The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 26

There was no sign of life at the spur, and no refrigerator cars.

The iron V of the rails shimmered in the afternoon heat, and the air hung heavy on the trees, their branches listless, unmoving.

As he sat his horse between the Apaches, Clayton felt he was carrying the full weight of the oppressive day. The sky was the color of dust, the yellow coin of the sun hazy, as though shining through murky water.

The youngest Apache, the butt of his Winchester on his thigh, rode his paint down the rise to the tracks. He rode to the boxcar, leaned over, and slid the door open. The young Apache looked inside, then swung away and drew rein at the tracks. He stared into the distance: rolling hills, empty land, empty sky.

Clayton sweated, smelled the rankness of his body. Beside him the old Apache yelled a few words and the youth on the paint returned.

The old man turned to Clayton, his black eyes accusing. “No Apaches. No white men. No cars. No nothing.”

“The ice car will be here,” Clayton said.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

The Apache grunted. “Then we will wait.”

“It could be a long time, maybe days.”

“We will wait.” He pointed his rifle at Clayton. “You will wait.”

The old man led the way into a stand of wild oak where the Apaches picketed their horses, then sat in a circle in a patch of shade, Clayton with them.

They waited . . . .

To the Apache, patience is the companion of wisdom. Not passive waiting, for that is laziness, but to wait and hope.

“We will hear the train by and by,” the old man told Clayton.

The man from Abilene said nothing. He was hot, thirsty, and hungry, and patience had never been one of his virtues. He lay on his back, the stoical Indians sitting still and silent around him. Clayton stared into the tree canopy, the leaves silhouetted black against the sky as though charred by fire. His brain reeled, hunting the answer to an impossible question: Why had it all gotten so complicated when once it had seemed so straightforward?

His plan had been so simple. Ride into Bighorn Point, declare his intention to kill a man, and let the man’s own guilt drive him from hiding. The guilty party would call him out, and Clayton would shoot him.

Instead . . .

Clayton groaned. It hurt his head to even think about it.

The dreary day dragged past with dreadful sluggishness. Then slowly the light seen through the tree canopy changed. Gone was the sullen sky of afternoon, replaced by a million diamonds scattered on lilac velvet.

Clayton sat up. The Apaches hadn’t moved, sitting in a circle, thinking . . . about what only God knew. They’d had neither food nor drink, nor had he, but Clayton was irritable and the wound in his thigh throbbed. If he had a woman close, he’d whine and moan and let her comfort him.

The Apaches needed no such comfort. They were like their mountains—still, silent, unchanging, enduring. With that strange sense many Indians possess, the old Apache said something to the youngest one. The youth rose to his feet, stepped to his horse, and returned with a canteen and a chunk of antelope meat.

These he offered to Clayton.

None of the other Apaches were eating or asking for water, a fact Clayton noticed. A man’s pride is a personal thing. But in the long run, it’s what separates the exceptional from the mediocre. Clayton refused the food.

“I will eat and drink when the Apache eat and drink,” he said.

The old man beside him nodded. Then he smiled.

Why he did the last, Clayton did not know.

Two hours later, he heard the rumble of wagon wheels, and after a few more minutes, the distant wail of an approaching locomotive.