Overland Stage

by Paul Lederer

  Moving in a crouch, he pressed the door open with his shoulder, stepped inside the darkened building and quickly moved to one side, losing himself in shadowed darkness.

  Still he heard nothing, saw no one. Yet he felt a presence there. Cameron held his position. Moonlight fell through a high, narrow window. Distantly the lost dog howled again. There was no other sound, no other sign of life.

  ‘I’ve got you in my sights!’ a voice called out from the depths of the adobe. ‘Get out or I’ll drag this trigger.’

  ‘Hold it,’ Cameron replied carefully. ‘I’m friendly. I brought the stage in for Kyle Post. He’s out in the coach, shot up pretty bad.’

  ‘Well, damnit, then!’ the disembodied voice croaked. ‘Get him down here – but first, how about giving me a hand?’

  Cameron Black glanced out the door, surveying the yard before he moved across the opening where he would have made a neat silhouette. Then he cautiously approached the man behind the counter of the stagecoach office, saying, ‘Hold back that trigger finger, friend. We’ll both be much better off.’

  ‘I’ve put my rifle aside. Strike a match to that lantern if you think it’s safe.’

  How safe it was, Cameron did not know, but little could be accomplished in the mausoleum darkness without illumination. Digging into his shirt pocket he found a match, thumbed it to life and lifted the chimney of the desktop lantern. The wick caught easily. Cameron saw the huddled figure of a man behind the desk and crouched over him.

  ‘Tabor?’

  ‘That’s me. How do I know you?’

  ‘You don’t. Kyle told me that you worked here.’

  The old man nodded – for he was an old man. Bent and narrow, he was propped up against the wall behind the counter, rifle to one side. He was gripping his thigh with one gnarled hand.

  ‘My old woman’s in the back room,’ Stan Tabor said. ‘I had her hide under the bunk. I believe she’s all right, but.…’

  ‘All right, I’ll see to her first,’ Cameron promised. ‘Want to do me a favor – call out and tell her I’m here to help?’

  Tabor smiled weakly. ‘You’re right, stranger. Dora does have that little .36 pistol she always carries and I told her to be ready to use it. Dora! There’s a man here to help us. Don’t shoot his head off.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Cameron said, only half in jest. Then he moved into the back bedroom where a large-bosomed woman of Spanish extraction was struggling to make her way out from under the low bunk. Cameron gave her a hand, helping to her feet.

  ‘How is my husband?’ the lady asked anxiously. ‘How is Stan?’

  ‘He seems all right. I couldn’t tell in that light. You’d better have a look at him, Dora. I’ve a stage I have to bring in.’

  The woman nodded her understanding. There was no nonsense about her. She was a frontier woman and used to hardship if not warfare. ‘Who was it?’ Cameron asked. ‘Apaches?’

  ‘Sí,’ Dora answered. ‘Reservation jumpers. We could tell that by their blankets. They had army blankets with them. Stan said they were most likely riding hard for Mexico, but they paused to raise as much hell as they could along the way. They took our caballos – forgive me – all of the horses and set fire to everything that would burn. Then they rode away, very fast. Muy pronto.’

  Cameron nodded his understanding. They were likely Jicarilla Apaches determined to break free of reservation strictures. They would not waste much time in making their escape. The way-station had been on their route and they had taken the time to vent some of their anger on it.

  As Dora lit a second lamp and went to her husband to see to his wounds, Cameron stepped cautiously to the door and went out into the night. He made his way back to the stage as carefully as he had made his way down. To assume that he knew what the Apaches had decided to do was a dangerous game.

  He approached the stage on stone-bruised feet and sat down on the ground, recovering his boots.

  ‘What’s happened! Is everyone dead?’ It was Axel Popejoy who shouted out at him, and not the women. Aunt Mae, Cameron had decided, was a woman of experience and her wisdom seemed to have been transmitted somewhat to Eleanor. The idiot of a drummer seemed to have no more sense than to sit there at the site of a hostile Indian attack yelling out his pointless questions. Cameron tightened his jaw and forced himself to refrain from giving Popejoy the answer he deserved.

  He moved to the window of the coach and told them, ‘We’re going in now. It seems to be clear.’ He noticed that Kyle’s head still lay across Aunt Mae’s lap and asked about him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mae said. ‘If you can get us to where there’s a bed and some light, maybe we can do something.’

  Cameron nodded, his eyes only briefly meeting those of Eleanor Gates. Then he stepped into the box and let the weary team finally make its way down toward the smoldering way-station. With the creak and sway of the leather-springed carriage and the squeak of the brake, the stage drew up before the adobe.

  There was no smoke in the air, but Cameron Black’s lungs still drew in the heat of the fire, the scent of destruction. There were several lanterns now burning inside the adobe, and entering he saw Dora positioned in a rocker near her husband – now stretched out on a cot beside the counter. She had a shotgun across her lap and her dark face was set grimly.

  ‘Just wanted to see if it was safe to bring the passengers in,’ he said.

  ‘For now.’ She rose heavily, placing the double-twelve aside. ‘You said that Kyle Post is hurt? Bring him in to my bedroom. How bad is it?’

  ‘We couldn’t tell out there in the dark, but it’s pretty bad, I think.’

  ‘Then bring him quickly. Do you need my help?’

  ‘No. There’s four of us.’

  ‘Then bring him. I have started coffee. After Kyle has been seen to, I will find something to cook for you.’

  ‘Gracias,’ Cameron said, and he stepped back out into the cooling, star-bright night. Axel Popejoy had already gotten down from the stage. He stood, thumbs hooked into his vest pockets, surveying the station.

  ‘Well, quite a mess, isn’t it?’ he said with an indifference that annoyed Cameron. ‘I don’t see a fresh team.’

  ‘The Apaches took them.’

  Eleanor appeared now, slipping from the coach with a rustle of garments. ‘Mr Riley …’ She hesitated only slightly over the name. ‘We have trouble here.’ Her voice was reedy, but firm.

  ‘I’d say that’s an understatement,’ Cameron Black said with only a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘You don’t understand – my Aunt Mae has been wounded. She was shot during the holdup attempt. She has only just now admitted that to me. She has started trembling badly, and she’s very pale. She said that she didn’t want to let anyone down.’

  ‘Hell!’ Cameron said with feeling. ‘Let’s get her into the station and let Dora have a look at her.’

  ‘She says that Mr Post must be taken first.’

  ‘All right, then. We’ll have to carry Kyle. Popejoy! We need a hand here.’

  Axel Popejoy had lighted a cigar. He stood looking absently at the sky. ‘All right,’ he said irritably. Cameron found he liked the round little man less and less as time went by.

  Kyle Post was eased from the coach and his slack figure carried inside where he was placed on Dora’s bed. She bent over him, clicking her tongue, removing his bloodstained shirt. ‘There’s another one, I’m afraid,’ Cameron told the Spanish woman. ‘A woman who’s been shot.’

  Dora said to Eleanor, ‘The kitchen is through there. You will find what you need. Stoke up the fire and begin heating water.’

  Cameron went back to the coach alone. Popejoy had disappeared somewhere. Climbing onto the step he smiled at Aunt Mae. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ the lady said, her pleasant face now drawn and expressionless. ‘If I can only get up …’

  ‘Where were you hit?’

  ‘Low on my shoulder, above my breast. I believe my collarbone is broken.’
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br />   Cameron asked Mae to turn and he got his shoulder under her arm, assisting her from the coach. Half-carrying her up onto the porch and into the adobe, they were greeted by Dora – a fount of resolve. She told Cameron, ‘The guest rooms are this way. Follow me.’

  They proceeded down a narrow corridor to a chamber where six bunks sat crowded into a small room: accommodation for the overnight stagecoach passengers. Two of these cots were hidden behind a curtain designed for the infrequent female traveler. Dora swept aside the curtain, woven in the zigzag pattern of Indian craftsmen and Cameron eased Aunt Mae down to the bed where she settled wincing with pain.

  She smiled, weakly, and said to Dora, ‘I am Mrs Harold Gates. I would be pleased if you would call me Mae.’ Then she fainted away and slumped over on to the pillow.

  Dora muttered something in Spanish that Cameron didn’t catch and then began undressing her patient. Cameron walked back into the front room where Stan Tabor sat in a leather-strap chair, watching him with glazed eyes. The station-master’s thigh had been bandaged and there was a large mug of coffee or chocolate near at hand on a small round table. A cigar lay there as well, but he hadn’t lighted it.

  ‘Doing better?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘I’ll be all right. That woman of mine – I bless the day she gave me her hand.’

  Cameron smiled his understanding. Dora was a true frontier woman, up to any task, it seemed. In the corner near the fireplace Axel Popejoy sat, coat unbuttoned, slumped in a similar wood-frame, leather-strap chair. He barely glanced at Black as he passed. In the kitchen, Cam could see a faint cloud of steam as Eleanor heated water on the black iron stove.

  Cameron Black went out into the night.

  The horses eyed him impatiently. The off-wheel lead horse, given to such demonstrations, stamped his hoof. Cameron smiled.

  ‘I know. This isn’t the treatment you’re used to,’ he said, stroking the horse’s muzzle.

  Then he got to work, dropping the trace chains and unfastening the harness rings. He led the team en masse into the barn which still smelled strongly of smoke. The team did not like the scent, but they soon settled down, knowing that they were now to be fed, watered and groomed. They had run many hard miles and figured this for their due, which it was. Cameron searched for a kerosene lantern, found it and struck a match to the wick. He hung it on its bent hook near the doorway.

  Cameron first unharnessed them, one by one, and led the leader to the trough to drink its fill while he unhitched the others. In turn they were all watered, watched so that they did not overdo it, horses having no sense of when to quit. Then he settled them each into stalls and dropped down two bales of alfalfa hay from the loft, breaking them up with a hay fork. The hay was singed by the hasty fires the Apache raiders had started, but after a moment’s expressed disapproval, the horses’ hunger overcame their finick-iness, and they settled to a peaceful munching as Cameron took a currycomb from its nail on the wall and individually brushed their trail-sweaty coats.

  It was the work of an hour and a half to settle the team in and tend to their needs, and Cameron, himself trail-weary, sat down on another hay bale and watched the animals chewing their fodder.

  He eyed them speculatively now, wondering if any of them had ever carried a saddle and, if not, which would be the easiest to break, strong enough to make the long ride to the Texas lands. It was clear to him that he could not remain in the middle of dais situation. So what if the passengers had to hold out for a day or so until an army patrol – prompted by the stage-line’s request for help, appeared? One thing was certain: Cameron Black could not meet up with any contingent of Fort Wingate soldiers.

  ‘You’re an outlaw, aren’t you?’

  The voice was soft and tentative. Cameron glanced up to see Eleanor Gates framed in the stable doorway, her shawl around her shoulders, her dark hair loose. Her words, from out of nowhere, took him aback.

  ‘Miss?’ he said, rising from his perch on the hay bale.

  ‘I said, you are an outlaw, aren’t you?’

  Cameron didn’t answer. The girl came nearer. Her eyes were dark and seemed deeply knowledgeable in the lanternlight.

  ‘You ask odd questions,’ Cameron said. Trying to divert her interest he asked, ‘How is your aunt? And Kyle Post?’

  ‘Aunt Mae is very sore and weary. Dora said that she did not think the collarbone is broken, though it seems to have been nicked by a bullet. Kyle Post seems to be very bad. Only time will tell.’

  As she spoke, Eleanor had continued forward. Now she sat on the bale that Cameron had risen from and looked up at him with inquisitive eyes. She told him, ‘It didn’t work, you know.’ At Cameron’s look, she went on, ‘Your way of dodging my question. It doesn’t really matter, Mr … Mr Whoever. I was just wondering, and now you have as much as admitted it’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Eleanor said, lowering her head, drawing her shawl still more tightly around her slender shoulders. ‘You don’t want to answer. That doesn’t matter. All I know about you,’ she said, looking up at the lean man with the deeply tanned face, its planes blurred by a stubble of whiskers, ‘is that none of us would now be alive if it weren’t for your actions back along the trail.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ was all he could think to say.

  ‘You don’t like talking too much, do you?’ Eleanor said. ‘That’s all right. You have to understand,’ she went on, ‘that without your help all of us are still pretty much lost. We can’t get through to Fort Wingate. I can’t handle a team of horses! Popejoy? I hardly think so. You’ve seen the shape Mr Tabor is in – oh, he’ll recover, but he surely can’t drive the coach.’

  ‘You can sit it out here. The army will be alerted when the stage doesn’t roll in,’ Cameron Black said uneasily. He was lying even to himself, and she knew it.

  ‘What if the Apaches decide to come back?’ Eleanor asked quietly. Her large dark eyes met his again. ‘The comancheros are still behind us, aren’t they? That Mr Bell is going to be furious.’

  ‘I can’t help that. Any of it.’

  ‘No,’ she admitted, rising from the hay bale. ‘You have done us a service. You have brought us this far.’ She stepped nearer to him in the darkness of the stable and looked up at him. ‘But what will happen to us all now, if you decide to just take a horse, throw your saddle on it and ride away?’

  She touched his hand briefly, her fingertips brushing across it as lightly as a passing butterfly. Then, without another word, she swept out of the stable and vanished into the moonlit night, leaving Cameron Black alone to brood in the darkness of the barn.

  The off-wheel lead horse stamped his foot in annoyance – perhaps at the chatter of these troublesome humans. Cameron glanced at the stall where the big bay stood and muttered, ‘Shut up. Don’t you think I know it!’

  There was no way out of it. It wasn’t the woman’s charms that persuaded him, but a deeper sense of duty. Eleanor was right – these people, feeble or battered, unskilled or unwilling, would have no chance at all if he left them here. For he knew better than Eleanor how true her words were. The comancheros would be coming, seeking gold and vengeance, and there was no way the army could arrive soon enough to protect them.

  It was a hell of a thing, being a man of conscience. Any reasonable man would have saddled up and hit the trail. What, after all, did these strangers mean to him? The assistance Eleanor had requested was much more than she could have guessed. Helping them would be offering up his own neck to the hangman.

  Any reasonable man would blow out of there.

  Cameron Black stalked to the doorway of the stable, looked up at the haloed silver moon, retrieved a blanket from his saddle roll and curled up in a corner of the horse-smelling stable to sleep and shiver the uneasy night away.

  FOUR

  Thunder racketed near at hand and Cameron Black sat up suddenly, awaking from dreams of gunfire and blood to face the pre-dawn gray illuminating the stable door. Th
e clouds they had watched yesterday had crept over in the night. It would rain, and rain hard. There would be flash flooding in the canyons and the roads would be coated with the slime of new mud. It would be a treacherous day for travel.

  In a surly mood, Cameron rose from his bed, rolled his blanket and pitched fresh hay to the horses. Before he had finished the rain had begun beyond the stable, not in an easy, restful cadence, but in sudden gusting sheets. The day was no warmer than the cold desert night had been. The skies grew darker as Cameron watched, leaning against the frame of the open double doors.

  ‘There you are! I thought you’d be up. The thunder woke us all.’

  To Cameron’s astonishment, Eleanor Gates rushed in from out of the storm, shawl over her head. In her hand was a pot of hot coffee, steaming against the damp morning coolness.

  ‘You look surprised,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I didn’t expect it … what are you doing, checking to make sure that I didn’t run away?’

  She brushed aside the question without comment. ‘Here’s something else,’ she said, fishing into the pocket of her skirt. She brought out a razor and bar of soap. ‘It’s Stan Tabor’s. If you will wait a few minutes – drink a cup of coffee – I’ll be back with some hot water. Dora’s got breakfast going as well. I didn’t know if you’d want to sit down with the others.’ She laughed. ‘All of the walking wounded.’

  Frowning, Eleanor added, ‘Except for Axel Popejoy. Dora asked him to bring some wood in from the shed and he remarked that it was raining pretty hard for that. Imagine!’

  ‘She needs wood, does she?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘No. I took care of that first,’ Eleanor replied.

  ‘I see. You’re quite a woman, too, aren’t you. Like your Aunt Mae?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, her eyes drifting away. ‘When the situation calls for action – well, one must do what one must.’

  If there was a double meaning in her words, no unnecessary emphasis was placed upon it. Eleanor scurried away into the downpour as lightning slashed brilliantly across the sky, eerily illuminating the oak grove beyond the yard.