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

“They’ll be back.”

“Count on it,” Stella said.

Chapter 18

The long afternoon wore on, but there were no more attempts to rush the cave.

Nellie was awake, but in considerable pain, and Lorraine looked worried. Stella went back to check on the girl and when she returned she too was grim and silent.

“She needs a doctor,” Oates said.

Stella nodded. “You got one handy?”

“Hello the cave!”

“We hear you!” Oates yelled.

“Miss McWilliams and her brother want to talk to you. Hold your fire.”

“Let her come. We won’t shoot.”

The woman rode into the clearing in front of the cave, cool and self-possessed, like a fine New York or Boston lady out for an afternoon canter. Beside her, astride a tall, spectacular Palouse, was a handsome young man, an arrogant set to his head and shoulders.

He had the same dazzling good looks as his sister, but in him her considerable beauty was transformed into effeminacy and petulance.

However, he had taken off his coat against the heat and there was nothing effeminate about the two ivory-handled Remingtons he wore in shoulder holsters over his expensive, brocaded vest.

Stella rose to her feet and Oates did the same.

“As you are by now no doubt aware, Stella, I don’t make a habit of talking to whores,” Miss McWilliams said, her eyes on fire. “But this once I’m making the exception.”

“It takes one to know one, Darlene,” Stella said. “Now, say your piece and then be on your way.”

Darlene’s brother was studying Oates, his eyes lingering on the holstered Colt, making his calculations. Finally, a look of disdain on his face, he looked away.

“This has gone on long enough,” Darlene McWilliams said. “One of my men is dead and another is gut-shot and coughing up black blood. He can’t live.”

Oates was surprised. The term “gut-shot” was the language of cow-town saloons and dance halls, not that of a seemingly well-bred young lady.

“I’m offering you terms,” Darlene said. Her bay Thoroughbred was up on its toes, dancing, but she controlled the horse effortlessly.

“I’m listening,” Stella said.

The wind walked among the trees and the shadows were stretching longer. The dying sun threw flaming red lances across the sky and the clouds were edged in burnished gold.

“Give me back the money you stole from me and I’ll withdraw my men,” Darlene said.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll starve you out of there, no matter how long it takes.”

Oates saw anger flare in Stella. “Darlene, I reckon we earned that money after the months of abuse we took from you and that Halleck trash. The money isn’t even yours. You robbed it from a bank in Arizona, remember?”

Darlene looked as if she’d been slapped. “How do you—”

“How do I know? I overheard your brother boasting to Clem Halleck how he’d robbed a bank in Tucson and killed a deputy sheriff while making his getaway. He said you planned and organized that robbery and that after you’d paid off a couple of accomplices, you cleared more than thirty thousand.”

Darlene rounded on her brother. “You fool! I told you to never speak of the robbery to anybody.”

“Clem had a right to know why what he was guarding in the wagon was so important,” the man said.

Spitting venom, Darlene snapped, “I’ll deal with you later, Charles.” She turned to Stella. “As for you, you little whore, you’ve just signed your own death warrant.”

Stella smiled. “No, Darlene, you’ve signed yours.” She raised her Winchester. “You’re not leaving here alive.”

“No!” Oates grabbed the rifle barrel. “Not like this, Stella. You’ll only bring yourself down to her level.”

For her part, Darlene McWilliams displayed considerable courage. She hadn’t flinched in the face of Stella’s threat. “Wise advice, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is. If she’d shot me, you’d all be dead within seconds.”

Charles McWilliams grinned. “I guarantee it.”

Darlene swung her horse away and rode out of the clearing and her brother followed.

Stella’s cheeks were wet with tears as she rounded on Oates. “What’s better,” she asked, her frustration apparent in her tone, “to be shot or slowly starve to death?”

Oates had no answer.

The day shaded into night and the coyotes were calling into the darkness. The rising moon had gotten itself tangled in the branches of the pines where the wind teased it unmercifully and tried to shake it loose. Around the cave, the land was lost in gloom, except for the distant glimmer of a campfire.

Occasionally a bullet caromed around the cave, fired by one of Darlene McWilliams’ bored besiegers.

Oates was checking on Nellie when Sam Tatum sidled into the cave. He stood in the dim firelight, looking around him, his face puzzled as he tried to assess what had happened.

The boy seemed so disoriented and confused that Oates looked up at him and smiled. “Speak, thou bewildered apparition.”

Like someone waking from a dream, Sam swallowed and said, “Your horse is safe, Mr. Oates. After the shooting started, I found a place for him deep in the woods.”

“Sam, are you hurt?” This came from Lorraine.

“No, Miss Lorraine. I hid out and only moved after it got dark.” His eyes moved to Nellie. “Is Miss Nellie hurt?”

“She got shot, Sammy,” Oates said. He saw the boy’s stricken expression and added quickly, “But I think she’s going to be all right.”

He was not trying to spare Sam’s feelings. Nellie’s wound was still inflamed, but the bleeding had stopped and she was not running a fever. Earlier both Lorraine and Stella agreed that these were good signs.

Nellie was conscious and now she raised her head from Lorraine’s lap and smiled. “I’ll be fine, Sam. I could use some coffee, though.”

“I’ll get water, Miss Nellie,” the boy said enthusiastically.

“You be careful out there, Sammy,” Oates warned. “Those damned bushwhackers are shooting at shadows.”

Tatum picked up the pot. “I’ll be careful, Mr. Oates.”

The boy slipped out of the cave. A few seconds later a racketing fusillade of shots shattered the night into a million shards of sound.

Chapter 19

Nellie screamed as Eddie Oates picked up his rifle and left the cave, fading into the night. He stood close to the wall of the ridge and his eyes tried to penetrate the darkness.

Another shot was followed by a wild, agonized shriek. Then came another flurry of firing that seemed to go on forever. Then silence. Oates heard the water falling from the top of the ridge, splashing into a hollowed-out rock tank at its base.

“Sammy,” he whispered, “where are you?”

“Over here, Mr. Oates.”

“Are you hit?”

“I’m not hit, Mr. Oates. Wasn’t nobody shooting at me.”

Oates shook his head. What the hell . . . ?

Sam Tatum emerged from the darkness a few moments later, a large, hulking figure, the coffeepot in his hand. “I got the water for Miss Nellie’s coffee,” he said.

“Get back into the cave, Sammy.”

“Should I put the water on to bile, Mr. Oates?”

“Yes, Sammy. You do that. Now go.”

After Tatum left, Oates followed the line of the outcrop, heading wide of the stand of pines in front of the cave. High-heeled riding boots are not built with stealthy walking in mind, and Oates was convinced that every rock he kicked and twig he snapped could be heard clear to Alma.

He stopped often, listening into the night. Once he was sure he heard the distant drum of a running horse, but he wasn’t sure. The moon had untangled itself from the pines and was riding high, its bladed silver light deepening the malevolent shadows. He smelled gun smoke and it drifted gray and silent as a ghost among the trees.