Melinda Heads West (3 page)

“Well, hang on a minute. Open it up first, and let me take a look at it.”

The whiner rose to a half-kneeling position as the leader of the dusty band took a long knife from a leather sheath strapped near his gun belt. As he carved open the lid to one of the awkward red cans, a rich aroma wafted through the air. Looking up with a slow grin, he dug into the other two, setting each newly opened can on the ground.

The mood in the group distinctly changed, until he punctured the last container and a foul odor jumped out at them. “Whew-ee, boys!” he said, chucking the rank can over the edge of the rock cliff. That means we’re down to just two cans.”

“Count me out,” said the complainer, stalking away from the others. “I told you I wasn’t eating nothing outta no can. And you’re all crazy if you do!”

“Suit yourself, Byler.” As the leader handed the cans around, he made sure to hand one to Mindy first. “Eat your portion and then pass it to your neighbor. I’ll do without.” No one argued.

Stanton eagerly grasped a can with both hands and gulped down the contents. There was a shout at his side about fairness and eating too much.

Mindy looked at the man standing next to her, solidly built, strong, hearty. She was happy to go first. Tipping the can up, she urged the contents into her waiting mouth. The beans were warm but moist, and filled her mouth with an explosion of sensations. She closed her eyes to enjoy the experience. Her throat welcomed the wetness, her lips gloried in the feel of moisture again. The fact that the dust from her face combined with the pork and beans didn’t deter from her enjoyment at all. Her stomach roared loudly and she lifted the can higher, like a babe suckling a bottle.

“Hang on a minute, there. Don’t get carried away, you’re going to choke yourself.”

Mindy wiped one sleeve across her mouth, then spat at the dust. The black-eyed man took the can and downed the rest of the contents.

“Like you care,” she said with a snarl. “Then you wouldn’t have to carry me
or
my bag.”

The Byler Brothers were getting antsy. It was an easy job: steal the payroll box from the stagecoach and head off into the sunset. But there was one problem. The stagecoach wasn’t making its planned appearance.

“You sure you got the right day?” Lee Byler, the eldest, asked his middle brother. Lee was whittling a stick down to a point as they sat sprawled on rocks high on a hill, the afternoon sun beating down on them without mercy.

“Sure I’m sure! How would I mess up something like that?” Ben replied, wiping his face and neck with a dirty, gray bandanna.

Lee stood and paced. He waved the pointed end of the stick within inches of Ben’s face. “Same way you messed up that bank robbery in El Dorado! Same way you messed up — ”

“Yeah, yeah, I was a kid then. I got it right this time. Sit tight. She’ll be coming by. It’s just a matter of time.”

Lee kicked at a third brother. “Wake him up! He’s sleeping again! I swear, one of these days … ”

Ben shoved at a young, blond boy with the heel of his boot. “Wake up, Roger.”

“What is it? Is it the stage?” the boy asked, wiping his eyes.

“Naw. No stage. But lookee here, boys. We do have us some company coming.” Lee leaned into a more alert position. By then they could all hear the approaching hoof beats. It sounded like the clattering of multiple riders coming their way, but as the oncoming visitors turned a bend, the boys saw a single rider with several ponies.

“Well, now, Ben,” Lee said, relaxing and pulling a pistol from his hip. He checked the rounds. “Does it seem fair to you that that there rider should have four horses when each of us has only one?”

Ben smiled. “Why, no sir! And if there’s one thing I’ve always believed in, it’s fairness.”

“Then what say we go down and help parcel out those horses a bit more equitably?”

Lee made a motion with the pistol and Ben made his way back down the rocks. He grabbed his younger brother by the shoulder and dragged him along. Lee waited for his siblings to get into position. He loved moments like this. “King of the Mountain” had been a game they’d played as children. One boy would climb to the top of a pile of firewood or rocks, and dare anybody to oust him from the position. What followed was a free-for-all, a throwing, digging, biting, fighting, free-for-all, but the one left standing at the end was the King of the Mountain. The other boys had respected that, and Lee had liked the feeling. He took in a deep breath of mountain air and smiled, then shot his revolver once into the air.

“Morning, neighbor!” he said to the startled rider, who glanced up. The man’s ride spooked and reared, while the three horses he was leading pulled in different directions in their attempts to break free. “I’m going to assume you’re carrying a weapon, and I’ll ask you right nicely to throw it to the side.”

As the man began to get his horses under control, he reached for a rifle near his leg. Two guns near him clicked open and prepared to fire. He raised the rifle slowly, staring directly into the hard-set face of Ben Byler. The man had no choice, and tossed his rifle to the ground. Roger ran to pick it up and then to help calm the horses.

“Hey, I know you!” Ben said as he stepped closer to their captive, a man dressed in dirty, tan-colored clothing. He hollered up the mountain, “It’s Gibb Tucker. This here’s the stagecoach driver!”

“Well, that’s right funny,” Lee called back, stepping stone by stone down into the tense scene. “You might say we’ve been waiting on you. But it appears you’ve lost something. I don’t think your boss is going to like you coming in without that fancy box or them paying customers.” He grinned at his own humor and Ben laughed out loud.

Lee frowned when the rider didn’t cut a smile. His next words turned harsh. “Let go them horses.”

The man named Gibb slowly uncoiled several reins from his pommel. “I’ve heard horse thieving’ll get a man killed,” he said, handing the lead ropes over to Roger.

“Sometimes a smart mouth’ll do the same.” Lee’s gaze narrowed. “Where’s that payroll box?”

Gibb Tucker started to say something, but Roger hollered out, “Here it is!” He’d found it strapped to one of the horses.

“I don’t guess today’s your lucky day, then, neighbor,” Lee said, smiling again. “We hadn’t planned to entertain company. But we sure do appreciate you bringing this by to us.” Lee glanced over at his siblings; they communicated with a single, decisive look. “Step down off that horse, friend.”

Tucker moved slowly. He slid one leg over his mount and eased down into the left stirrup. Then he slapped the horse on the butt, and hauled toward the desert for all he was worth, with himself riding on the low side of the pony.

Two gunshots rang out. The horse stumbled to the dry red earth, collapsing on Gibb and trapping his lower body. “Help me!” Gibb called. “I’m hurt. Help me!”

Lee Byler remained where he was. He clicked open his pistol and spun the chambers in the bright sunlight. He smiled and squinted, showing his teeth and staring at the miniature reflection of himself in the butt of the gun. “Take care of that, Ben. You know I don’t like the messy work.” Both brothers laughed as Ben stalked off. Lee watched in irritation as his younger brother covered his ears and swiveled away just as a piercing shot silenced Gibb’s pleas.

Lee, the oldest brother, leader of the group, coolly reloaded his own weapon. When Roger turned back, Lee was holding the revolver just inches from the boy’s face. “Little brother, it’s time you decided which side of the gun you’d rather be on.” Roger swallowed and nodded, then jerked at the string of horses, leading them past his brother and into the open area.

• • •

“It’s empty!” Ben shouted. He stood over the open payroll box, both feet planted on the dusty red clay.

“What?” Lee marched over to look for himself. “They’ve sent it some other ways! We’ve been tricked.” He took off his hat and scrubbed his forehead. As he did, he heard a soft moan. Whirling, he marched over to where the man in brown lay dying in the dirt, still captured beneath the huge horse. When he reached him, Lee grabbed Gibb by the collar and jerked him up, shaking him. “Where’s the gold? Where’s that gold!”

“I don’t … oooh … I don’t know.” The dying man had bubbles of blood running from his mouth.

“What do you mean you don’t know? That’s my money!” Lee dropped the man and stepped back. He fired a single shot into the man’s arm.

Gibb started to cry. Huge tears made tracks down his dust-covered face. “What’re you doing to me? Can’t you see I’m already dead? I don’t know where … ” he swallowed heavily, “ … your gold is … but I hope … you never … find it.”

Lee rammed the nozzle of his gun into the man’s furrowed, sun browned forehead. “Say that again.” Gibb’s eyes closed. Lee shoved him harder. “Say that again, I said!”

Ben pulled at his older brother. “He’s gone, Lee. Come on. He didn’t know nothing. Let’s go. We’ve got to go.”

Another shot rang out from Lee’s pistol. “I told you to take care of him to start with!” Lee said, turning on Ben. “I didn’t mean no gut-shot. Both of you are little children! Next time, I’ll leave you home with your Momma.”

Both Roger and Ben were silent as they gathered up their own horses and the new ones, and prepared to head out. Lee went to stand on a small rocky outcrop, surveying the area.
I’m King of this Mountain,
he thought.
That’s my gold … and I aim to find it.

Mindy wanted to beg to be carried. With each turn in the rocky road, she prayed for the signal to stop, but none came. She prayed for the call that water had been reached, but none came. Instead, she felt more drained each passing moment beneath the sizzling, scorching sun. Her cheeks burned, her lips were swollen and ached with a fierceness. Her hair hung down in tangled, ratty waves and her hands throbbed from the cuts and bruises she had sustained during her many trips and falls — they cried out with angry voices at the ends of her arms. The dress she wore was filthy and tattered at the hem. And still, the ragged tracks in the ground went on. Her legs now moved independently of thought.

Each time she imagined her endurance had reached its end, the evil-eyed Tormentor cast a glance her way. Her back stiffened and her steps quickened. She would not be considered a hindrance; he’d eat his words.

Her thoughts were as tangled as her hair. Her mind drifted from the present to the past and back again. She remembered arguing with her mother.

“It’s not right,” her mother had said. “It’s simply not done. A young lady does not travel alone. I won’t have it!”

They were seated in their comfortable parlor, and to Mindy, the trip had seemed nothing more than a slight inconvenience. She didn’t understand her mother’s objections.

“Travel is much safer these days, Mother,” she had countered. “It’s not as if I would be headed into uncharted territory. And who else
is
there? Surely you can’t think to take everyone — the cost would be exorbitant, and imagine the younger children on an extended journey!”

Her mother had sighed. “No. That wouldn’t do at all. They can barely tolerate a trip to your Aunt Sarah’s. Or, should I say, I can barely tolerate them.”

“Exactly, Mother. There is no other choice. I’m an intelligent woman, and you’ve often said that intelligent women can handle anything a man can. Will you deny those words now?”

“Of course not. It’s true and you know it.”

“Then there’s no argument. It’s not as if we still live in the dark ages. People travel from one coast to the other with regularity. It’s a simple journey. I’ll be traveling by train most of the way.” She didn’t mention to her mother that one leg of the journey would be by stagecoach, no need to have her worrying. Melinda wasn’t concerned — she actually bubbled with excitement.

Finally, a chance to leave Rockland and see some other part of the world!

Her mother opened her mouth to speak, but a man’s voice came out: “Buzzards.”

Mindy was startled from her reverie by the men’s conversation.

“Low flying. That’s not a good sign.” The leader, Lucas, someone had said, stopped and placed one hand to his forehead to block the sun. “Probably just some animal, but it’s a bad omen.”

“Not far away, neither,” another man said.

They didn’t walk much farther before they stumbled upon Gibb’s body, still pinned under the horse. The birds had done their work and his body was riddled with holes from their sharp beaks, his flesh ripped and torn.

Stanton, walking alongside Mindy, held her back when she would have stepped closer. “You don’t want to see that, ma’am. What them buzzards’ll do to a creature ain’t fit for you to look at.”

Mindy turned away in disgust and remorse.

“Gunshot. Hard to tell, but looks like he’s been shot three or four times,” Lucas said from his position near the body. Mindy’s mind raced. What if she had insisted upon riding with the stagecoach driver? Would she be lying alongside him now?

“Horses are nowhere to be seen. I’m sure that whoever did this took ’em. I guess the money’s gone too.”

“Looks like,” said the whining man named Byler. He wore a peculiar smirk.

Lucas looked around at the group of men. “We can’t just leave him here. We’ve got to bury the body. Anybody got suggestions?” It wasn’t as if they had tools with them.

The men decided to cover the body with rocks to protect it from the elements. It took all of them working together to lift the horse in order to drag Gibbs’ body away.

• • •

“Water ahead!”

Mindy wanted to drop to the ground with exhausted delight. The sight of the stream, brown and muddy, was like a gift from heaven. She fell at the edge and scooped up handfuls to pour over her head and arms. They ached upon contact, but there was also a delicious pleasure.

Dirty though it was, every person in their party was happy to drink the liquid. Minutes passed in silence while everyone had their fill and splashed water onto red, sunburned limbs.

• • •

Boone drank until his stomach felt engorged, then sat back and leaned against his long arms. He couldn’t quit eying the young woman. He was shocked at how well she had done on the walk. It had been a tortuous journey and would have broken any other woman he knew. But he reminded himself there was a lot more walking to come — she still might fall apart.