Ryan Rides Back

by Bill Crider

  Congrady looked absently around the room, as if he didn't want to meet Ryan's eyes. "I . . . guess most people already knew."

  Ryan shifted in the chair, trying to get into a comfortable position. He couldn't. "They knew why he was there?"

  "Yes. They knew."

  "Nobody's told me," Ryan said.

  "Did you ask the sheriff?"

  "No."

  "He could tell you." Congrady was plainly uncomfortable.

  "You're the one I'm asking."

  "Why me?" Congrady's tone was aggrieved.

  "Because I know you. Or I knew you. You were courting Sally. You should have known her better than anyone.”

  “Maybe I did," Congrady said. "But it's not something I like to talk about."

  "What's not?"

  "Her and Billy Kane."

  Ryan felt a little stirring inside him. It wasn't interest, exactly, but it was as close to interest as he'd felt in a long time. "Her and Billy Kane? What about them?"

  "Everybody in town knew," Congrady said. "Billy . . . well, Billy took a liking to her. He felt bad about the way she'd been treated by his brother. And by her brother," he added, looking sharply at Ryan.

  Ryan did not respond. He sat stiffly in the chair, his eyes on Congrady's face.

  "Anyway," Congrady went on, "Billy took to visiting Sally whenever he could. He tried to keep it a secret, but of course I knew. Sally told me. Eventually the whole town knew."

  "How?"

  "Well, they kept seeing him heading out that way. There was only one reason to be heading out to that shack, and that was to see Sally Ryan. People talked about it."

  Ryan could believe that. Tularosa was like any other town. "Did his brother know?" he said.

  Congrady shook his head. "I don't think so. Who was going to tell him? Billy? Not likely. And you might not know it, but Kane doesn't have a whole lot of friends in this town."

  "If Billy felt sorry for her, why did he kill her?"

  "Ask him," Congrady said. "He's the one that would know."

  "He says he didn't do it."

  "You didn't expect him to admit it, did you?"

  "You're the one who said to ask him," Ryan reminded him. "Was there anybody else who might want to kill Sally?"

  "No. She was a wonderful girl, no matter what—" Congrady stopped and let his eyes travel around the room again.

  "I think you better finish saying whatever it was you had on your mind," Ryan said.

  "It's just Kane," Congrady said. "It didn't mean anything. He tried to start stories around town about Sally, about how she was nothing but a . . . a prostitute."

  The stirring in Ryan was a little stronger now. He sat forward in the chair. "Kane said that?"

  "Not Kane. You know that he'd never do something like that himself. But he got people to do it. Long. Barson. You know."

  Ryan knew, all right. "He was trying to influence the jury, I expect."

  "It didn't work, though," Congrady said. "People knew where the stories were coming from."

  "You still haven't told me why Billy killed her."

  "How should I know? Maybe it was because she wasn't what the stories said she was. She was going to marry me. She didn't have time for Billy Kane."

  Ryan had never been overly fond of Congrady, even before Sally's death, but Sally had thought of him as a strong man, one who knew what he wanted to accomplish in life and one who would make a good family man. Now Ryan wondered just how much help Congrady had been to Sally in the last few years, especially in the days when she was having to deal with Kane. Had he been any help at all?

  It wasn't a question he was ready to explore. "So the feeling is that Billy Kane went out to the shack and killed Sally out of jealousy, or something like that?"

  Congrady nodded agreement. "Something like that," he repeated.

  "And nobody else had any reason to be there before Billy?"

  "Who would want to? There was nothing there to steal. She didn't have anything left, thanks to—" Congrady cut himself off. "Anyway, she didn't have anything out there worth stealing, and unless those rumors Kane started are true she didn't have a lot of visitors." Congrady's mouth twisted as he spoke the final sentence.

  Ryan didn't let it bother him. He had known Sally too well to worry about such stories. It was just one more little item to add to Kane's list. Ryan wished that it bothered him more than it did. The old Ryan, the one that had existed before that night in Shatter's Grove, would already have ridden out to Kane's place and called him out, settled everything once and for all.

  The new Ryan wasn't like that. Maybe he had lost more than he thought that night and the days and months afterward.

  Or maybe it was something else. Maybe he had learned that life was too important to be given over to rushing into things. Maybe he had learned the value of patience.

  He wasn't sure, and it wasn't something he wanted to talk over with Congrady. He didn't feel that he owed Congrady explanations of any kind, not for the way he felt now, or for the way he had left Sally.

  Ryan got slowly out of the chair. It was the only way he could get out of a chair these days. "I guess you can't tell me any more, then."

  Congrady stood up. "No. Billy did it, even if we don't know why. If he says different, then he's a liar. What else would you expect from a Kane?"

  As Ryan walked back down the stairs, he thought about what Congrady had told him, which really didn't amount to much.

  He wondered how Congrady had felt about those rumors, and he wondered just how far Congrady might go if he believed Billy Kane was making any headway with Sally.

  What if Sally and Billy Kane had begun to develop some kind of relationship that threatened Pat Congrady? Sally had always been the kind of girl who liked to adopt stray dogs, of which there were always plenty in Tularosa. There had been a time, Ryan remembered, when there had been at least five of them living around the house.

  Maybe Billy Kane was another stray that Sally had picked up. It wasn't in her to hold his brother's meanness against him.

  And how would Pat Congrady have liked that?

  Chapter 7

  That night Ryan dreamed about the eagle.

  He had dreamed of the eagle the first time after discovering that he couldn't move his legs, and at first the dream was always the same.

  Ryan would be riding through desert country, and the dust would be heavy on his duster. He would have a three-day growth of beard, and his face would be caked with dust and the salt from his sweat. He would ride and ride, skirting cacti and stones, stopping once to fire his pistol at a rattler beside the trail.

  Then through a haze of shimmering heat waves he would see the trading post in the distance. He always resisted the urge to spur up his horse, since he knew that the horse didn't have much more to give. They both needed water and food, but water most of all.

  The trading post was almost falling down when he got there. The logs and wood were rotten and seemed to lean crazily one way or the other. The hitching rail crumbled in his hands when he tried to tie the horse's reins to it.

  When he went inside, there was no one there. He called out, and his voice was hollow in the echoing room. There were cans on the shelves, but they were dusty, as if no one had handled them for years. Dust sifted down on his hat from the ceiling.

  He knew there would be a well out back, however. There had to be, or there would be no trading post there in the first place. When he turned to go outside and look for it, he saw the eagle.

  It was in a wooden cage about four feet long, three feet wide, and not much taller than the eagle itself. The bird would walk the length of the cage, turn, and walk back the other way.

  Turn again.

  Walk back.

  Turn.

  Walk.

  The eagle's feathers on each side were worn away from brushing the sides of the cage in its walking and turning.

  Ryan was a man who could stand his own pain, but he was sensitive to the pain of others, and to s
ee an eagle caged like that, its restless spirit confined to the walking and turning, almost made Ryan ill.

  He called out again, and again there was no answer.

  He walked over to the cage. There was a door on one end, hinged with leather and tied shut with a buckskin thong.

  Ryan picked up the cage and carried it outside. The sun had retreated behind a cloud, and a northerly wind was kicking up the dust.

  He set the cage on the ground and untied the thong, then pulled open the door.

  The eagle paced toward the opening. When it reached it, it didn't even pause.

  It turned.

  And walked back the other way.

  When it reached the other end of the cage, it turned once more, walked the exact number of paces that it always walked, came to the open door, and turned.

  Walked back.

  Turned.

  Ryan woke up soaked in sweat, and the next day he tried to tell the old man about the dream. The Indian listened, and he seemed to understand at least part of it, the part about the eagle, but Ryan wasn't sure if the part about the cage was clear. The whole thing seemed to excite the old man quite a bit, but Ryan wasn't ever able to figure out exactly why.

  The dream was different now. It was longer. Ryan could remember just when it had changed. It was after the old man had made him walk again.

  It had taken a long time—months, Ryan thought, but he was never quite sure. It could have been weeks, or it could have been a year.

  The old man had worked on Ryan's legs and back every day after Ryan made him understand that he couldn't walk. He had turned Ryan over and massaged his spine. He had exercised Ryan's legs every day, manipulating them up and down in walking motions. Finally the feeling had returned to them, and the old man had made some kind of brace for Ryan's back.

  It was made mostly of leather, which had come from God knows where. Ryan never found out. It reminded Ryan of nothing so much as a corset of the kind he had seen drawn in a catalogue once, but he put it on, and the Indian laced it up.

  Then the curandero bent down and put Ryan's right arm over his shoulder and stood up. Ryan thought of himself as a big man, and he would have thought it would have been impossible for a frail figure like the Indian to move him at all. Nevertheless, he came up easily and stood on his feet for the first time in so long that he couldn't remember.

  The old man spoke to him, urging him to take a step, or so Ryan supposed.

  He tried it, and his knees buckled.

  The old man held him up. Either Ryan had lost more weight than he knew, or the old man was very strong.

  Ryan tried again. This time he made it without folding. He was still in pain, but at least he knew that he would be able to walk. The old man worked with him every day after that.

  His arm, the left one, had healed as well. It would never be much use to him; he could tell that by looking. The elbow looked like two elbows now, and neither one seemed to be in the right place. It looked as if two knobs were attached to his arm under the skin. He could raise his arm, but only very slowly and with great difficulty and pain. Somehow he knew that it would never get much better.

  The fingers of his left hand were virtually frozen in place. He could embrace things with it, but it was almost impossible for him to grip them. The hand seemed to be cold all the time.

  He still dreamed the dream, but now the eagle left the cage. After turning from the exit three times, the bird paused and looked out, as if noticing for the first time that the wooden bars were gone. Then it stuck its head out and looked from side to side. With another step, its body followed along, and the bird was out.

  And there it sat, never moving, as the dusty wind ruffled its feathers and as Ryan stood there and yelled at it, flapping his right arm at his side, trying to make it fly.

  But it never did, and Ryan still woke up sweating.

  The next day, Ryan went back into town. He passed by the pile of tin cans on that side of town and wondered how Tularosa or any Western town would look in twenty years. They would be able to build the houses out of tin cans.

  He rode past the jail and the gallows. It was sturdy and solid looking, with a lot of new wood mixed in with some old boards that had been scavenged from some place or another. It would do the job, but Ryan just couldn't believe Kane would let the hanging take place, especially not with Billy protesting his innocence. Ryan was surprised Kane hadn't tried to break him out already.

  Ryan looked down the street in front of him. It was still early, but the town was awake and busy. There were a lot of wagons, a lot of women and children around. Ryan was sure that most of them were from out of town, having come in early for the hanging. There would be a real crowd by the next day, and a festive atmosphere. Picnic lunches, laughing, joking, just like a big party.

  A necktie party, they would call it, a good time for everyone, if Kane didn't spoil it. Ryan thought he would try.

  He felt that flicker in him again, something like interest, but it wasn't any stronger than it had been the night before.

  Billy Kane wasn't really on his mind this morning. He had decided to eat breakfast in town, to see if the food had changed any at Wilson's. Maybe to see what else had changed.

  The cafe was crowded, and there was lots of talk. The crowd was mostly men; men in bib overalls, jeans, and boots. Cowboys and a few farmers, though the land around Tularosa didn't lend itself much to farming. The talk was mostly about the hanging.

  Ryan overheard some of it.

  ". . . damned Kanes deserve what they get . . .”

  “. . . hangin's too good if you ask . . ."

  “. . . never would of happened if . . ."

  The talk shut down when the men looked up and saw Ryan standing in the doorway. To most of them he was a stranger, and the scar on his face, the way he stood, the way he held his arm, would have rendered him unfamiliar to most of the others.

  Still, one or two of them knew him and recognized him. They leaned over and spoke to their neighbors in whispers, and the general buzz of talk began again.

  None of it bothered Ryan. He had long ago ceased to care very much about the opinions of others. He looked around for a table that was vacant. There was only one, and he took it. Somehow he didn't think anyone would be joining him.

  He sat and looked around the room for Virginia Burley. She generally waited on the tables herself now, and collected for the meals. There had been a time, Ryan recalled, when she had done most of the cooking, too, but she had finally been able to hire someone for that job.

  The interest that had turned to Ryan when he entered had all subsided. Those who knew who he was had told others, and the news had been passed around to others, but no one was going to say too much about it. Not with Ryan in the room. After he left, it would be different, but people still recalled the way he had been, the way he could use a gun and the way he wasn't afraid of any man. He might look changed, but you couldn't always tell what a man was by the way he looked. So the talk turned back to the hanging and to other things.

  Virginia Burley came through the door from the kitchen. She was carrying a thick white plate full of eggs and bacon and grits in one hand and an equally thick mug of steaming coffee in the other.

  Her dark hair was pinned up, but a few strands of it were straggling loose at the back and hung down her neck. Her white skin was flushed from the heat of the kitchen.

  When she saw Ryan, the flush deepened. She had not known how she would respond if he showed up, and now there he was, sitting calmly at a table and watching her. She was suddenly conscious of her every movement, and the plate and mug felt as if they weighed ten pounds each.

  She managed to deliver them to the proper table, setting them down carefully and spilling only a drop or two of the coffee. The hot drops hit her hand, but she didn't notice.

  She collected her thoughts and walked over to the table where Ryan sat. There was a lull in the talk as men watched to see what would happen, but she didn't notice that, either.
>
  Ryan watched her come toward him. He hadn't known how he would react, any more than she had. He had thought about her for years, about what he would do or say when—if—he ever saw her again, and he suddenly realized that she was one of the reasons he had never returned to Tularosa.

  By the time he had recovered enough to walk, much less ride, it was far too late to do anything about his land or his sister. He knew that Kane would have long since taken control, and he was sure that Sally could fend for herself on whatever was left. She was a Ryan, and she was tough. It turned out that he had been wrong about that, but he didn't blame himself. It was beginning to look as if her death was entirely unconnected to his troubles with Kane.

  And whatever had happened inside of him had burned away the desire for revenge. There had been a time when he would have ridden remorselessly after Kane and McGee and Barson and Long. Even after Billy. And he would not have rested until they were dead, or he was. But even revenge didn't interest him now.

  So there had been no real reason for him to ride back to Tularosa, just as there had been no reason for him not to. Yes, he had wanted to see Billy Kane hang, and he had wanted, in a vague way, to settle things with Billy's brother and with Virginia Burley, but those things didn't really matter to him.

  Somehow he no longer really cared.

  Even looking at Virginia didn't change that. He had thought he might feel a great surge of hatred or disgust, but he felt neither. On the other hand, he felt no return of the desire or love, or whatever it had been that had once motivated him concerning her.

  He felt only that tiny stirring within him, of interest, curiosity, whatever it was. And it still wasn't strong enough to move him.

  She stood awkwardly at his table, the flush still on her face. "Hello, Ryan," she said. Her voice was low and husky, the way it had always been. "I wasn't sure you'd come in."

  "I wanted breakfast," he said. "I never was much of a cook."

  "I remember," she said, and at once she was flooded with other memories: she and Ryan in the wagon in the evenings, the way his hand would brush hers, the way something in her seemed to melt when he looked at her.