Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (9 page)

“Please ...!” Dave glanced at the pistol but made no move for it. Then he dropped his cheek back to the dirt.

“There you are, partner,” said Earl, stepping his horse to the side, hoping for Ellen to get a look at what was going on. “You've got one shot in there. Either take it at me whilst I turn and ride away with her, or else after I leave ...” He let his words trail, then added, “Well, I reckon you can use your imagination what to do with it then. One bullet can mean a lot to a man, depending how he uses it.” He turned his horse and heeled it away, unconcerned about Dave Waddell going for the pistol. If Earl heard the sound of the pistol cock behind him, he knew he was fast enough to turn and kill Dave Waddell without batting an eye.

At the corral, Earl took the reins to Ellen's horse from Dirty Joe Turley and said to the men, “Let's ride, boys.” Then, as his men heeled their horses up and rode off in a rise of dust, Earl turned to Ellen, who sat staring across the yard at her sobbing husband in the dirt. “That's it. Take one good long look at him. Did you see? I threw him a gun ... gave him a chance to claim you or let you ride off with me. He was too scared to make a move. He'd rather wallow in the dirt to save his own hide. That ought to show you clear enough which one of us can protect a woman when it comes down to it.”

Ellen summoned her courage and said with an air of defiance, “I didn't marry to have a man protect me.”

Earl started at her for a second, grinned, and said, “Then maybe you should have.”

Dave Waddell lost track of how long he'd lain sobbing in the dirt, his head still pounding where Cherokee Earl had knocked him cold. The sun had moved lower in the western sky by the time he collected his senses enough to drag himself to his feet and stagger to the front porch. On his way, he managed to stoop down and pick up the Navy Whitney. After collapsing onto a porch chair, he wiped his blurry eyes and checked the pistol, seeing that only one round of ammunition remained in the cylinder. For a moment he was lost, but then the whole terrible, hopeless scene came back to him. He gazed out and along the trail leading up over a rocky rise to the north.

“God, what have I done?” he whispered aloud to himself. Then he hung his head and stared long and hard at the pistol in his trembling hands. He had no idea how long he sat there, cocking and uncocking the Whitney. But evening shadows had grown tall and thin across the dusty, rocky land when he finally left the gun cocked and raised it slowly until he felt the hard steel tip of the barrel against the side of his throbbing head. He took a deep, tortured breath and held it, struggling to keep his hand from shaking uncontrollably. He pressed back on the trigger slowly.

When the sound of a pistol shot exploded, he flung the cocked pistol away in horror. His first thought was that he'd done it, he'd actually shot himself through the head. Yet, if that was the case, how was he still here, alive and able to wonder about it? He sat frozen, stunned, his mouth hanging open. On the front of the house, he saw the bullet hole, right where he had heard it thump into the plank siding. He rose woodenly halfway from his chair, leaning toward the fallen pistol as he looked out at the two riders coming across the front yard. “Stand real still, Mr. Waddell,” said Danielle Strange. “That shot wasn't meant to kill you. It was meant to keep you from killing yourself.”

“I—I understand,” Dave managed to say, his mind becoming clearer. He'd seen Danielle Strange in town enough times to recognize her. He'd never seen the old man before, but there was no doubt the two were on Cherokee Earl's trail. He had to think up something to keep anyone from knowing he'd been a part of Earl's stolen-cattle operation. “Thank God you've come along!” He straightened up and wiped his shirtsleeve across his face.

Danielle and Stick swung down from their saddles, keeping an eye on Dave and taking a quick, steely look around the place. Danielle nodded at the Navy Whitney lying on the porch, cocked and ready to fire. “What's going on here, mister?” she asked, stepping up onto the porch, then reaching down and picking up the gun. She looked the gun over, noting the single round of ammunition in the cylinder. Then she let the hammer down gently but didn't hand the gun to Dave Waddell when he reached out for it.

Dave dropped his hand and rubbed it on his trousers. “It's not what you think, ma'am,” he said.

“Oh? And what do I think?” Danielle responded.

“Well, I know it looked like I was getting ready to shoot myself. But I wasn't—that is, I wouldn't have.... I don't think.” Dave struggled with his words while Danielle and Stick only stared at him. Finally he gave up and collapsed into the chair. “What's the difference? Maybe I should have pulled that trigger.” He hung his head and continued. “I know why you're riding this way—you're hunting for Cherokee Earl and his bunch. And yes, they were here. They took my horses and my wife, Ellen. Then they rode on.”

Stick and Danielle looked at one another, then back at Dave Waddell. “They took Miss Ellen?” Danielle asked.

“Yes,” said Dave. Then he asked, a bit surprised, “You ... knew my Ellen?”

“We only met once,” said Danielle, “at the mercantile in Haley Springs. How long have they been gone? We'll have to catch them quick, before ...” She cut herself off, letting her words trail, but Dave caught what she'd kept from saying.

“I'm not sure,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Cherokee Earl knocked me out. Then they took her and rode off. It's been a while—I know that.”

Stick butted in. “Damn it, man, weren't you going after them?”

“Easy, Stick,” said Danielle, although she had been wondering the same thing.

“I wanted to,” Dave said, a slight whine to his voice. He gestured a hand toward the empty corral. “But as you can see, they took all the fresh horses.” Fifty yards away, three of the spent mounts left by Earl Muir's men grazed on scattered clumps of wild grass.

Stick said, “So instead of cooling out one of them horses and going to save your wife, you decided to blow your brains out.” He shook his head.

Danielle cut Stick off with a firm gaze. She looked back at Dave, studying his eyes as she spoke. “I've got a string of horses waiting just beyond the rise in the road. Are you up to going with us to get your wife back?”

“Yes, of course!” Dave sprang to his feet. “I didn't mean to give you the notion that I wasn't interested in saving her. You just have to excuse me.... That lick on the head has left me addled.”

“Then go throw some water on your face,” said Stick. “Be ready to go when I bring the horses in here.” He turned, climbed into his saddle, and looked down at Danielle as Dave Waddell staggered into the house. “Don't turn your back on that peckerwood,” he cautioned her in a low, guarded tone. “Something ain't right about him.”

“Don't worry about me,” said Danielle, her hand resting on her pistol butt. “But let's give the man the benefit of the doubt. A hard lick on the head can take a spell to get over.”

“Yeah,” said Stick, backing his horse. “The question is, why'd he let a bunch like Earl Muir's boys ever get close enough to do it in the first place?”

“I wondered that myself,” said Danielle under her breath, watching Stick tug his hat brim down and ride off toward the rise in the trail.

“There, all ready to go,” said Dave Waddell, coming back through the open door, drying his head on a wadded-up towel.

Danielle looked off along the trail as Stick disappeared over the rise. “He'll be a couple of minutes,” she said. She looked at the empty holster on Dave's hip, much too big for the smaller, slimmer Navy Whitney, she noted to herself. Then she leveled her gaze into Dave Waddell's eyes and said, “This Cherokee Earl is known as a cattle rustler. How many head of cattle are you running now, Mr. Waddell?”

Dave Waddell made the mistake of not holding her gaze as he answered. Instead, he ducked his eyes for a second and said, “It's been a while since I pulled a head count. Must have upward of three, four hundred head maybe.”

“The cattle business has gotten so good a man don't need to keep track of his holdings anymore?” Danielle asked, not even hiding her skepticism.

“Well. Miss Danielle, you know how it is,” said Dave, holding the wet towel to the back of his head. “Cattle come and go on the breaks and high grasslands. But if I was held to it, I'd say I've got three hundred head, easy enough.”

“You've had quite a run of luck then,” said Danielle. On a bluff, she added, “Last year when I talked to Ellen in town, she said you only had about half that many.”

“She did, huh?” said Dave, looking as if he couldn't understand why. He offered a weak, patient smile that Danielle saw through right away. “My Ellen's a fine wife, but she never knew beans about my cattle business. My fault, I suppose.... I should have told her more, I reckon. But the only gains I made this year are a couple of range strays wandering in, plus my calves, of course.”

“I see,” said Danielle. Noticing Stick top the rise with the string of horses in tow, Danielle decided not to pursue any more questions right then. Instead, she flipped the Whitney around in her hand and handed it to Dave Waddell, butt first. “If this is what you carry, you best load it up. If you want to borrow a big Colt .45, I've got an extra in my saddlebags.”

“Much obliged. I'll take you up on the offer,” said Dave, shoving the small Navy Whitney into his belt. “I normally carry a Colt, but Cherokee Earl took it after he knocked me out.”

Danielle only nodded, but Dave could tell she had just asked herself how a man with two loaded guns could allow himself to be so easily caught off guard. “Look, Miss Danielle, I know how bad this looks on my part. But all I can say is that it happened so fast I never got a chance to act. There's nothing in this world I want more than to get my wife back safe and sound. After that, I don't care what anybody thinks of me.”

“Take it easy, Mr. Waddell,” said Danielle. “We're both on the same side here. I want Earl Muir for the killings in town, but saving your wife is all the more important.” Her gaze narrowed as she added, “Anything we need to talk about can wait. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough for me, Miss Danielle,” said Dave.

“All right then.” Danielle stepped down and opened the saddlebags behind Sundown's saddle. She pulled out a thick cloth, unfolded it, and took out a large Colt. She checked the gun, made sure it was loaded, then passed it to Dave. “Here you go. And now that we're gong to be working together for a while, I want you to drop the Miss.... Just call me Danielle.” She looked up at Stick and said, “That goes for you too, Stick, all right?”

Stick blushed at such an informality but nodded in agreement. “All right then, Miss—” He caught his error and quickly said, “I mean, Danielle.”

Outside the New Royal Saloon, Sheriff Oscar Matheson stepped down from the boardwalk and moved out into the dirt street, getting a better look at the five men and one woman who had just ridden in from the glittering stretch of sand. It took a second for him to see that one of the men held a short lead rope to the woman's horse. What was this about? he wondered. The riders had now stopped in a low cloud of dust. They sat abreast at the edge of town, staring along the darkened shade of boardwalk overhangs and recessed doorways. Matheson didn't like the looks of this. Keeping a wary eye on the group, he said to his part-time deputy, young Gerald Noel, “Boy, I believe you best go round up the blacksmith and some others. Tell them to bring their guns.”

But Gerald didn't look up right away. He stood on the boardwalk, whittling intently with his pocketknife, shaving long, fresh-curled strips of pine from a stick.

“Did you hear me, boy?” said Matheson, raising his voice a bit, still staring at the riders fifty yards away. “We might have trouble coming.”

“Huh?” Gerald raised his eyes grudgingly from his pastime, a long, curled pine sliver falling from behind his short knife blade. He managed to catch the word
trouble.
His eyes shifted in the same direction as the sheriffs. “Holy!” he exclaimed in a hushed tone. The blade of his pocketknife snapped shut. He bounded down from the boardwalk in a run, his low-topped shoes batting up dust as he cut straight across the street toward the blacksmith's shop.

At the end of the street, Cherokee Earl said, “Joe, you got him?”

“Sure do, Boss,” Dirty Joe replied, raising his rifle from across his lap and cocking it on the upswing.

“Oh, Lord, it's commenced,” Sheriff Matheson whispered, seeing what was about to happen. As he stepped sideways, drawing his pistol, he shouted, “Look out, Gerald!”

But instead of the sheriff's words causing the young deputy to duck behind cover somewhere, Gerald skidded to a halt on the other side of the street. He turned and looked back at Matheson, spreading his arms. “What?” he asked, having no idea that a rifle was honing in on him.

“For God sakes, Gerald, run!” Matheson screamed. He raised his pistol as he spoke and fired repeatedly toward the horsemen, hoping his shots would throw off the rifleman's aim. But it didn't work.

“Got him, Boss!” said Dirty Joe in the wake of the rifle shot resounding along the street. The shot struck Gerald Noel in the chest like the blow of a sledgehammer. He flew backward a step, bowing at the waist, his left shoe leaving his foot, exposing his big toe through a hole in his worn-out sock. His shirt puffed out in the back. A wide spray of blood rose and fell. Gerald managed to straighten up for a second. Then he sank to his knees, his arms falling limp at his sides, and pitched face forward in the dirt.