The Drifter's Revenge

by Owen G. Irons

  ‘Next time,’ I added, more angrily, ‘I might have to do something both of us will regret.’ Pocketing the coins I backed through the door. ‘I know you’re not a stupid man, McCallister, but I should warn you – don’t poke your head out into the corridor.’ He eyed my Colt once more and nodded. I could see anger burning in his eyes, but there was nothing I could do about that. I started quickly toward the rear platform, not wanting Tom to wake up before I was well away from the train.

  Some impulse caused me to pause along the carpeted aisle and again open the door where the woman had been abed. She was still sitting up, still holding her blankets in front of her, still watching with huge saucer eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘I’m leaving now. You’re safe.’

  For a second I thought she was going to scream, that I had made an incredibly stupid, clumsy mistake of gallantry. Her lips parted, forming a rouged oval around her small white teeth. Then she relaxed her mouth and closed it. Her hands trembled still. But just for a moment I thought I caught the beginnings of a smile in her eyes.

  McCallister’s voice suddenly rang out and I hightailed it for the rear platform. He must have seen the guard walking his rounds and called out the window to alert him because when I reached the rear of the Pullman I came face to face with the guard.

  He raised his rifle and fired at what would have been a dead shot at point-blank range except I had been a little quicker and threw myself from the platform to land rolling in the snow. The landing was a rough one, and it knocked the wind out of me.

  Without light, the guard couldn’t find me immediately for a second shot. I drew my pistol and fired wildly three times. I know I missed because I heard the sharp ricochets of lead ringing off steel. Then I saw the muzzle flash of the railroad guard’s Winchester and heard the simultaneous boom of the .44.40. Flame flashed from his muzzle and I knew that it had been another close call.

  Breathing well or not, I made a run for it and I darted across the snowy expanse of the open ground, weaving as I went. Two more shots were fired in my direction before I was lost in darkness. I tripped and sat down hard, fumbling with my cartridge belt, trying to reload with shaking hands.

  A shout had gone up from near the barracks and I saw a dozen or so lumberjacks and steel drivers swarm out into the night, silhouetted by the light in the doorway behind them. Someone unlimbered a rifle and aimed a shot at me that went wide, but not wide enough. I came to my knee and emptied my revolver in their direction. I hit no one, but they yelped, cursed and rushed back into the barracks, to collect boots, coats and weapons, I guessed.

  Shoving more cartridges into the cylinder of my Colt Army I rose to my feet and legged it out of there. If they reappeared with rifles, I was in for it. The distance to the barracks was no more than fifty yards. Not much range for a good sharpshooter with a rifle, but a lot of distance for a running man with only a handgun in his arsenal.

  I plunged on through the snow. The skies held clear, too clear for my purposes and I ran until my lungs were burning and my heart racing madly. Men had now emerged from the Pullman cars and from the office. They were all shouting contradictory orders, and some of them began to fire wildly, wanting to be in on the kill. I had never seen it happen before, but it happened to me then: a bullet from one of the rifles tagged my gunhand and the Colt went spinning from my grip. It stunned my hand as if someone had struck me with a sledgehammer. I had instant numbness from my fingertips to my shoulder. The following pain was violent and heavy. Still, I told myself, it might have been my hand that went spinning off. I should count myself lucky.

  I scrambled across the snow on hands and knees, searching for my pistol, knowing it was a lost cause. By then every employee of the railroad and all of McCallister’s friends seemed to be bearing down on me with angry guns. I didn’t choose to be shot or hanged. There were flaring torches and a lot of curse-filled exchanges. I looked to the pine woods where I had left my horse and started that way at a run, my arm dangling uselessly.

  Once they found my tracks they would have no trouble trailing me in the snow, even in these conditions. Fortunately I had yet to see a following man on horseback. They hadn’t, in their mad rush to kill me, taken the time to get to the stable and saddle their ponies, so I still had a chance.

  I was sure they could run me to ground in a matter of minutes. I was just as sure there wasn’t a man alive who could outrace my black gelding. I reached the woods, chest and arm aching. I nearly collided with a huge pine in the darkness the forest provided. For a moment I panicked – I was sure that I had left the black tethered to a massive cedar; I was sure it was just to my right, to the west, but I did not see it standing there.

  I raced on. Abruptly the horse appeared in silhouette, starlight glinting on the whites of his eyes. I started the horse running almost before I was mounted and wove madly through the dark woods. Behind me there were a few shots, then the curses grew fainter and slowly receded as the black horse covered the distance before me.

  I did not slow for hours. I didn’t know if by now they had saddled their horses and were in pursuit. In the starlight my horse’s tracks still stood out plainly.

  I picked out the Dipper over my left shoulder and began riding east. It was back toward where Marshal Coombs was presumably still on the lookout for me, but that couldn’t be helped. Riding south I might have had a chance of making a clean getaway. North to Canada also offered a chance of escape. The Rockies looming to the west, staggering the eye with their 14,000-foot high peaks, were far too formidable for a man riding equipped as I was at this time of year. Oregon would have to wait again.

  None of these considerations determined my course. I had made a promise to a young woman I had never seen and her dead husband, to myself. I was riding to Billings with Ben Comfrey’s money for his widow to try to make it through a hard winter.

  SEVEN

  Hours passed slowly and it only grew colder as I rode on through the bitter night. My horse held his head low and I sagged in the saddle. I glanced at the stars again to take my bearings and noticed the haze around them. Like thin fog, some disguise of nature. It took me a minute to understand what I was seeing.

  Wafer-thin drifting clouds had begun to frost the stars and cover them. I swung my head around and looked to the north. There, by the scant moonlight, I saw the sky was ominous, heavily stacked and moving toward me quickly. Lightning crackled and there was the rumble of following distant thunder. By the pale flash of the distant web of lightning, I could see more clearly that the storm was progressing with savage intensity. I picked up my weary horse’s pace, but it was futile, of course – we were not going to outrun the driving storm.

  The wind grew heavy on my back and the sky fell to complete darkness. The first snow began to fall within the hour. I had no idea where I was. I knew of no shelter for miles and miles around me. I bowed my head once more and urged the exhausted black on. Soon the darkness and the smothering snowfall obliterated all vision. There was only the snow and the dark of the freezing night. I could see nothing. If I were to ride off a cliff I could have done nothing. My eyes were tightly closed and now I could feel ice forming on my lashes. I tied my bandanna over nose and mouth to try warming the lung-freezing air.

  The horse plodded on, perhaps moving in a slow circle. There was no telling. I was completely lost. I remembered a tale I had heard of fifty Dakota schoolchildren lost in such a storm. They had all become disoriented and frozen to death, some within fifty feet of their cabins while anxious parents stood in the doorways, banging spoons on iron pots, hoping to guide them home.

  I thought of that tragedy and then I recalled a night in Denver when I had filled a straight and won $200 in gold from … what had the man’s name been? There was a woman with him. She seemed to have been a friend of mine. The man laughed a lot and smoked big cigars. My Aunt Hanna had never trusted men who smoked cigars. I shook my head; it did no good. It was encased in ice. My dog’s name was Willie … there was s
omething the matter with one of his eyes … my thoughts such as they were, revolved, spun madly around my skull and then went black.

  I found myself lying in the snow. My horse was not there, or if it was, I could not see it. I looked upward. I knew it was up because that was where the driving snow fell from. I didn’t feel so cold now. I just felt like sleeping. Death, I thought, was not that bad at all once your teeth quit chattering and the flow of blood simply ceased.

  The first thing they tried to feed me was a kind of broth made from the marrow of an elk’s bones and Indian potatoes. I couldn’t swallow it although it was warm and I needed warmth badly. I finally clawed my eyes open and discovered where I was. A shallow cave with a rough floor was glowing dully in the smoky light cast by the damp burning wood in a small fire ring. I could see the opening of the cave and the unrelenting snow falling beyond it.

  I was surrounded by four Cheyenne Indians, watching me with dark eyes. Two of them were men of forty or more years, one an ancient woman, one a very young boy wrapped to his eyes in striped blankets. I tried to sit up, could not. One of the men came to me, lifted my eyelids and propped me up against the cold stone of the cave wall. Then he again offered me a bowlful of broth. There was nothing in their expressions as I greedily swallowed the warm soup. After a few swallows, I immediately went back to sleep.

  It must have been two hours later when I awoke again and sat up on my own, feeling that I might somehow survive the night now. Again they gave me some of the broth and I drank it greedily. The firelight danced against the walls of the cave and across the faces of the Indians. One of the men wore his hair in two braids, the other had his loose across his shoulders. The flickering firelight cast moving shadows. One of the men, I saw, had an angry scar running the length of his face on the right side, a savage cut that had narrowly avoided his eye. The old woman looked down at her work-thickened hands, not glancing up. The boy peered at me from beneath his blanket and I smiled and winked at him. There was absolutely no response. Tiredly I placed the bowl aside and then lay down again. I was instantly asleep.

  When I awoke next it was to the glare of brilliant sunlight on new snow visible beyond the mouth of the cave. The sky above was a clear deep blue as if it had never stormed at all. Something nudged my foot and I turned my head.

  My black horse was there, tethered to a stone fallen from the roof of the cave. The Cheyenne were gone. Embers still burned in the fire ring but there was no other sign that they had even been there. I stood shakily and walked to the cave opening to look out at the new morning. Not a sign of passing marred the surface of the new fallen snow. The Indians had simply vanished like the wind-driven clouds.

  I walked to my horse, rubbing its neck. I was amazed to find it there. Somehow the Indians had caught it up and brought it here for me. I knew that the animal would have been very valuable to them, but they had not taken it.

  I checked the saddle-bags and found nothing taken from them either. I didn’t know who those wandering people were or where they were traveling; I could only wish them well on the trail. The hat Old Billy had given me was there, crushed in my saddle-bags. I formed it roughly with my hands and put it on. Also in the saddle-bags was Ben Comfrey’s gun and gunbelt. I checked over the revolver and then holstered it. It was loaded, but not in great shape.

  The blue steel Colt had once been a fine gun, better than any I had owned. It had mother-of-pearl handgrips, one of them chipped slightly. It had been a long time since Ben had wiped off the pistol when it was wet or oiled it when it was dry, but it would have to do. I untethered the black and walked it to the cave entrance, its steel-shod hoofs clicking against the stone. I stood there for quite a few minutes, just studying the land before me. Then I led the horse outside and swung aboard, riding eastward toward Billings once more.

  The hours passed in weary progression. A tired horse carrying a tired man toward some inexact destination across the long prairie. I was hungry again, naturally. I did spy a small group of antelope near a narrow rill, but as hungry as I was it didn’t seem like a good idea to fire my rifle and butcher and cook some meat. I saw no one for miles, but a rifle shot would roll a long way across this silent landscape. Smoke would be a dead giveaway as well. I decided to travel hungry but alive.

  There was a dull orange glow to the western sky and the dying sun was painting the snowdrifts with violet shadows when I topped a low rise and saw lights burning in the distance. There were more than a few of them, clustered together. It could not be a ranch; I took it for Billings. Even if it wasn’t, I could nevertheless find some kind of shelter and food for the black horse and myself. I didn’t pause to enjoy the view. I kept on my way and before the last glow of sundown had faded from the skies I found myself riding a muddy rutted road that ran straight ahead of me through the town. I could see little enough of the town in the dusk, but I passed a dry goods store with a false front and across this was emblazoned BILLINGS EMPORIUM. So I had found my way after all.

  Two boys, about twelve years old, came racing down the boardwalk, coats flapping, scarves around their necks. They were wasting no time – late for supper, I figured.

  ‘Hey, where’s a stable?’ I called out, and the larger of the two pointed up the street without pausing to speak. Two ruddy-faced men sat behind a long desk inside the stable proper. They showed no undue interest as I swung down and loosened the weary black’s saddle cinches. I walked to the desk.

  One of the men – they seemed to be brothers, both with heavy cheeks and mournful watery eyes – was biting on the stub of a pencil, moving his lips as he studied the list of figures and notations before him. Settling accounts. The other one, his red plaid shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal work-smudged long johns, watched me thoughtfully and asked, ‘Want to put your horse up?’ He spoke mechanically, his voice deep and solid. I nodded in response. ‘How long you planning on keeping him here, and what do you want him fed? Fifty cents a day is the going rate.’ He spoke as if it was a constantly recited speech, and probably it was. His brother, if that was who it was, never looked up. Now he made a mark with a pencil and frowned, pushing out his lower lip.

  ‘Just overnight,’ I said. ‘I want him given new hay – no straw – and oats if you have them.’

  ‘Oats are extra.’

  I nodded. ‘I figured as much.’ His eyes continued to study me thoughtfully. I wasn’t entirely presentable and I knew what he wanted to ask. I managed to open my purse quite casually and make sure he caught a glimpse of the gold coins there. ‘I’ll have to get change. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I know you will,’ the stableman answered. ‘That is, unless you want to lose a fine-looking animal like that over so little money.’ Now he did smile and I returned it. We understood each other.

  ‘Rub him down well, will you?’ I asked. ‘He’s had a long ride.’

  He might have been wishing to ask me where I had ridden in from, but neither of these two seemed concerned with idle conversation.

  ‘Do you know a man named Ben Comfrey, lived around here?’ I enquired.

  ‘Seems I’ve heard the name,’ he said, with a heavy shake of his bullish head, ‘but I don’t know him. At least, he’s done no business with us. Know the name, Chesty?’ he asked his partner.

  ‘No!’ the one called Chesty said angrily, then he got back to laboriously balancing his accounts. I had the idea that adding and subtracting didn’t come easy for him.

  My horse settled into a stall, I went out into the cold night. Frost streamed from my lips as I walked the boardwalk, my boot-heels clicking on the weathered wood. I passed two saloons and considered going in. Someone was bound to know where Ben Comfrey’s place was. Just then, however, I didn’t care to be observed. It was possible that word of me, a wanted poster had made it to Billings by now. For one night I wanted to be warm, well fed and comfortable. The hotel I found seemed substantial and clean enough and I entered, looking around.

  The hotel had an adjacent restaurant. Looking through
the batwing door that separated the two, I could see men and ladies enjoying their meals. I could smell steak and yams, cornbread. The desk clerk signed me in almost without looking at me. He was busy arguing with a handyman about something he had not done to repair the shingle roof over the kitchen. ‘I’m going to have to let you go if you can’t do no better, Earl,’ he said to a rough-looking man who smirked in response as if it made no difference to him either way. I paid no attention, signed the book with my head down and ordered a meal to be brought to my room.

  ‘I’m too dirty and too tired for a restaurant just now,’ I explained, and that much was true.

  I climbed the stairs almost unnoticed and found my room. Opening it I went in. There was a large bed, somewhat sagging, with a thick comforter spread on it. I tossed my hat on to the bedpost, tugged off my travel-encrusted boots and lay back on the bed, hands clasped behind my head, studying the ceiling. Within minutes, a slender kid of eighteen or so knocked at my door and I let him enter and place my dinner tray on the low bureau beside the window.

  When he had gone, I turned the brass key in the lock and pulled the room’s single chair to the dresser, sat, eyed the thick steak I had ordered with reverence and picked up knife and fork to go at it. I ate everything on the tray, drank a cup of coffee and tucked my weary body in bed beneath the thick comforter. The bed was soft, the room warm. I was away from the ice and snow of the plains. There was nothing more a man could want. I yawned twice, stretched once and dropped into a dreamless sleep.

  I thought I would sleep for a long time, but I awoke before dawn and rose from my bed to cross the room. I stood looking out the window at the black distances where only a few scattered, feeble lights glowed. I thought about slipping out of town before sunrise, but decided against it. Then I thought of Ben Comfrey’s wife out there alone in some small house with her supplies running down to nothing with winter barely begun. After that it was impossible to go back to sleep and so I slowly washed off with a bar of soap and towel left beside the basin, dusted off my clothing and boots as well as I could with a provided whiskbroom, and dressed as dawn began to spread its hueless early light across the eastern sky.