by Jory Sherman
He set the purse on the table in front of him, enclosed it between his arms and hands.
“My purse, if you please,” she said, returning to her former prim position.
“Not until you answer my question. I saw Adolphus Wolfe leave the bank with two very heavy leather satchels. He could hardly lift them into his sulky. I’ll bet you a month’s salary those bags were weighted down with silver bars. Stolen sliver bars. Bars now bearing the intaglio of the Golden Council with the head of a wolf under the letters ‘GC.’”
A look of shock came over Betty’s face, and the rouge seemed to grow pale on her cheeks.
“Better take another jolt of that tea, Miss Andrews,” he said.
Betty raised the cup to her lips. She drained it and set her empty cup down in the saucer. Pete poured the cup full, nearly to the brim.
“I can ask Paco to bring you something stronger,” he said. “If you need it.”
“You’ll give me back my purse if I tell you what you want to know?”
“Sure. I’d look funny walking back to the Clarendon with your purse in my hand.”
A little nervous laugh rippled from Betty’s throat.
“Mr. Wolfe asked me to get him two large satchels out of the closet in his office. I did that. He carried them to the safe-deposit vault, and when he returned to his office, they were full, I suppose. Because they were heavy. He opened one after he sat down at his desk. He took out a silver bar and held it up to the window so the light would make it shine. He looked at the bar for a long time, then put it back in the satchel. When he left, he carried the satchels with him, although I offered to help.”
“Is that the first time you’ve ever seen him with silver bars?” Pete asked.
“No. It is the same each time, although mostly it’s money the men bring in to the bank. He counts the money and calls in Mr. Wheatley or Mr. Gorman. The money goes into a special account.”
“The Golden Council?”
“No, I think it’s a special account. I don’t know the name. It might be only a number.”
“You did fine, Miss Andrews.”
“You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
“It’s just between you and me.”
“And you won’t take me to court or have me arrested?”
“Nope. I’ll buy you supper if you like.”
She sipped her tea and looked over the rim at Pete.
“Maybe,” she said. “Not tonight, though. I live with my mother, and she’s old and ailing. If you let me know a day or so ahead of time, I might be able to arrange for a friend to watch her while I go out.”
It was then that they both heard strange sounds coming from down the street. They both turned to look. Paco, nearby at another table, stopped in midstride and stared. People in the Chez Paris began to laugh and point.
“There are the two men who brought the silver bars to your bank, Miss Andrews,” Pete said.
Betty blushed as Cole and Tom rode past the restaurant, heading for the river.
“Well, I never ...” Betty gasped. She bowed her head in shame.
“Naked as a couple of newborn babes,” Pete said. “They must have run into my friend, Brad Storm.”
Betty Andrews did not have the least idea what Mr. Farnsworth was talking about.
TWENTY
The cow lumbered away from the herd. Its pace was slow and deliberate as it headed for the pines across one of the creeks. It was very fat, its sides bulged out to massive proportions. It breathed with great difficulty and its brown eyes were moist and large with panic. Its white face contrasted starkly with its curly brown hide. Its small horns swung from side to side in slow motion, as it waded the creek, swollen from the rains of the night before, running swift so that the cow made slow progress through the flowing blue-black waters, whitecaps forming above its ankles, the foam boiling like soapy water in a heated kettle.
“She goes to drop her calf,” Carlos said to Julio. He spoke in rapid Spanish. “Do I turn her back?”
Julio shook his head.
“No. She will not go far. The calf wants to get out. The cow picked that place a week ago. There is a little place of grass inside those pines. That is her querencia.”
Carlos Renaldo nodded. He knew what querencia was from the bullfights he had watched as a boy in his native town of Jalisco, in Mexico. That was the place the bull always went to when it was tiring and knew that it was going to die. That was the bull’s place of preference in the ring when the crowd was roaring and cheering and the people were waving their arms. The torero had spiked its body with banderillas and was standing still, with cape and sword, waiting for the bull to lower its head so that he could charge in and plunge the sword between its shoulder blades. It was death in the afternoon for the bull, and the last thing it would see was the red silk cape and the oncoming traje de luces, the brilliant suit of lights the matador wore. The bull would never see the sword, for it was hidden behind the cape, but it would snort blood and fall to its knees as the matador danced by and the crowd cheered and waved its arms in a triumph that was not theirs.
“Will we watch her give light?” Carlos said.
“Yes, when she lies down, we will cross the creek.”
“The cow is very big.”
“The calf will be big and strong.”
“That will be the first.”
“It is the season,” Julio said.
“And for your woman, as well, no?”
“Pilar is getting close, yes. She will give light very soon.”
“Ah, a son.”
“Maybe,” Julio said, and the two men saw the cow reach the opposite bank, dripping water from its legs and belly as it entered the copse of pines and began to walk in a circle, trampling down the grass to make its bed.
Julio looked up at the sky and to the west, where the red sun was standing over the mountains. Fresh snow blanketed the entire range, and it shone like some gigantic alabaster fortress, blinding to gaze at, magnificent with all that whiteness. The snow glinted all the colors of the rainbow, flashing dots in a radiant spectrum that dazzled and danced across the vast expanse of fields.
“The sun will go down soon,” Julio said.
“And there will be much cold this night.”
“Let us see how soon the cow gives light to the calf.”
They waited, their horses pawing the ground, tossing their heads, their tails switching at deerflies, their whickers of impatience rumbling in their long throats. Julio’s horse, Chato, was a pinto, while Carlos rode a bob-tailed dun named Tico.
The cow moaned, and its body began to heave with contractions. She twisted on the mashed-down bed of grass and groaned in the throes of birthing. Her eyes glassed over with pain as a tiny head appeared, wrapped in a gossamer film, its pink snout pushing outward.
“It comes,” Carlos said.
“Yes, it pushes into the world and does not yet see it.”
The calf emerged, its forelegs pulling free of the cow’s womb, its eyes closed, its face still wrapped in filmy white that was not yet parting and sliding away from its snout. The cow spilled the calf out, and it lay quiet, exhausted, as the yellow oval of afterbirth spewed out like the yolk of a broken egg. The cow struggled to its feet and turned to its calf. It began to lick away the gauzy substance that enveloped the small creature, and nudged the calf’s tiny belly with its nose, urging it to its feet.
“It lives,” Carlos said.
The calf stood on wobbly legs, and its mother moved so that it could get to her udder. The calf lifted its head and poked her in the belly, sniffing out the milk, until it found a teat, slipped its mouth over the nipple, and began to nurse.
The sun slid lower in the sky, and its lower rim dipped behind the far peaks. The snowy mantle began to dim ever so slightly, and the shadows of the grazing cattle stretched across the field in long, dark silhouettes attached to their bodies and feet.
“Julio, come quick.”
Both men heard the woma
n’s voice calling across the field, thin and high with a note of anxiety.
“That is not Pilar,” Carlos said.
“No, it is Felicity.”
“You should go to her, then.”
“Yes. You stay here and see that the calf does not wander into the creek and drown.”
“For sure,” Carlos said.
Julio turned his horse and headed for the house and buildings at the far end of the large pasture. He headed straight for Brad’s house, where he could see a small figure standing outside waving her arms. He put Chato into a gallop, and the horse pulled its elongated shadow along behind it, the grasses rumpling the dark image so that it rippled like waves on a green sea.
“Julio, hurry,” Felicity called, then turned and ran into her house.
Julio’s stomach swarmed with fluttering insects as a nameless fear gripped him. He wondered what was wrong. He had heard the urgency in Felicity’s voice but saw no outward signs of trouble. There was no fire or smoke coming from the log house, the horses were already in the barn, and there was no sign of Pilar at his own house or anywhere near the house where Carlos bunked.
He crossed himself and dug rowels into Chato’s flanks, lashing his rump on both sides with the trailing ends of his reins.
The mountains were devouring the sun, pulling it down into the maw of another world that waited for its golden rise thousands of miles away.
He reined up Chato a few yards from the door and swung out of the saddle, hitting the ground at a dead run. He saw a glow beyond the door as someone lit a lamp and yellow light flared against the shadows of the room. He stepped into a yellowish mist that blinded him for a moment.
“Julio, my Julio,” gasped Pilar. She was lying on the divan, her hands splayed atop both sides of her swollen belly.
He ran to her and knelt down, caressed her face with his left hand. She was drenched in sweat.
“What passes?” he said in Spanish.
“I do not know,” Pilar said. “It hurts much.”
He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and turned to look up at Felicity, whose face was drawn, bone white with strain and worry.
“You must hitch up the wagon, Julio,” Felicity said. “We must get Pilar to a hospital in Leadville.”
“Does not the baby come?” he said.
“No. It is something else. Something I can’t help her with. Hurry. We will put blankets and pillows in the wagon bed. She needs a doctor.”
“Do you know a doctor?” he said as he rose to his feet.
“Yes, and he has an infirmary, like a small hospital, where he can—”
“Is she to die?”
“Not if we hurry.”
“It is a long way to the town and the night is coming.”
“We will take lanterns. Hurry, Julio, please hurry.”
Pilar groaned in pain. Julio rushed outside and ran to the barn. He went inside and selected two horses to pull the wagon. He put them both into harness and led them outside, backed them up to the wagon, and attached the tongue between them. By the time he was finished, the sun had disappeared from the sky and there was only a glowing furnace, far away and cold, beyond the white mountains.
Venus appeared in a pale blue region, a lone sparkling diamond in a sea turning black on some eastern shore where the darkness had already arrived.
Julio pulled the horses and wagon to the front of the cabin and set the brake. Felicity met him at the door, a pile of blankets in her arms.
“I’ll get more and some pillows,” she said as Julio carried his load to the wagon.
Carlos wondered what Julio was doing. He could barely see the houses and thought he heard the creak of a wagon. But it was already getting dark and difficult to see. The cattle in the pasture were dim statues that did not seem to move, although he knew they still grazed.
The cow and her calf lay down, and he knew they would not try to cross the creek.
He turned his horse and then heard something that stiffened all the vertebrae in his spine. The crunch of a twig, the rustle of a leaf, the heavy breath of a large animal.
“Hello, Carlos.”
Carlos whipped his head around and saw the horseman loom up behind him. He reached for the rifle in his boot.
“It’s me, Carlos, you blind bastard.”
“Eh, Brad? That is you? Dios mío, I do not hear you.”
Brad rode up alongside him.
Two rifles were lashed in his bedroll, and two pistol rigs hung from his saddle horn. He pointed to them.
“I brought you and Julio a couple extra rifles and a pair of pistols.”
“Oh, you bought those for us?”
“I took them from men who do not deserve them.”
“Did you shoot these men? Did you kill them?”
“Not yet,” Brad said. “Where’s Julio?”
Carlos told him what had happened, and showed him the dim shapes of the cow and calf.
“I think Julio has hitched up the wagon and has pulled it to your house.”
“Let’s get up there and find out what’s going on.”
“Do you think the new calf and its mother will be all right?”
“I think they both know what to do, Carlos. Come on.”
It was full dark when Carlos and Brad rode up to the cabin.
The tailgate was down and the wagon bed was piled with spread blankets and pillows.
“Brad, you help Julio carry Pilar to the wagon,” Felicity said. “We must get her to town where Doc Rankin can take a look at her.”
He saw the anguish in Felicity’s face as he swung down off his horse.
“Put those rifles and pistols somewhere, Carlos,” Brad said as he followed Julio into the house.
They lifted Pilar from the divan and carried her gently out to the wagon. Felicity had climbed up, and she helped guide Pilar over the blankets. Both men climbed up and arranged Pilar on her makeshift bed.
“I’ll get more blankets to put over her,” Felicity said. She jumped down from the wagon and went inside the house.
She emerged carrying a food hamper and two more blankets and a heavy quilt.
“There are lanterns on the seat,” she told Brad. “I’ll drive the wagon. You follow us, Brad.”
“Let’s think this through,” Brad said. He saw Carlos riding back from his bunkhouse. The outlaws’ rifles and pistols were gone.
“Or maybe you can drive and Julio and I will tend to Pilar,” Felicity said.
“It so happens that I need a man or two in town to help me,” Brad said. “So here’s what we’re going to do. Carlos will drive the wagon. I’ll ride ahead to lead the way. You and Julio stay with Pilar.”
“Oh, Brad,” Felicity said. “I’m so glad you’re finally here to help. I was at my wits’ end.”
“You did well,” he said. Then, to Carlos, “Close the tailgate, tie your horse and Julio’s to the back of the wagon. I see you strapped on one of those new pistols.”
“To see how it would fit.”
“Keep it on. You may have need of it.”
“I am wearing my pistol,” Julio said. “Always.”
“Good,” Brad said.
“Have you eaten, Brad?” Felicity asked. “I have food in the hamper.”
“I ate,” he said. He climbed into the saddle and rode up alongside the wagon as Carlos got into the driver’s seat and picked up the reins.
“Brad,” Felicity said, “is there something you’re not telling me? What happened in town? Why didn’t you come home last night?”
“Felicity, there’s a lot I’m not telling you. This doesn’t seem the time for that.”
“But I want to know.”
“You will,” he said. “I promise.”
He rode into the pasture as Carlos released the brake and the wagon rattled into a turn.
Venus sparkled in a vast ocean of stars that twinkled like cut diamonds on a dark velvet tapestry. They looked like the lights of distant towns millions of miles away, mirages that only a
ppeared at certain times when most men’s eyes were closed and could not see nor imagine them.
Brad saw them as they all rode out of the vast valley, and he drew comfort from them. They were his map to anyplace he wanted to go, and when the moon rose, there would be light and they would not need the lanterns that bonged and clanged in the wagon seat next to Carlos.
Brad felt right at home in the darkness of night. If it were up to him, he would ride and ride and never come to a town. Towns were the breeding grounds of greed and avarice, treachery and injustice, the places where men preyed on men and where corruption rose up with its ugly head and tried to swallow all that was good and decent, all that was precious and rare.
He was sorry that he had to take his little family into Leadville.
Even to save a life or two.
TWENTY-ONE
The Carmody Hotel was among the oldest structures on Pine Street. Its pine logs had been patched with scraps of whipsawed lumber over the years. Yet it stood among even older buildings, shabbier ones, the earliest made of adobe bricks that had crumbled to dust and been replaced by ugly plugs of cement or stuffed with old rags and crumpled air-tights and mortared over with flimsy plaster that had to be replaced almost every cold spring.
The ride down Harrison Street to Pine and then to the Carmody seemed the longest in Cole Buskirk’s life, with the humiliating laughter and the gawkers coming out of stores to gaze at the two naked riders. Even a reporter from the Leadville Register had run out from the newspaper office to mark their passing with hastily scribbled words in his notebook before rushing back into the office to write an account for the next edition. The editor called in a sketch artist to draw an illustration, and the compositors set up a chase and started laying type and furniture to record the event for posterity.
Earl Fincher and Lenny Carmichael both heard the commotion and came out on the boardwalk to see Cole and Tom ride up to the hotel’s hitching rail.
“Boy, I’ve seen some sorry sights in my time,” Fincher said, “but you two take the cake.”
“What happened to your duds?” Carmichael said as the two men dismounted and walked to the hotel porch. An old man in the lobby looked out through the window, gasped, and ran to the bar for a drink, exclaiming, “They’s wild men out there comin’ to chop us all up and eat us!” He had already had a few drinks that same day, but his rheumy eyes, he insisted, did not lie.