Incident at Coyote Wells

by Paul Lederer

  ‘You do indeed, friend.’ I gave him a crooked smile. ‘I’d not lose my horse over a few dollars.’

  The walk to town was uneventful and not unpleasant, though I made sure it was circuitous. I wove my way through the pines with my eyes habitually on my backtrail, listening to the subtle sounds of the forest, alert to any movement among the tree-shadows. This was, after all, the town where my death-warrant had been posted.

  Where could I find Beth Tolliver? It didn’t take a lot of brilliance to figure that out. A young woman on the desert for three days – where would she go? Someplace where she could have a bath and a meal and sleep in a real bed.

  The hotel room door was closed, but not locked and I toed it open with little effort. I hesitated at the threshold, lifted my Winchester waist-high, and called out before I entered.

  ‘Beth!’

  ‘In here. You stay out there!’ Her reaction was modest but not fearful. I could smell the steam and soap from beyond the interior door. Some kind of woman-scent drifted past as well. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been close to this sort of mysterious feminine intimacy. Years, I suppose, before Susan died … you don’t want to hear about all of that now, and I can’t bring myself to talk about it yet.

  I sat on the bed. Smiling, I looked at the bed post and saw the black leather gleam of a new gunbelt with a Colt revolver nestled in the holster. The lady had done good. She had accomplished what she had promised me, it seemed. I stood and strapped the gunbelt on, drawing the revolver a few times before checking the loads, flipping the gate closed and seating myself again, feeling somehow more comfortable than I had in a long while.

  ‘You have to go out!’ Beth called to me from the adjacent room. ‘My clothes are in there.’

  ‘I am not going out to stand in the hall,’ I answered sharply. ‘You have now got me in a town where they want to arrest me and hang me, and me without even a horse. I don’t care to expose myself to every casual passer-by.’

  ‘Honestly!’ she said as if frustrated by my constant complaints. ‘Then look around for my clothes and toss them in here.’

  I poked around and found her jeans and the white shirt, went to the door, rapped once and tossed them in. My mood was not improving. I was hungry, tired, mad at Beth and at myself for listening to her.

  ‘What’s first on our plan?’ I asked, listening to the small effortful, somehow homey sounds she made as she dressed in the cramped quarters of the bathroom.

  ‘I’m going to the house where Jefferson Pulver was living on his last days. Someone there must know something about who his visitors were, who could have helped him open a safety-deposit box.’

  ‘Just how do you propose to find it?’ I asked. The door to the bathroom opened and Beth emerged followed by a thin waft of soap-scented steam. She had brushed her damp hair back and now finished tucking in the tail of her shirt as she talked to me.

  The look I got was somewhat pitying. ‘You would never make a detective,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘When I sold Henry’s sorrel I simply asked the men at the stable about Jefferson Pulver. He was quite notorious in these parts as you know.’ She shrugged her small shoulders slightly. ‘They were quite willing to fill me in on all of the lurid details.’

  ‘I see. So now you’re just going to the place where he died and ask questions.’

  ‘Of course. Only a direct approach will work.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll have to come with me. I can’t trust to good luck for my personal safety. Why do you think I bought that revolver for you?’

  ‘You do recall, don’t you, that I am a wanted man?’

  ‘What you should have done is disguise yourself, grown a mustache or something.’

  ‘Or a long beard. You see, Beth, I didn’t imagine ever returning to Flagstaff. I was only a few hours away from the California line when.…’

  ‘Everyone’s plans can change unexpectedly,’ she commented as if I was speaking of inconsequential matters. She was sitting now on the window sill, the night breeze toying with her strawberry-blond hair. Quite pretty she was, and I knew how I had gotten myself dragged into this mess but was still puzzled by my own foolishness.

  ‘You also remember that I don’t have a horse now. I refuse to ride double with you.’

  ‘That’s all taken care of,’ Beth said off-handedly, waving one hand in the air as she rose to pace the room, her face deep in serious thought.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s simple. After I sold Henry’s sorrel I rented a buggy for us to use. It’s parked out back. You can see it from the window.’ She added as if it were incidental, ‘There’s a ledge just below the window. You can drop easily to the ground from there.’

  I had a fleeting thought of dropping from the window, walking back to where my buckskin was stabled and starting out again on my own across the desert. But just then Beth stopped her pacing, came to the bed where I was sitting and held out her hands, taking both of mine in them. Her smile was brilliant, her eyes sincere as she said quietly:

  ‘I can’t thank you enough, John. You going to all of this trouble, risking your life for a man you’ve never met and a woman you hardly know. I think you’re the grandest person I’ve ever met.’ Then she kissed me on the cheek, her lips as light as a butterfly when they touched me.

  I nodded mutely, rose from the bed, and crossed to the window to study the length of the drop from the ledge below.

  Once I was down to the ground I waited in the buggy while Beth exited the hotel and came to meet me in the moon-shadowed night. My mood had changed from anger to acceptance. I was now Beth’s hero, and heroes must endure, like it or not.

  Beth leaned forward intently across the dashboard of the buggy as I guided the dun horse pulling it. My rifle was propped up between us. The night was a close surround of tall pines, black before the rising moon, and tangled shadows. Beth had taken her directions from the men at the stable who presumably knew the way to the house, and I followed her excited instructions, still feeling uneasy about this late-night quest.

  ‘At the fork in the road. Left past the broken oak tree. Now half a mile on.’ Her every exhortation was accompanied by numerous jabbings of her fingers. She could not wait to reach our destination. I frowned in the darkness. Her confidence that the Grail lay ahead of us seemed unfounded to me.

  At length, with the silver moon riding high we came upon a small house, a cabin really, set on a low knoll. A single window was lighted by a low-burning lantern. A dog barked once and then was silent. There was a rising breeze and it caused the limbs of the oak tree next to where I had halted to wave with slow, ghostly motion.

  ‘Why did you stop?’ Beth asked, her face eager in the moonlight.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ I answered.

  ‘Like it or not, we’ve got to go up there. We’ve come too far to turn back now! I’ll do it myself if you want to stay here.’

  ‘No,’ I sighed. No, I couldn’t let her go on without me. I slapped the reins on the dun horse’s flanks and it started forward, following the narrow, winding trail to the house on the hill. I saw no horses tied to the rail, none pastured. My eyes continued to search the shadows, watching for stealthy movement or the quick glint of moonlight on steel. I saw nothing.

  Still I did not like it. An uneasy feeling knotted my stomach and a little tingle crept up my spine. I slowed the dun with one hand, keeping my other on the butt of my Colt revolver. We were stopped ten feet from the house now and still I did not move, waiting and watching.

  ‘Well, come on then,’ Beth urged. ‘Are we just going to sit here?’

  I set the brake with my boot and looped the reins around the handle. I slid from the buggy to ground-tether the horse. Still uneasy, I circled to the other side and helped Beth down. I might have been more ill at ease in my life, but I could not remember when. Something, a primitive instinct, perhaps, continued t
o warn me that this was a dangerous place to be.

  Beth stepped lightly up on to the porch and rapped on the door. I was still looking around us when the door opened a crack and a sliver of light fell across the warped stoop.

  ‘Yes?’ a stranger’s voice said from within. Beth answered:

  ‘I’ve come a long way to talk to anyone who knew Jefferson Pulver. It’s terribly important. May we come in?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the man answered cautiously. Then: ‘Well, I suppose so, step inside.’

  The door swung wide and Beth entered, smiling broadly. I tagged along in her wake. I had taken two steps into the shanty when a hand snaked out and lifted the Colt from my holster and I was shoved roughly into the middle of the room. I should have known.

  I was spun around and slammed up against the wall. Beth chirped out a complaint, but they paid no attention to her. One man kneed me solidly and when I doubled up another drove his fist up against the point of my chin. I dropped to the floor and stayed there.

  I wasn’t out cold, but I was on the borderline of consciousness. I could hear Beth’s angry voice. She seemed on the verge of tears. I slowly rolled over and opened my eyes. The tall man standing over me grinned broadly.

  ‘No worse than you did to me when you broke out,’ Deputy Frank Larson said.

  ‘Who is this desperado?’ a second man asked. I started to rise, failed and scooted against the wall to sit staring at the dimly-lit interior of the cabin, my ears ringing. The other man sat in a leather-strap chair, my pistol across his lap. He had an extremely wide jaw and knobby cheekbones, dark hair and tiny eyes. I had never seen him before, but I guessed that this was Art Corson.

  ‘Art, meet John Magadan. He’s the man who escaped the noose once. I guess he’s back for a second try.’

  ‘Who are you!’ Beth demanded. Her fists were clenched tightly. She had backed up into one corner of the room, feeling cheated and perhaps a little angry with herself for not listening to me.

  ‘This is the deputy sheriff,’ I told her. ‘Name’s Frank Larson. This one,’ I nodded, ‘is Art Corson.’ My eyes were on Art Corson’s fancy silk vest. Silver buttons, three of them, ran down the front of it. I still had the fourth in my pocket – the one Ray Hardin had ripped from it as the two men fought, before Corson had murdered Hardin over at Coyote Wells.

  ‘How did you know we would be coming here?’ Beth asked. Art Corson laughed out loud.

  ‘Lady, I run this town. Me and Sheriff Tom Driscoll. A stranger comes here and starts asking about people like Jefferson Pulver – word gets to me quicker’n lightning.’

  ‘Where’s Tom Driscoll?’ I asked.

  ‘Out lookin’ for you,’ Art Corson answered. ‘He’ll never believe it when he finds out you doubled back on the trail.’

  ‘Look, Corson,’ I said, trying to sound reasonable. ‘What have you got against me? I’ve never gotten in your way. Why not just let us be on our way again? Off to California.’

  Corson’s smile faded and turned into a deep scowl. He glanced at Beth. ‘If it was just you, Magadan, I might consider that. But it’s not you I want. I want the key to the savings box, and I want the number. It’s the girl I want. Look at this,’ he growled and he held out the billfold Ray Hardin had taken. ‘It was Jefferson Pulver’s – did you know that? Ray Hardin stole it from me. Last time I had this there was a key in it. The key’s gone. And I still don’t know the box number!’

  Corson was becoming infuriated. I had the feeling that there was enough in that dying declaration, wherever it was, to hang both him and Tom Driscoll, perhaps Frank Larson as well. Who knew how many others?

  ‘I don’t know anything about all of this,’ I said, struggling to my feet under the glare of Corson, the muzzle of Deputy Larson’s pistol. ‘All I know is that I got a little starry-eyed, foolish enough to bring the girl back to Flagstaff.’ Corson glanced at Beth and then looked her over too closely, maybe feeling that there could be a germ of truth in my explanation. I tried to put a pleading expression on to my face as if self-preservation was my only motive here. Corson was silent for a moment and then shook his knobby head.

  ‘The both of you are going to stay here until I get what I need,’ he said. ‘One way or the other.’

  It was one of those situations that offer no safe way out. I was going to have to take a big risk, not only with my life but with Beth’s. I had two guns trained on me and I was unarmed myself But I did have my Winchester in the buggy. I had convinced myself that there was no way to talk my way out of this. Therefore I would have to move.

  I took one step toward Corson who raised his pistol. I stood with my hands spread apart, held high. ‘You win, Corson. I do know where the key is,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘I’ll give it up in trade for my freedom.’

  ‘John!’ Beth said with enough panic in her voice to be convincing.

  ‘Now we have things we can discuss,’ Corson said complacently. ‘Can we reach agreement on this, Frank? After all, he is your prisoner.’ A glance passed between them and I caught it. I don’t know if rattlesnakes ever communicate with looks, but if not they could have learned something from these two.

  Beth had faded into the shadows in the corner, her eyes wide with amazement at the depths of my perfidy and cowardice. I shrugged at her and spread my hands again.

  ‘What else can I do?’ I asked her. Then I turned, spun, and dove headfirst out the cabin window, sending splintered glass down around me in a cold shower, racing toward the Winchester rifle in the buggy while the guns opened up behind me.

  SIX

  A wild shot fired from the doorway of the cabin whipped past me and ricocheted off the metal-work of the buggy’s canopy. I threw myself to the ground and half-scampered, half-crawled to the rig. Two more shots whistled past me. One of them caught nothing but air, the second ripped through the buggy’s flimsy coachwork. As I snatched my rifle from the buggy yet another shot sounded. This one either frightened or burned the dun pony for it reared up, breaking its ground tether and the animal darted off into the night, shaking its head wildly as the driverless buggy rolled wildly behind.

  From one knee I jacked a .44-40 round into the breech of my Winchester and fired. Frank Larson, standing in the doorway was a perfect silhouette before the lanternlight, and I did not miss. He jerked back, flung out his arms and then fell face forward on to the porch.

  Briefly Art Corson appeared in the doorway and I fired off a second round. He ducked back behind the door jamb giving out a little yelp. I couldn’t tell if I had hit him or not, but it was not a mortal shot, because in another minute he reappeared, his arm around Beth’s waist, his pistol held to her head. She wasn’t struggling. Her eyes seemed glazed over with fear.

  ‘Throw your rifle away!’ Corson shouted at me.

  ‘Like hell!’ I answered. That could have no good result. But I could not stop him from propelling Beth off the porch. He backed around the corner of the cabin, his pistol still leveled at me. I was a minute too long trying to decide whether to rush him or not, because I then heard the common but chilling sounds of a horse being ridden rapidly away from the house.

  I rushed to that side of the cabin, hoping against hope that Corson had abandoned his hostage as he made a dash toward freedom. No such luck.

  Beth was gone into the night, a prisoner of the killer, Corson.

  I stood there for a long while cursing myself, the night, Corson and all of creation. I could tell myself it was not my fault. That it was Beth’s single-minded determination that had brought this about. I had sensed danger long before we had arrived and warned her. I could tell myself all of this, but in the end, even knowing better, I had agreed to march blindly into the trap Corson had set for us.

  I watched and listened until I could not hear the hoofbeats any longer. Oddly Corson had not started back toward Flagstaff where he had friends, but southward, toward the long Sonoran Desert once again. It could be that it was because he had no way of knowing if I might be lying in
wait for him along the road to town. Or, alternately, could Beth have somehow tricked him, told him, perhaps, that she knew where the supposedly missing key was hidden? I just didn’t know.

  I searched briefly for the runaway dun without success, and then before the mockery of the moon I started walking back toward Flagstaff, a deep, dark despair traveling with me.

  I came upon the little farm in the wee hours. There were no lights burning in the house, no one stirring. No dog sounded a warning and so I climbed through the split-rail fence and crossed the grassy yard to the small outbuilding twenty yards from the house. Easing through the creaking door I found Buck standing in the darkness, his eyes bright in the slanting starlight as he warily watched me approach.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ I whispered, ‘and not a sound out of you.’

  It was a matter of minutes only to find my horse blanket and saddle, one of my waterbags, slip the horse his bit and lead him out into the silent night. I felt like a thief, which in a way, I was. I had hired the little man and was now cheating him of his pay. I supposed his wife would lay into him again come morning.

  I considered these matters and then thrust the concerns aside. Only Beth’s safety mattered at the moment, and I was determined to ride Corson down. I headed back toward the ambush site. When dawn returned I should be able to cut sign. Corson’s horse was now carrying double, and if Buck was not yet his old self, he was stepping high, feeling eager beneath me as I rode.

  As much as I dreaded the thought of traversing the desert yet again, at least I was now away from Flagstaff. But now I had killed yet another man! This one a deputy sheriff. I was in it deeper than ever. I regretted the day I had encountered Beth Tolliver.

  Or so I tried to convince myself. The truth was that she had somehow brought me back to life; the truth was that the little woman with the wide blue eyes was the best thing that happened to me in years. I wanted – needed – to see her safe again and make her happy. I barely touched the buckskin with my spurs, but he seemed to sense there was some sort of urgency in our quest, and his stride lengthened into a ground-devouring canter.