The Man From Nowhere

Chapter 38

Oates was not a tracker, but as near as he could judge, Darlene and her party had crossed the bridge, then headed north. But they would stay close, and probably swing west for the cover of the Gila.

After an hour of fruitless search, the snow stopped, the clouds cleared and the moon dappled the silent, shadowed land with a hard glitter.

Any tracks Darlene had left were buried under the snow. Maybe an Apache or an experienced army scout could have found the way, but Oates did not possess those skills.

His breath smoking in the cold air, he rode as far north as Cuchillo Negro Creek, then turned and headed south again, his eyes constantly searching the mountain foothills.

He neither saw nor heard anything.

After another half hour, Oates gave up. The bladed moonlight cast too many shadows among the arroyos and high ridges of the Gila where an army could hide and never be seen.

He rode into a shallow gulch thick with juniper and sage and swung out of the saddle. He loosened the cinch on the paint’s saddle and let the little horse graze, then found himself a hiding place among the trees.

Oates sat on something hard, reached under himself and threw it aside. It was a round, white rock. He looked closer and saw dark eye sockets and under those, long, yellow teeth grinned at him. A skull!

He sprang to his feet, spooked. All around him, scattered by coyotes, lay the bleached bones of a man. Two steps away was another, the bones of this one more intact. Scraps of cloth and leather still clung to the skeleton and in the stark moonlight Oates could make out the rusted remains of a revolver still clutched in the man’s bony hand.

It was too dark to see more. A man who had inherited his fair share of the Westerner ’s dread of folks long dead and their ha’ants, Oates grabbed the mustang’s reins and backed out of the arroyo.

Oates spent a sleepless night among some boulders on the lee side of a wedge of rock that protected him from the worst of the north wind. Curiosity driving him, at first light he took his Winchester and walked back to the dead men.

Were they victims of Darlene McWilliams? Maybe Circle-T punchers?

But when Oates saw the skeletons again, he realized these men had been dead for many years.

He found a second revolver close to the first skull he’d discovered, and something else—two round bullet holes in the man’s breastbone. He saw an obvious wound in the more intact skeleton, several of its ribs shattered by a heavy caliber ball.

No flesh remained on the dead men, but their story was writ plain enough in guns and bone. These two, whoever they were, had gotten into a gunfight in the arroyo and killed each other.

Both revolvers were old cap-and-ball models and the degree of rust suggested that they’d lain out in the elements for at least a decade.

Oates scouted around and after a few minutes discovered the reason why these men had died. Several burlap sacks, so rotted that coins had spilled out onto the ground, lay at the base of a juniper, half hidden under drifting sand and dirt.

He kneeled beside the tree, dragged the sack toward him, and counted the coins, then scrabbled under the juniper for the rest. When he finished he had a pile of one thousand and two double eagles, more than sixty pounds of gold.

Oates whistled between his teeth. That amounted to twenty thousand dollars, a fortune, enough to keep him and Nantan in style for years.

The gold fever fled Oates as quickly as it had come and despair took its place. Where was his wife and could he find her in this wilderness?

He would gladly part with the money to get her back. . . .

Sudden inspiration came to Oates and he nodded to himself. Lying at his feet was his bargaining chip. He no longer need depend on Stella. He’d give Darlene the five thousand, and, if need be, each and every one of the double eagles for the return of his wife. The avaricious woman would jump at that offer.

Oates returned with his horse and filled his saddlebags with the gold. When he stepped into the saddle, the paint resented the extra load and bucked his resentment. But when he was pointed in the direction of town, the mustang began to have visions of hay and a warm barn and settled down to a steady canter.

The morning offered little promise of warmer weather and the black sky was in complete agreement. Snow tumbled in the air and the air was chill and hard to breathe, like gulping down draughts of ice water.

Heartbreak lay under a pall of wood smoke as Oates trotted over the bridge and rode to the barn. At this hour there were few people about, the bitter cold and the tang of frying bacon keeping them indoors.

He stripped the paint’s rigging, rubbed him down with a sack, then forked him hay and a generous supply of oats.

That done, he shouldered the heavy saddlebags and walked to his home. He stashed the gold in the parlor, now cold and echoing emptiness, and was glad to seek the warmth and bustle of Hermann Schmidt’s restaurant.

A dozen miners sat at tables and most nodded when Oates entered. He took a seat and one of Hermann’s plump daughters wrote down his order, then poured him coffee.

Oates had just started to eat when Warren Rivette stepped into the restaurant. He took a seat opposite and said, “I tried your house, but you and Nantan weren’t there, so I figured you two had gone out for breakfast.” He looked around him. “Where is your lady wife?”

“She’s gone, Warren. Darlene McWilliams has her.”

He answered the question that formed on the gambler’s face by recounting what had transpired the previous evening. “They left this,” he said, and passed Rivette the note.

After the man read, Oates chewed on a piece of steak, swallowed, then said, “I went out last night, looking for Nantan.”

“You didn’t see anything?”

“Only snow.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Eddie? I would have come with you.”

“She’s my wife, Warren, my responsibility. I had it to do.”

“She’s a citizen of Heartbreak. That also makes her my responsibility.” Rivette waited for an answer, got none, and asked, his voice edged, “Has Darlene found a way to get in touch with you?”

“Not yet.”

“I wish you had asked for my help, Eddie.”

“I will . . . next time.”

The waitress poured coffee for Rivette and the gambler lit his morning cigar.

“This may come as a surprise to you, Eddie, but I like you and Nantan and I guess everybody in town does. Your welfare is our concern.”

Oates dipped a piece of bread into his egg yolk and popped it in his mouth. “I already owe you, Warren. I haven’t forgotten what you did for me back in Alma.”

Rivette smiled. “Eddie, I did that to prove to myself that I wasn’t completely worthless. That I could show even that small modicum of compassion for another human being came as a complete surprise to me.”

“When I look back on it, you made me feel less worthless. Not much, but a little.”

“Well, it’s water under the bridge. Our immediate problem is getting Nantan back home safe and sound.”

“I have an idea about that,” Oates said. “You’re going to find what I’m about to tell you hard to believe, but the proof is back at my house.”

“Ah, Eddie, you’re always such a man of mystery. Now, tell away.”

And Oates did.

When he was finished talking, Rivette looked around him, making sure no one was eavesdropping, whistled through his teeth and said, “Twenty thousand is a heap of money, and it’s a lot to pay for a woman, any woman.”

“I’ll offer Darlene the five thousand and all of it if I have to. I don’t care about the money, but I do care about Nantan.” He sat back and let the other Miss Schmidt pour them coffee. When the girl was gone, Oates said, “Of course, maybe you think I should find the gold’s true owner.”

Rivette laughed. “Yeah, you go to a bank and ask, ‘Say, did you lose twenty thousand dollars in gold about, oh, ten, fifteen years ago?’ What’s the answer going to be? ‘Damned right we did, and thanks for returning it. Here’s a dollar. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee.’

“The railroad? Same thing.

“Hell, Eddie, even the Army would jump at the chance of free money. ‘Yeah, that’s one of our stolen payrolls. Now just leave the gold right there and light a shuck afore we throw you in the guardhouse.’ ”

The gambler shook his head. “Finders keepers, Eddie. That’s one of Rivette’s laws, never to be broken.”

Despite the worry riding him, Oates had to smile. “You’ve got larceny in your soul, Warren, just like me.”

“Damned right.”

“I guess all we can do now is wait until Darlene makes her next move, huh?”

“My guess is it will be soon. That dying puncher wasn’t lying to us, no. If the Circle-T is still after her like he said, she’ll want to get out of the territory as soon as possible.”

Rivette rose to his feet. “My advice is to head home. After Darlene contacts you, we’ll go from there.” A slightly puzzled expression crossed the gambler’s face. “I never knew you loved Nantan this much.”

“Neither did I, until yesterday.”

“You could buy the whole Lipan tribe for twenty thousand dollars.”

Oates smiled. “I only want one of them.”

Rivette nodded, smiling. “Keep in touch, Eddie.”