West of Tombstone

by Paul Lederer

  ‘I have not seen it. I believe it must be hidden in their room, however, because Stony does not go out without locking the door.’

  ‘All right,’ Cameron said grimly as he studied the small adobe house. ‘I’ll just ask Stony about it. And he will tell me, or.…’

  Or what? He could not murder Stony Harte; even if he could bring himself to do such a thing, a dead Stony Harte could tell him nothing. ‘I’ll find it,’ he swore under his breath, and now he took two slow breaths and nodded. ‘Let’s do what we came here to do. There is no dog?’

  ‘Not for years,’ Cannalita answered, as they began to move toward the house, weaving through the scrawny oaks. Cameron decided to circle the house slowly and unsurprisingly they found a pinto pony, saddled and ready, ground-hitched beneath an open window.

  ‘The man knows his craft,’ Cameron Black murmured. Carmalita did not quite hear him or understand him.

  They crouched together in the night. The moon was only a dull glaze through the trees. ‘What do you think?’ Carmalita whispered.

  ‘Knock on the front door,’ Cameron told her.

  ‘What? Is that smart?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re going in alone,’ he said.

  ‘You …?’

  Cameron lifted his chin toward the open window which Stony meant to use for any hasty escape. ‘I’m going in this way. His attention will be on the front of the house. There’s no reason to suspect you. You’ve just come to see your mother, to come home – use any reason you can think up. Men were annoying you at the cantina; anything, just get Stony’s attention on you.’

  Carmalita nodded uncertain understanding. Her hand rested briefly on his forearm. ‘This is so very dangerous, Cameron Black.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Yes, it is.’ Then he breathed in deeply again, rose and pulled the old revolver from his belt, checking its loads by the scant moonlight. ‘Let’s do it now, Carmalita, before I lose my nerve.’

  She rose beside him, hesitated, kissed his cheek with lips as light as a butterfly, and hurried away, holding up her skirts with both hands. Cameron Black waited, knowing the doors of Hades were about to swing open.

  He waited, his back pressed against the wall of the house. The pinto pony, long-legged and deep in the chest as one would expect a man like Harte to ride, stared at him incuriously, working at a few yellow blades of buffalo grass it had pulled up in a clump.

  Cameron heard the rapping at the front door, heard a muttered, urgent curse, heard bare feet walk toward the door, a man’s steps. He could envision Stony, dressed for bed or naked, carrying a cocked revolver at his side, wary of any night visitors. Using both hands to muffle the lock-click of the hammer, Cameron slowly cocked the big Walker horse pistol.

  He waited. Not yet. Not yet! – he didn’t dare lift his eyes over the window sill until the inner door was opened and a lantern was lighted, the wick turned low. He heard Emily’s voice.

  ‘What is it, Stony?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ he growled. ‘Get to the door; see who it is.’

  Now Cameron did dare to peek into the room, his heart surging in his ribcage. He saw Emily slip from the bed and throw a wrapper over her. By the door, Stony Harte, wearing only a pair of black jeans stood, his gun held beside his ear as he peered out into the hallway. Beyond, somewhere, a muffled voice weakly repeated ‘Que es? Que es?’ so they had awakened the girls’ mother as well.

  Nothing could be done about that. Cameron waited as Emily slipped past Harte and went to the front door to answer Carmalita’s frantic knocking, then, taking advantage of what he hoped was a moment of confusion he hoisted himself up and over the sill into Stony’s room. The small sounds he made as his feet struck the floor were enough to alert the experienced criminal. Stony Harte whirled, his face a mask of angry resentment, lip pulled up tightly at one corner. But even Stony’s reflexes were not sharp enough for him to turn, fire blindly and pick off a rolling man.

  Cameron came to his feet, aimed his revolver and then changed his mind in an instant too quick to be measured. He lunged forward, driving his shoulder into Stony’s body, slamming him against the wall as a commotion began beyond the door. There was time for an astonished Stony Harte to shout, ‘You!’ and then his revolver was fired again, but Cameron’s forearm had been rising in anticipation of the shot and Stony’s aim was jolted upward, the bullet slamming into the plaster ceiling as the room reverberated with the savage echo of the .44-40.

  Cameron drew upon a strength he did not know he had and wrenched the gun away from Stony’s hand as his own right hand drove down like a pile driver against Harte’s face. Amazingly, the outlaw was knocked cold, his eyes rolling back as he became oblivious to the world.

  Beyond the door Emily screamed like a banshee and, yanking the door open scant inches with Stony’s weight against it, Cameron saw Carmalita grabbing at her bigger sister’s clothing, trying to hold her back. Both women yelled high-pitched Spanish words and Cameron saw a tiny woman, her hair streaked with white, back away, clutching her nightdress to her narrow bosom in confused fear.

  Cameron banged the door shut, turned the key and bound Stony with his own belt and a bandanna Stony had stuffed into his hip pocket. Emily drove her shoulder against the door again and Cameron heard the two of them fall in a heap to the floor of the hallway. The old woman prayed pathetically, understanding none of this.

  There was the sharp rap of knuckles on the door and Cameron opened it a hair. Carmalita, breathing roughly, told him, ‘I’ve got her down. I hated … Cameron, there is a man riding up.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I only caught a glimpse as he went past the window. I think it is Slyke! That bald head of his.’

  ‘How …?’

  There was no time to solve the puzzle. Slyke had somehow broken free, it seemed. Now there were more knocks at the door, more forceful. The old woman began to sob uncontrollably.

  ‘Perhaps he freed Willie as well!’ Carmalita said. ‘There may be others we know nothing about. You must take Stony Harte away now!’

  ‘Carmalita.…’

  ‘No! I cannot go. I must take care of my sister and my poor mother. Go, Cameron Black, while there is time!’

  Cameron locked his jaw and hastily searched the room as the pounding on the door grew more insistent. Emily moaned; Stony Harte began to stir. The gold was in Stony’s saddle-bags, hidden beneath the bed. Cameron levered the heavy leather bags out from under the bed and tossed them out the window. It was moments only, but it seemed like uncountable hours before he was able to lift Stony Harte unceremoniously over the sill and drop him to the ground below as well.

  The banging at the front door continued and then there was the crack of splintering wood and Cameron knew that Slyke was in the house. He heard the scream of the old woman rise like a tortured fury and briefly he cursed himself for having brought pain into the old woman’s last days. But it was not really he who had done it, but Stony Harte. If it hadn’t been Cameron who had come, there would have been others one day – lawmen, treasure-seekers, old enemies from the outlaw trail.

  Cameron managed to tie the saddle-bags on the jittery pinto pony’s back and then to drape Harte, half-conscious and bound over the horse’s withers before he swung into the saddle, and with pangs of regret, heeled the fresh, willing horse toward the desert flats beyond the hacienda.

  The night was now cool, the wind unscented and dusty. The horse’s leggy shadow stretched out before him as Cameron felt his way across the wasteland, having only a vague idea of where he was traveling. Once he heard a coyote howl and the answering yips of its pups, but something did not sound right about the animal calls, and he wondered if he was riding into Apache country unknowingly.

  Harte’s pony was a strong one and swift as outlaws need, but it began to slow noticeably as the moon grew higher over the sand dunes and Cameron swung down to give the animal a rest. Standing in the haunting landscape of wind-twisted dunes and scant broom, Cameron tried
to take a bearing from the stars.

  ‘Can’t find your way, Poky?’ Cameron heard Stony Harte murmur, and he looked to see Stony, still slung over the horse’s neck, watching him with savage eyes. ‘I thought it was you. Somehow. I don’t know how you made it this far, but I knew it.’ Stony’s voice was gravelly but amused, if savage. ‘You can’t make your way across this desert without me, pal. I thought that I had taught you that. Without me you can’t find your way out of a sand box. You’re going to have to untie me. We can split what’s left in those saddlebags.’

  Cameron didn’t answer. He stood looking at the bleak, starrry, terrible night.

  ‘You can’t make it without me and you know it, Black.’

  ‘Not the way you’re traveling,’ a strange, yet familiar voice interrupted. ‘We at least need another horse.’

  Cameron spun, his hand reaching for his pistol, but he was covered and knew there was no chance at all of shooting down the man who had emerged from the darkness.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ Elliot Hogan said, coming nearer. ‘Voorman wasn’t quite man enough to kill me. Hand me your gun.’

  NINE

  ‘I can’t quite make up my mind what to do with either one of you,’ Elliot Hogan was saying. The lanky, mustached man leaned back against the soft contour of the diamond-white dune and lit his cigar with the ember from their mesquite fire. Stony Harte said nothing, nor did Cameron Black.

  ‘You see,’ Hogan went on, with all the confidence a man who has the upper hand and knows it shows, ‘I have the gold now – there’s quite a pile missing by the way, Stony. You must pay your help well. But,’ Hogan said, flicking the barrel of ash from the end of his cheroot, ‘there’s a reward for both of you men, dead or alive. You see, I have to weigh the benefits.

  ‘First, I’ve had a long and fruitful relationship with Warden Traylor and Sheriff Yount. I’ve been paid well. But then,’ he shrugged. And his face and eyes still showed the terrible marks of the Dutchman’s beating, ‘I’d have to share the gold if I took you in, wouldn’t I?

  ‘On the other hand,’ Hogan said, as if he were lecturing them patiently, ‘I could take you both back in dead rather than alive. But, God, boys! Do you know what a few days of desert heat can do to raise the stench? I’d have enough buzzards to blacken the sky following me.’

  ‘Let me go,’ Cameron said softly. ‘You know by now that I had nothing to do with any of this.’

  ‘Oh, son, you’ve everything to do with it. No matter what I decide you’re at the heart of it, ready to pop up some day and give your version.’

  ‘I wouldn’t …’

  ‘I don’t take any man at his word,’ Hogan snapped. ‘Of course you might decide to talk one day and so, you see, I have a problem here.’

  ‘You’ve got the horses, I see,’ Cameron said to change the subject. He watched the beaten-down army bay and the roan nuzzle futilely at the sand, looking for the smallest bit of vegetation. ‘I wondered who took them.’

  ‘That’s right. I watered them down and gave them what graze I could while I waited for you to make a move. I walked out of those sandhills, Black. Walked! Through the heat storms of the day, the rocks cutting my boot leather to ribbons, my head exploding from the crazy Dutchman’s bashing. You see, this is what I mean – I’m owed something. Fifty thousand in gold or, tilting it the other way, whatever small portion of it Yount and Warden Traylor feel like chipping off for me. I am the one who has done the work; they are the ones who get the gold. Yes, Black, that is what I mean when I say I do have a problem. I can become a wealthy outlaw like your friend here, or return to my menial occupation as a snitch. I don’t care much for either option, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Kill us and get it over with,’ Stony Harte grumbled. ‘You talk too damn much for a lousy snitch. If you had the heart you’d be out there taking your money the way I do.’

  Hogan looked challengingly into Stony Harte’s eyes. Cameron had noticed the small movements Harte had been making throughout the conversation, but Hogan, concentrated on his own thoughts, had not.

  ‘What makes you think you’re so big?’ Hogan asked, in a voice strangled with emotion.

  ‘I fight for what I have; you just weasel for it,’ Harte answered savagely.

  Elliot Hogan upholstered his revolver and aimed it at Stony Harte’s chest.

  ‘You stinking Johnny Reb!’ Hogan shouted, cocking his Colt.

  As Hogan came to his feet, making his move, Cameron recalled what he had seen earlier and it came into sharp focus. Stony Harte had been deliberately, carefully, working away on the knots binding his hands, probably planning an escape from Cameron himself. Now, as Hogan aimed the muzzle of his revolver at Harte, Stony sprang up and hurled himself at Hogan. The revolver exploded with fire in the night and Cameron saw Stony spin and cringe, holding his belly. But he did not stop his forward rush andd as he reached Elliot Hogan, the Colt fired again and the two went down against the sand in a heap. Again the gun muzzle shot flame, but this time its direction was downward and Hogan’s body leaped and lay still.

  Both men were motionless as Cameron approached them cautiously and kicked the gun away. He rolled Stony Harte on to his back and there was a sort of mad glee in Harte’s eyes.

  ‘You never thought I’d go out easily, did you, kid? He was meaning to kill both of us, you know?’

  ‘I guess he.…’ But there was no point in speaking more. Stony Harte was dead; Hogan was dead, and there was only the long empty night.

  Cameron crawled away and fell face down against the sand. He didn’t know what awakened him, but opening one eye he saw a high Apache moccasin not inches away, the pant legs of their typical white costume. He readied himself to die, but the Apaches, moving silently among them took neither scalps nor horses nor gold. Perhaps the scent of unhealthy death pushed them away from this angry scene.

  In the morning, Cameron found himself alone. The dead had not gone, of course, but he did not touch them. The sand and the wind would complete their burial. He did pause long over Stony’s body, wondering how he could retain a remote, strange sort of liking for this man who would have killed him.

  Perhaps – perhaps there was some unknown connection between them, a blood tie no science could discern. Perhaps once, long ago, they had indeed shared an ancestor.

  The roan and the bay horse Cameron set free to wander. Badly used and weak, their saddles were now stripped off and they were shooed away. Perhaps the Apaches would find them and have use for them. Perhaps they would wander awhile and find clear water and tall grass. Cameron hoped so; he had no further use for the suffering animals.

  On the back of Stony Harte’s strutting, strong, long-running pinto horse, the gold-laden saddlebags across the animal’s withers, he rode on, leaving the dead past behind, hoping for a better future.

  TEN

  There was no wind to speak of, only a light breeze that shifted the paint pony’s mane and occasionally lifted loose sand from the peaks of the sculpted dunes. Cameron rode on, only half alert. The dead he had left behind but the future as he thought somberly on it, promised little more. He must place all of his trust in the Wells Fargo agent, Morton, and hope that the return of the stolen gold would be enough to allow him to keep his freedom. Matters would have been much simpler had he been able to bring Stony Harte in, but things had not worked according to plan.

  The sand was blue-violet beneath the glow of the dwindling moon. The desert was not quite as barren now. Stands of greasewood and here and there tall ocotillo appeared as he guided the wearying paint horse toward Tucson and the Wells Fargo office there. His eyes felt gritty and the lids were heavy. He held the horse up one minute, repositioned the hat he had taken from beside Hogan and, patting the pony’s neck, said, ‘I know. We’ve got to have some rest. The morning heat will kill us if we don’t stop soon.’

  One of the horse’s ears twisted back to listen to the meaningless words of this new rider. Cameron patted it again an
d they moved on another quarter of a mile only before they came upon a red-earth bluff protruding from the blanket of white sand. It was only nine or ten feet high, but it was in the right position to protect them from the glare of the morning sun. Cameron swung down heavily and laboriously unsaddled and slipped the paint’s bit. The horse nuzzled the ground as if expecting forage or at least water, but there was none to be had.

  Cameron folded the heavy horse blanket for a pillow and stretched out at the base of the red bluff, hoping the area was free of rattlesnakes. Then, not even caring about such things as his fatigue overwhelmed him, he tugged Hogan’s hat over his face, folded his arms on his chest and went to sleep.

  What woke him from his nearly comatose state he could not say, but Cameron blinked himself awake and stared into the emptiness. He thought he heard the slight shuffling sound of leather against sand. He sat up, drawing his gun. Yes – there it was! Something. A crooked shadow against the backdrop of brilliant pre-dawn stars.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he said in a low voice, and the shadowy figure came nearer. It was a man with a Winchester, that was clear now. He held it loosely, not aiming it at Cameron, but still he told him, ‘Drop that rifle, stranger, I mean it.’

  ‘It’s empty,’ came a rasping answer. ‘Used all my rounds back there … got a few of them when they jumped me.’ The man’s words were slurred and he staggered as he came another step closer.

  It was Slyke! ‘I should’ve known it would be you,’ the bald-headed man said. He sagged to the sand, placed the rifle aside and sat staring blankly at Cameron. ‘I was hoping it was Stony. When I saw the horse.…’

  He gasped painfully and removed his hand from his stomach so that Cameron could see the stub of an arrow protruding from his lower chest. ‘Apaches jumped me.’

  ‘I saw them,’ Cameron answered. ‘I was lucky they thought we were all already dead when they caught up.’

  ‘Did the Indians get Stony?’

  ‘No. A man named Hogan. He was following me hoping to find Stony and the gold.’