by S. L. Stoner
There was nothing remarkable about the man. He appeared to be in his early sixties—well-dressed but not ostentatious. Thin silver hair, parted in the middle, lay flat against his skull. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and the absent, genial smile of a weary cleric. The man looked familiar but Sage couldn’t place him. He wasn’t a Mozart’s regular. That was a relief. Sage’s mustache drooped and dye hid the white streak in his black hair. Still, in his new suit, he resembled Mozart’s John Adair a little too closely.
“Who is that fellow studying his papers?” he asked the waiter.
The waiter stiffened and for a pause, Sage thought he was going to ignore the question but he didn’t. “That’s Frances J. Heney.”
The name sent a jolt through Sage. “You mean the U.S. District Attorney that Roosevelt appointed to investigate the timber frauds?” The waiter nodded but volunteered nothing more.“What’s he doing here in Prineville? I thought that trial was taking place in Portland.”
The waiter shrugged and, again, seemed reluctant to answer because he glanced around the dining room as if seeking a reason to escape. Finally he said, “Well, the land that the senator and the others got in trouble for is in Christmas Valley. That’s south of here. They tried to get it turned into a forest reserve so they could work a swindle for those Minnesota timber companies. Maybe Mr. Heney’s in town investigating that.”
Sage knew firsthand about Senator Hipple’s timber swindles on behalf of the Baumhauer Timber Company and others.
But he wasn’t about to share that piece of information. Instead he asked, “Do you suppose Heney’s here to investigate a new criminal conspiracy? A local one maybe?”
The waiter stiffened and his chin came up. “I am sure I wouldn’t know, sir.” With that, he turned and glided off.
Arriving for work, Sage found Van Ostrand’s office door closed. He heard a murmur of voices, then the word “money” followed by an angry exclamation. As he stepped forward to knock, the door flew open and out stormed a short, fat man. He slammed the door behind him so hard that its glass rattled. The man brushed past Sage, heading briskly toward the stairs. Sage only glimpsed a scowling face beneath a wide forehead, with a dangling curlicue of forelock, before the man disappeared down the wooden stairs.
Meanwhile, raised voices sounded again inside the office. Sage stepped closer but the words were indistinguishable. Once the outer door banged shut, he knocked softly on the glass and waited. An agitated Dr. Van Ostrand snatched the door open. He scowled at Sage before recognizing him.
“Oh, it’s you, Miner. Ummm, I’m busy right now. How about you go down to the courthouse? The clerk, J.P. Jones, will help you. Tell him you want to locate all the springs in the Ochocos starting at Wolf Creek and heading east and south to the town of Post. Look at all the sections six miles on either side of the military road. Be sure to note the exact sections that have springs. J.P. will show you how to find the springs and the section numbers.”
The dentist didn’t wait to see if Sage understood. He stepped back inside the office and shut the door. Sage strained to hear, but the voices behind the glass stayed muted. Ambling toward the courthouse, Sage again admired the majestic verticality of the rimrocks to the north and west and south of town.
A refreshing tang rode air devoid of damp. It smelled nothing like Portland. Unless a brisk wind blew, the city air usually carried the mingled scents of people, horse manure and chimney smoke. And, there was another difference—the absence of loud noise. Instead, the sounds were soft and distant—bird twitters, the rattle of a metal pail on someone’s porch, the lowing of a cow at the edge of town. No ear-jarring rumble of drays over cobblestones, no workmen’s shouts as they unloaded wagons, no penetrating clang as streetcars clattered by on their steel rails. He breathed deep, savoring both tang and silence. The only thing he’d change was the heat. It was too darn hot.
He raised his hat, wiped his forehead and wondered what had just transpired in that second floor office. What did it mean? Could his new bosses’ financial woes be even worse than he thought? The stranger had definitely been upset. But then, slow payments always had that effect on creditors.
The county courthouse was Prineville’s tallest structure. It was white, wooden and two stories, sitting atop a stone foundation high enough to hold full-sized windows. Not the impressive brick and stone courthouses common in the Willamette Valley but still, quite respectable for a town on the frontier’s edge. Besides, if he gauged the town’s spirit right, they’d soon erect a more impressive courthouse.
Inside, he found the smiling, amiable county clerk, Mr. J. P. Jones.“Yes, indeedy, we possess some very fine maps,” he assured Sage while pulling sheaf after sheaf from shallow drawers. He happily showed Sage how to identify both section numbers and spring locations on the maps.
“Yes, indeedy. These maps showing the Willamette Valley and Cascade Military Road sections are courtesy of the U.S. government. They’re up-to-date accurate. The surveyors came through so the road company could pick their sections. But then the surveyors came back again to re-survey when the government sued the road company.
“Sued the road company?” Sage prompted.
“Oh, yes, indeedy. The federal government sued and lost. No road was built. The government could prove that. But, the scallywags over there in Salem issued a certificate of completion anyway and the road company got sold to another fellow. The judge said that because the second fellow bought the whole shebang in good faith, the government couldn’t take it back. Makes things a real mess.”
“A mess?”
“Oh yes, indeedy. Homesteaders have gotten booted off their land and billed for back rent. The to-do drove some of them right out of the area. Darn shame. We need all the industrious folk we can get. Others are still here, though. Either they moved to a different place or they’ve dug in hoping for some kind of miracle that will let them keep their old place.”
Despite the depressing tale he was telling, the clerk’s green eyes never stopped twinkling. He was a small man, comfortable in the eyeshade he wore and the office he managed. It was a tidy office, everything stowed in its proper place and staying there.
“Here we go. You might as well start with this map,” Jones said, placing a large sheet atop the others.“I notice you neglected to bring pencil and paper. No matter. Let me get you those.”
After he bustled away, Sage bent over the topmost map. Sure enough, squares comprised the map, with a number anchoring the center of each square. When the clerk returned, Sage pointed, asking, “These numbers are the section numbers?”
“That’s right. And, you can see the military road running right there along Veazie Creek.” His finger tapped a narrow black line that ran southeast across the map. “Surveyors did a pretty good job of it. The maps shows most of the springs. See them? They’re the blue dots with ‘spring’ written next to them.”
“Why are some sections outlined in thicker black? Looks like they’re just odd-numbered sections,” asked Sage.
“You’re a smart fellow, spotting that right away. Makes it look like a crazy checkerboard, doesn’t it? Yes, indeedy. Those are the odd number sections claimed by the road company as payment for building the imaginary road.” The man’s smile never left his face but for once, his eyes had lost their twinkle.
Two hours later, Sage left the courthouse with a list of section numbers and spring locations in hand. He wasn’t sure exactly why Van Ostrand wanted the information.
When he’d asked about the springs the clerk, whom Sage had come to think of as “Yes Indeedy Jones,” explained, “Most of those springs dry up come late summer. But, if there’s any water at all on the section, it could be that they plan to dig stock ponds. Yes, indeedy, a fellow can make the water last through the dry spell if he digs deep enough.” He’d also informed Sage that it was likely the two sheep ranchers wanted to locate the best sections of unclaimed federal land since that was all they could use for grazing now that the Kepler brothers took over the
military road leases.
“Yes, indeedy, that explanation makes sense,” Sage told himself. Then all thought of his bosses’ intentions vanished. Two people were hurrying straight towards him. One was Dexter Higgenbottom, the stagecoach driver. The other was the older woman passenger from the coach—the homesteader, Mrs. Fromm.
Dexter started talking even before they reached him. “Mister Miner,” he hailed, “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. We need your help. Sheriff Smith’s arrested Miz Fromm’s husband for murder.”
“I don’t understand. What do you think I can do? I’m not a lawyer,” Sage said, as he tipped his hat politely to the lady.
“You might not be a lawyer but you are a smart fellow who thinks on his feet and you’ve no ties to anyone here in town. That’s a hard combination to find hereabouts,” Dexter told him.
“But still, Mr. Fromm needs a lawyer, not a gold panning stranger.”
The woman broke in, her kindly face twisting with fear, “That’s just it. Everybody’s so certain sure my Otto’s guilty that nobody is going to look any further. Besides, this town takes care of its own. They won’t point their finger at a neighbor.”
Mentally, Sage heaved a sigh. No matter where he went, he attracted trouble like a magnet did iron filings. Still, this woman reminded him of, Ida, Mozart’s cook. She’d been terrified when her nephew had been wrongly accused of murder. He hated to think of Mrs. Fromm suffering like Ida had. How could a single woman with children survive out here? Homestead on her own? Some women were tackling that. But, still . . . .
Sage rested his hand on the woman’s shoulder, “Okay, Mrs. Fromm,” he said. “The smallpox quarantine means I’m staying in town for a few more days anyway. I’ll do my best to help. Who do they say your husband killed?”
Dexter jumped in, “They say he shot that fellow, Asa Rayburn.”
The name hit Sage’s ears like a blow. Asa Rayburn. The very fellow Siringo had asked him to meet. The man Siringo thought had information they could use to stop the range war. Had Rayburn been killed because he was friends with the sheepmen? Fear prickled across Sage’s scalp. The danger of a range war was building with every passing hour.
THIRTEEN
All Sage could do was repeat the name, “Asa Rayburn?” That nudge was enough. Mrs. Fromm’s eyes turned searing beneath lowered brows. “That rascal turned our cow loose and tried to burn up our hay mow,” she said indignantly.
“I don’t understand.” None of this was making sense. “I thought that Rayburn was a sheepman. Why would he go after homesteaders up north near Willowdale?”
Puzzlement took over the woman’s face, then awareness widened her eyes. “Oh, you thought that we had a homestead up north. No, we live just to the east of here, along the military road. I got off the stagecoach up there because my husband and children wanted to visit my husband’s brother. He lives near Willowdale. Once the visit was over, we headed south along Trout Creek and then Foley Creek. It’s hard going but doable with a sturdy wagon and two good mules.”
For a minute, she was back on that buckboard heading home, unaware of the trouble that awaited her family. Then her face darkened. “We got home only to find that someone had set fire to our stacked hay. We hadn’t been there but an hour, when our neighbor turned up. He’d been keeping an eye on our place. He said he watched Asa Rayburn leave out of our lane and got suspicious. Lucky for us. When he got to the house, he found our haystack smoldering and our milk cow about to wander away because the scoundrel had let her out of the barn. Our neighbor doused the fire and took our cow home for safekeeping.”
“I still don’t understand. Why would Rayburn attack homesteaders?”
Dexter jumped in to answer. “Asa Rayburn was a varmint willing to do anything for money. He’s been accused of bad doings in the past but he was always too slick to get caught red-handed. These folks, their place is out along the military road. It has good pasture and year around water. For some time now, that darn road company has been trying to outright steal it from them. Otto Fromm and the missus here, they’ve been resisting because they filed their claim fair and square. Since it doesn’t have a valid legal case, my guess is that the road company men hired Rayburn to drive them out. He probably heard the Fromm family was gone up north and figured to starve them out by getting rid of their feed and cow.”
Sage recalled Mr. Yes Indeedy Jones talking about some homesteaders resisting the road company’s seizure of their land. So, this lady’s family was one of those.
“Why does the sheriff think Mr. Fromm has something to do with Rayburn’s death?”
For the first time, Mrs. Fromm hesitated, then told him the worst, “Otto and I came into town this morning. We planned to confront Asa Rayburn and file charges. After we got here, Otto went from place to place looking for the scamp. Otto was pretty hot under his collar and he didn’t hide it. He thought he should warn people about Rayburn.”
She drew a shaky breath. “Otto carried a revolver—an old Smith and Wesson. Everyone saw it on his hip. What with the rattlers, a gun is a good idea. He killed one just outside town. Then, this afternoon, someone shot Asa Rayburn in the back when he was down fishing the river.”
She paused, unable to go on. Dexter patted her arm and said, “Sure as rain falls from thunder clouds, the sheriff heard about Fromm’s trouble with Rayburn. So, he finds Fromm, sniffs the gun barrel and next thing Mrs. Fromm knows, her husband’s in the hoosegow. She spots me and I get the notion of finding you. Since you’re a stranger around here, we were thinking you could nose around, see if you can scare up the fellow who really killed that rascal. People might talk more freely around someone who’s just passing through.”
The sheepherders inside the Rimrock were a somber bunch. Asa Rayburn was yet another sheepman dead. Angry muttering sounded all over the saloon. Sage took a seat at a table by himself. “I say we burn them out, like they tried to burn the Kepler’s out. See how they like it,” said one.
“Maybe we should set up some ambushes of our own,” said another.
“What about taking on cowboys while they’re riding herd on their cattle? Cause a stampede? Lots of them are out by themselves, just like we are,” suggested another to somber nods all around.
Then came that stillness that meant they’d alerted to the fact of a stranger in their midst. They shut up. Sage smiled to himself. Dexter was wrong. Folks weren’t going to talk freely around a fellow who was just passing through. So, where to start? He spotted Twill sitting alone and went over to join him.
Maybe he needed to learn more about Timothy O’Dea’s murder. Twill was willing to talk, his voice low as he described the murder scene to Sage. “Imagine a bright green meadow, grass waving high as your knees. Eagles float overhead and the only sound is three brooks burbling, meeting in a pool. On every side are grassy hills with yellow ponderosa pines straight as God’s finger and huge boulders the color of caramel. That’s Gray’s Prairie. That’s the place Timothy and Felan died.”
Twill paused to sip his whiskey before continuing, “Timothy lay about thirty feet out from the shack door. Felan . . .” Twill drew in a shaky breath, “Felan had drug himself about twenty feet to reach Timothy. There was a trail of blood. His head lay on Timothy’s chest.” Twill’s eyes filled with tears, his fingers flicking them away before they fell.
Sage said the first thing that came into his head. “I lost my uncle and my cousin some years ago in a mine explosion. I survived the explosion but I couldn’t save them.” Even all these years later, he again felt the grief and guilt behind the words.
It had been the right thing to say. Guilt was definitely astride the Irishman’s heart because he replied, “It’s my fault. If only I hadn’t stayed in town that night. I wasn’t planning to, but the bosses were happy about some deal and they asked me to celebrate with them. It got too late and, to tell the truth, the ‘ole legs had already gone to bed by the time I thought of heading back to Gray’s Prairie.”
“What d
o you think happened out there?” Sage asked.
Twill sighed heavily, took a deep breath and said, “It looked like one of those cowpokes decided to shoot the bosses’ sheep and that Timothy and the dog tried to stop him.”
“Just one fellow?”
“Aye, I trailed him back to the main road. After that, I couldn’t tell where he went. Probably headed east, deeper into the range.” He shook his head.“There was no reason for Timothy to die. Dr. Van Ostrand made us both promise that we’d never try to stop any sheepshooters. He told us more than once to just stay put and let them shoot. Tim promised but he didn’t do it. He didn’t stay put.”
Twill released a clenched hand and he stretched the kinks from his fingers. “It was his dog, Felan,” he said. “Timothy loved that dog. We both did. A bonny, bonny dog, he was. If Felan was hurt, Timothy would have run out to save him.”
Silence filled the space around them. Sage was glad to hear that the sour-tempered dentist valued human life more than the money he had invested in sheep. Not surprising. More than one man’s gruffness concealed compassion.
Clearing his throat, Twill continued, “That shack where we bunked sits in a stand of river bottom pines. They grow taller than hillside pines. The two of us built a stone corral. It was just like one back home in Ireland. We used it to bunch the sheep for tick spraying and docking. It sends them down a narrow chute that turns them out into a bigger square. We’d been having trouble with coyotes. Too many hungry mamas with young ones.”
Twill tiredly rubbed his forehead as he said, “So, we decided to pen the ewes and their lambs in the corral. We could do that because there weren’t that many, only about thirty sheep. Our bosses had separated the whole flock into smaller ones so they didn’t need as much space to graze. Timothy and I were given the smallest number to herd.