"I told you what happened," Parker said. "Langdon and Sweeney are no-good, thieving bastards. Either you run 'em out of business, Marshal, or the rest of us honest saloon owners will."
Curtly, Cole told him, "Don't go making threats, Parker. It's my job to look into things like this, and you're not going to take the law into your own hands."
"Somebody ought to," Parker said. "It's not bad enough that Langdon undercuts the rest of us on the price of his drinks so that he can lure all those railroad workers into his place, but then he gets 'em all worked up by feeding 'em a pack of lies along with his whiskey—my whiskey, now."
One of Parker's angry comments had caught Cole's attention. He asked, "What do you mean, feeding them lies?"
"Well, that business about the Chinamen coming in and taking over all the jobs on the UP, for one thing. Langdon and Sweeney started that rumor. Reckon I can see why. The unhappier those apes are, the more booze they put away— and Langdon sells it cheaper than anybody else."
Cole frowned in thought. "Are you sure Langdon and Sweeney were responsible for those rumors?" he asked.
"Damn right. More than one of the railroaders told me how they first heard the stories about Chinamen in Langdon's place."
"You wouldn't be making this up because of hard feelings between you and Langdon, would you, Parker?" Cole asked sharply.
The saloonkeeper shook his bald head. "I don't care whether you believe me or not, Tyler, but I know what I've seen and heard. Langdon got 'em stirred up to start with, and he kept 'em stirred up." Parker shrugged his broad shoulders. "It worked, I reckon. His place has been packed nearly twenty-four hours a day ever since all this trouble started."
That was true, Cole reflected. He disliked Hank Parker, but the man might be onto something. "I'll go down and talk to Langdon as soon as I finish my breakfast," he promised.
"You do that," Parker said with ill grace. "Make him tell you the truth. Ask him about that Indian business, too."
Cole stiffened. "What Indian business?"
"It wasn't just the Chinamen him and Sweeney and the bartenders down there kept talking about. To hear them tell it, the whole country's about to break out in an Indian war. If all this yelling about gold hadn't come along, those railroaders would have been ready pretty soon to go out and start taking potshots at any Indians they could find."
Cole didn't like the sound of that at all. He was curious enough to ask, "How come you didn't go look for gold with everybody else?"
Parker snorted in derision. "I ain't interested in digging my fortune out of the ground, Marshal. I'd rather collect it from the poor sons of bitches who dig it out of the ground when they buy my whiskey—if you can get back what Langdon stole from me, that is!"
Cole glanced at his food. He knew it had already gone cold while he and Parker were talking, and he sighed in regret. "I'll go have a talk with Langdon and Sweeney right now. No point in putting it off."
"Good," Parker grunted. "Be careful, Tyler. You can't trust those bastards."
Cole didn't trust Parker any more than he trusted Langdon and Sweeney, but he didn't point that out as he put some coins on the counter to pay for his unfinished meal, drank the last of his coffee, and then got up to leave the cafe. He waved to Rose on his way out, but she didn't return the gesture. Nose was still out of joint about his joshing over Lon Rogers, Cole supposed.
Parker followed him out of the cafe, but Cole told him,
"You go on back to your saloon. I don't want you with me while I'm talking to Langdon and Sweeney."
"I got a right—"
"No, you don't. I've heard your story, now I want to hear theirs. Besides, you're so hotheaded you're liable to take a swing at one of them, and then I'll have another brawl on my hands."
Pointing a blunt finger at Cole, Parker said, "Don't you let 'em fool you, Tyler. They're mighty slick operators, the both of 'em."
I’ll get the truth out of them," Cole promised.
Reluctantly, Parker headed back toward his tent saloon. Cole waited for him go, then started in the same general direction himself, since Langdon's place, like Parker's, was on the east side of town.
The difference this morning was even more noticeable over here, Cole thought. This section of town had always been the busiest of all, but while there were still men moving around the saloons and taverns, the area was less crowded than Cole had ever seen it. He didn't think he would have to worry too much about brawls around here until the disgruntled railroad workers began drifting back into town. And that wouldn't happen until they had discovered for themselves that their dreams of finding a fortune in gold were just that—dreams.
The entrance flap of Langdon's tent was closed but not tied, and when Cole pushed through it, he saw that the place was still doing a little business. About a dozen drinkers were lined up at the crude bar. A skinny bartender with a prominent Adam's apple was serving them. Cole glanced around but didn't see Abner Langdon or Bert Sweeney.
He walked over to the bar and waited until the bartender noticed him. The man came over and asked in a surly tone, "What'll it be?"
"Langdon or Sweeney, or both of 'em. Where are they?"
"Not here," the bartender replied curtly.
"I can see that," Cole said, making an effort to hold on to his temper. "I'll ask you again. Where are they?"
The bartender's eyes flicked toward the rear of the tent, but he shook his head stubbornly. "Ain't seen 'em this mornin'. Come back later, Marshal. It's mighty early."
Cole wasn't sure what was in back of this tent, but he was certain he hadn't imagined the look that the bartender had cast in that direction. Assuming that the man wasn't trying to trick him somehow— and judging from the lack of intelligence in the dull eyes, that was a safe assumption—Cole decided it was time to take a look around back there.
"Thanks anyway," he said to the bartender, then turned to leave. He went toward the back of the tent, however, rather than the front.
"Hey!" the bartender called after him. "That ain't the way out."
Cole had already spotted a smaller flap in the rear wall of the big tent. "It'll do," he said lightly as he strode toward the flap.
No one tried to stop him, although a glance over his shoulder told him that the bartender had started to fidget around nervously. More convinced than ever that he was onto something, Cole pushed open the rear flap and ducked through it, having to stoop a little to do so.
He straightened as he let the flap fall shut behind him. There was a shack back here, facing the rear of the tent. If there was a window in the building, it had to be where he couldn't see it. The shack wasn't much bigger than an outhouse, but it had a chimney on its roof, and smoke was curling from it into the morning sky. Cole caught a faint whiff of coffee and grinned.
Langdon probably used the shack as a combination home and office. There wasn't a good place inside the saloon itself for a man to sleep or go over his books. Cole strode toward the door, intending to knock on it.
Instead he paused abruptly as he reached the shack. There was a gap around the door where it hadn't been hung properly, and conversation filtered through the opening. Cole heard a voice he recognized as Langdon's saying, " . . . good job you did, Parton. Those apes won't be back anytime soon, and by the time they are, the Union Pacific will have a lot more trouble on its hands than just some strike."
"Thanks, boss. It was easy, like you said. All I had to do was yell 'Gold!' a few times and shoot off my gun. Those dumb Irishmen did all the rest."
Cole didn't recognize the second voice, but he could figure out from what it was saying who it belonged to. The man who had started the gold rush was inside that shack with Langdon and had called him boss.
The implications of that sent waves of anger and shock through Cole. He stiffened as he thought about what he had learned this morning, both from Hank Parker and from these few moments of eavesdropping.
Cole had believed it was a coincidence that trouble seemed to be breaking
out on so many fronts all at once. Now it appeared that almost everything that had happened over the past week or so had been a carefully thought-out plan with a single plotter behind it.
And that plotter was Abner Langdon.
Cole didn't know what was behind it, but that could wait. For now, he wanted to get the drop on Langdon and his accomplice; then all the questions could be answered. He put his right hand on the butt of his gun and reached for the door latch with his left.
He paused before grasping it, because the men inside the shack were saying something else he wanted to hear. He leaned closer so there would be no mistake.
Langdon chuckled and said, "Once Bert gets through today we won't have to worry about the UP getting any work done for a long time. They'll all be too busy dodging arrows to lay any track." Langdon paused, then asked, "You're sure about which way those soldier boys were heading?"
"I followed 'em for several miles before I turned back," replied the man called Parton. "They were riding west, just like I told you."
"And the Shoshone camp is southwest?"
"Yep. Scouted it out yesterday after doin' my part to start the gold rush."
Langdon laughed harshly. "A gold strike to the north and an Indian war to the west. Yes, this'll cripple the Union Pacific, all right. I'd say we've all earned our money, Parton." Cole heard a chair scrape back, then footsteps began to pace back and forth across the puncheon floor of the shack. Langdon went on, "Bert and the rest of the boys ought to be ready to hit those troopers when they stop at noontime. Then it's just a matter of leading that dumb major back to the Shoshone camp. Hell, if Burdette hadn't lost the tracks of those cows we stole from Sawyer's place, the war would've already broken out."
Cold sweat broke out on the marshal's forehead as he listened outside the shack. Langdons boasting had unwittingly laid out the entire plan for him. Cole still didn't know exactly what was behind it, but it was clear now that Langdon and Sweeney and some hard cases they had working for them had been responsible for the raid on the Jessup farm, the butchering of the Union Pacific workers, and the murder of Kerniit Sawyer's cowboys, along with stealing some of the rancher's stock. In addition, they had spread rumors about Chinese coolies and taken advantage of Wang Po's coincidental arrival in town to make that situation even worse. Or maybe it hadn't been coincidence; maybe Langdon had found out that Simone McKay had hired a Chinese family, and that had given him the idea for the rumors. Then there was the phony gold strike . . .
About the only thing he couldn't lay the blame for at Langdon's feet, Cole realized, was the gruesome revenge Wang Po's sons had taken on the men who offended their family honor. Everything else had been designed to spread tension, cause trouble, and generally wreak havoc on the pattern of life in Wind River and the vicinity. Why? Cole asked himself.
Only one reason he could see, and Langdon had said as much. All of it had been aimed at disrupting, delaying, and even stopping the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.
And if a lot of innocent people got killed in the process, that was just too damned bad . . .
Cole had heard enough. With his lips pulled back in a grimace of anger, he palmed out his Colt, jerked the door open, and stepped into the shack. He leveled the gun at the two startled men inside and barked, "Don't move, damn it! I'd be glad to shoot either one of you if you want to try anything."
Langdon was staring at him in shock. The other man, whom Cole recognized as the rough-looking hard case who had galloped down the street yelling about gold, seemed to be just as surprised. After a moment Langdon tried to summon up some offended dignity and demanded, "What's the meaning of this, Marshal? You can't just come busting in here—"
"Shut up, Langdon," Cole snapped. "I know what you've been up to. You sure had everybody fooled, but it's over now. I'm going to lock up the two of you, then get a posse and go after Sweeney to keep him from ambushing that cavalry patrol."
Those words dispelled any hopes of Langdon is that Cole didn't know what was actually going on. It was obvious the marshal had overheard enough to figure out the entire scheme. Cole saw that angry, disgusted realization in Langdon’s eyes.
Still, the saloonkeeper wasn't going to admit defeat that readily. He said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Marshal, but I can assure you I'm going to complain to Mrs. McKay and the other civic leaders about your behavior. You can't get away with harassing an honest merchant—"
Cole laughed humorlessly. "You're about as crooked as a Texas sidewinder, Langdon." His eyes flicked back and forth between Langdon and the man called Parton, who were standing about six feet apart. He could cover both of them at the same time as long as they were that close together. "I reckon you're both packing iron. Shuck it." The coldness of his tone left no room for argument.
Parton had a holstered revolver strapped around his waist. Slowly and carefully, he unbuckled the belt and lowered the rig to the floor. He bent and added a knife that he pulled from the top of a boot.
"You, too, Langdon," Cole snapped.
"I'm not armed—"
"I know better than that. Shed that belly gun, and the one under your arm, too."
Both of those were guesses on Cole's part, but accurate ones, as it turned out. Grudgingly, Langdon opened his frock coat and took a small pistol from a holster clipped to his belt for a cross draw, then reached under his arm and removed an even smaller revolver from a shoulder rig. He placed both weapons on a rough-hewn table that he had evidently been using for a desk. There were a few papers scattered on top of the table as well.
Langdon wasn't bothering to deny anything anymore. He said, "You're too late, Marshal. Everything is already in motion. Things won't get back to normal around here for a long time, if ever. Wind River's heyday is over almost before it got started good."
"I wouldn't be bragging too soon. All that money the Central Pacific was going to pay you won't do you a hell of a lot of good when you're either in jail or hanging from a gallows. It'll be up to a judge which one."
The thrust about the Central Pacific was a guess, too, but from the look in Langdon's eyes, Cole knew it was a good one.
The Big Four, the ruthless financiers behind the Central Pacific, stood to benefit if the Union Pacific was badly delayed in its construction. Each mile of track meant more money from the government for the railroad that laid it, and the UP already had a big lead on the Central. It stood to reason that Langdon, Sweeney, and Parton were acting as agents for the Central Pacific, even though their bosses in San Francisco might not be aware of just how ruthless their delaying tactics had become.
Suddenly Langdon smiled, and his voice was mocking as he said, "I'm not the one who's bragging too soon, Marshal. You should have brought someone to help you." He nodded serenely toward something behind Cole.
Cole started to shake his head, surprised that Langdon would try such an old trick, but then the scrape of shoe leather on the ground made him whirl desperately. He caught a glimpse of the bartender with the big Adam's apple. The man was swinging a bungstarter toward his head. Cole threw up his left arm in an attempt to block the blow, but he was too late. The bungstarter crashed into the side of his head.
At the same time, Parton jumped him, grabbing the wrist of Cole's gun hand and forcing it down. He looped an arm around Cole's throat and jerked it tight to cut off any yells for help. Cole felt himself going down.
"Hit him again, blast it!" he heard Langdon hiss viciously. Cole tried to throw himself to the side, but with Parton hanging on to him, he couldn't get out of the way. This time the brutal blow from the bungstarter caught him on the back of the head.
Cole didn't feel the impact when he hit the floor. He was out cold.
Chapter 18
Michael Hatfield felt better than he had at any time in days. Delia would be home soon, and their lives could return to normal. In another few weeks, Dr. Kent had told them, they could expect the new baby to be born, and the doctor was not anticipating any problems with the birth.
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Under the circumstances, Delia had urged Michael to stop neglecting his work and get ready to print the next edition of the Wind River Sentinel, which was due to be published in a couple of days.
He was hard at work doing that very thing right now, setting the type for some hastily composed stories about the disturbing events of the past week. While Michael's personal life might be improving, he knew all too well how unsettled things were in the area, what with rumors of gold strikes and Indian uprisings. Major Burdette's cavalry troop had left early that morning, breaking their camp just outside of town and heading west in another attempt to pick up the trail of whoever had murdered a couple of Kermit Sawyer's ranch hands and stolen quite a few cattle and horses.
Michael was alone in the office when the door opened and Judson Kent came in. The doctor's face was haggard and gray, and Michael knew immediately that something was wrong. Fear shot through him. Something might be wrong with Delia!
"What is it, Doctor?" he exclaimed as he shot to his feet, jostling the tray of type and knocking some of the little bits of metal out of place. He didn't care about that, not now. "Is it Delia?"
Kent looked up in surprise. "What? Oh, I'd forgotten how observant you are, lad. There's a problem, all right, but not with your lovely wife."
Michael's concern eased a little. He asked, "It's not the baby, is it?"
"Not yours," Kent answered. He ran a hand over his face, trying to scrub away some of the weariness that obviously gripped him. "No, I've been over at Harvey Raymond's house since two o'clock this morning."
Michael knew that Kent had been off seeing a patient; Delia had told him as much when he stopped by the doctor's house to see her earlier this morning. But neither Delia nor Michael had known that patient was Estelle Raymond, nor that Kent had been summoned there in the middle of the night. Estelle Raymond was pregnant, too, and due to deliver sooner than Delia . . .
Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2) Page 18