He thought about the four thousand dollars in gold dust hidden in a lockbox under his feet that was supposed to go to a mining equipment company in Salt Lake City. It would not be the first time someone had tipped the outlaws off. It had happened many times before. Then he thought about the passengers inside the coach. In addition to Henry Murphy, the owner of the equipment company, there was a man named Potter, his wife, and Bonnie Wells, a former dance hall lady who had been escorted to the stage by one of Sheriff Plummer’s deputies. Mutt’s decision to stop for the man on foot might jeopardize the safety of his passengers. He had to consider that. As he neared the man, still waving his hat, he noted his sweat-soaked shirt and thought to himself, Hell, that man’s been walking for a fair piece with that load on his back. The thought flashed through his mind that he had noticed a couple of buzzards circling a few miles back. He couldn’t in good conscience leave a man on foot out here. “Ho, back!” he yelled to his horses, and drew back hard on the reins.
Not sure the coach was going to stop, Adam watched as the team of six horses thundered past him and the stage finally came to a halt about thirty yards beyond. As soon as the coach was stopped, Henry Murphy, immediately concerned, opened the door and stuck his head and shoulders out, fearing that his gold dust under the boot was in danger. “Driver!” he shouted. “Why are we stopping?”
“Just pickin’ up another passenger,” Mutt replied, hoping he had made the right judgment. By the time Murphy had time to formulate his objection, Adam had hustled into earshot and Murphy decided to hold his tongue. “Havin’ a little trouble?” Mutt asked when Adam caught up to him.
“Sure am,” Adam replied. “My horse stepped in a badger hole back there a ways and I had to put him down. I was headin’ for Bannack.”
“Well, that’s where I’m goin’,” Mutt said. “If you’ve got the fare, throw your gear in the rear boot and climb aboard. If you ain’t, I’ll give you a lift to Haney’s. That’s about three miles up the road from here where we stop for dinner and change the horses.”
“I reckon I’ve got the fare,” Adam said. “I’ll go all the way to Bannack.”
“Hustle it up,” Mutt said. “I’ve got a schedule to meet. You can pay me when we get to Haney’s.”
Adam untied the straps securing the waterproofed leather hood on the rear boot, but there was little room for his saddle and saddlebags among the items of express parcels and mail without extensive reorganizing, so he threw his saddle on top of the coach with the rest of the luggage. He was still squaring it away when Mutt urged the horses forward and the stage lurched into top speed again. If Adam had not quickly grabbed the luggage rail, he might have landed right back in the road. He crawled up to settle himself in the driver’s box beside Mutt. The grizzled driver gave him a cursory glance before commenting, “I gotta make good time on these flat stretches, ’cause there’s plenty of hills between here and Bannack.”
“When do you figure on gettin’ to Bannack?” Adam asked.
“Probably about eight or nine o’clock tonight,” Mutt replied, then turned his head to take a longer look at his new passenger. “If I don’t have to stop to pick up no more stranded pilgrims,” he added with a grin. “My name’s Mutt Jeffries. Welcome aboard.”
“Adam Blaine,” Adam returned. “I’m glad you came along when you did. I ain’t sure I coulda carried my saddle all the way to Bannack.”
Mutt chuckled. “It’da been a long walk, all right. Looks like you already worked up a good sweat, but you mighta been able to buy you another horse up ahead at Haney’s. You are in luck, though, ’cause if I had left Virginia City when I was supposed to, I’da already been past this section of the road.” He didn’t share the reason he had been delayed—waiting for the gold now occupying the compartment beneath his feet.
It was a short ride to the ranch that served as a swing station and passenger rest stop as Mutt held his team to a ground-eating pace of five miles an hour. Swinging his horses into the yard of a log ranch house, he pulled the coach up in front of the door. As he and Adam climbed down, he announced loudly to his passengers, “I’ll be pulling outta here in forty-five minutes. Go on inside and Miz Haney’ll feed you. She can show you ladies where to go if you need to wash up. You gents can take a little walk behind the barn yonder.” He grabbed the handle, opened the coach door, and stood holding it while his passengers stepped out. “Howdy, Walter.” He nodded to Walter Haney when the owner drove a fresh team of horses up beside the coach and waited while his son unhitched the tired horses.
“Mutt,” Haney returned. “You’re runnin’ a little behind, ain’tcha?”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Mutt allowed, “a little.”
“Not many passengers,” Haney commented as he watched them step down to settle their feet on solid ground after twelve miles of rocking to and fro in the coach. “Frances will probably have too much food.”
“I’ll do my part to see that not too much of it goes to waste,” Mutt replied. He turned then to settle up with Adam, who was waiting to pay his fare.
“Don’t suppose you take paper money,” Adam started.
“Hell, yeah,” Mutt interrupted. “I ain’t got no scale to weigh dust. There’s a few places where paper spends good as gold back in Virginia City.”
That suited Adam just fine, bothered not in the least by Mutt’s implication that his ticket money would not necessarily find its way into the stage company’s coffers. The transaction completed, he left to join the other men behind the barn. Standing several yards apart, Frank Potter and Henry Murphy etched two dark patterns on the wall of the barn. Adam nodded to them as he found a place to do his business. Potter nodded in acknowledgment, but Murphy looked straight ahead without responding. Hurrying to finish, he rounded the corner of the barn in time to intercept Mutt, who was on his way to join the relief party.
“Just a word, driver,” Murphy said as Mutt started to walk past him. He glanced behind him to make sure he could not be heard behind the barn. “Do you know anything about that man you picked up back there?”
“Well, nossir,” Mutt replied, “only that he lost his horse and he wants to go to Bannack.”
“Don’t you find it a little bit suspicious that he happened to show up on the road like that—right out of nowhere?” When Mutt hesitated and shrugged his shoulders, Murphy reminded him that he had a lot to be concerned about. “You can certainly see that I, more than the other passengers, have a great deal at stake here. And I don’t think we should take any unnecessary risks with strangers along the way. I think I’m within my rights to ask you to tell the man he’ll have to leave us here.”
Mutt was confounded for a moment, not sure how to respond to Murphy’s demand. “Well, I don’t know, Mr. Murphy.” He hesitated. “He seems like a nice enough young feller—and he’s paid his fare to Bannack. I don’t see how I can kick him off just because he don’t look right to you. I mean, that’s the business of the stage line—to carry folks to wherever they wanna go, as long as they pay their fare.”
“You can tell him he’ll have to wait for the next stage,” Murphy suggested.
“Hell, Mr. Murphy,” Mutt replied, rankled a bit by Murphy’s demand. “There won’t be another stage comin’ this way for four days. I ain’t seen no good reason to suspect this feller has any idea about what’s under the front boot than any of the other passengers.”
“So you’re refusing to honor my request,” Murphy stated, more than a little testy.
“I reckon that’s right,” Mutt replied.
“Very well,” Murphy said, fully angry. “Your superiors will certainly hear of your position on this, and if anything happens to my shipment before we reach Bannack, you’ll be called upon to explain your actions.”
Mutt’s dander was completely up by this time. “Well, that’s fine as hell by me, so if you ain’t got no more complaints, I’ll go take a leak. If you’re lookin’ to get somethin’ to eat, you’d best be about it, ’cause I aim to pull outta here wh
en I said I would.” The matter closed as far as he was concerned, he rounded the corner of the barn and almost collided with Adam on his way to the house. “I hope to hell you ain’t in with them road agents,” he mumbled, too low for Adam to hear.
“What?” Adam asked, but Mutt just shook his head and kept walking. Adam walked back to the coach, where Walter Haney was just completing the hitching of the new team of horses. “Mind if I wash some of this dust off in the horse trough over there?”
“Help yourself,” Haney replied. “Best not take too long, though, if you’re hungry. Ol’ Mutt’ll leave you standin’ here.” He chuckled after the comment.
“’Preciate it,” Adam replied, and headed for the trough and the pump that supplied it with water. He had accumulated a good bit of dust as well as a few minor scratches he had been unaware of until splashing himself with water, a result of his tumble down that rocky slope when Brownie fell. When he had finished, he followed the others, who were already inside the house.
Before sitting down at the table, Adam paused briefly to nod to the other passengers, who were already well into the spread provided by Frances Haney. He received a polite nod from the Potters, and a frank silent appraisal from the woman seated on the other side of the table from them. Murphy, seated at the end, made no show of acknowledgment, but fixed him with an accusing gaze for a long moment before returning his attention to his plate. Busy piling food on his plate, Mutt sat at the other end of the table, his mind too focused on the victuals to notice Adam. The cool reception was not lost on Adam, but failed to cause him concern, although he did wonder what there was about him that generated their disapproval. Primary in his mind was to find his brother. What these strangers thought about him mattered none at all.
The meal was void of conversation for quite some time with no sound save that of knife and fork on china. Accustomed to livelier guests as a rule, Frances Haney was finally compelled to comment as she came around with the coffeepot. “I declare, you’re the quietest folks I believe we’ve ever had in here. Is anything wrong?”
Her question caused a twitter from Ethel Potter, who looked up from her plate to suggest, “I guess we must all be too hungry to talk.” She looked around at everyone and smiled. When her gaze lit upon Adam, she paused. “I should say welcome to our new passenger,” she said. “I’m Ethel Potter. This is my husband, Frank. We’re on our way to Salt Lake City.”
Adam nodded and said, “My name’s Adam Blaine. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He looked up then to get introductions from the others, but all he received was a nod from Frank Potter and a stare from the single woman beside him. After a moment, he shrugged and returned his attention to his plate. The silence at the table returned until Henry Murphy finished his dinner and shoved his plate away from him.
“I was wondering, Mr. Blaine,” Murphy started, “what line of work you’re in.”
Adam looked up to meet Murphy’s eye, remembering the gruff-looking man’s indifference to him before. “Cattle,” he answered, “cattle and horses.”
Murphy raised his eyebrows slightly as if surprised. “I’d have thought you would be interested in gold,” he said. “Most men around here are after gold, one way or another.”
“I expect that’s right,” Adam said. “But that just ain’t my line.”
Murphy continued. “That’s why there are so many road agents preying on innocent folks on every trail around here when most of the time it’s just poor hardworking people trying to get from one town to another. Take this coach, for instance. There’s nothing of real value on this run, certainly not enough to warrant a gang of outlaws to hold us up.”
“It doesn’t seem to slow ’em down any,” Frank Potter interjected, disagreeing with Murphy’s statement. “Shoot, they’ll rob you of anything you’ve got. Doesn’t matter if it’s worth anything or not.”
Adam glanced from one man to the other, wondering what prompted the discussion. He decided after a moment’s reflection that Murphy probably had something to lose, and in a clumsy sort of way, he was probing him, searching for clues that he might be one such outlaw. “Well, Mr. Murphy, maybe we’ll be lucky and won’t be held up,” he said, reached for another biscuit, and returned his concentration to his plate.
“I sincerely hope you’re right, Mr. Blaine,” Murphy said. “It would be a grievous sin to cause harm to these innocent passengers.” He pushed back from the table and stood up to leave.
The Potters got to their feet, as well, ready to return to the coach. “All this talk about outlaws is enough to upset your stomach,” Ethel commented to her husband.
“I reckon you’re right,” Frank replied. “But like Mr. Murphy said, we ain’t got any money, so it’d be a waste of time trying to rob us.”
Adam didn’t bother to look up, but he sensed that Potter’s statement seemed to have been dropped for his benefit. He had to smile to himself, thinking, I should have spruced up a little more, so these folks wouldn’t worry themselves about me. He almost laughed aloud when the next question was posed to him.
Eating in seeming indifference to the dinnertime topic of discussion, Bonnie Wells took the last sip from her coffee and leaned close to Adam. “Are you in one of those gangs of outlaws? ’Cause, if you are, I’d just as soon know it now, and I’ll get off this damn stagecoach. And you and me can negotiate how much I’ve got that’s worth stealing right here. You can take it out in trade.”
With his fork stalled halfway between his plate and his mouth, Adam turned to take a close look at the woman. He had never bothered to before, and even under casual scrutiny, it was fairly obvious that she had traveled a lot of these rugged roads from one gold strike to the next. It was hard to say for sure, but he guessed she might have been a handsome woman at one time in her life. The roads had taken their toll on her, however, and the generous application of powder and paint was sorely challenged to cover the lines etched in her face. The tired eyes searching his told him that she was serious about her query. “Lady,” he said, “if I was an outlaw, your proposition would truly interest me, but you’ve got nothin’ to fear from me. I’m just tryin’ to get to Bannack to look for my brother.”
“Well, I reckon that’s a relief,” she said. Then with a tired smile she added, “We could still negotiate something when we get to Bannack, if you’re of a mind to.”
“Now, that’s a right tempting proposition,” he replied, with no desire to insult the woman. “But I reckon I just don’t have that on my mind right at the moment.”
“Hmph,” she grunted, “I thought all men had that on their mind most of the time.” With that, she got up and casually strolled out the door.
Adam glanced up to find Mutt grinning at him. “That there is Miss Bonnie Wells,” he announced grandly. “She might tell you different, but I suspect Sheriff Plummer invited her to take my stagecoach outta town. There was too many fellers wakin’ up with their pockets empty after an evenin’ with Bonnie. One feller was found in the alley behind the Silver Dollar with his throat cut. Nobody could say that Bonnie done it, but the last time anybody saw him alive he was followin’ Bonnie upstairs to her room.” He took another biscuit from the plate and put it in his pocket. “Just thought you’d be interested,” he said as he got to his feet. “Reckon it’s time to get goin’.”
“’Preciate the information,” Adam said, and followed Mutt out the door. “Ain’t likely to happen to me, though.”
“Mighty good vittles,” Mutt sang out to Frances Haney as they walked past her, “just like always.”
“That goes for me, too, ma’am,” Adam said.
They found the other four passengers standing together by the coach door, obviously engaged in a discussion of some kind. It seemed that Murphy was doing most of the talking, but the conversation met a sudden death as Mutt and Adam approached. “I got a fair idea what they’re talkin’ about,” Mutt commented. “It’s liable to be a bit chilly inside the coach. You might wanna ride up top with me again.”
; “Suits me,” Adam said with a touch of chagrin, knowing that he was being tried for the crime of being a stranger. Without hesitation, he climbed up to the driver’s box to take his place, saving Murphy the bother of suggesting it to Mutt.
Chapter 4
The sun was settling close upon the Rocky Mountains to the west of them when the first sign of trouble appeared. With the Beaverhead River far behind them, Mutt was about to feel confident that the trip was going to be without incident. Approaching a long, narrow draw, he called upon the horses for more speed, anxious to emerge quickly from the confining walls of the canyon. As soon as he saw the three riders appear at the head of the draw, however, he knew his luck had run out. Just as he feared, when he looked behind him, three more riders appeared to box the stage in. “Uh-oh,” he mumbled low, “this don’t look too good.”
Alert to the situation at the same time as Mutt, Adam reached behind him and pulled his rifle from his saddle. Cranking a cartridge into the chamber, he then put the weapon between them with the barrel resting at his feet. His actions caused Mutt to warn him. “Take it easy, man. You’re liable to get us all kilt. They’re all wearin’ masks, so they’re just after the gold under the boot. If we don’t do nothin’ foolish, they’ll just take it and go.”
“How do they know what’s in the boot?”
“They always know when any sizable amount is on the stage,” Mutt replied. “And folks is beginnin’ to figure the sheriff is the one that tips ’em off.”
“Why don’t the citizens of Virginia City and Bannack do somethin’ about it?” Adam asked, finding the situation hard to understand in spite of the explanation offered by Earl Foster the night before.
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