Ralph Compton The Man From Nowhere

by West, Joseph A. ; Compton, Ralph

  It was too dark to see more. A man who had inherited his fair share of the Westerner ’s dread of folks long dead and their ha’ants, Oates grabbed the mustang’s reins and backed out of the arroyo.

  Oates spent a sleepless night among some boulders on the lee side of a wedge of rock that protected him from the worst of the north wind. Curiosity driving him, at first light he took his Winchester and walked back to the dead men.

  Were they victims of Darlene McWilliams? Maybe Circle-T punchers?

  But when Oates saw the skeletons again, he realized these men had been dead for many years.

  He found a second revolver close to the first skull he’d discovered, and something else—two round bullet holes in the man’s breastbone. He saw an obvious wound in the more intact skeleton, several of its ribs shattered by a heavy caliber ball.

  No flesh remained on the dead men, but their story was writ plain enough in guns and bone. These two, whoever they were, had gotten into a gunfight in the arroyo and killed each other.

  Both revolvers were old cap-and-ball models and the degree of rust suggested that they’d lain out in the elements for at least a decade.

  Oates scouted around and after a few minutes discovered the reason why these men had died. Several burlap sacks, so rotted that coins had spilled out onto the ground, lay at the base of a juniper, half hidden under drifting sand and dirt.

  He kneeled beside the tree, dragged the sack toward him, and counted the coins, then scrabbled under the juniper for the rest. When he finished he had a pile of one thousand and two double eagles, more than sixty pounds of gold.

  Oates whistled between his teeth. That amounted to twenty thousand dollars, a fortune, enough to keep him and Nantan in style for years.

  The gold fever fled Oates as quickly as it had come and despair took its place. Where was his wife and could he find her in this wilderness?

  He would gladly part with the money to get her back. . . .

  Sudden inspiration came to Oates and he nodded to himself. Lying at his feet was his bargaining chip. He no longer need depend on Stella. He’d give Darlene the five thousand, and, if need be, each and every one of the double eagles for the return of his wife. The avaricious woman would jump at that offer.

  Oates returned with his horse and filled his saddlebags with the gold. When he stepped into the saddle, the paint resented the extra load and bucked his resentment. But when he was pointed in the direction of town, the mustang began to have visions of hay and a warm barn and settled down to a steady canter.

  The morning offered little promise of warmer weather and the black sky was in complete agreement. Snow tumbled in the air and the air was chill and hard to breathe, like gulping down draughts of ice water.

  Heartbreak lay under a pall of wood smoke as Oates trotted over the bridge and rode to the barn. At this hour there were few people about, the bitter cold and the tang of frying bacon keeping them indoors.

  He stripped the paint’s rigging, rubbed him down with a sack, then forked him hay and a generous supply of oats.

  That done, he shouldered the heavy saddlebags and walked to his home. He stashed the gold in the parlor, now cold and echoing emptiness, and was glad to seek the warmth and bustle of Hermann Schmidt’s restaurant.

  A dozen miners sat at tables and most nodded when Oates entered. He took a seat and one of Hermann’s plump daughters wrote down his order, then poured him coffee.

  Oates had just started to eat when Warren Rivette stepped into the restaurant. He took a seat opposite and said, “I tried your house, but you and Nantan weren’t there, so I figured you two had gone out for breakfast.” He looked around him. “Where is your lady wife?”

  “She’s gone, Warren. Darlene McWilliams has her.”

  He answered the question that formed on the gambler’s face by recounting what had transpired the previous evening. “They left this,” he said, and passed Rivette the note.

  After the man read, Oates chewed on a piece of steak, swallowed, then said, “I went out last night, looking for Nantan.”

  “You didn’t see anything?”

  “Only snow.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Eddie? I would have come with you.”

  “She’s my wife, Warren, my responsibility. I had it to do.”

  “She’s a citizen of Heartbreak. That also makes her my responsibility.” Rivette waited for an answer, got none, and asked, his voice edged, “Has Darlene found a way to get in touch with you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I wish you had asked for my help, Eddie.”

  “I will . . . next time.”

  The waitress poured coffee for Rivette and the gambler lit his morning cigar.

  “This may come as a surprise to you, Eddie, but I like you and Nantan and I guess everybody in town does. Your welfare is our concern.”

  Oates dipped a piece of bread into his egg yolk and popped it in his mouth. “I already owe you, Warren. I haven’t forgotten what you did for me back in Alma.”

  Rivette smiled. “Eddie, I did that to prove to myself that I wasn’t completely worthless. That I could show even that small modicum of compassion for another human being came as a complete surprise to me.”

  “When I look back on it, you made me feel less worthless. Not much, but a little.”

  “Well, it’s water under the bridge. Our immediate problem is getting Nantan back home safe and sound.”

  “I have an idea about that,” Oates said. “You’re going to find what I’m about to tell you hard to believe, but the proof is back at my house.”

  “Ah, Eddie, you’re always such a man of mystery. Now, tell away.”

  And Oates did.

  When he was finished talking, Rivette looked around him, making sure no one was eavesdropping, whistled through his teeth and said, “Twenty thousand is a heap of money, and it’s a lot to pay for a woman, any woman.”

  “I’ll offer Darlene the five thousand and all of it if I have to. I don’t care about the money, but I do care about Nantan.” He sat back and let the other Miss Schmidt pour them coffee. When the girl was gone, Oates said, “Of course, maybe you think I should find the gold’s true owner.”

  Rivette laughed. “Yeah, you go to a bank and ask, ‘Say, did you lose twenty thousand dollars in gold about, oh, ten, fifteen years ago?’ What’s the answer going to be? ‘Damned right we did, and thanks for returning it. Here’s a dollar. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee.’

  “The railroad? Same thing.

  “Hell, Eddie, even the Army would jump at the chance of free money. ‘Yeah, that’s one of our stolen payrolls. Now just leave the gold right there and light a shuck afore we throw you in the guardhouse.’ ”

  The gambler shook his head. “Finders keepers, Eddie. That’s one of Rivette’s laws, never to be broken.”

  Despite the worry riding him, Oates had to smile. “You’ve got larceny in your soul, Warren, just like me.”

  “Damned right.”

  “I guess all we can do now is wait until Darlene makes her next move, huh?”

  “My guess is it will be soon. That dying puncher wasn’t lying to us, no. If the Circle-T is still after her like he said, she’ll want to get out of the territory as soon as possible.”

  Rivette rose to his feet. “My advice is to head home. After Darlene contacts you, we’ll go from there.” A slightly puzzled expression crossed the gambler’s face. “I never knew you loved Nantan this much.”

  “Neither did I, until yesterday.”

  “You could buy the whole Lipan tribe for twenty thousand dollars.”

  Oates smiled. “I only want one of them.”

  Rivette nodded, smiling. “Keep in touch, Eddie.”

  Chapter 39

  Oates, feeling cold and empty inside, returned to a bleak, empty house.

  He lit a fire in the parlor and sat in his chair. As the room warmed he grew drowsy. Soon his chin dropped to his chest and, utterly exhausted from his cold night in the Gila, he s
lept.

  Outside, morning faded into early afternoon with no change in the light, though the day grew colder and frost laced windows all over town.

  People came and went in the street, and at twelve noon there was a commotion in Hermann the German’s place when a miner suddenly took a header into his beef and onion soup. The man was dead by the time other diners got to him, and it was later agreed by all present that the whiskey had finally done for him.

  At one in the afternoon a tight V of geese flew across the sky above town, though no one noticed, and at two a woman named Martha, the wife of a miner from Cornwall, England, badly burned the palm of her left hand on a hot iron.

  Then, at three, or very shortly thereafter, a man knocked on Eddie Oates’ door.

  Oates was awake instantly. He rose, slipped his gun into a pocket and stepped into the hallway. “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “You Eddie Oates?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I have a letter for you. It’s cold out here, open up.” Oates opened the door a crack, his hand on the butt of the Colt. A miner, as big and shaggy as a grizzly, had a scrap of paper in his extended hand. He looked like a man whose patience was rapidly wearing thin.

  “Feller asked me to give you this. He paid me two dollars to deliver it safe. He said you’d know who it’s from.”

  The miner shoved the paper into Oates’ hand and waved before turning away. “Cold day, huh?”

  Oates took the paper inside and read it at the window.

  Wait until nightfall. Then head north toward Cuchillo station.

  Watch for our fire and bring the money.

  No funny business or fancy moves.

  CLEM HAS SHARPENED HIS SQUAW STICKER.

  The note was written in the same female hand as the previous one, scribbled in some haste by Darlene McWilliams. The woman was evil and she would not hesitate to carry out her threat against Nantan.

  It was still a couple of hours until dark, but it was a ten-mile ride to the stage station. Impatient to be going, Oates dressed, then shouldered the saddlebags, staggering a little under their weight as he headed for the door.

  He had not begged Rivette for help before, but he would now. His wife was in terrible danger and his pride had no more value than a rooster crowing on a dung heap.

  Oates walked through the icy day to the Riverboat. When he stepped inside it felt like he was coming home.

  The saloon was warmed by a cherry red, potbellied stove and the thick air was made fragrant with the smells of bourbon, spilled beer, sawdust and cigars. Oil lamps cast a golden glow on the brass rails of the mahogany bar, burned with radiant fire inside every amber bottle, their soft halos of smoky light beckoning to him, welcoming him home like a prodigal son.

  For a few moments, Oates stood transfixed, like a mortal in the presence of a deity. He touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip and his eyes glazed, his throat working.

  A man who enters a room and stands deathly still, staring at something only he can see, will attract attention. Conversation among the miners died away to a few whispers, and all eyes turned to Oates and the heavy burden he carried on his right shoulder.

  Rivette sat at a table with three other men, a stack of chips in front of him. Like the others, he looked at Oates. Then he turned and called out to the bartender, “Adam, come play this hand, then cash me out.”

  He laid his cards on the table, stood and moved aside as the bartender took his seat. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said to the other players. “We’ll continue our game later.”

  Rivette put on his hat and sheepskin and walked to Oates’ side. Taller and bigger than the other man, he removed the saddlebags from Oates and shouldered the load himself.

  “They’ve been in touch?”

  Oates’ eyes searched Rivette’s face. Then, a man slowly emerging from a dry drunk, he slurred, “Huh?”

  Reading the signs, the gambler took Oates by the arm and gently but firmly led him outside.

  The cold hit Oates like a hard slap. He shook his head, trying to clear his foggy brain, and looked at Rivette. “Sorry . . . for a while there I was home again.”

  Rivette nodded. “It’s a battle you’ll have to fight every day for the rest of your life, Eddie.”

  “Suppose one day I lose?”

  “Don’t worry about that now. Take each day as it comes and never fight tomorrow’s battle today.”

  Oates nodded. “I’ll try to play it that way.”

  “Don’t try, Eddie. Do it.”

  Oates was silent for a few moments. Then he handed Rivette the note. He waited until the gambler read it and said, “I need your help, Warren.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He looked into the gray day and at the gunmetal sky. “Well,” he said, “shall we get it done, you and me?”

  As daylight faded and the temperature plummeted, the air took on a crystalline quality, as though traced through and through with spiderwebs of frost. The trunks of the aspen on the high ridges shone like burnished silver and the canopies of the juniper were covered with snow and looked like lines of old men in white nightcaps marching off to bed.

  Oates huddled into his blanket coat, his breath smoking into the freezing wind.

  “Best we slow up some, Warren,” he said. “We’re only a couple of miles from the station and it’s not dark enough to see a fire from the distance.”

  “I could smoke a cigar,” Rivette said. He nodded to a stand of pines at the base of a ridge. “We’ll hole up over there for a spell.”

  The trees sheltered Oates and Rivette from the worst of the wind and gave the illusion of warmth. Fine snow was drifting down from the branches as Rivette cupped his hands around his cigar and fired the tip.

  “Care for one, Eddie?”

  Oates shook his head. “They say smoking stunts your growth and I can’t afford to be any more stunted than I already am.”

  Rivette grinned. “Height isn’t the measure of the man. It’s what’s inside that counts, and you’ve got sand, Eddie.”

  “You think so? Then how come right now I’m scared stiff?”

  “So am I, but we’re out here anyway. I guess that means something.”

  Slowly the day shaded into night, and the two riders left the trees and headed north again. Coyotes were calling out in the hills and the mountains were lost in darkness.

  After ten minutes Oates saw the fire twinkling in the distance like a fallen star. To his surprise, the fire was to the northwest among the Gila foothills, not in the direction of the stage station.

  He and Rivette rode directly for the blaze, letting the horses pick their way along the unseen trail. When they were close enough to smell smoke, a huge, shadowy figure emerged from the gloom.

  The man got within hailing distance and drew rein. “Identify yourselves!” he yelled.

  “Eddie Oates and Warren Rivette,” Oates called out.

  The rider rode closer and solidified into the shape of Clem Halleck. In the firelight, the man looked enormous in a bear fur coat, a muffler wrapped around the bottom half of his face.

  “Rivette,” he said, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Oates is my friend, Clem. I came along for the ride.”

  “Then don’t try nothing slick with that gun o’ your’n, Rivette. Any fancy moves an’ I’ll cut the squaw’s belly to ribbons.”

  “You’re such a fine man, Clem,” Rivette said with a smile. “It’s an honor to know you.”

  “Yeah, well, I ain’t forgetting what you already done, Rivette. You played hob helping them Alma whores.”

  “It passed the time, Clem.”

  Halleck ignored the gambler and his eyes sought Oates in the darkness. “You bring the money?”

  “Uh-huh, all of it.”

  “Then follow me, an’ be on your best behavior, just like you’re visiting kinfolk.”

  Halleck had a bucket of water handy and he immediately extinguished the fire. He, better than any
of the others, knew the risk they were taking if the Circle-T posse was still on the prowl.

  The big gunman led Oates and Rivette into an arroyo that began narrow enough to permit the passage of only a couple of horses, then widened out into an open space about twenty acres in extent. A small fire burned close to a sheer wall of rock and a gigantic, maverick cottonwood.

  Darlene McWilliams and her brother, Charles, stood in front of the fire, and a little ways off Mash Halleck had his left arm around Nantan’s neck, a wicked-looking bowie knife clenched in his right fist.

  Clem led Oates and Rivette closer to the fire, then pointed at them. “Light and set you two. An’ that ain’t an invite—it’s an order.”

  Oates did as he was told and Rivette followed. Clem slapped his horse away, then walked beside Darlene, carrying his rifle. Despite the cold, Charles McWilliams had removed his coat, and the ivory handles of his Remingtons caught the firelight. The man was grinning, confident, and he looked ready and eager to kill.

  At that moment it dawned on Oates that Darlene McWilliams had no intention of letting him and Rivette—and Nantan—leave this place alive.

  He’d have to bargain with the whole twenty thousand.

  Chapter 40

  “You, the drunk,” Darlene said, “did you bring the money?”

  Oates nodded. He glanced at Nantan. His wife’s eyes were wide in the shifting scarlet light and she looked scared.

  “I’ve got twenty thousand in gold in my saddlebags,” he said, “and it’s all yours, Darlene. All you have to do is let my wife go free.” He hesitated a moment. “Put her on her horse and send her home. Now!”

  Charles looked at his sister and the grin on his handsome face grew insolent. “You going to let a tramp like that call you by your name?”

  “Shut up, Charles. Go see if he’s telling the truth.”

  The man retrieved the saddlebags and returned to Darlene.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Double eagles, hundreds of them.”

  “It seems that you weren’t lying to me, Oates,” Darlene said.