Death of a Bad Man

by Ralph Compton

  Sol didn’t take one bit of comfort from the fact that Patricia had her facts a bit tangled. The way her body was tensed reminded him of a deer that had caught scent of a predator, but couldn’t quite see it yet. ‘‘Fine. I’ll keep the horses. Will you at least hold on to this bag and give it to Matt?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Why don’t you give it to him yourself?’’

  ‘‘Because I’m leaving town and don’t have the time to track him down.’’

  When Patricia heard that, she had enough courtesy to keep from smiling. It was plain to see, however, that she liked the sound of it just fine. ‘‘Should I tell him when you’ll be back?’’

  Sol shook his head. ‘‘I don’t even know that.’’

  ‘‘All right, then.’’ Patricia turned around to her wagon. The canvas cover was separated from the base and held up by two poles to form an awning. Beneath the awning, there were several shelves of various trinkets ranging from pocket watches and tie tacks to handkerchiefs and satin gloves. The shelves were actually drawers that had been pulled out and left open to display the merchandise.

  As Patricia pulled some of the lower drawers completely out, Sol looked around to make sure nobody else was watching. There were plenty of folks passing by on the street and a few glanced over to the wagon. Those few looked away again when they caught an eyeful of Sol instead of the pretty face they’d been expecting.

  When Sol looked back at what Patricia was doing, he discovered she’d pulled out all the shelves in the bottom half of her display. The hole that left was big enough for him to see stacks of folded waistcoats behind the wooden case that held the drawers.

  ‘‘Put the bags in there,’’ Patricia said as she stepped aside to allow Sol to get to the opening.

  Sol took the bags off one horse’s back and folded them as flat as he could manage. Once he got the bags through the opening, he felt around for a good place to leave them.

  ‘‘Go on,’’ Patricia urged him. ‘‘There’s nothing to break in there.’’

  Dropping the set of saddlebags behind the rack, Sol heard a heavy thump. As soon as he pulled his hands free, Patricia busied herself by sliding the drawers back into place.

  ‘‘I appreciate this,’’ Sol said.

  She nodded and finished straightening her display. When she turned around again, Patricia sighed and put on a smile that seemed more like a layer of frosting that wasn’t quite thick enough to cover the cake. ‘‘You want me to tell Matt anything when I see him? Besides to pick up these bags, I mean.’’

  ‘‘Actually,’’ Sol replied with a slight wince, ‘‘could you deliver a message to him?’’

  ‘‘Sure.’’

  ‘‘Do you have any paper?’’

  Patricia sighed again as she dug into the pocket of her skirt to remove a small journal and a pencil. The pages of the journal were covered in figures and receipts that had been hastily scribbled in no particular order. ‘‘Tear out a page and write what you want,’’ she said. ‘‘I promise I won’t read it.’’

  Sol didn’t take much more of her time. He could already hear some commotion coming from the direction of Charlie’s house, so he scratched out a note that was even messier than Patricia’s receipts. It read:

  Take the bags and put them to use

  Don’t tell anyone about them

  Forget you ever knew me

  Your friend, Sol

  After folding the note in half, Sol handed it to Patricia. She accepted it, tucked it into another pocket and then cocked her head to one side. ‘‘You should go now,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Yeah. I know.’’

  Sol turned to leave, but was stopped by a gentle hand upon his shoulder. Even though there wasn’t anyone else within arm’s reach, he was still surprised to see that Patricia had been the one to stop him.

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ she said.

  The words were heartfelt, but cut deeply as well. Since she couldn’t know what was in those bags, there was only one thing she could be thanking him for. Sol nodded to her, climbed into his saddle and rode away.

  Chapter 9

  The moment that place was behind him, the weight that Sol had felt upon his shoulders was lifted. He forgot about what his friend Matt might have said to him. He forgot about the nervous fear that had been in Patricia’s eyes. Sol even forgot about Charlie being shut up in that closet. Judging by the men on horseback who bolted from town not too far behind him, Sol guessed that Charlie had gotten himself out of that closet just fine.

  Sol didn’t know those riders were behind him right away. Still leading the other horses, he’d been too busy enjoying the feel of the wind in his face as he raced away from Warren. Sol couldn’t hear much of anything else through the stomping of those hooves, and when he’d taken a few glances behind him, he couldn’t see through the gritty dust cloud those hooves were kicking up. Before too long, Sol could hear gunshots without much problem at all.

  The first shot had been just a pop in the distance behind him. Sol turned in his saddle and steered his gray gelding to one side so he could at least get a look through the thinner edge of the dust cloud. It took a couple of seconds and a whole lot of squinting, but Sol eventually caught sight of the men that were riding out of town. They weren’t nearly as close as he’d been expecting, but were making plenty of noise as they charged into the open terrain surrounding Warren.

  Sol came up with an idea and didn’t waste a second before putting it into motion. He pulled back on his reins hard enough to bring his horse to a noisy stop. The gelding let out a few whinnies in protest and even stomped the ground a bit, but slowed to a halt. The other two horses quickly followed suit.

  Before the trailing horses had come to a full stop, Sol jumped from the saddle. He kept his eyes on the approaching riders as he quickly unbuckled the set of saddlebags from one of the other horses’ back. Since the second spare horse had already been stripped of his bags, Sol didn’t have to worry too much about that one.

  There were at least two or three other riders leaving Warren. Every so often, they would fire a shot or two, but they were still well outside pistol range. He guessed they were on the outer edge of a rifle’s range, but Sol didn’t hear any lead coming close enough to be a concern just yet. Sol got the second set of saddlebags across the back of his own gray gelding. After climbing back into his saddle, he looked behind him and saw the other riders had closed a good amount of distance.

  Sol had no way of knowing for certain who those riders were. He did know that Charlie had had more than enough time to gather his courage and open that closet door. It only made sense that the big fellow would be out for blood as soon as he threw on a fresh pair of britches.

  Since Sol wasn’t wild about the idea of staying put to get a better look at those men, he tapped his heels against his gelding’s side and tugged the reins connected to the other two horses. All three of the horses lurched forward and quickly fell into step with one another.

  As the horsemen behind Sol got closer, one of the riders shouted, ‘‘That you, Brakefield?’’

  Seeing as how the man knew Sol’s last name, that meant he had to be one of the overseers who actually got their hands dirty in the mine on a day-to-day basis. Of course, that didn’t make Sol want to turn around and chat with the man. If they worked for Charlie in any way, they had to be counted as a threat.

  Unlike the last time he’d been shot at, Sol didn’t feel his thoughts swirl inside him like a dust devil. He kept his head down and steered toward a patch of trees that sprouted up to the left of the trail. Those trees were only a little ways ahead, but Sol knew he could use every bit of space he could get. Drawing his pistol, he shifted in his saddle and looked behind him.

  The other riders were still about a couple hundred yards behind him and gaining slowly. More shots cracked through the air, but Sol didn’t pay them any mind. Instead, he fired a couple shots of his own until he saw the other riders break apart from one another. Once that bit of panic had been sewn
, Sol snapped the reins of the other two horses he’d been leading and then released the leather straps completely.

  For the next several paces, the other two horses kept following Sol. Once Sol broke to the north, however, one of the horses continued along its original path while the second one did its best to run alongside Sol’s gray gelding.

  ‘‘Go on!’’ Sol yelled at the vigilant horse.

  The other animal wouldn’t give up. In fact, it churned its legs even harder as it struggled to keep up with Sol.

  ‘‘I said git!’’

  The other horse was still following him better than those other ones with riders in their saddles.

  Sol lowered his pistol and fired a few shots into the ground between him and the nearby horse. Not only did that shot cause the other horse to veer away, but it also added some steam into the stride of his own gray gelding. Both horses took off even faster in different directions. Better yet, the additional shots made the pursuing riders pull back a bit more. It seemed Charlie wasn’t paying them enough to charge into hot lead.

  Keeping his head down, Sol glanced behind him and saw the dust cloud thinning out as the other two horses bolted along their own path. Sol snapped his reins to get to those trees as quickly as he could. Once there, he steered around them and then snapped his reins again. The gray gelding surprised him with how fast it could move. Sol held on to his reins tightly and focused all of his attention in riding out the storm he’d caused. When he looked around again, the other riders had split up to follow the other horses that weren’t shooting back at them.

  More shots were fired, but Sol didn’t hear any bullets hissing anywhere close to him. For the next several minutes, the only thing he concerned himself with was the rush of wind against his face and the rumble of his gelding’s hooves against the earth. Leaning down over his horse’s neck, Sol felt as if he could make it all the way to Canada before sundown. Warren was nothing but a distant memory and his new life stretched out before him like a newly discovered land.

  After some time had passed, it was clear that Sol wasn’t being followed. As an afterthought, he glanced over his shoulder and wasn’t at all surprised to find that he was on his own. He’d covered a mile or maybe two and there had been plenty of hills, rocks and trees along the way. Straightening up in the saddle, Sol pulled back on the reins and allowed his horse to ease up for a while.

  The gray gelding seemed reluctant to slow down, so Sol let him tire himself out. It was at that moment that Sol realized he had no schedules to keep and no obligations to meet. There was nobody expecting him at any certain time and he had no bills to pay. He didn’t even have a change of clothes, since he’d left everything behind in the room he’d rented at Tilly’s Boardinghouse. Sol didn’t own much, but he figured that Tilly was bound to find more than enough to square up whatever he owed.

  Sol could go anywhere.

  It was a freedom that was large enough to excite and overwhelm him at the same time. He’d never seen the world as such a wide-open place before. There had always been tethers of one sort or another holding him back. Most folks were always willing to let him know a man couldn’t stray too far, but Sol had never seen the hollowness in those words until he looked out at the horizon stretching in front of him now.

  The folks who had told him to stay put and work to scrape together a nice little nest egg were scared. That was all there was to it. They were scared or ignorant or both, because nobody in their right mind would have tried to talk anyone out of what Sol was feeling at that moment.

  Why would anyone want to stay in a place like Warren with their faces firmly pressed against a grindstone when there was a whole world out there? The puzzle seemed even more incomprehensible when the man turning that grindstone was someone like Charlie Lowell. Despite the mistakes he’d made along the way, Sol wouldn’t have traded his current predicament for all the tea in China. Not even for all the money in the . . .

  And then Sol was pulled down from the cloud he’d been riding to be sent face-first to the ground with the rest of the world. He may not have had all the money in the world, but he currently had more than he’d ever thought he could have. He certainly had more than he could spend. In fact, he wondered if he should spend any of it at all.

  He’d stolen that money, hadn’t he?

  Looking back on it that way, Sol felt like he was watching a dream that had come from some lunatic’s head. It was close to unthinkable that he could pull a gun on another man and rob him. He’d also tracked down three armed robbers and left one of them dead.

  Good Lord, he thought. What have I done?

  Sol pulled back on his reins and slowed his horse down a bit. His thoughts matched that pace and flowed through him so he had enough time to consider each one. His first decision was to stop thinking about what he’d done. Those things were in the past and there was no taking them back.

  Only one man had wound up dead, but that was self-defense.

  Sol nodded when he thought about that and said the words out loud just to make them real. ‘‘Self-defense, ’’ he muttered. ‘‘That’s right. He was going to shoot me, after all.’’

  With that settled, Sol took a breath and let it out. The biggest matter yet to be settled was where he was headed. He’d ridden this far north, so there was no reason he shouldn’t keep going that way. Santa Fe was north. He’d never been there. Sol didn’t even know anyone there. He would ride to Santa Fe. It could take him another day or two, but time wasn’t exactly a concern.

  There were still plenty of things to be decided, but Sol pushed those to the back of his head. When he was hungry, he would scrape up something to eat. When he was tired, he would find a soft spot to stretch out his legs. When he spotted a town that looked inviting, he would stop there.

  He was still free.

  Despite all the other things rattling around inside him like so many marbles in a jar, Sol was still free.

  He continued north, allowing his gelding to go as fast or slow as it wanted to go. Although Sol had done a fair amount of traveling throughout his life, most of it had been out of necessity. He’d needed to leave one town and go to another on account of some job. Once that job dried up, he’d moved again. If someone died, he went to the funeral. If someone in his family was married, he would travel to see them dressed in their finest and enjoy a good meal.

  All of it had been placed neatly in front of him, but not anymore. Despite the fact that he could have made it into Santa Fe that evening if he’d snapped his reins a bit more, Sol pulled back on them before he got close enough to see that town. There was a spot that had caught his eye right next to a watering hole, so he made camp there and sat with his back against a log.

  He watched the stars come out again and didn’t even mind that he wasn’t prepared to make any meals or even cover himself in the cold darkness. After making a fire, he stretched out and laid his head on the saddlebags stuffed with money. Feeling like a king, Sol fell asleep while letting his eyes drift between the brilliant little specks above him.

  At the first light of dawn, his eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright. Turning toward the east, Sol rested his chin upon his knees and watched as the sun crept its way up from the spot it had been hiding the previous night. The sky went through its transformation as if an unseen painter couldn’t decide whether he preferred purple, red or orange. In the end, pale yellow was the chosen hue and the desert heat soon made its presence known upon Sol’s face and shoulders.

  He gathered up his few belongings and loaded them onto his horse. Savoring the touch of the sun’s rays on his cheek and smelling the morning breeze, Sol didn’t sully his mind with thoughts about his future. There were only two things he needed to know: he was hungry and he should be in Santa Fe by noon.

  Chapter 10

  It was slightly earlier than Sol had anticipated when he rode into Santa Fe. It wasn’t quite noon and the sun was blazing down with unrelenting fury. While his gray gelding had been more than willing to gallop
most of the way into town, he now dragged his hooves as if his shoes were too heavy to lift. Being the one catching the sun’s rays without anything more than the brim of his hat for shade, Sol felt just as sluggish. He kept one arm propped against the saddle horn to hold him up and allowed his head to droop forward.

  Santa Fe might have been a beautiful place. It might have been thriving. It might have been a pit favored by the devil himself, but Sol wouldn’t have known either way. His throat was parched. His stomach was aching and his skin felt about ready to crack and fall off of him like a muddy crust. As soon as he spotted a place that looked like it would serve food and water, he tied his gelding in front of it and dragged himself inside.

  ‘‘What can I get for you, mister?’’ asked a stout Mexican woman with thick black hair tied into a single braid.

  ‘‘Something to eat and some water. Actually,’’ Sol was quick to add, ‘‘lots of water.’’

  ‘‘We have plenty of water,’’ she replied with a smile. ‘‘There’s water for your horse too.’’

  Sol flinched and looked over his shoulder. ‘‘What was that?’’

  ‘‘Your horse,’’ she repeated. ‘‘It’s a fine animal, but you tied him up without watering him.’’

  ‘‘Were you watching me?’’

  She shrugged. ‘‘It’s a slow day. You can tend to your horse and I’ll get your water.’’

  When he came back inside after seeing to his horse, Sol looked over to the nearby tables with disdain. After all the sitting he’d done over the last few days, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing it again. The chairs in that place were a far cry from a saddle, however, and Sol quickly let out a relieved sigh as he settled into one of them close to the front window. He could see his horse clearly and nodded after he watched a few people pass by the animal without thinking to poke around those saddlebags.

  ‘‘Here is your water,’’ the Mexican lady said as she set a cup down in front of Sol. Her eyes lingered on him for a bit as she stood beside his table with a pitcher in her hands. Sol drained the water and slapped the empty cup right back down. Refilling the cup, the lady said, ‘‘We have more than water if you’d like, but you must pay after this cup.’’