“It’s rude to ask a man his name,” Story said, “but I’m a rude bastard.”
“Mason Boone,” Boone said.
“All right. You know my name.”
The coach rolled.
“How far?” Boone shouted. “To the slide rock?”
“Two miles. Now shut up.”
* * *
The wind blew cold as the coach climbed, hugging the side. The track remained narrow, and as Boone saw the approaching curve, trees on both sides of the road, he decided that—for this moment—he hated trees. A bandit could hide behind any one of them, and in the gloaming, he would have a hard time spotting anything except a muzzle flash. The road climbed through, not quite a pass, but up a fairly steep rise. A small woods of frozen trees to the right gave the appearance of a mountain. Story’s face—what little Boone could see—hardened with anticipation. Was this, Boone wondered, the slide rock? He couldn’t see anything resembling rocks. The coach made its turn, and suddenly Story worked the lever on the brakes, cursing, pulling hard on the lines to steer the Concord toward a gap in the woods.
“Hang on,” Story sang out, whether to Boone or the two men in the coach, he didn’t know. Only at the last second in the coming darkness did Boone find the danger. Another wagon, pulled by two dark horses, sped downhill. Boone didn’t have time to see too much, just the outline of a thin man pulling desperately on the lines—having no effect on the horses. Boone glimpsed the wagon, small wheels in front, rear wheels maybe twice as big. The wagon wasn’t a stagecoach, or a farm wagon, but a big box, like a rectangular house on wheels. That was it. The next thing Boone felt was a savage blow that tilted the Concord and sent Boone flying over the side.
Tree branches ripped off the ill-fitting hat, carving scratches across Boone’s nose and cheeks. He tasted sap, then blood. Horses and mules screamed. Wood splintered. Curses followed a deafening crash. Boone must have hit the ground, but didn’t remember that. Didn’t feel it, either, until he tried to push himself up.
Rolling over onto his back, he squeezed his eyes tightly, opened them to see tree branches.
“Son of a bitch.” That sounded like Story.
A door squeaked. Profanity followed.
Boone rolled over, spit a mixture of tree bark and blood onto the ground. The coach rested in the woods, the mules hidden by the trees. Story lifted himself out of the driver’s box. The Texan from Hood’s Brigade helped the other passenger from the Concord. Boone couldn’t see the strange wagon that must have collided with the stagecoach, but the tortured scream of a horse from the other side of the road sickened him.
A bullet ricocheted off the rim of the rear wheel—Boone saw the spark, heard the zing, and grasped for the messenger’s twelve-gauge. He couldn’t find it. Didn’t recall if he still gripped it while flying through tree branches. Another shot slammed into wood. The two passengers tumbled into the softness of dead grass and needles. Toward the driver’s box, Boone shot a look as he crawled on hands and knees toward what might have been the double-barrel. No sign of Story. Another gunshot rang out.
“Hands up,” a voice cried out. “Hands up. Don’t move or you’re dead.”
Boone kept moving. He dived, rolled, and gripped . . . a rotting log.
Two figures rushed out of the thicket to Boone’s left. A muzzle blast blinded him, and Boone dropped to his chest. Hooves pounded the road, not from Virginia City, though, not from where they had left the banker, the jehu, and the messenger, but over toward Twin Bridges.
A gun roared. Wood disintegrated from the stagecoach’s door.
“Move and we kill you, Story,” one of the charging gunmen shouted. Although his ears rang from the din of the cannonade, Boone thought he recognized that voice as Sandy’s. He saw the Texan and his pard raise their hands. The galloping horses slid to a stop, and Boone slowly turned his gaze toward the road. Two more men leaped from their saddles. One fired a revolver, and the lantern on the coach, just beneath the driver’s box, exploded.
“What the hell.” That came from Plummer with the Goatee.
Boone dropped his head to the softness of earth. Play possum, he told himself. There’s nothing you can do. Still, he looked at the box, wanting to find the silhouette of Nelson Story.
“We got ’im, Ambrose,” Sandy called out. “Ambrose. Over here.”
The horse screamed.
“Shut up,” answered Ambrose, alias Plummer with the Goatee.
“What the hell happened?” said the man who had ridden up with Ambrose alias Plummer.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” said the man with Sandy, who, if Boone remembered correctly, was called Donnie.
“We thought you planned it,” Sandy said.
“Where the hell’s Story?” Ambrose yelled.
“We got him over here. Him and some other gent.”
The horse screamed.
“Where’s the driver? The shotgun?” Ambrose’s partner yelled.
“Probably throwed all the way to Ruby,” Sandy said.
“Look for them,” Ambrose ordered.
Boone flattened his head. Tried to remember the prayer his mother taught him as a boy.
The horse screamed.
“Robin, put that horse out of its misery,” Ambrose ordered. “And if that damned fool driver of that funny rig is still living, kill him, too.”
He had not recalled that prayer, but God must have heard his thoughts, because a few more steps, and Robin would have walked right over Boone. The man turned. Ambrose made his way to the stagecoach.
“This isn’t the way I planned it,” Ambrose said, “but it didn’t turn out half-bad.”
Boone looked for a rock, a stick, anything he could use as a weapon.
The report of a pistol almost made him shriek.
“Horse is dead.” Robin called Ambrose by his Plummer handle.
“The driver?”
“I don’t see him. Getting too dark.”
“Keep looking,” Ambrose said. “Now, Story, you’re . . . You, show me your face. Son of a bitch, Sandy, neither of these is No Good Story.”
“It’s gotta be. Hell, it’s the stage from Virginia City. He’s gotta be . . .”
The door opened, slammed shut. “That box of gold ain’t there.” Ambrose ran to the back of the stagecoach, worked the straps for the rear luggage compartment. He yelled, “Donnie, see if it’s in the driver’s box.”
Boone fought to keep his control, tried to formulate a plan. Retreat or attack. Whichever would work, but nothing he could come up with seemed to give him a chance at survival.
Donnie took hold, stepped up onto the wheel’s hub, pulled himself to the driver’s box. The back of his head became silhouetted by a muzzle flash, and the brigand fell like a sack of potatoes onto the road. The mules snorted.
“What the hell?”
“Oh, my God!”
Boone made out the shape of Nelson Story as the dark outline of a figure rose out of the box like some monster in a five-penny dreadful. Sandy took a step toward the corpse on the ground, tripped, and pulled the trigger of his revolver. That flash illuminated the coach gun lying on a tree root, and Boone started crawling. Profanity. Another gunshot. Boone lunged, grabbed the Moore & Co. twelve-gauge, hoping, praying that the percussion caps had not been dislodged during the wreck. He heard the roar of a large-caliber revolver, answered by two lighter discharges, and a panicked gasp from Sandy: “Ambrose . . . I am killed.”
Sandy pulled the trigger as he toppled forward, and the inches of flame belching from the weapon provided enough light for Boone to see the boots and legs of a man moving on the other side of the coach. Robin. Boone pulled both triggers. Only one barrel roared.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I would have killed you, you filthy bastard,” the road agent named Ambrose said, “but you shot my damned hand off.”
Not quite, Story could tell from the torch of pitch pine Wilkinson, the Texan, held, but the thief’s right hand would never be any good, not tha
t the outlaw had much time to fret over being a cripple.
“I got a question for you,” Story said.
The man attempted to spit, but the spittle merely dripped down Ambrose’s chin.
“Was this man part of your gang?” With a nod, Wilkinson moved the flame closer to the vagabond named Boone.
“Damn right he was. Been with me for three years.”
Story nodded. “What I expected,” he said. “You’re as bad of a liar as you are a highwayman.” Story moved to the one whose right ankle and calf had been torn apart by buckshot from that cannon Frank usually carried. Story might not have come through this fracas alive if not for that lucky shot. The man was sweating and bleeding, bleeding and sweating, and trying not to cry.
“Make your peace with your Maker, boy,” Story said. “Your time is at hand. Come on.”
He walked past the boot of the coach.
“You want one of us to stand guard?” the Tennessean, Rees, called out.
“No,” Story said. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“But to hell,” Wilkinson said, chuckling.
Texans. They disgusted Story. He wouldn’t give two cents for the lot of them. There was nothing amusing about hanging cutthroats, but then Story never found much humor in anything. He stopped at the dead horse and stared at the giant box of a wagon that lay on the side of the road.
“Ever seen any conveyance like that?” Story asked.
The Southerners shook their heads. Story turned to Boone. “You?”
Boone started to answer, but stopped and came up to Rees. “Let me borrow your torch,” he said, took the flaming wood, and moved to the wagon. The back door was open, and there was another small window behind the driver’s box, but that part of the wagon seemed to be canvas, much of it now crushed from the wreck.
“Looks like a What Is It,” Boone said. The Texan and the Tennessean shot each other a quick glance. Boone leaned, pushed the door open, and stuck the torch inside.
“Don’t set the damned thing on fire,” Story told him.
“Maybe it is . . .” Boone withdrew the torch and let the door swing back down. “A What Is It. Saw them during the war. You could get an ambrotype, tintype, photographs. That’s what it looks like, but, well, there’s no camera, no plates, none of those things those photographers carried with them.”
“You got a likeness made of yourself ?” Rees asked.
“No. Other fellows did.” Boone climbed up the wreck, raised the torch, and dropped back down to the ground. “But there’s stenciling up there that says ‘O’Brien’s Photographic Van.’”
“All right,” Story said. “Let’s see if we can find O’Brien.”
“Or what’s left of him.” Wilkinson took a few steps and picked something up, holding it like a dead snake in front of the flame.
Story stepped closer. “Stethoscope,” Rees said. “Sawbones use those to hear your heart.”
“Huh.” Wilkinson pitched the instrument as though it were a dead rat and wiped his fingertips on his trousers. He turned. “What would a photographer need with a stethoscope?”
Boone shrugged. Rees chuckled. “Well, if you drove a rig like he did, one of them stethoscopes would be quite handy.”
“Split up,” Story said. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”
“Especially if he’s dead,” Wilkinson said.
* * *
Boone found him, lying between two small lodgepole pines. Story and the others came closer to stare down at a rail-thin, young man with a beard like Abraham Lincoln’s, only reddish, and a now-busted, bleeding nose, and myriad other injuries. Boone glanced up. “He’s alive.”
Squatting beside the driver, Story held the back of his right hand underneath the man’s nose, felt the breath, then fingered the man’s throat. “Heartbeat’s strong.” His hands moved along the man’s body, where bruises already began to show, and blood flowed freely from cuts. “Knot on the top of his head the size of a coffee cup.” He glanced at Boone. “Reckon you know how that feels.”
Boone’s face did not change.
“Let’s get him back to the coach, see what our prisoners are up to,” Story said.
“When do we go back to get Frank and Halloran?” Rees asked. “And the other passengers?”
“Those bastards shot out our lantern,” Story said. “I’m not driving that rig down the mountain in pitch-dark. We’ll head down come first light.”
“That jehu will be furious,” Wilkinson said.
Story’s reply would have made most women, and some men, blush.
* * *
The campfire roared, and the men, including the two prisoners, huddled by it. Boone used the flask taken off the corpse of one of the road agents, and splashed the rye over a silk handkerchief Story had found in the What Is It’s driver’s coat pocket. He dabbed the wounds with the liquor. For the serious, though not life-threatening, wounds, Story wrapped strips torn from a silk shirt they had found in the back of the wrecked wagon. The minor cuts and scratches, he figured would clot soon enough. Or the damned fool driver would just bleed to death.
“That’s enough,” Story told Boone. “You look like you could use a bracer.”
Boone sipped, sighed, and handed the pewter container to Rees, who drank and passed it on to the Texan. He took the longest swig and offered it to Story.
“No, thanks,” Story said, but when the Texan grinned and started to drink more, Story added: “Let’s leave some for this damned fool.”
“How ’bout us.” Ambrose was not asking, and Story was not about to reply.
“He’s coming to,” Boone said.
The man blinked repeatedly and looked toward the fire. Flames reflected in the man’s eyes, he groaned, and slowly moved his head. The eyes found Story first, then Rees, and finally the Texan. He did not look at Boone, who sat behind the What Is It driver.
“What happened?” the man finally asked. No trace of an accent that Story could detect.
The Texan answered, “You damned near killed yourself and us, as well.”
The man blinked. “Oh.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Oh, yes. My horse. Something . . . spooked her. She . . . bolted.”
“Where were you bound?”
“Virginia City,” he said.
“Photographer?” Story asked.
He might as well have been speaking Russian.
“Sir?” the stranger said after at least half a minute.
“Are you a photographer?”
His eyes squinted, he wet his lips, cringed in pain, and finally answered. “No. No. I . . . Oh . . .” He smiled. “The wagon. I see. The wagon. I bought it . . . in . . .” He swallowed. “In Boise.”
Boise. That old mining camp along the Snake River. It hadn’t been much when Ellen and he had traveled up to settle here, but from all Story had heard, it was booming now. Territorial capital of Idaho with an army fort and gold strikes popping up. Story said, “Any way you go, that’s around four hundred miles, mister.”
The man grinned. One of his incisors had chipped. “Well, I almost made it. How far am I from the territorial capital of Montana?”
“Depends,” Story said.
“On what?” The man’s face showed horror.
“If you can walk. If you can walk, it’s not that far. If you can’t, you better hope you got some grub in that What Is It. Because this time of year, people don’t travel much, and the stages only come through three times a week. And you might have noticed that we can get snow measured in yards.”
The man’s laugh died slowly. “Surely, you’re not serious.”
“About the weather?”
“About getting me to Virginia City, sir.” The man snapped with the haughtiness of an easterner.
“I’m not one for jokes, mister.” He offered his hand. “Name’s Story. Nelson Story.” He introduced the others.
“I am Seth Beckstead,” the dumb ass said. Mason Boone lifted the handkerchief he had used to cleanse the man’s wounds, holding
it closer to the fire so that Story could read the initials. S.R.B. In lavender thread.
Story reached inside the pocket of Halloran’s coat—he wished he had not traded with that damned jehu—and withdrew the stethoscope he had retrieved after they had discovered the injured man.
“Is this yours?” Story asked.
“Yes.” The man smiled. “I might have use of it. I’ve never had to examine myself. As the saying goes, ‘A doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient.’”
Story didn’t laugh. “You’re a doctor?”
“Indeed, Mr. Story. I was graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine six and a half years ago.”
That’s when Story handed Dr. Seth Beckstead the flask of rye. “Get some rest, Doc. We’ll chat more come morning.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seth Beckstead limped that snowy morning. The man named Boone, though he had sprained his left wrist firing that menacing shotgun, held the door to the What Is It open, while Beckstead crawled through the wreckage.
“Aha.” Beckstead smiled and tossed a sack toward the opening. This should make peace with these scoundrels. “There’s coffee, my good man.” Boone grunted. He must be freezing. Beckstead sighed when he found the bottle of brandy, shattered. At length, he spotted a satchel and something else. The red wooden box, his name stenciled in black, and the title he had longed to forget.
MAJOR, 2ND MARYLAND VOLUNTEER REGIMENT
With satchel and surgical kit, he crawled through scattered clothes, books, busted memories, and the tintype of sweet Lucia, through the opening and into the biting wind as dawn slowly emerged over the treetops.
“Got what you need, Doc?” Boone asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” He pushed himself up, shivered.
“Need a hand with all that?”
“Just bring the coffee, Mr. Boone. I am certain your comrades will need that, as shall I. It is a grim task we have this morn.”
He started limping to the fire, but stopped, cursed himself as a fool, and moved back to the old photographers wagon. “I warrant a coffeepot might be requisitioned by Mr. Story,” he told Boone, who lifted the door open again, and Seth Beckstead crawled inside, all the way to the back, although he saw the coffeepot leaning against a bedroll to his left just by the door. At the far corner, he sat, pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around his shins, and rocked back and forth, shivering.
A Thousand Texas Longhorns Page 9