Editor's Note: The Cadwallader story is part of an ongoing saga straight out of the Old West. Authored by T.K. Hugh, you will not find out what has brung our main character near to death in the hot New Mexico desert. --Al Colombo
I snapped out of my daydream just in time to avoid stepping into a large arroyo that was hidden by the deepening shadows of the afternoon. Had I fallen down the embankment in my present condition I would have never been able to climb back out. I sank down to one knee. I was tired, bone tired and very thirsty once again.
I forced myself up and began walking around the rim of the big gulch, keeping my back to the sun to make sure I didn’t get turned around. For the first time since I had started walking I became aware of my feet. They were a mess after walking miles in boots made for riding. Blisters had formed and busted more than once and I started to dread every step. If I didn’t make the wells today, I was a goner.
After passing the arroyo, I just kept walking east, one foot in front of the other. The pain in my feet blended with the overwhelming fatigue. The sun on my back became a force pushing me onward, like a giant hand. Suddenly one of my feet caught on something and I fell forward and hit the ground hard. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t make my arms and legs obey. Then everything went black.
**
The morning after the dust up in the Regency saloon, I sat across the dining room table from Sheriff Webb drinking coffee. I had already checked out of the Regency and had my saddlebags across an unused chair. We small talked about the weather and such and then his face took on a hard look.
“Ben, I know that you had no intention of staying in Las Vegas when you came here, but is there any way that I might be able to convince to you stay on a while?” He went on quickly, “I know that you were a deputy in Leadville for a couple of years and you had quite a reputation for keeping the peace. There are some…”
Right then I cut him off with the wave of my hand. “I’m done with that, John,” I told him. “I want to build a real future. I have all I have saved over the past years in that empty chair,” I said motioning to the saddlebags. “Look, I respect what you do but I know from personal experience that the kind of peace keeping that men like us do never lasts. When this place gets civilized, they’ll want a different kind of man wearing that star,” I finished.
I motioned the waitress for more coffee. As I did so I noticed the girl that I had seen in the hotel dining room on my first night in town sitting at another table.
“I’m heading for Mora,” I said with finality, cutting off all further discussion of the matter.
Webb put down his coffee and slid a dollar coin next to his unused saucer, paying for us both.
“Ben, I understand the pull that, that big open range can have on a man. I been tempted myself,” he said as he got up from the table. “Best of luck,” he said as he placed his hat on his head and walked out the door into the street, leaving me to my coffee and my thoughts.
I was in the street about halfway to the livery where I had left my horse when I heard her call out to me.
“Mr. Cadwallader! Mr. Cadwallader!” I looked back and saw the girl from the café running toward me holding her dress in both hands. I stopped until she caught up and then caught her breath.
“Mr. Cadwallader,” she said again still slightly out of breath. “My name is Nancy Frey. My brothers and I have been in Las Vegas for two weeks waiting for someone who might be heading toward Mora”.
She stopped talking to draw a few more deep breaths. All the while she was talking I was sizing her up. She was older up close than I had originally thought, but she still couldn’t have been more than twenty five or so.
When she looked up I asked, “How do you know I’m headed to Mora?”
“Well,” she said, looking downward a little, “I was listening to you talk to the Sheriff.” “I know it’s not ladylike to eavesdrop, but when I heard you say you were heading to Mora, I just couldn’t help it!”
As she finished talking she moved a little closer to me than need be. I suddenly had a feeling that she was used to getting what she wanted, “Please,” she said looking up directly into my eyes.
Well maybe it was my upbringing in the mining camps where decent women were scarce, but suddenly I just didn’t want to disappoint Miss Frey.
**
That’s how I ended up traveling with Nancy Frey and her brothers, Ned and William. I had no idea what a short trip it would be.
Although Mora is only about fifty miles from Las Vegas, you can’t just go straight there. You have to travel northwest in a zigzag pattern to stay on ground where a wagon could roll, which was my problem.
When I first agreed to take the Frey’s to Mora, I thought we would be traveling horseback. When they rolled that buckboard out of the stables I thought about just quitting right there. But a girl like Nancy Frey can make a man feel all chivalrous, like one of those knights in the books my father kept and real aloud every so often when I was a boy, so on we went, wagon and all. Besides, she told me that she couldn’t ride a horse, which I scarcely could believe.
That first day we only made about ten miles and I didn’t figure this was a good sign since we hadn’t got into the really rough country yet.
**
It had been three days by my figuring and we'd only made it about half way to Mora, which irritated me to no end. I had planned on four days tops, and had stocked water and food accordingly. I was thinking that we might have to lengthen our trip yet again and take a detour to Navaho Wells for more food and more importantly water.
Something else was bothering me. I noticed that every now and then I’d catch Ned or William looking at my saddlebags. I was wondering if Miss Frey had heard more than just my destination while eavesdropping the other night. I had what amounted to about two or three years cowpoke wages in those saddlebags. And it was mostly gold, which would spend just as well in Mexico as it would in New Mexico or Texas. Now I’m naturally a suspicious man, but I still tried to put the thought that the pretty woman riding in the wagon beside me was anything other than what she seemed to be.
We camped that night near a rock outcropping witch afforded shelter from the desert winds and provided sort of a natural corral for our picketed horses.
After our supper of dried beef and beans I was sitting back on my saddle and decided to tell the Frey’s my idea about Navaho Wells.
“I’m thinking we might have to make this trip a little longer than I thought,” I started out. “The wagon has slowed us down quite a bit and made us take a longer route than I had planned. If we take a day to get to Navaho Wells, there’s a trading post and fresh water this time of year. Another day back, and we can get to Mora in about another three days.”
“NO!” Nancy exclaimed as she stood up so quickly her tin plate fell out of her lap. “We have to get to Mora as quickly as possible. My hus…father is waiting for us there,” she stammered.”
I was leaning toward the fire to get more coffee when suddenly I saw a bright flash of light and I fell forward, almost into the fire. I was barely conscious, and my arms and legs seemed to be asleep, so I just lay there and listened.
“Get the saddlebags off his horse and cut him loose,” Nancy Frey ordered. It was now plain to see who was in charge. Either Ned or William cut Red’s picket line and gave him a hard slap. Red had always been skittish, so I figured he was good for a few miles before he even slowed down.
“Is he dead?” she asked in a cold voice.
“He’s still breathing,” I heard Ned say. “Want me to shoot him?”
“Too many people saw us leave town with him,” she said. “Take everything but his boots. It will look like his horse spooked, threw him and he hit his head.”
“By the time his body is found out here in this wasteland, we will be safely back across the Mississippi,” she said with certainty.
“What if he don’t die,” asked William.
“Well, a man like him might actually be able to survive with a crack on his skull, brother,” she said while picking up a large rock. “But I don’t think he could survive two, “she said as I heard her walking toward me.
Stay tune for Chapter 6, next week! --Carrie Aulenbacher
About the Author
T.K is a US Navy veteran and an engineer with over 30 years experience.
He is a weapons enthusiast, and a student of the Old West. A man out of his time, he feels as if he should have been born a hundred years earlier.
Both sides of his family arrived in America several generations before the Revolution.
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