Coroner Creek

by Short, Luke;

  Chris glanced briefly at the girl beside him. She made no effort to tidy the wisp of hair that straggled down across her forehead and ear. She, too, had been watching the sleeping girl, and now she looked at Danning, this time more carefully, and her eyes, Chris noticed, were a pale brown, pale as old amber.

  “You’re new,” she said.

  Chris nodded.

  “Do you know what’s the matter with her?” the girl asked, inclining her head toward the girl on the bed.

  “I’d say she was drunk,” Chris answered. There was no censure in his voice, no interest either.

  There was a faint bitterness in her that was reflected in her pale eyes as she nodded and glanced again at the sleeping girl. She bent over her now and put a hand on her shoulder. “Abbie, Abbie, wake up. Can you hear me?”

  There was no pleading and no hysteria in her voice, and Chris sensed that she had done this before. She straightened and took a deep sighing breath that lifted her bosom under her plain blue dress. And now, almost absently, she tucked the stray strand of hair back in place and, looking at Chris, said, “Have you ridden far today? Eaten, too?”

  The strangeness of her question held him mute a moment, and then she went on, “I need help with her. I’ve got to get her out of here and back to the ranch. I—don’t like to shame her by asking somebody she knows, and everyone knows her.”

  The bluntness of this girl and her sudden kindness lessened for an instant the deep taciturnity in him and he said, “I’ll help you.”

  The girl put out her hand now. “I’m Kate Hardison.”

  Chris told her his name, removed his Stetson and took her small hand in his, and then she said, smiling only faintly, “Smoke a cigarette. We’ll have to wait until it’s darker.”

  She sank onto the edge of the bed, and Chris sat down stiffly in the rocker next the bed, put his worn and battered hat on the floor beside the chair and reached in his shirt pocket for his sack of tobacco dust. He did not speak, content now, as always, with silence. He fashioned and lighted a cigarette, and then leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees, staring quietly at his cigarette, and he had the tranquillity of a patient, patient man.

  Kate Hardison studied him for perhaps a minute, and then she stood up and crossed over to the dresser and took a match from the tray and lighted the lamp. She put the lamp on the table beside the bed and said, “Her buggy is in the alley back of the hotel. When it’s dark enough, you can carry her down to it and drive her out to Rainbow.”

  “Who do I ask for?”

  “This is Mrs. Miles,” Kate said. “They’ll take her off your hands.”

  Something in his face must have revealed his surprise, for Kate said, “You didn’t come here to work for Younger Miles, did you?”

  “Younger Miles? No.”

  “Do you know him? Or anybody at Rainbow?”

  “No. I’m a drifter.”

  Kate laughed shortly. “I don’t mind calling Younger Miles a dog to his face. I have. It’s just that it’s bad manners to call him one to a person who might be a friend of his. If he has a friend,” she added quietly.

  Chris looked at the sleeping girl again, thinking, So he bought a store with it and ranch with it and a drunken wife with it, and then he looked down at his cigarette again, patient again.

  Kate said, “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” and Chris started at the sound of her voice. He looked at her strangely and nodded, and Kate said, “She’s good, too. Not like this. If it will make you feel repaid for this, you can believe that.”

  Chris was silent, and Kate, when he did not answer, said, “I think you can bring her now.”

  He lifted Abbie Miles in his arms, and Kate led the way down the corridor to the back stairs. They opened into the kitchen, dark now, and she opened the back door. A team haltered at the high loading platform and hitched to a top buggy swung their heads around in the near darkness to watch their approach. Chris gently set the girl in the buggy seat, and when he climbed over her and took his seat, she slumped heavily against him. Kate, speaking softly across Abbie Miles, said, “You can follow this alley south to the edge of town. The road takes you to the canyon of the Coroner and passes by Rainbow. The team will take you.”

  Chris picked up the reins.

  “I’ll wait up for you,” Kate said.

  Chris backed the team around and headed down the alley, and presently was on the main road south which pointed straight for the heart of the Blackbows.

  He held the reins loosely in his big hands now and relaxed in the seat, thinking of the strangeness of his errand as he felt the girl’s dead weight against his side and shoulder. I’ve got his wife, he thought. I could kill her now if I were sure it would hurt him. It gave him a feeling of power and he contrasted it with the months of helpless and hopeless bafflement that had ridden him ever since he got the few brief facts of the massacre from the Apache through McCune.

  He was remembering, too, the weeks he had spent at Pima Tanks. When he had identified the long forgotten freighter by the name of Younger Miles who used to work for Nohl and Johnson, he was only a little farther along the trail he had to travel, for Miles was months gone, and nobody knew or cared where. It was in the second month there, when he had nothing to feed his anger except stubbornness, that he got the hint that had brought him here, a half summer’s travel to the north. He had taken up his station in the saloon that morning, just as he did every morning, hoping against reason that something in the million words of barroom gossip he was ready to listen to would hold a clue to Miles whereabouts. He had been the first customer, and he had listened to the two tattered swampers gossiping about customers as they cleaned up the saloon. One of them had spoken of the vanity of a Nohl and Johnson freighter in regard to boots he could not afford. Chris had listened and questioned, and when he learned the freighter they spoke of was Miles, he had written five bootmakers, expecting nothing. But one day a letter came. Yes, the Texas bootmakers said, they still made boots for Younger Miles, and they named this town.

  So now he was almost finished. As full night came Chris thought of that with an odd tranquillity—he was at the end of his search.

  He heard the near horse whicker now and felt the pace of the buggy quicken, and moments later he saw the dark forms of several riders loom up ahead of him. They were traveling at the easy jog of men who had ridden long, and they broke ranks to let him pass through them.

  And then, almost leisurely, one rider leaned out and caught the bridle of the near horse and pulled the team to a stop, calling, “You all right, Mrs. Miles?”

  Chris said, “She’s all right,” and watched the four riders pause at this strange voice; then, as one, they put their horses up to the buggy. A match was wiped alight on the trouser leg of the rider nearest Chris, and then he was squinting into the glare of it, looking at a young puncher whose mouth was going slack with surprise. The match died and the puncher said wonderingly, “Who the hell is that?” just as a man on the other side struck another match. He held it close to Abbie Miles and said disgustedly, “She’s drunk, Ernie,”—and Chris shuttled his glance to the brand on the man’s horse. It was three concentric half circles, and he knew this would be Rainbow and that he was not breaking faith with Kate Hardison in letting these men see Abbie Miles.

  He said, “I’m taking her home,” and waited, while the match died.

  Ernie was the man who had stopped the team. Now he pulled his horse up alongside and flicked a match alight with his thumbnail. Chris saw a big man whose bleach eyes in his long and narrow face regarded him briefly, dispassionately.

  “So she lets strangers get her drunk, now,” he said in a soft Texas voice. “Get out of that buggy.”

  “I’ll talk from here.”

  “Get out of there or I’ll kick you out,” Ernie said flatly.

  The match flame wavered and faded, and in that instant Chris knew that Ernie meant what he said. He knew, too, that the sudden darkness after the match flame died would mean a momen
t of blindness for the Texan, and when the match guttered out, he gathered his feet beneath him, dropped the reins and hurled his body at the black bulk on the saddle beside him.

  His near shoulder caught Ernie in the chest and he wrapped his arm around his neck, locking his head in the crook of his arm. They fell off the horse that way, on their sides, Chris’ weight dragging them to the ground. The breath was driven from Ernie in a great grunt, but he fought immediately, strongly, trying to bring his knee up into Chris’ groin. Chris rolled away from him and they both came to their feet, Chris an instant sooner than the Texan, and he lunged again, this time swinging savagely and blindly in the dark. His first blow caught Ernie in the face, but Ernie came on, grappling with him, and they fell, locked in each other’s arms. The nearest Rainbow rider was calling the others.

  Ernie was on him now, slugging great sledging blows at his face and chest. Now he half rolled over, swinging his arm up and catching Ernie around the chest. He rolled the rest of the way then, and Ernie came down with him. They were both on their sides, hitting blindly and futilely at each other when the Rainbow crew landed on them.

  Chris felt his arms seized, and he was dragged off Ernie, fighting stubbornly against his two captors. They hauled him to his feet and he struggled silently, raging, and then subsided, breathing deeply. He heard the third man haul Ernie to his feet, and Ernie said thickly, “Get a fire built.”

  While the third man beat out in the mesquite brush alongside the road for fuel, Chris waited for what was coming. His anger was steady, unspent. The puncher returned with an armful of dry brush, threw it in the road, tramped it to kindling and touched a match to it. In its mounting flare, Chris saw Ernie standing spraddle-legged and hatless, his shirt ripped half off him, one hand, on his hip. With his other hand and sleeve, he was wiping away the blood steadily dripping from his nose, and his bleak eyes were baleful and wicked. Chris, seeing it, crowded him.

  “You build up a big enough fire and we’ll finish it,” Chris invited. He tried to shake off the man on either arm, but they held him.

  Ernie didn’t say anything immediately, and in that pause Chris saw his indecision.

  Ernie said, “What are you doing with Mrs. Miles?”

  Chris told him curtly of Kate Hardison’s request, and Ernie said slowly, “That better be so.”

  It was over, Chris knew.

  One of the men holding him, a squat barrel of a man whose round legs almost split his trousers, said, “You never gave her a drink?”

  “She’s been that way since I saw her.”

  Ernie grunted and turned and went over to the buggy and looked in the seat. When Chris had jumped, Abbie Miles had fallen on her side in the buggy seat. She lay there, still asleep.

  Ernie turned and looked speculatively at Chris, and then said, “I reckon we’ve made a mistake. Let him go.”

  The two men took their hands off Chris, and Ernie said, “Ray, you drive her home. I’ll bring your horse.”

  A wiry middle-aged puncher took over the reins, and Chris accepted his gun the Rainbow hand offered him, and rammed it in the waistband of his pants. The team was driven on, and Ernie said to Chris, “Take his horse,” and went over to his own mount. Chris stepped into the saddle of the extra horse and fell in with the others, and they headed back across the flats toward Triumph. He knew Ernie was unforgiving and unafraid, and that his pride would not let him drop this here. Beside, he had given away a secret that should have been kept.

  Ernie’s soft Texas drawl broke the silence presently. He tried to make it pleasant. “Ridin’ through, or do you figure to drift?”

  “Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “We’re short-handed at Rainbow,” Ernie said. “If you figure to stay, think it over. Miles is a good boss, and about tonight—well, I reckon I made a mistake.”

  This was a concession, Chris knew, and yet there was not a jot of apology in Ernie’s soft voice.

  Chris said, “I’ll think it over.”

  They fell silent. To the east the light of a ranch showed briefly, then was lost behind a tangle of corrals, and soon they were in sight of the lights of Triumph.

  And Chris waited for the rest. When it came, Ernie was open enough about it.

  “Mrs. Miles is worried, I reckon. Her father is goin’ to die, and she knows it. He’s sheriff.” Ernie paused long enough to let that, and its implication, sink in. “So if she drinks some whisky once in a while, it’s nobody’s business but Rainbow’s. Nobody’s.”

  Chris turned this over in his mind, and then said quietly, “I don’t talk about a woman.” And he added just as bluntly, “But if I wanted to, you wouldn’t stop me.”

  He saw Ernie’s head swivel toward him but nobody said anything. They were on Triumph’s main street now, and when they were abreast the hotel, Chris pulled up and dismounted. Ernie reached down for the reins of his horse and Chris handed them to him. Their glances met briefly, and Ernie’s pale eyes held neither dislike nor respect. He had done a necessary job within the limits of caution, and he was ready for any consequence. He said equably, “Remember Rainbow if you’re lookin’ for a ridin’ job.”

  “I will,” Chris said, and Ernie pulled Chris’ horse away.

  Chris went into the lobby. A puncher was asleep on the sofa against the wall, hat over his eyes against the light from the overhead kerosene lamp, and a pair of townsmen were playing checkers at a table against the wall. Chris took the key from his pocket and consulted the number on its tag, and went upstairs to his room. He lighted the lamp and found his warbag on the chair. Kate Hardison had evidently seen his name on the register.

  Stripping off his shirt, he sloshed water from the pitcher into the bowl, and had his upper body soaped when the knock came on the door.

  Kate Hardison’s voice followed immediately. “Come down for supper when you’re through.”

  “All right,” Chris said, and went back to the washing. The soap smarted in his knuckles and he glanced down and found a couple of them skinned rawly. Afterward, he put on a clean shirt from his warbag, and then looked in the mirror. “He ran a hand over the black swirl of a two-day beard stubble, and then combed his ragged black hair. Finished, his hands sank slowly to his sides, and the images that had been ribboning through his mind this while took shape, and he thought, If I work for him, I can pick the time and the place to kill him. And tell him why.

  A minute afterward, he turned down the lamp and descended the stairs, his body slack with weariness and hunger.

  There was a lamp on a rear table in the dining room, a place set by it. Kate Hardison poked her head through the kitchen door, and by the time he was seated, she was bringing him the food. A platter of steaks, and bread—because she knew he would be tired of biscuits—and potatoes, with thick juice gravy, a double wedge of green-apple pie and a plate of pale butter and a pot of coffee were set before him.

  She left him, and came back only when the edge was off his appetite. Pouring herself a cup of black coffee, she took a chair opposite him, and as he reached for his sack of tobacco he looked up and surprised her watching him.

  Kate Hardison said, “You couldn’t have made Rainbow. Who did you meet?”

  “The crew,” Chris said. “They took over.”

  “Which one of them did you hit?”

  Chris looked up quickly, and when he saw her glance level upon him, he knew she’d seen his knuckles. He wiped the edge of his cigarette across his tongue and put it in the corner of his lips and said, “Ernie somebody.”

  Kate only looked at him searchingly and laughed then. It was a real laugh, too, with an inexpressible merriment in it that puzzled Chris, who watched her unsmilingly.

  “Everybody wants to hit Ernie and nobody does,” Kate explained. “People with reasons, I mean.”

  He said nothing, and Kate said, with a sudden shrewdness, “He thought you’d got her drunk, didn’t he?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Whoever is giving her whisky is
going to get hurt,” Kate said.

  Chris touched a match to his cigarette and inhaled deeply, and he felt an obscure irritation. But he was indifferent to Mrs. Miles’ habits, and once more his thoughts settled back into the gray taciturnity of habit. He knew Kate Hardison had poured her coffee and sat down across from him because she wanted to talk, and yet he could feel no interest in her. Somewhere along the line he had lost the knowledge of the social niceties; he knew of nothing he wanted to say to this girl, pleasant as she was. He studied the table, musing, indifferent, not even knowing he was doing so, and he was lost in his gray contemplation.

  When he heard her chair scrape, he yanked his attention back to the present. She was standing, collecting the dishes. He rose and took his share, and followed her back into the kitchen. It was a spacious place, clean, with a massive shining black range against the back wall.

  He said, out of the desire to appear friendly, “You run this hotel yourself?”

  “Everything but the cooking and cleaning. That doesn’t leave much.”

  Her voice was now reserved and cold: she had wanted to be friendly, and had been rebuffed and had accepted it. He would have liked to tell her that he’d meant nothing by his silence, that it didn’t matter, that he was only part of a man and not what she thought, that the only hing in the world he wanted was to kill a man, and that his waking hours were spent in pondering how that death could be made an exquisite agony.

  When she was finished tidying up, he followed her through the dining room and into the lobby. She paused at the sofa where the puncher was sleeping, hesitated a moment, and then turned again to Chris. “I hate to wake him. Would you help me once more?”

  Chris nodded, and she went ahead of him up the stairs. She waited for him at the head and explained in a quiet voice, “My father is bedridden from a fall several years ago, but he spends all day on the gallery so he can be outdoors. Fred, the man asleep down there, helps me move him in each night, but I didn’t want to wake him tonight.”