Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

“How do I tell the story, Charlie?” Fletcher asked. “Some of it I understand; much of it I don’t.”

“Seems to me,” Moore said, his pipe clenched in teeth that were still white and strong despite his years, “a man starts at the beginning and takes it from there. That is, if he feels so inclined and ain’t being pushed to it none.”

“You’re not pushing me, Charlie,” Fletcher said, smiling. “Well, not hardly.”

And he told his story.

Fletcher began with his arrest for the murder of the Wyoming sheriff, his meeting with Falcon Stark, and the senator’s plea to find his daughter. He described his journey from Lexington to Arizona by steamship, train, and horse, his brush with Apaches, and finally his arrest by General Crook.

“And the rest you know,” Fletcher wound it up, “and I haven’t jawed so much since the time I talked the loincloth off a wooden Indian.”

“Like I said, sometimes it’s good for a man to talk,” Moore said, thumbing a match into flame, relighting the pipe that had gone cold during Fletcher’s story.

“Well, what do you think?” Fletcher asked after a few minutes of silence had passed and Moore showed no inclination to speak.

“About what?”

“Hell, Charlie, about what I just told you.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, for one thing, I wish you’d spoke to me about Estelle Stark afore you went barging in to see ol’ Georgie Crook.”

“How come?”

“Because I know where she’s at.”

Eight

Fletcher sat up in surprise. “You know where she is?”

Moore nodded. “I surely reckon I do.”

The old mountain man moved in his blankets, easing his hips into a more comfortable position. “About a week ago I was down on t’other side of the Salt a fair piece south of here and I got to talking to a feller by the name of Indian Jake Hooper. Jake trades with the Apache out of a horse and wagon and he’s got hisself a Tonto wife, a passel of breed kids, and a bad case of the piles. On account of that particular misery, he does a lot of standin’, you understand.”

“What did he tell you, Charlie?” Fletcher asked, prodding, impatience riding him.

“I’m getting to that. Well, anyhoo, Jake says the Apaches have been telling him about a white woman with yeller hair who’s been seen at the old Indian cliff ruins in the black basin timber country south of here. They say she’s got a man with her, a young feller with a beard and long hair like mine and he dresses in a white robe most of the time.”

“That sounds like Estelle,” Fletcher said. “The man in the white robe calls himself the Chosen One, and he claims he’s on a mission from God to convert the Apache.”

“So I heard tell,” Charlie said. “Only the Apache, riled up the way they are, don’t much feel like being converted right now, so this Chosen One feller could find himself staked out on an anthill, maybe a piece sooner than later. I reckon the only reason the young bucks haven’t done it so far is because they think he’s plumb loco, and Apaches tend to steer clear of crazy folks.”

Moore laid his cold pipe on the ground beside him, close to hand. “I was told by Indian Jake that, crazy or no, the Chosen One is attracting a lot of people to them ruins, men and women and a passel of young ‘uns. And there’s one thing more.”

“What’s that?”

“The yeller-haired woman, if she is Estelle Stark, is out to here,” Charlie said, sticking his cupped hand in front of his belly.

“You mean she’s pregnant?”

Moore nodded. “Either that or she’s eatin’ too many of them Mexican beans.”

“Listen, Charlie, this is important,” Fletcher said, ignoring Moore’s grin. “How pregnant would a gal have to be to get that size?”

“Buck, a woman can’t be a little bit pregnant. I mean, she either is or she ain’t.”

“I know that, but how many months?”

Moore thought for a while, then said, “Well, I’ve been married maybe seven times to Indian women, and thinking back on it now, for a woman to be out to here”—he put his hand in front of his belly—“maybe five, six months.”

“Then she was already expecting the Chosen One’s baby when she fled Washington,” Fletcher said. “That’s the scandal Falcon Stark is afraid of! He’s terrified the voters and his own party will discover that his daughter has a bastard child—to a crazy, doomsday prophet, of all people.”

“Could be,” Moore allowed. “But why would Stark send you down here to find her?”

Fletcher shook his head. “He never wanted me to find Estelle. Charlie, I think he aims to kill her and then have the murder pinned on me. It would be real convenient to have a dangerous escaped convict like Buck Fletcher take the blame.”

“You mean you was set up all down the line?”

“I mean just that, and getting railroaded into prison for the killing of that Wyoming sheriff was only the first of it.”

Moore whistled between his teeth. “That Falcon Stark feller leaves nothing to chance, does he?”

Fletcher rolled another smoke, taking his time to collect his thoughts. He lit his cigarette with a brand from the fire, then said, “That could explain why Scarlet Hays and his boys are in the Territory. Maybe Stark has paid Hays to kill Estelle and then pin it on me, or better still from his point of view, kill me as well.”

Moore thought this over, then said, “I’d say Senator Stark cuts a mighty wide path in Washington and he has a lot of power and influence. Do you think maybe George Crook is in on it?”

“Could be, Charlie,” Fletcher replied. “He was pretty quick to believe Stark’s story and dismiss mine.”

“Well, the way I see it, his plan could still unravel. All you have to do is get the warden to speak up for you and them sodjer boys that escorted you to Lexington.”

Fletcher shook his head. “The warden is a political animal and he’ll do or say whatever Stark tells him. As for Lieutenant Simpson and his men, they’re either dead by this time or buried alive in some forgotten outpost in the middle of Sioux country. Besides, Simpson is a professional soldier, a West Pointer, and if it ever came right down to it he’d obey orders and do as he was told. It would be either that or throw away his entire military career. He told me he’s beholden to me for saving his father’s reputation at Antietam, but even so, I don’t think he’d be willing to sacrifice his future for me.”

“Seems like this Senator Stark went to a heap of all-fired trouble with all his planning,” the old mountain man said. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he can,” Fletcher said.

Moore put his cold pipe in his mouth and gazed out at the spiraling snow driven by a sighing north wind. After a few moments’ silence, he said, “Here’s what you do, Buck. You fork that big stud of yours, head him north, and get the hell out of Arizona.”

Fletcher shook his head. “I can’t do that, Charlie, not now.”

“Hell, boy, if it’s money you need—”

“I’ve got money.” Fletcher slapped the money belt under his shirt. “Right here.”

He sat quiet for a while and said, “My parents built a cabin on Two-Bit Creek up in the high country of the Dakota Territory. Even if I went there, I’d constantly have that twenty-year prison sentence hanging over my head, and the shadow of Falcon Stark would always be nipping at my heels.”

Fletcher tossed his cigarette butt into the fire. “It wouldn’t work. I’m not a man who borrows trouble, but it seems to just naturally follow me. I couldn’t stay hidden for long.”

“Then what are you planning to do?”

“Find Estelle Stark and the man who’s been paid to kill her. I’ll beat a confession out of him if I have to, and in front of witnesses.”