Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (6 page)

“We don't know for sure it was Cherokee Earl and his bunch,” Stick said, “and even if it was, there was no way you could have known he was coming back here.” As Stick spoke, he sidestepped his horse a few feet away from Danielle as he looked around and shook his head. “But I got to say, given what happened earlier, things sure point in his direction.”

“Oh, it was him all right,” said Danielle. “And I should have seen it coming. When we left here after the shooting, I should have expected the unexpected.”

“But all the same,” said Stick, “there was no reason to—”

His words cut short beneath a blast of rifle fire coming from the direction of the fallen livery barn.

Danielle spun the lead rope around her saddle horn quickly and jumped down from the saddle. “Move ‘em out, Sundown!” she shouted, slapping a gloved hand on her chestnut mare's rump, shooing the animal out of the street. The big mare knew what was expected of her. She bolted away to the right, pulling the frightened string of horses into the shadows. “Take cover, Stick!” Danielle shouted instinctively, already realizing she needn't worry about the old drover. Stick knew how to take care of himself. She saw that he had jumped down from his saddle almost in unison with her.

The rifle shot had kicked up dirt ten yards short. Danielle dropped into a crouch and hurried toward the shelter of a water trough, snatching up her Colt and firing a quick shot just to draw any incoming rifle fire away from the fleeing horses. The horses bunched up around Sundown when the mare slid to a halt twenty yards away. They nickered in fright and jerked against the lead rope. But Sundown stood firmly, keeping the animals under control.

Danielle reached the water trough as another shot whistled through the air. Stick had pulled down a well-worn Spencer rifle from its boot before his horse bolted away with Sundown and the others. Danielle heard the big rifle cock from across the street. Something didn't feel right about all this, she told herself. A third shot flashed from the dark alley. The bullet hit the ground a full five yards short and three yards to the left. A wild shot. Too wild, she thought to herself. Knowing that any second Stick would draw a bead on the muzzle flash, she called out, “Stick, hold your fire!”

Another rifle shot rang out, but then a woman's voice called out from farther away in the smoky darkness. “Is that you, Danielle Strange?”

“Yes, it's me, Mrs. Blanchard,” said Danielle, recognizing the voice. “Don't shoot.”

“Oh dear, Miss Danielle! I'm so sorry,” Annabelle Blanchard cried in a shaky voice. “Are you all right, child?”

“I'm all right, Mrs. Blanchard,” Danielle replied. “Aim your rifle at the ground and come on out where I can see you.” Danielle wasn't about to be the first to step out from behind her cover. Instead, she scanned the smoky shadows and the glittering embers and saw no one else. “What's gone on here? Is there anybody else around?” she called out, wanting to make sure that anyone who might be listening would hear her voice and recognize it.

Across the street, Stick kept his Spencer rifle aimed into the darkness as Annabelle Blanchard stepped out cautiously, wearing a long sleeping gown with a long wool coat over it. Annabelle began to hurry forward when Danielle showed herself and kept her Colt down by her side in her gloved hand. “Here I am, Mrs. Blanchard,” said Danielle.

“Oh, Miss Danielle!” Annabelle sobbed, letting her rifle slump down to her side. “It's been just awful here! They killed poor Klute Kinsky, the ole teamster... and Milton Shirley, our telegraph clerk!” She let out a tortured sigh and shuddered. “They just killed everybody.” Her eyes were large and shiny with fear. Touched with madness, Danielle thought to herself, looking Annabelle up and down. “They would have killed my Robert too,” Annabelle continued, “but I dragged him out of the street and hid him from them.”

Danielle saw the woman was nearly delirious. She stepped beside her, giving Stick a look, and said, “Come on, Annabelle, take me to Robert. Then we'll get you something warm to drink and get you out of the morning chill.”

Annabelle shivered slightly. “Yes ... I'll take you to Robert, but I must warn you he isn't himself this morning.” She looked around at the burned shamble of a town. “Not that I can blame him though, with all this going on.”

With Danielle guiding her along the empty dirt street, Annabelle murmured to herself about the condition of the destroyed town. A few yards down the street, they came upon the bodies of two men who had been the first ones Earl Muir had asked for directions to Danielle's spread. When they had refused to tell him what he wanted to know, Earl and Frisco Bonham had shot them dead.

“Excuse us, gentlemen,” Annabelle said to the bloody corpses as if they were still alive. Danielle continued helping her along, casting a glance over her shoulder long enough to see that Stick was gathering their horses. “I'm afraid it will take some time for this town to recover from a mess such as this,” Annabelle said, stepping daintily around the bodies.

Danielle was not surprised when they approached the blank dead face of Robert Blanchard staring off toward the sky as he lay slumped against the side of a small plank shack, the only building Earl Muir and his men had overlooked in their rampage. “I was concerned about Robert at first,” said Annabelle. “But now I think he's going to be all right, don't you, Miss Danielle?”

Seeing the two ragged bullet holes in Robert's chest, Danielle took a deep breath and placed a consoling arm across Annabelle's shoulders. “Listen to me, Annabelle,” she said as gently as she could. “Robert is dead.... So are those two men in the street.”

“Oh, dear,” said Annabelle, raising a hand to her lips. Danielle saw the woman's eyes begin to well up with tears as reality tried to sink in.

“Yes, I'm afraid so,” Danielle said, firming her arm around the trembling woman's shoulders. “And I'm going to have to ask you to be strong, Annabelle, and accept the fact that Robert and all these people are dead. Can you do that for me?”

“I-I'll try,” Annabelle replied softly, but with resolve.

“Good,” said Danielle. She bent down long enough to close Robert Blanchard's eyes, then stood silently with Annabelle for a moment until Stick walked up leading the horses.

“It's pretty bad over past where the saloon stood,” Stick said, lowering his voice to shield Annabelle from his words.

“How bad?” Danielle asked. “You can talk in front of Annabelle. She's promised me she's going to be real strong and help us out.”

“I see,” said Stick. He looked Annabelle up and down, then said to Danielle, his voice still lowered, “I believe the bastards have killed everybody in town.”

Danielle felt Annabelle shudder and begin to sob quietly beside her. “We're going to need your help to get these folks gathered and buried proper. Are you up to it, Annabelle?” she asked.

The heartbroken woman summoned up her courage and stepped from beneath Danielle's consoling arm. “I will be as strong as I need to be.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, looking down at her dead husband's face. In the east, the first thin wreath of sunlight crept upward from the horizon, casting a ghostly silver glow over Haley Springs and its dead. “But let's get started, Miss Danielle,” Annabelle added. “I can't bear to see Robert laying here this way.”

“I understand, Annabelle.” Danielle led the shivering woman into the small shack. Stick hitched the horses to a single hitchpole and followed. Inside the cluttered shack, Danielle took a small kerosene lantern from a wall peg, dusted it off, and lit it. Stick began to search through a line of long-handled tools leaning against the wall, quickly choosing two shovels and a pick. Danielle prepared a place for Annabelle to sit down on a nail keg near a small woodstove. With some kindling and newspaper, Danielle soon had a small fire dancing in the round belly of the stove. “I'll get some coffee from my saddlebags,” she said, patting Annabelle on her shoulder. “You sit here and rest.”

After a hot cup of coffee, Danielle and Stick went to work, digging graves while the sun rose higher from the eastern rim of the sky. Annabelle stayed close by them as they worked, telling them what had happened, her eyes darting around at the least little sound among the smoldering ashes of what had been the town. Yet when it came time to bury the dead, Annabelle pulled herself together. Corpse after corpse, she washed their faces and their hands, made certain their eyes were closed and that their hair was properly parted and combed. Danielle and Stick watched in silence as the woman prepared the bodies of her husband, her neighbors, and her fellow townsfolk. Then, with their hats in hand, they joined Annabelle in a short prayer over each of the dead. Once done, Danielle and Stick put their hats back on and resumed their work.

Shortly after sunup, the northbound stage arrived in a cloud of dust. Hap Smith, the driver, and his young shotgun rider, Paul Sutterhill, immediately lent a hand with the burying, using two spades they took from the small shack. It was almost noon before the tired burial group patted their shovels on the last mound of freshly turned earth. Eleven new graves now lay inside the short wall of loose stones surrounding the town cemetery. Annabelle sat quietly beside her husband's grave as the others looked on, her hands folded in her lap.

As they worked together, Danielle and Stick had filled in Smith and Sutterhill on what had happened. With each rise and fall of the pick into the hard ground, Stick had told them about Cherokee Earl and his band of rustlers, and about the shooting in town. But it was only as they finished up the last grave that Hap Smith scratched his scruffy white beard and commented on the matter. “Who in the world would have ever dreamed a band of cattle rustlers would come back and do something like this?”

“It's simple. They came back to town looking for someone to point them toward my house,” Danielle said in a bitter tone. “Annabelle told me no one in this town would tell them where I live ... so Earl and his men took turns shooting everybody.”

“Lord God,” Hap Smith murmured. “I reckon that only leaves you one way to go, young lady. You'll have to go find a marshal and put him onto these murders.”

“That's one way,” said Danielle. “But I have another idea.” She turned, rolling down her shirt sleeves, and walked away.

Hap and Sutterhill both looked at Stick. “Did I say the wrong thing?” Hap asked.

“Nope,” Stick replied. “But I believe she's already decided to go after them herself.”

Hap Smith almost scoffed, but then he caught himself, seeing the serious look on Stick's face. “Herself? What chance would a woman have against a bunch that would do something like this?”

“I don't know,” said Stick, “but I sure plan on being there to find out.”

Ellen Waddell had noticed how tense and worried her husband had been the night before. He'd barely touched his food. After supper he'd spent the remainder of the evening pacing back and forth on the front porch. She noticed that he had laced his coffee with whiskey, slipping the thin flask from inside his vest and pouring it when he thought she wasn't looking. Something was wrong, but she had no idea what it could be. Late in the evening, when gunfire resounded on the distant horizon, she had craned her neck slightly and looked off in that direction.

“Pistol shots,” Ellen said attentively.

“Yes, so what?” Dave Waddell snapped, only increasing the intensity of his monotonous pacing.

“Well, nothing, I suppose,” Ellen replied. But then, when the shots came again, this time in greater number, she said, “Doesn't that sound like it's coming from town?”

“Yes, damn it, it does!” Dave Waddell barked at her.

Ellen was taken aback that her simple comment had prompted such a harsh response. “Watch your language, if you please.... And you needn't raise your voice.” She nodded toward his coffee cup sitting on the sun-bleached porch railing. “Perhaps if the coffee is too strong, I'll need to—”

“No!” Dave cut her off. “There's nothing wrong with the coffee. Can't you see I'm trying to think here? There's time when a man has more on his mind than figuring out whether or not gunfire is coming from town.” He took a quick swallow of the laced coffee and muttered, “Good Lord, woman!” Then he fluttered a nervous hand in the direction of Haley Springs. “Probably just some hunter shooting at jack-rabbits,” he said. “Why does everything have to be such a big event to you?”

“A big event?” Ellen sat stunned for a second. “I was only making conversation.”

“Then make it to yourself,” Dave snapped. Then he had turned, snatched up his cup of coffee, and stomped off the porch and toward the barn.

“My goodness,” Ellen had whispered to herself.

That wasn't the first time she'd seen her husband upset about something. But the next morning, when she awakened just before dawn, she noticed that his side of the bed hadn't been slept in. She arose and lit the lamp beside the bed and carried it with her through the predawn gloom. Padding barefoot out onto the front porch, wearing only her loose-fitting cotton gown, she saw Dave Waddell sitting slumped in a wooden porch rocker. She also saw the almost-empty whiskey bottle between his legs, the cork lying discarded at his feet. He stared blankly off toward Haley Springs.

Ellen shook her head and walked closer. “Dear?” she said gently, stepping up behind her husband and laying a hand on his shoulder.

Waddell stiffened, making a slight gasp of surprise. Then he turned in the rocker and looked up at her through hollow, red-rimmed eyes. “For God sakes, don't sneak up on me like that! You give a man heart failure!”