Killing Time

by Paul Lederer

  The doctor came by some time past noon. He examined Tom Dyce’s bandages, gave him another paper holding the pain-alleviating powder and went away. Tom took the medicine, yawned widely and lay back waiting for the pain-killer to take effect. The spider’s handiwork was lost in shadow now, so there was not even that to amuse him.

  He had never yearned so much to be riding the long trail. Memory of all of the discomfort it involved had been softened by time or by the painkiller. He thought fondly of the open country, not dwelling upon – barely remembering – the days without food or water, the nights spent in the wild with only a thin blanket as protection against the chill of the desert. He did not forget, however, the reason he longed to be up and riding again. He continued to visualize the soft dark hair, the laughing eyes of Aurora Tyne. As with the desert, he managed to set aside in thought the pain her coldness had brought to him. The pain … and now as his physical pain diminished he managed to drift away into a land fitted with soft pink clouds. It was a pretty, perfect land without scorn or pain. Tom Dyce was content to be folded into its softness.

  Morning arrived with a glare of yellow sunlight beaming through the hotel window and a persistent rattling of the door to his room. Tom regretted being brought back from his life of peace among the clouds. The morning brought a return of pain, although it was somewhat muted now. And, as his stomach reminded him painfully, he was starved. He had eaten nothing at all for a long time. His dreams were vanished and his head had begun to throb again. The rapping at the door continued. He cursed whoever it was for having brought him back to an unhappy reality.

  Angrily he yelled, ‘Come in!’

  The door swung open and Tom saw the apologetic face of Joe Adderly in the gap. There was someone with the thin, red-haired man, but Tom could not make him out, except to see that he wore a sheriff’s star.

  ‘All right to come in, Tom?’ Adderly asked.

  ‘Might as well, the damage is done,’ Tom replied.

  Adderly, obviously not understanding Tom’s tone or his words, eased into the room. Behind him the hallway door opened wide and a broad-shouldered, heavy-bellied man tramped in. Tom knew who it had to be and a fair idea of what he wanted from him.

  ‘Tom,’ Adderly said, removing his hat which he tossed on the bedside table. ‘This is Sheriff Harley Griffin out of Ruidoso. He wanted to have a brief talk with you – if you’re up to it.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ Tom replied. ‘Although my head is still a little fuzzy.’

  Griffin, a grim-looking man, pulled up a chair without removing his hat and sat studying Tom speculatively. ‘The big man beat you up pretty good, didn’t he?’ Griffin said.

  ‘Yeah, but he’s the one in jail,’ Tom said defensively.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ Joe Adderly said. ‘That’s what I told you, Harley. The kid’s got what it takes. He sticks to his job.’

  Tom had a bad feeling about the direction this conversation was taking. ‘You aren’t here about this Vance Wynn business, are you? Because I already told you to leave me out of that.’

  ‘You could at least listen to Sheriff Griffin here,’ Joe Adderly said, his face assuming a sorrowful expression as if Tom were a child not behaving in front of a guest.

  ‘All right,’ Tom said, not quite sighing. With difficulty he sat up in bed, rearranging his pillow as a bolster. ‘First,’ he said as his stomach again reminded him, of certain needs, ‘I would like some coffee and something – anything – to eat. Sandwiches, eggs, soup, I don’t care.’

  ‘Already taken care of,’ Adderly said with a smile. ‘I figured you’d be hungry. I ordered some food on the way up. It should be here soon. So can we talk?’

  Tom nodded with resignation. ‘We can talk.’ All three men glanced toward the door just then as a boy with a tray knocked. He delivered Tom Dyce’s breakfast/lunch silently and slipped out. Tom snatched up a ham sandwich from the tray eagerly. ‘I can talk and eat at the same time if no one’s offended,’ Tom said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Sheriff Griffin said, seating himself at the foot of Tom’s bed. ‘I’ll be doing most of the talking anyway, I expect.’ The big man sighed, and removed his hat to rub vigorously at his thick, silver-frosted dark hair. He settled his dark eyes on Tom and began.

  ‘Vance Wynn is a nasty piece of work. He’s slippery and he’s sly. He took the bank in Ruidoso alone, which also means he’s reckless. If you read the Wanted poster, you saw that he’s a little over average in size – five feet ten, weighs about a hundred and seventy-five pounds.’

  Which was close to Tom Dyce’s own size, although he hadn’t been officially weighed since the day he was born. Sheriff Griffin went on, his voice growing heavy, melancholy.

  ‘He’s more – he’s a woman-killer. While he was making his escape, he stopped by a ranch house to water and rest his mount and to find whatever grub he could for his run. There was a woman home alone there at the time … he killed her before leaving.’

  The sheriff seemed unable to go on. He closed his eyes tightly and a few tears leaked from the hardened lawman’s eyes. Joe Adderly said quietly:

  ‘She was Harley Griffin’s wife, Tom.’

  Tom paused in his eating, nodding understanding. So that was what Griffin was doing so far from his home county. Tom Dyce couldn’t blame the man for wanting Vance Wynn tracked down and hanged, but Tom was still unwilling to make it his own business, sympathy aside.

  ‘The man’s gotten away with the town’s money, Dyce. We sent out posses in every direction, but we found no trace of him. Then came the word that he had been spotted up near Flagstaff, and I decided to make the ride myself, no matter that I was leaving my county at the worst possible time – I think Joe told you, we’ve got a range war brewing, and it is going to get ugly.’

  ‘He mentioned it,’ Tom said, reaching for the cup of coffee on his tray.

  ‘I cannot let that get out of hand. I took an oath of office, and personal concerns have to be set aside. A couple of days ago Joe told me that you figured to be riding toward the Flagstaff area and that you had been a good lawman, that you had some guts. That’s why I came here – to tell you what kind of man Vance Wynn is, why I want him so badly.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Tom replied. ‘but I have had enough of working for the law. I mean to find myself a place up on the Thibido and start again.’

  ‘From scratch?’ Sheriff Griffin leaned forward, studying Tom intently. ‘What sort of chance do you think you have?’ Leaning back again, Griffin spread his hands and took on a reasonable tone. ‘Dyce, the reward on Vance Wynn has been set at two thousand five hundred dollars. Do you know how much that is? Don’t you realize what you could do with it – a young man trying to start out? I make exactly nine hundred and sixty dollars a year. And that’s not bad pay just now, when your average cowhand is still pulling down a dollar a day.

  ‘But to do what you have in mind, which I assume is setting up for ranching, a man needs some start-up capital, and there may not ever be a better chance for you to find it than tracking down Vance Wynn. The county will gladly pay the bounty if you catch him with the bank money. Even without it.…’ Harley Griffin’s voice was taut, his eyes icy. ‘I’ll make sure you get the reward if the man who killed my wife is wiped off the face of the earth.’

  Griffin removed himself from the foot of Tom’s bed, planted his hat, and stalked heavily from the room. Tom and Joe Adderly both stared at the door the sheriff had closed behind him.

  ‘The man needs some help, Tom,’ Joe Adderly said. ‘I think he’s near the breaking point. Grief over his wife, the knowledge that he might be letting his people down with a futile pursuit of Vance Wynn … the man needs some help.’

  ‘So do we all,’ Tom said, finishing his coffee.

  ‘Yes, but as I’ve been telling you, this is an opportunity for you to pull the two of you back up off the floor.’

  Tom was quiet for a minute, closing his eyes against the brilliance of the morning sunlight streaming thro
ugh the hotel window.

  ‘It’s a killing job, Joe, isn’t it? That’s what Griffin really wants – for me to find and kill Vance Wynn?’

  ‘I know you don’t like the idea, Tom. It’s not in you, but think what a bastard Vance Wynn is. Think of the woman that he killed, the hole in Harley Griffin’s soul. Think how many ordinary lives his taking that money from the Ruidoso bank has ruined. Remember the dreams you’re hoping to build on for yourself.’

  Tom’s eyes were open now, but uncertain. Joe Adderly went on as he rose from his chair:

  ‘I know you don’t like the idea, Tom, but maybe it’s the only way. Vance Wynn’s nothing but a snake. Unpleasant as it can be, in this unsettled country of ours there comes a killing time.’

  The new morning was bright. Tom Dyce, saddlebags over his shoulder, stepped out into the yellow light of the day and eased himself down to the street, wanting to see Fog, as his big light gray horse was named, for its coloring and because half the time the animal seemed to be like one of those humans we call lost in a fog. The horse was far from stupid, but it seemed to believe its life was its own and not necessarily tied to any human wishes or ambitions. At times Fog would ease aside as Tom Dyce tried to saddle it, or with seeming inattention take the direction opposite to that suggested by the reins. The gray horse might have tried another man’s patience, but Tom was used to him, and knew the horse to be a long-runner, good-tempered and steady despite his occasional moments of rebellion.

  Tom hadn’t gotten far up the street when he ran into Joe Adderly again. The marshal was standing nervously in the shade of the awning in front of the dry-goods store, his back against a post. He stepped out to meet Tom Dyce in the sunny street.

  ‘Well, Big John Bass is off to territorial prison this morning. I’m waiting for the prison wagon. Want to help me load him up?’

  ‘No,’ Tom said shortly. ‘I imagine those prison guards are capable of handling men like Bass.’

  He started along the street again, stepping aside as a buggy driven by a man in a town suit, accompanied by a lady in green, rolled past, lifting the dust. Adderly fell in beside him. The marshal glanced sideways at Tom and said, ‘Sheriff Griffin has headed back to Ruidoso. He had no choice.’

  ‘Fine,’ Tom said. He knew that Adderly had further thoughts. They were near the stable before Joe Adderly voiced them.

  ‘Have you given any more consideration to tracking down Vance Wynn, Tom?’

  ‘No. I have no interest in it, Joe.’

  ‘At least take this with you,’ Adderly said, handing Tom a folded Wanted poster. ‘Who knows, you might come across Wynn in your travels.’

  Tom took the poster without comment and tucked it into his shirt pocket. ‘I believe I’ve still got some pay coming to me, Joe,’ he said.

  ‘Do you? All right – come by the office before you leave. I’ll settle with you there.’

  Tom nodded, strode into the dark confines of the stable and whistled sharply. Fog’s querying head lifted from the trough and looked out of his stall with dull expectation. He was eager to be out of the pen, but not for a long troublesome ride. The rail-thin stable man, Luke Tanner, came out from the storeroom, blinking at Tom Dyce.

  ‘Hello, Tom. Ready to be moving?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Tanner examined Tom speculatively. ‘Do you want me to saddle Fog for you? They tell me you got yourself a little beat up.’

  ‘I think I can handle it now, Luke. At least it’s time I found out – I’ll call you if I need any help.’

  ‘All right,’ Tanner replied. ‘You know where your tack is.’

  The saddle was heavier than Tom remembered, but he swung it onto Fog’s back after one false attempt. His cracked ribs were better, but no one could have said they were healed. He was glad he had a patient, lazy horse instead of some young, sleek, feisty mount. Fog accepted his fumbling motions without protest.

  Tom paid Tanner for Fog’s keep, although rightly it was the town’s debt. He led Fog out into the glare of sunshine, squinting up the street toward Adderly’s office. He would as soon not see Joe again, but the little bit of back pay he was owed was important to Tom just then.

  He wondered as he led Fog that way why the two lawmen – Adderly and Sheriff Griffin – were so eager to have him on Vance Wynn’s trail. With Joe, it could be guessed, he was simply too lazy to go hunting the bank robber. Hell, you could also see his point about having the citizens of Rincon to take care of.

  But Sheriff Griffin? The bank in Ruidoso had been his responsibility. More – Vance Wynn was said to have killed Harley Griffin’s wife. Maybe, Tom thought, he himself was not a normal man. But if some outlaw had killed Tom’s wife! He would have ripped off his badge then and there and pursued the murderer to the ends of the earth. But we all don’t think the same. After all, Griffin had been chasing the man far out of his home county for a long while. Perhaps he had simply given up, realizing that the people of Ruidoso needed him as well.

  Tom shook his head. It didn’t matter. He was not a bounty hunter; he was going home to the Thibido range to find out finally if Aurora Tyne cared for him at all, if she would give him another chance.

  It was just before noon under a cloudless white sky that Tom, riding the plodding Fog, trailed out of Rincon and pointed his pony’s nose northward.

  The day held hot and clear, the land was a monotonous stretch of endless miles. There were no landmarks, no trees to be seen. Only the ubiquitous greasewood plants and clumps of nopal cactus which seemed to need no soil, no moisture to survive. Fog walked on at his unenthusiastic pace, and Tom made no attempt to hurry the animal. They plodded onward across the dry land with the molten sun overhead. A stranger on this desolate land might have given up and returned to wherever he had begun his journey, but Tom had passed this way before and he knew that, despite its dismal aspect, there was an end to the journey, that ahead lay water, grass and trees, cool highlands and, just maybe, Aurora Tyne.

  Sometime in mid-afternoon Tom glanced to the east and saw a lone rider, or the distant suggestion of a mounted man, for the distance was too great to be sure and heat veils concealed the rider. He frowned. It was a rare and foreign land to travel over unless a man had a very good or desperate reason for doing so. Tom rode on through the afternoon, Fog not growing sluggish, but actually less reluctant to follow the trail into the dry land. Tom had hopes of reaching Coyote Springs on this day – a small, sometimes seasonally dry watering hole he knew of. If they found no water there, he would give Fog water from his canteen to drink in his hat and by morning, both should be strong enough to travel through to the Thibido country.

  Or ‘Thibideaux’. Tom smiled in remembrance. The first settlers had been vigorously anti-French because of an incident in the northlands many years earlier, and they had voted to change the spelling on the maps to ‘Thibido’ at a vote of forty-two to one. The only hold-out had been a man named LaFarge. Tom actually laughed at the thought. The smallness of prejudiced minds was universal and a little ridiculous. Although it did make it easier for people to remember how to spell the name.

  The rider to Tom’s right had drawn much nearer. He was angling toward Tom, had obviously spotted him and intended to move nearer. Tom was not so sure he liked the idea of having a companion along the trail. He liked company, but company he knew. On this open land a man could be shot down and discarded like a cork from a bottle, and as unlikely to ever be found again.

  As the sky began to purple in the west Tom came upon what he thought was the Coyote Springs country, but before he could reach it the man who had been riding his way approached, riding a dun-colored horse with flecks of foam on its flanks.

  ‘Howdy!’ the stranger called out in a booming voice. Tom, who had unsheathed his Winchester, held up Fog to wait for the man. The stranger struck Tom as an odd proposition. He sat almost sideways in his saddle as if he suffered some affliction, wore a straw hat with a red scarf tied around it as a band, twill trousers and a heavy pair of
workboots unsuited for the stirrups. He had a thick black mustache which seemed to leak downward from his nose and cover the corners of his mouth, inquisitive blue eyes and a scar which seemed to cleave his chin. His sun-faded shirt was misbuttoned.

  ‘Hold up, if you don’t mind. I think I’ve lost my way,’ he called to Tom.

  Tom waited while the man approached. What else was there to do? If the man had truly lost his way on the high desert, to refuse help was the same as sentencing him to death. The shadows beneath the horses grew long as the sun seemed to laze away in the west, leaving a few scattered pennants of pink clouds.

  ‘Do you happen to know where there’s water to be found?’ the man on the dun horse asked first. Up closer now, Tom could see that the man was suffering some deprivation. Tom handed over his canteen, all the while keeping a close eye on the stranger. The man drank, drank again, nodded his appreciation and handed the canteen back.

  ‘My name is Tarquinian Stottlemeyer,’ the man with the dun horse said, wiping his mouth with the cuff of his shirt.

  ‘Tarquinian? I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a name.’

  ‘My mother was very imaginative.’ The stranger laughed. ‘You can just call me Jeff – I chose that one for myself. Saves a lot of confusion.’

  ‘I’m Tom Dyce. I guess my mother wasn’t quite as imaginative.’ The two shook hands as Jeff, as he preferred to be called, asked anxiously:

  ‘Do you know of any water holes around here? I didn’t know the country rolled out so long.’

  Tom told Jeff about Coyote Springs. ‘Sometimes after a high country rain it’s filled to overflowing. Other times there’s nothing but playa. Baked mud and stands of withered cattails. We’ll find out how our luck is running in a few miles. I believe I can see the springs ahead, and I think I saw greenery there.’