by Paul Lederer
She was a willing girl, it seemed, but with all her good intentions, she had neglected to provide a cup to drink from. Cameron removed the lid from the blue coffee pot and cautiously sipped at the dark, strong brew. The horses watched him warily as if suspecting the worst; hoping that this human was not going to force them to leave the cozy barn and haul the heavy stagecoach through this rainstorm.
Cameron had finished a good cupful of coffee before Eleanor returned, carrying a pan of hot water. She saw the manner in which he was drinking and murmured a small, ‘Oh.’
‘No matter,’ Cameron told her, smiling. ‘It would just be another cup to wash.’
Smiling in return, Eleanor produced a small round mirror from her pocket. ‘It’s Dora’s. She’s a nice woman.’
‘Yes, she is,’ Cameron agreed. ‘How is Kyle Post this morning?’
Eleanor frowned. ‘Feverish still. He certainly can’t travel. I told Dora that we would find an army surgeon and send him back.’
‘I see.’ Cameron was thoughtful for a moment. ‘And Aunt Mae?’
‘She’ll be fine, or at least she assures me that she will,’ Eleanor said with a laugh. ‘It’s funny, I never knew what she was made of back in the East. I always loved her, of course, but there’s more substance to her than I could have guessed.’
‘You never know until a person is put to the test,’ Cameron said. ‘Scat now – tell Dora I’ll be in to grab something to eat as soon as I’ve cleaned up some. I want to use this water before it chills.’
‘All right.’ Eleanor hesitated. She watched as he fixed the mirror on a nail on the stable wall. ‘I wish I knew your name.…’
Then she was gone, hoisting her skirts above the mud outside. Cameron watched after her, not certain why she had said what she had. Mentally shrugging, he turned to the business of scraping the stubble from his cheeks.
Cameron could smell the biscuits baking and the frying bacon across the rainy yard. Entering the front door of the adobe, he paused to speak a few words to Stan Tabor who was sitting up in the leather strap chair, rifle in hands. An empty plate sat on the nearby table.
‘How’s it going, Stan?’
‘Not bad.’ He grimaced as he answered and apologized. ‘A hole in your leg doesn’t do a lot for your spirits.’
‘I sure wish that Indian had missed,’ Cameron said, ‘Kyle and I were hoping you’d take the last stretch of the run.’
‘I’d have tried it,’ the old man said solemnly, ‘but as you can see I’m just not up to it.’ He regarded Cameron carefully. ‘You’ll have to take up the task, you know? The rest of us will have to fort up here because of the comancheros. The only way to get help is for the coach to get through to Fort Wingate.’
Cameron’s mouth tightened. What the station-master said was true, of course. The badly wounded, like Kyle Post, could not be moved. The comancheros would be trailing after them, still wanting the army gold – and revenge. Cameron could not forget the savage hatred in the eyes of Bell after he had been roughly bound and pitched to the side of the road.
Cameron left Stan to his painful brooding and entered the kitchen. There, around a puncheon table, sat Eleanor, Axel Popejoy and Aunt Mae with her arm in a sling. Dora turned from her stove, offered a hopeful smile and returned to her work.
‘How long before we’re out of here?’ Axel Popejoy asked, in that shrill annoying voice of his.
‘I don’t know.’ Cameron seated himself on a bench opposite Eleanor. Their eyes met only briefly before she turned her gaze down to the plate before her which held three biscuits soaked in brown gravy and a half-eaten strip of bacon.
‘How is your shoulder, Mae?’ Cameron asked.
Popejoy interrupted her answer. ‘What do you mean you don’t know when we can leave? We’ve go to get out of here before the comancheros catch up, don’t we?’
Cameron’s gray eyes were fixed deliberately on the perspiring drummer now. He reminded him, ‘I don’t even work for the stage line, Popejoy. And especially, I do not work for you. This rain is going to be a huge problem. The roads are going to be slick, perhaps flooded in the cuts. And we’ve got a weary team of horses.’
Dora placed a steaming plate of bacon, biscuits and gravy in front of Cameron. She wiped her hands on a towel and poked nervously at her silver-streaked dark hair. ‘Stan says that the comancheros will come,’ she said in her heavy Spanish accent. ‘He says that our only hope is to bring soldiers from the fort because the murderers will certainly come.’
‘He’s right,’ Cameron agreed. ‘It’s just that I’m not certain we can even make the fort under these conditions.’
‘Is it, perhaps, that you don’t care to try to drive the stage through?’ Popejoy demanded, half-rising from his seat. ‘Could that be it?’
Yes, that was a part of it, a large part, but Cameron didn’t admit that to Popejoy. He intended to ignore the self-important little man as much as possible. He looked at Eleanor whose eyes were hopeful yet also understanding. The woman seemed intuitively to know too much already.
‘Could I have some coffee to go along with this?’ Cameron said, turning to his food as the others kept their eyes fixed on him.
‘Is there trouble on the road for you?’ Aunt Mae asked in a kindly way.
‘Trouble for everyone,’ Cameron answered, using a generalization. Had Eleanor talked to her aunt as well? Or was his trouble so obvious? Was there a mark of Cain on his forehead? He ate rapidly, in silence.
There was no use struggling with the decision. There was only one choice: if he did not get the stage through, send back cavalry and an army surgeon, Kyle Post would certainly die. The comancheros would likely throng upon the station, killing anyone who resisted. If he did not drive that team to Fort Wingate, not a single one of them was likely to survive.
Eleanor was not likely to survive.
A hidden corner of his mind resented the fact that he would be delivering her to her handsome young lieutenant. Once he reached Fort Wingate, however, his own life would be worthless. But then, he asked himself honestly, what had his life been worth up to now? He finished his coffee, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and rose abruptly.
‘Where are you going?’ Popejoy asked. The little drummer’s eyes were fearful.
‘I’m going to hitch the team. Want to help?’
‘I know nothing about such things,’ Axel said. He leaned back, searched for and produced a cigar. Cameron Black felt like saying something to him. Many things, but he clenched his jaw, picked up his hat from the bench beside him and strode out. Behind him, Aunt Mae said, ‘I thank the fate that sent that young man our way. We’d be in terrible shape without him.’ Her eyes flickered to Popejoy, but he did not notice their glare and did not respond.
On his way to the front door, Stan Tabor told him, ‘There’s a rain slicker in that closet. You’ll have need of it.’
Cameron nodded his thanks and went to the closet, shrugging into the slicker. Opening the door he admitted a rush of cold, twisting wind. Outside the rain was falling in pitchforks. Tugging his Stetson down farther, he stepped out onto the darkness of the day and slogged back toward the stable.
Halfway there he paused, feeling the gust of the harsh wind against his body. His eyes lifted to the stagecoach and his mouth tightened. Standing in the silver rain, he made a decision. Clambering up onto the box of the stagecoach, he lifted the heavy strongbox filled with army gold and struggled to the muddy earth with it still in his grip.
There was what appeared to be a chicken roost, burned to charcoal by the Indians. It seemed not to have been used for a long while, but still it smelled strongly of scorched feathers and old manure. Kicking aside a section of charred timber, Cameron dragged the strongbox inside and looked around. He shook one of the few remaining uprights and then sighed, lifted a boot and slammed it into the pole. The last section of roof caved in as the pole broke, and he jumped back as the charred wood and plaster crumbled to the earth, covering the strongbox.
> The rain still fell, heavily, and the wind made trembling silhouettes of the cold oaks. Cameron Black returned to the stable, wiping the rain from his face.
The horses eyed him uneasily as he took the harnesses from their brackets and lined them out to untangle them. The wheel horse stamped its disapproval and despite himself Cameron grinned. ‘I know, big fellow, I’ve no liking for this day’s work either.’
‘Can I help?’ she asked in a small voice. Cameron glanced up at Eleanor as he straightened a few twists in the leather ribbons of the harness.
‘I could use a hand in draping them, yes,’ he said. She was shivering with the damp and cold, but her face was resolute as she neared to watch him at his task.
‘You’ll have to be patient with me,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘You’ll have to be patient with me!’ Cameron laughed. ‘I’m sure the regular teamsters can do this in minutes, but outfitting a team is not something I do every day, either.’
‘What are our chances of reaching Fort Wingate – really?’ Eleanor asked, with subdued urgency. Her eyes were damp now; Cameron pretended not to notice them or her suppressed fear.
‘We’ll be all right,’ he said, lying easily. ‘You’ll be on time for your wedding yet – with any luck.’
Neither of them was skilled at the task of harnessing the four-horse team – like most jobs it looked simple when those who knew their business were about it, but not so easily done by amateurs. It took the better part of an hour to get the balky horses in team. Then they were led out into the driving rain and hitched to the coach with Cameron’s fingers numbed by the cold, fumbling with the unfamiliar harness rings and trace chains.
But it was done eventually and the horses, peevish and miserable were led to the front of the adobe way-station.
Stamping inside, Cameron glanced at those gathered, water streaming off his slicker to stain the wooden floor. Eleanor had gone directly to the kitchen to warm herself at the stove.
‘Are we ready now?’ Axel Popejoy asked.
‘Yes.’
‘The team give you much trouble?’ Stan Tabor enquired.
‘Some, but they’re still pretty tired. If they were fresh I don’t know if I could have handled it.’
‘Look,’ Popejoy said impatiently, ‘don’t you think it’s time we got going? Those bandits could catch up with us at any time.’
‘Who’s going, then?’ Cameron asked. ‘Stan, you and Dora are going to fort up here and wait for help?’
‘That’s right,’ Stan Tabor answered firmly. ‘This is my station, holding it is what they pay me for. There’s nothing left for the comancheros to burn, no way they can get through that door – which as you’ve noticed is five inches thick, solid oak. Besides, they’ll see that the stage has gone on. We have little to fear from them here.’
‘Kyle Post can’t be moved,’ Aunt Mae said quietly.
‘No, that’s obvious. You, Aunt Mae?’
‘I think I’ll stay behind to help Dora with these two injured men.’
‘Aunt Mae!’ Eleanor had returned to the room. ‘You can’t be serious. It’s not safe here.’
‘From what I hear it’s probably safer here than it is on the trail. You, Eleanor, of course, must travel on with the stage. You have to reach Fort Wingate and safety. You must find Lyle McMahon and see that he sends help back. If you do not arrive your young man will be frantic.’
‘But you must go with us, Aunt Mae!’
‘I’m of more use here,’ the older woman said, shaking her head. ‘Besides,’ she added, indicating the sling she wore, ‘I don’t know if I could take the jolting of the coach, Eleanor. You must go.’
‘All right!’ Popejoy said irritably. ‘It’s the three of us then. Let’s get going, Riley!’
That was all there was to do, it seemed, but Cameron Black had no strong desire to clamber onto the box and drive an unfamiliar team down a storm-drenched road toward a worse fate. Nevertheless, after a last hug from Aunt Mae, Eleanor was hurried from the shelter of the porch awning into the stage. Popejoy had already settled himself inside, smoking a rank cigar. Eleanor turned her face toward Cameron as he closed the coach door.
‘If I were capable of doing more … I would.’
‘I know that.’ He slipped her a cold hard piece of polished steel. The big Walker Colt they had taken from Bell. ‘Keep this dry; use it if you must.’
They lingered a moment longer, not finding appropriate words to express their tangled thoughts. Popejoy interrupted the brief, unsettled reverie.
‘Well, then? Can we get this stage rolling?’
‘Sure,’ Cameron Black said absently. His thought were on other matters. Nevertheless he swung up onto the box as lightning forked overhead once more and a sudden rumble of thunder caused the coach to sway beneath him. Then, through the downpour, he started the team down the dark, slippery road. Aunt Mae, standing in the lighted doorway of the adobe went back inside and the bar was dropped behind the thick oaken door.
The sun was out – somewhere beyond the rolling dark clouds – but it did little to illuminate the way. Unfamiliar with the reins, unsure of the trail, Cameron Black drove very cautiously at first. Then as his intuition signaled that the horses once again had divined their familiar route, he let them step out a little more energetically.
The rain was driven into his eyes and he hunched lower and lower, cursing the day, the storm and his own decision. Wind thrust against the high stage in mocking gusts. The rear end of the coach tended to slide away at the slightest turning.
Cameron began to grow more familiar with the country surrounding him now. He had passed through it not three days earlier, riding hell for leather in the opposite direction. In the heart of the storm, however, it was difficult to pick out landmarks. There were oak trees and scattered piñon here, although they offered only ghostly shapes smothered as they were by the twisting fall of rain. There were high bluffs he thought he remembered, but these, too, offered only vague shapes to his eyes.
The sounds of the day seemed more dominant: the rush of cold rain, the distant muttering of heavy thunder, the squeal of an axle he had not thought to grease. He was doing little to guide the team as they sloshed through the red mud and scrambled up slick rocky slopes. The fierceness of the driving rain obscured all.
Still in the back of his mind a small vision was brightly illuminated. The fresh, hopeful face of Eleanor, her dark eyes bright with questions. Cameron shook himself angrily. She belonged to another man, by all accounts a decent young man with a promising future.
The team slogged on, vacillating between an eagerness to rush on to Fort Wingate and their next resting place and their fear of the slick underfooting and the occasional slash of bright lightning which jolted them into momentary panic each time it sparked across the tumbling skies.
Cameron’s hands grew numb with the cold. He shivered inside the black rain slicker he wore. He carried no watch, nor had he asked Stan Tabor how long the trip to the fort should take. It seemed as if he had been on this blowing, rain-slippery trail forever. How long had it been? Four hours? Six? He continued on grimly, watching the damp muscular backs of the horses.
He supposed they were twenty or twenty-five miles out of Calico when he was forced to slow the team to a walk. They were approaching a shallow crossing where rampaging white water roared across their trail.
The horses again wished to go ahead and simultaneously feared to. Cameron reined them in, clambered down from the box and walked to the head of the team to try to gauge the depth of the rampaging river.
It was then that the bandits struck for a second time.
FIVE
They attacked the stagecoach from the rear and from out of the scrub oak trees to the north of the trail, rushing at them through the mesh of falling rain. Cameron dove for the scant shelter of the riverside willow brush. One of the bandits saw him and winged a wild shot which missed widely as Cameron rolled down through the gray
willows, reached the river and clambered back up the muddy bank, pistol in his hand.
He lifted his head to peer through the undergrowth and was in time to see one of the outlaws, a bulky man wearing a huge black sombrero, lean down from the back of a thick-chested gray horse to look into the coach window.
Cameron heard him shout out, ‘Look here, what I have found, men! A beautiful young señorita.’
Cameron then saw the muzzle flame, heard the unmistakable roar of a Walker .44, and the comanchero was hit in the chest by a bullet from within. Eleanor had used the revolver he had given her to good effect. The bandit clawed at his chest angrily then opened his eyes wide and tumbled to the muddy ground as his horse bucked and raced away in terror.
Cameron started to rise up in anger and charge the bandits, but recognized that as a futile tactic. They would cut him down in seconds. As he hesitated, a second outlaw tore open the door on the opposite side of the coach and leaped in. Eleanor, apparently disarmed, did not fire again. With a groan Cameron settled onto his belly, revolver in his hand cocked and ready but virtually useless. There were too many of them. He had no chance against them.
Through the driving rain and above the gusting wind he heard the recognizable voice of Bell giving orders, shouting questions.
‘Where has he gotten to? The driver, damn it, who do you think!’ Then, ‘Spread out and find him. I owe him a little payback. Monty! Take the reins. Don’t take the time to look for the gold now. We’ll search it at Ranchita. Someone bind the little man and the girl.’
Three men on horseback began to weave their way through the scattered scrub oaks, the willow brush and low growing manzanita, searching for Cameron. One came so near that Cam could read the brand on his roan pony’s flank, see the big-roweled Spanish spurs he wore glistening in the rain. They passed by him; Cameron was virtually invisible in the rain and low fog of the day so long as he did not move.
‘Which way did he go, Bell?’ a second bandit called.