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

His hand shook so uncontrollably that he dropped the food, untasted, back into the bowl.

Yearly said nothing. He sat on the cot once again and, taking the bowl and spoon, fed Oates like a father would a sick child.

After the younger man had eaten, Yearly checked the bandage around Oates’ chest, then began to spread a salve on his bites and scratches.

“The coyote has a dirty mouth,” he said. “There’s sagebrush in this and chaparral, so you don’t get pizen of the blood. And willow bark for pain.” Yearly sat back, looking at Oates. “Sometimes a man has other pains that go deeper, but I can’t poultice those.”

Sunlight angled brighter through the cabin window where dust motes danced and splashed yellow light on the red and white cowhide on the floor in front of the stone fireplace.

Oates spoke into a breathless silence. “Jacob, I’d like to share my pain with you, but you’re wrong, I have none. I’ve always been a drunk. That’s the beginning and end of my life story.”

Yearly drew a chair up to the bed. “Tell me about it anyhow, right up to the moment I shot them coyotes off’n you. This is Sunday and I don’t labor on the Sabbath, so I’ve got all day, young feller.”

Chapter 8

“Like I told you, there isn’t much to tell,” Eddie Oates said. “As much as I can remember, my life was hard and always shaped up to trouble.

“I was born over Tucson way in the Arizona Territory. I don’t recollect much about my ma, but my father was a drunken, violent brute who made a living as a stone mason, when he worked.

“Then one day when I was about ten, he got into a fight in a cantina over a woman and got shot. My ma died six months later, of a broken heart some said, but I never cottoned to that story. She drank bad water and it killed her. That was all.”

Oates shifted position on the cot and Yearly told him to make sure he was favoring his ribs, otherwise they’d play hob and never heal properly.

“So then what happened?” the old man prompted.

“I was taken in by a family who needed a slave who wouldn’t eat too much. I was just a little feller, so I fit the bill. Pretty soon they started to beat me, telling me I was a lazy, shiftless and ungrateful wretch.

“Then the local preacher, a man named Stryker, told my foster mother that the trouble was meat. ‘I recently read all about it in Mr. Dickens’ great novel Oliver Twist , ma’am,’ he said. ‘Give a boy too much meat and you’ll spoil him and turn him into a slothful creat’ur who’ll give you no work but plenty of sass. That’s what Mr. Dickens says. He knows how to deal with boys.’

“I was only being fed table scraps as it was, but pretty soon even those dried up. Then, one day I found a jug of corn liquor in the kitchen, took it down to the creek and got drunk.

“They beat me unmercifully when they found me passed out on the creek bank, of course. But I didn’t mind. I knew I had found my calling. That jug was like a passport into a new and better world.”

“I’ve also read Mr. Dickens,” Yearly said. “In fact, I have a few of his volumes on the shelf over there. He was holding up Oliver Twist as an example of the cruelty of England’s poor laws. Your preacher, Stryker, was a fool.”

“Maybe so, but he helped me make up my mind. A few weeks after I found the jug, I stole some money from the house and ran away.

“I drifted east, doing whatever odd jobs I could find, swamping saloons or cleaning outhouses, I wasn’t particular. Every cent I earned I spent on whiskey and when I couldn’t earn it, I stole it. I figure at one time or another I wrote my name on the wall of every hoose gow from Tucson to Santa Fe.

“Eventually, I don’t know, when, why or how, I drifted into Alma. There was plenty of whiskey in Alma and I drank more than my share. The cowboys would make me play fetch like a dog, sometimes in the saloons, sometimes in the street, but they bought me whiskey, so I’d run and bark all they wanted.”

“So why did you leave?” Yearly asked.

“They threw me out. Me, three whores and a simple boy. The citizens’ committee said we were useless mouths to feed. After that, I don’t remember much. . . .”

Suddenly Oates looked stricken. He sat silent for several long moments, then buried his face in his shaking hands and rocked back and forth on the cot. “Oh my God,” he whispered, “what have I done?”

Yearly’s voice held a note of confusion. “Son, I don’t catch your drift.”

“I betrayed them all,” Oates said. He dropped his hands and turned his face to the old man. “Sammy Tatum, the three women, I sold them out for a drink of whiskey.”

“I guess you better explain that,” Yearly said. “You’re not making a lick o’ sense.”

“Before you saved me from the coyotes, I met three men on the trail, big men, wearing buckskins.”

“Did they give you their names?”

“No. But the oldest they called Pa, and I heard them call the one who give me this”—Oates’ fingers moved to his grotesquely swollen eye—“Clem.”

Yearly nodded. “I’d bet my bottom dollar you ran into ol’ Mash Halleck and his boys. They’re bad ones, so danged mean, even the Apaches ride wide around them.” A frown gathered between Yearly’s unruly eyebrows. “How come you had dealings with the Hallecks?”

“They had whiskey and I offered to trade a rifle for a drink.”

“Pity. A rifle could have saved you grief from them coyotes.”

“I didn’t have it. The women took it. They left me a note saying they were headed for a town called Heartbreak and that I should catch up when I sobered up enough.

“I told Pa—Mash Halleck—that the women were ahead of me on the trail and he should tell them to give him the rifle.”

Oates looked strained as memories returned to him bit by bit, like the pieces of a mosaic coming together.

“They wanted the rifle all right, but they were more interested in the women. . . .”

Oates’ voice trailed away into silence. The cabin was warm and outside jays were quarreling in the trees. Finally he said, “Jacob, I appreciate what you did for me, but I have to go after them. Somehow I got to make it right.”

“You plan on going up against the Halleck boys?”

“Maybe they left the women alone.”

The old man shook his head. “Shame on me for saying such things on the Sabbath, but those women, whores you said, are already in bondage. Mash and his sons will use them hard and when they’ve had enough, they’ll sell them, maybe down to Old Mexico way.

“The only way you’ll free the women from the Hallecks is at gunpoint, and even then, you’ll have to be mighty slick with the iron. Mash has killed his share, and so has his son Reuben, but Clem’s the gun hand, fast on the draw and shoot. Last I’d heard, he’d killed seven men, and the number has probably growed since then.”

Oates felt a small sickness rise in him. “I’ve never even shot a gun.”

Yearly nodded. “Figured as much. Then I don’t give much for your chances.”

The old man trod carefully, choosing his words. “Eddie, you’re still a hopeless drunk. I can see it on you. You’re only a glass of whiskey away from playing retriever dog for the cowboys again. The Hallecks would stomp you into the ground without breaking a sweat.”

Oates shook his head. “No matter, I’ve got it to do. If I walk away from it, I’ll have to crawl into a whiskey bottle and stay there until it kills me. I’m starting to think that I don’t want to be a drunken fool ever again.” He hesitated, then smiled weakly. “Anyway, that’s how I feel today. I don’t know about tomorrow.”

“Man can lay up troubles for himself by worrying about tomorrow. Hell, boy, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday and look at you, lying there all bandaged up an’ cozy as a bug in a rug.”