because of this brazen inconvenience, I’m layin’ the blame right at your feet. You Rangers need to take up a bit more in the way of polite methods for handlin’ your affairs. Cain’t just run over folks like this.”
Ignored the angry marshal’s less than charitable remarks and pushed Tiner to his cage. Smoky wasn’t stupid by any means. As Matthews and I headed back into the office, he grabbed the bars, squeezed his face between them, and yelped, “Jist you boys wait till Nate finds out where I am. You law-bringin’ sons of bitches won’t live any longer’n spit on a stoked-up depot stove in January. Both of you’ll be barkin’ in Hell soon enough, and I’ll be drinkin’ tequila at the Los Lobos Cantina over in Uvalde.”
His speech bothered me not one whit, but I could tell Tiner’s load of horse fritters rattled Matthews, right down to the holes in the toes of his moth-eaten socks. Marshal clumsily wobbled back to his still-warm seat, and slumped into it like a man who’d just been beaten bloody with a fence post sporting a horseshoe nail. Took some doing to get his attention back, but I eventually dragged directions to the office of Willow Junction’s local pill roller out of him.
Escorted Dianna and a blank-faced Mrs. Wainwright another few blocks down Front Street toward the easily missed storefront operation of Dr. Hardin Q. Puckett. We shuffled along the boardwalk and, for the first time since we’d found MaryLou Wainwright, I had a chance to notice the amazing contrasts between the two women. Dianna’s dark-haired, ruby-lipped, fiery-eyed beauty served as an exact opposite for the shattered Mrs. Wainwright’s sandy-haired, pale, vacant-faced appearance.
No way not to feel sorry for the broken lady if you had any knowledge of her blood-saturated recent past. Poor woman’s predicament, and the foul murder of Dianna’s young son, William, made me all the more determined to see Nate Coffin, and any of his henchmen responsible for such vicious, soulless destruction, swinging from the nearest tree, or spitting blood if they resisted.
Given the disappointment of Willow Junction’s less-than-cooperative marshal, the local medicine man turned out much better than I had any right to expect. Far too many of the bone poppers who made their stumbling way to obscure parts of the West drank to excess as a result of being plagued by an unknowable past on the killing fields of Mr. Lincoln’s tragic war on the South. Not this one. Gangly, thin as a rail, and nervous in the extreme, Puckett appeared precisely what any person in need would hope for in a pill-wrangling cut-’em-up.
We explained the dreadful circumstances of our appearance. The doc nodded as though he recognized the problem immediately. Placed a skinny arm around the devastated woman’s shoulders and guided her to a leather-covered couch in one corner of his office. Long, spiderlike fingers caressed her trembling shoulder as he gently assisted the lady into a reclining position.
“Appears she has involuntarily descended into a profound state of shock,” he said. “Her troubled mind, overwhelmed by the brutal circumstances you’ve recently described, has simply taken a much-needed rest. And will most likely lie dormant until coaxed into properly functioning again.”
“I have no idea what that all means, Dr. Puckett. What we have to know is, can you help her?” Dianna’s question contained more than a bit of concerned desperation.
“Oh, yes.” He turned and gently patted Dianna’s shoulder. “You must not feel compelled to worry yourself overly much, my dear. I’ll keep her warm. Prop her feet up. See she gets plenty of liquids and attentive care. With any luck at all, your friend should start coming around in a matter of hours, days perhaps, weeks at the outside.”
“That’s most encouraging, Doctor,” I offered.
He scratched his head for a second, then added, “Yes, but you should also be painfully aware that in some
Ignored the angry marshal’s less than charitable remarks and pushed Tiner to his cage. Smoky wasn’t stupid by any means. As Matthews and I headed back into the office, he grabbed the bars, squeezed his face between them, and yelped, “Jist you boys wait till Nate finds out where I am. You law-bringin’ sons of bitches won’t live any longer’n spit on a stoked-up depot stove in January. Both of you’ll be barkin’ in Hell soon enough, and I’ll be drinkin’ tequila at the Los Lobos Cantina over in Uvalde.”
His speech bothered me not one whit, but I could tell Tiner’s load of horse fritters rattled Matthews, right down to the holes in the toes of his moth-eaten socks. Marshal clumsily wobbled back to his still-warm seat, and slumped into it like a man who’d just been beaten bloody with a fence post sporting a horseshoe nail. Took some doing to get his attention back, but I eventually dragged directions to the office of Willow Junction’s local pill roller out of him.
Escorted Dianna and a blank-faced Mrs. Wainwright another few blocks down Front Street toward the easily missed storefront operation of Dr. Hardin Q. Puckett. We shuffled along the boardwalk and, for the first time since we’d found MaryLou Wainwright, I had a chance to notice the amazing contrasts between the two women. Dianna’s dark-haired, ruby-lipped, fiery-eyed beauty served as an exact opposite for the shattered Mrs. Wainwright’s sandy-haired, pale, vacant-faced appearance.
No way not to feel sorry for the broken lady if you had any knowledge of her blood-saturated recent past. Poor woman’s predicament, and the foul murder of Dianna’s young son, William, made me all the more determined to see Nate Coffin, and any of his henchmen responsible for such vicious, soulless destruction, swinging from the nearest tree, or spitting blood if they resisted.
Given the disappointment of Willow Junction’s less-than-cooperative marshal, the local medicine man turned out much better than I had any right to expect. Far too many of the bone poppers who made their stumbling way to obscure parts of the West drank to excess as a result of being plagued by an unknowable past on the killing fields of Mr. Lincoln’s tragic war on the South. Not this one. Gangly, thin as a rail, and nervous in the extreme, Puckett appeared precisely what any person in need would hope for in a pill-wrangling cut-’em-up.
We explained the dreadful circumstances of our appearance. The doc nodded as though he recognized the problem immediately. Placed a skinny arm around the devastated woman’s shoulders and guided her to a leather-covered couch in one corner of his office. Long, spiderlike fingers caressed her trembling shoulder as he gently assisted the lady into a reclining position.
“Appears she has involuntarily descended into a profound state of shock,” he said. “Her troubled mind, overwhelmed by the brutal circumstances you’ve recently described, has simply taken a much-needed rest. And will most likely lie dormant until coaxed into properly functioning again.”
“I have no idea what that all means, Dr. Puckett. What we have to know is, can you help her?” Dianna’s question contained more than a bit of concerned desperation.
“Oh, yes.” He turned and gently patted Dianna’s shoulder. “You must not feel compelled to worry yourself overly much, my dear. I’ll keep her warm. Prop her feet up. See she gets plenty of liquids and attentive care. With any luck at all, your friend should start coming around in a matter of hours, days perhaps, weeks at the outside.”
“That’s most encouraging, Doctor,” I offered.
He scratched his head for a second, then added, “Yes, but you should also be painfully aware that in some