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

The day was dying as Oates headed back toward the mesa.

Only when he left the trees and rode across open ground was he aware of the enormous breadth of the sky. Shooting stars were falling to earth in a constant trail of sparks, and Oates thought that if he held his breath and was quiet enough, he’d hear them thump onto the grass and lie there, smoking like cinders.

Around him as he urged the paint forward at a trot, coyotes were talking in the darkness and once an owl swooped over his head and vanished among the moon-struck pines like a gray ghost.

There was an eerie, ethereal cast to the night and Oates felt he was being watched by eyes hidden in the trees that, full of moonlight, gleamed like opals.

He wiped damp palms on his pants, thinking of ha’ants and boogermen. Oates forced himself to smile. Fear has a way of making the wolf bigger than he is and it quickly changes the man back to the boy.

He had no reason to fear the night . . . only the all-too-mortal humans who stalked its caves of darkness.

The mesa revealed itself as a massive, hulking shape that blacked out a galaxy of stars. The moon bathed the land in silver light, but created shadows everywhere.

It took Oates ten frustrating minutes to find the faint thread of the switchback game trail, but once he did, the sure-footed mustang climbed willingly enough.

He reached the summit, let his stunned eyes read the scene before him, then swung out of the saddle and tried to piece together the disaster that had befallen his companions.

A blackened, burned-out cedar was his first clue. The tree had been set ablaze, accidentally it seemed, because the ashes of the small fire that could have caused it lay close to the trunk.

The blazing tree would have been a fiery beacon that would have been seen for miles. Had it attracted the attention of Darlene McWilliams and her riders?

Oates looked around and the flutter of something white caught his attention.

A sheet of paper had been pinned down by a rock. Next to it, wrapped in a scrap of cloth, were meat and bread. Oates made a sandwich and as he chewed, he held the paper up to the bright moonlight. Only one word had been scrawled on the paper: HEARTBREAK .

But under that, Sammy Tatum had made a quick sketch that showed five riders on a pine-edged trail.

Five riders!

Oates looked more closely. The three women were obvious, sitting their saddles with their skirts tucked up over the knees. But there were two men. One was Sammy, riding like a sack of grain, the other a tall man on a horse that the boy had shaded black.

The mystery man had seen the blazing tree and had persuaded the others to leave the mesa, probably pointing out that if he’d seen the fire, so might Darlene McWilliams.

They were now headed for Heartbreak, wherever that might be.

Oates finished the sandwich, then realized he was dog tired. He told himself that any decision he might make could wait until he had some sleep.

He led the paint to the patch of bunchgrass, loosened the girth, then stretched out on the bare rock and slept. The night closed around him and the smiling moon blanketed him in white light.

The dawning daylight woke Eddie Oates.

He rose to his feet and worked out the kinks in his back, grimacing. The mustang was grazing, though there was little grass left. But the little horse was used to making do and doing without and seemed none the worse for wear.

“Wish I could say the same thing about myself,” Oates groaned, rubbing at a persistent knot in the small of his back.

To the east, the sun had not yet risen above the mountains, but it was already doing its best to banish the night. The lemon sky was tied up with red ribbons and the topmost peaks and ridges of the shadowed Gila glowed with a halo of gold.

Stretching, Oates stepped to the edge of the mesa and his brown eyes studied the country below. There was no movement, no sound.

His immediate concern was not with Stella Spinner and the others. Whoever the mysterious rider was, he was good with a gun as he’d proven at the siege of the cave and later on the ridge. They were safer with the tall man on the black horse than they’d be with him.

As for Darlene McWilliams, she’d been hurt. She’d lost men and was still missing five thousand dollars of her money. But, thinking of old Jacob Yearly, Oates decided she had not been hurt enough.

Suddenly a plan came to him.

It was time to take the fight to Darlene, by a roundabout means certainly, but it might just work.

Of course, the plan hinged on his living long enough. And that was a mighty uncertain thing.

Oates tightened the cinch on the paint and mounted. He was wishful for coffee, a gallon maybe, hot and strong and sweet as sin, but he had none of that and dismissed the thought from his mind.

Where he was going there was plenty of coffee—if a man survived long enough to drink it.

Chapter 23

Eddie Oates rode west for five miles through wooded, hilly country, then swung due north. When he was directly opposite the eastern slopes of the Canyon Creek Mountains, he turned directly toward them. Several miles later he was among the foothills and calculated that Black Mountain and the scorched ruins of old Jacob’s cabin were now directly south of him.

Was Darlene McWilliams still holding her herd there?

Oates’ plan depended on her staying put. He doubted that she’d yet had time to move against other ranches where she could find better grass, more water and a supply of winter feed.

She might also want to hire men to replace the ones she’d lost, and that would take time, even in the high country where there was no shortage of footloose outlaws and gunmen looking for work.

Oates rode south until the conical bulk of Black Mountain loomed large in front of him. Remembering the ridge opposite Jacob’s cabin where a man could observe the country concealed, he swung out of the saddle and ground-tied the paint on a patch of tufted grass among the pines.

Taking his rifle, Oates headed for the ridge. The sun had begun its slow climb into the pale sky and the morning was already hot. Sweat trickled down Oates’ cheek, down his neck, and he wished he’d left his high-button coat with the horse.

A gradual slope, covered with prickly pear, sage and a few piñons, led to the ridge. Bent over, he made his way to the top, then looked out into the land spread before him.

Darlene’s herd was still there, strung out for a mile or so along the flat in front of the cabin. A few cows were grazing among the cottonwoods lining the creek where Jacob had made him take a bath, and Oates smiled at the memory.

To his surprise, the cabin had been repaired, the string and baling wire, make-do mending of gunmen, not carpenters, but it had a roof and new pine door. The corral had been extended to hold more horses, and a ramshackle bunkhouse and an equally rickety cooking shack had been built.

It was obviously the abode of transients. Darlene had her heart set on grander quarters and she’d no intention of living there for long.

A man left the cabin and walked to the bunkhouse where he stepped inside and left the door wide against the heat. After that, there was no other movement of man or animal.

Oates had seen all he needed. He backed away from the ridge and walked to his horse. He removed his fancy coat, folded it carefully and draped it over the saddle, then mounted.

He swung the paint west again, keeping close to the cliffs and mountain slopes of the Gila. By noon, riding through a forest of ponderosa pine, he reached Iron Creek Mesa, then headed northwest.

As he rode, Oates admitted to himself that he had very little idea where he was going. He desperately reached back through the alcoholic mists of his memory, remembering laughing, easygoing Tom Carson, one of the biggest ranchers in the state.