Ralph Compton - Down on Gila River

Tucker was too far to hear their words, but he heard the jabs and harsh cut of their voices. These were angry men, all three. But a gut feeling told Tucker that the man on the ground had been wronged somehow.

Surely I should do something, say something, thought Tucker. Then he realized that if he did, he too would die. Gracie was a feeble rack of skin and bone, as was he. His only possession, clutched in his hand, was a green glass whiskey bottle. Empty. He didn’t dare move. Felt sure that if they saw him, he’d be a dead man in short order.

Isn’t that what you want? he asked himself. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for more than two years now? Tapering off your days until there is so little left of you that you’ll eventually dry up, become a husk rattling in a winter breeze?

And yet, as he watched this big man struggle to live, to fight these attackers, darting in and yipping at him, like wild dogs prodding a downed deer, Tucker knew he had to help this man. But how?

His decision was made for him when the thicker, shorter of the two men leveled his pistol across his other forearm at the big man swaying on his knees, squinted down the barrel, and touched the trigger. The pistol bucked and the big man jounced again, flopped partly onto his left side, and lay in the grass, hands clutched tight beneath him.

* * *

Tucker watched as the two killers circled the man in opposite directions. He tensed when at the last minute it seemed as if he might be seen. One of the men had a peculiar habit of jerking his head at an odd angle, a nervous condition, no doubt. The smaller man hopped down from his horse, said something to his companion, then rummaged in the big man’s coat. He pulled out what looked like a folded white paper. It looked as though the man was smiling. He stuffed the paper into his own coat, then mounted up.

Tucker kept silent and unmoving, and the men soon thundered off in the direction the dead man’s horse had traveled. Long minutes passed, and all sign of the riders dissipated into the chilling air, leaving Samuel Tucker shivering atop his horse. He listened for a moment to the soughing of the breeze through the treetops and stared at the back of the big sheepskin coat. Dead for sure, but Tucker didn’t dare move.

He thought about the man and his killers. They had been the first sign of humans he’d had in several days, how many he did not know. Finally he tapped Gracie with his heels and she walked forward, eager, he figured, to sample the green grass before them.

A meadow such as this, bound to be a ranch nearby. Maybe they would know who the man was. As he approached the body, Tucker’s shivering increased. He knew it was for more than just the cold creeping in between his thready clothes and the goose-bumped skin beneath. When he was some yards from the body, Tucker reined up and slid off the horse, who grunted and dipped her head to the grass and began nosing and cropping with gusto. He let the hackamore reins trail. He had long ago given up worrying if Gracie would wander off—he fancied she was as tired and as uncaring as he.

If that man’s coat had been gray, he thought, stepping carefully, shifting his glance up toward the direction ahead where he’d last seen the two riders recede into the landscape, it might well be mistaken for a great rock marring this otherwise cleared meadow. He ventured forward another step, realized he had the bottle clutched tight in his hand, and held on to it. Not much of a weapon, but it would be better than nothing should those shooters decide to double back to admire their handiwork.

He drew closer, tried to stop the thoughts occurring to him—how, despite the blood and the hole in the back, warm that coat would be. If not for the man’s wide shoulders and obvious girth, Tucker suspected he was of similar height. Any bulk and muscle he had once had—and it had been enough to fill out and keep solid his thick frame—had in the past couple of years of wandering dissipated till he was a tall, gaunt man, unshaven and sunken-eyed. But try as he might he could not think of anything other than that warm coat now.

He cut wide around the body and looked down at the man. He saw no breath rise from the mouth, saw no movement of the chest. What he did see was a man lying on his left shoulder, large hands gripping a belly glistening with blood. The shirt’s belly had once been a checkerboard pattern of white and sky blue checks, but now was a knot of bloody hands and sopping red cloth.

Tucker turned his back on the direction he’d been so cautious about looking, and knelt before the hunched form. Seeing that big white-haired head, clean-shaven face, a nose that had been broken a time or two, the jutting brow and windburned cheeks—it all reminded him of his father, dead long years ago, and buried by Tucker’s own hand back in Texas. He’d laid him to rest beside the woman he’d pined for all of Samuel’s life, the mother Samuel never knew, lost to them both from a fevered sickness.

Tucker cut loose any stray thoughts he had for his own safety and decided that since he had watched the man die, the least he could do was figure out who he was, maybe let his kin know, provided there were any. Barring that, he could try for the nearest town. He looked up at Gracie, who had not moved but a step or two as she dined on the toothsome grasses.

He wasn’t sure he could hoist the man aboard her. But even if he could, he wasn’t so sure the old horse could carry the dead man. Tucker set down the empty bottle and knelt close before the man, his face tightening as he reached for the blood-specked lapels. First things first, he told himself. Have to see if I can find something on him that might identify him . He looked around again, half hoping he’d see the man’s buckskin headed his way. Nothing moved except Gracie’s mouth.

Tucker looked back to the man, reached to part the coat, and a puffed and bloodied hand, the palm cored and oozing gore, snatched Tucker’s left wrist and held on with a surprising grip.

Tucker yelped and toppled backward. He landed raggedly, his eyes wide as they met the hard stare of the gut-shot dead man.

The big hand, though mangled, held him fast. A sound like a sigh came from him. Then a blood bubble rose from his mouth and popped, and he spoke in a voice as strong as his grip, “Tell Emma . . . heart . . .”

His blue-gray eyes seemed to brighten as if lit from within. Then his eyelids fluttered and closed. The sighing sound came again, then leaked out with his breath, and the man was finally dead.

The bloody hand remained gripped on to Tucker’s own thin wrist. He pried loose the work-thick fingers, lowered the hand to the grass. “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t thieving from you,” he whispered. “I would not do that. I . . .”

What was the use? The man was dead and he had a woman in his life with the name of Emma. How do I find such a person? Is there a town along here somewhere? A river town, he thought. That would make sense. And there was bound to be a ranch close by. Maybe it was this man’s place.

But no matter what, he couldn’t bring himself to feeling again in the man’s coat for something to identify him by. It seemed too big a violation now. He’d just have to do his best, knowing there was no way on earth he was going to be able to hoist the man up onto Gracie—neither of them had the strength for such an undertaking.

Tucker stood, his hands on his waist and his breath hissing out of him. Just have to leave him, take a chance that something might get him . He looked down at him again. There wasn’t even anything he could do to cover him up. He had no blanket of his own, and the man’s coat was on him tight. Then he remembered that the big man’s hat had pinwheeled away. He looked around and to his surprise located it not far off. He fitted it tight to the man’s head and tugged it down low and snug, covering the man’s face.