Lost Trail

by Paul Lederer

  A nice-looking young blonde waitress motioned them to a table in the corner and they seated themselves while she scribbled down an order from another table: a man who was dressed like a drummer sat hand on chin, talking to a girl in a scarlet dress, apparently a local saloon girl enjoying a free steak dinner.

  ‘Love!’ Chad said with a smile, nodding toward the couple.

  ‘A man has to pretend he’s found it now and then, even if it’s only for a night, until the next coach pulls out.’

  The waitress, a little older than Tanner had first guessed, came to their table. Now they could see the perspiration stains at her armpits, the weariness in her eyes.

  ‘What’ll it be, gents?’

  ‘What’s everyone else having?’ Chad asked.

  ‘I can have steaks fried for you, beans and corn on the cob.’

  ‘Two plates of each,’ John Tanner replied immediately. ‘I can’t think of anything that sounds better.’

  ‘How do you want your steaks?’

  ‘Burn ‘em,’ Chad said before John could answer. As the waitress walked away toward the kitchen, Chad said, ‘That way, they can never get your order wrong.’

  It was very late before they had finished eating. Only the drummer and the dancehall girl still lingered in the restaurant. The drummer was obviously trying to proposition her, and she was playing at being coy, trying to measure how much she could take the mark for.

  They walked back into the hotel. No one was behind the counter. Their room was at the rear of the building, obviously not the best they had to offer, but what did that matter to two desert rats? Their stomachs were full; they had a roof over their heads. Chad lit the lantern on the table and started undressing. Tanner started to take his shirt off, then changed his mind as he raised his arms and fresh pain shot through his ribs. It seemed like a daunting task to reach down and pull his boots off and so he simply lay back on the sagging bed and fell almost immediately to sleep.

  For now he had satisfied his hunger, found a soft place to lie down; sometimes that is all that is required for comfort.

  The war could wait until tomorrow.

  FIVE

  The night settled into cool darkness. John Tanner slept only briefly and then awoke to find someone prowling the room. It was only Chad Garret, of course. Tanner had nearly forgotten about hooking up with Chad. Now the young man stood at the window, staring out meditatively at the night.

  ‘What is it, Chad?’

  ‘I’ve got a troubling feeling,’ Chad answered. ‘Do you have ten dollars you can let me have?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tanner answered, sitting up on the edge of his bed. ‘You’re not pulling out on me, are you, Chad?’

  ‘No. There’s something I should take care of.’

  Tanner managed to dig up ten silver dollars, and handed them over to Chad, not asking him what he wanted the money for. Chad had given him ten dollars worth of service, no matter what he was up to.

  Tugging on his boots, Chad went to the doorway and said to John Tanner, ‘Don’t go back to sleep until you see me again.’

  That was a little mysterious, but John agreed. He rose stiffly from the bed and stood at the window himself, looking out at the dark desert town. There were only a few scattered lights – not counting the saloon which was still going great guns.

  John heard boot steps approaching the room and he turned, automatically reaching for his holstered gun. It was only Garret. He came in wearing a satisfied look. ‘Collect your gear, John,’ Chad said.

  ‘What are we playing at?’ Tanner asked warily.

  ‘We’re changing rooms. Remember we wrote our names in the hotel register. Thinking about that for some time, I decided I didn’t like the idea of someone who might be waiting for you wandering in and finding your room number written down. The night clerk didn’t mind, or at least he was susceptible to a little bribery.’ Chad held up another room key.

  ‘I asked him not to write the change down and he agreed. So – gather your things, we’re moving next door.’

  ‘Sounds smart to me,’ Tanner said. Thinking about it later as he stretched out on his new bed, Chad’s move seemed a little slick for someone who had not been on the run before. It was difficult to think of the affable Chad Garret as an outlaw, a man on the run. But he seemed to have some experience with these matters. Mentally John shrugged. It did no good to ponder on the possibilities too deeply, besides Chad’s notion did furnish another layer of protection for him. Because if Morgan Pride was still in town, he would be watching his back trail, suspecting that someone might have followed him this far.

  Las Palmas slept; John Tanner slept. There was a cool breeze drifting into the room from off the desert, carrying the scent of sage. It was nearly three a.m. when a crashing sound woke them up. Chad was up from his bed in a hurry. With an uncomfortable groan, John Tanner rolled from his own bed and reached for his holstered gun belt.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ John asked.

  ‘Next door!’ Chad whispered back. ‘Someone booted the door open.’

  ‘Morgan Pride?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know – let’s find out.’

  Creeping along the hallway wall to the adjacent room, they heard two men growling and grumbling to each other as they searched the empty room. John let Chad go in first. He followed with his pistol in hand. From the doorway, Tanner saw one of the men rush at Chad, his fists wildly flailing. Chad kicked the attacker in the knee and as he doubled up with pain, Chad brought his knee up into the man’s face. The thug’s head snapped back, and his eyes rolled up in his skull. Chad let the man topple face first to the floor.

  Beyond Chad Garret, Tanner saw a man he recognized, turning toward Chad, his revolver in his hand.

  ‘Hold it right there, Charlie!’ Tanner commanded, displaying his own Colt. ‘Drop that pistol right now or I’ll give it to you.’

  ‘You?’ Charlie said dumbly as he opened his hand and let his handgun clatter to the floor boards.

  ‘Back away with your hands up,’ Tanner said.

  ‘You know this man?’ Chad Garret asked.

  ‘Charlie Cox. He’s one of the robbers, one of the kidnappers.’ Charlie watched mutely, eyeing John Tanner, glancing at his own weapon lying on the floor between them. His pistol was too far away, Tanner too near to consider trying anything. Charlie stood trembling with fury.

  ‘Where’s Morgan Pride?’ Tanner demanded.

  ‘How would I know?’ Charlie Cox asked truculently.

  ‘Wes Dalton told me that he was either here or in Ruidoso.’

  ‘You found Wes?’

  ‘I did, up in Knox. I didn’t want to kill him, but he wouldn’t tell me everything I wanted to know,’ John Tanner lied.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ Charlie Cox said, appearing nervous now. ‘No need for this – I’ll tell you where Morgan is.’

  ‘Fine. Down in Ruidoso?’

  ‘Unless he decided to move on.’ He was speaking with more confidence now.

  ‘He has Becky with him?’

  ‘As far as I know,’ Cox answered sullenly.

  ‘What do you think?’ Tanner said, glancing at Chad. ‘Should we take him out on the desert and leave him for the coyotes?’

  Chad shrugged and said expressionlessly, ‘It makes no difference to me. If they find his body in this room it might throw suspicion on us. We don’t need that.’

  ‘Now wait a minute!’ Charlie Cox said, his nervousness returning. ‘I’ve answered all your questions.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Tanner said. There’s more I need to know, Where’s your cut from the robbery, Charlie?’

  ‘What? No! I’m damned if I will.’

  Tanner glanced again at Chad Garret and asked, ‘Isn’t that the same thing Wes Dalton said?’

  ‘Almost his exact words before we….’

  ‘I’ll tell you, damnit!’ Charlie Cox said as Chad drew his own pistol and cocked the hammer.

  ‘The money’s no good to you now, anyway,�
� Tanner told the cowering thief. ‘Either we kill you – which is most likely – or we turn you into the law. Do it our way and you’ll stay alive and out of prison. Do it your way and you’re taking a big chance, Charlie.’

  ‘Damn you!’ Charlie said in a hoarse voice. A last bit of bravado. His forehead was beaded perspiration, his raised hands trembled. ‘I’ll hand over the money.’

  After recovering the money from its hiding place in Charlie Cox’s room, Tanner and Chad backed out and hurried off. There was no telling – Cox might have had another gun in his room.

  It was far too early, but they decided to travel on before Cox could get his nerve up again, possibly summoning some help.

  The stable hand emerged from some back room hide-away, his eyes as red as radishes, and with small displays of ill-temper brought their horses out and saddled the gray for Tanner. John softened the man’s anger a little with a two-dollar tip and the two men walked their horses out into the cool desert night, swung aboard and rode out on to the star-bright desert.

  ‘I wish the man would have waited until after breakfast,’ Chad Garret said as they headed south in the direction of Ruidoso.

  ‘You hungry again?’

  ‘Still. Two days on rattlesnake meat can do that to you.’

  ‘I’ll see that your stomach is filled in Ruidoso,’ John promised. They rode silently for a while across the flat desert. Once Chad chuckled, and Tanner asked him what was funny.

  ‘The bluff you ran back there with that Charlie Cox – threatening to take him out on the desert and leave his body there. That really shook him.’

  ‘Who says I was bluffing?’ Tanner answered quietly. ‘I didn’t know you could fight like that,’ he said to a thoughtful Chad Garret.

  ‘Well, I knew you couldn’t – that’s why I went in first. I figured we were in for some kind of trouble.’

  ‘It worked out well enough, that’s all that matters.’

  After another quarter of a mile Chad asked, ‘Did you recover all of the money?’

  ‘Most of it, I guess. He’s sure to have spent some, and we didn’t make him empty out his pockets.’

  ‘Well, the old man will be happy to get most of it back,’ Chad said, after guiding his pinto into and out of a dry wash.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tanner answered, wondering if Ben Canasta would be alive when he got back to the C-bar-C, the shape he was in. Wondering if the money would even matter to Ben if Tanner returned to the ranch without Becky.

  They rode on resolutely through the night, both to put some distance between themselves and Charlie Cox who knew where they were heading, and because Tanner needed to find Becky Canasta. Despite the hazards of the night ride, when the sky began to color faintly in the east, they found themselves able to make out the pre-dawn gray shapes of the buildings of Ruidoso, and by the time the faint colors in the eastern sky flared up with violent reds and deep orange, they were walking their horses down the deserted main street of the border town.

  Was Morgan Pride still here, or had he decided by now to ride for the border? John would find out, some way this morning. He had been long on the trail, and decided then and there that he would waste no more time in his search. He would have liked to eat, to sleep, but he already knew he would not. He would track down Morgan Pride, find out where Becky was. Then perhaps there would be time to rest.

  They took their horses to the nearest livery stable and left them in the hands of a young, simple-looking young man with blank eyes. Tanner offered to pay, but the kid said:

  ‘I can’t count money. You’ll have to pay when the boss is here.’

  They left instructions on how they wanted the weary horses cared for and went out into the brilliant sunshine of the cool morning. No clouds stained the sky. It was going to be another hot day. When was it not? Tanner had not felt a breath of cool air since riding down from the mountains on to C-bar-C land.

  That seemed like so long ago.

  ‘There’s a restaurant open,’ Chad Garret said. ‘Somewhere. I can smell coffee and frying ham.’

  ‘Let’s find it,’ Tanner said, ‘and I’ll set you up.’

  ‘You’re not going to eat?’ Chad asked with surprise. Tanner shook his head negatively. Chad said, ‘Look, John, maybe it’s not my business, but you aren’t going to get much detective work done at this time of the morning. And if the man has already left town, you’ll have another long ride ahead of you. You don’t want to do that on an empty stomach.’

  Tanner had to agree with the logic of that although his conscience, his need to finally find the end of the trail, drove him on. His stomach growled in disagreement as they discovered the restaurant.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ John agreed reluctantly, and so they stepped on through the restaurant door, Tanner carrying his heavy saddle-bags over his shoulder. They treated themselves to coffee – a lot of it – biscuits, ham and even eggs, probably purchased from some local farm wife trying to earn a few extra dollars.

  The meal was eaten mostly in silence except for Chad’s comments on the few good-looking women in the establishment. They had talked the past to death along the trail, and they knew nothing of the future.

  John had noticed in the livery barn that swinging down from his horse was much easier this morning. Tentatively he had stretched his arms overhead and the pain which had been his constant companion since Knox was dulled appreciably. He seemed finally to be healing despite the rough usage his body had taken.

  Standing on the sunlit porch in front of the restaurant after breakfast, John Tanner felt pleased with himself. Stomach full, much of the stolen money recovered, and Morgan Pride and Becky, as newcomers in town were sure to have been seen and noticed. Even if they had left Ruidoso someone would have seen them as they traveled on. He was so close, and his eagerness was a swelling desire in his heart. He wanted to end it now.

  ‘There’s a hotel right across the street,’ Chad Garret pointed out.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ John Tanner said. ‘You feel free to take a nap.’

  ‘I think I have to, John,’ Chad said. ‘I think you’d be wise to do the same.’

  ‘I have to keep going,’ John said as they crossed to the hotel, pausing to let a huge ore wagon pass. ‘They’re here somewhere. I have to find her.’

  At the hotel entrance, Chad said, ‘You make me feel that I’m letting you down, John. Do you want me to go along?’

  ‘No. You’ve done enough for me, Chad. This I can do on my own.’

  ‘All right – if you have no luck, or if you have luck, come and find me.’

  The male clerk behind the counter looked pouched and weary as if he had had no sleep either. Tanner asked about Morgan Pride as Chad registered, but got only a negative shake of the head for an answer.

  ‘Are there other hotels in this town?’ John inquired.

  ‘Two, but they’re hardly up to our standards,’ the clerk snapped.

  ‘Just asking,’ John said, paying for the room which had two beds and was upstairs. John memorized the room number and then walked Chad to the foot of the stairs. ‘You’d better take this and shove it under my bed,’ John said, taking the saddlebags from his shoulder. ‘They’ll just slow me down, and I wouldn’t want anyone to find me carrying that much money around.’

  ‘All right,’ Chad agreed. ‘I’ll keep one eye open, just in case. Though I can’t see any thieves taking me for a mark, looking like I do.’

  Tanner agreed. Both men were trail-dusty, wearing ragged shirts and faded jeans, hardly the sort thieves would be eyeing for a score.

  ‘Just lock the door behind you,’ John advised. ‘We can’t be too careful.’

  ‘And you, John,’ Chad said seriously, ‘you be careful too. This Morgan Pride sounds like a dangerous man – and there’s no certainty that Charlie Cox didn’t decide to follow us down here. He knows where we were going.’

  That was true. It was also true that John had no idea where Ted Everly and whoever was riding with him had
gone. John had been assuming that Everly had given up and turned back by now. You never knew. Maybe he was spurred on by Monique’s hatred of John Tanner, his promise to her to get the murderer of Matt Doyle.

  There was no point in thinking about all of that right now. He had to first find Morgan Pride and Becky. He had made a promise to a dying man that he would do so.

  The morning was spent strolling the boardwalks of Ruidoso – what there were of them, sometimes stopping to talk to shopkeepers, idlers, asking casually if they had seen someone resembling either Becky or Morgan Pride. He told many tales about his reason for asking about them. The stories varied, but the answers to his questions were always they same. No one had seen them.

  The responses at the two hotels produced the same results. Where, then, were they?

  The answer, if it was that, came to him near midday with the silver sun shimmering down through a white sky.

  Morgan Pride had sacks of money. He did not wish to be seen. How long did he wish to remain in Ruidoso? Maybe weeks, months until he was certain his back trail was clear. John rose wearily from the wooden bench in front of a saddlery and made his way toward a real estate agent’s office.

  ‘That’s not the name he gave me,’ the young, spectacled man he talked to told John. ‘But, yes, they were here. His wife was quite pretty. I couldn’t help noticing that, but she seemed extremely upset or nervous as her husband took the property. It’s a small cabin over on Wolf Creek. The man said he wanted to be sure his wife liked living out there first, so I agreed to rent it to him for a few months with an option to buy. He paid cash for the lease and they went on their way.’

  ‘What name did he give you?’ John asked.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ the real estate agent asked uneasily.

  ‘No. What name?’

  ‘Colquist. Arthur Colquist.’

  After the realtor had sketched a rough map so that John Tanner could find the Wolf Creek property, Tanner went back out into the brilliant glare of sunlight, crossed to the stable once again and led his sleepy horse out of its stall. Chad Garret’s pinto horse in the next stall opened one eye as they moved past it. John considered asking Chad to come along, but the man was undoubtedly deep in a well-earned sleep. Besides, John wished to finish this by himself. It was he who had taken on the job, not Chad.