Joseph West - The Man From Nowhere - A Ralph Compton Novel

The idea of a holing up behind a tree somewhere and bushwhacking her did not appeal to him. If the Tin Cup Kid had been right, and he was a killer, he would still not stoop to cold-blooded murder.

Who was the lady boss? And what was she doing in this country?

As he rode, Oates pondered these questions but could come up with no answers.

The sun was climbing above the ragged peaks of the Sierra Cuchillo, washing out the night shadows. Oates rode close to the wooded hills, windswept mesas and deep canyons of the Gila, riding through forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. Aspen and spruce flourished in the higher elevations, above them gaunt blue cliffs that ended where the sky began.

Around Oates the land lay quiet, the only sound the steady beat of the mustang’s hooves, the creak of saddle leather and the chatter of crickets in the grass.

Aware that his wanderings were aimless, apart from a vague idea to follow the cattle tracks he and Yearly had found into the Gila, Oates rode into a narrow arroyo that after a hundred yards opened up into a small, hanging meadow. A creek ran near the base of a fractured ridge and a few cottonwoods and a single, mossy willow crowded close to the running water.

Oates swung out of the saddle, loosened the cinch and let the paint graze. He was wishful for coffee but didn’t feel like starting a fire. He settled for cold salt pork left over from breakfast and a couple of Jacob’s sourdough biscuits. A small, sharp pain in him, he remembered that these would be the last he’d ever taste.

After he’d eaten, Oates lay in the shade of a cottonwood and tipped his hat over his eyes. Bees buzzed around the creek and close by, the paint steadily cropped grass.

Suddenly he was very tired. Killing in the morning takes its toll on a man.

But Oates’ rest was uneasy. His head jerked back and forth as he muttered in his sleep, talking to dead men. He woke, crying out so loudly that the mustang jerked up its head and trotted away from him.

Oates looked around him, his eyes wild. He’d had a bottle. Where was it? Had someone robbed him?

His heart was thumping in his chest and he was covered in a cold sweat. For a moment nothing looked familiar. Where the hell was he?

Gradually, the unknown terrors in him subsided and he grew fully awake. Breathing heavily, he rose to his feet, the dream taste of whiskey still smoky and sweet in his mouth. He stooped, picked up his hat and kneeled by the creek, splashing his face with cold water. After a while he dried off with his bandanna and sat, letting the trembling in him settle.

He’d dreamed of whiskey as vivid and real as a man’s dreams of naked women. He touched his tongue to dry lips, the hunger riding him.

Right at that moment, he’d give everything he owned for a drink, the fancy clothes he wore, the paint, his guns. And he would betray anybody, so long as he could get drunk and stay drunk forever. The whiskey oblivion was where he belonged. It was home sweet home to him.

Oates gritted his teeth against the craving in his mind and the pain in his belly. He fell on his side, curling up his knees to his chest.

Then he groaned and slept again.

When Eddie Oates woke, the night had come and the sky was full of stars and the moon was as round as a coin. He rose to a sitting position, his back against the cottonwood, and breathed deep of cool air that tasted of sage and pine.

“How you feeling, boy?” asked a voice out of the darkness.

Instantly Oates was on his feet and he was aware that his gun had appeared like magic in his hand.

“Who’s there?” he asked, talking into the moon-bladed night.

“Why, good old Jacob Yearly, as ever was.”

Peering into the gloom, Oates saw a red glow that grew brighter, then dulled again. Jacob was smoking his pipe.

“Where are you?” Oates asked.

“Right ahead of you, Eddie. Over this way.”

Oates took a few steps, then made out Yearly’s tall form. The old man was sitting on a boulder, his pipe in his hand.

“You’ve had yourself a time, boy,” Yearly said.

“I wanted whiskey. I wanted it real bad and I still do.”

Yearly nodded. His eyes were full of brilliant blue fire. “Killing a man is easy, Eddie. It’s living with it, that’s hard. Whiskey can dull the pain for a spell, but it always comes back like a cancer.”

“You think I’ve got a guilty conscience about killing the men who killed you, Jacob?”

“I don’t know, Eddie. Conscience is God whispering in a man. Only you know what he’s saying.”

“I think he’s saying that I did what I had to do.”

“If that’s what you hear, then that’s just fine. You got no need to crawl into a whiskey bottle.” Yearly stood and put his cold pipe in his pocket. “The trouble is, you don’t know what you are, Eddie. Right now your choices are kinda limited—gunfighter, killer, drunk—and you don’t know which one to choose.”

“Help me, Jacob. Help me do the right thing.”

“I can’t help you, boy. You can only help yourself, and whiskey isn’t the answer and it never was.”

“Jacob, why did . . .”

Oates’ voice trailed away. . . . He was talking only to darkness.

He became aware of his surroundings, of the gun in his hand. “I’m still dreaming,” he said aloud to himself, shaking his head.

Yet, the smell of pipe smoke lingered in the meadow for a long time before it was taken away by the wind.

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.