“Better eat, Jordan,” Cletus said.
“Later,” Jordan said.
Inside of an hour, Julio and Brad had finished feeding the prisoners. All except Jordan, who looked like a battered prizefighter with a broken arm.
“We got to piss,” Toby said.
“Piss your pants,” Brad said. “You’re staying right where you are. All of you.”
The prisoners cursed Brad. Jordan merely glared at him with a burning hatred sparking in his slitted eyes.
Joe and Wilbur returned in late afternoon. Joe had a tablet in his hand when he dismounted.
“Get all of them?” Brad asked.
“I think so. Most of ’em are brands I know from my work with the breeders association.”
“Is this good evidence to take into court?” Brad asked.
“It’s all we need. We can bring some of the horses down when we need them as evidence. I’ll get the judge to issue subpoenas once he sets a court date, and then I’ll round up the witnesses we talked to at Arapaho Gulch and the lumber camp.”
“Will you need my help with those subpoenas?”
“Nope, Brad. I know where to go and who to give ’em to. Your job is just about finished, I reckon.”
“Good. Julio and I want to get our own horses and head back to Leadville. Unless you need them?”
“I don’t need ’em,” Joe said.
Wilbur sat down after he finished unsaddling the horses and hobbling them in the timber with the others. He looked at Jordan for a long time.
“Traitor,” Jordan hissed.
Wilbur turned his back on him and joined Brad and Joe. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It came away wet with sweat.
“A lot of horses they stole hadn’t had their brands changed yet, including yours, Brad. So, they wouldn’t work as evidence.”
“Good. I’m anxious to get back to my own ranch, and Julio’s wife is probably throwing plates at the wall by now.”
Julio laughed.
“She does not throw the plates,” he said. “She pulls hard on the cow’s teats.”
Wilbur and Joe laughed.
Later, Brad walked into the timber with Joe.
“We could start down toward Denver any time now,” Joe said. “I got all I need.”
“Let’s ride, then,” Brad said. “It might be slow going and we have to make sure none of those boys get the itch to run.”
“Once we get moving, we can keep a close eye on them.”
“Okay, let’s saddle up and start loading bodies into saddles,” Brad said.
“Boy, CJ will be pleased,” Joe said as they walked to where they had stored their saddles and bridles.
“What did you say?” Brad asked.
“I said Cliff will be right happy to see we broke up the gang,” Joe said.
“No, you didn’t say that,” Brad said. “You said something like CJ.”
“Yeah. Cliff Jameson. Some call him CJ.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Brad said as he leaned over to pick up his bridle.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Nothing, Joe. I’ll let you know if there’s anything to it.”
“When?”
“After we put these bastards in jail.”
It took more than an hour to saddle up all the horses and another half hour or so to get the prisoners in their saddles. Brad tied Jordan to his saddle the same way he had lashed him to his horse before.
The lights of Denver glistened in the early dusk as the procession dipped below Lookout Mountain on their way back to the city.
Brad was leading Jordan’s horse well behind the others, who had moved at a fair pace all the way to the foothills.
All during the ride down, Brad’s mind had raced as he went over the conversation he had overheard. Something Jordan had said about having an ace in the hole. And, more than once, Jordan had said that it was not over yet. He had some plan in his mind, or he did, indeed, have an ace in the hole.
Then, when Joe had mentioned that CJ would be pleased, it jarred loose the buried conversation between Jordan and his men.
Jordan had mentioned CJ.
Then Joe had said that some people called Cliff by his initials.
This was either an odd coincidence or it meant something.
Brad knew what he had to do when he got to Denver. Just the thought of it made the bile stir in his stomach. Something was wrong if Jordan Killdeer thought he could beat the charges and beat the hangman.
The prairie disappeared in shadow and the lights of Denver wavered in the pale light of dusk as if it were a sunken town just drifting below the dark waters of a calm sea.
And the knot in Brad’s stomach grew hard as a balled-up fist.
FORTY-FIVE
Joe booked his and Brad’s prisoners into the Denver jail. Jordan Killdeer was taken to the infirmary where a doctor set his broken arm and put it in a plaster cast.
Afterward, Joe, Brad, Wilbur, and Julio put all the outlaws’ horses into the livery stable near the stockyards. Then the four of them rode back to the Brown Palace Hotel and entered the dining room.
After a waiter took their orders, Brad turned to Joe.
“Let me have a look at those brands, Joe, the ones you wrote down on a tablet.”
“Sure,” Joe said. He reached inside his jacket and pulled the folded notepapers from his pocket.
He handed them to Brad while Wilbur and Julio drank from their water glasses.
Brad scanned the list once, then read the brands again more slowly.
“What’s Cliff’s brand, Joe?” Brad asked.
“It’s CJ. That’s what he calls his ranch and that’s the brand he puts on his horses.”
“Well, there’s no CJ brand listed here,” Brad said.
Joe’s face mirrored his surprise.
“What? Let me take a look.” Joe took the notepapers from Brad and read them over twice.
“I’m dumbfounded,” he said. “I was sure that Cliff had horses stolen from him. Maybe they were sold and just weren’t there.”
“Don’t try to make excuses for Cliff Jameson,” Brad said. “I think he’s in this thing up to his neck.”
“Maybe,” Joe said, “but how do you prove it?”
“I have a hunch,” Brad said.
“A hunch? There you go again, Brad. What’s your hunch?”
“You’ll see. Let’s get some grub in our bellies and then I’m going to the telegraph office.”
Joe looked at Wilbur.
“You remember seeing the CJ brand on any of the horses you and Trask put to the running iron?” Joe asked.
“Nope. Don’t recall,” Wilbur said. “And that would have been a hard one to change.”
“How would you change it?” Brad asked.
Wilbur thought about it for a minute or two.
“Well, it’d be tricky, but it could be done, I s’pose.”
“That’s what I thought,” Brad said. “Cliff never had any horses stolen by Killdeer.”
“He’s the president of the breeders association, for God’s sake,” Joe said.
“Seems he’s playing both sides of the field,” Brad said.
“I can’t believe it,” Joe said.
“We’ll see,” Brad said.
After they finished their supper, all of them followed Brad to the telegraph office. There, he sent a telegram, which he showed to the others before he had the clerk send it.
The telegram read:
COLONEL BEACHAM
FORT LARAMIE, WYOMING
SIR: CAN YOU TELL ME THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO DIRECTED YOU TO PURCHASE HORSES FROM JORDAN KILLDEER? IMPORTANT.
HARRY PENDERGAST
DENVER DETECTIVE AGENCY
BROWN PALACE HOTEL
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br /> DENVER, COLORADO
“What do you expect to learn from the colonel?” Joe asked.
“We’ll see,” Brad said.
They walked to the Brown Palace and checked in at the desk, taking four rooms and charging them to the Denver Detective Agency.
“We’ll see Harry in the morning,” Brad said. “Wilbur, I’m going to trust you to stay in your room.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Wil said. “This whole mess is getting real interestin’.”
Joe laughed.
“Wait’ll you meet Pendergast, Wil. He might offer you a job. On my recommendation, of course.”
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Wil said.
“Say good night,” Brad said. “I’ll see you all the morning, say eight o’clock? For breakfast.”
The others assented as they took their keys and walked upstairs to find their rooms.
They all carried their bedrolls, saddlebags, and rifles with them. Brad stayed at the desk for a few more moments.
Brad told the clerk to put their horses up for the night at the nearest livery.
As he ascended the stairs, Brad glanced down the mezzanine. The detective agency’s offices were dark. He went to his room on the second floor, the one Harry always retained for him when he was on a case. He went inside and dropped his rifle and gear on the table. Then he pulled out the swatch of blue flannel cloth that had been part of Felicity’s nightgown.
He sat down and stroked the cloth in the palm of his hand.
Tears welled up in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks.
“I haven’t forgotten you, darling,” he whispered.
Then he got up, lit the lamp with the matches and box beside it.
His tears dried on his face when he lay down, and he had the faint taste of salt in his mouth as he dropped off to sleep.
He dreamed of Felicity, but in the landscape of his mind, she was a small girl skipping rope and playing with a doll that resembled him. She spoke to the doll in a strange language that he could not understand, and there was a rope around the doll’s neck. She pulled on the rope to make the boy doll dance and then the face of the doll changed and became an Indian’s face. The Indian’s face was covered with war paint and the doll brandished a rifle that turned into a buzzing rattlesnake.
Someone in the dream screamed.
It was his own scream that Brad heard, deep in the dark and shadowy world of the dream where everything seemed real, but in truth, none of it was.
FORTY-SIX
When Byron Lomax ushered Brad, Joe, Wil, and Julio into Pendergast’s office after breakfast the following morning, Harry was seated behind his desk with a telegram in his hand.
“Thank you, Byron,” Pendergast said. “That will be all for now.”
“Yes, sir,” Lomax said. He left the office and closed the door behind him.
“Please be seated, gentlemen,” Harry said. The four visitors sat down in comfortable leather chairs.
Harry waved the telegram at Joe and Brad.
“Maybe one of you might explain this to me. It’s a telegram from a Colonel Samuel O. Beacham at Fort Laramie. I didn’t send him a request, but I have a feeling one of you did.”
“I did,” Brad said. “Last night.”
“Maybe you’d like to explain why you conducted such an enquiry, Brad.”
“Harry, I think Cliff Jameson is behind the horse thieving. A half-breed named Jordan Killdeer ran the operation from his ranch in Cheyenne, but it’s my strong hunch that he was, in Joe’s words at breakfast this morning, aiding and abetting Killdeer. Recently, I uncovered a deal between Killdeer and Colonel Beacham to buy two hundred head of horses. Stolen horses. Killdeer and his gunmen are all in jail.”
“I know,” Harry said. “I was informed by the Denver police last night that you had brought in several suspected horse thieves and murderers. I have their names right here.”
He picked up a sheet of paper and flourished it as he had the telegram. He put both down and made a steeple out of his fingers. He looked long and thoughtfully at Brad. Then he picked up several sheets of paper that appeared to be covered with typed text.
“It might interest you, Brad, that I had my own suspicions about Cliff Jameson. I’ll tell you what I discovered before I read the colonel’s reply to your enquiry.”
“Go ahead, Harry,” Brad said. “I’m all ears.”
Harry cleared his throat and set the papers down in front of him. He glanced over them before he spoke.
“Clifford Jameson served in the army. He was cashiered out of the Seventh Cavalry by General Custer himself. It appears that he was selling horses to the Sioux and the Cheyenne. Army horses. He reported them stolen in midnight raids, but an undercover officer caught him in the act.
“Jameson came down here from South Dakota and started a ranch. He wormed his way into the horse breeders association by falsifying his government records. So he attained the high office there through deceit and subterfuge. I was about to send Pete Farnsworth out to his ranch to question him after I got the telegram early this morning.”
“What did Colonel Beacham have to say?” Joe asked.
“I’ll read what he put in his telegram,” Harry said.
He picked up the telegram and read the message.
“‘Most esteemed gentlemen of the Denver Detective Agency,’ it begins. ‘Per your request, I offer the following. STOP. I was contacted by a Mr. Clifford Jameson about purchasing horses. STOP. He recommended one Jordan Killdeer, of Cheyenne, Wyoming. STOP. I subsequently purchased two hundred head of horses to be delivered to me at Fort Laramie. STOP. I trust you will inform me of the reason for this inquiry. I am at your service. STOP.’”
Harry set the telegram down on the desk.
“It is signed by the colonel and I do owe him an explanation. I assume you have spoken to him before, Brad.”
“Yes, I met him in Cheyenne, briefly, but did not tell him anything about this case.”
“Good. You make a pretty good detective, Brad.”
“I’m not cut out for such work,” Brad said. “But you hired me, so I do my best.”
“How do you plan to proceed, may I ask?”
Brad looked at Joe, then back at Harry.
“I thought Joe and I would ride out to the CJ ranch and have a little talk with Cliff. Joe has a list of the horses and their brands that have been grazing up in Wild Horse Valley. Over three hundred head. Not a one of them carries the CJ brand and none of the ones that were sold to miners and lumberjacks carried that brand. We have witnesses who will testify that Killdeer made the deals and his men carried out his orders.”
“I wrote out a full report for you last night, Harry,” Joe said. “It tells of our investigations, the outlaws we uncovered, and a list of those who will never go to trial.”
“Why is that, Joe?” Harry asked.
“They’re all dead, Harry. Brad killed the men who raped and murdered his wife. As you know, we have Killdeer in jail, along with the remainder of his hirelings.”
Harry rose from his chair behind his desk and walked around to the front. He sat on the edge.
“I want you to arrest Cliff Jameson,” he said. “I think we have enough evidence to convict him. As for the stolen horses, we might contact the rightful owners and see if they are willing to sell two hundred head to the colonel.”
He paused and looked at Wilbur.
“And, who, pray tell, is this man who is with you?”
“Harry,” Brad said, “this is Wilbur Campbell. He worked with Jack Trask with the running irons. He stole no horses and he’s been a big help to both Joe and me.”
“So, you’re one of the Killdeer gang, are you, Mr. Campbell?” Harry said.
“No, sir,” Wil said, “not no more. I been reformed. Least that’s what Brad said.”
>
“He might make a good detective,” Joe said.
“We’ll see about that,” Harry said.
“Sometimes, Harry,” Brad said, “it takes one to catch one.”
“What, a thief? You said Wilbur wasn’t a thief.”
“A criminal then. He was just a working hand for Killdeer. He’s not a real criminal,” Brad said.
“Humph. Well, I’ll think about it. Now, you two go out there to the CJ ranch. Bring Jameson back in handcuffs. I want him brought in alive. Do you understand me, Brad?”
“He’ll be alive,” Brad said. “Unless . . .”
Harry waved his hands in the air as if to shake off the rest of Brad’s sentence.
“Alive,” Harry said. “Or fairly alive. I won’t mind it if he comes here with a bruise or two.”
Brad and Joe got up. They started to leave.
“Julio’s got his orders from me, Harry. But I’m setting Wilbur here loose. He’s in your hands now.”
Before Harry could protest, Joe and Brad left the room, swinging the heavy door open and stalking past Lomax and the secretary at their desks.
“You’ll need some training if you’re going to work for me as a detective, Wilbur,” Harry said.
“Oh, I’m willin’, sir. More than willin’.”
“Do you have any money?”
“Nary a cent, sir,” Wilbur said. He patted both pockets.
“Tell my man Byron Lomax to send in Miss Fitzgerald and I’ll see that you have some spending money. You’re staying here in the hotel?”
“Yes, sir. Brad got us all rooms.”
“So, he trusts you,” Harry said.
“I reckon. Some.”
“He trusts you, Wilbur, and so will I. But if you ever go back to your sinful ways, I’ll have you in the hoosegow so fast your head will spin.”
“Yes, sir,” Wilbur said, “I’m goin’ to toe the line.”
Harry turned to Julio.
“Need any money, Julio?”
“Sir, I do not need no money. You have already paid me enough,” Julio said.
“Thanks for your help, then. You and Brad did a good job on this case.”
“And, Joe, he did a good job, too,” Julio said.
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