Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron Read online

  He offered a faint smile. “Don’t hate us ... for how we are.”

  “I don’t, Stick,” she said, trying hard to keep tears from spilling from her eyes.

  “You ... get out of here,” Stick said in a faltering voice. “Go find Tuck Carlyle.... Promise me?”

  “I will, Stick, I promise,” said Danielle. “As soon as I settle up with these rats, I’ll go find him.”

  “No,” said Stick, taking all his waning strength to shake his head. He gripped her forearm with his bloody hand. “Go now! Forget ... these people. This ... ain’t felt right ... from the start.”

  “Stick, you know I can’t let this go,” Danielle said, unable to keep the tears back any longer at the sight of this good old man dying in her arms. “Don’t ask me to promise something like that.”

  Stick patted her arm. “I know, I know.” A short silence passed. Then he said, “You and Tuck ... remember me kindly.”

  “Of course, Stick. How else could we possibly remember you?” She wept openly now.

  “Quit that,” Stick said. He offered a weak smile. “I’ve had the best... of lives. Look at me ... leaving a beautiful woman crying over me.” He swallowed, a knot in his throat. “If I’d ... been a younger man ...” His words trailed; then he added, “Well, I reckon you ... know how I feel about you.” His eyes closed softly, with no promise of ever opening again. Danielle felt him turn limp in her lap.

  “I know, Stick,” she whispered. “I know.” She lowered her cheek to his for a second and sat quietly cradling him in her arms. At length Danielle felt the chestnut mare press her warm muzzle against her neck. She turned her face up to the animal. “Good girl, Sundown,” she said, raising one gloved hand and stroking the mare’s face. “You did fine, just fine.”

  She lifted Stick’s head from her lap and stood, gazing down the thin path where the dust of the fleeing riders had begun to settle. She thought about Stick’s words: This ... ain’t felt right ... from the start, he’d said. He was right, and she knew it. From the beginning, the day she’d met the three drunken rustlers in the street at Haley Springs, no one had taken her seriously. Even after putting a bullet through Billy Boy Harper’s foot, they hadn’t learned any respect for her.

  She was a woman doing a man’s job. Nothing more, she thought, than some novelty act in a traveling show. Through her grief at Stick’s death and the dark anger she felt for his killers, Danielle also felt a weariness that ran so deep it made her ache inside. Some things never changed. She should have realized that coming into this mess. She began to chastise herself. Who did she think she was, that just because she could ride and shoot and handle herself like a man ... ? Stop it, she told herself, forcing the train of thought from her mind. What was done was done, and she couldn’t go back and change the past. All she could do was try to influence the future.

  With the pain in her side throbbing and sharp, she took down her lariat from her saddle, looped it around Stick’s feet, and walked the mare slowly, dragging Stick’s body to a wider spot along the trail. With the help of the mare and the rope, she spent the next hour raising rocks from the ground until she’d uncovered a spot the proper size for a shallow grave. Then she rolled Stick over into the grave and as carefully as she could rolled the rocks back over him. “It ain’t the best, Stick,” she said quietly, standing bowed slightly at the waist, her hand pressing a bandanna to her side, “but it’s the best I can do.” With her hat between her hands, she stood with her head slightly bowed and said, “Lord, I’m too hurt to know what to say over this good man right now. I never knew him that long, but he sure fit what I would call an angel ... if I was you. Amen.” She stepped back and wiped an eye and put her hat on.

  In moments she had dragged herself up in her saddle and heeled the mare into a slow walk. Pain radiated in her side and stabbed her with each step. Danielle didn’t look back toward Stick’s rocky grave, nor did she look back along the trail in the direction his killers had taken. Pursuing them would have to wait. She was shot deep. It was a small wound, but the bullet was lodged inside her, and that gave it the potential to turn bad. She’d have to get somewhere and have it removed before infection set in. Once that was done, she’d need a couple days’ rest. Time to make new plans, she thought to herself, heeling the mare’s pace up a bit. Then she’d be back on the trail. She would track down Stick’s killers and settle all accounts.

  The horses were winded by the time Dave Waddell and Frisco Bonham hit the low stretch of flatlands. They had moved at a fast pace down the narrow trail until finally Frisco sat back on his reins and brought both his horse and the string of horses to a halt. As the string bunched up beside him and Dave Waddell slid to a stop almost in their midst, Frisco said, “That’s about enough running for one day, Davey Boy. You heard her say she’d been shot.” He let the horses circle amongst themselves and settle. “I figure Billy Boy must’ve got to that derringer he carried while she wasn’t looking and put a bullet in her.”

  Dave Waddell sounded worried when he replied. “I don’t know. She was sure able to shoot at us.”

  “Yeah, but she’s hit,” said Frisco. “No matter how tough she thinks she is, unless she’s a complete mumbling fool, she’ll have to take care of that wound. She ain’t coming after us.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Dave, looking back, already regretting what he’d gotten himself involved in but realizing there was nothing he could do now but see things through.

  Frisco studied the frightened look on his face and chuckled under his breath. “Looks like I’ve got a born worrier on my hands, Davey Boy.”

  “I don’t like that name,” Dave Waddell snapped. His horse spun beneath him in a rise of dust. He still held the Colt Danielle had lent him in his hand. The smaller Navy Whitney pistol was stuck down behind his belt.

  “Don’t get so riled,” said Frisco. “It’s only a name.”

  Dave Waddell glared at him. “I just don’t like it,” he said.

  Frisco shrugged. “There’s no harm intended. We all called Billy Harper Billy Boy.”

  “It ain’t the same,” said Waddell. “So don’t do it.”

  Taking note of Waddell’s firearms, Frisco said, “All right, take it easy. I’ll remember that from now on! No cause to get cross about it.” Frisco had Stick’s rifle, but it was stuck down in the rifle boot. Ever since they’d made their getaway, Dave Waddell had managed to stay behind him, keeping a dose eye on him. Too close for him to make a move, Frisco thought. But that was okay. He needed Dave Waddell for now. Once he got out of this tight spot, he could either kill him or let him live. It meant nothing to him.

  “Which way?” Waddell asked in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

  “Settle down, Waddell,” said Frisco. “I told you I’d take you to Earl and your wife ... and I will.”

  “The woman was following their trail north,” said Waddell, “but now you and I are headed back the other way.”

  “Yep, that’s right,” said Frisco. “That’s because I know where they’re going, and I know the roundabout way Cherokee Earl will take to get there.”

  His answer satisfied Dave Waddell. “Okay, then, take me to them.”

  “I will.” Frisco raised a finger for emphasis. “But first things first.”

  “First things first? What are you talking about?” Dave demanded.

  “I’m talking about we need some grub and some traveling money before we can get anywhere. It’s a long ways to where Cherokee Earl and the boys go to play,” said Frisco.

  Dave Waddell didn’t like the nasty grin on Frisco’s face, knowing what his words were implying. “We’ll be all right,” said Dave. “Let’s get going.”

  “Be all right?” Frisco cocked his head, giving Dave a sarcastic look. “Waddell, have you got any food in your saddlebags? Any coffee even?”

  “No,” said Dave. “We had jerked beef, some beans, and coffee with us. But it was in the woman’s saddlebags.”

  “Well ... it ain’t decent,” said
Frisco, “traveling without coffee, far as I’m concerned. Or money either,” he added.

  “I’m not robbing anything or anybody, Frisco,” Waddell said firmly, “so don’t even bring it up.”

  “I wasn’t about to,” said Frisco. “All I was going to say is, we can take these horses over to the old north wagon trail and maybe sell them to one of the relay stations. They always have an eye out for fresh horses.”

  Dave thought about it for a second. “Is that on the way to catching up to Cherokee Earl?”

  “Well, yes,” said Frisco, sounding put out. “Why the hell else would I bring it up?” He shook his head as if in disgust. “You’re going to have to start trusting me, Waddell.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” snapped Waddell. “Now let’s get going.” He dropped his horse a step back behind Frisco and gestured with his pistol barrel. Frisco heeled his horse forward, leading the string. He grinned to himself, staring straight ahead.

  They rode hard the rest of the day, barely stopping long enough to rest the winded horses. It was late dusk before they stepped down and made a dark camp beside a thin trickle of water running down the middle of an otherwise dry creekbed. Frisco Bonham slept flat on the ground, snoring loud and deep, wrapped in a blanket from behind Stick’s saddle. Dave Waddell also wrapped himself in a blanket, but he slept light. He spent the night with his back propped against the dirt bank, his big Colt still in his hand, resting across his lap.

  At daylight, Frisco stood up and coughed loudly just to see how soundly Waddell was sleeping. When Waddell didn’t stir, Frisco said in an urgent tone, “Waddell! Wake up! Time to get moving!”

  But Waddell showed no startled response. Instead, he tipped his hat up calmly and looked at Frisco standing fifteen feet away in the gray morning light. “I’m not asleep, Frisco,” he said. “I’ve just been waiting on you.” He flipped his blanket open, revealing the big Colt. After letting Frisco get an eyeful of the pistol and the way it had been lying there ready for him, Dave Waddell stood up, shook out the blanket, and walked to the horses.

  Frisco grinned. “I always admired a man who looks out for himself.”

  They prepared the horses for travel, filled a canteen from the trickle of creek water, and once on the trail, didn’t stop until the sun stood high overhead. They had stepped down from their saddles and led the horses for almost a mile when Dave Waddell asked, “How much farther to a relay station?” He felt light-headed from not having eaten since early the day before. His empty stomach growled.

  “It’s still ten miles or so,” said Frisco. Looking all around the barren sand, cactus, and creosote, he added, “Hell, I ain’t waiting any longer. I’m going to eat something even if I have to put down one of these horses.” He looked Dave Waddell up and down and asked, “Have you ever et a horse?”

  “No,” said Dave, “and I’m not going to start today. Ten miles is not that far. We can hold off that long.”

  “Maybe you can,” said Frisco, “but I’m a man who must fill his needs as quick as they arise.” He stepped around beside the horse and reached for the rifle in the saddle boot.

  But before he could draw it, he heard Dave say, “Hold it. Look at this!”

  Turning, Frisco gazed out through the glittering sunlight. Three hundred yards away, a streaming rise of dust boiled up behind a rollicking stagecoach pulled by six galloping horses. “Well, don’t this just beat all? Ask and ye shall receive!” Frisco shouted laughingly, outstretching his arms as if embracing salvation.

  “Thank God,” Dave Waddell whispered. He let out a tired sigh of relief. Stepping forward, for the first time allowing Frisco behind him unwatched, Waddell raised both arms and waved them back and forth slowly. “He sees us,” he said over his shoulder, still waving as the driver slowed the rig.

  “Look at him,” said Frisco as the stagecoach drew closer. “Not a care in the world ... nobody even riding shotgun for him. That’s dangerous as hell in this country.”

  At thirty yards, Dave Waddell saw the white beard of the lone driver as the man began slowing the coach horses down to a walk. At thirty feet, Dave called out gratefully with a hand raised toward the coach. “Much obliged, mister. We were just wondering if we were ever going to—”

  The sound of the rifle blast so close behind him almost knocked Dave Waddell off his feet. “Jesus!” he bellowed, throwing a hand to his assaulted left ear. At the sudden explosion, Waddell had squinted and ducked his head to the side. Now, looking at the coach driver, he saw the red splotch on the man’s chest, saw he’d slammed backward and fallen sidelong, the coach reins dropping from his hands, giving the coach horses free run.

  “You son of a bitch!” Waddell yelled, turning toward Frisco and reaching for the big Colt in his belt. But Frisco had already jumped into his saddle. The horse came streaking past Waddell, Frisco beating its sides with the rifle barrel as he nailed his spurs to it.

  Sidling his horse up to the coach, Frisco dropped the rifle into its boot and leaped from his saddle. Catching the climbing rung, he swung up onto the driver’s seat. He shoved the driver’s body aside, snatched up the fallen reins, and reared back on them, bringing the spooked horses under control before they had time to get into a run.

  “Whoa!” said Frisco, letting the horses circle out off the trail and back, settling them.

  Dave Waddell watched the circling coach with fire in his eyes, his hand tight around the raised Colt, the rifle blast still ringing in his ears. “Get down from there, Frisco! You rotten, murdering—”

  Again his words went unfinished. The coach came around onto the trail facing him, and from Frisco’s right hand a cocked, sawed-off shotgun pointed down at him. “If you keep calling me names, Davey Boy, you’re going to hurt my feelings.” He grinned.

  Dave Waddell took on a sickly look. The pistol lowered to his side. “Don’t shoot me, Frisco, please,” he said. “All I want is my wife back.... I never asked for none of this.”

  “Shoot you, hell!” said Frisco. “Quit talking crazy. Put that pistol away and give me a hand here.” He set the brake handle on the coach, rocking it to a halt as the horses stopped. “There’s most always a dollar or two in these strongboxes.”

  “My God, we’re robbing a stage?” said Dave as if he couldn’t believe what was happening or how suddenly he’d become a party to it.

  “I don’t know how you can say we’re robbing it,” said Frisco. “This old buzzard’s dead. He can’t object.”

  “But—but he’s dead because you killed him!” Dave exclaimed as if he could point out to the man the terrible thing he’d just done.

  “Davey Boy, you just keep going on about the same thing, don’t you? Of course I killed him! How else was I supposed to get what he’s got without him putting up a fight for it?” Somehow, the way Frisco said it, it all made sense in this twisted, vile way of thinking.

  Dave shook his head as if to clear it. But he let the hammer down on the Colt and shoved it down into his belt. The shotgun in Frisco’s hand made all the difference in the world. Now they were back on equal ground. He didn’t want to get on Frisco’s bad side, not after seeing how easily this man could take a life. He noted how, now that Frisco had the shotgun and had taken the edge from him, he’d gone right back to calling him Davey Boy. That meant something, Waddell was sure.

  “Go back there and check under the luggage flap,” said Frisco. “See if he didn’t bring along some grub of some sort. I swear I could eat the hind end out of a running bobcat.” He raised the heavy strongbox and pitched it out to the ground. “Here, shoot this lock off first.”

  Frisco watched closely and kept his hand ready on the shotgun until Dave reached down with the Colt and took careful aim. The Colt jumped in his hand, and Frisco laughed to see the lock disappear from the strongbox. “Good shot, Davey Boy! Damn, I’ll make a highwayman of you before it’s over!” He leaped down from the driver’s seat and landed beside Waddell. Then he dropped to his knees, opened the lid to the strongbox, and riffl
ed through the contents, keeping the shotgun in his right hand, the butt propped on his thigh. As if having just become aware of Dave Waddell’s presence, he looked back over his shoulder and said, “Are you going to check back there like I told you? See if there’s any grub?”

  Without a word, Dave Waddell turned and walked to the rear of the stagecoach.

  “You’re going to have to quit being so bashful, Davey Boy,” Frisco called out as he began tearing open letters and checking for any cash in them. “We’ve got a long trail before us getting to Cherokee Earl and your pretty little wife. I’m counting on you to pull your own weight.”

  Dave Waddell stopped midstep at Frisco’s words. He stood for a second, letting them sink in. A sickness almost overwhelmed him, but he fought it down, his fists clenched at his sides. His first thought was to make a break for the horses, jump into the saddle, and ride. Ride as far and as fast as he could. But then he pictured his wife with Cherokee Earl. His knees went weak for a second; then he forced the picture from his mind, swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth, and walked to the rear of the dusty stagecoach. God help him, he’d become one of them. He was no different in the eyes of the law from the man who had actually pulled the trigger and killed the stage driver. No court would listen to his flimsy excuse. He was an outlaw, plain and simple, whether he’d meant to be or not.

  “How in the world did you end up here?” he asked himself, untying the dusty canvas flap and throwing it open. His eyes moved across the small wooden crates all neatly stacked and tied down, some of them stating their contents in black letters, others leaving it to his imagination.

  “Anything to eat back there?” Frisco called out.

  “Don’t see anything,” Dave replied. “But I’ll search around some.” He reached in, untied the rope from the wooden crates, and pulled them down around his feet. Eagerly, he picked up the first one and began loosening its top. Since he was here, he might as well see what this life had to offer.