Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (18 page)

For the next two days she avoided Leonard Whirley, but on the morning she left Braden Flats, Danielle made it a point to stop by the New Royal Saloon and thank him for having looked after Sundown for her.

“I wish you would stay another few days,” said Dr. Callaway when she stepped into her stirrups out front of his office. “You've been the first paying customer I've had for the longest time. I hate to loose you.”

Danielle smiled down at him. “I wish you and Mr. Whirley weren't leaving here,” said Danielle. “I expect there will be no town here in a few weeks.”

The old doctor scratched his head as if considering it, then he said, “Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.”

With dried food in her saddlebags, and grain for Sundown, Danielle turned the chestnut mare in the street and rode away at an easy pace, eyeing the burnt remains of the telegraph office on her way. There was no way she would give up on hunting Cherokee Earl and his gang. The more she saw of their handiwork, the more she was convinced that she had to put a stop to them. She thought it a bit peculiar that neither the doctor nor Leonard Whirley had been able to tell from Ellen Waddell's actions that she was being held against her will. But she realized that in a life-or-death situation a woman might very well go along with her captors until she saw a chance to break away. At least Danielle hoped that was the case, having lost so much precious time here.

At the edge of town, Danielle brought the mare up into a trot, testing the tenderness of her healed wound, feeling no pain there. She studied the hoofprints in the dirt, knowing that the trail had grown cold. Cherokee Earl and his gang could be any number of places by now. Once again she was on her own, the same as when she'd hunted her father's killers. She was used to being alone, yet she missed having Stick beside her. From now on she had to watch her own back, not always an easy task for a woman unescorted in a man's world.

Danielle knew her best bet was to stay on the north trail, follow it toward the highlands and see what, if anything, had happened along the string of towns that lay ahead of her. She was certain that a man like Cherokee Earl couldn't go along without causing more trouble. His gang had tasted blood at the past two towns in a row. She was betting they would be wanting more.

Following a narrow stream running down from a stretch of rocky hills, for two nights in a row Danielle made her camp alongside the water's edge. The first night had been uneventful, sheltered as she was beneath a deep cliff overhang. But on the second night, in the hours before dawn, Danielle was awakened by Sundown nickering low and warily from where Danielle had grazed her in sweet grass less than twenty yards away. Hearing the mare, Danielle rolled quietly from her blanket, her rifle in hand. She crouched back out of the circling glow of firelight, listening for any sound out of the ordinary. For the rest of the night she stayed back away from the fire, blanket wrapped around her, barely seeing the silhouette of the mare in the moon's glow.

At first light, Danielle picked up Sundown's bridle and walked down to where the big mare stood waiting. Sundown turned her head to face Danielle, and Danielle reached out a hand and rubbed the velvety muzzle. “Easy, girl,” Danielle whispered.

As she stroked the mare, her eyes searched along the stream, up along the rock ledges and into the darkened shadows and crevices. “What was up there?” Danielle asked quietly, as if at any moment the mare might answer. “Don't you worry,” she added. “Whatever it is, if it's still there, we'll find it soon enough.”

She lifted the bridle onto the mare's muzzle, adjusted it, and led the animal back to the campsite only a few yards away. Yes, there was someone watching her, she felt it plain as day. Unseen eyes followed her until she passed out of sight back into the rocks bordering the stream. Instinctively, she checked her Colt, then placed it back loosely into her holster. “Yep,” she repeated quietly to herself and the mare. “We'll soon find out.”

Without preparing coffee or food, Danielle saddled the mare. Then she cleared the camp and rode off along the north trail alongside the stream before sunlight had crested the eastern skyline. Just past sunup she reached a place where the land flattened for the next few hundred yards before swooping upward again. Still following the stream, Danielle purposefully skylined herself to the hill trail below. She didn't let herself be seen for long, just enough for whoever might be watching to know that she was not using good caution. Something a foolish woman would do, she reminded herself with a wry smile.

Had someone well-skilled with a rifle wanted her dead, right then would have been a good time to make their play. But they would have had to strike quickly, and even then risk everything they had on one shot. With a fast break for cover, she could easily duck into the rocks before they set their sights on her again.

As she rode, she watched both right and left, barely turning her head in either direction but rather shifting only her eyes beneath her lowered hat brim. Along the way she caught a glimpse of a wisp of trail dust stirring from the rocks and scrub juniper running parallel below. Whoever was down there was hurrying now, wanting to get past her and climb up onto the trail inside the rocks. That made sense, she thought. They weren't out to ambush her. They wanted her to come upon them all at once, in surprise, face to face. All right, she would give them that. At a point where the trail climbed back up into the rocky hills, she prepared herself, letting her right hand rest on her thigh only inches from the butt of her Colt.

With the craggy hillside rising on her left and the winding stream on her right, she eased the mare along at a slow walk until suddenly, as if out of nowhere, two men appeared on the trail before her. One man held a cocked rifle pointed at her from less than thirty feet away. The other stood confidently, with a pistol hanging loosely in his hand. “Well, well, look here, Brother Daryl,” said the one with the pistol. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I was just thinking that very same thing myself, Brother Lon!” said the one with the rifle. “You never know who you're going to come upon up here in these rocks. Could be a snake or a scorpion,” he said, widening his eyes in mock fright.

“So true,” said the other. “But then again it just might be some tender young dove.”

Danielle stopped the chestnut mare with the slightest tap of her knees. The mare turned slightly, quarterwise to the men, then stood as still as stone. “Your best hope is for the snakes and scorpions,” Danielle said. “This dove ain't as tender as you'd like.”

Both men had spread wolfish smiles, but the smiles melted away at her words. The one with the pistol said to the other without taking his eyes off Danielle, “Well, Brother Daryl, there's our answer. It's her, all right. Cherokee Earl said she was a rash, rude,
wished-she-was-a-man
kind of woman.”

Danielle felt her senses perk. Immediately, she picked up on the man's words and replied, “Didn't you wonder why Cherokee Earl didn't come looking for me himself? Why's he so busy he can't handle his own gun work?”

“He's busy sparking his new bride, up in Drake,” the man replied.

“Shut up, Lon,” said the rifleman, stepping forward. “Can't you see she's just trying to milk you for information?”

“She can milk all day. It suits me,” the other replied. His face turned stonelike, his eyes dark and caged. His voice went flat and iron-hard. “She ain't going nowhere after today.”

Danielle felt a cold, calm resolve wash over her. “I take it you two are brothers?”

“That's right,” said the one with the pistol. “Daryl and Lon Trabough, at your service.” His death-mask expression remained the same. “I'm Lon,” he added, “the handsomest one.”

“What's it to you?” said the one with the rifle.

Danielle allowed a slight shrug. “Well, Daryl, I'm always curious about those I'm fixin' to kill.”

“By God, let's go on and kill her and be done with it, Lon,” said Daryl, working his fingers restlessly on the rifle stock. “I've no tolerance for a sharp-tongued woman!”

“Easy, Brother Daryl,” said Lon, still keeping his eyes on Danielle. “How often is a man blessed with this kind of situation? Earl wants us to kill her. He never said we couldn't have a little fun first.”

“I don't like it,” said Daryl.

“Oh, but you will, Brother Daryl, by the time it gets around to you,” said Lon.

Danielle sat silently, waiting, watching, knowing. Beneath her, the mare hadn't much more than breathed. Together, horse and rider could have been a statue except for the flutter of a hot breeze as it licked at Danielle's hat brim.

“Now lift that pistol, pitch it away, and climb down here,” said Lon. “We're going to start by getting a good look at you without all them clothes hiding your better nature.”

Danielle raised her knee and lifted her leg over the saddle slowly. She paused, suspended for a second, looking both men up and down. “You're about my size, aren't you, Lon?” She let herself slide down from the saddle and stood with her feet shoulder-width apart.

Lon Trabough had a hard time containing himself. His lips quivered a bit at her words. “Oh, don't you worry, you sweet little morsel. I'm just exactly your size!”

“That's what I thought,” Danielle said coolly.

“Now lift that pistol, and let's get started!” Lon demanded eagerly.

“Whatever you say, Lon.” Her first shot hit Lon in the dead center of his sweaty forehead, the impact of it flipping his hat backward off his head. The shot came so fast, her pistol only a streak of shiny metal coming up from her holster, that Lon stood staring blankly for a second, a stunned grimace on his face as blood spewed from the back of his head. Then he sank to his knees as if ready for prayer and collapsed forward onto his face.

“Lon, Jesus!” Daryl Trabough saw the gout of blood and brain matter spray past him. It rattled him long enough for Danielle to almost take her time putting two bullets through his heart. He dropped limply in the dirt. Only then did Sundown seem to ease down and shake out her mane.

Danielle walked forward, reloading her Colt. When she reached out a boot toe and rolled Lon Trabough's head to the side, she saw only a minimal amount of blood on the back of his shirt collar and none down the back of the shirt itself. “Yep, you're just about my size,” she said quietly to herself. She holstered her pistol, stooped down, and began undressing him.

Stripping Lon Trabough down to his long johns, Danielle carried his clothes out into the shallow stream and scrubbed them with a small bar of lye soap she carried in her saddlebags. She rinsed them, soaped them again, rinsed them again, and hung them to dry over the rounded tops of scrub juniper and mesquite bushes. While she waited on the wet clothes to dry, she took down the lariat from Sundown's saddle, looped it around the corpses' feet, and dragged them both downstream amid jumbled piles of rocks and spilled boulders that years of wind and rain had washed down from the hillside.

She loosened the rope, looked down at the two bodies, and dusted her hands together. She stood silent for a moment and took off her hat in reflection. The mare stood close by her side. “Lord,” Danielle said, bowing her head slightly, “I know it's not right taking another person's life, and I wish I hadn't had to do it. But you saw how it played out. They couldn't have made their intentions any plainer and it still be fit for Christian ears.” She paused for a moment with her hat in her hand. “I doubt these two snakes ever did anybody any good in this life. So whatever you do with them is fine by me and better than they deserve. Amen.”

Danielle placed her hat back down on her head, tightened it, and turned and walked away, leading the mare back across the rocky ground to the trail. Having missed a lot of sleep the night before and breakfast early that morning, Danielle ate some jerked beef and dried biscuits, then napped for the next couple of hours. When she awakened she gathered the clothes, feeling where the trousers were still a bit damp, and walked off into the cover of rocks and brush. While Sundown waited, Danielle unwound the binder she'd carried for the past year in her saddlebags. She took off her women's clothes and wrapped the binder firmly around her, flattening the curve of her breasts.

Once she had changed into the men's clothing, she took her time folding her doeskin skirt, her bell-sleeved blouse, and her long soft leather riding vest. Back at Sundown's side, Danielle placed her women's clothing carefully down into her saddlebags, strapped the saddlebags shut, and patted them with her hands. “I hope this is not for long,” she said absently to the chestnut mare. “Looks like the only way to get respect in a man's world is to be a man.”

Danielle unstrapped the rolled-up riding duster from behind her saddle, shook it out, and put it on. Then she stuffed her hair up under her hat, stepped up into her saddle, and patted the mare on the neck. “Let's go, Sundown,” she said. “We've been down this trail before.”

Cherokee Earl sat atop his horse and spoke down to Buck Hite, an outlaw gangleader he'd met upon arriving in town. Earl had decided that Buck Hite and his gang would fit nicely into his plans. Buck stood holding the reins to Ellen Waddell's horse. Ellen sat stone-faced, staring straight ahead. “Don't wait around too long for Daryl and Lon Trabough, Buck,” Earl said. “I need you and your gang in Cimarron as soon as you can get there.”

“What day do you need us there, Earl? We'll make sure we get there on time.”

Cherokee Earl gave him a blank stare. “If you knew what day the main silver load comes in, you wouldn't need me at all, now would you, Buck?”