Incident at Coyote Wells

by Paul Lederer

  I assisted Beth into the hovel and lay her on the cot where I myself had rested not so long ago. I propped her head up and gave her sips of water from Henry’s kitchen stores much as he had done for me. I went out into the harsh blue-white glare of the day, rifle in hand, and after a careful search of the yard, led the gray horse to the lean-to stable where I unsaddled it, slipped its bit and gave it hay and water.

  Where was Corson? He was not the type to give up. It was most likely that he had simply had to rest. Where? In the meager shade of the brush around Coyote Wells as I had? I was not going to go back there. The very thought of the place conjured up images of death and despair. My idea was to let Beth rest and revive, and later, after nightfall, ride with the rising moon back toward Yuma.

  And then?

  I could do no more for Beth. I had given it my best shot and failed. At least she would be no worse off than she was before. She would be nearer to her brother, and maybe – with luck – she could come up with another plan to save him. I rubbed the gray down and left him to his hay. Crossing toward the cabin, I still saw nothing, heard no approaching horses, but I was uncomfortable. Sheriff Tom Driscoll’s posse might have caught up their horses by now. They could be on my heels. Although they did not know this area as well as I did, if they happened to come upon Corson he could tell them exactly where I had gone.

  I was still puzzled by the fact that Corson had, apparently, detoured around his friends instead of joining up with them, but with so much else to concern me, I shrugged that aside mentally. I stood on the dilapidated porch of Henry Tyler’s cabin for a long while, my mind tangling itself up with pointless speculation. I was determined to get Beth back to Yuma. But what then? She was steadfast in her mission to prove her brother innocent. If I were hunted down in Arizona Territory, I was destined to be hanged. I removed my hat and wiped my forehead with my cuff. Distantly I could smell the big Colorado River once more.

  There was always California.

  Shaking my head, I walked back into the cabin where I found Beth on her feet, alert now, looking through Henry’s pantry. ‘He must have some coffee somewhere,’ she said.

  ‘A fire’s not a good idea, Beth,’ I reminded her.

  ‘No,’ she agreed with a sigh, ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Nor is staying here. Corson could catch up. And there’s a posse behind us.’

  ‘A posse!’ She frowned. ‘That must have been who we passed in the canyon. Corson put the horse into a feeder canyon, no more than a notch in the mesa, actually. He said that he thought he heard Indians approaching. He told me to be utterly silent. The horsemen passed by within a few feet of us. I heard a few words spoken – they were in English. Was the posse looking for Corson?’

  ‘No, for me. Tom Driscoll is more stubborn than I suspected,’ I said grimly. I sat on the cot, tossing my hat beside me.

  ‘What are we to do?’ she asked, leaning against the wall, her hands behind her.

  ‘Get you to Yuma,’ I answered.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly. ‘I shan’t start all over again now that we are this close.’

  ‘This close to what?’ I asked angrily. Her mouth was set with determination and her eyes were wide and clear. I didn’t know if I should curse or kiss her. She possessed a magnificent heart, but an impractical mind.

  ‘To freeing Ben!’ she said. Her small hands were clenched into determined fists once more. ‘That’s what all of this has been for. That,’ she added, ‘and clearing your name, John Magadan.’

  I seated myself again, heavily. ‘If you’re talking about returning to Flagstaff, Beth, the answer is “no”. Have you forgotten that I killed another man, a deputy sheriff, there? And there is a posse looking for me. They may have already found our tracks. Our horse is not up to such a long ride, especially not carrying double. And, the Yaquis are prowling.’ She started to interrupt, but I held up a hand. ‘We have no water, no food, little ammunition. And we have no idea yet who to try to talk to to find out what the lock-box number is, if they would even tell us!’

  My voice had risen, and I was sorry about it, but the girl was obsessed, obviously not thinking clearly. I was hot, weary, hunted and completely unwilling to go out on to the desert again, equipped as we were, to ride once more to a town where they wanted to snap my neck for me.

  ‘Henry has plenty of water,’ Beth said maddeningly. ‘I found two extra canteens in his cupboard. The gray horse will be all right so long as we don’t run it, and we take turns riding. I do still have the key, you know,’ she said, tugging it up from under her blouse to display it to me. ‘When we reach Flagstaff again, I shall inquire of some more responsible people – the banker, perhaps – and ask to know who it was that had taken care of Jefferson Pulver’s business for him in his last days.’

  I stared at her for a long while. Then briefly I bowed my head, cradling it in the palms of my hands. The woman was insane. Perhaps she had a case of heatstroke from the long hours on the desert. My response was going to be terse and sharp, when I felt her sit down beside me and rest her hand on my shoulder. Her head tilted that way and rested there too.

  ‘You are so good, John Magadan, to help me through all of this. After we have exonerated you.…’

  ‘Quiet!’ I hissed and I put my hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes, eager and hopeful a moment before now reflected troubled concern. I put my finger to my lips and then pointed outside. For above the silence of the evening calm, I had heard something. Scuttling feet, a hasty movement.

  ‘Get into the pantry and stay there,’ I whispered.

  I crept to the window and looked out. From there I glimpsed a stealthy shadow slipping toward the lean-to and I knew we had trouble. The whisper of their feet told me that the intruders were wearing moccasins and not boots. Their direction told me that they wanted the gray horse. I could not allow the Yaquis to have him.

  I opened the door as softly as I could and stepped off the porch, into the dusty yard. I saw three Indians, one with his hand on the gray’s bridle. It was not a time for negotiations. I shouldered the Winchester and shot the man through his shoulder, seeing his head turn as he was hit, pained surprise on his dark face. A second Yaqui rose up from beyond the lean-to and fired a large-bore rifle in my direction. It was a wild shot, hastily aimed. My reply was a .44-40 bullet from my needle gun that sang as if it had hit metal and whined away into the distances. He took to his heels, leaving his damaged rifle behind.

  The third man rushed toward me, an axe in his hands, thought better of it and retreated. I fired a hasty following shot that caught him in the thigh. His cry of pain was loud and shrill. Not knowing if he would return I plunged ahead into the cottonwoods and willow brush that bordered Henry Tyler’s place, more than ready to fire again.

  I didn’t have to. I saw a few droplets of blood along the dry-creek bottom. I followed them for a way, but the Yaqui had made his escape. Perspiring heavily, panting from the heat and the exertion, I made my way rapidly back toward the cabin, not knowing if other Indians might have been lurking, perhaps even bursting upon Beth in the cabin.

  A hundred feet along I found Buck.

  The big horse eyed me with reproach as I untied him from the thorny mesquite bush he had been tethered to and led him back into the Tyler’s yard. Beth – I swear – stood on the porch with her arms folded as I reached her.

  ‘That’s taken care of then,’ she said. ‘You’ve found old Buck. Now we have the two horses we shall need to get us back to Flagstaff.’

  EIGHT

  There are times in a man’s life when he thinks he has made peace with his youthful recklessness and determines that his foolhardy days have passed. Then some strange passion comes over him and he charges off blindly into folly once again. In my experience, this occurrence usually involves a woman. That is – Beth and I rode northward, widely skirting Coyote Wells, and set our course for Flagstaff.

  ‘What was the name of the judge who sentenced you?’ Beth asked. We had been riding in rel
atively companionable silence for some hours, she on the weary gray, me astride Buck. Our pace was slow; we could not afford to push the ponies harder, although I had fears of swifter, better-rested horses catching up with us from behind.

  ‘His name was Nathan Mitchell,’ I responded at length.

  ‘I thought so,’ she nodded, ‘that’s the man that sentenced Ben to prison. I saw it on the legal papers.’

  ‘And so? It stands to reason that the same judge presided at both trials.’

  ‘Don’t you see? We have to know who to deliver the contents of the strongbox to once we open it? No judge would like the idea of finding out he was tricked by men giving false testimony.’

  ‘Unless he is in on it,’ I commented.

  ‘In on it? Why would the judge be? I can see Sheriff Driscoll and the Corson gang framing men to cover their own misdeeds, but why would Judge Mitchell go along with such shenanigans?’

  I shook my head, rubbed the tips my thumb and forefinger together and asked, ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of bribery,’ she said in the way only a truly honest person could. ‘Then who do we deliver the papers to?’ she asked, looking up at me from the shade of her hat brim.

  ‘The papers we don’t have? Recovered from an unknown safety-deposit box?’ I replied and she turned her eyes away.

  ‘You think I am a little crazy, John, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We continued to ride on silently, though not as companionably as before. The country we were now passing through was all too familiar. Low dry hills studded with nopal cactus and yucca. The trail littered with red volcanic stone. Far to the north, like a shadow more than a landform I could see where the hills began to gather and push skyward. Nearer we would be able to see the pine trees growing as the land rose toward Flagstaff.

  The saddle was uncomfortable. The glare of the sun a torture. The horses were obviously laboring now, and when I spotted a jumbled stack of boulders tall as a house, I suggested that we halt on their shady side and take a breather.

  Beth only nodded her agreement. I didn’t know if the heat was taking its toll on her or if she had decided not to talk to me out of pique. I did regret a few of my recent statements, but I had meant them and it does no good in such discussions to hold back. I would just have to learn to be more diplomatic, I supposed.

  I helped Beth down from the gray, loosened the cinches on both animals and gave them a drink of water from my hat. Then I walked to where Beth had sagged into the shade of the boulders and sat beside her, hat perched on my knee. The earth beneath us was warm, but with the occasionally gusting wind and the shade the afternoon was not intolerable. If we waited until near sundown before starting on, the day would cool and the horses would be rested. All in all, we were in good shape.

  Except that the noose was still waiting for me in Flagstaff, and the posse was still behind us, trying to ride us down.

  And we had no food, little water, small chance at discovering what Beth hoped to find in the mysterious safety-deposit box to free her brother from Yuma Prison. Otherwise, things were going well. She looked small now, and abandoned. I wanted to put a comforting arm around her shoulders, but I did not know if it would be welcome in her current mood. And, I could think of no reassuring words to murmur.

  ‘Have you any money?’ I asked her after a while. She gave me an odd look, and I went on, ‘I’m trying to think ahead. The horses have to be taken care of. Well, Buck does. The gray we should cut loose near the town line. He is stolen, after all. We have to have food ourselves. I’m nearly out of ammunition.’

  ‘Everything I got from selling Henry’s sorrel is gone. We may even owe the stable for losing their horse and buggy! The dun probably made its way home, but it wouldn’t do to have us arrested on something as small as that, would it, after all of this?’ She laughed a little wildly. I sensed that she was on the verge of tears. Mostly due to my crudeness. It must have seemed to her that I was cruelly indifferent to her brother’s fate.

  ‘Let me do the worrying,’ I said as softly as I could. ‘You continue with the planning – you’re better at that than I am.’

  I caught myself yawning. I was more tired than I wanted to admit to Beth. The thing was, I had tried my best to help her, but I wasn’t providing much help at all. Riding in circles, fighting a battle with the desert ghosts, leaving her in the same position she had been in when I first met her.

  I did have one thought.

  ‘I remembered – I do have some money. Enough to see to Buck, enough to find you a place to sleep and buy you a meal.’ I fished in my watch pocket and there it remained – the much-folded yellow-back ten-dollar bill that I had taken from Ray Hardin’s wallet. I smoothed it out on my knee and showed it to Beth.

  ‘Ten dollars will move the program along a little, anyway.’

  She didn’t answer me. She just stared, those blue eyes open wider than ever. Her finger tapped the bill on my knee in repetitive fashion, like a telegrapher sending an important yet incomprehensible message. She lifted her eyes to mine, stuttered and gasped and put her hand to her breast.

  ‘Are you all right, Beth?’

  She still couldn’t catch her breath. Finally she murmured, ‘You had this all along?’

  ‘Yes. I took it from Ray’s wallet in Henry Tyler’s cabin. I never even unfolded it. I don’t see.…’

  ‘You don’t see!’ Beth said, laughing with humor, with relief or derision or a combination of these.

  I lifted the ten-dollar bill and studied it more closely. ‘I’ll be.…’ I breathed.

  The bill had the two ‘3s’ in its serial number circled in red ink and in one corner of the bill in the same ink was a tiny sketch of something square, a keyhole roughly drawn on its face.

  I breathed a small curse. I could not believe I had been so stupid. Ray Hardin had managed to complete his work for Beth Tolliver. When Ray knew that he was likely to die on the long desert, he had thought of a way to convey his information to her. On the face of the ten-dollar bill I had never more than glanced at.

  ‘Box number thirty-three,’ Beth said breathlessly, and her hand went involuntarily to the brass key she wore around her neck on that slender silver chain. ‘Now we have all we need!’

  ‘Slow down, Beth. Now we still have nothing. Except a hanging town in front of us, a posse behind us.…’

  ‘I shall march into that bank the first thing in the morning, open the lockbox, remove the papers and have the proof that you and Ben are both innocent of the charges they convicted you of.’

  ‘There’s no stopping you, is there?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course not, John. I will find this Judge Nathan Mitchell and explain everything. Then Ben will be released from prison and you will be pardoned – why are you glowering like that?’

  ‘We’ve already discussed it. We don’t know what hand Judge Mitchell has played in this game. If he’s one of them, I’ll be back in jail in Flagstaff, Ben will still be in the Yuma Prison, and Corson and Sheriff Driscoll will be laughing their heads off.’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose,’ Beth said from out of the shadows. ‘But we shall have to risk it.’

  ‘You think so? Listen, Beth.…’

  ‘Then, of course,’ she said, tapping my knee once again in a different sort of way, ‘you will have to marry me. We have spent too many nights alone together. It just would not look right.’ She shook her head definitely. ‘Ben would not approve.’

  I didn’t answer; I couldn’t. She was surely suffering from heatstroke.

  ‘We have to be going on,’ I said, rising. ‘The posse is still behind us somewhere. With any luck we should reach Flagstaff by daybreak tomorrow.’

  We reached Flagstaff once again at the hour after dawn. It was a beautiful setting with the sun-slashed stands of pines surrounding the town and gentle hills rolling away, I thought once again, but I was good and tired of the place. Beth, on the other hand, was chipper an
d bright-eyed despite the trail-weariness she must have been feeling. We halted the horses for a moment along the approach.

  ‘Anyone can tell us where Judge Mitchell lives,’ she said eagerly. ‘As soon as we have opened the safety-deposit box we can ride directly to his home.’

  ‘If he’s there.’

  Beth gave me a curious glance.

  ‘He may be out somewhere supervising a hanging,’ I suggested.

  ‘Your thoughts are too dark. You’ll cheer up when we have recovered Jefferson Pulver’s deathbed confession.’

  ‘If it’s still there.’

  ‘I have the only key,’ Beth reminded me.

  ‘If Judge Mitchell was in with the gang, he could easily have had the box opened by court order,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Aren’t you ever cheerful!’

  ‘Frequently. In other times. This all started when I found myself standing in the shadow of the hangman’s noose.’

  ‘You’re innocent!’ Beth said, touching my hand. ‘Good always triumphs over evil in the end.’

  You cannot argue with logic like that. I followed the optimistic girl down the trail toward Flagstaff. As agreed we turned the little gray horse loose at the edge of town. It seemed to me at that moment that my life was running in circles. From Flagstaff to Coyote Wells to Yuma to Flagstaff. Beth, on the other hand, saw her life, her plans, running in a straight line, toward freeing her brother from prison, exonerating me, if she only continued steadfastly with her strategy.

  Maybe she was right, maybe her optimism was well-founded. Much of my faith in the way things worked in this world had been darkened as I found myself arrested for a murder I did not do, convicted and sentenced to be hung. Sometimes these small things can dim your trust in your fellow man.

  ‘Beth, take Buck and go ahead. I still can’t be seen on the streets of this town.’

  ‘Oh, no, John! You must go to the bank with me. I’ll need your protection.’