The Man From Nowhere

Chapter 39

Oates, feeling cold and empty inside, returned to a bleak, empty house.

He lit a fire in the parlor and sat in his chair. As the room warmed he grew drowsy. Soon his chin dropped to his chest and, utterly exhausted from his cold night in the Gila, he slept.

Outside, morning faded into early afternoon with no change in the light, though the day grew colder and frost laced windows all over town.

People came and went in the street, and at twelve noon there was a commotion in Hermann the German’s place when a miner suddenly took a header into his beef and onion soup. The man was dead by the time other diners got to him, and it was later agreed by all present that the whiskey had finally done for him.

At one in the afternoon a tight V of geese flew across the sky above town, though no one noticed, and at two a woman named Martha, the wife of a miner from Cornwall, England, badly burned the palm of her left hand on a hot iron.

Then, at three, or very shortly thereafter, a man knocked on Eddie Oates’ door.

Oates was awake instantly. He rose, slipped his gun into a pocket and stepped into the hallway. “Who’s there?” he asked.

“You Eddie Oates?”

“That’s me.”

“I have a letter for you. It’s cold out here, open up.” Oates opened the door a crack, his hand on the butt of the Colt. A miner, as big and shaggy as a grizzly, had a scrap of paper in his extended hand. He looked like a man whose patience was rapidly wearing thin.

“Feller asked me to give you this. He paid me two dollars to deliver it safe. He said you’d know who it’s from.”

The miner shoved the paper into Oates’ hand and waved before turning away. “Cold day, huh?”

Oates took the paper inside and read it at the window.

Wait until nightfall. Then head north toward Cuchillo station.

Watch for our fire and bring the money.

No funny business or fancy moves.

CLEM HAS SHARPENED HIS SQUAW STICKER.

The note was written in the same female hand as the previous one, scribbled in some haste by Darlene McWilliams. The woman was evil and she would not hesitate to carry out her threat against Nantan.

It was still a couple of hours until dark, but it was a ten-mile ride to the stage station. Impatient to be going, Oates dressed, then shouldered the saddlebags, staggering a little under their weight as he headed for the door.

He had not begged Rivette for help before, but he would now. His wife was in terrible danger and his pride had no more value than a rooster crowing on a dung heap.

Oates walked through the icy day to the Riverboat. When he stepped inside it felt like he was coming home.

The saloon was warmed by a cherry red, potbellied stove and the thick air was made fragrant with the smells of bourbon, spilled beer, sawdust and cigars. Oil lamps cast a golden glow on the brass rails of the mahogany bar, burned with radiant fire inside every amber bottle, their soft halos of smoky light beckoning to him, welcoming him home like a prodigal son.

For a few moments, Oates stood transfixed, like a mortal in the presence of a deity. He touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip and his eyes glazed, his throat working.

A man who enters a room and stands deathly still, staring at something only he can see, will attract attention. Conversation among the miners died away to a few whispers, and all eyes turned to Oates and the heavy burden he carried on his right shoulder.

Rivette sat at a table with three other men, a stack of chips in front of him. Like the others, he looked at Oates. Then he turned and called out to the bartender, “Adam, come play this hand, then cash me out.”

He laid his cards on the table, stood and moved aside as the bartender took his seat. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said to the other players. “We’ll continue our game later.”

Rivette put on his hat and sheepskin and walked to Oates’ side. Taller and bigger than the other man, he removed the saddlebags from Oates and shouldered the load himself.

“They’ve been in touch?”

Oates’ eyes searched Rivette’s face. Then, a man slowly emerging from a dry drunk, he slurred, “Huh?”

Reading the signs, the gambler took Oates by the arm and gently but firmly led him outside.

The cold hit Oates like a hard slap. He shook his head, trying to clear his foggy brain, and looked at Rivette. “Sorry . . . for a while there I was home again.”

Rivette nodded. “It’s a battle you’ll have to fight every day for the rest of your life, Eddie.”

“Suppose one day I lose?”

“Don’t worry about that now. Take each day as it comes and never fight tomorrow’s battle today.”

Oates nodded. “I’ll try to play it that way.”

“Don’t try, Eddie. Do it.”

Oates was silent for a few moments. Then he handed Rivette the note. He waited until the gambler read it and said, “I need your help, Warren.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He looked into the gray day and at the gunmetal sky. “Well,” he said, “shall we get it done, you and me?”

As daylight faded and the temperature plummeted, the air took on a crystalline quality, as though traced through and through with spiderwebs of frost. The trunks of the aspen on the high ridges shone like burnished silver and the canopies of the juniper were covered with snow and looked like lines of old men in white nightcaps marching off to bed.

Oates huddled into his blanket coat, his breath smoking into the freezing wind.

“Best we slow up some, Warren,” he said. “We’re only a couple of miles from the station and it’s not dark enough to see a fire from the distance.”

“I could smoke a cigar,” Rivette said. He nodded to a stand of pines at the base of a ridge. “We’ll hole up over there for a spell.”

The trees sheltered Oates and Rivette from the worst of the wind and gave the illusion of warmth. Fine snow was drifting down from the branches as Rivette cupped his hands around his cigar and fired the tip.

“Care for one, Eddie?”

Oates shook his head. “They say smoking stunts your growth and I can’t afford to be any more stunted than I already am.”

Rivette grinned. “Height isn’t the measure of the man. It’s what’s inside that counts, and you’ve got sand, Eddie.”

“You think so? Then how come right now I’m scared stiff?”

“So am I, but we’re out here anyway. I guess that means something.”

Slowly the day shaded into night, and the two riders left the trees and headed north again. Coyotes were calling out in the hills and the mountains were lost in darkness.

After ten minutes Oates saw the fire twinkling in the distance like a fallen star. To his surprise, the fire was to the northwest among the Gila foothills, not in the direction of the stage station.

He and Rivette rode directly for the blaze, letting the horses pick their way along the unseen trail. When they were close enough to smell smoke, a huge, shadowy figure emerged from the gloom.

The man got within hailing distance and drew rein. “Identify yourselves!” he yelled.

“Eddie Oates and Warren Rivette,” Oates called out.

The rider rode closer and solidified into the shape of Clem Halleck. In the firelight, the man looked enormous in a bear fur coat, a muffler wrapped around the bottom half of his face.

“Rivette,” he said, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“Oates is my friend, Clem. I came along for the ride.”

“Then don’t try nothing slick with that gun o’ your’n, Rivette. Any fancy moves an’ I’ll cut the squaw’s belly to ribbons.”

“You’re such a fine man, Clem,” Rivette said with a smile. “It’s an honor to know you.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t forgetting what you already done, Rivette. You played hob helping them Alma whores.”

“It passed the time, Clem.”

Halleck ignored the gambler and his eyes sought Oates in the darkness. “You bring the money?”

“Uh-huh, all of it.”

“Then follow me, an’ be on your best behavior, just like you’re visiting kinfolk.”

Halleck had a bucket of water handy and he immediately extinguished the fire. He, better than any of the others, knew the risk they were taking if the Circle-T posse was still on the prowl.

The big gunman led Oates and Rivette into an arroyo that began narrow enough to permit the passage of only a couple of horses, then widened out into an open space about twenty acres in extent. A small fire burned close to a sheer wall of rock and a gigantic, maverick cottonwood.

Darlene McWilliams and her brother, Charles, stood in front of the fire, and a little ways off Mash Halleck had his left arm around Nantan’s neck, a wicked-looking bowie knife clenched in his right fist.

Clem led Oates and Rivette closer to the fire, then pointed at them. “Light and set you two. An’ that ain’t an invite—it’s an order.”

Oates did as he was told and Rivette followed. Clem slapped his horse away, then walked beside Darlene, carrying his rifle. Despite the cold, Charles McWilliams had removed his coat, and the ivory handles of his Remingtons caught the firelight. The man was grinning, confident, and he looked ready and eager to kill.

At that moment it dawned on Oates that Darlene McWilliams had no intention of letting him and Rivette—and Nantan—leave this place alive.

He’d have to bargain with the whole twenty thousand.