The Blaze of Noon

by Tim Champlin

  “We might have to borrow a couple of your animals and ride on outta here,” Deraux said, formulating a plan as he spoke. “We’ll leave them at the next station.” He picked up the Colt and came around the table to stand in the middle of the room. “In fact, I think a better idea would be to leave Rivera here, so you two can get reacquainted.” He grinned.

  “You leave me here with that bitch, I’ll kill her!” Rivera said.

  “Not if I leave your dead body.”

  “You may be a damned convict, but you ain’t no killer.”

  He was right. Deraux knew he could bring himself to kill only in self-defense. He’d been convicted of stage robbery, but he didn’t want to add murder to his record. He must decide quickly.

  “Get up from there and search this place,” he ordered Rivera. “Take any food or money you can find and throw it in a sack. Then we’ll take two of the stage horses and light out.”

  Rivera grinned at being given license to ransack his former boss’s orderly station, and went at it with a will while Lila and her hostler stood helplessly by.

  Holding the Colt, Deraux moved to where he could watch the Mexican go into Lila’s adjacent living quarters, a tiny room off the main station. Rivera kicked open the wardrobe, threw her clothes on the floor, smashed the pitcher and bowl on the bedside table. He yanked the pillow and thin mattress off the bed and a pistol clattered to the floor.

  “Pick that up, easy like, and slide it over here,” Deraux said.

  When the Mexican complied, Deraux shoved the long-barreled Colt under his belt, still holding the other weapon.

  A cedar chest was locked, but Rivera took out his fury on it with his boot. The wood finally splintered and the lock sprang open. He rummaged inside.

  “By God!” He rooted down farther, slinging clothes aside. “Look at this!” He swiveled on his haunches, holding up a chunk of white quartz. Even from several feet away, its gold content was obvious to Deraux. He was stunned.

  “There’s more of it!” Rivera could hardly contain himself as he brought out a double handful of the ore and dropped it on the floor. “She’s rich.” He plunged in up to his shoulders once more. “That’s all of it,” he said, several seconds later. The softly glowing pile caught the sunlight on the rough planks.

  “Where’d you get it?” Deraux asked.

  “My husband and I saved it up over the years.”

  “That’s a damned lie. Nobody gets paid with gold ore like that. That rock is from the mountains somewhere. Maybe not too far from here,” Deraux said.

  For once, Rivera seemed speechless, fondling the gold, and spreading it out around him on the floor.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  She was silent.

  Jason Watley looked from the gold to Lila and back with an astonished expression.

  “It’s best that you tell us,” Deraux said, already thinking to set himself up for life, far from this place and the clutches of the law.

  “There’s plenty there. Take it and leave,” she said.

  “You tell us where you got it and we will.”

  She set her jaw grimly.

  “Everyone back into the dining room,” Deraux said, gesturing with the pistol.

  As they moved toward the table in the center of the room, Deraux went to the open door and glanced out. The desert road was empty in both directions.

  “All right, lady, I’ve asked you nicely. Either tell us where that gold ore came from, or I’ll have to turn Rivera loose on you.”

  The Mexican gave a wolfish grin.

  Watley glared his hate at Deraux.

  “A business associate of mine left that here. He’ll be back for it later, and pay me for looking after it,” she said, her voice trembling. “Said he was afraid to have Wells Fargo ship it east because of all the stage robberies.”

  “Where’d he get it?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. Said it would be better if I didn’t know.”

  “What’s this man’s name and where did he go?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Just take the gold and go.”

  “When Rivera gets through with you, you’ll be begging to tell me everything you know.” Deraux was bluffing, but she didn’t know it. He thumbed back the hammer on his Colt, then drew Rivera’s knife from his belt and tossed it to the Mexican. “Use this on her until she talks. And if you have any ideas of throwing that at me, you’ll be a dead man before it leaves your hand.”

  An hour later, Deraux had the knife back. He and Rivera, gold and food in their saddlebags, canvas bags of water slung across their pommels, were riding two of the stagecoach mules west. To keep from meeting anyone, they stayed north of the Gila Road, riding parallel to the river, through as much thick mesquite as they could find.

  Deraux was satisfied with a good day’s work. He’d let Rivera scare the woman, more than hurt her, although she wound up with several burns, cuts on her throat, and the threat of death ringing in her ears. She and the hostler, Jason Watley, had been left secured with harness straps and rope inside two of the stable stalls. They would be found and released by the driver and guard of the next stage, and no harm done. But she’d revealed that the gold had come from a man named Daniel Mora who’d found the vein, she said, in the Castle Dome region and was on his way there now to continue digging the rich ore out of his unrecorded mine.

  Deraux was inclined to believe her story, since she feared for her life when she blurted out this information. And Rivera knew this Daniel Mora on sight. It was his Indian, Quanto, who’d been given Rivera’s job as hostler. This made the Mexican seem all the more eager not only to find Mora and take his gold, but also to take his life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lyle Coopersmith stepped out of the adobe stable and watched the stage driver and three passengers help Lila Strunk toward the log station. He’d quickly seen that she wasn’t badly hurt, so had stood back and let the others soothe and console her. But from what he’d observed of Lila Strunk, she was not a wilting flower who needed much fussing over.

  Jason Watley came up alongside, flexing his arms and rubbing the red marks on his wrists where the harness straps had bound them for several hours. “That damn’ Mex would ‘a’ cut me, too, if he thought I could ‘a’ told ’em anything,” the hostler said.

  “Are you injured?” the Englishman asked as the two of them started toward the station.

  “Naw. Just stiff and sore. Out here, a man expects that kinda treatment from the Apaches, but not from a white man or a Mex.”

  “Mister Watley, you and Missus Strunk are very fortunate those two were not Apache Indians, or we would not be having this conversation,” Coopersmith said. He paused and took off his hat to mop his face with a large red bandanna. Except for under the sweatband, his face was hardly damp; he felt only the grainy salt of dried perspiration. Yet he preferred this desert heat to the moist tropics of several of Her Majesty’s colonies. The blazing orb that had pressed down on them all day was at last resting on the horizon, casting long shadows of men, horses, bushes, and buildings. The sky was cloudless, lacking even the usual spectacular gold and red sunset Coopersmith had come to expect. He looked forward every evening to the panoply of colors that was a partial compensation for the daily heat.

  “Where did these men come from and what were they after?”

  “Mister Coopersmith, I. . . .”

  “Coop will do.”

  “Coop, I don’t have the foggiest notion. They just appeared out of the desert on foot. I didn’t even see ’em till I went in to lunch, and then the white man pulled a gun on me and Lila.”

  “Robbery, I presume. But what would anyone expect this place to have that’s worth taking?” the Englishman mused aloud to himself. “Perhaps the stock?”

  “Those two half-starved scarecrows could ‘a’ scared off a buzzard. They was burned-out, dirty, ragged, and looked mighty near done in. A couple o’ desert rats on their last legs if I ever seen ’em. They was out to g
rab whatever they could get their hooks on.”

  “What did they take besides a couple of mules and saddles?”

  “I . . . think I’ll let Lila answer that, if she’s of a mind.”

  Coopersmith looked his curiosity at Watley as they entered the dining room of the station. Lila was stretched out on the floor on a mattress someone had dragged in from her bedroom. A young woman passenger was using a wet cloth to clean off the superficial cuts on the stationkeeper’s neck. Two male passengers, the guard, and the driver were all crowded around her.

  “Ah, Mister Coopersmith.” Lila smiled, catching sight of him. She started to rise, but the woman restrained her.

  “You better take it easy, missus,” the woman said.

  “I been taking it easy all afternoon in that stable,” she said irritably. “I’m all right.” She shoved the woman’s hand away. “Just a few scratches. Thanks for your help.” She pushed herself erect. “I’m really dry. Hand me that dipper.”

  The guard scooped a gourd full of water from the bucket under the pump and passed it to her. She gulped it down and handed it back. “Again.”

  After a second drink she seemed to catch her breath, and Coopersmith noted some color returning to her face.

  “Lila, I think you and Watley need to gather up your things and come with me,” the lanky, mustachioed driver told her solicitously. “We’ll trail the extra horses behind the stage to the next home station. This place has gotten too dangerous. The company will be shuttin’ ’er down afore long anyhow. It ain’t worth anybody’s life to stay here. Apaches got your husband a few months ago, and now this. . . .”

  “Charley, I’m staying!” Her tone cut off further argument. She turned to her hostler. “Watley, help get a fresh team harnessed. These folks need to be on their way. Sorry there ain’t any supper, folks,” she announced, “but the robbers took most o’ the grub, too.”

  The driver gave a tight grin as she began to sling orders. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ignoring the fresh cuts still oozing blood and serum down onto the collar of her dress, she took Coopersmith by the arm. “Let’s go outside. I need to talk with you.”

  “You feel up to it right now?” Coopersmith asked when they moved toward the huge cottonwood near the spring.

  “I’m all right,” she said impatiently. “Just hurt my pride that I let that slippery Mexican get the best o’ me. I was off my guard since I never expected him to show up here again.”

  “Did you know the man with him?”

  “Never laid eyes on him.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Tough-looking character. Maybe forty years old. About five ten, lean and hard, prominent nose, dark hair, hadn’t shaved in a couple weeks, but his whiskers were about as short as the hair on his head.”

  “Bald?”

  “No. When he took off his hat, it looked like his hair was just growing out from having his head shaved. Seemed to have a little more class than Rivera. Talked nicer to me. Even took off his hat when he came inside, automatic like, as if it were a habit. Maybe had decent parents who taught him manners a long time ago.”

  “Or prison guards who’d beat it into him . . . ,” Coopersmith murmured.

  “What?”

  “Several convicts broke out of the territorial prison while I was in Yuma,” he said. “Four or five got away. This man could be one of them. The prisoners have their hair cropped close to their skulls.”

  “Come to think of it, Rivera did refer to him as a damned convict.” She looked toward the others who were milling about and conversing some thirty yards away. Three of the men worked at unhitching the team. “I want to talk to you about something else,” she said, touching his sleeve. “Word will get out about this before long, anyway,” she began. “Did Watley tell you what they stole?”

  “Food, mules. Said you’d have to tell me the rest.”

  “They took a sack of very rich gold ore.”

  Coopersmith was stunned into silence. Apparently his face conveyed his surprise.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Gold ore. Daniel Mora gave it to me last week when he came back to repay the grubstake I’d given him. Probably worth several thousand dollars. Much more than the grubstake. He told me he’d struck a mine that’d been hidden in the mountains for more than a hundred years.”

  “Do you think those desert rats somehow knew the gold ore was here?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. I believe it was just an unlucky break for me. When Rivera pulled it out of my cedar chest, he looked as shocked as you did just now. I don’t have a safe to keep valuables, and he just stumbled upon it when he was ransacking the place.”

  Coopersmith rubbed a hand across his dusty mustache and stared toward the afterglow in the western sky.

  “But that’s not the worst of it,” she continued. “That Mex tortured me with burning sticks from the stove and with a knife until I told them where I got it. I tried to lie, but they sensed it and began to slice me even worse. Rivera threatened to slash my throat and leave me dead . . . and Watley, too. I’m terrified of knives, so I wound up telling the truth. Now I’m sure they’ve ridden off to find Mora and take his mine, and maybe kill him. Rivera hates Mora because he persuaded me to fire Rivera and hire the Indian, Quanto, in his place for pay.”

  “I’m not trying to find out where this mine is, but did Mora tell you anything at all about the location of it?”

  “Mister Coopersmith, I’ve always been a good judge of character, and I trust you, or I wouldn’t be telling you any of this. Daniel said his discovery was in the Castle Dome mining district.”

  “That’s a good-size area of mountainous desert north and east of Yuma. If this hardcase with Rivera is an escaped prisoner, he’s taking a big chance riding back toward the territorial prison.”

  “Some men will risk anything for gold, even life itself.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I’m not one of those men.”

  “Mind you, I was hog-tied in the stable and didn’t actually see them leave, but the hoof beats sounded as if they were heading west.”

  “Makes sense, if they took that much trouble to get the information out of you.”

  “Daniel also told me he’d decided not to record the claim.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that would make its location a matter of public record, and he couldn’t physically defend his discovery all the time. He thought secrecy was the best strategy.”

  Coopersmith nodded. “That’s one more obstacle in the way of those two finding Mora’s mine.”

  “Where are you going from here?”

  “Back to the construction gang that’s working east from Yuma. I gave myself a short holiday to travel this far for a visit, and to work up my notes. I’m debating hiring a photographer to record some images of railroad construction for my book, but that may be too expensive.”

  “I . . . have a favor to ask,” she said hesitantly, dabbing with a bandanna at the cuts on her neck.

  “Name it.”

  She was silent for a moment. “As long as you’re returning west, could you try to find Daniel Mora and warn him of the danger?”

  “He’s a good man, sure enough,” Coopersmith stalled, unsure of what his answer would be. He knew Lila considered Mora more than just a friend in trouble. But Coopersmith had long since learned to stay clear of other people’s personal attachments. “You can bet I will,” he finally said. “I’ll start this very night, but will require a horse from you.”

  “You don’t have to leave right away. Morning will be soon enough.”

  “I’d prefer to travel at night when it’s cooler. I can make better time and there’s less danger from Apaches and of losing my way, as long as I stick to the Gila Road.”

  “I really hate asking you to do this,” she said as they walked back toward the stagecoach. Watley and the driver and guard were just backing a fresh team into place and hooking them up.

  “To tell you the truth, I was
getting bloody bored with watching men build a railroad. There are only so many questions one can ask and only so many interviews one can conduct with the foremen and the workers who speak English. I’m ready for a little excitement, and this might just provide it. The only thing is . . . finding Mora in that maze of desert mountains will be difficult, especially if he’s nervous and watching his back trail, not wanting to be seen. I don’t consider myself an intrepid outdoors-man and tracker.” He smiled at her. “But I’ll certainly have a go at it.”

  “If it’s any help, he did say he’d left his burro at the livery in the little Colorado River town of Castle Dome Landing. Might give you a place to start.”

  Coopersmith didn’t admit it aloud, but he’d acquiesced to her plea only because he planned to revisit the Southern Pacific grading crew and somehow persuade Quanto to leave his job and join him. He realized he must have the help of a skilled tracker; he couldn’t depend on his own blind luck to locate Mora in those mountains.

  “As long as you insist on remaining, I’ll stay for a few days as well and help you.” The sole woman passenger, Anna Withers, was firm in her resolve. She was about thirty, full-bosomed, with upswept dark hair. “No objections!” She held up her hand as Lila started to say something. “I’m an Army wife and have nothing better to do at the moment. I was on my way from Fort Yuma to meet my husband at Fort McDowell, near Tucson. I’ve given the driver a note to let my husband know what happened to me. I’ll take a later stage.” She reached to drag her oval grip from the rear boot as the other passengers were climbing back into the stage.

  “Watley can take care of things until I’m feeling better,” Lila objected.

  The younger woman arched her dark eyebrows. “Just like he was a great help this time?”