Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

Around them the disciples gathered, looking down at their fallen leader, his shattered body lit by the lanterns they carried. The people were silent, each knowing that there would be no resurrection, that this was the end of whatever strange, unreal dreams they had harbored.

Estelle stepped out of the pueblo and dropped to her knees beside her dead husband. “Come back,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Come back to us.”

Scarlet Hays, drunk and belligerent, clutching a jug of mescal, glanced down with bleary eyes at Estelle. “Don’t you go grieving for him, woman,” he said. “Tomorrow you’re leaving with me.”

“Let her be, Hays,” Fletcher said, anger rising in him.

The gunman shrugged. “Just so you got it clear, Fletcher. She’s riding out with me in the morning.”

At that moment, Fletcher realized two things.

The first was that Hays had not been sent here by Falcon Stark to kill the girl. You don’t plan to hold on to a woman you’ve been paid to murder. Hays had stolen the pay wagon and he’d told the truth about heading for Nogales, and only a wry twist of fate—and the Apaches—had brought him here to the pueblo.

The second was that Hays and Wilson would surely try to kill him before they left.

Women clustered around Estelle, their natural empathy for another female’s grief overriding their feelings of betrayal.

The girl was led, sobbing, into the pueblo, her face and the front of her dress stained red from her husband’s blood. She looked to be all eyes, dark circles under them indicating a lack of sleep and her sorrow.

“You men,” Fletcher said, “bury this man with the others.”

They hesitated, and Fletcher said again, “Hell, you can’t let him just lie there.”

One of the men, younger than the rest, left and returned with a shovel, and this galvanized the others into action. A couple of the men lifted the body and carried it toward the burial place, and the remainder reluctantly followed.

“I’d say Mr. Chosen ain’t gonna get much of a send off,” Charlie said, spitting into the snow.

“They put their trust in the Chosen One and now they feel he deceived them,” Fletcher said. “Not only about the Apaches but about doomsday itself. It’s a bitter pill for anybody to swallow.”

Charlie was silent for a moment, then said, “Buck, I don’t think ol’ Scar was sent here to kill Estelle. He wants that woman too bad for his ownself.”

“I’d already come to that conclusion, Charlie.”

“So what happens now?”

Fletcher shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

“You could ride with her to Fort Apache, have her talk to Crook.”

“About what? That her father hates her? I’d say that isn’t going to cut any ice with Crook. Without proof that Stark is trying to murder his daughter, it would be my word against his.” He turned to Charlie with bleak eyes. “If you were Crook, whose word would you take?”

Charlie nodded. “I see what you mean.”

The old man hesitated, and Fletcher saw that he was trying to say something he couldn’t quite frame into words.

“Let’s hear it, Charlie. I got time.”

“Damn, Buck, you always seem to know what I’m thinking.”

“I’d say you were thinking about Scarlet Hays.”

Charlie nodded. “I think he means to kill you.”

“So do I, Charlie.”

The men returned from barying the Chosen One, and gradually the pueblo fell silent. The women had done all they could for Estelle, and now they left her alone with her grief.

Fletcher and Charlie lay on mats in their room, their weapons close to hand.

Out in the darkness, unheard by those in the pueblo, a gray horse tossed its head, jangling the bit, and saddle leather creaked.

The night gathered around the cliff, and pack rats scurried in the upper pueblos. From the pines on the hill an owl asked a question of the horned moon and patiently repeated it again and again. The air was chill, heavy with frost, and a few stars glittered with a hard light, distant lanterns illuminating the way across an infinite universe.

Fletcher dozed, then woke with a start.

Had he heard something?

He lay on his mat, listening. Now he heard it again, a woman’s sharp, frightened gasp, scarce begun before it was muffled.

Charlie was asleep, his rifle lying in his left arm.

Fletcher rose, pulled back the door curtain, and stepped into the darkness.

From somewhere to his left he heard a scuffle of feet and a man’s voice, low and husky, but angry and slurred.

It was the voice of Scarlet Hays—and Estelle’s room was in that direction. Fletcher sprinted across the snow, past the front of the sleeping pueblo. When he reached Estelle’s room he slowed, then stepped to the window and looked inside.

The girl was naked, soapy water on her breasts and shoulders, and at her feet a large pottery basin and a sponge.

Hays had Estelle pinned against the wall, his left hand across her mouth, the other roaming all over her swollen body, exploring.

“You ain’t gonna miss it one bit, little lady,” he said, his voice hoarse with lust. “It ain’t like you’ve never been done plenty times afore.”

Hays fumbled with the buttons on his pants, and above his hand Estelle’s eyes were huge and terrified.

He’d seen enough.

Fletcher threw back the door curtain and stepped quickly inside. His voice cut across the silence like the sharp blade of a knife. “Let her be, Hays.”

The gunman whirled, the front of his shirt damp, and Estelle stepped away, catching up her bloodstained dress, holding it in front of her.

“Damn you, Fletcher,” Hays said, “this is the last time you meddle in my affairs.”

The gunman had been drunk earlier, but now he seemed stone-cold sober and dangerous. His hands were close to his guns, and in the shadow of his derby hat his eyes were glinting chips of ice.

“Walk away from it, Scar,” Fletcher said. “Walk away from it now and we’ll talk about it later.”

“There ain’t gonna be a later, Fletcher, at least not for you.”

And Scarlet Hays drew.

His gun was out of the leather, leveling as he thumbed back the hammer, when Fletcher’s first bullet crashed into his chest. Hays’s eyes went big and he slammed against the wall, tipping over the basin at his feet, water splashing across his boots.

Hays shouldered off the wall, his gun coming up, and Fletcher fired again, the bullet hitting him an inch above his belt buckle. Hays screamed in terrible fury, desperately trying to lift a gun that now seemed too heavy for him, and Fletcher fired again and again.

The butt of Hays’s Colt slipped out of his hand and the gun turned around on his trigger finger, then dropped to the floor. His eyes wild and staring, Hays took a step or two toward Fletcher, a strange grunting sound escaping his throat; then his legs buckled and he fell on his face.

His gun ready, Fletcher turned the gunman over with the toe of his boot. But there was no need for another shot.

Scarlet Hays was dead.

Fletcher punched the empty shells from his gun and reloaded from his gun belt. He looked at Estelle. “Are you all right?”

The girl nodded, her eyes huge and frightened as she looked down at the dead gunman.

People began to crowd into the room, and Fletcher walked through them and stepped outside. Andy Wilson was walking from the wagon, his rifle in his hands.

“Where’s Scar?” he asked.

“Dead,” Fletcher said, his voice flat.

Wilson read what had happened in Fletcher’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw. He laid the rifle at his feet, spread his hands wide, and said, “I ain’t in this, Fletcher. I didn’t know she was your woman.”

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Fletcher said, anger filling the emptiness inside him.