Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron

by Compton, Ralph

  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 no
rmally 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.”

  Braden Flats, Indian Territory

  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.

  Even as the sheriffs pistol shots whistled past them, Avery McRoy gigged his spurs to his horse’s sides, drew his pistol, and shouted, “He nailed that sucker right through the heart, good as ever I’ve seen.”

  Hearing the gunfire from his shop, the blacksmith dropped his hammer. “What the hell?” he said, and hurried out the front door in time to see the horsemen descend upon the town like a pack of ravaging wolves. Three shots thumped into the front of his shop, forcing him back inside. But not for long. Grabbing a double-barreled shotgun from against the wall, he ran outside again. This time he stood his ground long enough to fire both barrels into the oncoming flurry of men, guns, and horses.

  Sherman Fentress’s horse took most of the double blast of buckshot in its side. Fentress felt his left leg ripped to shreds as the horse whinnied painfully and slammed into the horse beside it, the horse Ellen Waddell was riding, being led at a full run by Cherokee Earl.

  All Ellen could do was hold on to the saddle horn with all her strength. Sherman Fentress’s horse tried to right itself but couldn’t. With Fentress himself badly wounded and barely able to stay in his saddle, the poor horse veered away blindly, still at a run, until it hit the edge of the boardwalk and rolled up onto it. Fentress left the saddle and crashed through the front plank wall of the telegraph office, landing spread-eagle on the operator’s desk, sending the telegraph machine across the room.

  The telegraph clerk had heard the shooting and luckily had just pushed his chair back from his desk to go see what was happening in the street. Seeing the bloody man land on his desk in a spray of broken boards, the clerk gasped and sat frozen, his hands held chest high as if he were being robbed. Fentress groaned and lay staring at the clerk, his leg chewed to the bone by buckshot, bloody face and chest filled with splinters. “God ... I’m hurt,” he managed to say.

  The sound of Fentress’s voice caused the telegraph clerk to snap out of his dazed state. He sprang from his chair and ran shrieking from his office out into the roaring gunfire. Six bullets pounded into him no sooner than he’d leaped out into the street. He only had time to see the bodies of the sheriff, the deputy, the blacksmith, and two other townsmen before he crumbled to the ground and joined them in death.

  Cherokee Earl had stepped down from his horse and forced Ellen Waddell to step down and stand beside him, his left arm wrapped firmly around her thin waist. Inside the town’s bank, Arnold Flekner, the bank president, hurriedly locked the front door. Seeing him through the glass, Cherokee Earl chuckled and said to Jorge Sentores, “Get around there, Jorge, and take care of him.” Then Earl pressed his face to Ellen’s hair, took a deep breath, and said to her, “Watch this.... He’ll try running out the back door any minute now. But Jorge will smoke him.”

  Ellen shuddered, filled with horror by all that had just gone on around her. Yet she stood in wide-eyed silence, unable to turn her eyes from the carnage.

  Jorge raced his horse alongside the brick and wood bank building, sliding the animal to a halt just in time to catch the bank president as he ran away from the back door, a ring of keys in his hand.

  “No! No! Please!” the hapless banker pleaded. “Here, take the keys!” He flung them up to Jorge, but Jorge let them fall to the ground. “The money’s all yours! But please don’t kill me!”

  Jorge shrugged. “Okay, I won’t kill you. Now you go, take off, get out of here, pronto!”

  “Oh God, thank you! Thank you!” the poor man sobbed, turning as he moved away, his legs visibly shaking through his black trousers.

  “Here comes the fun part,” Earl whispered into Ellen’s hair, his breath hot against her skin.

  Ellen managed to squeeze her eyes shut as Jorge extended his pistol down at the fleeing banker’s head. Three shots resounded, followed by Earl’s low laughter near her ringing ear. “See? Jorge
was just funning with him.... I knew he’d kill him.”

  Ellen felt a bitter sickness well up at the back of her throat. She fought to hold it down and did, taking a deep breath and reminding herself that the only way she could survive this lot that had been cast upon her was to refuse to let this or anything else get to her. She knew this was only the beginning. There were worse things ahead of her, and if she wanted to live through this, she had to prepare herself mentally. You can do it! You can do it! she repeated to herself. By sheer determination, she forced herself to block out Earl’s words as his raspy voice whispered to her. She forced herself to no longer smell his hot breath or feel his smothering, hot arm around her.

  “Hey! Hey! Wake up now! You’re missing everything!” Earl chuckled, shaking her back and forth against him. Her eyes had dosed slightly. But now she stared silently up at the grinning, beard-stubbled face held so close to hers. “You’re riding with a rough bunch, darling. It ain’t going to get no better, so you might as well learn to take it.”

  As he shook her, she felt the edge of a pistol butt dig into her side. It was the pistol that he’d taken from her husband and shoved down into his belt. She had a sudden urge to grab the pistol and use it on herself before he could stop her. But something kept her from doing it. You don’t deserve this, she told herself. You’re not the one who should die. She put the notion of grabbing the pistol out of her mind for now and said in a meek voice, “I’ll be all right.” Then, biting her tongue to keep from shouting it aloud, she said to herself as she imagined her hand closing around the pistol butt the first chance she had when he wasn’t looking, I’ll take anything a worthless pig like you can dish out.

  Chapter 7

  For more than two hours Cherokee Earl’s men pillaged and terrorized the helpless town. With a bullet through his right shoulder and another through his left hip, Sheriff Oscar Matheson could do no more than get out of the gunmen’s way and stay out of their sight. Avery McRoy and Dirty Joe forced the town doctor, Latimar Callaway, to clean and dress Sherman Fentress’s leg wound and the many cuts, scraps, and broken ribs Fentress had received when he’d blasted headlong through the front wall of the telegraph office. Once the doctor had finished, he left Fentress lying on the billiard table and nursing a bottle of red rye in the New Royal Saloon. Making sure no one was watching, the old doctor hurried from the saloon to the livery barn, where he’d left Sheriff Matheson resting on a pile of fresh straw.