Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (26 page)

“Then that's how we'll do it, Danny,” said Tuck. “I'll wait for your call.”

“Thanks, Tuck, I knew I could count on you.” Danielle hesitated, then said in a gentler tone, “And, Tuck ... I hate telling you this, but two of these men killed our old friend Stick.”

“Oh, no, Danny, not Stick,” Tuck said, his grief showing instantly. “That man was like a daddy to me, Danny.”

“I know he was, Tuck.” Danielle hung her head for a moment. “Stick was on the trail with me, searching for these men after they stole the Waddell woman. But he and I started off looking for you. He told me what happened to your wife—I'm sorry, Tuck—and he told me you were somewhere drinking your brains out. We were coming to get you, see to it you straightened out. I'm glad to see that you've apparently already taken care of that.”

Tuck looked pained and ashamed. “Yes, I've gotten over drinking my brains out.... But the other part, losing my wife, is something I doubt I'll ever get over. It hurts just as bad today as it did the day I lost her.” He struggled silently for a second to keep from breaking down. “Something's missing inside me, Danny. I'm managing to get by without the whiskey, but that's just pure stubborn pride that keeps me going. I couldn't stand thinking that whiskey was going to kill me. So I'm fighting hard.” He took on a determined expression and let out a tight breath. “But listen to me going on about my misfortune ... while some poor woman is being held by outlaws.”

“Don't worry, Tuck. We'll get her freed,” said Danielle. “And once all this is over, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

“About what, Danny?” Tuck asked.

“About me,” said Danielle, aching to throw off her hat, shake out her hair, and tell him everything. “There's something I've needed to tell you for the longest time .. just seems like there's always something else going on to prevent it.”

“Danny? Are you all right?” Tuck asked.

“Yeah, Tuck, I'm all right. Now that I'm here, I'm fine. The rest will have to wait till later.” Danielle had caught herself and settled her mind to the task at hand. “We'll be talking about it real soon, I promise.”

Out of consideration for Tuck Carlyle and his battle with the bottle, Danielle did not drink any whiskey or beer. Instead, she drank the same thing Tuck drank: a cup of coffee from a fresh pot the bartender kept behind the bar. No sooner had the tinny piano started again and the smoke from Danielle's Colt drifted away than Eddie Ray Moon came through the front door of the tavern, a sheepish look on his face. “I heard the shooting,” he said, sidling up to her. “Thought I better come see how things turned out ”

“As you can see,” said Danielle, “we managed to get by without you.” Tuck Carlyle had stepped out the rear door to relieve himself. Offering a wry smile, and to show there were no hard feelings, Danielle asked, “Can I buy you a drink, Eddie Ray?”

Eddie Ray rubbed his lips, looking at the long row of bottles standing against the wall behind the bar. “I could sure enough stand one.”

Danielle gestured the bartender to pour Eddie Ray a shot of whiskey. As they stood watching the glass being filled, Eddie Ray looked at Danielle's coffee cup. “I see you ain't drinking nothing yourself.”

“That's right,” said Danielle, not wanting to even try to explain why to the likes of Eddie Ray Moon. “While you were gone, did you see Cherokee Earl or any of his men?”

“Not a hair,” said Eddie Ray. He raised the shot glass to his lips and drained it in a single gulp. He released a deep whiskey hiss. “But they'll show, if they ain't been killed or caught.”

The bartender had left the bottle of rye standing in front of them. Danielle picked it up and poured Eddie Ray another drink.

Eddie Ray grinned. “I think I might have been wrong about you, Duggin.”

“Really?” Danielle looked surprised to hear him admit such a thing.

He looked repentant, and shrugged. “Yeah ... we just got off to a bad start. I never should have come to the hotel acting so pushy that day. I reckon I'm trying to apologize for it. See if we can't go ahead and become friends.”

“You saw the whole shooting through the window a while ago, didn't you?” Danielle asked matter-of-factly.

Eddie Ray's face reddened. “Yeah, I might have,” said Eddie Ray. “But still, I'm offering my hand in friendship. We're riding together, so we ought to try to get along, don't you think?” He extended his rough right hand timidly.

“Yep, why not?” said Danielle, shaking his hand, then turning it loose as soon as she could lest she bring to his mind how small her hand was in his. “From now on we'll try to get along,” she said, repeating his words.

Tuck Carlyle came back to the bar and, seeing that one of the outlaws they'd been discussing had joined them, remained friendly enough to his ole pal Danny Duggin yet a little standoffish toward Eddie Ray Moon. Raising his cup to this lips, finishing the coffee off, and setting the cup empty back on the bar top, Tuck took on an aura of authority. “Well, it's time I got back to making my rounds. It's been good to see you again, Duggin. And I appreciate your help a while ago. But remember what I told you. It makes no difference what you and I done together in the past. Now that I'm wearing a badge, upholding the law comes first.” His eyes drifted from Danielle to Eddie Ray. “I hope you and your friends understand that.”

“Yeah, I understand that, Carlyle,” said Danielle, sounding less than enthusiastic. “Good to see you too.” She touched her fingers to her broad hat brim.

“Evenin' then,” said Tuck, tipping his hat and stepping away from the bar. Danielle and Eddie Ray both turned and leaned back against the bar, watching the deputy leave. “Well, there you have it,” said Danielle, a sound of regret in her best man's voice. “Never stay friends with a lawman. That little piece of tin must have a way of changing a man through and through.”

“I've always said that very same thing,” said Eddie Ray. He chuckled and tossed back his rye whiskey. “And I'll drink to it every time.”

Turning around to face the bar again, Danielle pushed the coffee cup away from her and, feigning anger, said, “To think I stood here drinking coffee like some sort of dandy.” She gestured the bartender to her and said, “Clear these cups away and give me a shot glass. I've got some catching up drinking to do.”

“Now you're talking my language,” said Eddie Ray.

As the two stood at the bar, Eddie Ray not seeming to notice that he was the one doing all the drinking, Avery McRoy, who had been watching them from a far comer, slipped in beside them. “Mind if I join you fellows?” he asked.

Danielle, who had noticed him watching them for the past few minutes, looked him up and down, then said, “That all depends, mister. What's on your mind?”

McRoy looked back and forth between them, then said, “I was hoping you could help me out some. See, I'm supposed to meet a fellow here on business.... His name is Hite. Either of you ever hear of him?” He gestured to the bartender for a glass, then filled it form the bottle on the bar.

“Yeah,” said Eddie Ray, his voice starting to take on a whiskey slur, “we're riding with—”

“That all depends too,” said Danielle, keeping Eddie Ray from blurting anything out.

“A lot of things depend with you, don't they, mister?” said Avery McRoy in a testy tone of voice.

Danielle turned to face him, a hand on her tied-down Colt. “You came to us, mister, not the other way around. If you've got something to say, spit it out. If not, swallow it.” She stared at him coldly until he was forced to look away.

“All right,” said Avery McRoy, raising his hands chest high in a show of submission. “Maybe I shouldn't have approached you two this way. No harm done, I hope.” His voice lowered almost to a whisper. “I'm looking for Buck Hite and his boys. Cherokee Earl sent me.”

Danielle offered a half-friendly smile. “See, that wasn't so hard, was it?” She nodded. “Yeah, that would be us all right. Where's Earl?”

“Easy now,” said McRoy. “I've never seen either one of you before. Earl sent me to find you boys and make sure everything is on the up and up, the way we've planned it. I need to see Buck Hite so I'll know everybody here is who they say they are.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Danielle. “I'm Danny Duggin. This is Eddie Ray. Come on, we'll take you to see Buck Hite right now.”

“Real good,” said McRoy, raising the drink to his lips. He downed his whiskey, then looked closer at the shadowed face beneath the broad hat brim. “Duggin, you look familiar. Have you and I run across one another before somewhere?”

“Maybe.” Danielle shrugged. “Who knows?” She stepped back from the bar and thumbed toward the door while the music from the piano filled the tavern. “Want to stand here all night talking about it, or go find Buck and see what we've got to do to make some money in this wide spot in the road?”

“Mister, are you always this unobliging?” said McRoy, turning away from the bar.

“My pal Duggin here has no play in him at all,” Eddie Ray chuckled. “I found that out the hard way.”

Leaving Lambert's Tavern, the three walked along the darkened street until they spotted Buck Hite's horse hitched out front of a run-down saloon where a scraggly row of chickens sat perched along a wooden bench out front. As the three approached, the chickens protested in a raised cackling and a flurry of batting wings.

“What the hell kind of place is this?” Eddie Ray Moon asked no one in particular, fanning small feathers from the air.

A fat black man stepped out of the dark shadows and said in a deep, flat voice, “This is Chicken Mama Loo's place. Like the sign done said.” He pointed a large, long finger up at a sun-bleached wooden sign hanging by one comer chain.

Eddie Ray Moon stopped fanning his hand and looked up in the darkness. “Jesus,” he said in disgust. “That sign ain't said nothing since Napoleon wore Josephine's bloomers.”

Upon hearing Eddie Ray's words, all cordiality left the big black man's face. “What you men want here? You come for some of the hot pipe?”

“I never use it,” said Eddie Ray. “What about you, Duggin? Care for some tar opium?”

“I pass,” said Danielle, stepping closer to the door. Avery McRoy and Eddie Ray followed.

“Where you think you're going?” the black man asked.

“We're here to see the man who's riding that horse,” said Danielle.

“He a friend of yours?” the man asked.

“If he wasn't a friend, we wouldn't be standing here asking—we'd already have shot him and you both.”

The black man nodded, then looked at Buck Hite's horse and said, “Yeah, okay, he's in there.” He stepped to one side, turned down a thick metal door handle, and shoved the door open. “I 'posed to ask for your guns, but I don't expect you'd give them to me, would you?”

“It ain't very likely,” said Danielle, stepping inside the dark opium-clouded saloon.

The big black man laughed under his breath. “That's the same thing your friend told me. Yes, sir, he did.”

A thick cloud of gray-brown smoke loomed heavily inside the small dirty saloon. Many of the drinkers stood slumped on the bar top. Others lay sprawled on tabletops, where candles stood in tin holders for the purpose of lighting the bowls of smudged opium pipes. Danielle spotted Buck Hite lounging at one of the tables in the back comer, and she walked straight to him. “Wake up, Buck,” she said, kicking the leg of his chair. “We've met up with one of Cherokee Earl's men.”

“Hunh?” Startled, Buck Hite fumbled with his chair, trying to scoot it back from the table. “I ain't asleep,” he said as if denying an accusation. “I was just watching these boys, seeing what all the fuss is about.” He looked back and forth among the three figures standing over him in the swirling drift of smoke. “I never smoke this stuff myself.” His eyes were shiny and red-streaked. His voice sounded thick.

“Good,” said Danielle. “Then you won't mind us pulling you away long enough to talk business.” She grabbed his chair and tipped him out of it. He staggered to his feet. “Come on,” she said firmly. “Let's go outside and get some air.”

Buck looked at Avery McRoy and asked in an almost belligerent tone, “Where the hell is Cherokee Earl? We're supposed to meet with him, not one of his flunkies.”

McRoy bristled at Buck Hite's words, but he managed to keep himself in check. “Earl sent me because I can be trusted. There's only three of us, and the third man is busy taking care of something.”

They'd started for the door, but Buck Hite halted and looked at him pointedly. “There's only three of you? I thought this was going to be a big operation! Why am I throwing in with a three-man gang? I can get better than that on my own.”

Avery McRoy walked on to the door as he spoke, causing Buck Hite to follow reluctantly. “We've got a couple of men still coming to join us. They stayed back along the trail to take care of some business.” He stopped out front of the run-down saloon amid fleeing chickens and batting wings.

Buck Hite closed the saloon door behind them. “Still, this gang of Earl's ain't sounding as strong to me now as it did back when we talked about joining forces.”

Avery McRoy started to speak, but from the darkness came Cherokee Earl's voice as he walked forward, kicking a chicken out of his path. “I'm going to pretend like what I'm hearing is just your dope talking, Buck. Otherwise you and me would be shooting holes in one another right here and now. I hate belligerence of any sort.”