City of Gold

by Will Hobbs

  The marshal lost the track late that day as we pulled into town. Clark headed for the Carlisle Ranch nearby, another spot, he said, where Butch Cassidy had fresh horses waiting after the Telluride heist. We camped on the edge of the ranch. He went to see the Carlisles on his own with that recent photo of Logan in hand, the one of the Fort Worth Five.

  When the marshal got back from his visit, it was obvious he’d had a few, or more than a few. His face was redder and his tongue looser. The Carlisle brothers were cagey, Clark reported, but somewhat cooperative. Kid Curry had stayed with them the night before, and out and told them he was headed for Robbers Roost to deliver a mule Butch had taken a liking to. “A crazy stupid mission, but just like Butch,” Logan told them. Cassidy’s favorite horse had been killed from under him and he wanted to try a mule for some reason.

  “So that was it!” cried Till.

  The marshal said he asked after which of the river crossings Logan was heading for. There was Taylor’s Ferry across the Grand River at Moab, the one Butch had used in ’89, and there was the ferry at Hite City, a hundred or more miles downstream on the Colorado. The Carlisles said they didn’t know which it was, but after Logan had a few drinks, he got to talking about the gold frenzy at Hite, so the Hite ferry would be their best guess.

  Sunrise was working its way down from the peaks of the Blue Mountains as we rode out of Monticello. The aspen stands were glowing amber gold with the sun’s early fire. We reached Blanding before noon. When we tethered to the hitching post at the general store, the marshal pinned his star to his vest. Inside, he learned that a man leading a saddled mule had been in the store the previous afternoon.

  The storekeeper spread a map on the counter. Clark didn’t seem to mind me at his elbow. “The road west begins at this very street corner,” the man said. “It looks more like a road on this map than it does on the ground. It’s more of a track. Nary a soul lives between here and Hite. It’s all rough country.”

  His description proved true but we made good time. My buckskin and Till’s colt had stamina and were thriving on the journey. After crossing the creek in Brushy Basin, we climbed up and around the head of Arch Canyon. Shortly after topping out on Bears Ears Pass, we rested the horses and took in the view.

  The marshal brought out his map. The late-day sun was lighting up an immense escarpment on our left, a red wall maybe as high as a thousand feet that ran south as far as the eye could see. Comb Ridge was its name. Our route west from Blanding had jogged around its northern end. Below us, clad in dark green junipers, lay Cedar Mesa. The eastern rims of its many canyons shone golden, most prominently the high cliffs of Grand Gulch on its long and serpentine course to the San Juan River.

  We camped that night at the stony edge of White Canyon in view of a colossal natural bridge that spanned the creek at a great height. When Till announced that he was going to climb up and run across it, the marshal remarked, “Ain’t enough dirt around here to bury a cat.”

  With the tension between the two of them rising, Till chewed on that for a silent couple of minutes, until the sudden croaking of frogs gave him an out. He jumped up and ran down to the creek on the hunt for one. I took a walk in the dusk, looking for fossils. I didn’t find any but collected a strange rock, purple and perfectly spherical, a third smaller than a baseball but heavier. A concretion, as I later came to learn. I put it in the pocket of my mackinaw for a souvenir.

  Supper was “pig out of a can” as Clark called it. He said it was looking like we wouldn’t catch up with Logan until Hite City. I asked how big of a town it was. The marshal said he didn’t know, but from the way the Carlisles were talking, the gold rush in Glen Canyon was on for real this time. Hite was the headquarters for a number of downstream operations, including a floating dredge built on site that was more than a hundred feet long.

  “You figure Logan might stay over in Hite City?” I asked. “Rest up, gamble, visit the saloons before he goes on to the Roost?”

  Clark nodded while chewing on some pork gristle. I was picturing things working out nicely. Hite would have a livery, and that’s where we would find Peaches. We would take her and head for home.

  Till piped up with “I just figured out how come we been lollygaggin’!”

  He’d said it to the marshal, and now he couldn’t take it back. If looks could kill, Till would’ve expired on the spot. He tried to recover with “You reckon it’ll be easier to take Kid Curry in town. Right, Marshal?”

  I gave Till a hard look of my own. Little brother replied with a shrug.

  In the quiet that fell, the pops from the fire were unusually loud. This seemed an especially bad time to have poked the bear. I broke out the reading fodder I’d brought along, my dinosaur book and the recent issue of National Geographic Ma sent with Till.

  Till went to reading the magazine, no doubt wishing he’d brought along something more exciting. I was deeply absorbed in Behold the Dinosaur and wishing I could talk about it with Pa. New discoveries were being made all the time. At a place called Bone Cabin Quarry in the Wyoming desert, so many dinosaur fossils were eroding out of the hills, they built a cabin entirely of dinosaur bones.

  I was trying not to notice, but all this while the marshal was staring into the flames. Then he got up and went to his stuff. He came back with a bottle of Old Crow and a shot glass. An alarm went off in my head but I didn’t say anything. Till didn’t appear concerned. I suppose the whiskey certified the marshal as the genuine article.

  Clark went back to staring at the flames, and threw down five shots over the next while. I glanced at his grip on the bottle, and for the first time noticed how uncommonly large his hands were. I imagined the damage they had done, and I imagined him throttling Till’s neck. Suddenly he came out with “So, you boys are from Kansas.”

  Till said, “Yessir, that’s right.”

  “Eastern Kansas, your brother told me.”

  I nodded apprehensively. The marshal poured himself another shot. “How long your people been there?”

  “Before the War Between the States,” Till answered proudly. “They were Free Taters.”

  “Free Taters, no foolin’? Never heard about that. How’d that work?”

  “Free Staters,” I explained.

  Till gave me a pained look. “I know what I’m talking about, Owen. Just an expression.”

  “Nothing to do with free spuds?” queried the marshal with a drunken grin.

  Till said, “They moved there so when it came time to vote, Kansas would outlaw slavery.”

  The marshal lifted his glass and threw down the shot. “So, they were abolitionists.”

  Till looked at me for help. He’d just realized we were in quicksand.

  “Like I told you,” I said to the marshal, “we’re Quakers.”

  “So you did, so you did. You come to Colorado from a farm in Kansas—where you had them mules.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where exactly in eastern Kansas?”

  “Outside the town of Lawrence.”

  “How far?”

  “Seven miles.”

  “Which side of Lawrence—north, south, east, or west.”

  I was leery of this, but he was pushing. “East,” I said. “How come?”

  “Because I rode with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson during the war. You heard of the Lawrence raid, Tillson?”

  “Yessir,” Till said gravely.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “You tell him, Owen.”

  This wasn’t something I could shrug off. “You’re saying you were there?”

  “I was.”

  “Well, Quantrill’s men burned Lawrence and massacred a hundred and sixty-some men and boys.”

  “That many? I’m not surprised. Lawrence was a nest of abolitionists, and we were out for blood, four hundred strong. ‘The Four Hundred Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ you might say. I was twenty at the time.”

  I’m a coward, I thought, if I don’t tell him what hap
pened. I spit it out. “Our pa’s father was shot dead at close range, working in his corn field.”

  The marshal mulled that over, poured himself another shot, hesitated, and threw the whiskey into the fire. The flames flew up. His features were ghastly. “Just so you know, boys, that might’ve been me.”

  We were too stunned to speak. I was picturing the marshal as a young man riding with the mob of rebel raiders as they approached Lawrence, him leaving their flank to slaughter a farmer in his field. He as much as said he killed our grandfather. Not for sure but very likely!

  An awful silence ensued as the fire burned to coals. All the while, hatred was invading my mind and soul. As the minutes crawled on, one thing became clear: I couldn’t let anger and hatred consume me. I fought back hard. Finally I managed to say, “If it was you, I forgive you, marshal.” And Till murmured, “We forgive you, marshal.”

  Clark laughed. “With malice toward none, is that it? Like the Great Emancipator said?”

  “Isn’t that the way it should be?” I asked him.

  “S’pose so,” he said with undisguised sarcasm. “If you say so.”

  We left Clark to his bottle and unfurled our bedrolls on a sandy spot behind a juniper that was rooted in rock. We could see passably well by the starlight reflected off the cream-colored sandstone. The night was moonless and the Milky Way was ablaze from horizon to horizon. I lay awake, much disturbed at how the marshal had swatted away our forgiveness and made it ring hollow. I had to wonder. What was it like when he rode into Lawrence with the four hundred? If he took part in the horrors there, how could he ever forgive himself?

  22

  On the Banks of the Colorado

  THE MARSHAL’S HANGOVER cast a pall over the morning. After what had happened there was no telling what he might be thinking or feeling. Clark looked haggard as can be, his eyes reptilian. He wasn’t talking and we weren’t asking.

  The wagon track flanked White Canyon as it ran northwest from the Blue Mountains. The creamy white color of the canyon made a striking contrast with the redrock formations above. No stopping for lunch, the marshal was pushing hard. The country turned more arid by the mile, and the heat rose as the canyon descended toward the Colorado River.

  Hours later, we followed switchbacks down to the shade of the widening canyon bottom. It felt good to get off our horses. They drank from a stagnant pool as we drained our spare canteen. A pair of ravens was having a lot to say. The marshal wanted his extra rifle shells out of my saddlebags. “You boys stay put,” he ordered. “I reckon we’re close to the ferry but I’m not sure how far. Hite City’s on the other side of the river. I’m gonna go ahead and deal with Logan. I expect he’s laying over there.”

  Clark was finally going to make his move. He wanted it to be in town rather than out in the open. “How long should we wait?” I asked him.

  “As long as it takes. Might be tomorrow.”

  Till piped up with “He’s wanted dead or alive?”

  “That’s right, he is.”

  As we watched the marshal disappear down the canyon, his rifle out and ready, I must’ve had a doubtful look on my face. “What’s wrong?” Till asked.

  “It might not be possible to surprise Logan and take him prisoner. There might be a gunfight. I’m wondering if we’ll see the marshal alive again.”

  “Course we will!”

  “I hope you’re right. We’ll have Peaches back and this will all be over. Someday Jim Clark’s luck is going to run out.”

  “If I had my .22, I woulda gone with him.”

  “You would, you sure?”

  “I’m a crack shot—ask the prairie dogs.”

  “Sure, but it’s a different thing to kill a man.”

  Till thought about that. “Pa said once it’s okay if I’m not cut out to be a Quaker.”

  “Really, he did?”

  “I told him I never seen my Inward Light no matter how hard I tried.”

  “What’d he say to that?”

  “Said I would discover it one day when I wasn’t even lookin’.”

  “Sounds like Pa.”

  Till’s eyes went watery. “I miss him bad, Owen.”

  “I know it, brother. Think if he could’ve seen all the wonders out here. He would’ve loved it so much.”

  The marshal’s packhorse needed unburdening but we decided to stay ready. We staved off our hunger with saddlebag jerky. Dusk was starting to settle as Clark came riding back.

  Till sang out, “Did you git him?”

  The marshal waited until he drew rein. “Logan crossed early this morning and left straightaway. Let’s get a move on. They got the ferry waiting on us.”

  We weren’t long reaching the crossing, where an ancient ruin like a tower stood sentry with a long view upstream and down. The Colorado River in October was less than mighty. It was dwarfed even further by the immense world of bare redrock it ran through. As for the city on the other side of the river, I couldn’t make one out.

  We led our horses onto the cable scow, and John Hite took us across. His missus, he said, was making us supper. His son Homer ran the general store and post office.

  Hite City turned out to be no more than a settlement with a couple dozen squat cabins and other structures thrown together with drift logs and chinked with mud. The roofs were made of thatch. Shade ramadas here and there offered relief from the sun.

  The Hites had a stable of sorts for our horses. The hay came from a place called Fruita on the Fremont River, wherever that was. The mail came on horseback a hundred miles from the railroad at Green River, Utah. Hite was the supply hub for the gold mining operations downriver—placers and that big dredge, the Hoskininni.

  John and his wife were around the marshal’s age. John said his brother Cass was coming to town for his mail. They were expecting him for supper. “Big brother lives twelve miles downriver, in Glen Canyon, prettiest place you ever saw. ‘Tickaboo,’ he calls it.”

  “Tick-a-boo,” Till repeated.

  “In his younger days,” John went on, “Cass prospected from British Columbia down into Mexico. Until him, nobody was even looking in these deserts. It was Hoskininni himself, the Navajo chief, who told him there was gold in Glen Canyon. Cass discovered this dandy crossing and found gold here. He staked claim to nearly every crick mouth in the whole canyon. Speak of the devil, here he comes.”

  We looked downriver where John was pointing and saw a silver-haired man at the oars of a rowboat, pulling upstream in an eddy. Above him, some ravens were playing in the wind and croaking his arrival. Twelve miles upstream, for his mail and some company!

  There were seven at Ma Hite’s table that evening—the four Hites and the three of us. John slaughtered a couple of his wife’s chickens for the occasion. The rest of her fare was fresh vegetables from their garden and the last of their watermelons.

  Cass Hite, the old-timer, was tall and slender and walked somewhat stooped. His hair was thick and silver, his goatee white as salt. Cass proved even more loquacious than his brother and friendly as can be. He was hugely interested in the marshal’s mission. They all were.

  In the glow of their kerosene lamps, supper commenced with a prayer led by the elder brother, followed by compliments over the spread. John’s wife must’ve had a name but I never learned it. Even her husband called her “Ma.” Over supper the Hites passed around the marshal’s photograph of the Fort Worth Five, and thought it sensational. All five of the outlaws had passed through Hite City over the years, always using aliases. “So that’s Butch Cassidy! So that’s the Sundance Kid!” Homer and John allowed they’d suspected as much of those particular drifters.

  All but the old man had seen Harvey Logan that morning. Logan stayed only half an hour before he rode out on the road to Hanksville, leading Peaches. Old Cass was amused that the marshal of Telluride had come all this way to recover a mule being delivered to Butch Cassidy.

  “The boys are after their mule,” the marshal said. “I’m after Logan, also know
n as Kid Curry.” He explained that our thief killed a Wyoming sheriff in the aftermath of a train robbery.

  The old man’s grimace was filled with contempt. “And I always heard that Butch and his Wild Bunch ain’t killers.”

  The marshal shrugged. “That’s Butch’s reputation. They say he shoots the horse lest he kill the rider. He won’t even let his gang rob the train passengers—it’s the safe in the express car he’s after. But Harvey Logan’s a different animal. He’s lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.”

  “I’ll second that,” I put in, and described my encounter with Logan the night he stole Hercules and Peaches. At the last I said, “I believe he came within a hair of pulling the trigger.”

  Till shot me a look I couldn’t quite decipher. Disbelief with a touch of respect, I suppose. Back home I hadn’t told how bad it actually was.

  At this point, Homer—Cass’s nephew—took a break from shoveling supper. “Charles Siringo came through here a year ago June.”

  “The Pinkerton detective,” explained Till.

  “That’s him,” said Homer. “You’re a sharp one.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I agreed.

  Homer reached for the marshal’s photo of the Fort Worth Five, which had landed in the center of the table. “Siringo was on the trail of three men who spent a fifty-dollar bill at the store in Hanksville. The serial number showed it came from that train robbery in Wyoming.”

  “I got a close look at the three when I ferried them across,” John said. “That was two days before the Pinkerton man showed up. I believe all three are in this picture. One of ’em was this Harvey Logan—chewed tobacco then and this morning. This one standing up and this one sitting down were with him. What’s their names?”

  “Will Carver and Ben Kilpatrick,” replied the marshal.

  “Which of the five have bounties on their heads, and how much?”

  “Ten thousand apiece on Cassidy and Longabaugh, eight thousand on Logan.”

  “I’m getting confused,” said Ma Hite. “Name all of them one by one if you would, marshal.”