Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

One of the women, a pretty brunette with dark brown eyes, smiled up at him. “Brothers, have you come to join us?” she asked.

And from behind her the youngest of the men, his face eager, said, “Are you to help us in our great task?”

“Damn pilgrims,” Charlie said under his breath.

Fletcher shot Charlie a look. “No,” he said, “I’m looking for someone; her name is Estelle Stark.” The women and the two men gazed at him blankly and Fletcher added, “I think she’s in great danger.”

“There’s no danger here,” another woman said. She was pregnant, her belly swelling big against her gray homespun dress. “Here we do the Lord’s work as we await the day of doom that is soon to come.”

“The hour of doomsday is close at hand,” one of the men said, as though it were something he had learned by rote, and the other nodded and muttered agreement into his beard.

Fletcher tried another tack, fighting down his impatience. “If Estelle is here, please let me talk to her.”

“Who wishes to talk with my wife?”

Fletcher turned and saw a man walking toward him. He was in his early fifties, very tall, almost as tall as Charlie, with a long beard to his waist, his hair falling in waves over his shoulders. The man wore a white robe to his ankles, tied with a piece of rope, and he had open-toed leather sandals on his feet. He carried a wooden staff surmounted by a large silver cross, and a similar cross hung around his neck, suspended from a rawhide string.

“Jesus,” Charlie whispered.

Eleven

“No, not Jesus, but God’s Chosen One,” the man said. “Yes, chosen by Him to convert the Apache to the way of the Lord and prepare them for the doomsday to come.”

More people had come out from the ruined pueblo, and now around thirty men, women, and children surrounded the Chosen One, hanging on his every word.

“I am a voice of one, crying in this wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord,” the Chosen One said in a high, singsong voice. “March twenty-three of the year nineteen hundred is the appointed time of the doomsday. Prepare ye now for the terrible judgment to come. Amen and amen.”

The people around him cheered and the Chosen One looked up at Fletcher and Charlie. “Now, brothers, will you join us?”

“Where is Estelle?” Fletcher asked, ignoring the man’s question.

The Chosen One’s eyes were bright with a strange, glowing fire, and Fletcher realized this man was far from sane.

“Why do you wish to see my wife? She is with child and she rests.”

“Mister,” Fletcher said, his patience rapidly wearing thin, “I believe Estelle is in terrible danger. There is a man in the basin right now who plans to kill her, and he will if we don’t get her out of here fast.”

The Chosen One shook his head, a faint smile playing around his lips. “Never fear; no harm can come to Estelle here. We are protected by the shield of the Lord.”

Charlie kneed his horse forward. “Lookee here, Mr. Chosen,” he said, “we came across the tracks of maybe thirty Apaches earlier today, all of them young warriors. You’ve got to get your people out of here before it’s too late.”

“The Apaches are our friends, our children. They leave us in peace.”

“That’s because they think you’re nuts,” Charlie said. “But I got a feeling them young bucks who made those tracks won’t give a damn. They’ll want your womenfolk and whatever else you have. Mister, you ever see what thirty Apaches can do to a woman?”

“If that time comes, I will talk to them and direct them to the path of righteousness,” the Chosen One said, his strange blue eyes shining. “I have been appointed by God to show them the way, for the Apaches are as little children.”

Realizing it was hopeless, Fletcher nonetheless tried. “The Apaches who will come here, maybe today, certainly tomorrow, are not children. They’re warriors and they won’t talk nice and they won’t consider you their friend. They believe anyone who is not an Apache is an enemy, and that includes you, Estelle, and the rest of the people here.”

“My disciples are with me,” the Chosen One said. “And, like me, they do not fear the Apache. We are not their enemies and we will make them understand that.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Mister, you can’t make an Apache do anything he doesn’t want to do. If you don’t leave now, you’ll all be dead by this time tomorrow, and then it won’t make any difference.”

One of the younger men, small and thin with quick black eyes, stepped in front of the Chosen One. “You two ride on out of here,” he said, his accent strongly Boston Yankee and accusing. “It’s you who will get the Apaches all riled up and bring them down on us.”

An angry murmur of agreement went through the rest of the disciples, and a dirty-cheeked youngster peeked out from behind her mother’s skirt and stuck her tongue out at Fletcher.

“No! That is not our way,” the Chosen One said, holding up his staff for quiet. “We will invite these men to break bread with us, and then they must leave us in peace.”

Fletcher swung out of the saddle and walked to the Chosen One. “Know this: I’m not leaving here until I know Estelle is safe, even if I have to take her with me.”

The man smiled. “I think that will be for my wife to decide.”

Charlie and Fletcher led their mounts to the lower pueblo, but at a word from the Chosen One a pair of teenage boys took the horses. “We will stable them while you eat and we have grain,” the man said.

The Chosen One waved a hand, taking in the surrounding hills. “The Lord has provided us with everything we need here. There are plenty of edible plants in the mountains and we grow corn and beans and squash. Next year we plan to plant cotton and weave it into our clothing.”

“I don’t suppose,” Charlie said as they stopped at one of the doors to a room in the pueblo, “you have coffee?”

“That we cannot grow, though it is said it grows wild in the mountains.”

“Just askin’,” Charlie said, disappointment writ large on his face.

The Chosen One ushered them inside, and Fletcher and Charlie found themselves in a largish room warmed by a crude brazier in a corner that burned fragrant cedar logs. Woven mats covered the dirt floor, and a single shelf tacked to one of the walls held shards of brightly colored pottery.

“That was made by the old ones who lived here hundreds of years ago,” the Chosen One said by way of explanation. “They were famous for their graceful water jars and cooking pots of red, black, and white, all decorated in scrolls and squares and triangles. These broken shards are all that is left. We collect them in the upper pueblos.”

“What happened to them?” Charlie asked. “Seems to me they could hole up here forever if need be.”

“No one knows,” the Chosen one said. “Around four hundred years ago they just vanished.”

Charlie nodded. “Apaches, probably.”

“Perhaps,” the Chosen One said. He waved a hand, directing Fletcher and Charlie to a mat. “We live very simply here. We use only mats for sitting and for sleeping.”

A few moments later a young blond woman stepped into the room carrying a wooden platter of food and a jug. She was obviously pregnant, and she smiled at Fletcher as she laid the platter and the jug on the floor beside him.

“I will bring cups,” she said, then turned and left.

“Is that Estelle Stark?” Fletcher asked when the girl had gone.

The Chosen One nodded. “She is my wife. Estelle is my right hand, my rod, and my staff.”

Fletcher said nothing. The girl was in danger both from Scarlet Hays and the Apaches, and if he were to save her life he had to get her away from this madman.