“Then let my wife go.”
The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. I have enough problems at the moment, and I don’t want to add to them by leaving any of you alive to dog my back trail.”
“We’ll let you be, Darlene,” Oates said. “I swear on a stack of Bibles.”
Darlene made no answer. She turned to Clem. “Load up the money. We’ve got to get out of here fast.”
“What about her?” Halleck said, nodding to Nantan.
“After the rest of us leave, you can have her.”
Halleck smiled. “I’ll be busy for an hour or two. Then I’ll catch up.” He looked at Charles. “The tall one’s name is Warren Rivette, Charlie. He’s the gun.”
“I can take him.” Charles McWilliams grinned.
Grim old Mash Halleck threw Nantan away from him and she landed heavily on the frozen ground. “Leave the little one for me, Charlie,” he said. “He killed my boy.” His eyes measured the ground between him and Oates. “Remember him?”
Nantan was rising slowly from the ground and anger fired Oates. “He was just like you, Halleck, low-life scum.”
Then he moved. It was unexpected and it caught Darlene and her men flat-footed.
Ignoring Mash Halleck, Oates drew and fired at Charles, the fastest of them. He hoped that Rivette would follow his lead and take on Mash. For the moment Clem was out of it, somewhere in the shadows loading the saddlebags on his horse.
Oates had opened the ball, but he’d drawn too quickly and nerves and anxiety over Nantan spoiled his aim. A clean miss.
Charles had drawn both Remingtons and was shooting them both, a grandstand play.
He missed with his left hand, scored with the right. Oates staggered as the bullet hit him low in the left side of his waist. Despite the tunnel vision a man gets in a gunfight, he was aware of Rivette shooting and Mash Halleck down on one knee, spitting blood.
Oates fired again.
He’d aimed for Charles’ belly, but the gunman’s fisted right revolver was directly in front of him. Oates’ bullet hit the Remington on the trigger guard, ranged downward and neatly severed all three of the fingers Charles had wrapped around the ivory handle.
The man screamed, dropped both his guns and turned to his sister. “Darlene, he’s maimed me!”
Her face furious, the woman shrieked, “Weakling! Pick up your gun and get to fighting!”
Suddenly Oates was aware of Mash Halleck lurching toward him, his bloody face twisted and made terrible by rage. “Die, and be damned to you!” the man roared.
He and Oates fired at the same time.
Halleck missed; Oates didn’t. His bullet crashed into the man’s chest and Halleck staggered a couple of steps and fell on his back.
Rivette was still shooting.
Clem Halleck staggered out of the gloom, firing his gun into the air. He opened his mouth to speak, but his words died with him and he collapsed onto his knees, then stretched out facedown on the ground.
Out of the corner of his eyes Oates saw Darlene dive for Charles’ gun. He fired a shot in front of her. The woman jerked to a halt as if she’d been burned, raised her hands and smiled.
“You wouldn’t shoot a woman?” she said.
“He might not, but we would.”
Oates turned, his head spinning from blood loss and the pain of his wound.
A few yards away a dozen riders sat their horses, their shadowed faces grim as death. One of them carried ropes, the hangman’s knots dangling at his stirrup.
Nantan threw herself into Oates’ arms and he hugged her close. “Eddie, you’re hurt,” she whispered.
Oates made no answer, his eyes on the one of the riders who had moved out from the others, a big, bearded man riding a shaggy cow pony.
“You made it easy for us, Darlene,” he said, drawing rein. “At night a man can see a fire for as far as his eyes are good. Maybe you figured we’d let up and gone back. You were wrong.”
“What do you want, Blackie?”
“What do I want? Not a damned thing, Darlene, except to see you hang, you and Charlie there and them other two, if’n they’re still alive.”
Holding his arm, his wounded hand dripping blood, Charles McWilliams reeled toward the man. “Don’t hang me, Blackie. I was always good to you, huh? Always gave you respect in front of the men.”
“Charlie, you murdered my boss and I ride for the brand. Me and the boys talked it over, and we decided on what was justice and what wasn’t. A hanging is justice—we agreed on that.”
Blackie had said he was loyal to the brand and there was no arguing that. Its roots went too deep, back a thousand years to medieval Europe when mounted and belted men pledged undying allegiance to their lord and proudly wore his badge. It was a bond that was seldom broken, not then and not now.
Desperately, Charles tried another tack. “Look at my hand!” he shrieked. “Damn you, haven’t I been punished enough?”
“Shut your mouth, Charles!” Darlene snapped. Her eyes lifted to Blackie. In the crimson firelight the granite-faced man looked like the specter of death.
“Blackie, I remember the way you used to look at me, stripping me naked with your eyes, riding me hard in your mind,” Darlene said, standing with her legs spread, her hips thrust forward. “I have twenty thousand dollars, Blackie. We can go away, Mexico, anyplace, just you and me, like you always dreamed.”
The big man nodded. “You’re a fine-looking woman, Darlene, and no mistake. But it’s way too late for all that.” He smiled in his beard. “You know what’s funny, Darlene, a real snapper? Tom Carson was dying. He found out about a week after you moved into the ranch house. The doc in Alma said Tom had a cancer, deep in his belly, and it was killing him. He didn’t want to tell you, but I was his foreman and he confided in me.”
Blackie shook his head. “All you had to do was wait. A couple of months, no more than that, and the Circle-T would have been yours.”
Darlene swung on her brother. “You fool! You talked me into killing him. I should never have listened to you.”
Rivette moved beside Oates and Nantan. He looked at the man called Blackie.
“Mister,” he said, “I’ve heard some mighty loose talk about hanging. I’ve seen men hanged—didn’t like it much. I figure I’d like it even less if it were a woman.”
The Circle-T foreman took no offense. He nodded as if he’d carefully considered what Rivette had told him, then said, “Warren Rivette, I’ve played poker with you many times back in Alma, lost my shirt each time, but I got no kick coming about that—you deal honest cards. A friendly warning, don’t take sides in this. Those two are as guilty as sin. You heard it out of Darlene’s own mouth. There will be a hanging whether you approve or not.”
Oates left Nantan’s side and walked in front of the riders. Even in the dark he recognized the hangdog face of the taciturn puncher he’d met on the trail when he went to visit the Circle-T.
Their eyes met and Oates said, “Can you do something?”
The man shook his head. “What’s done is done and there’s no changing that. Now we’ll do what still remains to be done.”
Blackie said, “Rivette, my advice is to saddle up and get out of here. And in her delicate condition, there’s no need for the little lady there to see what’s coming.”
Oates stepped back to Rivette. “Warren, we can’t fight all of them.” He managed a wan smile. “And I’m not sure I can stay on my feet for too much longer.”
“You’re wounded,” Rivette said, seeing the blood on Oates’ coat for the first time.
“Yeah, I’m shot through and through.”
The gambler’s eyes again lifted to Blackie. “Is there anything I can say? A way to change things?”
The big foremen shook his head. “No, Rivette, not a damned thing.”
A few minutes later, Oates and the others passed the Circle-T riders on their way out of the arroyo.
“Hey, Warren,” Blackie said, “w
as Darlene on the level about the twenty thousand?”
“It was a lie, Blackie,” Rivette said evenly.
“Figured that.”
As they left the clearing, Oates heard Blackie say, “All right, boys, do your duty.”
He looked back. Charles was on his knees, begging loudly and vainly for his life. Beside him Darlene stood silent, her head lifted, proud and defiant as she watched angry, merciless men come for her.
Oates was impressed despite himself.
She was the worst of them, and the best of them.
Chapter 41
Despite his protests, Nantan insisted that Eddie Oates spend the next two weeks in bed while the wound in his side healed.
By the third week he was up and around, and even in that short time Heartbreak had grown. The permanent population was now almost a hundred, swollen to several times that number by wintering miners and roistering punchers.
The stage now stopped on a regular basis, and Bill Daley was moved to lodge a formal protest with Wells Fargo, complaining that he was losing the passenger food trade.
During his confinement, Rivette and Stella visited often, but, busy with their own businesses, did not linger long.
Unable to find odd jobs, Oates grew restless. He had twenty thousand dollars, enough for him and Nantan to live in some style, but he needed something useful to do, a task that would make him feel he was truly part of the community.
The parasite label the city fathers in Alma had stuck on him still rankled. He never wanted to be branded with that mark of shame again.
Sitting by the fire one night as a gnawing wind prowled around the house like a hungry wolf, Oates brought up the matter to Nantan.
“I thought we could move on,” he said, “to a place nobody knows me, Arizona maybe, or Texas. We can get a fresh start, the three of us.” Nantan was sitting at his feet and he stroked her hair. “I reckon I could prosper in the hardware business.”
Nantan turned her head and looked at him. “I will go where you go, Eddie.”
“You don’t mind leaving here?”
She did not answer that question. “It is a wife’s duty,” she said. She turned away and watched the flames dance in the fire.
“I’ll make you happy, Nantan.”
“I’m already happy.”
“Happier.”
“I don’t know how that could be, like trying to add more water to a full jug.” She smiled at him. “It can’t be done.”
“I’ll try, trust me.”
In the silence that followed, the logs in the fireplace cracked and crimson sparks rose into the chimney.
“I hear that there are no hard times in the Arizona Territory,” Oates said finally. “Silver is being mined in the Dragoon Mountains and a nearby town called Tombstone is booming.” He nodded to himself, but said aloud, “Yes, indeed, no hard times coming down in Tombstone.”
Oates turned his head as someone pounded on the door. Then it opened and a voice called out, “Is the Oates family to home?”
“Come in, Warren,” Oates yelled.
Rivette stepped inside, a few flakes of snow on the shoulders of his sheepskin. After the usual pleasantries, he said, “We need both of you down to Hermann the German’s place. Town meeting and you should be there.” He smiled. “There’s coffee and Lorraine baked a cake, if you can believe that.”
Oates shook his head. “Warren, Nantan and me have been talking. We plan on moving on as soon as the weather breaks. Maybe the Arizona Territory.”
The gambler seemed to take it in stride. “Well, at least come down for the cake. You two have been cooped up in this house for weeks. How is the side, by the way?”
“Healed up mostly. Warren, I—”
“I like cake, Eddie,” Nantan said. “Can’t we go?”
Unwilling to refuse his wife anything, Oates made a gesture of surrender. “All right, we’ll go. But I’ve got nothing to contribute to a town meeting.”
“You’d be surprised, Eddie,” Rivette said slyly.
The restaurant was crowded with people when Oates and Nantan walked inside with Rivette. Judging by the grins on most of the male faces, they’d earlier decided to fortify themselves with something stronger than the proffered coffee and cake.
Stella was there with Sam Tatum and Lorraine. Nellie, dressed in jewels and fine silk, was clinging to the finely tailored arm of Luke McCloud. He and Rivette exchanged cool nods, no love lost between them.
Willing volunteers found a seat for Nantan, brought her cake, and generally fussed over her, much to the dazzling Nellie’s obvious chagrin.
After Nantan was settled, Rivette called for order. “We all know why we are here tonight,” he said, “to honor a man who has done more to bring about the revival of Heartbreak than any of us.”
As hearty shouts of “Hear, hear!” rang out, Oates looked around, trying to figure who was being honored. Hermann the German, fat and jolly, was beaming, nodding to everyone. Well, he deserved it. His restaurant had been a much-needed addition to Heartbreak.
“I should also add . . .” Rivette waited until all the whispers had died way. “I should also add that the man we have invited here is the bravest and coolest hand in a shooting scrape I have ever known.”
A man yelled, “Huzzah!” and Oates realized, to his surprise, that many of them were looking in his direction.
“Mr. Eddie Oates, will you please rise,” Rivette said.
To loud applause Oates rose to his feet, his cheeks burning.
The gambler stood in front of him. “Before you arrived here, Eddie, by unanimous vote, all present agreed to appoint you as town marshal, at a salary of”—Rivette waited until the noise faded—“eighty dollars a month!”
Amid more cheering, he leaned forward, winked, then whispered in Oates’ ear, “You’ll be the richest town marshal in the history of the West.”
Rivette turned away and faced the crowd again. “Now all that remains is to present Marshal Oates with this silver badge of office”—he produced a five-pointed star from his pocket and held it up for all to see—“made, at great expense, I might add, by an Italian craftsman in Silver City.”
There was more cheering and Rivette held out the star to Oates. “Look, see right here? It says ‘Marshal.’ ” He looked into Oates’ eyes. “Will you accept the appointment, Eddie? This town is your home. We, all of us, respect you and we need your cool head.” He grinned. “Especially when I become mayor.”
To Oates, it seemed that Alma was already a distant memory and the move to Tombstone forgotten. He pinned the badge on his coat. “Everybody . . . I . . . well, thank you, and of course I accept.”
“Three cheers for our new marshal!” Hermann Schmidt yelled.
Nantan rose to her feet and smiled at her husband. “Is this our home now, Marshal Oates?”
“Of course it is.” Oates grinned. “Where else would we go?”
After the huzzahs were done and the handshaking was over, the restaurant began to clear out until only a few people were left.
Sam Tatum approached Oates shyly, a framed picture in his hand. “Marshal, I made one of these for Mr. Rivette and one for you.” He smiled. “I sure hope you like it.”
Oates took the drawing and grinned. It showed him and Rivette. To minimize the height difference, the gambler sat in a chair, Oates standing beside him. Tatum had caught them perfectly, two Western men sporting big, dragoon mustaches, looking grim and determined against a winter backdrop.
“It’s great, Sammy,” Oates said, warmly taking the boy’s hand. “I plan to hang this on my wall.”
“In the marshal’s office, huh?” Tatum said.
“Sure thing, in the marshal’s office.” He smiled. “On the wall opposite the door where everybody is bound to see it.”
Nellie and McCloud were next to give their congratulations, followed by Stella and Lorraine.
“Now, you two,” Lorraine said sternly, “what this town needs, in addition to a doctor and a bank, i
s children. After this one is born, you get busy making more babies.”
Nellie, conscious of her elevated status as a kept woman, sniffed. “Get busy making more babies. How very crude. You’re such a whore, Darlene.”
“Takes one to know one, Nellie,” Lorraine said.
Eddie Oates looked around him as people left, the smile on his lips fading. He touched his tongue to his dry top lip.
God, he needed a drink.
Historical Note
During its brief, violent life, the town of Alma saw more murder, mayhem and bloodshed than any other settlement in New Mexico, culminating in the Apache siege of May 1880.
The Apaches, led by Victorio and aided by the even more terrible Nana and Geronimo, killed thirty-one whites in and around the town before the siege was finally lifted by a mixed force of soldiers, miners and local ranchers on May 15, 1880.
But other Apache raids followed and in 1882 two troops of the Eighth Cavalry camped near the village, remaining in the area for sixteen months.
During its boom years, Alma was a hangout for Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, and William Antrim, Billy the Kid’s stepfather, was a permanent resident. Billy stayed with him from time to time.
Alma is now a ghost town, and one adobe building and a tiny cemetery filled with victims of Apache raids and murder are all that remain of one of the West’s most turbulent settlements.
Ralph Compton The Man From Nowhere Page 21