The Man From Nowhere

Chapter 20

An hour later, riding through opalescent moonlight, Oates and his charges took to the trail.

He let the others ride ahead of him and he drifted to the rear, the direction of any possible attack.

Here, close to the peaks of the Gila, the night was cool and the wind in the trees made a soft music. There was no defined trail, but to lead the way, he trusted Stella, ahead of him, invisible in the darkness.

Come dawn, if not before, they would have to find a place where they could hole up during the daylight hours, then ride out again after nightfall. He had no doubt that there were competent trackers among Darlene McWilliams’ gunmen and they would surely follow close.

After an hour, Stella faded back and drew rein. “We stopped for a spell,” she said, her face lost in shadow. “Nellie needs a rest. She’s weak from loss of blood.”

“She’s done well so far,” Oates allowed, “but we have to move on soon.”

“And we have to find a place to hide out during the day.”

“I know that.” Oates shifted his weight and his saddle creaked. “While Nellie rests, I’ll ride ahead a ways and see what I can see.”

“Lorraine is taking care of Nellie. I’ll come with you.”

When Oates and Stella caught up with the others, Lorraine was cleaning Nellie’s wound with water from her canteen.

“How is she?” Oates asked.

“I don’t see any sign of infection,” Lorraine answered. “There’s one good thing to say about the high country—wounds heal faster than they do in towns.”

“No thanks to you, Eddie Oates,” Nellie snapped. “My butt is all cut to ribbons.”

“Sorry, but the bullet was deep.”

“Don’t worry, Nellie,” Lorraine said. “Men will still think you’ve got a nice ass. Ain’t that the truth, Eddie?”

“Hell, yes. As true as I’m sitting a paint hoss.”

Oates smiled and rode past. “We’ll be back soon,” he heard Stella say.

They rode in silence for a few minutes, separated by the pines they were passing through. When they reached a moon-splashed clearing patterned by wildflowers, Stella edged closer. “That was a nice thing you said back there. Nellie worries about her appearance. Looks are important to a whore, you understand.”

“I guess they are.” Oates sought firmer ground. “How long do you figure until daybreak?”

Stella looked at the stars. “Hard to say. Two hours maybe. We’re at the top of the world and the dawn comes early.”

“Then we’ll have to find a hiding place sooner than I figured.”

They found it ten minutes later, a mesa that Oates figured stood about seven thousand feet above the flat, had there been any flat. As it was, the rocky sides of the butte soared at least a thousand feet above them, the edge of the summit rimmed by moonlight.

Oates searched for a way to the top, and stumbled on a faint game trail. Leaving Stella at the base of the rise, he followed the trail, riding through piñon and cedar. The ill-defined track rose gradually to a height of about a hundred feet, then switched back around a talus slope. As the trees thinned, the route angled more steeply, rising another several hundred feet.

After yet another switchback, the trail widened slightly and climbed at a gradual incline all the way to the summit.

Oates’ mountain-bred mustang was sure-footed and made the climb with relative ease. He was not so sure how the others would fare. Their mounts were big American horses, fast and enduring on the flat, but not at home in the high country.

As he reached the top of the mesa, Oates reached a decision. Sammy Tatum and the women would have to make it—there was no other choice.

He drew rein to catch his breath and looked out across the Gila, a fantastic panorama of peaks, sawtoothed ridges and dark, hidden canyons where the moonlight did not reach. Up here the wind gusted stronger and shook the branches of a few scattered cedar and piñon.

Oates swung from the saddle and led the paint, unwilling to take the chance of riding into a hidden crevasse that would plunge him all the way to the center of the earth.

Stepping carefully, aided by the moonlight, Oates stumbled on a shallow depression about an acre in extent. The recent rains had filled the hollow to a depth of several inches, and to his joy he realized that water would not be a problem.

He let the paint drink and looked at the sky. Up here the stars seemed so close he felt as if he could reach, grab a handful and let them trickle through his fingers like diamonds.

Every thought that enters a man’s mind is a test, to see what his reaction will be. Now Oates was tested. From somewhere, back in the shadowed regions of his consciousness, the thought of diamonds led to money . . . money to saloons . . . saloons to whiskey . . . whiskey to alcoholic oblivion.

He rubbed a hand across his suddenly dry mouth. A drink would go down well about now. Make him forget his problems, at least for a while.

Oates took a deep, shuddering breath. For a while he had thought the whiskey craving was finally behind him. He was wrong. The hunger lurked in the darkness like an assassin, ready to strike when he least expected it.

How many times would he have to fight this battle? And was it one he could win?

Those were questions without answers. . . .

Behind Oates a shower of shingle rattled down the mesa slope. He turned, his gun up and ready in his hand.

Peering through the gloom, he made out the dark silhouette of a rider, then another. He holstered his gun and led his horse toward them.

“I got tired waiting for you,” Stella said when Oates stepped within the range of her vision. “And I brought the others.”

“But . . . how did you climb the slope?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Stella said. She climbed out of the saddle. Then her eyes met Oates’ in the darkness. “Despite what you may think, we all ride like Comanches, Mr. Oates. Sometimes a whore needs a fast horse, just like a gambler does.”

Stepping to one side, Oates watched as Lorraine and Nellie reached the summit.

“Everybody’s here,” he said.

That was so patently obvious, no one commented.

Oates tried again. “There’s water in plenty and I saw some graze back there on the rim of the rock basin, and some sage. I guess we can hole up here for two, three days if we need to.”

“Then what?” Lorraine asked.

“Then I don’t know.”

Nellie had been leaning against her horse. Her face was a blur of white. “Maybe Darlene McWilliams will just give up. She’s got bigger fish to fry.”

“Maybe,” Oates said.

Helped by the always-willing Tatum, the women unsaddled their mounts and bathed their faces and necks in the rainwater. The moon was falling now, the stars were blinking out, and the air was shading from purple to dark blue.

Restlessly, Oates took his rifle and sat on the edge of the mesa, his eyes on the timbered country below his lofty perch. After a few minutes Stella joined him. She handed him a thick sandwich of bread and meat.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a bite. He hadn’t realized how famished he was.

“Thank Sam. The boy is a forager.” She produced tobacco and papers. “Look, he even found me this. There must have been a Texan in that bunch.”

Stella built a smoke and scratched a match into flame on the rock beside her. She lit her cigarette, then after a while said, “Where do you suppose they are?”

“Down there somewhere, looking for us. Or they will be soon.” He turned to the woman. “What do you know about Darlene McWilliams?”

“Only what I heard around her camp after the Hallecks threw in with her. I know that she and her brother fled Arizona just ahead of a hanging posse. The ranchers down in the Bryce Canyon country are a hard bunch and they’ll string up a woman for rustling as readily as they’ll hang a man. Along the way, Charles McWilliams robbed a bank for a road stake and killed a deputy in the process.”

Stella drew deeply on her cigarette. “Happily for Darlene, the robbery brought in a bigger haul than she and Charles expected, and that gave her an idea. She hired a bunch of hard cases and drove a rustled herd into the Gila country. The girl is ambitious and she plans to be the biggest rancher in New Mexico. She’ll buy what she can, steal what she can’t.”

Oates smiled as he chewed on his sandwich. “I reckon Miss McWilliams will find the ranchers in this part of the state just as tough as they are in Arizona. They won’t sit on their gun hands as she rustles cattle and takes over their range.”

“Maybe so, but ol’ Charlie is a named revolver fighter. Clem Halleck told me he’s killed four men. Come to that, Clem is mighty fast with a gun his ownself. Darlene figures that between them both they can handle any little problems that might arise.”

“They won’t be little problems,” Oates said. “I think the young lady will have her hands full.”

Stella stubbed out her cigarette butt. “Small problems, big problems, Darlene can hire all the gunmen she needs. Money talks.”

“And that’s how come she wants the five thousand you took.”

“Yeah. Darlene knows that right now she has to hold tight on to every cent she’s got.”

The night was fleeing the morning light and far off, the sky to the east was a pale blue tinted by scarlet. A single star still lingered, hanging like a lantern to illuminate the path of early travelers.

Oates looked down into the aborning day, seeing it arrive clean. Nothing moved among the pines, but higher, the aspen were in a state of constant agitation. The air was cool and smelled of sage and the mountain freshness of the high country.

Stella rose. “I’m going to check on Nellie.”

Oates nodded. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

For the next half hour Oates studied the terrain below, but saw no sign of life.

Then, as the morning brightened, a movement caught his eye. A solitary horseman was riding past the mesa, his head turning constantly as he checked his back trail.

The man rode a fine black and had a rifle across his saddle horn. Oates looked closer, but the rider vanished into the trees and was gone from sight.

Did the man look familiar? Oates racked his brain. There had been something in the way he carried his head that struck a chord with him. Where had he seen the mysterious rider before, and was he one of Darlene’s gunmen?

Somehow he felt that the man added up to trouble. But for whom?

Angrily, Oates slapped the rock beside him.

Damn it! Who was that man?