Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron by RALPH COMPTON Page B

picking up the gun. She looked the gun over, noting the single round of ammunition in the cylinder. Then she let the hammer down gently but didn’t hand the gun to Dave Waddell when he reached out for it.
    Dave dropped his hand and rubbed it on his trousers. “It’s not what you think, ma’am,” he said.
    â€œOh? And what do I think?” Danielle responded.
    â€œWell, I know it looked like I was getting ready to shoot myself. But I wasn’t—that is, I wouldn’t have.... I don’t think.” Dave struggled with his words while Danielle and Stick only stared at him. Finally he gave up and collapsed into the chair. “What’s the difference? Maybe I should have pulled that trigger.” He hung his head and continued. “I know why you’re riding this way—you’re hunting for Cherokee Earl and his bunch. And yes, they were here. They took my horses and my wife, Ellen. Then they rode on.”
    Stick and Danielle looked at one another, then back at Dave Waddell. “They took Miss Ellen?” Danielle asked.
    â€œYes,” said Dave. Then he asked, a bit surprised, “You ... knew my Ellen?”
    â€œWe only met once,” said Danielle, “at the mercantile in Haley Springs. How long have they been gone? We’ll have to catch them quick, before ...” She cut herself off, letting her words trail, but Dave caught what she’d kept from saying.
    â€œI’m not sure,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Cherokee Earl knocked me out. Then they took her and rode off. It’s been a while—I know that.”
    Stick butted in. “Damn it, man, weren’t you going after them?”
    â€œEasy, Stick,” said Danielle, although she had been wondering the same thing.
    â€œI wanted to,” Dave said, a slight whine to his voice. He gestured a hand toward the empty corral. “But as you can see, they took all the fresh horses.” Fifty yards away, three of the spent mounts left by Earl Muir’s men grazed on scattered clumps of wild grass.
    Stick said, “So instead of cooling out one of them horses and going to save your wife, you decided to blow your brains out.” He shook his head.
    Danielle cut Stick off with a firm gaze. She looked back at Dave, studying his eyes as she spoke. “I’ve got a string of horses waiting just beyond the rise in the road. Are you up to going with us to get your wife back?”
    â€œYes, of course!” Dave sprang to his feet. “I didn’t mean to give you the notion that I wasn’t interested in saving her. You just have to excuse me.... That lick on the head has left me addled.”
    â€œThen go throw some water on your face,” said Stick. “Be ready to go when I bring the horses in here.” He turned, climbed into his saddle, and looked down at Danielle as Dave Waddell staggered into the house. “Don’t turn your back on that peckerwood,” he cautioned her in a low, guarded tone. “Something ain’t right about him.”
    â€œDon’t worry about me,” said Danielle, her hand resting on her pistol butt. “But let’s give the man the benefit of the doubt. A hard lick on the head can take a spell to get over.”
    â€œYeah,” said Stick, backing his horse. “The question is, why’d he let a bunch like Earl Muir’s boys ever get close enough to do it in the first place?”
    â€œI wondered that myself,” said Danielle under her breath, watching Stick tug his hat brim down and ride off toward the rise in the trail.
    â€œThere, all ready to go,” said Dave Waddell, coming back through the open door, drying his head on a wadded-up towel.
    Danielle looked off along the trail as Stick disappeared over the rise. “He’ll be a couple of minutes,” she said. She looked at the empty holster on Dave’s hip, much too big for the smaller, slimmer Navy Whitney,