Dead Warrior

by John Myers Myers

  “The stage line always provides medicinal brandy,” I announced. “There’s nothing to beat it for fainting spells.”

  With the assistance of the girl, I propped the man in a sitting position and applied the bottle to his lips. He coughed a little but didn’t refuse a second dose. While it was burning its way down and spreading out inside him, he closed his eyes. A moment later, though, he opened them again.

  “I’ll be all right now, I think. That brandy was certainly what I needed.”

  “I could use some of that myself,” Jennie said. “This high country gets me, too.”

  By the time I had helped the invalid to his feet and rescued what was left of my liquor from Jennie, the former was ready for further conversation. “I’m the Reverend Lansing Foster, and this is my daughter, Faith. To whom do I owe this timely aid?”

  Having introduced Jennie and myself, I cleared my throat. It seemed a shame to hit him again, just when he was recovering from the first blow, but I could see no alternative.

  “If I correctly understood your daughter, you were driving to Three Deuces when you ran into difficulties. There’ll be no use in going on, because the town doesn’t exist any more.”

  He was unable to do more than stare. It was the girl who protested.

  “But you told me that you were actually on the Three Deuces-Chuckwalla stage.”

  “Making its last trip, Miss Foster. You’d find a postmaster at Three Deuces, if he hasn’t gone fishing, but nobody else at all.”

  “But that can’t be so!” the minister exclaimed. “I don’t like to dispute your word, but it was not two weeks ago that I received the assurance of no less an authority than the editor of the Democrat that Three Deuces was the fastest growing city — I’m sure he used the word ‘city’ — in the entire West.”

  “That maybe wasn’t too much of a stretcher when he wrote it,” Jennie put in. “Last night, though, a stampede started which took all the booze and left only the bottle. You could outpreach Moses on his good days, and you still wouldn’t hear no nuggets rattlin’ on the collection plate. There just ain’t nobody to kick in.”

  “But — but it seems impossible that this could happen,” Foster mumbled, “when I took precautions to find out what the situation was. This editor even went so far as to indicate that my services would be greatly appreciated. I had asked him, you see, whether there was any other Unitarian church in town, and in reply he told me that I would be filling the one real gap in the community.”

  I was afraid Jennie would tell him that there had been no churches at all in Three Deuces since the town’s one member of the cloth had been knifed in a quarrel over a dance-hall girl, but all she said was: “You couldn’t hang him for that. Dick Jackson never told a lie in his life, unless he got paid for it.”

  The minister seemed too dazed to do anything but marvel over the depopulation of a town which had been so warmly recommended to him, so I turned to the girl. “If you’ll pack your things, I’ll carry out your bags. You can find lodgings of sorts in Chuckwalla, and you can make up your minds tomorrow as to where you wish to go from there.”

  While I was putting the Foster luggage in the boot, Faith stepped behind the coach to join me. “I don’t think you should have given that old woman any brandy,” she whispered. “I think it has made her a little drunk.”

  “I forgot to ask her if she was used to it,” I admitted. “She won’t make any trouble, though.”

  “Just the same, I’d rather not sit with her,” the girl said. “Would it be all right for me to ride with you on the driver’s seat?”

  “If you wrap up.” Her clothes wouldn’t dry under a buffalo robe, but at least she would be guarded against a chill. I made her as comfortable as possible, waited until Pete had climbed back into the coach, and cracked the whip.

  “I didn’t quite hear your name,” she said, when we had gone a little ways.

  “Mosby Carruthers, ma’am, usually called Baltimore hereabouts, because nobody in the West can be bothered to say Patapsco Court House, where I actually come from.”

  There was a pause during which she apparently gave my words consideration. “You don’t talk like a stage driver.”

  “Is there a special language?” I smiled at her, partly to rob my words of any sting she might otherwise find in them and partly because it was a pleasure to look at her now that she was close enough for her features to be more or less visible. “I suppose I should learn it.”

  She laughed, but she didn’t let go of her train of thought. “What I mean is that you speak like a man of education.”

  “The line won’t hire anybody that isn’t.” Her voice sounded like New England to me, so I tacked on a sentence. “I nearly didn’t make the grade, when they found out I had only graduated from St. John’s instead of Yale, but I squeezed in by passing a special examination.”

  “Stop it,” she ordered. “I know I’m green here, but I can tell salt from sassafras wherever I am. You could find something better to do than to hold six in hand on a country road.”

  Her pert rejoinder made me aware of her personality, which had previously seemed only that of a proper young lady in need of a helping hand. Looking at her once more, I found this stronger impression emphasized by the jut of her chin, tilted in my direction.

  “Generally speaking,” I said, “nobody ever came West to do anything in particular. People just leave the East to avoid doing something, or because they had done something and were caught at it, or because they couldn’t do something well enough.”

  “That isn’t why we came,” she declared.

  “I guessed as much,” I soothed her. “Taking them by and large, though, people never came West, no nor left Europe for America to begin with, if there was any popular demand for them at home.

  “The Duke of What Ho never saw any fault with the state of affairs in England. That clarity of vision belonged to his younger brother, kicked out of the castle with five shillings in his pocket. It never occurred to the Lord Chief Justice that it would be a fine adventure to try his luck in the New World. The fellow who beat him to that inspiration was an otherwise undistinguished lawyer without clients enough to keep him eating regularly. It wasn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury but only the hedge parson who grew concerned about the spiritual welfare of pioneer settlers.”

  I had forgotten for the moment that her sire was also a divine. It took her no time at all to remind me of the fact.

  “Father is no desperate failure. He had the biggest church in Hartford.”

  I refrained from asking her why he had left it for no church at all, but she supplied the information. “You see, he had done as well for himself as was possible in Connecticut, and he thinks the West is the most promising section of the country now.”

  By using the language of practical values where I had been thinking vaguely in terms of a spiritual calling, she left me stranded. “I don’t know how well he’ll be able to do for himself out here,” I hazarded. “We’ve got a pretty high ratio of sinners, I suppose, but most of them move around so fast that salvation would have a hard time keeping up with them. It might be pretty difficult to get a prosperous church started.”

  “Oh, Father says that the first thing to do is to get the prosperous cities started; after that the churches will take care of themselves. That’s why he was so disappointed about Three Deuces. It seemed such a coming place, to judge by that editor’s description of it.”

  “I’ll bet it did.” She had a charming profile in soft outline against the blackness of the forest through which we were passing. “How did your father happen to be corresponding with Jackson to begin with?”

  “That awful story about a judge being killed by some horrible outlaw was in all the papers back East. After that Three Deuces was well known, and there were some magazine articles about the town, which made it seem like a good place in which to invest.”

  This girl had the knack of being where I least expected to find her. “Invest?” I echo
ed.

  “Father’s a very shrewd man,” she told me. “He says that the Lord has a right to expect one of His servants to handle his affairs at least as carefully as any other man.”

  “Well, if a minister doesn’t know what the Lord expects I reckon nobody does,” I conceded. “Hang on tight.”

  The left front wheel had found a hole in the road, and I knew that the stage would roll like a ship when the rear one followed. Grabbing for my arm, Faith leaned against me until the emergency had passed but instantly withdrew from this moment of intimacy.

  She hadn’t shrieked or otherwise expressed dismay, and I thought about that. It took something extra in the way of fortitude to go through a day such as she had experienced without showing nervous strain. At the same time she had seen but one facet of the frontier, and that by no means the roughest.

  “How do you think you’ll like the West yourself?” I asked.

  “Because I’m a woman?” She was swift to pick my thought. “The West is a land of infinite opportunities for us as well as for men. The only difference that I can see is that a lot of the men haven’t got the gumption to do anything but take what’s handy.”

  “Like driving stages?”

  “I didn’t mean that.” It was the first time I had seen any crack in her self-confidence. Then she laughed. “Yes, maybe I did, too. It does seem a waste of time when there are so many important things to be done in a new country.”

  “Possibly I’ll sneak up on the blind side of some marvelous opportunity by and by,” I said. “Meanwhile driving stage is a step up for me. Before that I was impersonating a city police officer.”

  She could evidently think of no comment, and a minute later I noticed that fatigue had at length caught up with her. After I had waked her up a couple of times I insisted that she ride inside.

  Chuckwalla was only a two hours’ drive from that stopping point, though it seemed longer. I was tired and stiff myself when I reined in at the general store which was the community’s only place of business. There were rooms upstairs which the proprietor rented to anybody unfortunate enough to have to use them, while the stable in the rear had served Tom Cary as a stage depot.

  “Hank Quinby’s asleep,” I said, when my passengers had dismounted, “but he’ll find beds for you and fix you something to eat, too, if you feel like it. You know him, don’t you, Jennie?”

  “I guess I do know the old squeezenickel,” she said. “It’ll be fun to pull the covers off him. What do I owe you?”

  “Not a cent,” I replied. “The Three Deuces-Chuckwalla line is now out of business and can’t take any money.”

  “Well, thanks, Judge,” Pete exclaimed. “I done been run out of town by John Law, but he never give me a ride on the house before.”

  The girl looked first at him and then at me, when Pete used the judicial title. It was her father who spoke, though.

  “That’s very good of you, but we can’t accept. What would your employer say, if he knew you were offering free service to passengers?”

  “I don’t think we should argue with people until we know what’s going on in this part of the country,” Faith silenced him. “We’re not in Hartford, Father, so the best thing we can do is to thank him for his help and friendliness.”

  She set the example, but we were all too tired to make further conversation a pleasure. “Well, so long, Baltimore,” Jennie summed up the situation, “I’ll be seein’ you in some damned joint or other, if neither one cashes in his chips first.”

  They were off on the train before I was up and about the next morning, including Pete, who had slept beside me on the bed made by putting back rests between the coach seats. My own departure wasn’t long delayed. Chuckwalla was of the old world, while I was ready for the new. After breakfast I hurried through the business of stocking up with camping equipment and staples, or rather I hurried as much as was possible in the teeth of Hank Quinby’s desire to pass the time of day while he was cheating me.

  “Where are you headin’ for?” he demanded at one point.

  “I don’t know exactly. Some place in the Panhandle for a starter.”

  “I’ll likely be movin’ myself,” he said. “Three Deuces was the main reason for the station, and I dunno as I’ll have much trade left.” He deftly weighed his pudgy hand along with the slab of bacon I had ordered. “That’s a little bigger piece than what you asked for, but not much,” he reported. “The Panhandle, you say. I’d never go there at this time of the year myself.”

  That struck me as a good seasonal recommendation for Texas, but I was none the less curious as to his reasons. “Why not, Hank?”

  “The buffalo feed north in the spring, and the Injuns’ll be riding out to pick ’em off.”

  “A half pound of tobacco, a box of cigars, two quarts of whiskey and — er — oh, yes, an ax and an extra set of tinware, in case I have company,” I said. “I thought the tribes thereabouts had all been put on reservations in the Indian Territory.”

  “I guess they’re all there on payday,” he said, “but as long as there’s buffalo left, there’ll be redskins huntin’ ’em, and if they can get a few paleface scalps into the bargain they really enjoy themselves.”

  His words gave me something to think about as I drove my team across the railroad tracks and into the forest once more, but they did not cause me to change my plans. It was still possible to encounter war parties of Indians here and there in the West, but the chances of being killed by the white inhabitants of any lively town were much greater.

  The succeeding few days were not bad, because I was treated to the sight of constantly changing scenery; and I had always found my own company adequate when none better was to be had. The nights were not so good, but my consciousness of them was brief. Bunked in the stage, I would hear the hunting calls of wolves for only a little while before I drifted off to sleep.

  For diversion I learned the fine points of stage driving over roads which grew worse the farther south I went. From the mountains and the trees the way led down into high mesa country, then into a grass and scrub tree land broken by outcroppings of rock. By that time I was doing no more than following a set of wheel tracks.

  I enjoyed the hunting, too. Game was especially abundant as I drew near and passed the point where Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and that westward reach of the Indian Territory called No Man’s Land made a zigzag upon the map. Yet though I lived well in consequence, it took me longer to get through the region than it should have.

  I was making early camp, in preparation for going in search of my evening meal, when a horseman appeared in the notch between two knobs, riding toward me from the west. Busy looking back, he did not see me until one of my horses whinnied a welcome to his mount. At that he swerved to ride uphill of the water hole near which I had backed the stage.

  Twenty yards away he halted, eying me alertly. I on my part had been giving him my full attention from the first. His handsome face, having skin of the type that doesn’t show weathering, looked paper-white in contrast to the black mustache which made an island of his chin. The other thing I noticed was that his hand hung near the revolver snugged to his thigh.

  On general principles I had pulled my rifle out of the coach, but I was careful to show no interest in it until I found out whether that would be necessary. The rider looked me over where I leaned against the right forewheel. Glancing about, he assured himself that I was alone. Next he read the lettering on the stage, and his mustache twitched with his grin.

  “Three Deuces-Chuckwalla,” he said. “If I wasn’t pretty sure you know your business better than I do, I’d say you were off the road.”

  By then I had had time to make further observations. From broad-brimmed hat to the boots into which his pants were tucked, he was dressed for rough riding, whereas I had been accustomed to seeing him in broadcloth and linen, as black and white as his whiskers and skin.

  “Well,” I said, “I may be on the wrong road, but you don’t seem to be following a
ny at all, Mr. McQuinn.”

  Blackfoot Terry didn’t like being recognized by someone he didn’t know. I wasn’t sure he would remember me, even with prompting, for I had been in camp but a few weeks at the time of his departure from Three Deuces. After a moment of hard staring, though, his face relaxed. So did the hand by his gun.

  “I’ve seen you. You’d rather copper than bet, but when you do, you like to back sixes and tens.” Having recalled my faro idiosyncrasies, he turned over his recollections in silence. “Why, of course. Carruthers, isn’t it?”

  “Judge Carruthers,” I said. “It would probably be contrary to the best judicial tradition to thank you for shooting Cad Brown, but anyhow I got his place.”

  “I heard about that.” McQuinn’s mustache twitched again. “You also got Tom Cary’s stage.”

  “He thought three kings would beat that many aces.” I was tired of holding my rifle and leaned it against the wheel beside me. “There’s at least part of a quart in the stage.”

  “There should be,” he said. In place of drawing nearer, however, he resumed looking back whence he had ridden. “Have you heard any shots?”

  It seemed to me that a man who expected to hear shooting had better push on, but I kept that thought to myself. Seeing me shake my head, he rode near enough to let his horse drink sparingly from the water hole. While it was doing so he looked at me as though he was trying to make up his mind what to say next.

  “You may know this,” he said after a minute, “but just for something to say, I’ll tell you anyhow. There are Indians out buffalo hunting, and not too far from here. I nearly ran into a band lying in wait for a herd to drift close. Cheyennes, by the look of them.”

  It didn’t make any difference to me just what kind of redskin might be ready to lift my scalp, but McQuinn’s particularity didn’t astonish me. His nickname was owing to the fact that he had been a captive of the Blackfeet as a boy.

  “I’ll be scrambling out of here, then, thanks.” Prepared to disbelieve him if he answered in the affirmative, I nodded at the rifle in his saddle boot. “Were you out hunting buffalo yourself?”