Oates bent his head, trying to spit out the candy, but it was stuck fast.
Again and again he felt himself drift into unconsciousness, but each time he forced himself to stay awake. If he passed out, he’d suffocate.
Blood filled his mouth, now sticky with melted sugar, and trickled thickly down his throat. His chest on fire, he coughed and gagged, struggling to breathe. But Oates knew he was fighting a losing battle. The day crowded in on him like a black fog and he surrendered to darkness. . . .
Oates felt his head being jerked upward, someone’s fingers yanking roughly on his hair.
He opened his bulging, bloodshot eyes and Nantan’s face swam into view, hazy and indistinct. The girl thrust two fingers into his mouth and hooked the candy stick. She jerked it out, looked at the candy in disgust as it trailed saliva, then angrily threw it away.
Oates frantically gulped air into his lungs, like a drowning man who is suddenly shot to the surface of the sea. “Thank you,” he gasped. “You saved my life.”
Nantan made no answer. She had stepped behind the tree and untied the knotted rope.
Oates fell forward onto his hands and knees where he dragged at the air, his wet hair falling over his face. He stayed there for a long while, spitting blood from his mangled mouth, then rose unsteadily to his feet.
Nantan leaned wearily against the cottonwood, the right shoulder of her shirt crimson with blood. Oates picked up the slicker and draped it around her. He held the girl close, whispering meaningless words, telling her she was going to be fine . . . going to be all right . . . even though he didn’t know the extent of her injury.
Around them, clouds hung low in the sky and shrouded the mountains and trees in somber gray, as though they were wearing mourning garments, grieving for the dead sun.
Gently, Oates sat Nantan at the base of the cottonwood. The canopy provided little shelter from the rain, but he didn’t want the girl walking around until he found a dry place to check on her wound and if need be, spend the night.
As far as Oates could tell, there was no shelter anywhere and, despite the cottonwoods, the creek seemed to offer nothing.
“Stay there and don’t move,” he told Nantan. After the girl nodded in reply, her wounded eyes lifted gratefully to his, he walked to the water’s edge. And what he saw pleased him.
At a shallow bend in the bank the floodwaters of the spring snowmelt had gouged deeply, creating a space about four feet high and half that deep, roofed by a tufted overhang. At that point the tumbling creek was separated from the hollow by a sandbank that was at least ten feet wide.
It would do, but Oates knew he was going to have a devil of a time transforming the crumbling gouge in the bank into a rainproof shelter.
He checked on Nantan again, then searched the ground where he’d lost his knife during his wild charge at Pickles. After a few minutes he found the knife and stuck it in the sheath on his belt.
Fortunately there were plenty of fallen branches scattered along the creek and Oates roughly sharpened their butt ends and carried them to the hollow. He drove the pointed branches deep into the sandy edge of the overhang, and when he decided he had enough, he went in search of leafier specimens.
After thirty minutes of steady work with his knife, Oates had found enough branches to thickly roof the overhang. He tested the interior of the hollow and it seemed snug and dry enough.
Oates got Nantan and helped her inside. He removed the slicker from her shoulders, then unbuttoned her shirt.
“It’s not so bad, Eddie,” the girl said, attempting to smile. “I don’t have too much pain.”
Oates studied the wound and decided that Nantan’s statement was just Apache bravado. Pickles’ bullet had hit high, as he’d said, but it looked as though Nantan’s collarbone was broken at the point where it met her shoulder. The round had gone all the way through and had nicked her shoulder blade as it exited.
It was a painful but not a killing wound, though it was serious enough and infection could be a problem. Oates recalled that Nellie’s injury had been worse and had healed well, though she walked with a slight limp that Lorraine had told him was probably permanent.
He made a crude sling from Pickles’ rope to immobilize Nantan’s right arm and take stress off the collarbone, padding it where necessary with strips cut from his own shirt.
After he finished, Oates asked, “How do you feel, Nantan?”
“It’s good to be out of the rain, Eddie.”
Oates smiled as he buttoned his shirt. “I mean, do you hurt?”
“Not much.” The girl had seen the bloody gouge on his shoulder. “You’re wounded,” she said.
“I got burned by Pickles,” he said. “It’s not deep and it will heal.”
Tears glistened in Nantan’s eyes. “Oh, Eddie, we’re all shot to pieces.”
Despite his aching head, the pain in his shoulder and the discomfort of being soaking wet, Oates managed a laugh. “I thought Apaches never exaggerated stuff like that.”
The girl blinked back the tears and smiled. “The Catholic Apaches do.”
Oates squatted on his heels. “I have to see to the horses. Sit still and keep as warm as possible, huh?” He spread the slicker over Nantan. “I’ll be right back.”
The paint had stayed close to the creek where the grass was sweeter. Oates stripped the saddle and led the horse deeper into the trees. He did the same for the black, then spent the next few minutes venting curses on Pickles.
The man had pulled the hide-wrapped bundle of deer meat off the mustang’s back, took what he wanted and scattered the rest. Oates repacked the venison and left it by the creek bank. Later he’d take the meat into the hollow, where the coyotes would not get at it.
He found his hat, now with a second bullet hole in the brim, and then the Winchester. Pickles’ bullet had damaged the receiver so badly, only the attentions of a skilled gunsmith could save it. Since there was none of those around, Oates tossed away the useless rifle.
He found his gun belt and buckled it around his waist. His eyes searched the distance to the west. The blue mountains looked like a still-wet watercolor behind the shifting screen of the rain. Pickles had gone that way, and Oates planned to go after him and kill him.
If—and it was a big if—Nantan could make it back to Heartbreak on her own.
Oates searched among the cottonwoods and found enough wood to build a fire. The fallen branches were wet, but not all the way through. His fire would smoke, but with luck it would burn well enough.
He filled his pockets with twigs and tree bark, picked up the deer hide and returned to the hollow in the bank. Nantan was sleeping, probably from the lingering aftereffects of the sedative Pickles had given her, and Oates was careful not to disturb her.
He chose a corner of the hollow for his fire, feeding it carefully with shredded bark and twigs. After the flames caught, he gingerly added tree branches. As he expected, there was smoke, but the fire began to blaze and after a few minutes showed glowing red coals.
Selecting a thinner branch, Oates skewered pieces of venison and propped the stick above the fire to broil. He would have preferred fattier meat that would have dripped and sizzled and kept the blaze strong, but deer was what he had and recently he’d learned to make do.
After a while Oates shook Nantan awake. “Eat,” he said. “It will help you regain your strength.”
He and the girl shared the broiled venison and then sat close to the fire as the long day darkened into night.
Nantan slept again, but Oates stayed awake, listening to the night sounds, the rustle of the wind in the trees, the whisper of rain and the cries of the coyotes.
Finally Oates drifted into sleep and dreamed wild dreams of Pete Pickles.
Come the morning light, the rain was gone and his fire was out.
Oates crawled out of the hollow and stretched the knots out of his back.
Today he would kill Pickles or the gunman would kill him. He had no other choice because
there was no other way.
Chapter 33
“Nantan, Pickles thinks he’s got me running scared, that I’ve shown yellow and will do anything he asks,” Oates said. “He’s wrong, and all I can do now is prove to him how wrong he is. And the only way to do that is by killing him.”
He had just told the girl about Pickles’ demand that he bring Stella’s five thousand dollars to the creek or he’d kill everyone in Heartbreak. Now he waited for her reaction.
The teaching of the good Mexican nuns may have given Nantan a veneer of civilized behavior, but in her heart and soul she was still Apache. She listened to what Oates had to say, then nodded. “My husband, you must do what you feel is right. If that is to take the warrior’s path, then so be it.”
She sat in silence for a while, watching the ripples in the creek, then turned to Oates and said, “Even if you brought him the money, he would kill you anyway.” Her black eyes met his. “He is evil, and evil is the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light. All you can do with a demon like Pickles is destroy him.”
“Can you make it back to town and wait for me there?”
“I would rather go with you, but I fear I would slow you down.” The girl nodded. “Yes, I can ride to Heartbreak.”
Oates was anguished, an emotion new to him. “Nantan, I got to be riding.”
“I know. Get me to my feet, Eddie.”
After he helped the girl onto the back of her horse and placed the venison behind her, Oates looked up at her and said, “Ride careful. Tell the others I’ll return soon.”
Nantan said nothing. She reached behind her neck and untied a rawhide string. Attached to the cord was an almost-translucent black stone. She held it out to Oates and said, “Wear this. It will bring you luck. The Lipan call it Apache tears, because the stone was formed from the tears shed by generations of Apache women for their dead warrior husbands.”
Oates took the stone and hung it around his neck. “You must leave now, Nantan,” he said.
The Apache have no word for good-bye. The girl merely nodded, then swung her horse to the south.
Oates watched the girl go. Then he called out, “Nantan! My wife!”
If she heard, she gave no sign.
Fifty miles to the west the new-aborning sun was washing out the night shadows from the San Andres Mountains as Oates left the creek under a flaming sky dappled with jade and gold. The wind that only the day before had gleefully joined the rain to do mischief had fled to the Salado peaks, where it sullenly stirred the trees and shredded the petals of the wildflowers.
The day was coming on clean, smelling of sage and pine and vast distances, and Oates rode directly toward the mountains, trusting that Pickles had kept going in a straight line.
There was no guarantee that the man would be in the Salado Mountains, but since they were only five miles due west of Heartbreak, they were an ideal spot for the gunman to hole up.
Keeping to the pine and juniper forests as much as possible, Oates followed Seco Creek to the Salado foothills, then, as the morning grew brighter, swung north at a walk, constantly eyeing the arroyos and rock ridges.
He deeply felt the loss of his rifle. If Pickles opened up on him at a distance, he’d be in a world of hurt. By all accounts the man was an expert with the long gun, and the revolver riding high on Oates’ hip brought him little comfort.
As the sun rose higher, light streaming through the trees made a play of dappled shade and around him bees were already buzzing among the blossoms of the wildflowers. Once he spotted a buzzard quartering the sky above him and several antelope passed him at a distance, on their way to the creek to drink.
After thirty minutes Oates rode up the south fork of Palomas Creek, and beyond to the north, the high-shouldered bulk of Panther Peak was outlined against the mist blue sky.
There was no sound, no sign of life, and it seemed that even the animals had already sought shelter, prepared to drowse through the coming heat of the day.
Oates drew rein, suddenly beaten. Trying to find one man in this wilderness was an impossible task. He also had the uncomfortable feeling that Pickles could be playing with him, letting him come on while his rifle sights were squarely on his chest.
Oates made up his mind. He would cross the creek and head north as far as the craggy peak rising more than six thousand feet above the flat. If he saw no sign of Pickles he’d head back to Heartbreak.
But to turn tail would be a disappointment, to say the least. The man owed Oates for what he had done to Nantan. That was something he would never forget or forgive. If he didn’t track down the vicious little gunman, if the man killed and then rode free with no retribution coming down on him, Oates would regret it for the rest of his life. Already it seemed that Darlene McWilliams, now safe behind the guns and fences of the Circle-T, had licked him, and the death of Jacob Yearly would go unavenged.
After yet another defeat, inevitably he would seek solace, perhaps in Nantan, but more certainly in a bottle. It was a bitter pill, but Oates figured he might have no option but to swallow it.
But that morning Pete Pickles would reveal a weakness . . . one that was destined to ultimately seal his fate.
After years of success as a manhunter, Pickles had grown arrogant, and arrogance diminishes wisdom.
A less confident man, preparing to make a kill in hostile country, lies low and waits his chance. He does not build a large fire in the indigo light of early morning, sing at the top of his lungs and fry smoking bacon.
In his immense conceit, Pete Pickles did all these things.
And Oates smelled and heard him.
The creek ran through a narrow, treed canyon to the west and Oates rode cautiously. When he reached the mouth of the gulch, he stepped out of the leather and advanced on foot.
Swollen by rain, the creek babbled loudly over its pebble and sand bottom and the wind was softly sighing among the pines. Treading on cat feet, Oates entered the canyon, walking among cottonwoods and sage. Higher, along the rim, ran a wall of aspen.
Now, deeper into the canyon, there was little sound. The hushed morning held itself still, tense with the moment. Insects made a small whirring in the grass at Oates’ feet, stirring the flowers.
He stopped, wary now.
Pickles was very close, just twenty yards away in a grassy, hanging meadow that sloped gradually down to the creek.
The man stood at a fire close to the bank, his back to Oates, who was now close enough to hear the man sing.
“ ‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves.’ ”
Pickles took a knee and lifted the lid of his teapot, checking the contents.
“ ‘We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’ ”
He rose to his feet and stared out at the creek.
“ ‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves.’ ”
The man turned and looked directly into the tree shadows at Oates.
“ ‘We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’ ”
Pickles smiled. “Hello, Eddie. You’re just in time for tea.”
The man was wearing a Colt in a shoulder holster. The leather rifle case was closed and propped against a tree.
“I’m here to kill you, Pickles,” Oates said.
“Oh dear. And, silly me, here was I thinking you’d already brought me the money.”
Oates stepped out of the cottonwoods and onto the meadow. Pickles’ green, cat eyes were luminous, watching his every move.
“Did you like the hymn, Eddie?” the gunman asked. “It’s the very latest thing, written by a Mr. Shaw and a Mr. Minor, not papists I hasten to add. Dear Mrs. Pickles has become so exceedingly fond of that particular song of praise, she demands that it be sung in church every Sunday, especially on those rare occasions when I’m to home.”
Oates walked closer until ten yards separated him from Pickles. He was confident of hitting his target at that range. “Shuck the iron, Pickles, and get to your work,” he s
aid. “I mean to kill you.”
The gunman shook his head. “I do dislike scenes, Eddie. They upset me. Now, why would I draw down on you? There’s no profit in that, is there?” Pickles kneeled by the fire and picked up the pot. “Please, come over here and have tea and we’ll talk about this. Fault finding is not for us, Eddie. Mrs. Pickles always says that only vulgar people take delight in pointing out the faults and follies of great men.”
“You’re not a great man, Pickles. You’re a yellow-bellied, bushwhacking skunk who shoots down unarmed women.”
Laying the pot carefully at the edge of the coals, Pickles got to his feet.
“Harsh words, Eddie, but I’m not going to fight you. I like you too much for that.”
“Fill your hand, Pickles, or I’ll gun you right where you stand,” Oates said.
“Then you’ll have to shoot me in the back, Eddie. And I know you’re too much of a gentleman to do that.”
Pickles turned away. But when he crouched and then suddenly swung around, he was already shooting.
Way too fast.
Pickles was a sure-thing killer, an expert with the rifle, but not really a practiced revolver fighter. Had he planned ahead for this battle, he would have picked Oates off at a distance at little risk to himself.
Now the expression on his shocked, unbelieving face revealed that he knew he was a dead man.
Oates heard Pickles’ bullet split the air beside his head. The man steadied, then raised his Colt to shoot again. But Oates was already firing. His first shot hit the gunman in the shoulder, his second missed, but his third, a solid chest hit, punched Pickles’ ticket to hell.
Pickles stepped back, his mouth twisted in a snarl. But his legs would not support him. They went out from under him, like a man skidding on an icy sidewalk.
Oates fired again, another miss, but Pickles crashed onto his back and lay still.
Before he approached the fallen man, Oates reloaded his Colt. He recalled Jacob Yearly telling him to never trust a dead wolf until it’s been skun.
Pickles was still alive, but the death shadows had gathered in the man’s cheeks and in the hollows of his eyes.
Ralph Compton The Man From Nowhere Page 17
