The Man From Nowhere

Chapter 16

The night wind was bending the grass as Eddie Oates scrounged around in the dark and found enough wood for a small fire. He got the coffeepot from his sack, filled it at the creek and threw in a handful of Arbuckle. He set the pot on the coals to boil and sat with his head against the cottonwood, listening into the darkness.

By daybreak the coffeepot was empty and a light rain was falling.

Oates picked up his rifle and walked to the mouth of the arroyo. In whatever direction he looked lay a naked wilderness of trees and rock, modestly veiled by the shifting gray mantle of the rain.

Oates was about to retrace his steps back into the arroyo, when a sound reached out from the distance that made him stop in his tracks. He looked to the east, the direction of the strange noise, but saw nothing.

A minute passed, then another. Oates tightened his hold on the Winchester.

He heard the sound more clearly and now recognized it, the whistles and yips of men driving cattle. A few shorthorns appeared, followed by more, and then a puncher, a man who slapped a coiled rope against his chaps as he rode.

Oates stepped into the shadow of the arroyo wall and kneeled behind the twisted trunk of a maverick cedar. More riders appeared, driving a large herd that began to stream past his hiding place, raising clouds of yellow dust.

He saw her then. She was riding wide of the herd in a flank position, a young, breathtakingly beautiful women sitting sidesaddle on a tall bay Thoroughbred. She carried a riding crop and was dressed in an elegant equestrian costume of gray silk, a top hat of the same color, adorned with tulle, perched on top of her auburn hair.

At one time Oates thought the young belles of Alma parading their huge bustles and tiny hats was the ultimate expression of sophisticated womanhood. He was wrong. Next to this woman they’d look what they were, small-town hicks.

Riding tall and proud, she could only be the lady boss, the woman responsible for the death of Jacob Yearly.

His knuckles white on his rifle, Oates knew how easy it would be to knock her off that high horse. He blinked sweat from his eyes and his hands shook.

“Just aim and fire and it’s over,” he told himself.

Oates made no move. It would be cold-blooded murder; even a drunk who dreamed of whiskey couldn’t stoop that low.

And then it was too late. The woman rode past the arroyo and was lost from his sight.

Despite the rain, the passing herd had kicked up considerable dust and Oates could not estimate how many men rode with the lady boss. At a rough guess, around two dozen, and very few looked to be dollar-a-day punchers.

But then he saw something that made his skin crawl.

A heavily loaded wagon brought up the rear, hauled by a team of four mules. Mash Halleck was up in the box, the ribbons in his hands, and his sons, Clem and Reuben, flanked him as outriders.

There was no sign of the three women and Sammy Tatum.

Oates felt a chill. Were they already all dead? Murdered by the Hallecks before they left the canyon in the Gila?

He pushed any thought of revenge to the back of his mind. His first concern was to find out what had happened to the women.

A few minutes later Oates rode out of the arroyo and swung east. He held to the trees, wary of bumping into more of the lady boss’ riders. Rain sifted through the branches of the pines and he untied Yearly’s yellow slicker from behind his saddle and shrugged into it.

After a mile he smelled smoke in the wind. Topping a piñon-covered ridge, he rode through a stand of mixed cedar and mountain mahogany and onto a stretch of flat country, covered in feather grass that reached to the paint’s knees.

Oates rode warily now, old Jacob’s rifle across his saddle horn. He tried to read the message of the smoke. More of the lady boss’ men or the three women? Apaches?

He had no way of knowing. The only thing to do was ride closer and be prepared to fight if he must, skedaddle if he could.

The open ground gave way to timber and the land began to incline upward. Here aspen grew, many of them standing seventy feet high, and the ground was rockier. Through the curtain of the rain, the peaks and mesas of the Gila formed ramparts of blue, garlanded by the gray mist of the low clouds.

Oates pulled up the paint and looked around him. He had come too far. The canyon where he and Yearly had seen the cattle tracks was now behind him and he could no longer smell smoke. A brawling wind shook the aspen and the scattered rain hissed its displeasure.

Swinging the mustang around, Oates rode back down the slope. Had anyone been there to see him, he would have pegged the rider for a man who was lost, or one wandering aimlessly, which amounted to the same thing.

For his part, Oates felt a growing irritation. Jacob Yearly would never have missed the entrance to the canyon. The old man had taught him a great deal, but there are things a man can’t teach.

Once he reached the flat, Oates again caught the smell of smoke, stronger this time.

Then to his right, he saw a drift of blue rising above the trees. He levered a round into the Winchester and swung in that direction.

Ahead of Oates was a stand of pine. Beyond the trees rose a high outcropping of rock, shaped like the prow of a ship. From where he was, Oates could make out a narrow stream of water cascading down the rock face.

Alert for any sign of Apaches, he rode into the pines and drew rein.

To the right of the prow-shaped promontory was a shallow cave and he could make out the forms of three women huddled around a smoky fire. A thickset man who could only be Sammy Tatum walked out of the surrounding trees, carrying an armful of wood. He stepped into the cave and disappeared from sight.

A small joy rose in Oates. They were all still alive. His treachery had not killed them.

He kneed the paint forward and rode out of the pines. Instantly one of the women rose to her feet, a hideout gun in her hand.

Oates stopped. “Hello the camp!” he yelled. The rain slanted around him, beating on his hat and the shoulders of his slicker.

“What do you want?” This came from the woman holding the gun.

Oates recognized her. “It’s me, Miss Stella.”

“Who the hell is me?”

“Eddie Oates.” He paused, then added, “From Alma.”

A taller, older woman wearing a ragged mackinaw stood beside Stella. “Ride on, Oates. We got no whiskey here.”

Nellie Carney stood and angrily rounded on her companion. “You’re such a whore, Lorraine!” She looked out at Oates, the wind flattening her skirt against her legs. “Do you have any grub?”

“I’ve got grub,” Oates answered. “Not much, but enough.”

“Then ride on in. We’re starving to death here.”

Oates rode up to the cave. He studied the women and then Tatum, who stood behind them, shy and awkward and grinning.

The women looked what they were, three saloon whores who had very recently been used and abused. And it showed on them.

“You ladies have been through it,” Oates observed.

“We’ve been through it,” Stella said. She looked up at the rider. “Like Nellie said, light and set.”

Oates swung out of the saddle. “I’ll find a place in the trees for the horse,” he said.

“I’ll do it, Mr. Oates,” Tatum said. He rushed out from behind the women and grabbed the paint’s reins. “It’s real good to see you again, Mr. Oates.”

From chin to forehead, the entire left side of Tatum’s face was swollen with black and yellow bruises. “What happened to your face, Sammy?” Oates asked.

The boy looked sheepish and kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe. “Mr. Halleck done that. He said it was because I was stupid.”

Anger flared in Oates. “Which Mr. Halleck?”

“Clem,” Stella said. She looked at Tatum. “Put the horse up in a dry place, Sam.”

“Wait,” Oates said. He untied the sack of supplies and slid the other rifle from the scabbard.

“Dry as you can find, Sammy,” he said.

“Sure thing, Mr. Oates.” The boy grinned.

Oates stepped into the cave, where Nellie quickly relieved him of the food sack. He found a place for himself and propped the Winchesters against the cave wall.

“Your fire’s giving off considerable smoke,” he said. “You’d better hope there are no Apaches around.”

Lorraine laughed. “After what we’ve been through, the Apaches would be a change for the better.” She looked at Oates. “At least you’re prospering.”

Oates smiled. “An old man by the name of Jacob Yearly took me in, kept me away from the whiskey. I haven’t touched a drop in near a three-month.”

“I knowed a feller once who stayed off the booze for three years,” Lorraine said. “He went back to it though, and it was the death of him in the end.”

“Biscuits . . . bacon . . . salt pork . . . oh, and coffee!” Nellie jumped up and down. “Look, Lorraine, we’ve got coffee!”

“I see it. Now put it in the pot where it belongs.”

“I’ll get water,” Nellie said.

She rushed out of the cave as excited as a girl going to her first cotillion—and she was still smiling as a rifle bullet drove her against the rock wall.