O'Doul
by
Wayne D. Dundee
Smashwords Edition
O’Doul
Presented by Western Trail Blazer
Digital ISBN: 978-1-4658-1293-3
Copyright © 2011 by Wayne D. Dundee
Cover Art Copyright © 2011 by Laura Shinn
Produced by Rebecca J. Vickery
Design Consultant: Laura Shinn
Smashwords License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with other people, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this ebook without purchasing it and it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
O’Doul is a work of fiction.
Though some actual locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner and the events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author. Similarities of characters within to any person past, present, or future are coincidental.
"This is for Peter Brandvold, who writes rousing, gun-blazing, hell-raising Westerns with a passion that has helped revitalize the whole genre." – WD
O’Doul has been a lot of places and done a lot of things in his life. Now, working on a ranch outside Pitchfork Creek, he finds bad things happening all around. The ranch owner and his wife are splitting up and O’Doul is forced to ride herd on a hot-headed cowboy. When events come to a head, O’Doul makes a deadly decision and goes into action.
Chapter One
"I'm gonna kill him some day, I swear I am." Young Leonard Fain fairly shook with anger as he spoke these words. He was seated on the edge of his bunk, elbows resting on the tops of his knees, fists balled tight.
"You've seen the way he treats her. Heard the things he says to her," Leonard continued. "Now that he's took to drinkin', it's only got worse … It flat ain't right, the way he's doin'."
A man some years older than Leonard, face weather-seamed, shoulders slumped from age and a hard life, sat on the edge of the only other cot in the small, sparsely furnished bunkhouse. A smoldering cigarette dangled from between the yellow-tipped first and second fingers of his right hand. "Lot of things ain't right in this old world, boy-o," the older man said, measuredly. "Thing is, a body's got to know when to stand hard against 'em and when to sometimes just roll with 'em."
"I've been rollin' with 'em, O'Doul. That's part of the problem … I'm near as disgusted with myself for not speakin' up as I am with Reichert and his ways."
The older man, O'Doul, took a hard drag on his cigarette and stayed quiet.
"You wasn't here before … back when Little Joey was still alive. Things was good then. Happy-like, most of the time. Reichert was still gruff in his way, a hard task master. But he wasn't drinkin' then, leastways not as far as I could tell. When you saw him with his little boy there'd be a gleam in his eye, and a smile on his lips. He'd have Little Joey wrapped in one arm and the other around Annie and it was a nice thing to see. You'd look at 'em and … well, it just sorta made you feel good."
Leonard's expression changed from brief wistfulness back to the look of dark, brooding intensity he wore most of the time lately. "And then came the day Little Joey crawled away while Annie was hangin' clothes on the line, crawled into the horse pen and got stomped by that rank mare we'd put in there just the day before. After that, everything changed … I don't think Reichert or Annie, either one, has hardly smiled since. Annie turned all numb-like and silent, like a ghost just driftin' through the motions of life. Reichert plain got bitter. Colder and gruffer by far than he ever was before. That's when the drinkin' at night and the hangovers in the mornin' started. You could tell almost from the first that he blamed Annie for what happened. It took a while for the harsh words and treatment to start up. But once they did, it's got nothing but worse."
O'Doul ground out the stub of his cigarette. "You got a lot of compassion in you, kid … And empathy. Those can be admirable traits, long as you don't let 'em eat you up on the inside."
Leonard frowned. "Is that a bad thing?"
"No, it ain't a bad thing." O'doul smiled thinly. "Means you care about people and things around you. Means you got a good heart, Leonard."
"Well, if it's a good thing, why does it make a body feel so miserable?"
"That's the not lettin' it eat you up part I warned about. You see, doin' the right thing or decidin' what the right thing to do is … well, those can be the among the toughest decisions a man has to make in his life."
Later, after they'd killed the lamp and turned in, Leonard decided there was something more he needed to say. Across the narrow room he could see the glow of O'Doul's cigarette so he knew the older man was still awake.
"What you said before, O'Doul … about me havin' those things you said was admirable traits. That was good of you to say. I appreciated hearing it."
"Not a problem, lad. Walkin' a decent path through life ain't always easy, never hurts to get a little encouragement along the way."
"See, that's the thing. You talk about doin' right and walkin' a decent path … I ain't so sure I measure up to all that."
"Way I see it you do."
Neither man said anything more for a time. Somewhere far away the faint, lonely wail of a coyote floated on the night air.
Then Leonard said, "How low would you think it of me if I was to admit that part of what riles me about the way Reichert treats Annie—Mrs. Reichert, that is … well, I think she's an awful special lady."
"You got feelin's for her, is what you're sayin'."
More silence. Then, Leonard again: "I guess I answered my own question … Feelin' like I do—about a married woman. Says plain enough, right in the Bible, you ain't supposed to covet another man's wife. Ain't that so?"
"Not so sure that havin' feelin's for a fine woman you happen to be around regular-like is the same as 'covet' the way the Bible means. A body can't necessarily help which way his heart leans."
"You said before I had a good heart."
"I think you do. That's why you're strugglin' with these feelin's the way you are. When you said earlier you wanted to kill Reichert, you wasn't thinkin' that to get him out of the way so's you could have a chance at Annie, was you?"
"Lord no! I never meant it like—"
"Course you didn't. I know that. You'd feel the same if Reichert was bein' mean to a wife who was dowdy and fat and homelier than muddy socks, right?"
"I – I guess so … Only Annie—Mrs. Reichert—she ain't dowdy or homely by a long shot."
"You think I haven't seen that? Hell, I've cast a longin' glance at her a time or two myself, and I'm old enough to be her pa."
"Reichert's older than her, too. I figure she's closer to my age than his, wouldn't you say?"
"No, I wouldn't say because it's none of my business. Nor yours neither. Plus, what's it got to do with the price of tea in China, anyway? … Now get some sleep, Leonard, you're wearin' me out."
Chapter Two
The next evening, after the day's chores were complete, O'Doul excused himself from taking supper at the ranch and headed into town.
"In the middle of the week?" Joe Reichert questioned him.
"Got some personal business to tend to," O'Doul explained.
"Hope your business ain't at the saloon. Tomorrow morning's going to come just as early and there'll be hard work to do around here, same as always."
"I know that, Mr. Reichert."
"You been with me six months, O'Doul. You've proved yourself a skilled hand. But lately I've noticed you don't seem to get things done as fast you used to. I can't abide a slacker and I damn sure won't tolerate a drunkard."
Then maybe you ought to look in a mirror, O'Doul thought. But all he said was: "You got no call to worry about either one, not where I'm concerned. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm on my own time and, like I said, I got personal business to tend to."
* * * * *
The town of Pitchfork Creek had one doctor, Abraham Tolley. He administered to the sick and injured from a side room of the small wood frame house in which he resided with Dorothy, his wife and nurse of forty-odd years.
It was in this room that O'Doul now stood, getting dressed again after having stripped down for the examination the doctor had just conducted. While he did this, Tolley sat at a rolltop desk over in one corner, making notes in a journal.
When O'Doul was finished dressing, the doctor swiveled back around on his round-topped stool and regarded him. His expression was grim. "You've made it clear on previous visits, Mr. O'Doul, that you want straight talk about your condition. So here it is: Just as I feared, your cancer has advanced considerably since the last time you came to see me … And from this point I believe there is every reason to expect that it will continue to spread even more rapidly."