Pariah

by J. R. Roberts

  “I brought some things for Lylah,” Chuluun said. “She can draw a map and any instructions you might need. I will write the words as well as some notes from when we were speaking, since I am not about to go with you on your ride.”

  “Can you tell her that she doesn’t have to go?” Clint requested. “I don’t want her to be put into any more danger than necessary.”

  “Oh, I already told her that. I offered her a place here for a while and even gave her a chance to tell us if she was being held captive or mistreated. You’ll be happy to know she had nothing but kind words to say about you.”

  “Yeah,” Clint said as he watched Tumen step into the hut and glare at him, “that is good to know. Tell me something, Chuluun. Is that her real name? I think it was given to her by Madeline, but she must have a proper name.”

  “She does.”

  “You already asked her that?”

  “We spoke for a long time,” Chuluun said. “She is a friendly woman and very pretty. I am a man, so I enjoy speaking with friendly, pretty women. I asked about her birth name, but she did not want to tell me. It seems she has great affection for Madeline and, out of respect for her, wishes to keep the name she’s been given.”

  Clint looked at Lylah, who’d taken an interest in the conversation since Maddy’s name had been mentioned. Nodding solemnly, Lylah smiled at Clint and got to work drawing upon the parchment that Chuluun had given her.

  “You should know that it is because of what she said that you and your partner are to be set free,” Chuluun added.

  “Is that so?”

  “Indeed. Coming here with that bounty hunter was a risky move, but I believe that you were not aware of this risk. As for the bounty hunter, well, there’s only one way for us to know what he might have been thinking.”

  As if on cue, Eddie was shoved into the hut. He knocked against Tumen like he’d hit a brick wall. To his credit, Eddie looked as if he meant to scold that wall for being built in such an inconvenient place.

  “What brings you here, Eddie?” Clint asked before the bounty hunter could say anything he might instantly regret.

  “A few assholes who smell like wet dog brought me here,” Eddie replied.

  Tumen grabbed the bounty hunter by the front of his shirt and pulled him to stand beside Clint.

  “The only reason you’re not dead,” Chuluun said to Eddie, “is because of Nayan’s history of stealing from her own people. She says you stole our gold and I’m sure you will point the finger back at her. What I want to know is why you came back to this camp at all.”

  Clint watched the bounty hunter, wishing he could just tell the other man what to say. Before he could attempt any prompting, Eddie spoke on his own behalf.

  “I came back because Clint needed help and you’re the only ones who could do the job.”

  “And you gave no thought to the missing coins?” Chuluun asked.

  Eddie shrugged and said, “I honestly didn’t think they’d be missed yet.”

  It was a truth given because there was nothing left to lose. Clint recognized the tired resignation that seeped into Eddie’s voice like cold water through a leaky roof. The old man must have noticed it as well, because he accepted it almost immediately.

  “Mister Adams has gotten the help he wanted,” Chuluun said. He then raised a finger and added, “But we will get our property back as well. Since I have heard too many bad things about Kyle Morrow, I will allow all three of you to go after him.”

  Eddie let out a relieved sigh and even chuckled a bit when he said, “You’ve made the right choice. As soon as this is done, I’ll bring back them coins.”

  “I know you will,” the old man said. “Because I’m sending someone with you to make sure of it.”

  Baht stepped up and declared, “I will make sure the job is done properly or I’ll bring the bounty hunter’s head back on a stake.”

  The old man shook his head. “No, you won’t. You have spent too many nights with Nayan. That’s why Tumen will go with them.”

  Baht sputtered a bit, but didn’t even try to change the old man’s mind. Tumen crossed his arms and stood there like a carving chipped from stone.

  “And if he doesn’t return with the coins,” Chuluun added, “our people will not rest until both of the white men’s heads are on stakes. The woman is not to be harmed, Tumen. She’s seen enough pain.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  The next morning, Clint and Lylah rode out on Eclipse while Eddie and Tumen rode with them on their own horses. Lylah had been offered the use of a horse, but she insisted on staying with Clint. The truth of the matter was that Clint was getting used to her being back there as well. If she was coming along, it just wouldn’t have felt right to not feel her arms wrapped around his midsection or her head resting upon the back of his shoulder.

  But that’s not to say the ride was a quiet one.

  “I hope you’re happy, Clint,” Eddie groused. “You pull that gun on me, get me tossed into something close to a jail, nearly get me executed, and then allow this beast to tag along with us.”

  “You’re the one who brought us here,” Clint reminded him.

  “But you didn’t have to serve me up like that!”

  “I wasn’t going to let them kill you.”

  “Really? And how were you gonna stop them? I suppose you had a rescue all planned out?”

  “I spoke to Chuluun and some of the others. Besides, you did steal from them. You could’ve told me we might be walking into a camp full of angry armed men.”

  “If you must know,” Eddie said, “I wanted to get us close enough for you to ride in so I could stay behind and meet up with you when you were finished.”

  Clint nodded and watched the trail ahead. “Ahhh. So that was your plan, huh?”

  “It sure was. If I would’a known you’d stick a gun in my face and let me get tossed into a stinking pit like an animal, I wouldn’t have even agreed to help you.”

  Tumen’s laugh was so low and so gravelly that it almost blended perfectly with the crunch of the horses’ hooves against the ground. When Clint looked over at the big man, he was surprised to see a wide smile covering Tumen’s face.

  “Yeah,” Eddie sneered. “Laugh it up. Step too far out of line and I’ll knock you off that horse. I don’t give a damn how many Mongolians might come after us. Let ’em all come!”

  No matter how much Eddie fumed, Tumen wouldn’t stop laughing. In fact, just watching the big man for a few seconds was enough to bring a grin to Clint’s face.

  “What’s so damn funny?” Eddie asked.

  Tumen’s smile didn’t fade in the slightest when he answered that question. “You say you were locked up like an animal. Then you say you were thrown into a pit.” Shifting his eyes to Clint, he said, “When the other men came to get him, they found him under Nayan.”

  “Nayan?” Clint asked. “Is that the woman Chuluun was talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s enough of that,” Eddie said. “Can’t we just ride in peace?”

  “She was riding you good,” Tumen said. “His hands were bound and he was squirming like an animal in a trap. Still, she rode him hard enough to scream when she was through. If the bounty hunter didn’t like that pit of Nayan’s, then perhaps he would like to be tied up with the men.”

  Clint and Tumen both laughed at that.

  “I said that’s enough!” Eddie snapped.

  “She really screamed?” Clint asked. “I think I heard that.”

  “The whole camp heard that,” Tumen replied.

  Clint shook his head and looked over at Eddie. “And here I was feeling bad for handing you over just to avoid us all possibly getting shot. You’re right, Eddie. I’m truly ashamed of myself.”

  Just as Eddie was about to try to salvage some of his pride, Tumen cut in with, “If you get a chance to hand me over to some wild woman who might tie me up and ride me, I think you should do it.”

  When Clint started laughing
this time, he thought he might not be able to stop. “Tell you what, big man. I know a few places in the Territories where I might just be able to hand you over to some very capable women.”

  “That would be good.”

  “For a man who just might try to kill us, you’re a funny guy, Tumen.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie growled. “Real fucking funny.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Since they were headed toward Prescott, Clint decided to ride to the stagecoach platform where he’d received Maddy’s letter. Since he’d been attacked the last time he was there, he figured it was a good spot to look for a sign of where the gunmen could have gone in the meantime. Eddie Sanchez might have been a whining, thieving pain in the ass, but he was good enough to pick up on something Clint might have missed.

  When the platform was in sight, Clint pulled back on his reins and waited for the others to come to a stop. “I think Eddie should do this alone,” he said.

  Tumen didn’t like the sound of that. His face hardened into a suspicious scowl that didn’t need any words to go along with it.

  As always, Eddie had more than enough words to make up the difference. “Oh yeah. I could use some time to scout on my own. Shouldn’t take me more than a few hours to have a look around.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Tumen said.

  Eddie started to protest, but cut himself short. Arguing with the big man would have done as much good as debating a post.

  “All right, then,” Clint said. “If any of those men who attacked me before are still lurking about, they shouldn’t be expecting either of you two. See what you can find and meet me back here. If you take too long, I’ll come in after you.”

  Both of the men rode toward the platform and Clint watched them go. Once they were far enough away, Lylah’s arms tightened around Clint’s midsection. He looked over his shoulder and said, “You can go if you want.”

  “I . . . go?”

  “If you want.”

  Her only response was to hold on to him and press her face against his shoulder in its familiar spot.

  “All right then. Where?”

  Oddly enough, she understood that portion of a question better than when Clint spoke to her in real sentences. It made sense, considering what little English she knew, but still felt peculiar in practice. Lylah extended a hand around his right arm to give him some of the parchment Chuluun had provided.

  Clint looked at the map and said, “I know. We’re headed there.”

  She tapped a finger against a spot on the map that roughly translated to where they were at the moment.

  “Yep,” Clint said. He pointed at the same spot and then toward the stagecoach platform. “Here is . . . here. You’re right.”

  Lylah’s pointing turned into more insistent taps that threatened to knock the map from Clint’s hand. He looked down again and noticed she was tracing a line from the platform to the camp where she thought Kyle Morrow could be found.

  Just then, a rumbling rattle sounded in the distance. When she spotted the stagecoach rolling down another trail toward the platform, Lylah slapped Clint’s shoulder and pointed even more fiercely.

  “I see it. So what?” Reminding himself that she didn’t understand, Clint performed the exaggerated shrug that at least conveyed the fact that he didn’t understand something.

  Lylah pointed to the coach, then to the platform, then traced the line on the map. Finally, Clint felt what he swore was Lylah’s forehead knocking against his shoulder.

  “Don’t get too riled up. I wish Chuluun was here just as much as you do.” Just then, Clint wished he had something to knock his head against. While the old man might not be there to translate, he’d sent along notes from the long discussion he’d had with Lylah in her native tongue. He’d read through the notes during the night he’d spent in Chuluun’s camp, but hadn’t committed them to memory. He did recall, however, one particular note that seemed to tie in with what Lylah was trying to tell him now.

  Clint found the line he was after without having to sift through too much of Chuluun’s chicken scratch handwriting. The section read, “She was taken from a stagecoach bound for California. Morrow took more women from one other coach before she got away from him.”

  Although he had plenty to ask her, Clint didn’t waste any time trying to come up with a gesture to get his point across. Instead, he tapped Lylah’s hands, which was the signal they’d worked out for her to hang on. He then snapped his reins and raced to find Eddie and Tumen.

  Fortunately, the two men weren’t in such a hurry. Clint caught up with them and kept right on going. Sure enough, Eddie and Tumen did their best to match Eclipse’s pace. Since the Darley Arabian had built up a head of steam, they didn’t stand a chance.

  Clint pulled back on his reins only to keep Eclipse from blazing a trail through the shack beside the platform. He and Lylah had developed a good rhythm with each other while in the saddle, so she knew just when to slide down so both of their feet hit the ground at the same time.

  “Have you lost any stages recently?” Clint shouted as he marched toward the shack.

  The clerk inside the crooked box was already nervous and became even more so when Eddie and Tumen thundered to a stop. “Please don’t shoot!” the little man in the stagecoach office said. “I don’t have any money!”

  “I’m not here to rob you!” Clint said.

  The clerk blinked, stretched his head toward the window that looked out of the shed, and replied, “Oh, yeah. I remember you.”

  “And I,” Eddie said as he swung down from his saddle, “remember you. Hello, Lester.”

  The clerk winced and backed away from the opening. “Hello, Eddie.”

  “You still tipping off robbers when all the lockboxes are being hauled through here?”

  The clerk didn’t answer, but he squirmed a whole lot more. For Clint, that was answer enough.

  THIRTY-THREE

  So it seemed there was more than one reason why the clerk was so squirrelly. Clint was ready to chalk it up to more obvious things like having a man charge up to his little shed while riding a Darley Arabian stallion on a mission. But the clerk had a lot more to worry about than that. Once Eddie began asking more questions, the little man seemed ready to crawl out through a crack in his wall. He wasn’t about to answer those questions, however, until Tumen leaned toward the window as if he was going to pull the clerk straight through it.

  “I haven’t talked to any robbers for months,” Lester squealed.

  “What about kidnappers?” Clint asked. “Or a kidnapper named Kyle Morrow?”

  “His boys were just here not too long ago,” the clerk said.

  “I know. I was here, too.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

  “Where did they go?”

  The stage that had just arrived was rolling to a stop beside the platform and a man was already crawling along the top to pick out certain pieces of luggage. Lester glanced toward the platform, but his attention was brought back to Clint when he slammed his fist down upon the little piece of wood protruding just beneath the window.

  “Where did they go?” Clint demanded.

  “I’m stuck in this damn box all day long! How the hell should I know?” When Lester started to back away from the window, Eddie shoved past Clint, reached through the small opening, and grabbed hold of Lester’s shirt.

  Pulling the clerk out of his seat until his face knocked against the edge of the window, Eddie snarled, “Let’s see the lockbox.”

  “You wanna rob me?”

  The longer the three men lingered in front of the shed, the more other folks took notice. Tumen did a good job of discouraging anyone from getting too close, but soon there would be more attention pointed at the shed than Clint would have preferred.

  Eddie, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind. “I ain’t gonna rob a stagecoach company,” the bounty hunter said. “I just asked to see the lockbox.”

  “Sure,” Lester sputtered as he reached
directly beneath his little counter.

  “Not that one,” Eddie snapped. “The other one. The one you keep under the floor.”

  “We need to finish this,” Clint said.

  “We will, just as soon as I see the other lockbox.”

  Before Clint could ask just what the hell Eddie was talking about, he heard Lester start to moan like a tortured spirit.

  “Jesus, Eddie. Can’t we do this when there ain’t so many people around?”

  “Sure,” Eddie replied as he pulled the clerk so his chest and his face slammed against the inside of the shed. “I’ll just extract you from your wooden box and we can have a nice leisurely chat.”

  “Ow! Dammit!”

  “The lockbox. Now.”

  “You gotta let me go first.”

  Eddie released Lester, but he set him free with a shove that was hard enough to bounce the skinny man against another wall. “Work fast. If you make me come in there . . .”

  But Eddie didn’t need to say another word. The clerk scrambled around inside his shed and had returned to the window by the time Clint stepped close enough to get a look inside. Judging by the redness of the clerk’s exasperated face, he could very well have been on the verge of tears.

  “I can’t have anyone at the stagecoach company find out about this,” Lester whined. “I can’t have anyone around here even see this. The law may be around here, and if—”

  “Shut up and open the box,” Eddie snapped.

  Lester followed his orders and opened the little rectangular box amid the mournful squeal of metal hinges. Inside, Clint could see two stacks of money that must have come to at least a couple hundred dollars.

  Eddie nodded and said, “You only get paid when you deliver, Lester. What did you tell them?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Tell me the truth,” Eddie warned. “There’s a crowd gathering out here and they want their tickets. It’d be a shame to make them watch as I blow your brains all over them schedules.”

  Lester turned around to look at the schedules posted behind him and swallowed hard. “I told them about a bunch of men in fancy suits who were on their way to Sacramento.”