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  Jack gave a resigned, exhausted sigh.

  ‘I haven’t even got my boots on,’ he said and lay back down.

  A large strip of white canvas had been stretched between two wooden beams above where Jack lay. He guessed it was to reflect the light from a cluster of twelve happy-jack lanterns, hanging close. He knew exactly how many because, from his bed, he’d been counting them. Likewise he knew the number of silvery steel instruments arranged neatly in the tray of a nearby trolley. He was sort of thankful he didn’t know what they were for.

  The hospital’s Dr Cooper came in eventually, accompanied by the nurse with the black shiny hair. Doctor Cooper was a thin, businesslike middle-aged man.

  He acknowledged Jack with a brisk nod.

  ‘Some things are best tended to, Mr Jack. Our health is one of them. The neck wound is close to your carotid artery and the tear in your arm is very dirty. Each of those must be both cleaned and dressed properly, to avoid septic poisoning.’

  ‘I understand,’ Jack said stiffly. ‘But right now it’s a different sort of sepsis I’m worried about.’ A little earlier Jack had been given laudanum and now he felt more dopey than sleepy.

  ‘Have you taken this before, Mr Jack?’ the nurse asked, dripping the sedative on to a fold of cloth and holding it to his nose. ‘Breathe normally. It helps with the discomfort – the nervousness,’ she said with a thoughtful smile.

  ‘Like I’ve been telling you, it’s not getting cleaned up I’m nervous about. I hope my new friends are watching the door,’ Jack replied quietly. ‘You haven’t come across someone called Cayne have you?’ he asked as the overhead lamps merged and went out.

  It was later the same night when he awoke. He could hear the thumping of his heart but felt no immediate pain. He was trying to break away from the nightmare, the vision of somebody reaching in to where the curtains had been drawn back, the window opening. In his terror he had rolled away, fallen from the bed and crashed to the floor. There he remained, very still, fearful because he didn’t know what had happened, uncertain of any of his senses.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Mr Jack, are you awake? Can you hear me?’

  Jack nodded. The words seemed to come from far away, somehow disconnected, not meant for him. Early sunshine struck the ceiling and two of the far walls. The window curtains were pulled back, which took Jack’s almost immediate attention. Outside, the thick branches of a jacaranda climbed alongside a veranda post.

  That would be what I saw last night then, Jack thought wryly. The Dawson Cayne tree.

  ‘Did you fall from your bed last night?’ the nurse continued.

  Jack’s impulse was to tell the whole truth.

  ‘I didn’t sleep too well,’ he replied, thinking that that was at least half of it.

  ‘Lucky you’re strong,’ she said. ‘And lucky there’s nothing broken.’

  ‘Maybe you should hog-tie me,’ he said.

  The nurse smiled. Her raven hair was again dressed in a thick plait, hanging to one side of her brown-eyed face.

  ‘I wouldn’t know how,’ she said. ‘Tying splints and bandages is what I’m good at.’

  ‘Yeah. How long before someone returns me my clothes?’

  ‘You will have to take that up with Dr Cooper. But I would have thought soon,’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing life-threatening. Are you staying in Mexico?’

  ‘I wasn’t far from staying for good a short while ago. There’s something I’ve got to do . . . getting more important. So it’ll be for a while, I guess.’

  A frown crossed the nurse’s forehead.

  ‘So you can take someone’s life?’

  ‘I meant it was important that I defend myself,’ Jack said gruffly.

  ‘I think that’s an opportune difference, Mr Jack.’

  Jack shut his eyes for a moment. ‘Then it’s best we leave it at that. And my last name’s Finch.’

  ‘Very well.’ The nurse returned his curtness. ‘After you’ve eaten some food I think you’ll be having visitors. The men who brought you here,’ she added in the way of someone who cared but didn’t want to show it.

  ‘Thank you for that, ma’am,’ Jack replied in a similar manner.

  Opening the door, the nurse turned and gave him a long look.

  ‘I’m a nurse, not a ma’am. And you might like to know it was the hospital porter who found you weren’t in bed, last night.’

  Jack glared. ‘He didn’t come in through the window, did he?’

  ‘No, of course he didn’t. What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. At least I know there was somebody there. I wasn’t scuttling under the bed for nothing.’

  ‘Whatever the meaning of that may be, Mr Jack, I think we should ease up on the laudanum.’ With a faint smile across her face, the nurse closed the door.

  Jack was relieved that his night visitor hadn’t been Dawson Cayne. It was almost funny that he’d been in hiding, cringing with fear of the janitor, and the nurse seemed to know it. Minutes later an older woman, a civil helper, brought him a platter of grits and eggs. She sat quietly, watching him eat, encouraging him the moment he took a breather.

  ‘That was all good. Thank you,’ he told her when she was pouring him a glass of warm goat milk. ‘What’s the name of the nurse?’

  ‘You mean Connie?’ she said without looking up. ‘Constanza Kettle.’

  ‘I’ve been too ill to take much notice of her.’

  ‘I’ve never known a man too ill not to notice his nurse, Mr Jack.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Jack started. ‘I think she said there’s hombres waiting outside. Will you please tell them they can come in.’

  Jack was still chewing over his predicament when young Carlos Rebo and his two sidekicks entered the room.

  ‘Hey amigo,’ the young Mexican greeted Jack.

  Jack shook his hand and exchanged nods with the other two.

  ‘I reckon I owe you for bringing me here . . . waiting to see how it turns out,’ he said. He remembered his pa once saying: when in a tricky situation don’t ask a question that’s likely to put you in a worse one. Jack didn’t think that right now was the time to ask Rebo: why?

  Having had his wounds tended to, eaten the decent breakfast, Jack was feeling much better. If Dawson Cayne hadn’t pursued him to Whitewater, that only helped.

  ‘Incidentally, did you see any sign of my deadly friend after I blacked out? Any sign at all?’ he asked.

  ‘If there was, señor, we didn’t see it, an’ we’re good at seeing,’ one of the other two said. ‘But we were in a hurry to get here – good reason, eh?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s scuttled back into the hole he crawled out of,’ Jack muttered.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Rebo said. ‘I’m curious, amigo. This Cayne hombre? You say he had some sort o’ grudge against you . . . a score to settle?’

  Jack gave a little shake of his head.

  ‘I think it’s something he made up. I’ve recalled who he is though. He had an older brother named Lew. I guess to kids last names aren’t that important.’

  ‘You must have done something wrong . . . done him some harm. His brother, maybe?’

  ‘No, I’d have remembered that. Anyhow, Lew’s dead.’

  ‘What happened?’ Rebo asked.

  Taking his mind back, Jack drew out an image.

  ‘He got thrown from a big, snorty claybank. He landed badly, bust lotsa stuff inside him. There was nothing anybody could do. It was an accident.’

  ‘Then there’s got to be something else. Think again,’ Rebo suggested.

  ‘No. We sort of admired Lew Cayne. Taken with him, I suppose . . . even influenced. He always had that bit more gen about stuff . . . everything.’

  ‘Who were the others? You said we.’

  ‘That was Bean and Will. It was usually the three of us.’

  ‘Will Morgan?’

  Jack tensed, didn’t answer. Of a sudden his mind was racing in many directions. The young Mexican was too intense in h
is questioning, and he’d provided a name he shouldn’t have known.

  ‘Assuming you’re not spirits of the Gila Desert, you must know I’m going to ask this, sometime . . .’ he started. Then, ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked more sharply.

  Rebo sighed, gave a tolerant smile.

  ‘I’m sure if you hadn’t got so much on your mind you would have asked before now, amigo,’ he replied. ‘I’m a US marshal an’ these two are deputies, Rafael and Magro. We have been hired to investigate a murder that happened in San Simon last year. I’m sorry to tell you, your old friend Will Morgan is dead.’

  Jack held his thoughts steady. Rebo’s disclosure had answered one or two questions, like, how they knew about the hospital and what Rafael meant by being good at seeing.

  ‘You don’t look like any goddamn marshal or law officers I ever saw,’ he said, nevertheless.

  ‘I wouldn’t get far in my line of work if I did, amigo,’ Rebo answered. ‘There would be too many closing doors.’

  ‘I did hear about Will being dead,’ Jack went on. ‘What’s that to do with you being in border country?’

  ‘I’ve been trailing Dawson Cayne,’ the young marshal continued. ‘That’s why I was in Cerro Cubacho. I thought I had him cornered – would have, too, if someone else hadn’t horned in. So, now that we’ve put most of our cards on the table, why do you want him?’

  ‘He killed my wife,’ Jack replied flatly. ‘I wasn’t there at the time, so he shot her instead.’

  Rebo pulled off his range hat. ‘I’m sorry, amigo. I had no idea,’ he said.

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ Jack responded.

  ‘The other boy . . Bean?’

  ‘Yeah, Bean Decker. Cayne said he’d killed him too.’

  ‘You rule yourself out, it was one of them did something wrong,’ Rebo suggested. ‘Meantime, we’ll all stick a bit closer.’

  ‘I don’t want any nursemaids, and I’m not your goddamn bait, either,’ Jack grated. ‘I set out to get the man who killed my wife. Nothing’s changed.

  ‘It can’t be your summary justice, amigo. Even if it is deserved. He’ll be tried at Tucson for his crimes and then hanged.’

  The two men locked resolute eyes.

  ‘If you are going to get in my way, mister, remember I’m the one who carries the memory of Annie with half her face shot away.’

  The lawman stood uneasily twisting his range hat.

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing to argue over, and I do understand,’ he said. ‘But if you set out to catch him the way you are now, he will likely shoot you. Buen dia.’ Rebo motioned for the deputies to follow him. As he left the room the jingling of his spurs didn’t seem to Jack to be quite so noticeable.

  ‘Now it’s no guns and no bodyguards. Well done, Jack!’ he muttered.

  CHAPTER 5

  During the next few days Jack saw the lawmen from time to time as he sat on the hospital’s raised front veranda. The two-way acknowledgement was usually the raising of a hat, the lift of a hand. Beyond the low, flat rooftops, he could see a vast tract of sand, mesquite and brush that stretched for fifty miles.

  Not much to gain by chasing a shadow across desert wasteland. I’ve done that, he thought.He was beginning to think that maybe Cayne had given up on him, that seeing him in company with three armed Mexicans had perhaps scared him off. But that was illusory; not a minute passed when he didn’t curse or react to an unfamiliar sound.

  Constanza Kettle was very attentive. Apart from an ageing city dweller suffering from tuberculosis and a youngster with a broken leg, Jack was the only incumbent of Whitewater Sanatorium.

  Consequently she often sat and talked with him towards the end of a day.

  ‘You could stay here,’ she put to him one evening. ‘If, like you say, your needs aren’t great, there’s work enough. You could start over, make a new life.’

  ‘I know you mean well, Connie, but right now I don’t think the sort of work this neck of the woods offers is a viable option,’ Jack replied. ‘Besides, I’m not looking for a new life just yet.’

  ‘Yes. I did mean well, Jack,’ she said. ‘I would hardly be thinking of anything else.’ Looking a little more hurt than bothered, Connie picked up an empty coffee cup and left.

  Jack gave the idea of a relationship with Connie a moment’s thought, then returned his attention to his fighting corner. He recalled that Bean Decker’s dad and his own had been friends; like many others they had at one time actually worked for the Cayne family. He had an idea his pa had been fired by a senior family member, but didn’t know who or why. If it were true, maybe it would have been Cayne’s father. Putting the fragmented memories away, Jack stood up and stretched. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, then the muscles of his neck. He knew he was being watched from the nearby cantina by Carlos Rebo and his men.

  ‘What a way to earn a crust,’ he muttered. ‘Becoming a pest, too.’ He smiled coldly, raised his right hand, extended two straight fingers and feigned three gunshots in their direction. He picked up his Winchester with the broken stock and walked back into the hospital.

  ‘Nurse – Connie. Have you got a few moments?’ he called out on the way to his room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Connie asked a minute later.

  ‘Nothing an’ everything,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ve done some quick thinking, though. Maybe you’re right about me doing something else. What do you suggest?’

  ‘I’d already done my thinking, Jack. My father has cattle and some horses and you know about stock. This time of year he’s always short-handed. You wouldn’t be a charity case or anything.’

  ‘As long as I’m not expected to go breaking in any young broncos. But if I go, I’ll leave when Rebo and his friends are looking the other way. You’ll probably have to think up some sort of story.’

  ‘I understand, Jack. Señor Rebo told me about your wife.’

  ‘He was wrong to do that.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’m sorry anyway.’

  ‘OK. I’ll leave tonight. Later at full dark. Thanks, Connie, and tell no one of this. No one. That could be real harmful to my health.’

  Jack was tense, but he’d been waiting coolly in the dark. To anyone still watching, he had been tucked up and fast asleep for a couple of hours. When Connie came for him, just before midnight, he opened the door and stepped out, silently followed her to the rear of the building.

  Connie unlocked a sturdy oak door, moved into the dark, starry night.

  ‘There’s a horse standing saddled beyond the old oak,’ she said. ‘Ride straight south for six miles. Pick up the Nogales coach at the stage station and buy a ticket to Aqua Cajon. Someone there can take you out to Pa’s ranch. It’s not far. Here.’ She pressed an old acorn into his palm. ‘It must have been blessed to last such a long time. Keep it with you. Bona fortuna.’

  Turning it over in his hand, Jack ran his thumb around the dried-out casing before dropping it in his pocket.

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll try and not to trust to it. Sorry,’ he added, avoiding her eyes. ‘I’ve got too much on my mind right now to come up with better.’

  ‘Then come back when you have.’

  ‘Yeah, I will,’ he grunted at Connie’s agreeable suggestion. ‘Could you see my mare’s looked after?’

  A minute later Jack stretched out a hand to a chestnut gelding. Carefully, he swung up and astride the saddle, flicked the reins and gave a gentle heel.

  He rode out behind the buildings for a while, took a passing, disinterested glance at Whitewater’s back yards. At the outskirts of the town, by what looked like grain stores and a pole corral, he swung west for the cover of a cedar brake. He drew rein and took a long glance back at both ends of the main street, gave Carlos Rebo a second thought.

  To Jack’s way of thinking, the young Mexican lawman was making some curious decisions about trailing a killer. He made a doubtful smile, heeled his mount from the trees towards the southerly trail.

  The moon would be good for f
ive hours’ riding, but he’d only need thirty minutes to make the swing station and the Nogales mail coach. Screened in his ride from the sanatorium and Rebo’s attention, Jack felt sure no one except Connie would be wise to his departure.

  Carlos Rebo looked at the moon hanging almost directly above the cedar brake, and cursed. He sensed he was missing something but he wasn’t certain what.

  Twice that night he had seen Nurse Kettle in the window directly across from him. Taking everything into account, which wasn’t much in the darkness, he supposed she could only be looking to see if he was still there. He’d thought her behaviour odd because she hadn’t done so on previous nights.

  ‘You’re over there, checking to see that I’m over here, but why? Why tonight?’ he muttered. ‘What’s our mutual friend Jack Finch up to?’

  Seconds later Rebo was tugging the bell chain at the front door of the sanatorium.

  At that late hour the main street was deserted and, other than for the noises from night critters, practically silent. Rebo gave the bell another, more impatient pull.

  It was Connie who opened the door. Rebo instinctively touched the brim of his sombrero, gave one of his most attractive smiles.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you at this time, Nurse Kettle, but I saw you were still up,’ the Mexican said. ‘There’s something I’d like to see Jack Finch about. It’s a law thing . . . quite urgent.’

  ‘At midnight it must be. I don’t think . . .’ she began, but Rebo was already pushing past her.

  ‘Oh, it really is,’ Rebo muttered, hurrying straight to the room where Jack was supposedly still a walking wounded. On opening the door he could see, even in the gloomy light from the hallway, that the bed and room were empty.

  ‘When did he leave?’ he demanded impatiently.

  Connie wanted to look away, say nothing, but she lowered her eyes to her hand lamp.

  ‘Ma’am, you know I’m a US lawman, who’s trying to protect Jack from a killer.’