Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (19 page)

“I meant nothing by it, Earl,” said Buck. He tried to hand Earl the reins to Ellen's horse, but Earl refused to take them. Instead, he flagged Avery McRoy forward and gestured for him to take them. McRoy looked put out at the task.

“Just make sure you get there soon,” Earl said gruffly to Buck Hite. “I only need men I can count on.”

As Earl spoke to Buck Hite, Dirty Joe slipped his horse forward ahead of McRoy, saying to him in a guarded voice, “I've got her reins, Avery.”

“Much obliged,” McRoy whispered in reply. “Leading her has made my arm sore as a boil.”

Earl leaned slightly down to Buck Hite and said, “Buck, I'll tell you this much.... Your boys Daryl and Lon killing that woman and old man for me has gotten you a top spot in my operation. Once we pull this bank job you'll wonder why we didn't get together years before now.” He gave a thin, quick smile, then straightened in his saddle and leveled his hat. Looking back and forth along the street, he shook his head. “This whole damned town is made of mud. I'm glad you talked us out of burning it.”

Buck Hite only nodded, tipping his hat as Earl, McRoy, and Dirty Joe backed their horses and rode away, Joe leading Ellen's horse, which stayed right up beside his. “There goes trouble in the making,” Buck Hite murmured to himself, seeing the flushed and aroused look on Dirty Joe's face and the guarded smile the woman passed to him. Buck shook his head and walked back to the Ace High Saloon, where his men awaited him.

At the edge of town, Ellen Waddell slowed her horse back a step, deliberately making Dirty Joe fall behind with her while McRoy and Cherokee Earl rode on ahead. “Come on, Miss Ellen!” Joe whispered warily. “He's going to suspect something.” He jerked her horse forward.

“All right,” Ellen replied in a hushed tone, “but can't you see he's already tiring of me? He'll soon pass me off to McRoy or one of those men back there, or anyone he feels like—”

“Shhh, don't say that, Ellen! I'm not going to let that happen to you.... I swear I won't.”

“Then you better do something quick,” Ellen said, letting her horse ride sidled against his, “or it's going to be too late, and you and I will never be together.” She gazed deep into his eyes and said, “I can't stand the thought of us never being together, can you?”

“God, no!” he said, a slight tremor in his voice. “But what can I do about it right now?”

She moved her eyes from Dirty Joe's slowly, making sure that his eyes followed hers to McRoy and Cherokee Earl's backs. “You know what to do, Joe,” she whispered with finality.

Dirty Joe stared at the two men for a moment, the tendons in his neck drawn tight at the thought running through his mind. “Soon, Ellen.... Soon, I promise.”

Back in Drake at the Ace High Saloon, Eddie Ray Moon, Clifford Reed, and Fat Cyrus Kerr stood huddled at the bar and listened to Buck Hite talk about their newly formed alliance with Cherokee Earl and the plans for meeting him and his men for the upcoming bank robbery up in Cimarron. “I'd feel better about everything if Daryl and Lon was already back here with us,” said Fat Cyrus. As he spoke, he hiked his baggy trousers up under his belly, the weight of his gun belt constantly working them downward.

“Me too,” Clifford Reed agreed. “I'm a little spooked about it, to tell the truth.”

“Spooked?”
said Buck Hite, showing an amount of contempt for Reed's words.

Reed wasn't a bit embarrassed. “Damn right, spooked,” he said with conviction. “It ain't natural, what Earl told us about this woman, and it was a mistake sending two of our men back to ambush her. How long should it take two men like the Trabough brothers to gun down her and one old man?”

“When you start running things, Clifford, you can ask them kind of questions,” Buck Hite said, jutting his chin, not liking the way Reed questioned his judgment in front of the other men. “But right now I'm still the top bull of this herd.” He tapped a thumb on his broad chest. “I sent them because I told Cherokee Earl I would. You don't throw in with a man like Cherokee Earl Muir unless you've got something to offer.”

Fat Cyrus tossed back a shot of whiskey and wiped his thick hand across his mouth. “Earl was down to only two men and himself,” he said, “not counting the fact that he's riding around with a woman draped across his lap. Looks to me like we're holding the most cards in this game.”

“Yeah,” said Buck Hite, “we might be holding the most ... but the most ain't always the best. I don't care if he's got a woman and her house cat on his lap. We've thrown in with him.” He looked at each of the three men's faces in turn. “Boys, Cherokee Earl is an old hand at this business. He knows the upper country and every hiding place up there. He knows ranchers who'll hide him out and crooked sheriffs who'll tip him off when the law's gotten too close.” He leaned in closer and said almost in a whisper, “He's even got inside information on the bank in Cimarron ... knows when there's a big shipment of money coming in to pay for silver from the silver mines all across the Territory.”

“When is it?” Fat Cyrus asked.

Buck looked at him in disbelief. “Well, now, Cyrus,” he said wryly, “if I knew when it was coming, I reckon I wouldn't need Cherokee Earl at all, would I?”

“Oh,” said Cyrus, nodding. “I see what you mean.”

Buck Hite shook his head, then said to everybody, “Don't ever think I enjoy giving my gang over to somebody else. But for now, if we ever plan on getting ahead, Cherokee Earl is the best way to do it. Sure, he's short of men right now ... got somebody dogging his trail. But why else would he be taking us in?” He looked at each of them again, his eyes asking if they were with him.

Clifford Reed nodded. “I had complaints, Buck. I just needed some filling in.”

“All right.” Buck stared at him, his hand resting on his pistol butt. “Are you properly filled in?”

“Sure.” Clifford shrugged, reaching for the whiskey bottle that stood on the bar. “I'm good.”

“What about you, Cyrus?” Buck asked. “Anything else I need to fill you in on? I had eggs and potatoes for breakfast ... went to the jake about an hour ago ... been going pretty regularly the past few weeks.”

Fat Cyrus looked away from Buck's cold stare.

“What about you, Eddie Ray?” Buck asked the thin, hollow-eyed gunfighter with a pointed chin.

Eddie Ray Moon had been rolling himself a smoke while Buck spoke to the other two men. Now he ran the cigarette in and out of his mouth, wetting it, and let it hang from his lips as he spoke, taking a long match from his shirt pocket. “Do I look like I give a rattling bag full of dry horse shit?”

Fat Cyrus and Clifford Reed chuckled as Eddie Ray struck the match and lit the cigarette. Turning his eyes to Buck Hite, he let go of a long stream of smoke and shook out the match. “Makes no difference to me who we ride with, long as the money's right.” He shot Clifford Reed a look of contempt. “I'll try not to get too spooked by this woman and her grandfather or whoever the hell the old man is.” He made a show of flipping the burnt match away, then leaned back against the bar as if getting comfortable. “You figure out what you want done, then just let me know. I'll kill them so quick they'll forget they was ever bom.”

Cherokee Earl and his party had been gone from Drake for three days when Danielle rode in on the chestnut mare. Dressed in the clothes she'd taken off of Lon Trabough, she looked exactly as she'd intended, a young gunman on the move: lean, wily, and sizing up everyone who passed before him. To Buck Hite and the others, the young gunman looked no different from any other saddle tramp coming in off the high range. Yet, watching the mare pass by the Ace High Saloon, seeing the young gunman with his duster opened in front, revealing the big tied-down Colt perched on his hip, something strikingly familiar caught Fat Cyrus's attention. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

“What have we got here?” Cyrus said to Clifford Reed, the two of them standing on the boardwalk of the Ace High.

“Beats me,” said Clifford. “But he sure carries himself like he's cock of the walk.” Both men watched in silence for a moment as the young gunman rode by. “Nice mare though,” Clifford offered under his breath.

“Think I ought to go get Buck?” Fat Cyrus asked, hiking up his trousers.

“Why?” said Clifford Reed. “Alls he'll do is what we're doing—staring and asking questions.”

From behind the batwing doors of the Ace High, Eddie Ray said, “Don't you suppose it would be a good idea if somebody went and asked this new-comer what he's doing here in Drake? Don't know about you boys, but I always like to have an idea who might or might not be carrying a badge.”

“That's no lawman,” said Cyrus. “I'll wager you on it.”

“No, I don't think so either,” said Clifford. “There's something about a lawman you can always spot ... too well fed or something. This boy is a straight-up gunman, an outlaw just like us, far as I'm concerned.”

Eddie Ray stepped out onto the boardwalk and let the doors flap behind him. “One thing's for sure: neither one of yas would ever know what he is if it meant walking your lazy behinds over and asking him.”

“I'll go if Buck asks me to,” said Fat Cyrus, both him and Clifford Reed watching the rider ease the mare up to a hitchrail out front of a low adobe and stone hotel.

Clifford Reed said, “You're right, Eddie Ray, we ain't going over and asking him a damn thing.... But you know what? I figure that's something you'd be wanting to do by yourself, tough guy that you are and all.”

Eddie Ray took a deep draw on his cigarette and said through a stream of smoke, “Tough guy that I am ... I think I'll do just that.” He flipped the stub of the cigarette away and stepped down off the boardwalk. “Get us a beer, Fat Cyrus,” he said over his shoulder. “This shouldn't take over a minute or two.”

The two men watched Eddie Ray Moon saunter across the street and run his hand along the chestnut mare's damp side as he walked past the hitchrail to the door of the hotel. “That damned fool,” said Clifford Reed, staring alongside Fat Cyrus. “Whoever that gunman is, I almost wish he'd send Eddie Ray back out with a tin can tied to his tail.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Fat Cyrus, easing forward down off the boardwalk. “Come on, let's get over there dose to the window. I want to listen to this.”

In the small lobby of La Rosa Negra Hotel, Danielle stood signing the leather-bound guest register, her saddlebags over her shoulder, her rifle under her arm. She used the name she'd used in the past when she'd traveled as a man, Danny Duggin. Finishing, she slid the register across the ornate countertop into the waiting hands of the Mexican woman across the counter.

The woman started to close the register, but the voice of Eddie Ray Moon said firmly from the front door, “Not so fast, Falina.” He slipped over quickly beside Danielle and placed his hand down flat on the register. Danielle only stared at him from within the dark shadow of her lowered hat brim. “I'd like to see who we have visiting us.”

Falina drew her hands away from the register, shooting a worried look back and forth between the two faces at the counter.
“Por favor!
I do not want the trouble,” she said in stiff English.

“And you won't have any trouble, at least not from me,” said Eddie Ray, spreading a harsh grin at the stranger with the lowered hat brim. “What about you, Mister ... ?” He consulted the register, then finished his words. “Mr. Danny Duggin. Any trouble coming from your direction?”

Danielle lowered her tone of voice a bit and added some gravel to it. “If there was, you'd be past knowing about it by now,” she said.

The words stung Eddie Ray. His grin disappeared. He took a step back from the counter, letting his right hand poise near his pistol butt. “Did I just hear a threat in there?”

Danielle stared at him from the darkness beneath the broad hat brim. “You figure it out,” she said, swiping her free hand across the countertop and picking up the key to her room.

Seeing her gun hand busy holding the key, Eddie Ray grew bolder. As Danielle turned to walk away toward the stairs, Eddie Ray stepped around in front of her, blocking her way. “I already have figured it out,” he said, his fingers opening and closing near the pistol butt. “I say you and me are going have to do some settling up before you go a step farth—”

Danielle cut his words with her rifle butt, jerking it forward from under her arm to nail Eddie Ray's nose flat to his face.

Falina gasped and threw both hands to her face. Eddie Ray staggered backward, blood flying from his crushed nose, his arms flailing out at his sides. His bootheel caught the edge of a brass spittoon and caused him to lose balance for a split second. But that split second was all Danielle needed. She stepped quickly forward, sidled close to Eddie Ray, stuck the rifle barrel between his legs, and tangled his legs with a hard twist of the rifle. Eddie Ray went to the floor face first, a muffled scream resounding as his smashed nose met the hard clay tiles. With the toe of her boot, Danielle reached out and kicked his pistol from its holster, then kicked it across the tile floor, under a long divan.

Outside the open window of the hotel lobby, Fat Cyrus and Clifford Reed both winced at the sound of the rifle butt slamming into Eddie Ray's nose. They winced even more when they'd slipped a peep over the window ledge in time to see his face smack the hard floor. Seeing the young gunman walk away from where Eddie Ray lay writhing on the clay tiles, Clifford and Cyrus ducked away from the window and stared at one another. “Suppose we best go help him,” said Clifford.