“I want to see him now.” Franklin stepped closer to Bilodeaux. He scowled at him, his nose pointing to the top of Bilodeaux’s hat.
“There is no time. I told you he is safe. You sign your deed with me now—Burgermyer here standing in as witness—and afterward I will escort you to your boy.”
“I thought you wanted me to bring Ausmus to you,” Burgermyer said, kicking at the dirt. “I had him all ready to go. He was all scared and whimpering. What gives, Bilodeaux?”
“Shut up, you idiot.” Bilodeaux kept his eyes on Franklin, his rifle pointed at Franklin’s face. “We will get your deed, you will sign it over to me, and then we will take a ride to see your Tory. Everything will be nice and sweet. But we must hurry.”
Franklin eyed the rifle staring him down. The gun, close enough he could make out the rifling grooves inside the barrel, reeked of grease and sulfur. Bilodeaux had discharged it recently. His mind whirled with what to do. He realized the most important action was whatever would carry him quicker to Tory.
“The deed is in my war trunk next to my bed,” he said flatly. “You won’t miss it.”
Bilodeaux gestured with the gun to Burgermyer. “Get it. And grab something to write with.”
Burgermyer darted for the cabin.
“You really think you can get away with this, Bilodeaux?” Franklin said, fending off his resentment and anxiety with a snicker.
“You gave me no other choice, Ausmus. You speak of your rights, you and that boy of yours. Well, all mankind possesses rights. Rights to what will bring him riches, a better life. Your sitting on this land refusing to pan for gold—that is the true crime. You gave me no other option how to get it. Most others will agree. Even the marshal.”
“So the end justifies the means, is that it?”
Bilodeaux had no time to answer. Burgermyer jogged out of the cabin waving a piece of paper and one of Franklin’s graphite pencils. “I got it. I got it. Here it is.”
Bilodeaux ordered the lanky man to hold his pistol steady on Franklin while he yanked the paper from his hand. After unfolding the document and scanning it, he grabbed the pencil from Burgermyer. “Sign it over to me,” he commanded Franklin, shoving the pencil and deed at his chest.
“How can I be certain you haven’t harmed Tory?”
“You have my word. Now do as you are told. You sign, then I give you back your boy, unharmed.”
“We ain’t harmed him none,” Burgermyer asserted. “That’s the truth, other than a small knock on his—”
“Burgermyer,” Bilodeaux fumed through clenched teeth, “will you keep your mouth shut!”
“I’m supposed to trust the likes of you two?” Franklin eyed the deed pressed against his chest, hesitating, assessing.
“So you harbor less fondness for the boy than I assumed, Ausmus,” Bilodeaux said, a sinister grin stretching above his turquoise ascot. “My mistake. You do not care for him, after all.”
Burgermyer crinkled his nose, his gun still trained on Franklin. He scratched under his hat. He scanned from Franklin to his boss. Everything around Franklin seemed to converge into the bandits’ blaring eyes. He grabbed the deed from Bilodeaux with a defiant brutality and tucked it under his stump. “Give me the damn pencil.”
He snatched the pencil and was about to sign when shouting from the gate froze his hand.
“Stop! Stop!”
Franklin turned to see Wicasha waving his arms over his head. Tory, leaning against him, hobbled on one foot.
“He doesn’t have Tory,” Wicasha hollered. “I got him right here. Don’t sign away the homestead. Tory knows Bilodeaux’s scheme. He wants you to sign the deed. Don’t do it. Tory’s free and safe.”
From the corner of his left eye, Franklin gauged Bilodeaux’s reaction. Bilodeaux, his blue eyes blazing, lifted his rifle, but before he could fire, a shot rang out and the rifle flew from his hands. Franklin acted fast. He punched Bilodeaux full in the face, snapping the pencil in half in the process, and simultaneously kicked Burgermyer in his gut with his left foot. Both went down. Wicasha, with Tory gathered in his arms, raced to them, his rifle smoking.
Franklin grabbed their guns and stared down at the two sprawled bodies. “Get some rope. Let’s tie them up before they come to, so we can cart them into town.”
THE sight of the two men bound like wayward hogs in the back of Franklin’s wagon grabbed nearly all of Spiketrout’s attention, including those indoors. Nobody wanted to miss the spectacle of the men bouncing down Main Street. Bilodeaux’s gray stallion and Burgermyer’s pinto, tethered to the back, wheezed and snorted. Franklin pulled alongside the jailhouse.
Marshal Reinhardt stepped onto the boardwalk, shaking his head. “You bring in more bodies in that wagon of yours than any man in the Hills, Ausmus,” he said, peering into the back of the wagon.
“Don’t worry, Marshal,” Franklin said. Relief still quivered his bones after finding Tory safe and sound. “These two are alive and kicking.”
During the drive into town, the two had come to consciousness about the same time. They had fussed to find their hands bound and their ankles tied with a third rope yoking their hands and feet behind their backs. They had cursed up a storm most of the way.
“He has kidnapped us,” Bilodeaux shouted. He twisted and squirmed, vainly trying to release his ropes. His hat rolled beside him. His bushy hair fell into his eyes. Dried blood was caked under his nose where Franklin had socked him. Some folks snickered; others stared in shock.
“Now, Henri,” the marshal said, scratching under his Stetson, “even I can’t be expected to believe Ausmus tied you up for no good reason. Especially since he hauled you into town for anyone who cares to gawk.”
Bilodeaux tried to sit upright. He arched his back like a snake and set his eyes on Franklin. “If you people only knew what a deviant this man in your midst is, you would not be so quick to stand here and listen to him.”
Wicasha stepped between them. He peered at Bilodeaux with squinty eyes. Bilodeaux’s face fell, and he kept his mouth taut. Franklin understood the exchange. Bilodeaux, having once courted Wicasha as his lover, was hardly one to accuse someone of “deviant” behavior.
“What they done, Ausmus?” one man with cavernous black eyes asked.
“Yeah, Frank,” another said, reeking of whiskey. “What’s going on this time?”
“It’s a long story, one best told before a judge and jury,” Franklin said. “The short of it is, he kidnapped Tory, tried to use him as ransom to get me to sign over my land so he can get the gold in the creek.”
“He is a liar,” Bilodeaux shot. “He is the one who abducted us.”
“Stop your lying, Bilodeaux,” Burgermyer said, his head shaking back and forth and his moist eyes downcast.
“Shut up, you imbecile.”
“Aw, you shut up for once, Bilodeaux. I shoulda known all along we ain’t gonna get away with your scheme. I’m ready to confess if it means I can get an easy sentence. Jack Parker was in on it too. He’s the one who hit the boy on his head.”
Bilodeaux’s dark-blue eyes simmered purple with fury.
Deputy Ostrem grabbed Burgermyer and untied his leg restraints. “You’ll get whatever the jury and judge decide. Come on.”
Reinhardt dragged Bilodeaux closer to the edge of the wagon and began untying most of the ropes save for those on his wrists, which eliminated the need for handcuffs. “Let’s get you to your feet,” he said. “You got yourself in it way up to your head this time, Bilodeaux. Not much anyone’s going to be able to do to help you out. Kidnapping? That ain’t gonna look good to a jury and judge.”
“I want an advocate,” Bilodeaux cried, jerking from the marshal’s hold.
“You’ll get all your rights coming to you, don’t you worry. Go easy along with me, we’ll take care of you. We got an empty cell, nice and clean, ready for you and Burgermyer.”
“I refuse to be confined in the same cell with that cretin,” Bilodeaux protested, glowering at
Burgermyer.
“We’ll put Burgermyer in the other cell with Bloom, Doughty, and Carlyle.”
“Fine by me,” Burgermyer said, kicking out his liberated feet. “I don’t wanna be near Frenchy none, either.”
“This is not the end, Ausmus,” Bilodeaux spewed at Franklin as Reinhardt poked him toward the jailhouse. “This humiliation will not go unchallenged. You hear me?”
Franklin shrugged off the bandit’s threats. He sighed, glad Reinhardt and Ostrem had hauled off the two men to jail and out of his sight. But he wanted Doc Albrecht to examine Tory’s injuries, which he had already tended the best he could back at Moonlight Gulch. The doctor, who was standing around with the other gawkers, kindly escorted the three to his office. Tory’s prognosis looked good.
“His vision is clear, no apparent trauma. Scrapes and cuts should be fine with the iodine. Ankle’s a bit swollen, but if he keeps off of it the rest of the night, shouldn’t cause trouble. He’ll be back to work on your homestead in no time, Frank.”
“Good to know, Doc, thanks.”
“I’m hungry,” Tory said. “They gave me only beans to eat, and sparingly. I’m sorry, Franklin, they took the herbs I bought for you as a surprise.”
Everyone chuckled but Franklin. During the ride into town, he had marveled over Tory’s account of his ordeal held captive in a cave for forty-eight hours. Franklin had barely spoken the entire nine-mile trip as he’d listened, other than to turn around and command Bilodeaux and Burgermyer to shut their traps. A strange fury had whirled inside him, mixed with a gentle happiness that everything had ended well. Still, he smarted over the entire ordeal.
“Told you he was in good shape,” the doctor said. “Any man with an appetite can’t be sick.”
Franklin glanced out the window. “It’ll be dark before long. I wasn’t savvy enough to bring along some lanterns for the ride back.”
“You had a lot on your mind,” the doc said.
“Let’s stay in town,” Tory said. “We can get a room at Madame Lafourchette’s.”
“The Gold Dust? You sure?”
“Why not, it’ll be sort of a vacation.”
Wicasha gave one of his all-knowing chuckles. “Go ahead, Frank. I’ll head back to the homestead by foot. You won’t have to worry about things there. I’ll take care of the animals. I can find my way along in the dark, done it hundreds of times.”
Feeling safer in Spiketrout than at any other time now that Bilodeaux was locked behind bars, Franklin said, “Well, if that’s what you both want. Sure. Let’s get a good steak and afterward shack up at the inn. You at least join us for supper, Wicasha?”
“That I can do.”
“How about you, Doc?”
“Sure, why not?”
MADAME LAFOURCHETTE personally served the four men. She cleared aside a table used for poker, kicked out two earsplitting drunks, and had the finest-looking of her girls help cater to their needs, so they might enjoy a well-deserved “classy meal.”
“We’ll treat you like kings,” she trumpeted. “I’ll do my best to get your orders fast. My head cook got himself in some trouble over in Deadwood. He was sneaking around with a married woman. Ain’t that something! He’s surrounded by my girls, has the pick of the litter, and he has to go find trouble with a married woman. Isn’t that just like a man.” She shook her head. “Now the fool’s holed up in Deadwood with two broken legs, six bruised ribs, and I got a half-wit cook doing the work of two.”
“We’re in no hurry,” Tory said.
“Steaks all around?” she asked.
They all agreed, and the madame hustled into the kitchen. Two of her hurdy-gurdy girls carried over four mugs of beer overflowing with thick froth. Doc Albrecht raised his mug for a toast.
“To finally putting Bilodeaux where he belongs,” he said.
“Hear, hear.” They tapped their mugs and took long swills.
“I know it sounds a bit odd after I just toasted Bilodeaux’s incarceration,” the doc said, setting down his beer and wiping the foam from his mustache, “but the man’s going to need representation, and no one else in town is capable. Hope you fellows won’t get upset if I defend him.”
“What?” Tory sat up straight. The beer clenched in his fingers sloshed inside the mug. “How could you do that?”
“Settle down, Tory. Let the man speak.” Franklin set his eyes on the doctor. “Defend that deadbeat? What for, Doc?”
“A man has a right to an advocate, whether he’s a scoundrel or not,” the doctor said. “Innocent until proven guilty. That’s what our Bill of Rights provides. Don’t worry, I’ll just make sure his constitutional rights are upheld, I’m not going to go after your characters or try to fudge his to look good, if that’s even possible.”
“I doubt Bilodeaux will trust you enough,” Wicasha said.
“He won’t have a choice, as far as I see it,” Doc Albrecht said. “He can defend himself if he wishes, but just wanted to let you know, I’ll offer him my services and defend him if he sees fit that I do.”
Tory still stewed. Franklin patted his shoulder and tried to laugh off the unpleasantness. “I got another toast,” he said, fisting his raised mug tightly. The others joined him, including Tory, although he raised his mug slower and less high than the others. “To constitutional rights.”
“To constitutional rights,” the others chimed in with chuckles. Tory mumbled the toast but brightened as their mirth grew contagious.
Twenty minutes and many laughs later, Madame Lafourchette brought their steaks, thick and steaming on a large platter. Onions and mushrooms were piled high, and baked potatoes as big as a man’s fist (Franklin boasted they might be his, since he often sold some of his potatoes to Madame Lafourchette), lathered in whipped butter, rolled on the side.
“Madame, you’ve outdone yourself,” the doc said, eyeing the plate set before him. “We might have to make another toast.” He hoisted his second beer. “To Madame Lafourchette and the Gold Dust Inn.”
“Hear, hear.”
Madame Lafourchette’s blush barely burned through her powdered cheeks. “You fellows enjoy your steaks now,” she said, waving her hands at them. “If you need anything, holler at me or one of my girls.”
Franklin cut into his steak using the way he’d accomplished the task since losing his right arm: cutting downward with enough pressure to keep the plate from sliding, ensuring he pulled the knife toward him so the plate would rest against his chest for extra resistance. He grinned, noticing Tory watch him with admiration in his eyes.
Not since waking in a tent on a battlefield outside of Petersburg, Virginia, and realizing he was alive after someone had shot him, had Franklin known such relief. Good friends, good food, good conversation. He smiled wider when Tory sneaked a piece of meat under the table for Belle Beau, Madame Lafourchette’s yellow housecat. To Franklin, life couldn’t get any better.
Chapter 33
“YOU got any rooms left for me and Tory, Madame?” Franklin inquired at the bar. The others were still sitting around the table, rubbing their full bellies. Coffee and brandy helped with the digestion.
“You want two rooms?”
“Umm… one might be best. Someone should keep an eye on Tory, since he was hit in the head, don’t you think?”
“You’re a good friend, Frank. I got three open rooms, but none of them have more than one bed.” She winked. “In my place, not too many people request two beds.”
“No matter,” Franklin said, heating a bit under the collar. “I can sleep in a chair.” He figured a woman like Madame Lafourchette wouldn’t care if two men did sleep in the same bed. She’d probably seen everything.
“Nice you guys reconnected,” Madame Lafourchette said, reaching under the counter.
“Yep, I sure thought he was gone for good. Worried awful what Bilodeaux might have done to him.”
“I meant before that.”
“What do you mean, before that?”
“Aren’t you tw
o old friends from somewhere? I just assumed, since he queried about you when he first came into town last year. Strolled right up to me fresh off the stage from Deadwood, asked which direction your homestead was in. Said you two knew each other but you probably wouldn’t remember him.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sure as I’m looking at you. Followed you into the inn but ran out before greeting you.”
Franklin wracked his brain. He had no recollection of meeting anyone in the past who resembled Tory Pilkvist. He played back his days working in Kentucky at the lumberyard, then on the steamer in Quincy, Illinois, followed by the quartz mine a few years later. Tory’s face failed to materialize. Besides, Tory would have been a mere lad in those days, barely out of diapers for most of it. Odd, Franklin thought.
“Not sure why he told you that.” He shrugged. “I never seen him before he came to my homestead, I’m certain.”
“Well,” the madame said, “guess he thought you were somebody else. People mix each other up sometimes.”
“Sure, that’s probably it.”
She handed Franklin a room key, and he returned to the table, where Doc Albrecht was in the midst of describing his Idaho Territory days, tales Franklin had heard many times since the doc’s moving to town last year.
“Frank, you’re missing my exciting yarn about when I practiced medicine in the Bitterroot.”
“Not the one where, using your medical expertise, you saved a big mining company ten thousand dollars from a lawsuit filed by six grieving widows who claimed their husbands died from dyspnea?” Franklin chuckled as he sat at the table. He understood how Doc Albrecht regretted that undertaking against the widows, especially since, according to the doctor, miners could slowly suffocate from working long arduous hours after many years—although it was difficult to prove, as Doc Albrecht stated on behalf of the mining company.
“I thought I’d spare them that tale,” the doctor said, his face souring. “That would be a bit hard on the old digestion.”
On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch Page 28