Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron by RALPH COMPTON

So are those two men in the street.”
    â€œOh, dear,” said Annabelle, raising a hand to her lips. Danielle saw the woman’s eyes begin to well up with tears as reality tried to sink in.
    â€œYes, I’m afraid so,” Danielle said, firming her arm around the trembling woman’s shoulders. “And I’m going to have to ask you to be strong, Annabelle, and accept the fact that Robert and all these people are dead. Can you do that for me?”
    â€œI-I’ll try,” Annabelle replied softly, but with resolve.
    â€œGood,” said Danielle. She bent down long enough to close Robert Blanchard’s eyes, then stood silently with Annabelle for a moment until Stick walked up leading the horses.
    â€œIt’s pretty bad over past where the saloon stood,” Stick said, lowering his voice to shield Annabelle from his words.
    â€œHow bad?” Danielle asked. “You can talk in front of Annabelle. She’s promised me she’s going to be real strong and help us out.”
    â€œI see,” said Stick. He looked Annabelle up and down, then said to Danielle, his voice still lowered, “I believe the bastards have killed everybody in town.”
    Danielle felt Annabelle shudder and begin to sob quietly beside her. “We’re going to need your help to get these folks gathered and buried proper. Are you up to it, Annabelle?” she asked.
    The heartbroken woman summoned up her courage and stepped from beneath Danielle’s consoling arm. “I will be as strong as I need to be.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, looking down at her dead husband’s face. In the east, the first thin wreath of sunlight crept upward from the horizon, casting a ghostly silver glow over Haley Springs and its dead. “But let’s get started, Miss Danielle,” Annabelle added. “I can’t bear to see Robert laying here this way.”
    â€œI understand, Annabelle.” Danielle led the shivering woman into the small shack. Stick hitched the horses to a single hitchpole and followed. Inside the cluttered shack, Danielle took a small kerosene lantern from a wall peg, dusted it off, and lit it. Stick began to search through a line of long-handled tools leaning against the wall, quickly choosing two shovels and a pick. Danielle prepared a place for Annabelle to sit down on a nail keg near a small woodstove. With some kindling and newspaper, Danielle soon had a small fire dancing in the round belly of the stove. “I’ll get some coffee from my saddlebags,” she said, patting Annabelle on her shoulder. “You sit here and rest.”
    After a hot cup of coffee, Danielle and Stick went to work, digging graves while the sun rose higher from the eastern rim of the sky. Annabelle stayed close by them as they worked, telling them what had happened, her eyes darting around at the least little sound among the smoldering ashes of what had been the town. Yet when it came time to bury the dead, Annabelle pulled herself together. Corpse after corpse, she washed their faces and their hands, made certain their eyes were closed and that their hair was properly parted and combed. Danielle and Stick watched in silence as the woman prepared the bodies of her husband, her neighbors, and her fellow townsfolk. Then, with their hats in hand, they joined Annabelle in a short prayer over each of the dead. Once done, Danielle and Stick put their hats back on and resumed their work.
    Shortly after sunup, the northbound stage arrived in a cloud of dust. Hap Smith, the driver, and his young shotgun rider, Paul Sutterhill, immediately lent a hand with the burying, using two spades they took from the small shack. It was almost noon before the tired burial group patted their shovels on the last mound of freshly turned earth. Eleven new graves now lay inside the short wall of loose stones surrounding the town cemetery. Annabelle sat quietly beside her husband’s