by Paul Lederer
They had cut the dun loose, there being no point in continuing to lead it along their way. It would only slow them up and complicate matters. Joe approached the dun slowly, speaking soothingly. When he reached it, he took a firm grip on its bridle and stroked its neck. The saddle cinches were not broken, but only loose. In the scabbard on the saddle was Joe’s Winchester rifle. His saddle-bags had been rifled, but there had been nothing of value there to be taken. Probably in disgust, they had left the dun behind.
‘Stand,’ Joe said hopefully to the horse, and feeling weaker than he could ever remember, he positioned the saddle and tugged the cinches tight. He had a riding animal again.
What help that could possibly be, he could not have said. He would have to track down armed men over broken country he was unfamiliar with and somehow retrieve the stolen money, then backtrack toward Newberry and attempt to find Tess Malloy.
He wasn’t up to it, not in his present shape. It took nearly all of his physical reserves just to climb into the saddle and start the old dun horse back along the uncertain trail toward Pierce Point.
Joe was following the sun and as he rose from the darkness that had settled into the canyon bottom, he met a much more brilliantly-lighted sky. Cresting the ridge on the weary dun horse he found the sun almost blinding before him as it settled toward the horizon. Around him the snaking canyons were in pools of darkness; to the south the white desert sands glittered with heated light.
Neither terrain was appealing to his eye. The horse shuddered beneath him and Joe stroked its neck. Neither of them was up to many more miles of rough riding. A cold anger rode with Joe, however, and he was driven to push on. One more ridge and then another – he had long since lost a memory of the trail he and Dub had followed on the way over the hills and now rode by instinct alone, urging the dun forward. One ridge followed another, a row of white stone, naked rises, alike in their barrenness, uniform dryness and steep thrust. Joe felt like a fool, a weary, exhausted fool with a massive headache. But he felt compelled to continue as long as there was sun in the sky.
When he crested what must have been the third or fourth such ridge he suddenly halted the exhausted dun and stood in the stirrups. Before him lay a dry valley in shadow, and camped there was a group of men, their horses trying to forage for graze on the infertile land.
Three men, he saw, as they moved around the dry camp. He had found his quarry. He recognized Dub, wandering with the horses as if he, too, were foraging. Sol and Mose were crouched close together, their faces turned down intently. It seemed they were counting the stolen money. Or that could have been Joe’s imagination, as the men were too far distant to tell for sure, but it made sense.
He could picture the excitement, their self-congratulation. No more chicken ranch; money to gamble with, to make friends with young women, to buy fine horses and clothes with. Never to have to work again drudging for Adelaide Comfort. The image caused Joe’s blood to begin simmering again despite his trail-weariness and the ache in his skull where a knot the size of a hen’s egg had developed.
Mentally the two had already spent most of Tess Malloy’s fortune. Joe intended to destroy their pipe dreams.
They were in deep shadow and Joe on a brightly-lit ridge where he would make an easy target silhouetted against the skyline, and so he guided the dun into a shallow feeder canyon, just deep enough to hide horse and man. He drew his rifle from its scabbard, figuring he would need all the extra firepower available. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to take the two armed men down – that would just have to play itself out. He discounted Dub, not because he trusted him, but because he went unarmed – unless he was near enough to use a rock.
Nearing the canyon floor Joe thought he could hear voices, indistinguishable, of course, but not far off. He hoped that they were not listening close enough to make out the clopping of the dun’s hoofs.
Emerging from harsh light into near-darkness Joe pulled up his horse for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust. He cuffed the perspiration from his eyes, took several deep breaths and slid from the saddle. On impulse he decided to try a distraction in his planned attack.
He loosened the twin cinches on his saddle and then canted the saddle over into the position it had been in when he found the dun. The horse eyed him balefully. It had thought itself ready to be unsaddled and now had to endure this new indignity.
Joe swatted the horse on the rump and then made his own way toward the camp, ducking behind the boulders which had fallen from the bluffs over the years.
Solomon who had been busy shoving the green strongbox into his saddle-bags lying on the ground nearby heard something and rose to his feet, his hand lowering toward his holstered pistol.
‘What’s that?’ he hissed and Moses turned toward him.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I heard something coming this way – a horse.’
Both men stood staring into the darkness. Moses had his shotgun up and ready. Now both could clearly hear an approaching horse. ‘Who do you think it could be?’ Sol asked in a whisper.
‘It could be anybody – stand away a little.’
They spread apart and stood ready to defend their new-found wealth against any intruder. From out of the darkness the abused dun horse staggered toward their camp, its saddle askew. Sol laughed out loud.
‘Damned if the old nag didn’t follow us,’ he said, holstering his pistol. Dub had come to join them.
‘Poor horse,’ he said, ‘let me get that saddle off him.’
‘Go ahead,’ Moses told him. ‘Stupid old horse has more heart than sense.’
‘He couldn’t have lasted long out there with that saddle all tilted,’ Dub put in, but neither of the others answered. They seldom bothered to answer Dub.
‘Can I have him?’ Dub asked hopefully.
‘You’ve got the red mare,’ Moses said.
‘But this one’s got a saddle. I like him.’
‘If he can make it back to Pierce Point, I guess you can keep him,’ Moses said, feeling generous now that he and Sol were rich men. At least the kid hadn’t asked for a cut of the money. He knew he couldn’t have any of it. Let him keep the old dun pony.
They both tensed again as a voice, unexpected yet somehow familiar called from out of the shadows:
‘Stand steady, boys, and shed your guns!’
Solomon glanced at Moses as if to ask, ‘Can you see him?’ but Moses shook his head. The night was filled with shadows, and the voice belonged to one among many of the vague silhouettes.
‘Did you hear me?’ Joe called again as the two men hesitated. ‘I want you to drop those guns or die.’
Then Joe who had been creeping closer stepped on a small round rock and slipped. The movement was enough to distinguish his shadow from the others, and Sol cried out.
‘I see him!’ and he drew his sidearm.
Joe was down on one knee with his rifle aimed at Solomon, but still Sol went blazing away with his .44 revolver – he was that kind of a man. Sol’s bullets flew wildly across the valley, although one of them came close enough to tug at Joe’s shirt sleeve. That was enough for Joe, who triggered off the Winchester, his shot true and effective. Solomon staggered back a little, lifted his eyes to the dark sky and crumpled up.
Moses, having located Joe by the flare of his muzzle, opened up with his shotgun. The scattergun emitted smoke and flame and the pellets from it flew past Joe who had flung himself to the ground as Moses shouldered his weapon. Moses drew back the hammer of his second barrel, and Joe shot him. Moses grunted an indecipherable curse and loosed off his second shot, sending buckshot into the sky, briefly lighting the night with devil fire as he backed up, sat down and tilted over on his side.
Joe waited, levering a fresh round into the Winchester’s breech, but neither of the two men moved. Slowly he got to his feet and lurched forward. Dub came staggering toward him from out of the night.
‘Don’t shoot me! I ain’t got no gun,’ Dub shouted wit
h panic.
‘I’m not going to shoot you,’ Joe Sample growled.
‘Joe? Is that you, Joe? I’m sorry I hit you with that rock. I don’t know why I did it!’
‘Just get out of here,’ Joe barked, ‘Get back to the chicken ranch.’
‘What about Mose and Sol? You still got that spade? I could bury them.’
‘Leave them, or put them on the horses if the animals will tolerate it. Just get out of here, Dub! I hope to never see you again.’
‘Joe, I—’
‘Get out of here!’ Joe’s voice thundered. Then in a more reasonable tone he told the young man. ‘Addie will be needing your help more than ever now. You still haven’t sprayed those flies in the chicken coop.’
‘Are you going to steal the horses, Joe?’ Dub asked.
‘I’m going to need one of them – the black, I suppose.’
‘Sol’s horse?’ the kid asked doubtfully. ‘He wouldn’t like that.’
‘I’m going to trade for him – the dun for the black. Now get busy, will you? I’ve got a headache, and I’m just tired of talking to you.’
As Joe sat cross-legged on the ground and watched, Dub went about his work as if it were an everyday task and nothing unusual had happened. He first positioned the dun’s saddle again then carried the bodies of Solomon and Moses to the red mare and the gray, which was Moses’ horse. Joe waited unhappily, watching. He took the few usable items from the saddle-bags on the dun, shifted them to the pouches carried by the black horse with three white stockings and added the strongbox. Although any stunt by Dub was extremely unlikely at this point, Joe kept his eye on him, making sure for example that he did not get hold of the weapons belonging to Moses and Solomon.
‘Well,’ Dub said eventually, from the back of the dun horse. ‘I’ll be getting, though Addie won’t like the sight of me bringing these two home dead.’ He brightened: ‘I guess she’ll be bound to scramble me up a mess of eggs, though!’
‘So long, Dub,’ Joe muttered and he slapped the dun on the haunch, sending the aged animal on its way. Dub leading the other two horses.
Now what?
Joe was trail-weary and half sick. There were a few items in his saddle-bags, but he did not feel like starting a fire out here and cooking. Who knew what idea might present itself to Dub’s mind. He approached the black horse again. The animal was used to only one rider, it seemed, and was not so sure about Joe. But it was younger, slightly fresher than the dun had been. It would have to get used to the idea that Joe meant to ride it.
He had to again reach the Candlewick, if he could find it, then follow its course northward until he could find Newberry or at least some local citizens who knew where the town lay. There was still a young widow out there in need of the comfort the money might provide. That, after all, was what he had set out to do, and it had to be done.
Joe Sample’s leg had begun to ache again to top everything off. It was healed well enough, but this long riding was doing it no good. Joe swung aboard the balky black horse and started it forward. There was only moonlight to ride by now, and he was following an uncertain course. He made his weary way across the rugged hills, his mind fixed on the rest and the meals he could catch up on back at the Double Seven, at the end of the trail.
SIX
The morning light was pleasant and bright on the slow-flowing water of Candlewick Creek. The sun was warm and welcome on his back and shoulders. The night before when he knew he could not go on, he had camped out in a cold hollow along one of the mountain ridges, the black horse’s lead tied to his foot. It had been a miserable night. He had awakened hungry and shivering long before the sun had begun to rise. Now he was beginning to have some hope of success in his enterprise. The younger horse was fresh and seemingly eager. Joe’s angry stomach’s complaints were fewer. He guided the black downslope toward the creek where he loosened the saddle and let it drink.
There was even a patch of grass growing near the creek, of a sort Joe did not recognize, but which the horse nibbled at contentedly while Joe lazed in the morning shade beneath a stand of willows. The day was warming quickly, but his proximity to water allowed him to remain comfortably cool. The breeze had again begun to stir with the advent of morning but in the shelter of the creek bottom it was not the harsh wind of the day before. It did nothing but turn up the silver undersides of the willow leaves in its passing. Plus it kept the insects down.
After the horse had rested for an hour, Joe again tightened his cinches and started north, following the silver-flowing Candlewick. At times the walls of the bluffs rising from the creek narrowed so much that he had to walk his horse through the shallow river water, but the black did not seem to mind – perhaps it cooled its feet.
It was in the middle of the afternoon that Joe came upon a scattering of homes. Not so large as Pierce Point – there was no apparent business district – it seemed nevertheless to be an established settlement. Was this Newberry? He guided the black horse, which he had come to like for its vigor and agility, up out of the creek plain and on to the dry grassland which surrounded the scattered houses, occasional outbuildings and corrals he saw there.
The first person he came across was an old man with a white beard leading a reluctant goat with a beard much like that of its captor. The man wore a blue-checked cotton shirt, out at the elbows, jeans and a straw hat which looked as if the goat had been at it. There was also a red kerchief around his neck and as Joe Sample approached, the man untied it and stood wiping his forehead and throat with it.
‘What do you want?’ the old man asked as Joe drew the black horse to a halt. The goat used this opportunity to try to draw away, but the old man held the line tight in his gnarled hand.
‘Nothing,’ Joe said with a smile and a shrug, ‘I’m just trying to find my way to Newberry.’
‘Why?’ the old-timer asked as the goat bleated.
‘My own business,’ Joe answered.
‘There ain’t nothin’ there,’ the man advised him.
‘No?’
‘No,’ the old man said severely. ‘I ought to know, because this is Newberry.’
‘In that case, you might be able to tell me where I can find the Malloy place.’
The old man’s mouth puckered, his eyes drifted away. He gave his perspiring throat one more wipe and then lifted his bony shoulders and asked, ‘Why do you want to find it?’
‘My own business,’ Joe said again.
‘I can tell you, young feller. What you do is go straight ahead, find the Old Post Road. Anybody will tell you where it is if you can’t locate it. Then you ride about two miles east. You’ll find the Malloy place on your right. They got a pair of white-washed stone markers by the road leading to their house. You got me so far?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Joe replied.
‘You go past them markers and keep on going as far as your pony will carry you,’ the old man advised him. ‘There’s nothing out there but thieves and killers. Those Malloys! If you’re not one of ‘em, if you’re an honest man, you don’t want anything to do with ‘em. That’s my advice to you; if you have any sense, you’ll take it.’
‘Are you talking about Pierce and Amos? Because if you haven’t heard—’
‘I’m talkin’ about the whole damn bunch of them! Nothin’ but a nest of thieves and killers. Take my advice, young man. Come along, Billy! You’ve been wandering long enough. Time to get you home.’
The conversation was at an end. The old man trudged off toward a small, red-roofed farmhouse, tugging the reluctant billy goat behind him.
After two false starts, Joe Sample found the Old Post Road an hour later.
The day was cooling, the wind had ceased. It was still light but there was a splash of pale pink on the high thin clouds to the west when Joe Sample found the two rock pillars daubed with whitewash flanking a rough narrow road that led, he supposed, on to Malloy property.
He sat the black horse, resting it and thinking. He wondered how seriously he ought to
take the warnings of the man with the goat. After all, he knew none of these people – and he was carrying money, a lot of it.
But his intention was to give it to Tess Malloy anyway; why should anyone want to do him harm when he had arrived to do them a favor? Her, least of all. Whatever sort of agreement she had with the others, what their relationship was, was none of Joe’s affair. Perhaps they were relatives of hers. Perhaps she owed some of them money. That was something for Tess Malloy to handle. For himself, he felt that he was safe – he had never heard of a robber walking up to a man who was approaching with open hands and threatening him.
If they did, Joe felt now that he no longer cared. He had been forced to kill a couple of men; he had ridden a long trail with a sore leg and an aching head. He only wanted to be done with it all, his obligation satisfied, and make his slow journey homeward, to Socarro and the Double Seven Ranch.
The Malloy house could not be seen from the road but after cresting a low knoll, Joe was able to make it out, standing alone among a stand of pepper trees and acacia bushes. The two kinds of shrubs made a pretty little border for the property – the trees with their red berries, the yellow blooming flowers of the mimosa acacia shrubs adding color to an otherwise barren section of land.
To one side of the white adobe house was a stand of nopal cactus, their apples still green, but perhaps planted there for the color they would bring when the cactus apples turned red. Across the front of the house a long tendril of thorny bougainvillea crossed the length of the house’s face like a brightly colored purple-red brow. Someone had taken the trouble to try to add color to this desert land where there was little otherwise.
Swinging down in front of the house, he noticed the low white-painted stone border in front of it guarded white and blue lupine. This had to be a woman’s doing, all of it. Men just didn’t appreciate color as they did. Maybe that had something to do with the idea that a courting man should take his woman a bouquet of flowers – Joe didn’t know.
