Day of Independence Read Free

current resident of the Big Bend Hotel.”
    â€œWhat are you doing here, Dupoix?” Cannan said. “I thought I hung you years ago.”
    â€œNo, you haven’t yet had that pleasure,” Dupoix said. “Though God knows you tried.”
    Cannan lifted his head off the blue-and-white-striped pillow and tried to rise to a sitting position.
    â€œHere, let me fluff that for you,” Dupoix said.
    The gambler reached behind Cannan, pounded the pillow into shape, then propped it against the brass headboard.
    He helped Cannan sit up and smiled, his teeth very white against his dark skin. “There now. Comfy?”
    Two oil lamps, lit against the darkness outside, cast shadows in the room, especially in the corners where the spinning spiders lived.
    â€œWhat the hell time is it?” Cannan said.
    â€œEarly. It’s just gone six.”
    â€œMorning or night?”
    â€œDawn soon. When a sporting gent like me should already be in bed.”
    â€œBut you postponed slumber to visit me, huh?” Cannan said. “Out of the goodness of your heart.”
    â€œBad enemies are like good friends, Cannan. They’re to be cherished.”
    â€œI’ve got a dozen questions,” Cannan said, ignoring that last.
    He lifted the sheets and saw that he was naked, but for the bandages around his waist and thigh.
    â€œHow I got here will be one of them,” the Ranger said. “But first tell me what happened to the dead man I brought in.”
    â€œYou mean Black John?”
    â€œHow many dead men did I have?”
    â€œOnly him, and he’ll be sorely missed.”
    â€œI promised him I’d bury him decent.”
    â€œThe nice folks of this fair town buried him, with all due pomp and ceremony, I assure you.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œWhy, two weeks ago.”
    Cannan was shocked.
    â€œI’ve been lying in this bed for two weeks?”
    â€œUh-huh, that’s what I said. The doctor told me you were at death’s door.” Dupoix grinned. “It was a mighty uncertain thing. Touch and go, you might say.”
    Cannan waved a hand around the hotel room. “Who did all this?”
    â€œNot me, I assure you. My hypocrisy goes only so far. No, the town fathers put you up here. There are some really nice people in Last Chance.”
    Dupoix, a tall, elegant man who moved like a cougar, thumped a bottle of Old Crow and a couple of glasses onto the table beside Cannan’s bed.
    â€œI did do something for you, though,” he said. “A couple young ladies of my acquaintance took care of you. You were out of it, but you did take nourishment now and again. Chicken gumbo mostly, made to a recipe handed down by my swamp witch grandmother back in Louisiana.”
    Dupoix poured whiskey into the glasses.
    â€œIt’s a bit early, isn’t it?” Cannan said.
    â€œEarly or late. It doesn’t make any difference to a man confined to his bed. Oh, and remind me to tell you about my grandmother sometime. She’s a very interesting woman.”
    â€œHow did you know that I was the Ranger who brought in Black John?” Cannan said.
    â€œFrom the description I got from the men who picked you up off the street. Big man, they said, maybe four inches over six feet with shoulders an axe handle wide and the face of a dyspeptic walrus. Who else fits that description?”
    Cannan accepted a whiskey, then said, “Do you have the makings?”
    â€œNo, I’ve never succumbed to the Texas habit, but I can offer you a cigar.”
    â€œThat will do just fine,” Cannan said.
    â€œI thought it might.”
    After Dupoix lit Cannan’s cheroot, the Ranger said from behind a cloud of blue smoke, “Now tell me why you and I are breathing the same air in a town a hundred miles from anywhere.”
    â€œYou first, Ranger Cannan, since you’re feeling so poorly.”
    â€œI was tracking a feller—”
    â€œDave