Death Valley Drifter, page 4
“We usually gather them when we go to the pond,” Jane said. “The wind always brings along something we can burn. If we hadn’t come upon you, we would’ve gone out and collected them. Further north some, there’s plenty of trees, and we have a good hatchet.”
“God provides.”
“That’s right,” Jane said. “Sit yourself on the edge of the table.”
The man went to a corner away from where the boy had been laboring. Her slender fingertips moved gingerly through the hair matted around the wound.
“You don’t mind living with the stagecoach?” Hank asked.
As she reached for the whiskey bottle, Jane’s eyes had a distant look. “It’s painful sometimes. But Nehemiah loved it, and that spot is special. He always rode out to meet the stage, see if they needed anything. If they did—liquor, water, food, nursing—he’d ride back and get it ready. Whenever he left, Douglas would sit out there, right where the coach is, and look north for signs of dust. A lot of it meant the coach coming in. A little less, it was just the paint that Nehemiah rode. When he came in hard, to beat the devil, it meant there were hostiles on the road. He’d come roaring in like a tornado, quickly gather up extra ammunition and supplies, and then travel to Oak Ridge with them.”
“He had courage.”
“He did. That and hope.” She laughed. “He hoped I was right that God was always looking out for us. Turned out different, though, like I tell Douglas—God has His way.”
The mention of hope did not find purchase in Hank’s brain. He had none. As Jane dribbled alcohol on his scalp, he tried to place the smell. Not even that was familiar.
“I wonder if there’s some boy waiting for me,” Hank said as he watched the boy walk to the cabin with his arms full of tree parts.
The woman set the bottle on the table and gently poked through her patient’s hair. “Gun butt,” she said with a kind of detachment. “Probably a revolver.”
“How can you tell?”
“You said you didn’t see any rocks or such, and a rifle or shotgun leaves a big mark. Whip handle, knife hilt would have left a smaller one. Grazed by a bullet would have left a trail.”
“You know your wounds.”
She used the cloth to dab away the loose clots of blood. “Nine years of Butterfield brought me all kinds of injuries. Not just to people but to horses and dogs. Nehemiah broke fingers and toes, especially on those rocks. Douglas likes climbing trees when we go north, breaks off the good firewood. Leaves a lot of skin and blood on those high branches.”
“Nine years,” Hank said. “I was thinking before—I don’t even know what year this is.”
“It’s eighteen seventy,” she replied.
“The Civil War . . .”
“Ended five years ago.”
“Yes. I remember that. I don’t know why.”
“Do you remember fighting?”
“No.”
“Your age, you were likely a soldier. Probably for the North, given that you don’t sound like you’re from the South.”
“In those nine years of nursing, you ever see anything like the condition I have?”
“Not out here, but my brother, Wyatt, had his skull cracked by a shot during the War. The shell hit a rock and then hit him. He had trouble recalling things for a while. He wrote to me from Texas every day. He said it helped him remember things by setting them down.”
“Maybe I should try that. You mentioned animals—you don’t have any out here.”
“Not anymore. We had a dog, Dusty, but he died. Of boredom, I think. He was a big shepherd, made friends with the coyotes, so there wasn’t much for him to howl about here. We had a horse, too, but he got snake bit about six, seven months ago.”
“How do you get supplies? I saw sugar, salt—”
“There is a gentleman, Alan Russell, a retired lawman who rides up from Apple Town every two weeks or so. I’m expecting him today or tomorrow, in fact. Do you know that name? Apple Town?”
Hank thought a moment then shook his head.
“The Central Pacific Railroad? The station at Truckee?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“No matter. Apple Town has had a general store for about a year. Sheriff Russell brings mail. We give him our pension when it comes—I don’t otherwise need money out here—and we give him skins to sell or trade for what little we need.”
“Sounds like a kindly arrangement on his part,” Hank said.
Jane turned away suddenly to ladle water from the bucket to wash the cloth. Hank realized he had implied something else without intending to: that the man came out to see the widow. She changed the subject.
“The cavalry used to come through every month, when Nehemiah was alive,” she went on. “Captain Williams and his company out of Fort Yuma. They’d ask ranchers and homesteaders about the Indians, both the locals and those passing through. Since his death, they haven’t been around as much. Maybe once a month . . . less.”
“This Apple Town, you’ve been there?”
“Many times.”
“Can you describe it?”
“It’s got a general store, bank, saloon, hotel, blacksmith, sheriff.”
Nothing in any of that sounded familiar, and Hank grew increasingly disheartened. Even if he was not from this area, he would have encountered or at least heard of one of those ranches or the town. They would have been on maps. One did not simply materialize in the desert.
The woman finished tying the clean bandage around the man’s head, then sent him back inside to dress.
“You’re patched but don’t forget you’re still injured!” she said after him. “You push, it’ll remind you.”
He waved his acknowledgment.
As Hank stepped back inside, the dark settled on him, fitting and appropriate. To the right, Douglas had finished placing wood in the hearth and was leaning forward, poking at the ashes beneath to start a fire.
“I wouldn’t duck so far in,” Hank suggested.
“I used to watch my dad—”
“He would’ve been a little higher up, maybe a head taller?”
“Oh, right,” Douglas said.
As they spoke, the fire took, and the wood began to burn. Excited, Douglas ran outside to tell his mother and cut into the rabbit.
Hank began to dress. And to think again. Jane Smith had counseled patience. Frustrating as that was, he knew it would be wise to follow her advice. Hopefully, some fragment would show up that would unblock all the rest.
Hank was just pulling on his boots when he heard a sound that was all too familiar.
The sound of a shotgun being pumped.
CHAPTER THREE
JANE GRABBED HER boy from where he had gone to tend to the rabbit. She threw him through the open door. He stumbled forward, landing on his knees as she followed him in. She reached for her own rifle, but it was gone.
Hank had it. He was walking toward the eastern window.
“Give me the rifle!” Jane yelled, following him.
Hank looked back at her with a hard expression that stopped her cold. “You ever have visitors come around, making as if to shoot at you?”
“No—”
“They could’ve shot you in the open, both of you, out there,” Hank said. “It’s me that someone wants. See to Douglas. I’ll take care of whatever this is.”
Jane did not like being told what to do in her own home, but she did not argue with a man holding a gun, especially when it was her own. She hurried to where Douglas was picking himself up and put her arms around him. They walked to the far side of the clothes chest and crouched there.
Hank got on one knee beside the window. He stayed to the side and moved the pelt curtain a little with the barrel of the rifle. He edged forward to look outside.
A ferocious blast tore the hanging shade from its wooden rod and put holes in the wall near the shelves. The boy gasped, and his mother bundled him closer, her back to the eastern window. Losing the shade threw the center of the room into sharp sunlight, the sides going deeper into shadow.
Hank hugged the wall. “Who’s out there?” he yelled.
“Like you don’t know, scum!”
The man’s voice was gravelly, and the accent sounded familiar. Another piece he could remember that did him no good.
“Scum,” Douglas mumbled into his mother’s shoulder. “Is that Hank’s real name?”
She hushed the boy and hunkered lower. Her blue eyes were lost in the darkness, and the darkness was filled with fear. Neither bandits nor red men had ever menaced her here. Even the winged and pawed predators passed their meager dwelling without bothering them. Maybe they smelled the long-dead skins and were warned off. Now an act of charity had brought hostility to their door. She relaxed her hold on her son, lest her fright brand him for the rest of his life.
Hank had settled back from the window to consider his next move. He looked over at the chest, where Jane and her son were hiding. Whatever he had done to anger this man, Hank could not endanger them further. He leaned toward the window.
“What do you want?” Hank asked.
“What you took!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, let’s discuss this. What’s going to happen if I come out?”
“That depends on what’s in your hand.”
“What should be in my hand?”
The man outside snorted. “Jesus, what kind of a game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing any game. I swear it. Look, let me come out and talk to you.”
“Sure. First, throw out what you stole, followed by that rifle. Then come out with your hands high.”
“I can only do two of those,” Hank replied. “Whatever you think I have—I don’t have it.”
“You give it to your partner? Where’s he?”
“I don’t know!”
A second shot blasted through the window, sending Hank ducking backward and chipping large gashes in the frame and clanging off a metal pot and pan on the shelf.
“Damn it, man. Stop!” Hank shouted when the echo died. “I don’t know what you want! I swear to you, I don’t even know my name!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Someone hit me on the skull and left me lying near naked in the desert. I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to have done. Please. There’s a woman and her son here with me—”
“I saw ’em. They can leave if they want.”
“This is their home,” Hank said. “They were kind enough to take me in. You stop shooting, and I’ll come out, unarmed. I swear it.”
There was a short silence. As Hank waited, the wind carried the tart smell of gunpowder into the cabin. He knew that odor very, very well. He tried hard to place it. The War, as Jane had said? Or something more recent? Nothing came to him.
“You sure there isn’t anybody else in there with you?” the man yelled.
“You can come in and check,” Hank said.
“Yeah, you’d like that. Bushwhack me like you did before. I don’t see your horse. Where is it?”
“Same person hit me took it.”
“Maybe your partner?”
“Maybe. You seem to know more about all of this than I do.”
There was another silence, a little longer.
“Is there a man of the house? Is anyone else expected?”
“You see that grave? It’s his,” Hank said.
“Awright, mister. I’m not sure I believe a word you spoke, but toss the rifle out the window, stock first. Your knife?”
“What knife?”
“Christ . . . just come out the door to your left.” He raised his voice. “The woman and child inside—you two stay where you are. If there’s shooting, I don’t want you in the way.”
“They will stay here,” Hank assured him after checking with Jane, who nodded. “I’m gonna push the rifle out now. Don’t shoot my hand off!”
“Don’t give me cause!”
It seemed strange—stupid, actually—that during the exchange, when his life had been at risk, Hank had not been afraid. Without his memory he felt blameless, innocent of even the most heinous crime conceivable.
Maybe you shouldn’t be looking for anything more, he warned himself—knowing that no man was wise enough to stop where he was now: clean.
“I’m coming out now!” Hank yelled.
“Back door.”
“Back door,” Hank confirmed.
He looked once more at Jane and her boy. They were a featureless shape beyond the shaft of light. He smiled, hoping they saw. Then, hands raised, he started toward the door in boots that were a little too tight and clomped a little too loud on the plank floor. His heart was beating in his ears as well—again not from fear but from what he felt was a kind of natural animal readiness.
Hank squinted as he returned to the dazzling sunlight. It was hotter now, not just because it was later but because he was clothed. His underwear was already soaked, and the fabric dampened quickly. Hank turned his head and peered through narrowed eyes at the spot where the shot had originated. He saw a hat sticking up just behind the well, the brow below it in shade. Whoever was there had probably came from the south—behind Hank, either tracking him or following him. There were two horses tied to a bush about forty feet south of the well. The man must have used the house as cover when he approached.
“You came with two mounts?” Hank said. “For me?”
“Manner of speaking,” the other man said. “Packhorse is for the dead bodies.”
“Is there a bounty on me?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
The man’s replies added confusion rather than clarity.
“What do you want me to do?” Hank asked.
“Come toward the well. Slowly, hands still raised. I know what you can do with a knife.”
There was a flash in Hank’s brain—just a fleeting vision of a silver blade with a bone handle. Then the vision was gone.
“I wish I knew what I could do,” Hank replied. “For starters, you mind telling me my name?”
“If I knew it, I would.”
“Are you in your right mind? You come here to toss me over the back of a horse, and you don’t even know my name?”
“All I know about you is that you’re a varmint who took what didn’t belong to you, and the weapon you used, and where you headed with that other bandit.”
“Okay, let’s start with that,” Hank said. “What did I take?”
“You can stop walking right there,” the man said when Hank was about six feet away. “But keep your hands raised. Also, you can stop talking. I’m sick of hearing you talk bunkum with your mouth.”
Hank did as he was told, his feet burning and uncomfortable in the boots. Flies began buzzing around his wound. He blew them away with little puffs of breath.
The other man rose slowly behind his shotgun. His eyes shifted between the cabin and Hank. The man was stocky, dressed in a dusty, perspiration-stained Rebel uniform, and wearing a scruffy beard and soldier’s cap that had seen better days. Like Jane, he had a sun-bronzed face. Unlike Jane, he was scowling.
“What did you take?” the man said with open disbelief. “You and your partner took a lockbox that we had carried with us from Ensenada. There were gold coins and documents inside. Stir the pot any?”
“No,” Hank said. “I’ve never heard of that place, as far as I can recollect.”
“You’ve never heard of Ensenada,” the man said. “What kind of game are you playing, mister? Or are you trying to buy time for some purpose?”
“I’m telling you—”
“You’re not telling me anything. You’re just talking!” The man jabbed the gun forward as if it were an index finger. “If what you’re saying is true, I’m guessing your partner took it and your horse and left you for dead.” The man studied Hank for a moment. He pointed at the man’s head with the shotgun. “That where you got clubbed?”
“Yes. When I woke in the desert, I had my underwear on and nothing else. I got up and just started walking.”
“West.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed water, and it was the only place that wasn’t desert.”
“He’s telling the truth!” Jane shouted from the house.
The Rebel stood with his shoulders back, measuring things up.
“What did you mean about me being capable with a knife?” Hank asked. “I’ve been feeling this—urge with my fingers. What did I do?”
The man turned his head so his left cheek was facing Hank. A red gash ran along the bone, front to back. “You did that from about the distance you are now, into a tree and on horseback. Then you filled your hand with a second one while I was still standing there.”
“Then I didn’t mean to kill you.”
“That seems to be the case.”
“That should count for something.”
“Maybe you got a soft spot other than on your head.”
Hank ignored the gibe. “What else happened?”
“I was bent over the fire, working on something, when you showed up.”
“I don’t recall that.”
“The man you were with—he took the box at gunpoint and told you to hurry along. He could have shot us but didn’t. We figure he wanted what we carried but didn’t want an incident. Sound familiar yet?”
“No.” There was not, in fact, a glimmer of anything recognizable about this man or his story. But Hank was glad to hear that, at least in this instance, he was not a murderer.
