The Outlaw

By Ted Stetson

About the only thing left in Coronado Station is the train stop.
A group of passengers await the train, delayed by a sandstorm.
One by one they tell their tales of the shocking crime committed here.
Each one has a different version of what happened between the outlaw and the lady,
and who killed Frank Glover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ted Stetson
• Release date: May 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310465604

Ted Stetson

Ted Stetson is a member of SFWA. He was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island and went to Seton Hall and Hofstra. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. He was awarded First Place by the Florida Literary Arts Council and First Place in the Lucy B. McIntire contest of the Poetry Society of Georgia. His short fiction has appeared in Twisted Tongue, MysteryAuthors.com, Future Orbits, State Street Review, and the anthologies; One Evening a Year, Mota: Truth, Ruins Extraterrestrial Terra, Ruins Terra and Barren Worlds. His books include: Night Beasts, The Computer Song Book.

Book preview

The Outlaw

By Ted Stetson

Published by Three Door Publishing

Copyright © 2016 Ted Stetson

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For Gail

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Contents

Chapter 1 – Coronado Station

Chapter 2 – Storm

Chapter 3 – Colt Dragoon

Chapter 4 – Colt Walker

Chapter 5 – Gold

Chapter 6 – Sharps Rifle

Chapter 7 – Appaloosa

Chapter 8 – Paco

Chapter 9 – Molly

Chapter 10 – Sweeney

Chapter 11 – Salez

Chapter 12 – Doc Hodges

Chapter 13 – Helen

Chapter 14 – The Train

About the Author

Gentry Series

Other Stories

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Outlaw

By Ted Stetson

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Chapter 1 – Coronado Station

At first light, Juan Montoya climbed out of bed. A bright ray of spring sunlight came through the patched drape Rosita had hung over the busted window. Juan sat on the side of the bed breathing in the cold morning air to wake himself up. Then he put on worn pants.

He groped around for his socks in the shadows, but couldn't find them. He looked across the room at the cabinet and decided it wasn't worth the effort to walk there for another pair, so he put on his boots without socks, something he did often.

He grabbed his shirt from a chair next to the bed, noticed his wife had washed it last night, and put it on, smelling its freshness. As he walked around the bed he patted her rear in thanks. I'm too tired, she mumbled half asleep. He smiled as he went out of the room and closed the door.

Stopping in the hall to button his shirt, noted the Ben Franklin had gone out. Either too hot, or too cold.

Juan was of average height and wiry strong from constant hard work. His skin, where exposed to the sun, was burnt the color of leather. His dark brown hair needed a trim. His eyes were like the brown topaz jewelry he sold in his store and sparkled with his enthusiasm for life.

He walked into the waiting room where it was even colder. He saw the stranger wrapped in the old blanket sleeping on the long bench. Can't afford 50 cents for a room, you can sleep out here. The fire in the stone fireplace had almost gone out so he tossed a few sticks from the pile into the hot ashes. In a few minutes, they started smoking.

Nailed onto the fireplace’s rock chimney was an old map. Coronado Station was not on the map. It was hundreds of miles from anywhere, on a little-used spur of the Union Pacific railroad. To the south, east and west, the desert land was flapjack flat. To the north was a plateau as barren as the desert.

A long time ago it had been a stage depot in Indian Territory, and then when the mines were working it was called Coronado Springs with a few adobe buildings lining the one street. When the mines closed, it became a ghost town. Now it was Coronado Station, but the train rarely stopped because the new water tender gave the train longer range.

When flames rose from the sticks, Juan put bigger kindling on top then a few small logs. He stretched and yawned as he gazed at the lobby. Against the north wall was the fireplace, a long counter for drinking or buying package goods off the shelf. Windows flanked the fireplace, one overlooking the corral and the other opening into the kitchen. Years ago a door in the east wall had led to one room, now it led to a short hall and several rooms. Around the walls were small tables, chairs and benches. On either side of the front entrance were closed shutters with ‘T’ slits cut in them for rifles. He looked at the ‘T’ and made the sign of the cross on himself.

Now the depot turned hotel turned station was rarely used. The Butterfield stage from the West sometimes stopped there and turned about, or continued to El Paso. It was close to the Goodnight-Loving trail that occasionally brought cowboys by and stagecoaches heading north or south were known to stop, mostly for water and occasionally to discard passengers who caught the Butterfield stage or the train. And a few local ranchers picked up their mail and some supplies.

The railroad had put the spur through because of the copper mine. However, no sooner were the tracks laid than the mine gave out and the miners left. The railroad might have pulled out completely if it wasn't for the Army fort, which sometimes used the spur. Even so, the railroad did not stop regularly.

The way station, the railroad, the remnants of the town was a part of the West that was already dying out. Prior to the Civil War, it looked like the town might actually be put on a map. Then the war came and people, civilization passed it by. The few building on Main Street were abandoned and rotting away, only a few adobe huts stood back from the road. The roads to and from the town were in danger of being buried by the desert. Coronado Station was a vestige of things that no longer were. It was a part of the past being left behind in the race for civilization, for progress, and the future.

Montoya walked to the side door. On the wall next to the door was a notice board with times and arrival dates of stages and trains and if someone had work they’d write; what, where and when.

Went El Paso visit family . . . Juanita.

Need man at line shack -- Bear Claw Ranch

Cant run ranch alone.

Carl ran oof with theving Juanita

Took kids to mothr’s in Galveston

Dory

Next to this were faded and torn Wanted Posters, tacked one on top of the other. The top one:

Wanted Dead or Alive

‘Big’ Steve Long

Reward $1,000

Under Long’s name was a short description and a pencil drawing of him, a big man with a long nose and a pointed chin.

Montoya looked at the picture then back at the stranger. No, it wasn’t him; still, he was curious. He started to lift the top poster and thumb through the posters under it when he heard the stranger move as if waking. He quickly let go and stepped out the door.

He left the door open to air the place out. The bright desert sun greeted him with crisp dryness that made him pause and take a big breath. The desert was in riotous bloom, having come alive in the spring rains with flowers and greenery. A sparrow whistled from the arroyo behind the corral. The air was brisk and the animals were stirring in the barn.

He surveyed the building that was part adobe and part made out of rocks and wood. Sparrows lived on the sod roof. Over the front door was a wood canopy that provided some shade from the hot desert sun. On the west side was a corral and lean-to barn. On the east side, looking like a newly joined building, which it was, were several small sod rooms.

He went around the hotel to the well that Indians and the Spanish had used for centuries. It was said Francisco de Coronado’s army had bivouacked here in his search for the Seven Cities of Gold. He lowered the bucket and soon had hoisted up several buckets of cool clear water. He filled the horses’ trough, put some in the flume he had rigged up to carry water to his wife's garden. He carried a bucket to the kitchen window and filled the large blue ironstone pitcher on the ledge. The last bucket he poured into a blue ironstone washbasin and washed his face in the cold water.

Then he walked to the lean-to barn to feed the cow, horse, chickens and goats. As he herded the livestock into the corral he spotted boot prints on the ground. It had rained the night before so the ground was clean of tracks. The stranger had arrived after sunset and Montoya had accompanied him and his roan to the corral. These tracks were not his, not the stranger’s. This was a solitary track, made last night. He squatted and examined it. Big boots, the left heel print made a solid ‘D’ in the soil. The right boot print was deeper, he was right-footed, and the edge of the ‘D’ worn away. The boot print was bigger than his and different from the stranger’s. An Indian would wear moccasins, so it wasn’t a raid, but still his eyes went to the door. His rifle was just inside, but he didn’t sense this was bandit trouble.

He followed the track around the station to the street. The stride was longer now and the steps were deep as if the person was in a hurry. He followed the track up the street to a ruined building, only a chimney standing. There, the track turned south into the desert. It didn’t make sense. Why would anyone scout the station? Nothing to rob. No one to shoot. Just him, his wife and the stranger. It was nothing to worry about, out here few things were.

Then he saw something on the road glinting in the bright morning sunlight and immediately thought of Professor Abbott from the college back East who had come here a year ago looking for artifacts from Francisco de Coronado. Professor Abbott said anything Coronado’s expedition had left behind might be worth money, might even be gold. So when he saw the thing glinting in the road, his mind immediately thought he’d struck it rich. He rushed to the spot and picked up the shiny object. It was a shiny new brass cartridge for a .44 caliber gun. He stared at the large cartridge for a moment; the stranger did not have a .44, nor did he. Who did it belong to?

He turned to look at where the tracks led and noticed a small jack rabbit standing stone still across the street behind some bunch grass. It was watching him. He sensed movement and glanced at the one-eared coyote crossing the road just outside of town. He turned to chase the rabbit away, but it was already gone. Then the coyote went in the same general direction, must’ve heard something, going to investigate.

He pocketed the cartridge and thought about the stranger as he went back to the station. He’d ridden in at sunset and hadn’t had much to say. Only asked if the train was coming tomorrow. Either he didn’t want to spend money for a room or didn’t have it to spend. In his holster was an old .36 caliber Navy Colt that was clean and had seen much use. The stranger did not have the appearance of a man who had money; he needed a shave, haircut and a bath. Why had someone scouted the station? It made no sense to him. At least it made no sense yet.

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Chapter 2 – Storm

As he did chores he thought of his son gone to live with Aunt Bonnie, his wife’s sister in St. Louis where he could attend school regularly. By now José would be up and eating breakfast. It made him proud that he was helping his son live a better life, even though at times he missed his boy so much it almost drove him crazy.

He milked the cow and grabbed a handful of eggs before heading back to the station. He saw the stranger washing his face in the basin, the water in the washbasin now a dirty brown.

Howdy, Montoya said and the stranger's blue eyes studied him a moment before he nodded and put on his hat. Under the sombrero Montoya could not see the stranger's face and after feeling the heat of his eyes, did not want to.

Rosita was busy in the kitchen. She had tied her long brown hair out of the way with a red ribbon. The grill was sizzling and she was mixing up a bowl of johnnycakes. He put the bucket of milk on the window and she took it and added some milk to the mixture to soften the cakes. He liked to watch her cook, but she glanced up and gave him a look that said, don’t you have something to do? Then he heard horses in front and hurried to see who it was.

Pulling up to the hitching rail in a buckboard was Easley Evans and his pregnant wife, Molly. Riding alongside was their neighbor, Molly's older brother, broad-shouldered Chester Clifton.

Howdy, Evans, Montoya called in his slow way of talking.

Evans nodded and climbed down, walked to the center of the street and stared at what used to be Main Street like he always did, like he imagined he was a gunslinger, or maybe he was imagining what the town might look like if the cooper mine hadn’t gone bust.

Hi Juan, what do you know? Chester Clifton smiled as he climbed off his big brown horse. Chester always rode horses that were too big for him. Montoya once said to Rosita, Must make him feel like a big man in the saddle. Chester took off his wide-brimmed hat to shake the dust off and his carrot-colored hair glistened in the morning sunlight. Must’ve washed his hair to come to town Montoya reflected as he tied the horse to the rail. Next he brushed off his vaquero jacket.

After a survey of the town, Evans said, Looks like the summer's gonna start early and be hot.

Sí, like last year. Montoya hurried to the buckboard to help Molly down. She was so big pregnant he wondered how she had gotten up there.

Thank you, Juan. Molly had the same carroty hair as her brother Chester, but on her it was long and silky smooth.

What is it? This your fifth, Molly?

She stood on the ground, her hands on her back and smiled. Yep, number five. Her green eyes glanced fondly at Evans.

Another mouth to feed, Evans said sourly, hiding his pride behind his eyes.

If you was a gentleman, you woulda helped me down.

Don't start, Evans warned, walking up to the door, spitting a quid of tobacco in the dirt before going in.

Molly shook her head and followed him.

Must have gotten an early start, Chester.

Early? Ain’t the half of it . . . went over to dinner last night . . . got to talking . . . didn't sleep a wink.

Chester’s talking reminded Montoya that they’d never asked Rosita or him over.

Come on in, Montoya said good-naturedly. You're just in time for breakfast.

That's what we're here for.

Sally the Indian squaw was sweeping out the room. She lived in an adobe hut up the street. She swept quietly, slowly, not stirring up any dust. She was a Navajo woman whose age could have been anywhere from 20 to 40. She had long black hair with grey strands, and wore loose-fitting cotton skirts and blouses.

While the guests said hello to Rosita, Montoya carried the eggs into the kitchen. He looked out the window and noticed the stranger was no longer by the well. He walked back into the main room and was about to ask his wife where he’d gone when he noticed him sitting in the corner leaning back against the wall, still in his tan Navajo poncho, his hat low so no one could see his face. He’d usually be troubled by the stranger, but Sally treated him nicely and she had the best instincts for people of anyone he’d ever met.

Sally Rainwater set the table while Rosita made breakfast and Montoya carried the huge pot of coffee to the table. As he was filling cups he remembered the stranger and turned to ask him if he wanted some. To his surprise Sally was handing him a steaming cup then went back to the kitchen.

A guest? Evans nodded at the stranger.

Yeah. Montoya hoped he wouldn’t be trouble.

Uh huh, Evans said, and left him alone as he did anyone bigger than he was.

The johnnycakes