It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) (2 page)

“And you’ve never seen her?”

“Nope. Too good to be true. Everything working out so smooth. Bound to blow up on me. Did you ever get a truly good break?”

“Not many.”

“Bought me a place up on the Wyoming line. Came down to buy a couple good bulls from the Triple B Ranch—”

“You know Stuart Brannon?”

“He was gone. Made a deal with one of his men. They’ll ship them up in the spring. Fixin’ to go settle down and now this.”

Tap fixed his attention on the declining sun across the Ar
izona horizon. “That’s a tough one, Hatcher. I can promise you I’ll try to get you out of here.”

The man closed his eyes. His lungs labored with every breath. “Headin’ out of state?”

“That’s my intention.”

“Runnin’ from the law?”

“What?”

“I’ve seen men on the run. Catchin’ the stage out in the open. Always lookin’ back. Never sayin’ a word until those Indians a
ttacked.”

“I was arrested for a murder I didn’t commit. Either I run, or I rot down in Yuma.”

“You got a place to go?”

“Anywhere away from Arizona, that’s all.”

“How about a side trip to Fort Collins? To find Suzanne.”

“Suzanne?”

“Suzanne Cedar. My fiancée. She deserves to know that I didn’t walk out on her. She’s too nice a girl for that.”

Tap swiped the sweat from his full, dark ey
ebrows. His hand slid across his face. “Sure. I’ll do that much for you.” He leaned closer to the wounded man. “Hatcher?”

The man opened his eyes. “Yes?”

“I thought . . . maybe you were gone. I’ll go and tell the girl what happened. When were you supposed to meet her, and where?”

“It’s in the letters.”

“What letters?”

“In my saddlebags. A stack of letters. Some money. Take
’
em to her. She can sell the ranch and have enough to go back home. Start a new life.”

“Just in case those saddlebags didn’t su
rvive the stage fire, where were you going to meet her?”

“Wemberly House. Fort Collins. Or on the road out to the Triple Creek Ranch, if I’m late. That’s my place. Way out west of Vi
rginia Dale you can . . .”

“Hatcher?”

The man’s chest rattled.

“You got other kin up there I should n
otify?”

“Nope. I just bought the place. Don’t know folks up there.”

“How about back East? You want me to write to your mama and daddy?”

“They’re gone. All gone. I expect to be seein’
’
em soon enough. It’s sure gettin’ cold fast.”

“You got the faith. That’s for sure. I’ll tell that Cedar woman that you died believin’.”

“Tell her to go back home. Tell her that, ya hear?”

“I hear ya.”

“Land’s too rough. A refined lady . . . all alone. I shouldn’t have asked her to come. Should never have got her hopes up. Andrews, are you there?”

Tap touched the man’s forehead. “I’m here, Hatcher. I’m not leavin’ ya.”

“I can’t feel nothin’. I can’t see nothin’. Tell her I loved her, Andrews. Tell her I loved her more than anything in this whole world. The Lord will take care of her. Won’t He? Andrews?”

“Yeah, I reckon that’s His job. He’ll take care of her. Now you just—”

A broad smile broke across the man’s face. All anguish dissolved.

“Hatcher? What is it? Hatcher?”

He searched the man’s neck for a pulse.

He either died thinking of that Miss Cedar .
 . . or Jesus. I guess there are worse ways to go.

For the next two hours, Tap hauled all four bo
dies to the crest of the rocky knoll and stacked them together. Then he  piled rocks over them.

“Boys, I suppose you all have gotten your rewards for this life by now. But since I didn’t meet a one of you until this morning, I don’t have much to say. This isn’t the funeral. When I get to a town, I’ll send
’
em back to carry you off and bury you proper. But maybe this’ll keep the buzzards and coyotes off. It ain’t much, but it’s the best I got. I hope there’s someone around to do the same for me someday. We backed
’
em down, boys. Someday they’ll call these boulders Shootout Rocks or somethin’ like that. Yes sir, we backed the whole bunch down.”

Tap wiped his dirty face and jammed the gray hat back on his head. He sat down on the rocks, pulled off his boots, and dumped out pebbles and sand.

It’s a mystery. A man wears fifteen-inch stove-top boots under his duckin’s and still gets sand in there. I won’t miss you, desert. I won’t miss Arizona at all. Okay, I might miss one or two of the ladies . . .

Stretching on his boots, he stood and headed for the I
ndian pony. “You are something. I grab myself a horse to ride out of here, and you’re so shiny they could spot you in a dust storm on a moonless night. How am I goin’ to prowl past those Navajos on a nickel-plated cayuse like you?”

Hugging close to the rocks, Tap slipped down the hil
lside and crawled over to the still-smoldering stagecoach. Most of the front of the coach was destroyed, but the back boot was partially intact. Several valises had escaped damage. He sorted through them and found a dark wool overcoat, a green blanket, a half-filled canteen, and saddlebags stamped “ZH.”

“I don’t think anyone would co
mplain if I allocated these for my own purposes. Hatcher, I’ll carry these back to your girl, too.”

He kept low and scurried back to the safety of the rocks.

They’ll be out there. They’ll be watching.

After dark he poured a little warm, stale water into his hat and let the horse lick it up. Then he pulled the old army sa
ddle off the horse and tossed the green blanket over the pinto. It stretched from the horse’s dark neck to the middle of its back. He let the long sides hang down, covering the horse to its knees. Then he sat the saddle and cinched it tight. Finally, he tied the long dark coat to the back of the saddle to cover the pony's rump.

“Not all your color is covered, old boy, but maybe we can slip past them in the night.”

Sitting in the saddle, he tossed the saddlebags over his lap and laid the Winchester on top.

“Let’s see what you got, Mr. Indian Pony. They know we’re headin’ north. But I can’t go south. By now every she
riff in the territory has got the news from Yuma.”

Riding the cuts, arroyos, and draws, Tap meandered through the starlit desert.

No streams to cross.

No roads to follow.

No coyotes.

No trees.

No buildings.

And, Tap was grateful to note, no N
avajos.

By early daylight he plodded the horse across a lightly traveled road that extended north. He tugged the blanket and coat off and rubbed the sweat off the Indian pony. “You going to make it, boy? This old desert is hot enough without a heavy coat.”

As he rode along, he dug through Zachariah Hatcher’s saddlebags.

“Zach, you got any description of your place? Tr
iple Creek Ranch isn’t much to go by. And I've been wonderin', don’t suppose you’d mind me using a little of this money to buy a new horse? Nothin’ personal, old boy, but I can’t ride one that can be seen for six miles." He paused. "I’ll be hornswoggled. Here are those letters from his girl. Looks like he about wore them out.”

Two men rode down the road toward him. He pulled back the hammer on his Winchester but left it lying on his lap. Then he tugged his hat low and avoided looking up with more than a tip of the hat as they passed.

A slight breeze from the northwest kept the desert sun at a tolerable level. Tap shoved his hat back and scanned the letters.

Her brother is Abel. He's out here somewhere. Maybe she can live with him? Feed store and horses in Kentucky. She’s twenty-two, but that was April 24, 1880. That makes her twenty-four. Rather tall? That’s nice. I like tall women. Golden hair. A pretty blonde? No, if she were a pretty blonde, she’d be married by now.
’
Course, she might be a widow. But Hatcher never mentioned that.

Baptist? Sings in the Baptist choir. Reads French novels. I bet she wears long, dark dresses and looks down her nose at “ru
ffians,” no doubt.
’
Course, Zachariah seemed to be a religious fellow. Maybe they would have made a pair.

Here’s another.  Virginia City, Montana? Zach drove cattle to Montana. She made a $12 quilt. Sermons by Mr. Moody? Never heard of him. Friends getting married. Scar? Hatcher had a scar? I didn’t see one. She likes huntin’ birds with a pump sho
tgun. Got bucked off a bay mare. She sent him ginger -cookies.

And this one says October: Father’s sick. Can’t find Abel. Photograph? She sent him a picture?

Tap dug through the saddlebag. “Zach, there’s no photograph in here. Not of a lady. Of the whole church choir?”

Probably had it in his vest. Wonder what she looks like? Sings. Plays the piano. Likes large families. Moving kind of quickly, but at her age I suppose you need to. Afraid of violent men. He’s su
pposed to send her a photograph.

Now in this one, father’s dying. Received a photograph .
 . . “a little hard to see face under the hat,” she says. Zach bought the ranch. She can talk to him better than other suitors. Zach, she’s getting her spurs hooked in your flank. She asks about Mexican ladies. “Are they irresistibly beautiful?” You bet they are, darlin’. ’Course, I don’t know what Zachariah told you.

Picking out another letter, he carefully unfolded it.
Her father died. Mother’s moving to Chicago, selling the business. This is not a good year for Miss Suzanne Cedar. And the ranch sounds very “remote.” Wants to bring out some horses, buy a piano. Here it is! She accepts the ring and agrees to marry him. I warned you, Zach. She caught you fair and square. She’s a “tried-and-true romantic.” Oh boy, you just might have lucked out by dying, Mr. Hatcher. This is no place for a romantic.

Now this one says he’s in Prescott. She’s spending the summer at her mother’s in Chicago. Coming to Denver. Bringing her i
nheritance? An inheritance! Hatcher, you sly fox, you might have been right. Plain women can make good wives.

Here’s the last one. Okay, she’ll be in Denver on the twentieth. That’s next week. By Thursday she’ll be in Fort Collins. She a
dmits the choir picture wasn’t all that good. Sure, now you tell him.

I count every day and pray for each to speed along until we meet. I’m a little scared to launch out into the frontier. You will have to be my strength.

Tap folded the letters and shoved them back into the saddlebags. “So sorry, darlin’, you’re goin’ to have to find that strength on your own. Hatcher was right about one thing—this is no place for a lady of your sensitivities.”

A little past noon he rode into Mexican Wells, the last Ar
izona village before the Utah border. A remote haven for those who wanted to hide from civilization.

He told the story of the shootout to the owner of the ca
ntina, who promised to send some men out to bring back the bodies. Then he traded in the pinto, McClellan, and a few cash dollars for a tall brown horse and a good Texas saddle.

“Some Indian might ride in here mad as a rattler and claim that’s his horse,” he advised the buyer.

“That’s nothin’,” the man roared. “If a certain feller finds you on that brown, using his saddle, you’re goin’ to wish you were back with those Injuns.”

“Can I ride north with it?”

“Yep, but don’t plan on bringing it back to Arizona.”

Tap crouched with his back to the wall on a crate next to a broken table that had been rebuilt more than once. Tos
sing the saddlebags across the table, he ordered off the sparse menu. Soon he dipped a chunk of bread in steamy, spicy stew. A woman in a soiled white dress startled him.

She plopped down. “If it isn’t Mr. Hatcher. You come back to see me?”

“Hatcher? You think I’m . . .?”

Her eyes grew wide. “Hey, it’s okay with me. If you want a
nother name, who am I to complain? My name ain’t really Sassy, but you probably knowed that. You didn’t change your mind, did ya? Or are you still all tied up with that Kentucky girl?”

Tap swallowed a big piece of tough beef without chewing it. “Actually, darlin’, I’m not .
 . .”

His voice trailed off. Four grimy, rifle-carrying men spor
ting Deputy U.S. Marshal badges barged into the cantina.

“You’re not what?” Sassy pressed.

Tap squeezed his hat down. His right hand dropped to the walnut grip of his holstered .44. “Eh, I’m not all that hung up on Miss Cedar.”

“Miss Suzanne Cedar. That’s all you talked about last week.
’
Course, I was feelin’ my whiskey at the time. And you was clean-shaven. This Arizona sun must have done you good. You look even more handsome than before.”