SHE USED TO LOVE ME A LOT
 Sung by David Allan Coe

I saw her through the window today
She was sittin’ in the Silver Spoon Café
I started to keep going,
but somethin’ made me stop
She used to love me a lot.

She looked lonely and I knew the cure
Old memories would win her heart for sure.
I thought I’d walk on in there
and give it my best shot
She used to love me a lot.

Sat down beside her and she smiled
Said where have you been, it’s been awhile,
She seemed so glad to see me, Lord,
I could read her thoughts
She used to love me a lot.

She used to love me with a love that wouldn’t die
Lookin’ at her now, I can’t believe I said good by.
It would only take a minute to turn back the clock
She used to love me a lot.

        They’d been riding hard for two days, but now it looked like a sit and wait game.  The Captain had good information that the Dawson brothers would be making a try for the mine payroll.  Chad and Joe had given the payroll a Ranger escort and tucked it away in the Apache Wells bank all safe and sound.  But they had no reason to believe Dawson wouldn’t try for it there, or maybe on the way out to the mine.  The bank seemed secure enough, but they were under instructions from the Captain that at least one of them would be with the payroll at all times until it had been dispersed into the pockets of the miners.

        They flipped a coin.  Joe remembered to check Chad’s coin first for once so Chad cooled his heels at the bank while Joe enjoyed a hot bath and then a hot meal.  By the time Joe relieved him there probably wouldn’t be any hot water in the whole pathetic town.

        Chad tipped a chair against the wall, put his feet up on a desk and idled away the time watching the customers and the bank employees.  Nothing special there.  There was one female clerk, not young enough or female enough to hold Chad’s interest, and a young male assistant manager who looked diligent doing a job that would have made Chad put a gun to his own head after a week.  Sometimes Ranger assignments meant tedious days in the saddle, but the excitement came often enough and it never involved adding up long columns of figures or kissing the ass of a pompous bank manager.  And if Chad put on something as stiff as that starched shirt, it would only be because the far side of the evening promised someone warm and soft with her lips on his.

        Joe came back about the time the bank was being closed up by the manager.  Chad figured it was his turn for at least a hot meal and a warm beer even if he couldn’t scare up a bath.  And then there had to be some kind a decent poker table in this God forsaken place.

        Joe had it different.

        “Don’t like the looks of things over there.  Frank Morris was in a game at the Silver Dollar.  Don’t think he saw me.  He used to run with Ed Dawson back before he spent a few years in prison for the Zapata robbery.  He has some rough lookin' boys with him.  Didn’t recognize any of 'em.”

        Chad knew what was coming.  He wasn’t going to get his bath and he sure wasn’t going to get into a poker game.  Best he could salvage would be a hurried meal.  “You think they’re here with the Dawsons?”

        “Don’t you?”

        Chad nodded reluctantly.  “So that means an all-nighter here in the bank for both of us.”  He sighed, thinking of all that nice cash he would have won with just a little luck and a few hours free of this place where all the cash was off-limits.

        They got the key from the manager so Joe could let Chad back in after he’d had a quick supper.  He ate at the Silver Dollar.  He and Morris had never seen each other but he could pick out the hard group Joe had described.  They were still there when Chad left a half hour later.  They hadn’t said anything within Chad’s hearing to connect them to Dawson, but they seemed like men on edge, waiting for something.

        Joe let him back in the bank in response to his quiet knock on the back door.  And now there was nothing but to wait.  They could check their rifles and revolvers just so many times.  They couldn’t keep a light burning, so no cards.  He supposed they could have made a show of guarding the bank and scared the men off.  After all there were only four plus the Dawsons far as they knew.  Six against two Texas Rangers was pretty risky odds for men trying to steal just $20,000.  But if the Dawson boys were scared away from the bank, they’d just try somewhere else and he and Joe would be stuck following that damn money around and maybe end up protecting it in a place where they’d have less advantage than here.  So best get it over with here.

        But they’d figured at least to be alerted when the men broke the door in.  That was part of their advantage.  But it didn’t happen that way.  Chad was  half dozing when Joe touched his shoulder in the way he did when he didn’t want Chad to make any noise.

        Chad listened for what Joe must have heard.  The back door was opening.  Damn.  They’d had a key.  But at least he and Joe had the advantage of surprise thanks to Joe’s good hearing.

        By the time the dust had cleared, Chad was just glad he and Joe had managed not to shoot each other.   They had three customers for the undertaker and two for what passed for a jail in Apache Wells.  Frank Morris and two of his boys would be going under the ground.  Bob Dawson and the fifth man were headed for the lock-up.  They’d never seen a sixth man and Bill Dawson was unaccounted for.  He could have stayed clear and taken off when the shooting started.  But he had a reputation as a planner.  Maybe he never put himself in harm’s way at all.

        The first order of business was to find out where Dawson had gotten the key.  The back door to the bank had been stoutly locked with a fine mechanism imported from New York and fitted in a sturdy door.  They had the manager’s key and he’d been quick to tell them to be careful with it because there were only two.

        They found out soon enough that the other key had been in the possession of the assistant manager, the young man Chad had decidedly not envied.  The man, Kirk Bradshaw, lived in just the kind of tidy, little house at the edge of town that Chad would have expected for a man who spent his time adding numbers.  But he was not in that house even at 5 a.m.  There were no signs of foul play but no indication of where he might have gone voluntarily either.  Chad and Joe figured the young man was likely to have been bought off by Dawson.  When the plan went bad, he’d taken off.  Maybe with Dawson, maybe not.

        Chad and Joe caught a few hours sleep at the jail.  Chad finally got his bath and now he and Joe were headed for a decent meal while the local law, such as they were, watched the jail.  The payroll was almost certainly safe now, but they’d still have to follow it out to the mine.  Order were orders.  So a good meal was needed to see them through what was bound to be a long, dreary day.  Not that there was much in the way of top of the line eateries around here.  One café and two saloons were about it.

        They decided to take a little walk and choose according to what smelled edible enough to pass for both breakfast and lunch.   The Silver Spoon Café didn’t look like a place where they could get a beer with their meal so they were about to pass it by when Chad saw a girl in the window.  A pretty girl.  And as he got to the corner of the building, he finally realized, a familiar girl, an achingly familiar girl.

        Chad spun on his heel and started to walk back to the entrance of the café.   Joe tried to stop him.  He’d seen the girl too.  “Chad, we’ve got no time for that now.  The payroll wagon will be rolling out of here in an hour or so.”

        Chad wouldn’t be put off.  “But Joe, we’ll be coming back too late to be heading to Austin with the prisoners.  We’ll have a whole night to kill.  Might as well make it a pleasant one.”

        “Chad that’s no dancehall girl.  You don’t have time to be sweet-talkin' no nice girl into making your night interestin’.”

        “That’s just it Joe.  If that’s the girl I think it is, I wouldn’t have to start from scratch.  She was crazy about me back in New Orleans.  I’ll just have to start talking old times and I’ll have her in the palm of my hand.  You just go on to the saloon.  I guess I can eat one meal without a beer.  That café is looking mighty inviting.”

        Joe shook his head.  “Then maybe I should go with you.  Just to learn your methods I mean.  And to make sure you’re ready to go in an hour.”

        “Sorry Joe, this is a one-Ranger assignment.  I’ll introduce you tonight.”

        So Joe went on to the saloon and Chad made his way into the café.  He took a good look at the girl at the window.   Virginia Harrison.  Pretty, sweet lively Virginia.  It was her.  And she’d only gotten prettier in the four years since he’d last held her in his arms.

        He slid into the chair beside her.  She’d been gazing out the window, just fiddling with her food.  She looked like she needed some company.  She started to protest as he sat down but as soon as he said her name, using his best New Orleans accent, she recognized him.

        “Chad, Chad Cooper.  It’s been so long.”  For a minute she just looked at him. which was okay with him because it gave him the excuse to examine her more closely.  Her hair was still a lustrous chestnut with gold highlights.  Her brown eyes had the same flecks of gold.  He remembered how she felt in his arms with her head at just the right height to rest against his shoulder.

        Finally she spoke again.  “What are you doing in Apache Wells?”

        “My partner and I were guarding the mine payroll.  We just stopped the Dawson boys from taking it out of the bank at four this morning.”

        “You’re a lawman?”

        Chad didn’t quite appreciate the incredulous tone of her voice.

        “With the Texas Rangers, the most feared law officers in Texas or any state for that matter.”

        She shook her head.  “Who would have thought?  When you said you were leaving New Orleans for some adventure, I assumed you’d end up being the target of some lawman’s bullet.  Or maybe that’s just what I wished at the time.”

        Chad had the sense to let his eyes go downcast for a moment as though in shame at the bad behavior of a feckless youth.  But with such a lovely sight before him, he wasn’t about to keep his eyes downcast long.  If she’d wished something so bad for him for leaving, she must have loved him a lot.  Her feelings couldn’t have changed that much.

        “But what are you doing here?”

        “Visiting.”

        “You have relatives here?”

        She hesitated a minute.  “My brother.”

        “Since when do you have a brother?  I seem to remember a house full of girls?”

        “Of course, that’s what you remember.  If I’d had a brother then you would never have noticed.  You were always too busy flirting with my sisters.”

        “Not all of them,” he protested.  Chad remembered what a fine household that was.  Five girls, Virginia second to oldest.

        “Only because the two youngest were fourteen and twelve.”

        Chad tried to look ashamed again but then figured why waste the effort.  And he bet that fourteen-year-old was a good looking eighteen by now.  He wondered if he’d brought any of her sisters with her.  But he hesitated to ask.

        “So what’s this about a brother?” he asked instead.

        “My daddy died about six months after you took off on your adventure.  A year ago my mother remarried.  My stepdaddy has a son two years older than me.  He came west three months ago to work in the bank in this town.  It’s owned by an old friend of his father.  As a matter of fact you can meet him.  He’s overdue now to have breakfast with me.”

        Chad suddenly had a bad thought.  “Your stepbrother’s name isn’t Kirk Bradshaw is it?”

        “Yes, that’s him.”  Then a look of terror crossed her face.  “He wasn’t hurt when you stopped that bank robbery last night?  He had no reason to be there.”

        “No, but it was his key used by Dawson to open the door of the bank.”

        “Where is he Chad?  Did Dawson hurt him?”

        “We don’t know where he is.  He’s not at his house.   And one of the Dawsons is missing too.”

        She was up and on the move.  Chad tried to get her to set long enough that he could get something to eat but she would have none of it.  She was  headed to Bradshaw’s house.  So Chad had to satisfy himself with grabbing a chunk of bread and wrapping it around the bacon, sausage and fried egg she’d left untouched on her plate.  Didn’t even get a cup of coffee, never mind the beer he’d passed up to stop here.

        He caught up with her on the walkway.  Between bites of his hastily improvised sandwich, he tried to get some information out of her.  “Didn’t see any signs of a woman at Bradshaw’s house.”

        “I’m at the hotel.  Wouldn’t be proper for me to stay with Kirk.”

        “Why not?  If he’s your brother.”

        “Well, he’s only been my brother for a year and only by marriage.  Kirk is a man with a great sense of propriety.”

        Chad was thinking he was glad never to have been cursed himself  with that kind of sense.

        “So when was the last time you saw him?”

        “I cooked him dinner last night.  He walked me back to the hotel afterwards.  And we were supposed to meet here at the café at ten this morning for breakfast.”

        Chad looked at the layout of the street.  The café was located next to the hotel for the convenience of the guests for whom saloon dining wouldn’t be appropriate.  But Bradshaw’s path between the hotel and his little house would have taken him right past the saloon where Morris and his men had been playing poker.  Chad was thinking things were looking bad for Bradshaw.  Seems as likely they’d find his body as find him on the run.  What use would he be to Dawson now for Dawson to keep him alive?   He figured sweet Virginia was going to need a heap of comforting before this day was finished.

        When they got to Bradshaw’s house Virginia didn’t see anything Chad and Joe hadn’t already seen.  She was looking for a note, something to indicate he’d left voluntarily, something for reassurance.

        “I know he wouldn’t have gone away without leaving me some kind of word.  He wanted nothing to do with the Dawsons.”

        Chad caught that.  “You’re saying he knew them?”

        Virginia put her hand on Chad’s arm and looked into his eyes with a pleading expression.  “Chad, you have to promise you’ll find him.  And you won’t let him get hurt.”

        Chad could tell she needed the comfort of his arms around her so he obliged.  And as they stood there with her head resting on that familiar place against his shoulder, he asked her again about the Dawsons.

        “The Dawsons are his cousins, the sons of his father’s older sister.  But they don’t have much to do with the rest of the family.  He never talked about them except to say he wanted nothing to do with them.  But I’m afraid they found out he was working at this bank.  He was troubled by it, but he didn’t tell me too much.  I thought he’d just brushed them off and everything was okay.”

        “Maybe they offered him more money than he could refuse and  . . . .”

        She pulled away from him and started to respond angrily.  Then she softened and was back in his arms.  Chad started to wonder how he’d ever managed to leave a girl as fine as this.  She’d loved him so much and he’d left her to follow a restless spirit out to the wilds of Texas.

        And then she spoke more gentle as she kept her body snug against his.  “Chad you have to find him.  Please, for me.  He’s family and I know him.  If he was involved in this, it wasn’t of his own accord.”

        And then she was holding up her face to be kissed and Chad could do nothing but meet her unspoken request.  Her kiss was as sweet as it ever had been.  And it was clear she still had those old feelings for him despite the way he’d deserted her.   Those old memories were working on her for sure.  But now his nice evening might be delayed by the need to resolve this thing with her damn brother.  He wondered which would disrupt her loving mood less, finding his body or finding he’d been bought off and was on the scout from the law.

        Chad let the kiss go on as long as she seemed eager for it.  But finally her worry for her brother brought her back to her troubles.  So he had to promise as soon as he and Joe had delivered the payroll, they’d go full time looking for Bradshaw.  He guessed then the combination of old memories and gratitude would make it all worthwhile for him.  And he supposed tracking down Bill Dawson was part of their job here anyway.

        Turned out all their jobs sort of converged.

        Chad and Joe saddled up to accompany the supply wagon driven by an employee of the mining company with another riding shotgun.  They were taking the payroll in with the supplies.  It was only a three hour wagon ride and with just Bill Dawson and the soft banker boy unaccounted for there wasn’t any likelihood of trouble from that front.  But any time they were protecting that much money it paid to be watchful.

        Chad rode ahead to make sure their path was unobstructed while Joe stayed with the supply wagon.  And damned if that little extra caution didn’t pay off.  Someone had cut a tree to fall across the trail on the other side of a blind curve.  At least that’s what it looked like.  Chad turned tail as soon as he saw it.  He saw no need to draw fire from whoever was manning the ambush or give them warning.  He’d feel mighty foolish if it turned out the tree had fallen on its own.  But he’d feel mighty dead if he got off to examine it too close right out there where the men who cut it could get an easy shot.

        He didn’t know for sure he hadn’t been seen.  They’d been listening for a wagon and he’d been relatively quiet but still a man on horseback made some noise.

        The wagon was a half mile behind him and they decided to pull it under cover and leave the two armed mining company employees guarding it.  Chad and Joe went cross country to come up behind whoever had set the ambush.  They stopped when got to where they figured a straight walk on foot would take them to a good position.

        As they tied up their horses, Joe fixed his dark eyes on Chad in a skeptical stare.  “You think just maybe you could walk quiet enough to keep from warnin' 'em we’re coming?  Or should we just put bells on you and use you for a distraction?”

        Chad glared back.  “One damn stick.  I tripped on one damn stick, one damn time.  So I wasn’t raised by Indians like you.  You ever gonna let me forget it?”

        “No, 'cause you almost got me shot that time.  If I keep remindin' you, maybe you’ll remember to be careful.”

        What Chad resented most was that Joe was right.  Joe had a natural way of walking quiet despite topping Chad’s six feet in height by two inches and outweighing him by about twenty-five pounds of pure muscle.  If Chad was going to walk quiet, he had to be conscious of every step.

        So they headed over on foot to ambush the ambushers.  And Chad managed to walk in relative silence.  They spotted them soon enough but they only saw two.  A man with a rifle was watching the road and another with a shotgun was not watching much of anything.  Chad recognized the second man as Kirk Bradshaw.

        Chad and Joe had been working together close for long enough that perfunctory signals were all they needed to communicate so Chad got no complaints for talking.  He signaled Joe to get the man with the rifle while he’d take the other.  Joe understood and most likely knew why.  Chad wanted to keep Bradshaw alive for Virginia’s sake.  But Joe did give Chad a hard stare that most certainly meant, don’t put my life in danger, or your own either,  just to impress an old girlfriend.

        They eased up close as they could to the two men, Chad making a special effort to watch his feet.  They were about to say something to give the two men the chance to throw down their firearms before being shot, when Chad caught his toe in a mouse hole and broke a tree branch in catching himself from falling.  The man with the rifle swung it in Chad’s direction and fired.  Chad felt the sting of the bullet as it creased his thigh about the same time the other man must have felt the sting of the bullet as it creased his heart.  Joe was a better shot than most, lucky for Chad.

        And lucky for Bradshaw and for Chad’s plans for the lovely Virginia, Bradshaw threw down his shotgun before the other man hit the ground.  Nothing would kill a romantic evening faster than a girl grieving over a dead relative.

        Chad stayed put, covering Joe as he went in, just in case there was anyone else keeping watch.  He let the blood trickle down his leg from the bullet crease.  It wasn’t serious and maybe Joe wouldn’t give him such a bad time about making noise if there was enough fresh blood staining his pant leg.  The blood would clean out the wound anyway.  And just maybe Virginia would want to bandage it for him.

        He walked a circular route and found two horses tied east of where the two men had been watching the road.  Not likely they’d brought a third man riding double, so he led the two horses back to where Joe was waiting with Bradshaw.

        It looked like Joe had been having quite a conversation with the young banker.  When Chad got close, Joe tossed him the shotgun.  “Unloaded when I picked it up.”

        “He was planning to rob us with an unloaded shotgun?”  Chad said with derision.   “He really wasn’t cut out for life on the wrong side of the law if he can’t remember to carry a full load.”  Then to Bradshaw.  “You should have stuck to counting other people’s money.  Prison isn’t going to go too good for a starched shirt type like you.”

        Bradshaw didn’t answer, he just looked at Joe as though Joe was going to stick up for him.  And to Chad’s amazement, that’s just what Joe did.

        “Says Dawson threatened to have one of his men harm Virginia if he didn’t hand over the key.  Bill Dawson was holed up at Bradshaw’s house when the others came in the bank.  He knew we’d figure out the source of the key soon enough, so he dragged Bradshaw off with him.  He didn’t know who’d make it out of that bank alive and wasn’t taking any chances.  He figured he’d need Bradshaw as makeweight if he took on the supply wagon with the payroll out here someplace.  Figured we’d be long gone once we thought his gang wouldn’t be a threat.  Thought that he could pick off the mine employees at the road block and that Bradshaw standing around looking armed would be a help.”

        Chad considered.  “You believe him?”

        “Sounds reasonable to me.  We might get somethin' out of Bob Dawson about it.”  Then Joe added slyly,  “Bet Virginia believes 'im.”

        “Okay, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until we see what we can squeeze out of Bob Dawson.”  Chad turned to Bradsaw, “but the benefit of the doubt means we don’t shoot you.  We’ll be cuffing you to the wagon until we get that payroll delivered.”

        Chad actually hoped the doubt would fall in Bradshaw’s favor.  Nothing would make sweet Virginia more willing in his arms than her thinking he had a part not only in keeping her brother from being killed but keeping him out of prison too.  She was going to meet him at the café at seven.  News like that would certainly warm her up considerable and he could tell from the way she’d already reacted to him, those old memories were working in his favor anyway.  This would put him over the top easy.

        Without the supply wagon holding them back, the ride from the mining camp back to town didn’t take much over two hours.  But clearing Dawson and then the tree from blocking their way had eaten up some time.  It was getting on seven before they made it back.  Seeing the eager look on Chad’s face, Joe took pity on him and waved him off to meet Virginia while he cleared up the loose ends.

I reminded her how good it was back then
I said, you know it’s not too late to start again
We could spend the night together,
Take up where we left off
She used to love me a lot.

        He started off by reassuring her that it looked like Bradshaw would be in the clear, thanks to him and Joe.  He didn’t want worry about her brother detracting from her concentration on him.   They were interrupted by a motherly woman who took their supper order.  Then he told her how he and Joe had captured Dawson and saved Bradshaw, with Chad taking a bullet in the attempt to make sure her brother was returned to her family safe and sound.

        “You know Virginia, I had some time to think while I was trying to keep my mind off the pain of them digging the bullet out of my leg.”  Chad tried to look like someone manfully keeping a grimace off his face.

        “I guess I was pretty hasty when I left New Orleans.  I was too young and full of wanderlust to realize what a fine woman I was leaving behind.  Maybe we could spend some time together tonight and see if this might be the time to take up where we left off.  We were really something together.  It could be like that again.”

        The look in her eyes told him he’d gotten through to her.  She was looking at him, her eyes shining with sweet memories of their past.  That is, that’s what he thought until he realized she was looking over his shoulder and out the café window.  Chad twisted in his seat and saw Joe coming across the street with Bradshaw.

        Virginia got out of her seat and gave Chad a little peck on the cheek.  “Chad, I’ll always be grateful for what you did for Kirk.  And I’m flattered that maybe you think we could have something between us again even now when you’re a big time Texas Ranger.  But what I need from a man, you just don’t have in you.”

        Then she turned and walked out the door.  He thought he heard her say as she turned away from him, “But I used to love you a lot.”

I panicked as she turned to walk away
As she went out the door, I heard her say
Yes, I’m in need of somethin’,
but it’s somethin’ you ain’t got
But I used to love you a lot.

        Chad was highly incensed with this display.  “That’s disgusting.  She told me Bradshaw was a man she only had sisterly feelings for.”

        Joe snorted in what was half laugh, half friendly contempt.  “Chad you sure are one for hearin' only what you wanta. That girl’s mother married his father only a year ago.  Kirk and Virginia have been engaged longer than that but until he got himself a good job, he didn’t feel right marryin' her.  That’s what she’s here for.”

        Chad knew that couldn’t be true.  “Joe, the way she kissed me, there’s no way her new feelings for him outweighed her old feelings for me.”

        Joe kept his reaction to a smile this time.  “Chad for a man who thinks he knows so much about women, you’d think you’d know when a woman was playin' you.  She wanted to make sure you’d do everythin' you could to protect him.  It worked didn’t it?”

        Chad looked at Joe with suspicion.  “How come you know all this?”

        “Bradshaw told me.”

        “When Joe?  When did you know?”

        “He told me some of it while you were crashin' around  in the woods lookin' for their horses.  Told me the rest just now.”

        “So how come no one told me?  You were just setting me up.”  Chad was getting hot.

        “Chad boy, you make it so easy.  And so much fun.”  Joe looked over Chad’s shoulder to where the woman who had taken Chad’s order was bringing two plates of food to the table.  He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.  “So Chad, what did you order me for supper?”

She used to love me with a love that wouldn’t die.
Lookin’ at her now, I can’t believe she said good by
It would only take a minute to turn back that old clock
She used to love me a lot.

The End