked at him again. A dimple appeared in her cheek. "I'd better go face Pa. And, you'd best come up to see him before you move on. He'll have a fit if you don't."

He said nothing, though a number of words lay tangled up on the tip of his tongue.

A quick, loud breath went in and out of her. "Goodbye," she said, and turned around.

"Cassie."

She stopped, turned back, her eyebrows arched in question.

"I never thanked you for lookin' after me."

She glanced away, then back to him. "That's all right. I couldn't just let you die."

Something passed through the air between them. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it in his middle. It resurrected that thing that had almost withered earlier. He said, "I'm feelin' poorly, yet. Weak. Been thinkin'... I might need somebody to do for me for a while. Thought maybe you'd know of someone."

She considered him for a long, quiet moment. She folded her arms firmly. "Might be a mite tough to find someone who'd want to be alone much with a man who's spent time in prison."

To that, he did not know what to say. She was right. He wished she wasn't.

"Did you do what they put you in prison for?"

"Yes. With good cause."

"Would you do it again?"

He took a deep breath, slowly, and let it out, slowly. "I doubt it'll come up again."

"And the Hole-In-The-Wall business?"

"Like your father said: Poppycock."

She gave a small shrug. "I suppose I could recommend you." She moved to him suddenly, placing a soft, light hand on his forehead. "You do look pale. The fever's down, though. How long do you suppose you'll need the services of this... person?"

"Don't know yet." He was surprised. This was quite a bit easier than he'd expected. "Might be for the rest of my life."

She went so still. For a moment he thought he'd made a mistake. He closed his eyes. Another mistake. This one seemed so much more important than all the others.... Then, her cool, slow, gentle fingers pushed his mussed hair back from his forehead.

"I'll see," she said so softly that he opened his eyes to watch her lips, "what I can do."

A little growl formed in his throat. He could not keep it from seeping out any more than he could keep his hand from lifting to curl along her cheek, his thumb tracing over the sweet scattering of freckles there.

"I mean," he murmured through the growl, "to find out how these purty li'l dotty things feel under my mouth."

She lowered her head. Shy, he'd have thought, had he not known damn well otherwise. She let out the breath she'd been holding and slid those very blue eyes up at him, demurely, from under thick lashes.

"Then you should probably know you have your work cut out for you," her husky little voice murmured. "I have more. In other places."

-The End-

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Thanks for all your positive feedback on my previously posted stories. It tickles me when someone else "gets" what I write. Consctructive comments, high votes, and ridiculously generous ratings are always welcome. -OD