The Pump at Tallow Creek

The pie cart tipped over as the cowboy rode into Tallow Creek, and a peach pie landed upside down in the dust.

The cowboy came after it at a walk. His coat hung open. Something yellow and wet shone in his beard, and every few steps his shoulders jerked with a cough that seemed to hurt him clear down to the saddle. The horse beneath him kept its head low, picking its way through the street with the weary patience of an animal that had seen too much of its owner.

People ran. A woman dropped a basket of eggs. The station keeper dragged a boy off the hitching rail by his collar.

The Man With No Phlegm swung down from Bulbous Bob.

“Are we stopping?” Bob asked. “I had planned to enjoy the pie.”

“Keep back from him.” The Man pulled his bandanna over his mouth. “And keep the crowd away from the pump.”

The cowboy was headed straight for it.

He leaned over the saddle horn, wheezing. One hand clutched his ribs. The other reached toward the pump handle as if the whole town had vanished except for that one useful piece of iron.

The station keeper, a narrow woman in a flour-dusted apron, waved people toward the buildings. “Inside. All of you. Get inside!”

A man with a shotgun stepped out from the general store. He aimed at the cowboy’s chest.

“Don’t shoot,” the Man called. “He’s already falling.”

That was true. The cowboy’s horse stumbled, and its rider slid sideways. The Man saw the torn skin at the cowboy’s temple, the crust of something dark beneath his nose. He saw the open pump, the bucket beneath it, and the crowd packed behind him with nowhere good to go.

Bob sidestepped. “You have a plan?”

“I’m working on it.”

“An ambitious way to start.”

The Man grabbed a coil of awning rope from the hitching post. He had barely got it free when the cowboy lurched upright again. His boot struck the horse’s flank. The animal jumped, and the rider lurched toward the pump.

The Man threw the rope around a support post and ran the slack across the street. He meant to catch the cowboy at the waist. He caught the saddle instead. The line snapped tight, and the horse stopped with a startled grunt. The cowboy pitched forward over its neck and struck the ground hard enough to knock the breath from him.

The crowd surged backward. Someone screamed. The shotgun barrel followed the fallen man.

“Hold your fire,” the Man said.

The cowboy dragged in a breath. His hand scraped at the dirt, reaching for the pump.