Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (33 page)

“The hell they don't,” said Fat Cyrus Kerr, his voice trembling in fear. “Either way it goes, I'm done for. I'll either hang or get shot down in the street. I've already reconciled myself to it, unless I can get me a fast horse and a clear run out of town!”

Tuck kept his pistol steadily poised, but he tried to appear at ease. “If that's all it takes, we'll get you a horse. We'll even back away and give you a clear run out of here, provided you do Mr. Scally no harm.”

“Then quit talking and get moving!” said Cyrus. “I want out of this place bad!”

“All right, take it easy,” said Tuck. Without taking his eyes off Fat Cyrus, he called out to the townsmen gathered outside the doors. “Somebody get this man a horse ... no tricks, either. We don't want to get Mr. Scally hurt, do we?”

The townsmen grumbled quietly among themselves. Then one of them said, “All right, Deputy, we'll get him a horse. He can ride out of here. But he gets no promise that some of us won't be on his trail by dark.”

“Is that fair enough, mister?” Tuck asked. “You can't expect them to let you get away without trying to catch you, can you?”

Cyrus considered it for a second, then said, “I'm taking this man with me!”

Tuck shook his head slowly and called out to be the townsmen. “Never mind getting him that horse.... He's not going anywhere after all.”

“Wait!” said Cyrus. “I ain't taking him with me. Go on, get me a horse. The bank manager stays here.”

“You heard him,” Tuck said to the townsmen. “Get him a horse after all.” He looked squarely at Fat Cyrus Kerr and said, “Now how are you going to turn him loose?”

Fat Cyrus looked perplexed, having not thought things through that far.

“Mister,” said Tuck, “I've only been a deputy a short time, so I don't know how this kind of thing usually goes. But I give you my word nobody here is going to try to stop you. Is that good enough for you?”

“Your word?” said Cyrus in disbelief. “Hell, no, that's not good enough! What good is your word to me? I'm the one who'll have every gun in this town pointed at him! There ain't a sumbitch out there who wouldn't love to put a bullet in me!”

“That might be true,” said Tuck. “But if I give you my word nobody is going to try to harm you, that's a fact.”

“Words, facts—this is all moving too damn fast to suit me!” Cyrus raged.

Tuck could see the man was getting confused and anxious. He tried to calm him. “All right then ... you tell me what you want to do. I'll go along with—”

“Shut the hell up!” Cyrus screamed. He panicked, shoved Scally forward, and began backing quickly to the vault room, where the open back door beckoned him. Screaming, firing the pistol as he went, Cyrus left Tuck no choice but to return fire. As the fourth shot exploded from Cyrus's pistol, Tuck put two shots into the big outlaw's chest, slamming him against the back wall. Once again Earnest Scally found himself huddled on the floor with his arms wrapped around his head. Behind Tuck, the townsmen rushed in through the front doors. “Get that bastard!” one of them yelled.

They hurried past Tuck and into the next room. There they stopped, seeing the dead outlaw on the floor slumped against the wall, a smear of blood down the wall from the exit holes in his back. “Whoo-ee!” said one of the townsmen. “Good shooting, Deputy! Damn good shooting!”

When Tuck didn't answer, the men turned as one and saw him standing slumped against the edge of a desk, leaning on one hand, his other hand pressed against the bloody bullet hole in his lower left side. The pistol had fallen from his hand and lay on the floor at his feet amid widening drops of blood. “Oh, Lord, no, Deputy,” said the same townsman. “You've been gut-shot something awful.”

“I know,” said Tuck in a strained, breathless voice, his face pale and bloodless. “Tell Danny I did the best I could....” Then he fell to the polished floor.

At the barn outside of Cimarron, dust from the outlaws' horse still hung in the air when Danielle slid the chestnut mare to a halt and slipped quickly down from the saddle. Hearing a commotion from inside the barn, she slapped Sundown on the rump and shooed her out of harm's way. Seeing dust hover above the trail leading off to the lone rider in the distance, it only took a second for Danielle to put together what had taken place between the two outlaws. With her Colt drawn, Danielle hurried quietly to the front of the barn and stood with her back pressed to the weathered boards, listening intently to Frisco Bonham cursing a donkey and the donkey braying as if in reply.

Inside the barn, Frisco grumbled, “I don't like this a damn bit more than you do, you stiff-tailed little peckerwood! Now stand still!” He tried to toss a saddle upon the animal's thin, knobby back, but the donkey would have none of it. The animal brayed loudly, spinning and kicking at Frisco.

“Damn you!” Frisco raged. “If I didn't need a ride, I'd put a bullet in you ... if I
had
a bullet!” There was a brief pause, then Frisco said despondently, “What the hell am I talking about,
a bullet?
I don't even have a damn
gun.”

Danielle heard him clearly, yet she wasn't taking any chances on him being unarmed. She looked back toward Cimarron at the fresh dust rising up behind the townsmen who had grabbed their horses and followed her. She wasn't going to waste time here and let Cherokee Earl get away. Just as she was about to grab the barn door and swing it open, she saw the door come swinging open from the inside.

“All right, you stubborn, good-for-nothing dog bait!” Frisco shouted, dragging the donkey forward an inch at a time by a six-foot length of lead rope. The donkey brayed and resisted strongly.

Danielle stood back with her Colt drawn, watching. Frisco was so engrossed in his struggle with the stubborn animal that he didn't notice her standing only a few feet away.

“I swear to God!” Frisco said to the donkey. “If I get away from here, I'll roast you over a fire and eat you quicker than a wolf will eat a jackrabbit!”

He tried twice to swing a leg over the donkey's back, but each time the nimble little animal stepped out of the way. His second try landed him face down in the dirt. As he tried to stand up, Danielle planted a boot on the back of his neck and pinned him down. “It's the end of the line for you, Frisco,” she said, making sure he heard her cock the Colt only inches from his head.

“Damn it!” said Frisco in a release of breath. “I have never been so put upon in my life! Cherokee Earl abandoned me. I guess you know!”

“Yep, that's what I figured when I got here and saw somebody out there making tracks for the high country,” said Danielle. “How is he armed?”

“Oh, he's armed fine, the rotten turd!” said Frisco. “He's got my pistol and my rifle!”

“You're rifle too, huh?” said Danielle, gaining information that might come in handy real soon.

“Yes ... and I hope you kill the sucker! If you kill him, tell him I said good riddance! Will you do that?”

Danielle didn't answer. Instead, she stared down, watching him prepare for his next move. Even as he spoke, she saw his right hand reaching down toward his boot well. As he bent his leg to bring his boot up into reach, Danielle saw the top of the knife handle sticking up.

“For two cents I'd let you go ahead and pull that pigsticker, Frisco,” she said. “After what you did to my friend Stick, there's nothing I'd like more than to empty this Colt into you.”

“Oh,” said Frisco. His hand stopped reaching; his leg straightened. He turned his head enough to look up at the face above him, squinting in the afternoon sun's glare. With Danielle's face hidden by the darkness beneath her wide hat brim, Frisco saw nothing. “Do I know you?” he asked, turning his gaze up the open bore of the cocked pistol.

“Not if you thought you could pull that knife on me,” Danielle said flatly.

“You said your friend Stick,” Frisco said. “Do you mean the old man I shot and killed a while back?”

“Yes, that's who I mean,” said Danielle. Thinking about it caused her hand to tighten on the pistol butt.

“You're not ... ? You're not that blasted woman, are you? The one what gave me and Billy Boy Harper such a hard time?”

“What do you think?” Danielle asked.

Frisco considered it for a moment, then slumped onto the dirt. “Naw ... hell, no. She was a tough little filly. But no woman could have stuck with it, stayed on our trail all the way up to this Cimarron country. That's too crazy to imagine!”

“Yeah, I suppose you're right, Frisco,” said Danielle, not wanting him to know who she really was since she would be sending him back to Tuck with the townsmen. Telling Tuck who she was would be something for her and her alone to do. “A woman tracking you, Cherokee Earl, and that bunch? That would be too crazy to imagine.”

Danielle reached down and pulled the knife from Frisco's boot. She cut the lead rope from the donkey and tied Frisco's hands behind his back. Then she helped him to his feet, walked him to the corral fence, and with the remaining length of the rope, tied him to a post. The donkey followed her like a pup and watched with great interest. “This ought to hold you until those fellows get here,” she said, nodding in the direction of the approaching horsemen from town.

“They're just going to hang me,” said Frisco with certainty, bowing his head at the thought of it. “You'd do me a favor if you'd just put a bullet in my head and go on.”

“I don't owe you no favors,” said Danielle. She walked to the mare, stepped into the saddle, and began riding away. Before she'd gone thirty feet, she heard the donkey braying loudly again. She looked back and saw Frisco spitting and cursing.

“Get out of here, you sumbitch!” Frisco screamed. “Now you want to be pals! Get the hell away from here!” But the donkey stepped forward and stuck its wet muzzle to his face as Frisco screamed and spat at it.

“Stick,” Danielle said under her breath, “that's the best I can do for you right now.” She heeled the mare up into a run and rode toward the lone rider in the distance.

A mile ahead, Cherokee Earl looked back as he pushed the tired horse up off of a stretch of flatland into some low hills. The horse faltered, slowed, and finally came to a staggering halt, having started out at a full run carrying two men and the bags of silver and cash. Now, although one man was gone, the poor horse had spent itself. Going from the flatland onto an uphill trail was more than the animal could take.

“This can't be happening to me!” Earl ranted, jumping down from the saddle and trying to pull the horse up the steep trail by its reins. “You ain't giving out on me now, you ornery bastard!”

But the horse not only couldn't take another step, it dropped down onto its knees and lay there, its breath pounding like a broken bellows. White froth swung from its mouth and streaked its sides. Earl dropped the reins and looked back at the lone rider gaining ground. Beyond that rider came other riders, but it looked as if they would never catch up. “All right,” Cherokee Earl said to the front rider as if he could actually be heard. “You've got a good, fast horse.... I can see that.” He grinned. “Real proud of that horse, are you? I bet you are.”

Stooping down, still watching the approaching rider, Earl took some rifle cartridges from the saddlebags and slipped the rifle from its boot. The winded horse started to struggle upward onto all fours, but Earl pressed a hand on its neck. “Naw, you lay still, you lazy hunk of hide.... You're fixing to be replaced by a big, fast ground stormer.” He loaded the rifle and leaned it against his side. While he waited for the rider to draw closer, he loosened the bags of money and silver bars from the saddle horn and stacked them neatly at his feet.

Looking back again in anticipation, he said, “Bring that horse on up here. I ain't got all day.” Then he cackled aloud to himself. “Damn it, Earl boy,” he said to himself. “You never cease to amaze me!”

Drawing nearer, Danielle caught a glimpse of Cherokee Earl ducking behind a rock a few yards farther up the trail from the downed horse. Knowing he had a rifle, Danielle stopped the mare a long way out, taking as much advantage of the sun glare as she could get. To the left of the flat trail, a mazelike string of rocky ground reached upward for the hills. She pulled the mare over into cover and studied the hillside carefully, keeping herself out of sight.

Seeing how the rider had stopped far back on the flatlands, Cherokee Earl slumped and shook his head. “Thank you all to hell, Frisco, you big-mouthed sumbitch!” said Earl as if talking to Frisco Bonham in person. “I shoulda known you'd spill your guts the first chance you got ... tell him I've got a rifle! I hope you're laying back there right now with crows plucking your lousy eyeballs out!”

After a silent pause, Earl stood up halfway behind his rock cover and looked down in the direction where he'd seen the rider lead the horse off the trail. A watery veil covered everything Earl looked at out in the harsh sunlight. “Danny Duggin? Is that you?” He waited, squinting beneath the shelter of his hat brim.

Danielle could hear his voice only with the assistance of its echo off the rocky hills. She didn't answer.

“If you can hear me, Duggin,” Earl screamed out, “I've got a proposition for you.”

Danielle still didn't answer.

“Damn it, man,” Earl bellowed, looking back along the trail, searching for the other riders but not finding them. “Talk to me, here. We can work something out! I've got money—silver! By God, don't tell me you can't use some silver!”