After letting the Morgan and the buckskin loose, Oates stuffed supplies into a burlap sack, then set the cabin on fire.
He mounted the paint and rode east. He knew that no matter what happened, he would never come back.
The desire for revenge was a raw emotion new to Eddie Oates, one he had only recently experienced. His first encounter with it had come when he’d thought of returning to Alma and putting a bullet into Cornelius Baxter.
Now a thirst for vengeance fermented in him again.
Three men had died for Jacob Yearly’s death and Oates considered that the blood price had been paid. But the person who had sent the gunman here to throw the old man out of his cabin was still alive.
The lady boss who could not sleep another night out in the open and was willing to kill to prevent that happening, was walking the earth.
Oates rode with a face of stone. A fine old man was dead and the woman, whoever she was, continued to cast her vile shadow on the ground.
That could not stand.
For now, his hunt for Sammy Tatum and the three women was pushed to the back of Oates’ mind. Jacob Yearly was lying cold in his grave and his soul cried out for vengeance. He would give it to him.
Unbidden, a thought came to Oates, one that suddenly unsettled him.
The Tin Cup Kid had recognized something in him. Oates had thought the Kid was a gunfighter who had met a kindred spirit, a man who shaped up to be good with the iron.
But what if he’d been mistaken and it was something else entirely?
What if the Kid had looked at Oates and saw not a gunfighter, but a fellow killer?
All at once the bright morning seemed darker. And Eddie Oates felt a chill.
Chapter 15
Eddie Oates had revenge on his mind, but no idea how he was going to bring it about.
He was sure the lady boss owned the outfit that had driven the cattle into the Gila. Old Jacob had reckoned she had at least thirty riders, now three fewer, but that still represented mighty steep odds.
The idea of a holing up behind a tree somewhere and bushwhacking her did not appeal to him. If the Tin Cup Kid had been right, and he was a killer, he would still not stoop to cold-blooded murder.
Who was the lady boss? And what was she doing in this country?
As he rode, Oates pondered these questions but could come up with no answers.
The sun was climbing above the ragged peaks of the Sierra Cuchillo, washing out the night shadows. Oates rode close to the wooded hills, windswept mesas and deep canyons of the Gila, riding through forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. Aspen and spruce flourished in the higher elevations, above them gaunt blue cliffs that ended where the sky began.
Around Oates the land lay quiet, the only sound the steady beat of the mustang’s hooves, the creak of saddle leather and the chatter of crickets in the grass.
Aware that his wanderings were aimless, apart from a vague idea to follow the cattle tracks he and Yearly had found into the Gila, Oates rode into a narrow arroyo that after a hundred yards opened up into a small, hanging meadow. A creek ran near the base of a fractured ridge and a few cottonwoods and a single, mossy willow crowded close to the running water.
Oates swung out of the saddle, loosened the cinch and let the paint graze. He was wishful for coffee but didn’t feel like starting a fire. He settled for cold salt pork left over from breakfast and a couple of Jacob’s sourdough biscuits. A small, sharp pain in him, he remembered that these would be the last he’d ever taste.
After he’d eaten, Oates lay in the shade of a cottonwood and tipped his hat over his eyes. Bees buzzed around the creek and close by, the paint steadily cropped grass.
Suddenly he was very tired. Killing in the morning takes its toll on a man.
But Oates’ rest was uneasy. His head jerked back and forth as he muttered in his sleep, talking to dead men. He woke, crying out so loudly that the mustang jerked up its head and trotted away from him.
Oates looked around him, his eyes wild. He’d had a bottle. Where was it? Had someone robbed him?
His heart was thumping in his chest and he was covered in a cold sweat. For a moment nothing looked familiar. Where the hell was he?
Gradually, the unknown terrors in him subsided and he grew fully awake. Breathing heavily, he rose to his feet, the dream taste of whiskey still smoky and sweet in his mouth. He stooped, picked up his hat and kneeled by the creek, splashing his face with cold water. After a while he dried off with his bandanna and sat, letting the trembling in him settle.
He’d dreamed of whiskey as vivid and real as a man’s dreams of naked women. He touched his tongue to dry lips, the hunger riding him.
Right at that moment, he’d give everything he owned for a drink, the fancy clothes he wore, the paint, his guns. And he would betray anybody, so long as he could get drunk and stay drunk forever. The whiskey oblivion was where he belonged. It was home sweet home to him.
Oates gritted his teeth against the craving in his mind and the pain in his belly. He fell on his side, curling up his knees to his chest.
Then he groaned and slept again.
When Eddie Oates woke, the night had come and the sky was full of stars and the moon was as round as a coin. He rose to a sitting position, his back against the cottonwood, and breathed deep of cool air that tasted of sage and pine.
“How you feeling, boy?” asked a voice out of the darkness.
Instantly Oates was on his feet and he was aware that his gun had appeared like magic in his hand.
“Who’s there?” he asked, talking into the moon-bladed night.
“Why, good old Jacob Yearly, as ever was.”
Peering into the gloom, Oates saw a red glow that grew brighter, then dulled again. Jacob was smoking his pipe.
“Where are you?” Oates asked.
“Right ahead of you, Eddie. Over this way.”
Oates took a few steps, then made out Yearly’s tall form. The old man was sitting on a boulder, his pipe in his hand.
“You’ve had yourself a time, boy,” Yearly said.
“I wanted whiskey. I wanted it real bad and I still do.”
Yearly nodded. His eyes were full of brilliant blue fire. “Killing a man is easy, Eddie. It’s living with it, that’s hard. Whiskey can dull the pain for a spell, but it always comes back like a cancer.”
“You think I’ve got a guilty conscience about killing the men who killed you, Jacob?”
“I don’t know, Eddie. Conscience is God whispering in a man. Only you know what he’s saying.”
“I think he’s saying that I did what I had to do.”
“If that’s what you hear, then that’s just fine. You got no need to crawl into a whiskey bottle.” Yearly stood and put his cold pipe in his pocket. “The trouble is, you don’t know what you are, Eddie. Right now your choices are kinda limited—gunfighter, killer, drunk—and you don’t know which one to choose.”
“Help me, Jacob. Help me do the right thing.”
“I can’t help you, boy. You can only help yourself, and whiskey isn’t the answer and it never was.”
“Jacob, why did . . .”
Oates’ voice trailed away. . . . He was talking only to darkness.
He became aware of his surroundings, of the gun in his hand. “I’m still dreaming,” he said aloud to himself, shaking his head.
Yet, the smell of pipe smoke lingered in the meadow for a long time before it was taken away by the wind.
Chapter 16
The night wind was bending the grass as Eddie Oates scrounged around in the dark and found enough wood for a small fire. He got the coffeepot from his sack, filled it at the creek and threw in a handful of Arbuckle. He set the pot on the coals to boil and sat with his head against the cottonwood, listening into the darkness.
By daybreak the coffeepot was empty and a light rain was falling.
Oates picked up his rifle and walked to the mouth of the arroyo. In whatever direction he looked lay a naked
wilderness of trees and rock, modestly veiled by the shifting gray mantle of the rain.
Oates was about to retrace his steps back into the arroyo, when a sound reached out from the distance that made him stop in his tracks. He looked to the east, the direction of the strange noise, but saw nothing.
A minute passed, then another. Oates tightened his hold on the Winchester.
He heard the sound more clearly and now recognized it, the whistles and yips of men driving cattle. A few shorthorns appeared, followed by more, and then a puncher, a man who slapped a coiled rope against his chaps as he rode.
Oates stepped into the shadow of the arroyo wall and kneeled behind the twisted trunk of a maverick cedar. More riders appeared, driving a large herd that began to stream past his hiding place, raising clouds of yellow dust.
He saw her then. She was riding wide of the herd in a flank position, a young, breathtakingly beautiful women sitting sidesaddle on a tall bay Thoroughbred. She carried a riding crop and was dressed in an elegant equestrian costume of gray silk, a top hat of the same color, adorned with tulle, perched on top of her auburn hair.
At one time Oates thought the young belles of Alma parading their huge bustles and tiny hats was the ultimate expression of sophisticated womanhood. He was wrong. Next to this woman they’d look what they were, small-town hicks.
Riding tall and proud, she could only be the lady boss, the woman responsible for the death of Jacob Yearly.
His knuckles white on his rifle, Oates knew how easy it would be to knock her off that high horse. He blinked sweat from his eyes and his hands shook.
“Just aim and fire and it’s over,” he told himself.
Oates made no move. It would be cold-blooded murder; even a drunk who dreamed of whiskey couldn’t stoop that low.
And then it was too late. The woman rode past the arroyo and was lost from his sight.
Despite the rain, the passing herd had kicked up considerable dust and Oates could not estimate how many men rode with the lady boss. At a rough guess, around two dozen, and very few looked to be dollar-a-day punchers.
But then he saw something that made his skin crawl.
A heavily loaded wagon brought up the rear, hauled by a team of four mules. Mash Halleck was up in the box, the ribbons in his hands, and his sons, Clem and Reuben, flanked him as outriders.
There was no sign of the three women and Sammy Tatum.
Oates felt a chill. Were they already all dead? Murdered by the Hallecks before they left the canyon in the Gila?
He pushed any thought of revenge to the back of his mind. His first concern was to find out what had happened to the women.
A few minutes later Oates rode out of the arroyo and swung east. He held to the trees, wary of bumping into more of the lady boss’ riders. Rain sifted through the branches of the pines and he untied Yearly’s yellow slicker from behind his saddle and shrugged into it.
After a mile he smelled smoke in the wind. Topping a piñon-covered ridge, he rode through a stand of mixed cedar and mountain mahogany and onto a stretch of flat country, covered in feather grass that reached to the paint’s knees.
Oates rode warily now, old Jacob’s rifle across his saddle horn. He tried to read the message of the smoke. More of the lady boss’ men or the three women? Apaches?
He had no way of knowing. The only thing to do was ride closer and be prepared to fight if he must, skedaddle if he could.
The open ground gave way to timber and the land began to incline upward. Here aspen grew, many of them standing seventy feet high, and the ground was rockier. Through the curtain of the rain, the peaks and mesas of the Gila formed ramparts of blue, garlanded by the gray mist of the low clouds.
Oates pulled up the paint and looked around him. He had come too far. The canyon where he and Yearly had seen the cattle tracks was now behind him and he could no longer smell smoke. A brawling wind shook the aspen and the scattered rain hissed its displeasure.
Swinging the mustang around, Oates rode back down the slope. Had anyone been there to see him, he would have pegged the rider for a man who was lost, or one wandering aimlessly, which amounted to the same thing.
For his part, Oates felt a growing irritation. Jacob Yearly would never have missed the entrance to the canyon. The old man had taught him a great deal, but there are things a man can’t teach.
Once he reached the flat, Oates again caught the smell of smoke, stronger this time.
Then to his right, he saw a drift of blue rising above the trees. He levered a round into the Winchester and swung in that direction.
Ahead of Oates was a stand of pine. Beyond the trees rose a high outcropping of rock, shaped like the prow of a ship. From where he was, Oates could make out a narrow stream of water cascading down the rock face.
Alert for any sign of Apaches, he rode into the pines and drew rein.
To the right of the prow-shaped promontory was a shallow cave and he could make out the forms of three women huddled around a smoky fire. A thickset man who could only be Sammy Tatum walked out of the surrounding trees, carrying an armful of wood. He stepped into the cave and disappeared from sight.
A small joy rose in Oates. They were all still alive. His treachery had not killed them.
He kneed the paint forward and rode out of the pines. Instantly one of the women rose to her feet, a hideout gun in her hand.
Oates stopped. “Hello the camp!” he yelled. The rain slanted around him, beating on his hat and the shoulders of his slicker.
“What do you want?” This came from the woman holding the gun.
Oates recognized her. “It’s me, Miss Stella.”
“Who the hell is me?”
“Eddie Oates.” He paused, then added, “From Alma.”
A taller, older woman wearing a ragged mackinaw stood beside Stella. “Ride on, Oates. We got no whiskey here.”
Nellie Carney stood and angrily rounded on her companion. “You’re such a whore, Lorraine!” She looked out at Oates, the wind flattening her skirt against her legs. “Do you have any grub?”
“I’ve got grub,” Oates answered. “Not much, but enough.”
“Then ride on in. We’re starving to death here.”
Oates rode up to the cave. He studied the women and then Tatum, who stood behind them, shy and awkward and grinning.
The women looked what they were, three saloon whores who had very recently been used and abused. And it showed on them.
“You ladies have been through it,” Oates observed.
“We’ve been through it,” Stella said. She looked up at the rider. “Like Nellie said, light and set.”
Oates swung out of the saddle. “I’ll find a place in the trees for the horse,” he said.
“I’ll do it, Mr. Oates,” Tatum said. He rushed out from behind the women and grabbed the paint’s reins. “It’s real good to see you again, Mr. Oates.”
From chin to forehead, the entire left side of Tatum’s face was swollen with black and yellow bruises. “What happened to your face, Sammy?” Oates asked.
The boy looked sheepish and kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe. “Mr. Halleck done that. He said it was because I was stupid.”
Anger flared in Oates. “Which Mr. Halleck?”
“Clem,” Stella said. She looked at Tatum. “Put the horse up in a dry place, Sam.”
“Wait,” Oates said. He untied the sack of supplies and slid the other rifle from the scabbard.
“Dry as you can find, Sammy,” he said.
“Sure thing, Mr. Oates.” The boy grinned.
Oates stepped into the cave, where Nellie quickly relieved him of the food sack. He found a place for himself and propped the Winchesters against the cave wall.
“Your fire’s giving off considerable smoke,” he said. “You’d better hope there are no Apaches around.”
Lorraine laughed. “After what we’ve been through, the Apaches would be a change for the better.” She looked at Oates. “At least you’re prosp
ering.”
Oates smiled. “An old man by the name of Jacob Yearly took me in, kept me away from the whiskey. I haven’t touched a drop in near a three-month.”
“I knowed a feller once who stayed off the booze for three years,” Lorraine said. “He went back to it though, and it was the death of him in the end.”
“Biscuits . . . bacon . . . salt pork . . . oh, and coffee!” Nellie jumped up and down. “Look, Lorraine, we’ve got coffee!”
“I see it. Now put it in the pot where it belongs.”
“I’ll get water,” Nellie said.
She rushed out of the cave as excited as a girl going to her first cotillion—and she was still smiling as a rifle bullet drove her against the rock wall.
Chapter 17
Oates moved instantly. He grabbed a rifle and threw the other to Stella.
“Get down!” he yelled.
Bullets probed into the cave, whining off the rock walls. Oates saw a puff of smoke among the pine trees and fired into it, then dusted two fast shots to the left and right. He was rewarded by a yelp of pain and a string of curses.
“Nellie!” Lorraine yelled. “Are you hit?”
“I’m hit bad,” the woman answered.
“Where?”
“Don’t be such a whore, Lorraine.”
“Where?”
“In the ass!”
“Stay where you are.”
“Hell, I’m not going anywhere with a shot-up ass.”
Stella looked across at Oates. “See anything?”
He shook his head.
“You burned one of them. I didn’t think you could shoot like that.”
“Old Jacob taught me.”
“We could do with old Jacob here right now.”
“He’s dead.”
The rain was falling harder and Oates studied the terrain around him. Where was Sammy Tatum? He saw no sign of the boy, or anyone else.
A few minutes passed, and a voice called out from the trees. “You in the cave!”
Ralph Compton The Man From Nowhere Page 8