Ralph Compton - Down on Gila River

“All right, Sam,” he said aloud. “Think this thing through.”

It could’ve been Moseley, a big man riding a sorrel hoss.

“But you’re as blind as a snubbin’ post,” he said to himself.

He might be here to rescue Hannah and Lori.

“Or the rider might have been one of the Wells brothers, maybe ol’ Starvin’ Dan hisself.”

Sam dropped the butt of his cigarette on the ground and rubbed it out under his heel.

This was getting him nowhere.

He’d seen a rider who looked—to a shortsighted man—like Vic Moseley. That’s all he had.

Then a thought came to him.

Maybe the Kiowa saw the rider. James was a far-seeing man and wouldn’t make a mistake. If it was Moseley, James would know it.

Sam looked at the blue sky and the soaring sun and wished for nightfall.

Chapter 13

The long day slowly shaded into evening, and Sam Sawyer lit the fire. At the stream, he filled the small, blackened coffeepot Mayor Meriwether had provided, and then threw in a handful of Arbuckle’s. He settled the pot on the coals, and his ears reached into the night, listening for the approach of the Kiowa. He heard nothing but the rush of the spring and the rustle of the breeze in the trees.

The night birds were already pecking at the first stars as Sam searched through a burlap sack to find out what else His Honor had so thoughtfully provided. A loaf of sourdough bread, already spotted all over with green, a slab of salt pork that didn’t smell right, a small package of sugar, a twist of salt, and a slab of apple pie that didn’t smell right either.

Mayor Meriwether wanted his bratty kid’s skewbald pony back, but it seemed he wanted to do it as cheaply as possible.

Sam shook his head. He’d always said that men and barbed wire had their good points, but it was tough to find any in Meriwether, the mayor of Lost Mine.

Nights in the high desert country of the Gila are chilly, and Sam shivered and edged closer to his hatful of fire, his eyes probing the mysterious shadows, his mind on dead Apaches, joyless ha’nts, and the like.

Where the hell was the Kiowa? He wasn’t much of an Injun to begin with. Had he ended up getting lost or captured or shot?

Sam, growing as cantankerous as all get out, growled at the night and the chill breeze and made up his mind.

He needed coffee now. “To hell with the Kiowa,” he said aloud.

A distant owl asked, Whooo? and Sam said, “You heard me, the Kiowa.”

The bird repeated the question, but this time Sam ignored it and poured coffee into a rusted, battered tin cup with a loose handle.

He smoked a cigarette, drained his cup, poured more, and smoked another cigarette as the waxing moon rose higher in the sky and illuminated the ledge with opalescent light.

Sam threw more sticks on his lonely fire, then sought his ragged blankets that smelled of Sheriff Moseley’s jail.

It took him a while, worrying and wondering about the Kiowa, but finally he slept.

* * *

The sound of a horse grazing nearby woke Sam up to morning light. He rose to his feet, shifted his holstered Colt into place, and spent the next couple of minutes working the kinks out of his back and hips. Volcanic rock a comfortable bed does not make, he decided.

Sam restarted the fire, boiled up coffee, then breakfasted on a thick sandwich of toasted bread and broiled salt pork. As he chewed, he contemplated his next move.

First things first: He’d need to scout around for James. After that, he’d get as close as he dared and study the lay of Dan Wells’s dugout, and by that he meant the saloon, store, crib, and horse corrals.

Were Hannah and Lori held prisoner there? That was something else he’d need to find out.

Sam sighed deep in his chest. It was a lot to ask of a man with nearsighted eyes and no skill as a gun hand.

And what about Vic Moseley? Was it really him he’d seen on the trail yesterday? If it was him, what was he doing in Dan Wells’s territory?

Sam asked himself plenty of questions, but his answers didn’t amount to a hill of beans, which wasn’t surprising since he had none. After he threw the last of the coffee on the fire, Sam moved both saddles and bridles to the base of the rock wall where they’d be out of sight of prying eyes.

The horses would have to fend for themselves. Taking the trail to the Wells hideout was a job for a walking man. A rider could be seen from a far distance, and the Wells brothers surely had sharp outlaw eyes.

Sam left the ledge, cleared the piñon, and reluctantly stepped onto the trail.

His confidence level was no higher than the soles of his boots.

Chapter 14

All a worrying man does is ride a rocking horse that doesn’t get him anywhere.

Sam Sawyer recognized that fact and did his best to concentrate on the job at hand. He kept off the marked trail as much as possible, making his stumbling way through thickets of juniper and brush, wary of becoming a target for a hidden marksman.

But after an hour of walking, he’d seen no one. Once a black bear stopped to study him, then huffed its disdain and strolled away, as though the doings of a scrawny old cowboy weren’t worthy of its notice.

The trail peaked, then abruptly sloped downward. The high pinnacles of the Mogollon Mountains were now in sight, silhouetted against the bright sky, but all Sam saw was a blur. He knew they were mountains all right, but the size, shape, and distance of them, he couldn’t tell.

Downhill walking was easier, and Sam made faster progress, though he constantly got his feet tangled in brush and roots and he fell twice, whispering cusses when what he wanted was to bellow.

Thirty minutes before the noon hour by Sam’s watch, he found the Kiowa.

“Ankle’s busted,” the Indian said. Then, to make matters worse, he added, “I mean, real bad.” James lay on his back in brush, his moccasined foot neatly wedged between two almost rectangular rocks. His rifle lay beside him, the stock broken.

Sam read the signs. “How the hell did you step in a hole?” he said.

“Because I didn’t see it. That’s how the hell I stepped in a hole.”

Sam said, “You’re the most useless man I ever met.”

James said nothing, but he grimaced as Sam tugged on his leg.

“Nah, it’s stuck fast. I’m gonna have to move the rocks,” Sam said, irritated to the point of anger.

The Kiowa became defensive. “It wasn’t my fault. Ankle busted and rifle busted.” He glared at Sam. “I go home now.”

“The hell you will,” Sam said. “You’re my eyes. I need you right here.”

“I can’t walk. I go home.”

“You’ll walk. I’ll fix you up with a crutch, do you just fine.” Sam stared down the Kiowa, then said, “What about your wife an’ young’un? If you give up and don’t come back with the skewbald pony, Moseley will kill them, and you, or worse.”

“Maybe he don’t care no more,” James said.

“He cares about something, I reckon. I think I saw him yesterday, headed for the Wells place.”

That got the Kiowa’s attention. “Are you sure of that, Sammy?”

“No, I ain’t sure. But I reckon it was him I seen him on the trail. Hell, it had to be him.”

“Why would Moseley be here?”

“If the yellow-haired woman you saw was Hannah Stewart, he could be trying to save her.”

“Then it’s a good time for me to leave. Moseley won’t be in Lost Mine. I can get my family and light a shuck. Go far away.”

“And leave me here without eyes?”

“Come with me, Sammy. You don’t give a hill of beans about the skewbald pony any longer.”

“You’re right about that, I don’t. But I do care about Hannah and her daughter.”

“And I care about my own wife and daughter,” the Kiowa said.