“Ouch, that hurts.”
“Does it?”
“Do you know what you’re a’ doin’? I ain’t never heard of nothin’ called a tourniquet.”
“It’ll keep you alive, and more than likely let you keep your leg,” Matt said.
“I need a doctor.”
“This will do for now,” Matt said.
“What do you mean, this will do for now? You ain’t no doctor.”
“Who paid you to ambush me?”
“Nobody. We just done it ’cause you kilt our friend a few days ago.”
“Mister, if Sam Logan was your friend, all I can say is, you have a piss poor choice of friends. Now I’m going to ask you again. Who paid you to ambush me?”
“Why the hell should I tell you that?”
Matt pulled his gun and put the barrel of his pistol to Cooter’ forehead.
“Because I will shoot you if you don’t.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Matt cocked his pistol. “When you get to hell, say hello to your friend, Logan, for me,” he said, matter-of-factly. His finger twitched on the trigger.
“No, wait!” Cooter screamed.
Matt eased the hammer down on his pistol.
“Who paid you?”
“You got to understand that if I tell you who paid me, he’ll kill me.”
Matt shook his head. “Cooter, have you ever heard the term, first things first?”
“No.”
“Well, let me tell you what it means. It means that you need to take care of the problem you’ve got now, before you start worrying about any problem you might have in the future. You are worried about someone killing you if you answer my question. But that is in the future. I am right here, right now,” Matt said. “And if you don’t tell me who paid you to ambush me, I am going to kill you, right here, and right now. Do you understand that?” Once again, Matt cocked the pistol.
“No, no!” Cooter shouted, crossing his arms over his face. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I’ll tell you.”
Cooter was quiet for a moment.”
“I’m listening.”
“It was Poke Terrell.”
“Now, that wasn’t all that hard, was it?” Matt asked. Once again he eased the hammer down on his pistol, and this time he put his pistol back in is holster. Then he walked over to Cooter’s horse and started to mount.
“Hey, wait a minute! What are you doin’? You’re takin’ my horse again, aren’t you?” Cooter asked. “This ain’t like the last time, when I had two good legs. I can’t do no walkin’ on this leg.”
“I’m going to use your horse to ride down and get mine,” Matt said. “You may recall that you and Mole tried to kill my horse. I’ll be back.”
When Matt rode down to retrieve his horse, he saw Spirit standing quietly behind the ridge he had run to when Cooter and Mole began shooting at him.
“Hey, Spirit,” Matt said, speaking soothingly to his horse. Matt looked around at the ridge, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re a smart horse,” he said quietly. “This was a good place to get out of the line of fire.”
Spirit whickered, and nodded his head.
“Yeah, I know, we do seem to be getting into a lot of trouble here, lately,” Matt said. “But I told you that when you signed on with me.”
Matt got off Cooter’s horse then mounted his own. He started back with Spirit, leading the animal he had borrowed.
Shortly after Matt had ridden away on Cooter’s horse, Cooter saw a pistol lying under a mesquite bush. At first he didn’t know how it got there, but when he picked it up, he recognized it. It was the one Logan had given Mole on the day they tried to ambush Matt Jensen the first time. Mole must have dropped it when he ran and, in his panic, didn’t even notice that it was gone. Of course, even if he had known it, he wouldn’t have come back for it.
“Well, Mole, you yellow livered coward,” Cooter said under his breath. “I thank you for leavin’ me a gun like this, even if you didn’t know you was doin’ it. Now, I’m going to take care Matt Jensen and go see Poke to collect my money, then I’m going to take care of you for runnin’ out on me like you done.”
Cooter picked up the pistol, checked the loads, then stuck it down his waistband behind his back.
“All I have to do now is wait on Mr. Jensen,” he said.
He waited.
“Damn! What if he don’t come back? There ain’t no way I can walk all the way back to town on this leg.”
He waited a few more minutes, then, when he was convinced that Matt Jensen wasn’t coming back, and just when he was about to panic, he heard the strike of hooves on rocks. Raising himself up, he saw Matt Jensen coming back, riding his own horse and leading Cooter’s horse.
“I was beginnin’ to think you had forgot me,” Cooter said.
“I thought about it,” Matt said. “Get mounted, we’re going into Medbury.”
Cooter mounted with some effort, his face grimaced with pain.
“I know damn well it’s not hurting you that much,” Matt said. “So you can quit the show, I’m not believing any of it.”
“That’s ’cause you ain’t got a bullet in your leg,” Cooter said.
Matt could have told Cooter that he had a knife slice on his side that was rib deep, but he said nothing.
Matt was correct in his belief that Cooter was faking more pain that he was actually feeling. Cooter was playing for time, waiting for the right opportunity, and when he saw Matt turn away from him, he was positive that the opportunity had presented itself. Reaching around behind, he pulled Mole’s pistol from his waistband, then he brought it around and aimed it at Matt’s back.
“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch!” Cooter yelled, pulling the trigger at the same time he yelled.
Cooter should not have yelled. He did not count on Matt’s phenomenal reaction time because, even as Cooter was yelling and pulling the trigger, Matt was falling off his horse. The bullet whistled just over Spirit’s empty saddle, passing through the exact spot Matt’s spine had been but a split second before.
The contact with the ground was hard and painful, doubly so because it slightly reopened the wound on Matt’s side. Halfway down to the ground, Matt pulled his pistol. But by the time Matt actually hit the ground, he had brought his gun to bear, and pulled the trigger.
Matt’s bullet caught Cooter in the chest, causing him to let out one, large, expulsion of air.
“How the hell did I miss?” Cooter asked, his voice racked with pain. He raised his pistol and tried to shoot it again, but the gun began wobbling in his hand, then he dropped it and grabbed his chest, then fell.
Chapter Seventeen
When Matt came riding into Medbury, he was leading Cooter’s horse behind him. Cooter was draped, belly down, across his saddle, and Matt’s entry into town aroused immediate attention. Those who were riding or driving in the street, as well as those who were merely pedestrians, saw the body draped over a horse. Many of them interrupted their transit to their original destination in order to follow Matt. There were other townspeople engaged in commerce inside the stores and buildings, both as customers and merchants, who saw the macabre parade through the windows, and they came pouring out of the stores and buildings, including one man who ran out from the barber shop still draped in the barber’s cape, with the barber, brandishing his razor, chasing after him. They joined the growing throngs of people who were now walking alongside Matt, keeping pace with the two horses as they moved down the street, the hoofbeats making loud, clopping sounds.
“Ain’t that Cooter’s horse?”
“Yeah, it’s Cooter’s horse. That’s Cooter lyin’ across the saddle.”
“He looks dead.”
“Hell yes, he’s dead. You think he’d be lyin’ belly down on his horse that way iffen he war’nt dead?”
“That’s Matt Jensen leadin’ him. I reckon you’ve heard of Matt Jensen.”