A Debt Yet Owed

April Round-up Challenge

By Bakerj

When he stepped out of the saloon, I sat up, tipped back my hat, let the front legs of the chair thud back on the floor, and stood.

I stepped off the porch and rested my hands on my hips.  Hoss was still sweet-talking the new waitress in the restaurant behind me.  Fine.  I strode across the street.

One boot hit the boardwalk before he noticed me.  His hard gaze met mine.  I smiled.  “Hi, John.  Good to see you.”

The grey eyes narrowed before widening in recognition.  “Little Joe.  I should’ve known I’d run into one of you Cartwrights, sooner or later.”

I straightened to my full height.  Less than five years between us, and he still used my old nickname.  “Just Joe now.  Buy you a beer?”

“Sure.”

John settled into his seat.  A man you couldn’t ignore, he had everyone in the Sazerac glancing his way. 

“So, what’s with the double rig?” I asked.  “Didn’t you always say a man who was any good only needed one gun?”

A rare smile crossed his face.  “True enough.  But a man sometimes needs a backup… in my line of work.”

Easing back his jacket, he revealed the silver star.  I whistled.  “U.S. Marshal?  That explains all the nervous looks.  When did that happen?”

“Just after leaving the Ponderosa.”

“That’s quite a change.”

“It’s a decent job and helps me sleep at night.”

Memories stirred.  John rode onto the ranch four years ago.  Worn out as his nag, he didn’t look like a good prospect for a ranch hand.  But with the war still raging and most men working in the mines, if they could sit a horse, we hired them.  We didn’t regret it.  John made top hand in five months, but his knowledge of farming stood out.  With land waiting to be farmed, I urged Pa to consider giving John a tenancy.

I counted him as a friend, but he’d been tight-lipped about where he was from until that night—just him and me around a campfire.  Out of nowhere, he started talking.

“You ever been in a war, Joe?”

“Me?  Heck, no.”

“Smart.  Not like me.  I joined the Union Army that first day, all fired up to set those rebels straight.  Three months and it’d be over.  That’s what they told us.  They sure got that wrong.”

A piece of kindling snapped and crumbled.  Sparks showered the darkness.  The light lit John’s eyes and plunged the hard lines on his face into darker shadow.  I swallowed but kept my mouth shut, afraid to break his train of thought. 

“Two years of fighting and then Gettysburg.  That first day, we cut men down like wheat.  The worst day of my life—until the next.  They came at us across the meadow, straight at our big guns.  When they fired, rows of men just… vanished.  Disappeared with the clouds of smoke.  It’s a sight I’ll carry to my grave.”

Pa’s voice, low and halting, reading the report in the Territorial Enterprise, came back to me.  We’d sat in silence a long time that day.

John continued, “Few days later, I caught a ball.  The hospital weren’t much better than the battlefield.  When I asked to go home, they gave me furlough.  Truth is, that wound stank worse than I did.  They put me on a train and sent me home to die.  But every day I drained out the poison.  I beat that damned infection and the fever.  I’d have walked every step of the way home from St. Louis, but a farmer took pity on me and gave me his old horse.” 

Slumping back, John’s face disappeared in shadow.  His voice, low and hard, kept going, turning my blood to ice.  “Only there weren’t no wheat in the field, cattle in the meadow, or woman waiting on the porch.  The raiders got there first.  They took my reason to stay, and I was done fighting.  I turned my horse West and kept going.  Left the war, my duty, and my courage behind.”

I managed to mumble something, but it had never felt enough.  Not long after John quit, despite Pa’s offer of the land.  Did he leave because of that confession?  I never knew.  But I knew what made him pin on that badge. 

“What brings you to Virginia City?”

“Business.”  When I waited for more, he continued, “He’s over at the jail while the doc fixes up his arm where I winged him.”

“Then you’re free to visit.”

“Thanks, but we’ll be lighting out in the morning.  Y’all still working the ranch?”

“That’s right.”

“Married?”

“No.  You?”

“There’s someone.” John turned the glass in his hands. “Hard to settle in my line of work.”

“We could solve that problem.  That land Pa offered is still waiting for a good man.”

“Thanks, but I’ve a debt to pay.”

“Isn’t three years long enough?”

The rawness that crossed his face shook me.  Did all the men who survived the war carry that guilt?

The crash of the swing doors spun me in my seat.  The kid pointed his shotgun straight at John.  He trembled, fighting to hold the weapon still, but his fingers locked on the trigger.

Men began to react, but John’s shout stopped everyone dead.  “Nobody move!”  John eased out of his seat.  “Boy.  You don’t wanna do this.”

The gun leveled up a fraction.  “You shot my pa!”

“And he didn’t give me no choice.  But he’s fine.  And I reckon he’ll be happy to see you.”

“You’re lying!” 

Already cocked, the gun could go off in a heartbeat.  The boy looked about fourteen, not quite a man, but old enough to kill.  I flicked a glance at John.  His gaze stayed fixed on the boy.  My breath hitched into my throat when he took a step forward.

“I ain’t lyin’.  Listen, kid, I’ve seen too many your age dead to want to see another.  And I don’t plan on looking your pa in the eyes and telling him I killed his son.  So you either hand me that gun or pull the trigger.  But if you do, you’ll be ending two lives.”

John reached out.  His hand rock steady.  The boy’s gaze dropped—defeated.  But at that crucial moment, his hands shook.

The explosion rattled the windows.  John staggered and dropped.  The shotgun hit the floor with a thud. 

On my knee, I held my friend.  “Someone get the doc.”

His face tight with pain, John forced through clenched teeth, “Don’t let him run…”

I turned in time to see the kid backing toward the door, his face white and drenched with horror.  “Kid!  I need your help.  Grab a cloth from the barman and bring it over here.  Kid!  Do it.  Now!”

He jumped, but did as I asked.  When he hurried back with the cloth, I had him press it over John’s bleeding leg.

I met John’s eyes.  “You sure like to take chances.”

“One less corpse on my conscience.”

~~~

“I can make it onto the wagon by myself,” John grumbled.

“I’d like to see that.”  I grinned but didn’t take my hand from John’s arm.

Other Marshals rode into town to take John’s prisoner to Carson and the boy home to his ma.  John insisted the shooting was an accident.  I didn’t tell it different. 

Luck smiled on John.  A limp was a small price to pay for keeping a leg.  But something else had changed.  He’d laughed three times in the past week alone. 

I had hope.  A limp might slow a Marshal down, but it wouldn’t matter much to a farmer.

Grabbing the reins, I shook up the team.  “Look on the bright side.  You get to visit.  Besides, Pa’s really looking forward to showing you that piece of land.”

~ The End ~

April 2026