Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron

by Compton, Ralph

  Just over the rise, Ellen Waddell looked back at the sound of Tuck’s shot. “You done real well back there,” Earl said to her, cutting his horse to the side and stopping as she and Joe Turley rode past him. Joe took the lead rope up from around his saddle horn and uncoiled it, ready to tie it to Ellen’s horse’s bridle again. “Never mind, Joe,” Earl said to him. “Long as she behaves, let her handle the horse herself.”

  “But, Boss, I’ve been leading her all this way.” Joe looked disappointed.

  “You heard him, Joe,” Ellen whispered in a sharp hiss, just between the two of them. She jerked her reins away from Joe’s hand before he even had time to reach out with the lead rope.

  “Yeah,” said Earl, with no idea what Ellen had just said to Joe Turley, “and now I’m telling you to leave her be.... We’ll see how far we can trust her.” He cut Ellen a dark stare. “Don’t forget, little darling, I can still drop a bullet in you long before you get out of sight.”

  “I know that,” said Ellen. “I’m no fool. I’ll do as I’m told.”

  “There, Joe, you hear that?” said Earl. “This woman’s not a fool. She wasn’t about to say something back there to cause that poor deputy to get his eyeballs shot out.... The odds weren’t right, were they, Mrs. Waddell?” he said with a sneer.

  Ellen didn’t answer. She rode on, looking down at the ground.

  Avery McRoy took this time to say something he’d been wondering about for a while now. “How in the world are we going to keep her from shooting her mouth off once we get inside Cimarron?” he asked.

  “We’re not taking her into town with us,” said Earl.

  Joe Turley looked surprised. “But you just told that deputy we’d be staying at the hotel—”

  “Damn it, Joe,” said Earl, cutting him off. “I hope I ain’t got myself in trouble, lying to a deputy of all things!” He feigned a look of fright.

  “Joe, Joe, my goodness.” McRoy stifled a laugh and shook his head at Turley’s ignorance.

  “There’s a cabin I know about, four miles east of town,” Earl said. “We’ll hole up there until we get ready to do our raid.”

  “Buck and his men will be looking for us in town,” said McRoy. “Want me to cut off from you and ride on in? Keep my eyes open for Buck?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Earl. “We’ll get a night’s sleep, give that deputy time to forget our faces. Then we’ll take turns going to town till we hook up with Buck.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said McRoy, heeling his horse forward. “I sure hope there is a washtub and a stove to heat some water at that cabin.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Cherokee Earl. “I think of everything.” He tapped his horse up and rode beside McRoy, hearing another pistol shot resound behind them over the rise. “That’s it, Deputy,” Earl said to McRoy with a chuckle. “Better get good at it. You never know when it’ll come in handy.”

  Chapter 15

  The Unsled Mines, New Mexico Territory

  Dave Waddell flinched at the sound of gunfire coming from inside the mining office shack, but he stuck to his job, holding the reins to Frisco Bonham’s horse while Frisco performed the robbery. Since he and Frisco had joined up, it seemed that all they’d done was ride from one robbery to the next. After the stagecoach, they’d robbed a relay station north of Santa Fe, then a band of settlers headed for California. But according to Frisco, every step they took was leading Dave that much closer to finding his wife. He had to go along with things. What else could he do? he asked himself. Another shot resounded from the shack.

  Dave sat watching tensely for any sign of trouble. “Damn it, hurry up, Frisco,” he said to himself under his breath, seeing two miners step out of a toolshed a few yards away and look toward the office shack. Dave raised the rifle from across his lap and let the barrel loom menacingly toward them. “Get back inside, you peckerwoods! This doesn’t concern you!” he shouted through the bandanna he wore as a mask.

  The two miners ducked back inside the toolshed, but only for a moment. By the time Frisco came running out of the office with a canvas moneybag in one hand and a smoking Colt in the other, the miners came out again. This time there were four of them. This time they each carried shovels or picks. One hurled a large rock that bounced off the door of the office shack just as Frisco ran for his horse. The rock came too close for comfort, and Frisco turned before stepping up into his stirrups.

  “You sumbitch!” Frisco shouted. “Throw a rock at me?” He fired a shot. The bullet nailed the miner in his chest, causing him to stagger backwards, dropping the shovel he wielded above his head. The other miners caught their wounded comrade as he fell. “Let’s go!” Frisco shouted at Dave Waddell as he hurled himself up into the saddle.

  “Jesus! You killed him!” Dave Waddell shouted as they batted their heels to their horses’ sides and sped away from the shouting, cursing miners. Frisco’s only reply was a long, rowdy yell, followed by two pistol shots in the air. When they’d topped a ridge a hundred yards away, a rifle shot rang out from the direction of the mine’s office. But by then it was too late. The pair of thieves rode down out of sight, onto the main trail. Then they rode at a steady clip for the next three miles.

  Finally, Frisco slowed his horse a bit and laughed, pushing his hat up with a finger and jerking the bandanna down from across his face. “Now that’s the way to pull a payroll robbery!” he gloated, shaking the bag of money at Dave Waddell. The both slowed their horses even more.

  “It went pretty smooth,” said Dave. “That’s for certain.”

  “Smooth? Hell, yes, smooth,” said Frisco. “I’m talking about right in, right out.” His chest swelled with pride. “There wasn’t no fooling around like some robbers do.” He shook the bag again. “Davey Boy, I believe you and me could make a good team on our own! We wouldn’t even need Cherokee Earl and his boys!”

  “You—you really think so?” Dave Waddell shot a nervous glance back over his shoulder, then yanked his bandanna down and ran a shaky hand across his forehead. “I don’t mind telling you, I still feel pretty scared doing this.”

  “Like I told you, everybody gets a little spooked the first few times,” said Frisco, dismissing it. “But how scared will you be running your fingers through this much money, eh?” Again he held the bag up for Dave Waddell to see. “This is the best we’ve done yet.”

  Dave Waddell studied the bulging canvas bag as their horses loped along easily. “How much you figure is in there,” Dave asked, settling down some.

  “Oh, four, five thousand, easy enough,” said Frisco. “Maybe even more. However much there is, it’s all ours!” He shook the bag again, laughing loudly.

  “So maybe we better stop somewhere and split it up?” Dave asked, his greed starting to get the better of him.

  “Sure, we can do that,” said Frisco. He nodded along the trail ahead of them. “Or I can hang on to it till we get to Cimarron. It’s only another twenty or thirty miles.”

  “Cimarron,” said Waddell. “What’s in Cimarron? A bank? Another mining payroll?”

  Frisco gave him a bemused look. “Both,” he said. “But that ain’t all that’s in Cimarron.”

  “What else?” Waddell asked.

  “It just might be that she’s there,” said Frisco.

  “She who?” Dave asked. But then he caught himself and said, “Oh, you mean Ellen, my wife?”

  “Well, damn, Dave,” Frisco chuckled. “Yeah, that’s who I mean all right. Have you forgotten all about her?”

  “Of course not,” Dave responded, his face reddening. “It’s just that we was talking about something else. It took me a second to catch up.”

  But Frisco wouldn’t let him off that easy. He taunted him, saying, “You do remember your wife, Ellen, don’t you?” As he spoke, he reached down into the canvas bag and pulled up a handful of dollars and gold coins and let them spill back down into the bag.

  “Go to hell,” Waddell said.

  Frisco grinned. “I’m trying to just as f
ast as I can.” He closed the bag and carried it on his lap. “Don’t be so hard on yourself for not remembering your wife, Davey Boy. It could happen to anybody. A man gets out here, gets a taste of freedom, money, anything else he takes a hankering for ... knows all he’s got to do is reach out and take whatever he wants ... nobody can stop him. That’s a powerful pull on a man’s better nature!”

  Dave Waddell ignored Frisco’s taunting and heeled his horse forward ahead of him. “You say Ellen might be in Cimarron?”

  “Yep, she sure might be,” said Frisco. “I know Cherokee has been planning a raid on the bank there. He just needed something to get him moving in that direction.” He caught up to Dave Waddell and stopped his horse in front of him, turning crosswise in the trail. “What exactly have you got planned for when you catch up to Cherokee Earl, if you don’t mind me asking. Are you going to shoot him down where he stands? Maybe call him out into the street, face him down gun to gun?”

  Again Dave Waddell ignored him. He tried reining his horse around him, but Frisco maneuvered along with him, blocking his horse’s path, forcing him to confront the situation that he’d put himself into. “Speaking of facing up to somebody, when are you going to face up to yourself? You’ve got no use for that woman, Dave! She’s just something else you acquired along the way. Something to prove to yourself how good you were doing, some pretty trinket that you could afford at the time. You knew she was something other men would see and be envious of. Now that other men have had her, is she still going to be worth as much to you?”

  “You son of a bitch! She’s my wife, damn you!” Dave Waddell raged. He started to snatch the pistol from his belt. But he found himself looking down the barrel of Frisco’s Colt.

  “Yeah,” Frisco grinned cruelly, “I’m that all right, a son of a bitch and worse. But I ain’t the one having trouble choosing between my wife and stealing other people’s money.”

  “Neither am I,” said Dave Waddell. “I’m going after Ellen. If you say she’s in Cimarron, that’s where I’m headed. You can go or stay. I don’t give a damn!” He started to spur his horse away, but then he stopped, looked at the canvas bag in Frisco’s hand, and said, “I’ll take my cut of the money now. I’ll need it to live on in case Earl and Ellen aren’t in Cimarron, and I have to go hunting them farther away.”

  “Hell, why not?” Frisco lowered his pistol, uncocked it, and let it hang loose in his hand. He pitched the bag to Dave Waddell. “Here, count out half of it for yourself. Leave my share in the bag.”

  “We both ought to count it,” said Dave, wary of a trick, keeping a close eye on the Colt in Frisco’s hand.

  Frisco saw the apprehension in Waddell’s eyes. He shoved the pistol down into his belt. “Count it yourself. I’m not worried about it. Money like that comes to me any day of the week I want to go out and get it.”

  Frisco watched Dave count the money onto his lap, then divvy it up and poke half of it back into the canvas bag. “There,” Dave said. “It came to eighteen hundred forty-seven dollars each.” He folded the bills into a thick roll and shoved the roll into his coat pocket. The loose gold coins he shoved down into his trouser pockets. “Now I’m going to Cimarron. I can’t say it ain’t been fun, what you and I did. But I’m no outlaw, Frisco. You was reading me wrong in that regard.” He backed his horse a step away and pitched the canvas bag to Frisco. “I’d never been out here if it weren’t to save my wife. I might have dealt some stolen cattle, maybe done some other little things ... but that’s the limit. I’m stopping here before I end up on a rope or dead in the street somewhere.”

  Frisco sat staring, his wrists crossed on his saddle horn. He nodded slightly, looking a bit bored. When Dave Waddell finished talking, Frisco said, “Well, all right then.... Best of luck to you. Don’t tell Cherokee you’ve seen me. I think it’s time I go out on my own: make more, keep more. Okay?”

  “Sure, I won’t mention you one way or the other,” said Dave. He watched Frisco lift his reins and start to turn his horse. “Where are you going though?”

  “That’s not a good thing to ask,” said Frisco.

  Dave nodded. “All right.” He started to turn his horse, but then he stopped and said, “You suppose when Earl gets tired of Ellen he’ll just turn her loose? I mean, I hate thinking he’d hurt her real bad or maybe even kill her.”

  “I doubt he would do that,” said Frisco. “Hell, he just saw something pretty that he wanted, so he took it. Like I said about you a while ago.” Frisco shrugged. “He’ll turn her loose sooner or later.” He watched as Dave Waddell looked all around then stepped down from his horse and led it off the trail.

  “Thought you was in a hurry to get to Cimarron?” Frisco called out, a faint smile coming to his lips.

  “I am,” said Dave, “but it might be better to wait till tomorrow. Let the horse rest ... give myself time to think what I ought to do once I get there.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Frisco, stepping down himself and leading his horse off the trail. “I might rest mine awhile too.” Looking down at the trail, noting the deep wheel ruts in the soft earth, Frisco said, “I didn’t mention it before, but I bet there’s still a stagecoach runs through here ... all the way up from Taos.”

  “Yeah?” said Dave. “Does it carry any money?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Frisco. “Last time me and Billy Harper robbed it we came away flush for the whole winter.” He grinned and led his horse over beside Dave Waddell’s, nodding down at the deep wagon ruts. “There’s nothing I hate worse than passing up a nice fat stagecoach.”

  No sooner had Tuck Carlyle returned to Cimarron than he went straight to the St. James Hotel and rang the bell on the counter. A young man wearing sleeve garters came out from an office behind the counter. His hair was parted sharply in the middle and slicked down with hair oil. He ran a clean hand along one side of his head as if to make sure each hair was in its proper place. “Yes, may I help you?” His eyes widened a bit when he recognized Tuck and saw the deputy badge on his chest. “Oh, you’re a deputy now? The last time I recall seeing you ... well, let’s just say you were doing less meaningful work.” He smiled. “Congratulations, I’m sure.” There was a slight haughtiness to the young man that Tuck decided to overlook.

  “Thanks, Eli,” said Tuck. He got right to the point. “Three men and a woman rode into town earlier, said they would be staying here. The leader was a big fellow named Bartlett ... Fred Bartlett. Did you wait on them?”

  “No, sorry,” said Eli. He gave Tuck a blank stare. “Anything else I can do for you, Deputy?”

  “Do you suppose Henri Lambert waited on them?” Tuck asked, referring to the hotel’s owner.

  “No, sorry again,” Eli said crisply. “Mr. Lambert is out of town for the week. If I didn’t wait on them, they simply haven’t been here.”

  “Are you sure, Eli?” Tuck asked. His eyes went to the guest register.

  “Are you really going to ask me to check and make certain?” the young clerk asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

  “No, I’m not,” said Tuck, relenting. “It just seems strange they would tell me they were going to stay here, then it turns out they didn’t.”

  “Be that as it may, they haven’t been here. In fact, I haven’t seen any party of four ride in off the trail all day.”

  “All right then, much obliged,” said Tuck. Turning to leave, he saw Sheriff Wright walking along the street toward the office and carrying a pot of coffee from the restaurant, a hotpad wrapped around the metal handle. “Sheriff, wait up,” Tuck called out, hurrying to catch up to him.

  “Good afternoon there, Deputy,” Sheriff Wright said, stopping and waiting for Tuck. “I’ve never seen it fail.... I get a fresh pot of coffee, and folks call out my name from all across town. How did the shooting practice go?” he asked as the two of them headed on to the office together.

  “It started out pretty bad,” said Tuck, “but I got back into the hang of it by the time I ran out of bullets.” He shook hi
s head as they walked across the street and stepped up onto the boardwalk. “I feel bad about shooting up so much ammunition.”

  “Don’t feel bad about it, Deputy,” said the sheriff. “I call it an investment in both our futures. If we should get in a tight spot, I’d like to think you capable of shooting the eyes out of a blue fly if need be.”

  “I can’t say I’ll ever get that good, Sheriff,” said Tuck, “but I promise you I’ll always do my best or go down trying.”

  “I reckon that’s really all I’m looking for,” said Sheriff Wright. “Just a deputy I know I can count on.” He swung open the door to the sheriffs office and walked inside, Tuck right behind him. Sitting the pot of coffee atop a small potbellied stove, he said, “I don’t mind telling you, all this money arriving in town to pay for the silver is likely to draw some of the bad element. I expect to see some strange faces turning up most any time.”

  “That reminds me, Sheriff,” Tuck said, picking up two clean cups from a shelf beside the stove. “I saw my share of strange faces today.” He filled a cup for the sheriff, handed it to him, and filled one for himself. “Or I should say I tried to see them. I only got a good look at two of them. The sun blocked the others’ faces.” As they sipped the hot coffee, Tuck told him about the four riders he’d seen on the trail. Sheriff Wright listened intently, but then seemed to dismiss the matter no sooner than Tuck finished telling him. Seeing a waning interest, Tuck said, “Anyway, I thought it was peculiar, them saying they’d be staying at the St. James, then not doing it.”

  “I see,” said the sheriff. He seemed to consider it for a moment, then said, “Do you suppose they might have just changed their mind, pushed on past town, maybe decided to make a camp?”

  “Sure, they might have,” said Tuck. “There was just something peculiar about them.... I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “You did good mentioning it to me, Deputy,” said the sheriff. “I’d rather hear all day about things that mean nothing than miss hearing the one thing that could get somebody killed.” He offered a tired smile. “We’ll both keep a lookout for them. You might even want to ride out tomorrow along the old road and see if you spot where they might have made a camp overnight. With all this silver transaction going on, it won’t hurt to keep an eye on the trails in and out of town for a while.”