Lost Trail

by Paul Lederer

  When he came to – was it minutes or hours later? – his muscles were stiff, his head was a throbbing mass of pain and he was cold, very cold beneath the starry night sky. Shivering, he took a deep, cautious breath which caused fiery pain to arc across his ribcage. Carefully he repositioned his body, first to enable himself to sit up and then to reach for the support of the unpainted wall fronting the alleyway.

  Finally making his way upright, he stood dizzily listening to the boozy uproar from the nearby saloon, breathing carefully, trying to think.

  Had that been Morgan Pride’s gang, or the following band of men led by Ted Everly? There was no telling – it could have even been a group of local town toughs.

  ‘Are you going to make it?’ the voice behind him inquired. Tanner turned his head enough to see the woman – twenty or so years of age – watching him, a shawl thrown over her shoulders.

  ‘Sure,’ Tanner rasped.

  ‘I don’t think it’s so sure,’ she replied. ‘If you can make it over here, come along inside.’

  She turned and opened an unseen alley door, letting the light from within flood out.

  With nowhere else to go, Tanner started that way, moving stiffly, cautiously. He did not trust anyone in the town of Knox. Bent over at the waist, hand across his battered ribs, he went through the doorway and had it shut behind him. Looking around he found himself in some sort of ladies’ hat shop with knick-knacks and laces scattered about. He leaned back against one of the counters and raised his eyes to see a dark-haired woman with shoulder-length tresses watching him with calm, concerned eyes. She continued to clasp the shawl tightly around her shoulders. Beneath that was a white blouse with a few frills decorating it, tucked into a dark blue skirt.

  ‘What are you, a gambler?’ she asked.

  ‘No, why do you ask?’

  ‘From time to time men try to settle accounts outside,’ she said, nodding toward the alley.

  ‘No, I’m no gambler. Did you recognize the men? See which way they went?’

  ‘No and no,’ she said with a rich laugh. ‘I was closing up for the night when I peeked out and saw them going at you. When you went down, I called out, ‘The marshal is on his way,’ and they scattered. I shut my door and locked it right away.’

  ‘Was the marshal on his way?’

  ‘Of course not – how could I have notified him in a few minutes? Nevertheless, the threat of a man with a badge was enough to send them running.’

  Tanner shifted his position slightly, still holding his ribs. ‘I thank you for your help. Is the town marshal still McGraw?’

  ‘Why, yes he is. Do you know him?’

  ‘Not really.’ Jack McGraw was the man who had arrested Tanner for the killing of Matt Doyle, spoken a few words to him in the town jail and escorted John to the courthouse for his trial. McGraw was not a cruel or judgmental man; he only took care of his own work and let the courts sort out the rest.

  ‘I think….’ Tanner said wearily, then the world began to whirl around again and he felt his knees begin to buckle. He fell face forward against the hard wooden floor of the shop, and the world vanished again from before his eyes.

  Someone was humming a little tune melodically. The sun was bright through the pink curtains on the south wall. Tanner was in a bed with pink ruffles and a canopy. But where was he and why was he there? His nose itched and he moved one arm automatically to scratch it. The motion caused jagged pain to jolt through his ribcage and he remembered. He had been beaten in an alley and an unknown woman had come to his rescue. He had passed out on her floor and somehow she, or someone else, had managed to drag him into this bedroom where he now lay, squinting into the glare of morning sunlight.

  He was in the town of Knox pursuing Becky Canasta, and by now his enemies had had time to gather and ride away while he could do nothing but lay in a pink bed, feeling sorry for himself.

  ‘I was wondering when you would wake up,’ the dark haired girl at the doorway said. She entered, carrying a silver tray with two cups and a coffee pot on it. ‘I’m sorry for not sending for the doctor, but a lot of men in your situation would not want one.’

  ‘What situation is that?’ he asked, as she towed a small round table to his bedside and he tried to wedge himself into a sitting position.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she answered, pouring coffee into two small cups painted with flowers, seating herself in a blue velvet covered chair. ‘Men with troubles.’

  ‘I’m not an outlaw,’ he said, managing to reach out far enough to pick up one of the small cups by its seemingly fragile ear. ‘If that’s what you meant. The thing is,’ he confessed after a short sip of the hot coffee, ‘well, my name is John Tanner.’

  ‘My name is Candice Moore,’ the unperturbed woman said as if John’s words were meant only as an introduction. Her eyes searched his battered face; Tanner fingered his eyes – still sleep-encrusted He tugged at an eyelash.

  ‘You haven’t been here long have, you?’ he asked.

  ‘More than a year,’ she answered, sipping at her own cup of coffee.

  ‘What I am talking about happened before you got here – two years ago to be exact.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Candice asked.

  ‘It’s something I never wanted to tell anybody about – not all of it, anyway.’

  ‘I have the time,’ Candice said. ‘Business is not exactly booming – and there is a bell over the door. Besides,’ she added with a smile. ‘You aren’t going anywhere right now. Why not let me play confidante?’

  Why not? Tanner thought. He had been carrying his burden alone for a long time and Candice seemed receptive. A small, dark woman with a bright smile which only broke out now and then, and intent greenish eyes which reflected concern and puzzlement alternately as Tanner told her the truth about the murder of Matt Doyle and its aftermath which led up to his beating in the alley.

  ‘It’s a wonder they didn’t kill you,’ she said after one of Tanner’s long pauses.

  ‘I think they would have – if not for you. They just didn’t want to bring attention to themselves with gunfire.’

  Candice was thinking along a different line. ‘Two years of your life,’ she said at length. She leaned slightly forward, hands clasped between her knees. ‘Did you love her that much, Tanner?’

  It was a woman’s question, of course – one of the things they are always thinking about. He answered with a shake of his head:

  ‘I don’t know now. It seemed so.’

  ‘You may have been just used. Duped.’

  ‘I know it,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then why…?’

  ‘I have to take Becky home for her father’s sake. Maybe when I see her, I’ll know if I’m over her. I just don’t know.’

  ‘I think,’ Candice said rising, smoothing out her skirt, ‘that you are a noble man, John Tanner.’ She scooped up the tray and the cups and went out. A few seconds later John could hear the small bell over the shops door tinkling, hear Candice welcoming a customer. He lay back in the wide pink bed.

  Noble? Foolish, maybe. Infatuated – clinging desperately to a vision of a woman in white shimmering in the moonlight. But noble? He doubted it. He was only a man who had accepted a challenge and was committed to following through to its conclusion.

  He owed that much to Ben Canasta and to Becky.

  Tanner lay back and closed his eyes. He heard the ping of a cash register and then the door over the bell tinkling again as the customer went out of the shop. Then there was the sound of Candice’s leather heels crossing the floor toward the room where he lay. Tanner feigned sleep. He could not have said why, except that he felt he had done enough talking for one morning. The door to the bedroom opened again and then closed silently. Candice was gone, and Tanner felt a vague sense of loss and guilt. It was all for the better – the girl was young and did not need to be dragged further into his problems. As soon as he was able, he was leaving. Knox had never been a lucky town for him.


  The trouble was that after an entire morning and evening spent in bed, barely moving, Tanner could tell that he was not going to be in shape to ride the long desert for quite a while. Sometime later as dusk had begun to settle, Candice returned with a lantern, bringing with her a young doctor with a pinched face who made John sit up straight as he bound his ribs tightly – very tightly.

  ‘As you probably know there’s no real treatment for healing broken ribs,’ the doctor said as he worked. ‘Except remaining still. You should stay in this bed – or another – for a day or so. A week would be better. You will still hurt, but it will improve your chances of the bones mending and not splintering to puncture a lung.’

  Tanner knew that was right, but he was already weary of being bed-ridden. There were only a few positions he could find which did not intensify the misery he was enduring, and to shift between these required painful movements.

  He tried to raise anger against the men who had beat him in the alley, but it was hard to do. It’s not easy to sustain an anger against an unknown enemy.

  The door opened again and Candice appeared there, dressed in yellow. She peered at him out of the shadows.

  ‘Do you want to try to eat something? The doctor said it wouldn’t do any harm for you to walk as far as my kitchen – though it will cause you some discomfort.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Tanner said. Then he gestured. ‘I don’t have a shirt on, though.’

  ‘I’m a pretty informal girl,’ Candice smiled. ‘Need help getting up?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Tanner said, struggling and failing to place his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I suppose I do,’ he admitted.

  With Candice’s help he made it to his feet and she led him down a narrow corridor to the kitchen beyond where the good aroma of food cooking caused his belly to tighten. When was the last time he had eaten? When was the last time he had actually enjoyed a home-cooked meal?

  Candice helped Tanner to sit in a wooden chair and apologized, ‘I’m sorry – I don’t have much around the house just now. I made fatback in white beans, mustard greens and cornbread.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Tanner said honestly. While he waited to be served he watched the slender back of the girl in the yellow dress, listened to the small sounds she made as she dished the food out. At another time, in another place….

  But now this was the town of Knox and as soon as he was half-well he meant to ride out on to the long desert again.

  Candice seated herself opposite him and they both ate in relative silence. The food was simple, but warm and good. Still when Tanner could eat no more, there was half of his dinner left untouched. Candice frowned at his plate.

  ‘I’m sorry, I told you it wasn’t much,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not that – it’s just that I don’t have my appetite back yet.’

  ‘I’ll try to find something special for breakfast,’ Candice said, still looking as if she had failed him.

  ‘That’s right – I will have to stay here until breakfast, I suppose.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry to be putting you out like this. Here I am, a stranger, sleeping in your bed.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Candice said without looking up from her plate. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Back in bed Tanner pondered the woman’s last words and decided that she had meant only what she had said: It was nothing at all.

  It was two full days and nights before Tanner felt he had to try to travel on, before he felt strong enough to even attempt it. Candice helped him dress – pulling on his shirt was impossible to do alone. The shirt was a new one with blue and white checks that Candice had bought for him. She watched as he buttoned it up and stood looking at his bruised face in the bedroom mirror. Twice she seemed ready to say something, but held her voice. After Tanner had managed – clumsily – to sling his belt gun around his hips and buckle it, Candice slipped out of the room as Tanner made his way toward the front door of the shop.

  When she returned he saw that she was holding his gray Stetson.

  ‘I found it in the alley. I brushed it and had it blocked.’

  ‘It looks better than ever,’ John said, meaning it.

  Candice handed it to him as if she were giving up something very important.

  ‘If I ever get back this way….’ he began.

  ‘Oh go on and get yourself killed!’ she said sharply. Tanner turned and opened the door, causing the little bell to tinkle. Candice stepped quickly near him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ He smiled and she stuck out a small hand for him to shake, then changed her mind, went to tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  She rushed away, her eyes moist. Tanner watched her for a moment, then stepped out of the door into the bright desert sunlight.

  ‘Well, you never know,’ he muttered to himself. Then he halted on the plankwalk, standing in the narrow band of shade cast by the awning and considered. What now? He still had not searched the town for Morgan Pride and his gang, for Becky.

  He had started toward the stable to see to his horse when he nearly walked into the last man in Knox that he wanted to see. He was tall, bulky and the morning sunlight reflected off the silver badge he was wearing. Marshal Jack McGraw planted himself in front of John Tanner, his thumbs hooked into his gun belt. He looked Tanner up and down, his eyes alert but clouded.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ McGraw said. ‘What are you doing in this town, Tanner? You know it might not be too healthy a place for you to visit.’

  ‘I’ll be leaving soon. I was trying to find some friends.’

  ‘Looks like someone already told you what Knox thinks of you,’ McGraw said. John reflexively reached up and touched the knot on his head, his black eye.

  ‘I was looking for Becky Canasta,’ John said ‘and I got jumped.’

  ‘Becky Canasta? Does Ben know you’re still bothering that girl.’

  ‘He’s the one who sent me,’ John said defensively. ‘We think Becky has been kidnapped, and those who took her are the ones who beat me up.’

  ‘It’s more likely that it was people who remembered you as the man who killed Matt Doyle. A lot of folks think you got off too easy, Tanner. At any rate, Becky Tanner has not been in town – I’d have seen her.’

  ‘All right, if you say so,’ John said. ‘I mean to have another look around, though. Just to be sure.’

  Jack McGraw’s frown deepened and he shook his head heavily. ‘I wouldn’t recommend that, Tanner. The people in this town remember you and they don’t like you. It could cause more trouble for you – and for me. Why don’t you just saddle your pony and get out of my town before I’m forced to put you in jail under protective custody?’

  ‘You wouldn’t….’ John Tanner began, but he knew by the expression on the marshal’s face and from past experience that McGraw would do just that if provoked. ‘I guess I’ll be leaving soon, McGraw.’

  ‘I guess you will,’ the lawman said. Then he turned and stomped heavily on his way, leaving Tanner in a predicament. He could not have ridden all this way on the trail of the kidnappers only to give it up now. But getting himself locked up in the jail would be even less productive. Maybe if he waited until nightfall and made a few inquiries….

  Then he saw a familiar face. The sallow, blond-haired man, Wes Dalton. One of the kidnappers, or so Ben Canasta thought, Dalton having left the C-bar-C on the morning after the robbery. Wes Dalton was standing in the doorway of the stable opposite the one where Tanner had put up his gray horse.

  He started that way.

  John Tanner’s movements were clumsy – his taped ribs allowed little natural movement. But he was determined and angry as he strode that way. Wes Dalton didn’t recognize Tanner until he was three strides away from him. They did not know each other well, and Tanner’s face was shadowed by the wide brim of his Stetson hat. Suddenly Dalton did recognize him and he voiced a little squeak, his hand lowering toward his holstered gun.

  It was too late. Tanner already had his
Colt drawn and in two more paces he had it leveled at Wes Dalton’s belly and was nudging him back into the shadowed interior of the stable.

  ‘What do you want?’ Dalton asked, his hands held high as Tanner took the robber’s gun and hurled it away.

  ‘You guess,’ Tanner said in a nasty voice. ‘Where’s Becky Canasta?’ he demanded, glancing around to make sure no other kidnapper was slipping up on him.

  ‘How would I know?’ Wes Dalton said with force although his voice quavered. ‘Not with me, that’s for sure!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tanner demanded. ‘Tell me all about it – your life might depend on it,’ he added as he steadied his cocked revolver and leveled it at Dalton’s mid-section. Fear caused Wes Dalton’s face to tighten. Now his hands were shaking slightly as he continued to hold them high.

  ‘Listen, Tanner, it’s like this – we rode out to Split Rock and we all went our own ways. I figured to ride into Knox and spend some money, have a good time. Morgan and Charlie Cox took the other trails. You know, toward Ruidoso and Las Palmas.’

  ‘Which one took which road?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was first to leave,’ Dalton said. ‘I knew I could make Knox that night and sleep in a bed. Morgan Pride and Charlie figured their horses would need some rest before striking out on the long trail. They decided to sleep out at Split Rock.’

  ‘Who has the girl?’ Tanner asked savagely.

  ‘It must be Morgan Pride, but I couldn’t swear to it. All I know is we all decided to split up, make it harder to follow us.’