Chapter Twenty-four
Edith Ludsthorpe held up her coffee cup and made a face, causing Dallas Steele to reckon she was in an even sourer mood than usual. “The coffee is not to your taste, Mrs. Ludsthorpe?”
“Indeed it is not,” the woman said. She sat at an adjoining table in the restaurant not yet busy with the early morning crowd. “It is unspeakable swill that doesn’t merit the name coffee.”
Edith crooked a finger at the young waitress. “You there, missy. Did you prepare this vile brew?”
The girl shook her head. “The owner makes the coffee, ma’am.”
“He does, does he? Well, I have a notion to go back there to the kitchen and box his ears.” Edith sniffed. “Does he have tea? Though God knows it will be just as bad.”
“I’ll ask,” the waitress said, taking a step back as though she feared Edith would attack with her parasol.
“Well, don’t stand there lollygagging, girl. Go at once and determine the availability of tea.”
A few more customers entered the restaurant and Steele rose and stood beside Edith’s table. “Do you mind if I join you, Mrs. Ludsthorpe?”
“Why not? I suppose your company is as good as anyone else’s in this benighted town.”
Steele sat at her table. “When can we expect the company of the fair Miss Chastity this morning?”
“In a word, Mr. Steele, you can’t. At least not for today.” Edith frowned. “That was two words, wasn’t it?”
“I hope she isn’t ill,” Steele said. “Or otherwise indisposed.”
“Not in the least. She’s gone out with nice Mr. Bird. He’s teaching her the rudiments of landscape painting, I understand. His own work has been compared, quite favorably I must say, to the great Thomas Cole and to Albert Bierstadt.”
Steele smiled. “They’re sticking close to town, I presume.”
“Then, sir, you presume too much. Mr. Bird told me he plans to drive in his surrey to a place called Apache Hills where the vistas are quite—”
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Of course I’m sure. He said it to me, didn’t he?”
Steele swore under his breath. “That damned idiot!” He rose quickly to his feet.
“Why, Mr. Steele! What in the world has come over you? Have you gone quite mad?”
“The night riders, skull riders, whatever you want to call them, are pressing close to town. In the flat country to the west they’ll see Bird coming for miles.”
Edith looked stricken. “Do you mean to say my daughter’s life is in imminent danger?”
“What do you think?” Steele said before he flung out the door and slammed it behind him. He raced to the livery.
“Come on, Jonesy, we’ve got ground to cover,” Steele said.
The donkey, a placid creature, allowed himself to be bridled without fuss.
The old man who ran the livery stepped beside Steele. “I see you ain’t got a hoss yet, young feller.”
Steele ignored that. “When did Maurice Bird pull out of here?”
“Oh, ’bout an hour ago. Had that real purty Miss Chastity with him an’ a picnic basket.”
“Picnic basket,” Steele said as though he couldn’t believe what his ears were telling him. “Don’t tell Sheriff Clitherow I’m gone, huh?”
The oldster smiled. “Clitherow ain’t about to go on a picnic, not with them night riders around.”
Steele nodded. “Don’t tell him anyway.”
“I won’t. Less’n he asks.”
“Don’t tell him then either.”
“You can take the sheriff’s hoss,” the old man said. “He won’t be needin’ it today.”
“Jonesy is a fine steed,” Steele said. “He can cover ground at a fast clip.”
“Whatever you say, mister.”
Steele led the burro out of the stable and headed east toward Hatchet Gap. He’d mount Jonesy later when the little animal just might give him an edge.
Having gone east as far as he wanted, Steele turned the donkey northwest toward the Apache Hills. In the distance the sun had cleared the Cedar Mountains and was already hot. Gold, silver, and turquoise had been found around the hills and there was always the possibility Bird and Chastity would meet up with some miners.
But, as a gambling man, Steele knew the odds were against it. The grasslands and brush flats of the Hachita Valley were vast and miners few and far between. His eyes constantly swept the wild land, wishful for his field glasses. They were in his room at the hotel and beyond his reach.
After an hour, he caught a lucky break, picking up the tracks of Bird’s surrey heading straight as an arrow toward the Apache Hills before disappearing into the distance in an inverted V.
Steele felt hot and dusty and his boots, sewn for looks on a narrow last by the Lucchese Boot Co., his boot maker in San Antonio, punished his feet.
A buzzard circled in the brassy sky, waiting and watching, as though aware of the tensions going on under him. The breeze was light but restless as it moved across the sand and drove fine grains into the brush with a soft ticking sound. The air smelled dusty from the passage of the surrey that Steele thought must surely be close.
After another fifteen minutes walking under the climbing sun, he led Jonesy around an arrow-shaped outcropping of eroded rock, then swung northeast again and stopped right where he was. Ahead of him, upended between some scattered piñon, the surrey lay on its side. He saw loose horses and three figures moving around—two were men, the other was Chastity.
“Jonesy, now we got it to do.” Steele stepped onto the donkey’s back, eased his Colt in the shoulder holster, and said, “Gee-up.”
Depending on the circumstances, a dude wearing a gray suit and plug hat of the same color could be taken for a danger. But when he’s riding a donkey, he goes from possible threat to an object of derision.
And that was exactly what Dallas Steele was counting on.
As he drew closer, he summed up the situation fast.
Maurice Bird lay on his back, dead or alive Steele couldn’t tell. Chastity, her dress torn from her shoulders and blood running from the corner of her mouth, had backed up against a piñon, her eyes terrified as two grinning men stalked her. So intent were they on the woman, the men didn’t see Steele until he was less then thirty feet from them.
“Howdy, boys,” he said when he was within conversation distance. “It’s a hot one, isn’t it?”
“Well, what the hell are you?” One of the men was a small, mean-faced man with the eyes of a carrion eater.
Steele ignored that. He turned his head and said, “Chastity, are you all right. Did they harm you?”
“Not yet,” the small man said, his face ugly, “but we will real soon.” His hand was close to his gun. “I’ll ask you this just one more time, mister. What the hell are you?”
Steele stepped off Jonesy. “I’m your death, I reckon.”
The second gunman was taller, younger, and wary. “He’s slick, Luke. Mighty slick. He’ll make fancy moves.”
The man called Luke grinned. “Try this fancy move for size, dude.” He drew. And died right where he stood. His gun hadn’t cleared leather when Steele’s bullet hit dead center in the man’s chest.
The youngster, thinking he had an edge while the dude was engaged with Luke, went for his Colt. He never made it. Hit hard twice, he stared at Steele, his eyes full of wonder, and fell facedown into the sand.
Panicked by the gunfire the outlaw horses reared and galloped away in the direction of Hatchet Gap, dust spurting from their hooves.
“Damn,” Steele said, “I could’ve sold those.”
Chastity, her mouth trembling, said, “Those men . . . they were going to . . . to . . . they wanted to . . .”
“I know what they were going to do,” Steele said. “They’ll never do it again to another woman.” He kneeled beside the younger man and rolled him onto his back.
The kid’s green eyes looked up at him. “I should never have left Texas. My ma cried when I left. Maybe she knew how I would end.”
“Around these parts a man who isn’t fast on the draw and shoot has no right to wear a gun,” Steele said. “You one of those night riders?”
The youngster nodded, then suddenly defiant, he said, “You ain’t as fast as English Nate Condor.”
“Your time is short, boy. Take your medicine and make your peace with God.”
“Who the hell are you, mister?” Blood welled on the kid’s lips.
“They call me the Fighting Pink. Or so I’m told.”
“I never stood a chance with you, did I?”
“Not a hope in hell, boy.”
The youngster closed his eyes and all the life that was in him drained away.
Chastity kneeled beside Maurice Bird and then looked over at Steele. “He’s dead, Dallas.”
Steele rose and took a knee beside the artist. He studied the bullet hole in Bird’s chest and then turned him over. “Two balls went right through his chest.”
“He didn’t have a chance,” Chastity said. “They just rode up and started shooting. And it was for no reason.”
“You were the reason, Chastity,” Steele said. “I’ll get the surrey on its wheels and we’ll take you back to Recoil.”
“You saved my life, Dallas,” Chastity said with promise in her eyes. “I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing,” Steele said. “Maybe you owe each of the dead men a life, but I can’t say that for sure. It’s something I’d have to study on for a spell.”
“What do we do with them?”
“Leave them for Nate Condor to find, I guess. They were his men.”