Chapter Forty-Nine
U.S. Marshal James Crown was co-old, and--despite downing a canteen and a half of water and two cups of Mac's coffee--still incredibly thirsty! Both of these conditions (Plus a re-occurring bout with light-headedness.) were attributed--by his pretty and ever present, nurse--to the lawman's recent--and rather voluminous--loss of blood.
"How yah feelin'?" Katelyn anxiously inquired of her ghostly pale patient--upon returning from her umpteenth trip down the tunnel. She'd gone to fetch another blanket--which she dutifully draped over the shivering man's already blanket-bedecked shoulders.
The Marshal flashed the dutiful--and beautiful--woman a deeply worried look and extended his blanketed left arm, "I would feel a whole lot better...if you were ta set down here beside me...an' rest a spell..." he hinted to his completely spent lookin' spouse.
The lady took both his hint and his cold and clammy hand and allowed herself to be bedded down on the blanketed ground beside him.
"I was right..." Jim Crown determined as the nurse nestled cozily up in his blanketed arms, "I feel much--mu-uch better, now..."
"Me, too..." the woman freely admitted.
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The lawman had also been right about the light. Twenty minutes later, it was a whole lot lighter outside. Soon, it would be broad daylight!
Mac was right as well. Katelyn had found more than just a coffee pot and a campfire back in that tunnel! There were barrels and barrels of water, boxes and boxes of bullets, sacks and sacks of supplies, stacks and stacks of wood--plus--plenty of hay and grain for the animals! (MacGregor's mount was tethered down that tunnel, as well.) If they could stop an assault now, the cave's occupants--and their horses--could hold out INDEFINATELY! Certainly long enough to allow reinforcements to arrive! So then, why did the man beside her suddenly seem so tense? The lady traced her tense husband's intense gaze and found the answer--Lancer!
The Marshal's mount had mosied on over to investigate the blanket-covered couple and was--presently--playfully tugging on the lawman's pant leg.
Its rider again ignored the old adage about never looking a 'gift horse' in the mouth--and asked, again, right out loud, "How did you get here?!"
"He brought us here, but we didn't bring him here," Katelyn explained--for Mac's benefit.
(The Scotsman had found the Marshal's rather cryptic comment most confusing.) MacGregor's mouth opened and he was just about to say something--when somebody else's shouted voice came wafting across the canyon towards them.
"WE'VE GOT THE TOWN'S NEW DOCTOR OUT HERE, MARSHAL!" that somebody said.
And--suddenly--Jim Crown had his answer! An' they had 'Jarrod'!
Katelyn inhaled a startled gasp.
Her husband grimaced and then groaned--in mental anguish--as any hopes he may have had for growing old with anybody, suddenly turned to cinders!
"BRING LUKE AND JUDD HAMPTON OUT TO US," the shouted voice continued, "AN' WE'LL CUT THE KID LOOSE!"
The Marshal exhaled a weary sigh of surrender and--after reluctantly freeing himself from the beautiful woman's embrace--he stashed his Stetson back on his head and started crawling--equally reluctantly--over to the mine's entrance...to see about freeing the kid.
"Ah should think Mareck would be more interested in Tanner!" MacGregor reasoned aloud as Jim Crown came crawling up to him--on his hands and knees.
"Mareck's dead!" his boss breathlessly' said, "That 'hornet'...out there...is Rutgers!" Then, to the woman--who came crawlin' up behind him--Jim Crown firmly, but gently ordered, "Go on back by the fire..."
"I ain't leavin' you!" Katelyn firmly, but gently refused.
The Marshal seemed tremendously disappointed--but not the least bit surprised--by the woman's refusal.
"What good will it do ta kill the three of you?!" Mac further wondered, "When the whole town knows that Rutgers was in cahoots with Mareck!"
"The three of us are the only 'witnesses' left...whose testimony wouldn' be 'hear-say'," his boss explained. "The Judge knows that 'hear-say' evidence is...inadmissible in court. Even if the whole town were ta testify--there'd never be a conviction," Jim Crown solemnly concluded.
"DID YOU HEAR ME, MARSHAL?!" the voice from across the canyon queried.
"YEAH!" the lawman painfully replied, "I HEARD YOU! BUT THE HAMPTONS AIN'T HERE! I HAD THEM--AN' THE REST A' THE PRISONERS--HAULED ON OVER TA HARDESTY!"
After a brief pause, the voice piped back up, "WE DON'T BELIEVE YOU!"
"THEN, COME SEE FOR YERSELF!" the pained peace officer patiently proposed. "UNARMED!" Crown added--as a cautious afterthought.
There was an even longer pause.
Then, through the gloom of dawn's early light, a crouched figure crept out of concealment in the corridor and stepped into plain sight. "THERE ARE TEN RIFLES POINTED AT THE KID!" the figure informed the inhabitants of the cave, "ANYTHING HAPPENS TA ME, AN' THEY'LL CUT 'IM DOWN!" Following his little statement on where Jarrod stood, the fellow started off across the canyon floor--his course confidently fixed on the main--and only--entrance to old man Adrian's mine.
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Five minutes later, Clayton Stevens was standing in the mine shaft's entrance with the Marshal's pistol--and his deputy's rifle--pointed at his chest. His empty hands wisely--and slowly--went up in the air. After being thoroughly frisked for concealed weapons, the deputy shoved a lit torch in his face and told him to watch his step.
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Fifteen minutes later, after thoroughly searching the tunnels for concealed prisoners, Stevens returned--himself to the starting point and the torch to his deputy tour guide.
"Satisfied?" the seated lawman icily asked.
"The Doc'll start walkin' towards the mine," Stevens simply said. "You start walkin' towards the corridor. The two a' you'll keep right on walkin' 'til you've traded places," he rather casually concluded--and calmly began taking his leave of them.
"Hold it!" Crown ordered--even more cooly, "I can't walk that far..."
Stevens studied the seated Marshal's ghostly pale face for a few moments. The gunman could easily believe that! "Then--by all means--ride!" Clayton cried, "But--jes' remember--that ugly, black horse over there makes for a real BIG target!" And, with that little--final--reminder, he turned and went striding back off across the canyon floor.
"You cain't seriously be considerin' goin' out there?!" Katelyn exclaimed--rather alarmedly--as her husband began to haul his unsteady self up off'n the ground,"You'll pass out before you get halfways there!" The lady latched onto the lawman as he stiffly straightened up--and then held on to him for dear life! "Please, don't go out there!" she literally cried.
"C'MON, CROWN!" Stevens also cried, "WE HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY!"
"NO-O!" the kid doctor suddenly shouted, "STAY WHERE YOU ARE, MARSH--Ah-uh!" the young man 'gasped' as his message ended with a sharp cry of pain!
The Marshal 'winced' and turned his dizzy head in the courageous kid's direction.
"See?!" the woman in his arms whispered, "Even he wants you ta stay!"
Jim Crown gave his pretty--protective--wife a sort a' sad--and sympathetic smile, "You wouldn't wanna live with me if I was ta do that..." he whispered back, "...I know, 'cuz I couldn't live with myself..." Then, following a brief--but passionate--kiss, he pulled free of their embrace and began heading for his horse.
"Yer right!" MacGregor said as he caught Jim Crown under the arms and kept the collapsing lawman from falling flat on his face, "Yah can no' walk!"
The Marshal gave his handy friend a grateful glance. "Take her back to her son--in Cimarron--for me, Mac," he quietly requested as the Scotsman half-carried him over and up to his horse.
"A-aye!" his chief deputy acknowledged a bit shakily, as he helped his boss up onto the animal's tall back.
The Marshal settled down into his seat and then bent over to place a hand on his sad-looking deputy's sagging shoulder, "You've been a good friend, Mac..."
MacGregor glanced up--and the two 'friend's' tearing eyes met, "It was the company Ah kept..." the Scotsman softly assured him...and then smiled--as his good friend was forced to smile.
Jim gave his slumped shoulder a slight squeeze and then nudged his horse ahead. "I love you, Katelyn!" Jim Crown called out as he reached the entrance--er, exit. Then he ducked down low over his saddle and disappeared out into the canyon.
"No-o!" Katelyn cried out in anguish--and tried exiting the mine herself. "Let me go-o!" she shrieked as the Scotsman caught her around the waist and then pulled her--kicking and screaming--safely back inside. "We can't just stand here and let them KILL him!" the tough little lady from Texas insisted, "I know how ta use a rifle!"
"Perhaps," the Scotsman sadly conceded, "but there are almost a dozen professional gunmen out there, lass! And the two of us would no' stand a chance against a dozen hired guns! Besides, Ah promised 'im that Ah would see you safely back ta yer son--in Cimarron..."
So they just stood there--and watched.
As the Marshal just sat there--just outside the mine--and watched Jarrod.
Who was also just standing there.
"C'MON, DO-OC'!" Jim Crown called out.
"I CAN'T!" the Doc' called back, "THEY'LL KILL YOU!"
"START WALKIN', KID!" Stevens menacingly shouted, "OR WE'LL 'BLOW HIM AWAY' FROM HERE!"
Jarrod watched--in wide-eyed horror--as the judge's men redirected their rifles, so that all ten of them were now aimed right at the Marshal! 'You should've gone to New York!' the frustrated physician sadly--and solemnly--told himself, 'Where things like THIS never happen to doctors!' Whether he walked--or didn't walk--the Marshal was gonna be a dead man! So the doctor swallowed hard--and began to walk.
The Marshal began to move as well, edging his edgy--and rather reluctant--mount forwards. (Lancer didn't much like the idea of walking right at all of those pointed rifle barrels!)
Mac and Katelyn continued to just stand there and watch as the two 'Docs' drew closer...and closer...together.
"I CAN'T jes' stand here!" the lady determined, "I got ta DO somethin'!"
"Then Ah suggest yah start prayin' for a miracle!" MacGregor bitterly advised, "Because it would take a small army ta stop them!" (Even if the Marshal didn't die along the way, Rutgers' men would kill him--the moment they reached Hardesty! The Marshal had ordered his deputies to move the prisoners, all right--ta Fort Dawes!)
And, speakin' a' Fort Dawes an' a small army...
The doctor and the Marshal were out in the middle of the canyon floor--and were just about to pass each other--when somebody with a bugle suddenly started blowing a Cavalry Charge!
The Marshal saw Rutgers' men turn their heads in the sound's direction. But it wasn't until they swung their rifles around that he dared to latch on to the young doctor's extended hand--and haul him up behind him in his saddle. Crown then swung Lancer around and--amidst the sounds of a heavy skirmish--high-tailed it back to the mine! "Duck!" the lawman advised--as they approached the main shaft's low entrance.
The doctor did. And they shot through the opening--at an all out gallop!
By the time the Marshal got his horse stopped, the shooting was already over. (The gun battle--while intense--had been brief.) So the lawman swung Lancer around again--and ducked back out into the canyon.
Charley Adams and Dave Fisher were the first two to reach him.
"An' you said it wasn't worth the price a' the paper it was written on!" teased Dave, giving his 'Presidential Directive' a victorious wave.
Mr. Adams and the Marshal exchanged 'Oh-oh, brother!' looks. Then they turned their attention to the small army's leader as he came riding--rather victoriously--up.
"I, uh, believe this makes it three that you owe me now, Marshal..." the Lieutenant teased.
"I thought you weren't countin'..." Jim Crown teased right back. Then his wry grin vanished, his green eyes closed--and he pitched forwards in his seat.
Jarrod caught him and sat there--on the big, black saddlebred's back--with the collapsed lawman in his lap...and watched as the sun's first rays of light struck the rim of the canyon's incredibly high wall, "And so begins another day--in the life of a 'legend'!" the young doctor teased.
"This ain't just a 'livin' legend' you're lookin' at, gentlemen," Katelyn proudly corrected--as MacGregor gently lowered her husband into her waiting--and open--arms, "This here is a 'genuine' avengin' ANGEL !" When only an act a' God could a' saved him--one had! And, when she had prayed for a 'miracle'? One occurred! Truly, the Lord did 'work' in 'mysterious' ways!