Boswell's Luck by G. Clifton Wisler

in his early twenties appeared, accompanied by two boys in their late teens. One tossed a loop over Rat’s shoulders, and the others quickly saw to it the painter was bound securely. Then they started on him.
    â€œPapa, no!” Amanda pleaded. “He didn’t do anything. I just spoke with him a few times. That’s all.”
    The doctor urged his sons on. Boots followed fists, and Rat dropped to his knees, a shuddering bundle of bruises and pain.
    â€œLowlife!” they called him. “Gutter trash!”
    â€œNow listen to me!” the doctor said, grabbing Rat by his forelock and lifting his head. “What do you have to say for yourself now?”
    â€œNothin’,” Rat said through a mouthful of blood. “I done nothin’.”
    â€œShall I give you back to the boys?”
    â€œDo what you want,” Rat growled. “I done you no harm. If you want to beat me, go ahead. I been beat worse’n you could manage.”
    â€œDon’t be so sure about that,” one of the brothers cried.
    Rat only laughed and waited for another blow. He was tired, his ribs ached, and he didn’t care anymore. He thought back to that outlaw boy shot on the Cimarron and wondered who’d been the lucky one that day.
    â€œI don’t ever want to see your face in Wood City again,” the doctor declared, glaring at Rat’s swollen face. “Understand?”
    â€œUnderstand?” Rat asked. “Not a bit o’ it. You hire me to do a job o’ work, and ’cause yer daughter brings me a dipper o’ water or looks at the sun go down, you figure you got the right to beat me silly. Nobody’s got that right!”
    â€œListen to me, trash,” the doctor roared. “I might hire a Negro or a Mexican to paint my house, but I wouldn’t have either one of them to Sunday supper. Nor tolerate them touching my daughter!”
    â€œGit!” the oldest brother yelled as he pried the ropes from Rat’s battered chest. “Don’t ever come back, either.”
    â€œI’m due wages,” Rat complained as he struggled to his feet. One side was turning deep purple, and he thought it likely a rib or two was busted.
    â€œYou’re due a hangman’s noose if I see you here in one hour,” the doctor vowed. “Get his horse, Benjamin. Tie him on if you have to, but get him from my sight.”
    â€œSure, Pa,” the youngest boy agreed.
    â€œI’ll get my own horse,” Rat muttered, grabbing a tin of paint and hurling it at the doctor. “The Lord knows yer work this night. I hope to hell he calls you to ’counts.”
    With that spoken, Rat stumbled to where his horse was tied. He slipped a shirt onto his back and pulled himself into the saddle. He was half of a mind to dig the old Colt Bob Tripp had given him at the Cimarron from the saddlebag and avenge himself on that doctor. But that would only get him hung, and Rat Hadley wasn’t ready to die just yet. No, there were things he hadn’t done.
    He slapped the horse into motion, and the mustang carried him from Wood City and along the Colorado two or three miles. He didn’t recall how exactly because his eyes were closed most of that time, and pain enveloped memory. He came to in a narrow barred cell in the jail house of a town called Rosstown. A frowning sheriff met his awakening gaze.
    â€œJust who exactly would you be?” the lawman asked. “You must’ve done somethin’ fine to take such a beatin’. Well?”
    Rat stared at his bandaged ribs and tried to manage a reply. Finally he related his tale of the Wood City doctor and of the hard times since leaving Kansas.
    â€œYeah, the cattle market’s gone south for certain,” the sheriff agreed. “Didn’t figure you was any desperado. No poster with your likeness, and who goes look in’ for trouble with an empty pistol in his saddlebag.”
    â€œNever did