Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

The day was slowly dying, shading into night, and a few flakes of snow tumbled in the air. Fletcher shivered. He had to make it to some kind of shelter before the temperature dropped much further or he could freeze to death in these wet clothes.

How far away was that damned ferry?

There was only one way to find out.

Fletcher glanced toward the last dim glow of the setting sun, gauging the time, then turned to the east and, unsteady on his feet, his head spinning, began to walk upstream.

The riverbank was lined with cottonwood and willow and was mostly flat, though in many places the underbrush grew thick, slowing Fletcher’s progress.

Here and there where the bank had crumbled under the relentless pressure of the current, the rushing waters had gouged great semicircles out of the land, the bottoms covered in rock-strewn sand and massive boulders, and these obstacles also took time to cross.

The rising temperature of his own body as he struggled forward was rapidly drying Fletcher’s clothes, at least those nearest his skin, but amid the gathering darkness the night was getting colder, and very soon he would be unable to see where he was going.

Up ahead there was a bend in the river where a spit of land jutted into the water. It looked to be mostly hard-packed sand, but there were cottonwoods growing among scattered boulders at the point nearest the bank.

Fletcher stumbled forward and rounded the spit, taking the easiest route across the sand. When he cleared the promontory he saw what he’d been hoping to see. About two hundred yards away was the ferry, smoke still belching from the chimney of the shack.

There was only one problem.

It was on the other side of the river.

Twenty-four

Fletcher stood on the bank, stunned by this melancholy development. In his befuddled state he had never even considered the possibility that he might have been washed up on the bank opposite the ferry.

He sat on the grass under a cottonwood, trying to get his brain to work. He had to think this thing through.

After a few minutes he realized there was only one solution to the problem—he’d have to swim for it.

But that solved one problem and created another. He was a poor swimmer, and the river at this point was wide.

Fletcher’s hand strayed to his shirt pocket and it took him several moments before he remembered his makings were ruined. Again he directed his growing rage at Red Jones, angrily cursing the man under his breath.

He had to get across the river and soon—but how?

The answer finally came to him.

Back at the spit he’d seen the skeletal trunk of a dead cottonwood lying half-buried in the sand. If he could get the trunk into the water, he could float across.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but Fletcher knew he had no alternative. He had to save Estelle, and that dead tree could be her salvation—and his.

Wearily he rose to his feet and retraced his steps to the sandbar.

The cottonwood was easier to move than he had feared, mainly because it had been stripped of its branches in some ancient tumble down the river when it was in flood and there was nothing left to dig deep into the sand.

Fletcher lifted one end of the log free, then the other. The trunk was heavy and awkward to handle, but after several attempts he managed to pry it loose from the sand and drag it to the water’s edge. He stripped off his mackinaw, then his boots and gun belts, and bundled them up inside the coat, using the arms to tie it all together.

Fletcher placed his wet package on top of the trunk and pushed it into the river, holding on with his right arm. He kicked out with his feet, and the log floated slowly into the current.

The water was cold and its icy slap made Fletcher gasp. He kicked out harder and the trunk, with agonizing slowness, nosed further into the wide Smoky.

The current was strong and he was slowly being swept downstream of the sandbar, but his steadily churning feet kept the trunk on a steady, if slanting, course for the opposite bank.

It took the best part of fifteen minutes before Fletcher felt the trunk grind across rock and come to a sudden halt. He was still about ten yards from the bank, but here the water was shallow, and he managed to splash his way to shore, holding his precious bundle above his head.

Fletcher clambered up the steep side of the bank and fell on the grass, numb from cold and teetering on the edge of exhaustion. After a few moments he climbed slowly to his feet and pulled on his boots, then buckled on his gun belts.

He shrugged into his wet mackinaw, then checked his Colts, punching out each round and drying them one by one, or as much as he was able to get them dry, on his damp shirt.

Reholstering his guns, Fletcher removed his spurs, shoving them into the pockets of his mackinaw where their jingle would not betray him, and walked toward the ferry and Red Jones’s shack.

The reckoning was coming, and the anger in Fletcher was a growing thing, building inexorably with each stiff, painful step he took. Jones had played his hand well and thought he had the game won.

But very soon now Fletcher would up the ante—betting all he had on a pair of Mr. Sam Colt’s sixes.

When Fletcher got close to the shack, he drew the gun from his cross-draw holster. There was no one around, and, luckily, Jones did not seem to own a dog that would bark an alarm.

The shack had one small, uncurtained window to the front. On cat feet, Fletcher stepped quietly to the window, dropped to one knee, and looked inside.

Estelle was sitting on a cot opposite Jones. Her shirt was unbuttoned and hung over her waist, exposing creamy, pink-tipped breasts that were still full and swollen from her pregnancy.

The ferryman sat at a table, a whiskey jug to his lips, never, for a single moment, taking his eyes off the half-naked girl as he drank.

It seemed that eager anticipation played a major role in Jones’s perverse sexual appetite, and he appeared to be in no hurry to throw his unwashed body on Estelle.

Fletcher shook his head. There was just no accounting for people.

A sudden shuffling noise to his right made him duck back from the window, his gun coming up fast.

The Cheyenne woman, her arms loaded with firewood, had walked around the corner of the shack. Now she stopped in her tracks, her only reaction to Fletcher’s presence a slight widening of her dark eyes.

Fletcher put a finger to his lips and whispered: “Sssh . . .” The woman stood where she was, saying nothing.

It was now or never, Fletcher decided. The Cheyenne might open her mouth and scream at any moment.

He stepped quickly to the door of the shack, judged its strength, then kicked it in with his right boot, following through when timbers splintered and the door crashed open.

Jones, his face all at once managing to register fear, surprise, and shock, let the jug slip from his hand. It crashed onto the table, spilling whiskey across the rough pine boards. The man roared a vile oath and dived for Fletcher’s rifle standing near the stove.

He never made it.

Fletcher’s Colt barked once, twice, three times, and Jones slammed heavily into the wall, rocking the flimsy shack to its foundations. He sank to the floor, three bullet holes forming a perfect ace of clubs dead center in his chest.

“I finally played my hand, Jones,” Fletcher said, talking to a dead man. “And I reckon you’ve cashed in your chips.”

“Help me,” Estelle said, without a glance at Jones’s body. She pulled up her shirt and turned her back to Fletcher.

“What do you want me to do?” Fletcher asked, smoke drifting around him. He punched out the spent shells from the cylinder of his Colt, reloaded, then holstered his gun.