Dead Freight for Piute

by Short, Luke;

  “Not my thugs,” Cole corrected quietly.

  “His then! He knew we could beat him if we had the money for equipment, so he had his men steal it from me!”

  “How much money?”

  “Ten thousand dollars!” the girl cried. Her lower lip started to tremble, and then she buried her face in her hands. “All the money from the farm in Illinois, every cent the Wallaces ever had.”

  Cole didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “So that’s why you were scared? You figured I’d been planted on the stage to keep an eye on you?”

  “Weren’t you? When I saw your name on the passenger list I was sure.”

  “No.”

  Celia Wallace’s arms fell to her side. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said bitterly. “Ted warned me. He said Craig Armin wouldn’t stop at robbery, or opening mail, or even shooting me to keep the money from being delivered.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, not a man,” Cole said sharply.

  Celia lifted her gaze to his. “I guess you have a lot to learn about this country and about people. Almost as much as I have. Well, I hope it won’t cost you as much.”

  Cole didn’t answer for a moment, and then he said, “It won’t cost you anything, Miss Wallace. You’ll get that money back.”

  “Very likely,” she answered tonelessly.

  “That’s just a promise,” Cole said quietly, meagerly. He walked up the hill to the horse and said, “You take the saddle, Miss Wallace, and I’ll ride behind. We’ll catch up with the stage in an hour, if he’s waited for us.”

  2

  Piute was a hell’s broth of a town that left Cole stunned at first sight. Entering it, the stage driver had literally to fight and curse his way through the traffic of the big main street. It was jammed with big ore wagons on their way from the mines scattered on the mountain slopes above the town to the reduction mills down on the flats a ways below the town. The sidewalks overflowed with miners of all nationalities; and buckboards, spring wagons, carriages and saddle horses jammed the tie rails of the four long blocks of the main street. There was a carnival air here, for Piute was a boom camp on the upswing, and all the foot-loose trash and hangers-on were here from all over the West to provide it with the inevitable swindling and the drinking and rioting that gold and silver attracted.

  It seemed to Cole that every other building—starting with the canvas tents on the outskirts of the town and ending with the core of big solid buildings at the main four corners—was a saloon and gambling dive, and from them all issued a din of drunken shouting and hell raising. The town was at a fever pitch, its normal late-afternoon tempo, and the long rank of false-front stores and an occasional brick building all held gaudy signs that reached out into the street to proclaim wares in glaring letters. Nobody paid any attention to the sidewalks. The road was jammed with people who walked in and out among the teams, oblivious to the perpetual cursing of the rough freighters. It was bedlam for a man used to the solitudes, and Cole felt his nerves getting raw before the stage reached the express office.

  As it swung up to the boardwalk a young man yanked the door open, and Celia Wallace flew into his arms. Cole stepped down behind her, but before he had a chance to get a look at the man the swirl of the crowd was around him. He saw only a tall tow-headed, full-jawed young man in rough clothes who was listening to his sister with a grave expression on his face. And Cole knew then that Celia was telling him what had happened. Suddenly Ted Wallace’s head swiveled around and his hot glance searched out the crowd. It was plain enough that he was seeking out Cole, but the crowd had come between them.

  Cole sought the nearest hotel, put out five of his last ten dollars for a room, washed, ate and then hit the street again. He was in a boom town now, he remembered, where there were boom-town prices. He’d have to get work and get it soon, and that, of course, reminded him of his uncle.

  He inquired where he could find the Monarch Freighting Company buildings and then set out for them in the thick swirl of people on the street. He wondered what his uncle was going to be like. Cole had been four years old the only time his uncle had visited them in Texas. When he tried to recall his looks or anything about him he couldn’t. Even the half-remembered stories his mother had told him about Craig Armin were not clear. It would be like meeting a stranger who bore your own name. Not quite a stranger, he reflected; there was this incident of the stage robbery and what Celia Wallace had said of it to bother him. He didn’t know what to think about that or what to expect from his uncle.

  The Monarch Freighting Company was back off Piute’s main street at the first side street north of the principal four corners, and it was easily identified by a high board fence that closed in its huge wagon yard. Its office, a clapboard affair with the company’s name painted across its face, fronted the street beyond the big arch of the compound. Cole paused there to look into the wagon yard, almost empty of the big ore-freighting wagons now. Three sides of the compound contained sheds for the wagons and a blacksmith shop, while the rear opened into a huge feed corral that ran through onto the next block. There were fifty or so mules in it now, Cole noticed. It was a big outfit, with its own blacksmith and harness shop, and Cole guessed Craig Armin had done pretty well for himself.

  Cole stepped into the office afterward. It was a big room, with doors in three walls, and a man sat at a roll-top desk near the window where he could shout orders to the teamsters. He was a dyspeptic-looking man in shirt sleeves, and he eyed Cole sourly as he entered.

  “I want to see Craig Armin,” Cole said, standing by the railing.

  “No can do,” the man said and yawned.

  “Why not?”

  “He ain’t seein’ anyone.”

  “He’s here though?” Cole asked quietly.

  “Might be. Might not.”

  “I’ll take a look,” Cole murmured. He walked over to the first door and threw it open. The clerk yelled, “Hey, get out of there!”

  Cole looked into a bare and dirty room. At a rough desk, whose top was scarred by spurs, sat a burly, thick-bodied man, and he was in the act of raising a whisky bottle to his lips. He glowered at Cole as Cole asked, “You Craig Armin?”

  “Get the hell out of here,” the man said mildly.

  Cole folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, a light of stubborn anger in his eyes. The clerk by this time had come out from behind the railing and was crossing the room. His pace was not fast, because Cole was a tall man and the expression on his face now was not particularly pleasant.

  The clerk looked inside. “Sorry, Keen. He got the wrong office,” the clerk said.

  “I didn’t get any office,” Cole corrected. “That’s what I’m after.”

  Keen set the bottle down on the desk, carefully corked it and came to his feet. He was dressed roughly, and he smelled strongly of the stable. His half boots were covered with stable litter, and the gun belt strapped at his waist looked worn and used. There was something about his face, the small pig eyes, the muscular jowls and the way his hands swung at his side, that warned Cole of trouble.

  “You want Armin? I’m Armin,” he growled, confronting Cole.

  Cole regarded him coolly and then said, “Not by ten years you couldn’t be.”

  “You ever seen him?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Then how do you know I ain’t?” the man said.

  This was a foolish conversation, Cole concluded. It didn’t make sense, and he was suddenly aware that it was a stall. He was erect in the doorway now, and he felt the clerk move behind him. Then a telltale flick of the heavy man’s eyes gave him away. He raised both hands toward Cole and lunged toward him, a smile already on his face. Cole ducked, at the same time kicking out behind him. His boot drove into flesh, and he heard the clerk grunt. And then Keen drove into him. Cole caught him in the midriff with his shoulder, raised abruptly, and sent him flying over his shoulder. He turned just in time to see Keen light on the sprawled clerk with a great tim
ber-shaking thud. Keen scrambled to his feet, his face livid with surprise and anger at this crude roughhouse trick being turned against him.

  “That’s fun for a couple of kids,” Cole sneered quietly. “You looked growed up at first sight.”

  Just then the other door in the side wall opened and a quiet-looking man of medium build, dressed in an expensive black suit, stepped out. He glared at the three of them with wicked, impersonal anger and then said to Keen, “What’s the racket out here?”

  Keen, however, was not wholly daunted by the voice of the other man. He said, his voice thick with fury, “Watch me throw that ranny out of here, chief. Open the door, Trimble.”

  “Stop it!” Craig Armin said harshly. He stepped out into the room. Keen subsided a little as Craig Armin came to a halt in front of Cole. He was a slight man, with neatly combed graying hair. His face was sharp, handsome, with a slight pallor which deepened the blackness of his eyes by contrast. There was a surface sleekness about him that was deceptive, for his voice when he spoke to Keen had some iron in it. He said brusquely, “What happened here?”

  “I was lookin’ for you,” Cole drawled. “These boys thought they’d muss me up a little and throw me out.” His lazy gaze shuttled to Keen. “It kicked back, I reckon.”

  “You told us not to disturb you,” the clerk said sullenly to Armin.

  “I meant it,” Armin said. “What’s your business with me?” he said to Cole.

  “I come to take that job you offered me,” Cole drawled.

  Craig Armin scowled. “I haven’t offered anybody a job, not that I recollect. What’s your name?”

  “I was wonderin’ when somebody would get to that,” Cole said. “It’s Cole Armin.”

  Craig Armin’s face changed immediately. It softened and lighted up with pleasure, and he smiled and put out his hand.

  “Well, welcome, boy, welcome. I’m delighted to see you. But why didn’t you give Trimble your name?”

  “I told you,” Cole drawled. “Nobody asked.”

  Keen Billings came forward then, a forced smile on his face. He put out his hand, said, “Sorry about that, Armin. It was just a little horseplay. Glad you’re here. I’m Keen Billings.”

  “Forget it,” Cole murmured, not very heartily, and shook hands with him.

  Craig Armin led him into his office. This was a different affair from Keen Billings’ office. In the first place, it was large and spacious and was located on the other side of the building from the stables. It held a rich, deep-piled red rug, the most ornate desk that Cole had ever seen and on the papered walls were a dozen framed pictures of the big mines and reduction mills in Piute.

  Craig Armin offered Cole a cigar and a drink and a chair, all of which were accepted, and then he settled into the deep chair behind his desk.

  “You’re a tough-looking customer,” Craig Armin observed, regarding him closely. “Not much like the little tyke you were the last time I saw you. Don’t you ever shave?”

  Cole grinned at that. “I just got off the stage. Took time out to eat, and that’s about all.”

  Craig nodded and said shrewdly, “You don’t look very prosperous.”

  “I got five dollars left,” Cole said and shook his head. “That’s cuttin’ it pretty thin, comin’ all the way from Texas.”

  Craig Armin grunted and sucked at his cigar. Cole took a good look at him then, studying his face, seeing if it would strike any familiar chord of memory. It didn’t, but that wasn’t surprising. Twenty-odd years can blot out a childhood memory completely. He tried again to remember what his mother had said about Uncle Craig, but again it wouldn’t come. Craig Armin might as well have been a stranger—a handsome, fifty-year-old, immaculately dressed and affable stranger.

  Craig said suddenly, “Well, it’s lucky I still take a Texas paper, for sentiment’s sake. Or I wouldn’t have read where you’d lost the place. What happened?”

  “Cattle fever.”

  Craig Armin smiled faintly. “You’re a long ways from cattle now, son: You’ve got to learn a new business.”

  “I reckon I can drive mules all right,” Cole murmured.

  Craig Armin laughed. “Drive mules? Nonsense! You’re stepping into a manager’s job here, Cole. You’ll need some good clothes and linen, a haircut, a shave, a new hat and new boots and you’ll have to learn to smoke a good cigar.”

  Cole blinked. He had thought, from his uncle’s letter, that he had a job as a teamster. This was news.

  Craig Armin smiled at his surprise and nodded. “I’ve got a pretty good thing here, Cole. Looks like a glorified stable to you, I suppose, but it represents a transportation outfit that moves about eighty-five per cent of the ore in Piute. I’ve made money—big money—but I’m getting fed up on the business. I want to pull out and live on the Coast, and I need a man I can trust to take over the business. It’s a cut-throat one.”

  Cole said slowly, “You mean you aim to have me run it?”

  Craig Armin nodded. “As soon as you learn the ropes. It won’t be hard, because I’ve done the spadework. When I came here there was a big freighting outfit here, the Acme. It’s on its last legs now. There’s another one springin’ up, but we’ll put them out of business in short order.” He smiled faintly. “It takes a nice combination of brains and brawn, Cole. In the first place, you’re over the toughest bunch of hard cases alive—the professional teamster. He respects nobody he can lick, and that’s a large order. When I started this outfit I had to lick my best teamster first. I did with an ax.”

  He smiled grimly at the memory and went on. “In the second place, it takes brains. We’re in a queer position here in Piute. The mines are high and in rugged mountains, so a railroad is out of the question. The ore isn’t rich, but there’s a lot of it, and it’s a long distance to the reduction mills below town. Mines can’t afford their own freighting outfits, because it takes so many wagons and mules. So the private freighters get the contracts to haul the ore from mines to reduction mills. We have to fight for the contracts, and just about anything goes. I can hire teamsters, men like Billings, without any brains. But what I want is a man with brains who can drive Billings.” He paused and added dryly, “You didn’t make a bad start.”

  “Thanks,” Cole answered.

  “Once you learn the business, Cole, I’m turning it over to you. I never knew an Armin who was a fool. The business will be yours to run. You send me fifty per cent of the profits and keep fifty per cent for yourself.” He leaned forward and tapped his finger on the desk. “There are lots of things you’ll have to pick up, son—things I can teach you. There are millionaires here, Cole. The mine owners, the bankers, the market riggers, the promoters, the big lawyers, the shipping men from Frisco—they’re all here, milking these mines with their stockholders’ money. They’re the men to know, and I know them. They’re the men who give you the business. Never forget that. During the day you can work on the business—on feed contracts for two thousand mules, pasture, vet service, wagon purchase and repair, blacksmithing and freighting schedule. But at night you’ll swing your business with the moneyed men. Dress well, eat well, drink well, entertain, spend money—and you’ll earn more money.”

  Cole felt uncomfortable, but he said nothing. He was aware of the fact that he was a rough man, blunt-spoken, a hard-luck cowman who knew nothing except cattle and horses and nights under the stars and dust and sun and rain. But he supposed, with a quiet confidence, that if other men liked this life there must be something to it and that he could live it.

  Craig Armin said suddenly, “How does it sound?”

  “Fine,” Cole said promptly. And it did, to a broke man.

  There was a racket outside in the wagon yard that came dimly through the door. Craig Armin came to his feet and said, “The mine shifts change at six and so do my men. This shift is just hitching up. Come out and see a sight.”

  Cole followed him out a side door, across a corridor, through another door and out onto a short loading platform.
They could look out into the broad and crowded wagon yard, and it was truly a sight.

  In front of them was a rig all ready to go out. Ten spans of mules, their stretchers hitched to a heavy chain, were lined out in front of a huge, high-sided wagon. And behind this wagon, hitched by a short tongue, was another smaller wagon. The near mule on the wheel team, next to the wagon, was saddled, and a man was mounted on him. A single line, tied to his saddle horn, ran through rings on the hames of each near horse to the bit of the lead horse. A stick ran from the bit of this horse to its mate. The rider held in one hand the reins to the pair of mules ahead of the wheel team. Buckled to his saddle horn was a heavy leather strap that reached back to the stout brake lever of the first wagon. Cole looked at it all with interest. The teamster drove only the swing team with the reins, the lead team with the jerk line, and as for the rest of the spans, they were ignored. It seemed a precarious business to him, and he was studying it when it pulled out the huge arched gate. Another rig, identical to that one, was led into place by a cursing hostler.

  “Risky, eh?” Craig Armin grunted. “It isn’t as bad as it looks though. We only use it on a long grade and wide road. The other wagons don’t take such a big hitch. But it takes some driving though.”

  Cole nodded. A big heavy-booted man came up to the hostler, conferred with him a moment, then strode over to the near wheeler. He put his hand up to the horn and swung into the saddle, but in that one brief moment Cole had seen something.

  There was an anchor tattooed on the big man’s hand.

  Cole leaped down from the loading platform and ran toward the teams, coming up behind the wheelers. He half vaulted onto the saddled mule, grabbed the big man’s collar and then let himself fall back. He dragged the man out of the saddle and into the dust.