“Amber said she wanted to test the horse,” Veronica reported.
“She’s going up to Central City, Lead, and back here,” Patricia added. “Can we go, Mama? Please!”
Jamie Sue brushed a strand of hair out of Patricia’s eyes, then did the same for Veronica. “That will take a couple of hours. I thought you wanted to be here when your trunks are delivered.”
“Oh, yeah …” Patricia moaned.
“I’ll need your help with the dishes and things. We’ll have plenty of unpacking to do. Tell Amber perhaps some other time.”
“Couldn’t we go for a little ride, Mama?” Veronica pleaded. “The freight wagon might not get here until noon.”
“I’m not sure I want you racing that horse.”
“She isn’t going to race it,” Patricia explained, “just test it.”
“Why is it that doesn’t comfort me much?”
“We could take the peach cobbler to Grandpa Brazos. Daddy said he could use some cheering up,” Patricia said.
“Yes, you could do that. If you three girls don’t cheer up that old man, nothing this side of heaven will. Take the pie to him, then come back. With Daddy gone and Little Frank with a bum hand, I’ll be counting on you two to help me unpack.”
Patricia threw her arms around Jamie Sue and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mama.”
“We’ll be home before noon,” Veronica added.
“You’ll be home as soon as the pie is delivered.”
“Don’t worry about us.” Patricia followed her sister out the door. “We’ll be with Amber.”
Don’t worry about you? I’ve stewed over you two for twelve years, and I’m not about to stop now. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she called out after them.
“What?” Patricia asked.
“The pie for Grandpa Brazos.”
Robert found that if he kept the team reined back to a slow walk they could keep the wagon rolling through the rocks and stumps without lodging a wheel or busting an axle. Sam circled the carriage on his buckskin, jotting down notes and marking trees with his knife. From time to time he rode out of sight, hidden by the boulders and short ponderosa pines.
Robert maneuvered the team through a narrow lane hacked out in a ponderosa pine grove, then broke out in a small meadow at the bottom of a sloping canyon.
Chambers’s black tie now hung loose at his neck, his top shirt button unfastened. His top hat was jammed almost to his ears. “That’s a strange way to pile logs.”
“That’s a corduroy road.”
“What?”
“The meadow must be boggy. So someone’s cut and placed logs side-by-side. Originally used to skid logs out to a freight wagon or sawpit. Sometimes they put dirt on top to smooth it down, but this outfit doesn’t seem to want to do anything to make access easier.”
“What keeps the logs from sinking in the swamp?”
“Nothing … if they sink out of sight, you have to add more logs.”
Once they jarred their way past the corduroy road, the trees thinned and the granite boulders increased. The trail was smoother and wider, but it still had occasional boulders. To the east Robert saw Samuel’s silhouette drop down over the horizon. He reined up when they reached the edge of a sloping descent.
“Good heavens, we aren’t expected to drive off the edge of this, are we?” Chambers huffed.
Robert pointed ahead. “There’s the road down there. They’ve been driving something off this, but I’m not sure it was a light carriage. More like a dead-ax wagon, I reckon.”
“But … but … it’s nothing but boulders,” Chambers protested.
Robert rubbed his dark beard and studied the roadway. “Kind of makes you wish you were on horseback, doesn’t it?”
“Makes me wish I was in Toronto. I’m just a chartered accountant,” Chambers insisted, “not some Lewiston Clark.”
“Who?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Well, it’s time for us to get out.” Robert swung down from the carriage. “I’m going to walk up there between the horses to keep them creeping down this slope. You go around to the back and hold onto the rail. Let the carriage drag you along like an anchor.”
Chambers eased himself down on the other side of the rig. “My word, are you joking?”
“Nope.”
The accountant tried brushing trail dust off his neatly creased wool trousers. “Where’s your brother, Samuel? Perhaps he could help.”
Robert surveyed the empty horizon to the east. “Now that’s something Mama and Daddy asked me and Todd for years. They never could find him when it was time for chores. It doesn’t look too bad, Mr. Chambers. I’ll hold the horses back while you drag your feet. We’ll ease on down off of here. I don’t think it’s more than fifty yards.”
Chambers stomped toward the rear of the carriage. “I’ve never heard anything like this. I thought the West was settled and all that. They’re building concrete streets down east, just as smooth as your front porch, and here we are trying to blaze a trail like Kit Bridger.”
“Kit Carson,” Robert corrected.
“Whatever.” Still wearing his top hat, Chambers continued to huff his way around to the back of the carriage. “I say, this won’t get my new suit dirty, will it? I just bought it ten days ago.”
“If you start to get dusty, turn loose and hike on down at your own speed,” Robert instructed.
Standing between the horses, Robert Fortune watched Chambers lace his ungloved fingers around the black iron railing at the back of the carriage. “You ready, Byron?” he hollered.
“Quite so,” Chambers shouted back.
Robert led the horses on one cautious step after another down across the boulders. When he felt the wheels gaining momentum, he leaned back against the harnesses. One foot at a time they crept down the descent. The horses, but not the carriage, had reached level ground when Robert finally loosened his grip.
Just as he reached up to wipe the sweat off his forehead, a gunshot exploded from somewhere up ahead. Granite shreds flew up in front of the horses. In unison they reared. Fortune tried to grab their harnesses, but his hands slipped. The panicked horses’ hooves came back down, and the rigging between slapped him to the ground. Then they took off on a wild gallop.
Robert pulled his arms and feet in as he tried to avoid the horse hooves and wagon wheels racing over him. Chambers’s boots ran up his back. He rolled over and clutched the accountant with both arms around the knees and held on.
“Whoa!” Robert shouted and bounced along like an empty airtight can tied to a dog’s tail. “Whoa!”
The team bolted to the right. The centrifugal force swung Robert to the left. He bounced free over the dirt and rocks, and rolled to a stop, holding nothing more than Mr. Chambers’s boots … and wool trousers.
He rolled over and sat watching the white legs of the accountant being dragged toward a grove of small whitewood trees. “Turn loose!” he shouted. “Turn loose, Chambers!”
Robert struggled to his feet. His ankles ached. His knees felt raw. His legs were bruised. He had staggered about twenty feet when the team abruptly stopped.
Trouserless, Byron Chambers still clutched the back rail of the carriage. His black, gartered stockings were torn to shreds. Robert trotted toward him, but each step shot pain up his legs. “Are you alright, Byron?”
“How in the world would I know if I’m alright?” the accountant screamed. “I could be dead for all I know. The tortures of hell couldn’t be much worse than what I’ve endured.”
Fortune laid Chambers’s boots and trousers on the back of the carriage. “Well, it looks like you’re all in one piece.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“And your trousers seem to be in better shape than mine.” Robert could feel dirt and rocks in his boot. “You can turn loose of the railing now, Mr. Chambers.”
“I can’t. My hands seem welded in place.”
“You might want to pu
ll your trousers on. I believe they might have gotten a little bit dusty.”
“Dusty? Dusty!” Chambers yanked his talon-like grip free from the iron railing and stared at blisters starting to form on his fingers. “My word, I could have been killed by the runaway wagon, not to mention the gunshot!” The chartered accountant reset his top hat, then fastened the buttons on his shirt and straightened his tie.
The gunshot! Robert reached for his holstered revolver. “Don’t pull that pistol, mister!” a brusk voice shouted as a masked gunman rode out from the whitewoods behind them. A dirty red bandanna covered his round face. “Toss down your guns and pull out your pokes!”
Robert Fortune eased down on a boulder, his back to the gunman, and started tugging off his boots.
“I said, toss down your gun and hold up your hands!” he hollered.
Chambers snatched his trousers and held them in front of his legs.
Robert dumped the gravel out of his boots and tugged them back on. “Puddin, is that you?”
“Throw down!” the gunman barked.
Fortune stood and walked toward the masked gunman. “Oscar Puddin, it’s me … Robert Fortune, the train inspector. Remember? Are you tryin’ to hold up this Englishman again?”
The round-faced man tugged down his dirty red bandanna. “Fortune? What in blazes are you doin’ out here? There ain’t a train for miles!”
Robert looped his thumbs in his belt. “Oscar, I’m disappointed in you!” He turned to Chambers. “Go ahead, put your trousers on, Byron. You remember Oscar, don’t you?”
“My word, I thought you threw him off the train.” Chambers hobbled around on raw feet, trying to pull on his trousers.
Robert tried to brush some of the dust off his own trousers. “No, I put him off the train when we stopped for water. I should have tossed him when we went over that steep trestle. Look at this, Oscar … a nice pair of trousers all ruined. I think I bruised every bone in both legs when that team bolted.”
Puddin kept his gun pointed at Fortune. “I didn’t mean to spook the team. You was supposed to throw down.”
“Now, see there, Oscar. You just weren’t thinkin’. You should have known your shot would spook the team. A man has to think through these things if he’s going to be successful in your line of work.”
Puddin cleared his throat. “Toss down your gun, Fortune. I got the drop on you this time. I want your money, and I want it now!”
Fortune dusted off his shirtsleeves with his hat. “Oscar, anyone that works at it as hard as you do ought to make more money. I don’t have any poke. This is not a good road to work as a highwayman. There’s no place to spend money out here, so naturally I didn’t bother to bring any along. I don’t even have any tobacco or jerky to give you. It’s kind of embarrassing not having anything to offer.”
Puddin spat a wad of tobacco on the granite rock below. “The Englishman’s got money! Gold mine money.”
“He’s a chartered accountant, not a mine owner. What kind of wages do you think they draw? Why, miners up at Lead make more money than accountants.”
“He wears a mighty fancy suit,” Puddin insisted.
“Not any more,” Robert said. “He’s got sore feet and skinned-up legs. You did enough damage for one day. Now, ride on out before you get yourself shot.”
Puddin waved the gun at Robert Fortune. “What did you say?”
Robert turned away from the gunman. “You heard me. Go on. Get out of here!”
“I got a gun drawn on you!” he shouted.
Fortune refused to turn back and look at the outlaw. “If you were the shootin’, stealin’ type, we’d both be dead by now. Go on, Oscar, before my assistant gets riled and plugs you.”
“You ain’t got no backup this time,” Puddin insisted.
A lever action carbine cocked behind him. Oscar Puddin spun around in the saddle. When he did, Robert Fortune drew his revolver.
The mounted gunman stared at the barrel of the .44 carbine.
Robert strolled over to the startled man. “Oscar, this is my brother, Sammy.”
“Where did he come from?” Oscar blustered.
Robert pushed his hat back with the barrel of his revolver. “Mama and Daddy said an angel brought him, but I always sort of doubted that myself. Drop your gun, Oscar. You wouldn’t be the first man Sam Fortune has shot.”
“Sam Fortune from down in the Indian Territory?”
“That’s the one.”
“But … but … I heard he was dead!”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Sam said.
“That’s no fair,” Puddin turned to Robert Fortune. “You always have backup.”
“Toss the gun down, Oscar. It’s too pretty a day to get shot.”
The big man threw the gun to the ground and slumped his shoulders. “I can’t believe this. I didn’t go to Deadwood. I stayed out of the badlands jist like you told me. I’m on my way to Montana and back at Garden City I heard that some city boys is way out here in the hills in a nobby carriage. So I reckon to pick up a little grocery money. That’s all I wanted. And it’s you! It ain’t fair.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Samuel asked.
“I suppose we’ll have to haul him back to Deadwood and toss him in jail.” Robert plucked up Puddin’s gun and stuck it in his belt.
“He’s a big man,” Sam pondered. “I bet it’ll take a lot of taxpayer money to feed him in jail.”
Robert yanked up Puddin’s right pant leg and snatched out a sneak gun. “I suppose you’re right about that. What do you think we should do?”
Sam lowered his carbine from his shoulder to his side. “We could jist shoot him.”
“You cain’ do that!” Puddin protested.
Robert walked around to the other side of the gunman and wrenched a large hunting knife out of his left boot. “He’s right, Sammy. With Mr. Chambers as a witness, we can’t shoot him down. You got any more sneaks, Oscar?”
Byron Chambers sat on a boulder, rubbing his raw toes. “I’ll turn my head and close my eyes.”
Puddin reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a tiny, single-shot .22, then handed it down.
Robert rubbed his beard. “No, I don’t think we can shoot him … unless …”
“Unless he’s tryin’ to escape?” Sam suggested.
“I ain’t tryin’ to escape,” Puddin blurted out. “Look at me, I haven’t even tried to ride off!”
“He’s right about that,” Robert said.
Sam rode his buckskin right up next to Puddin. “Maybe he’ll try to escape after while.”
“Could be,” Robert pondered.
“No sir. I won’t try to escape.”
“Well, Oscar, just to keep my brother from shootin’ you, let’s tie your hands to that A-fork saddle of yours. That way, there’s no chance of you escaping.”
“You take all the fun out of it, lil’ brother,” Samuel grinned.
“You stay out of this. Let the inspector do his work!” Oscar Puddin insisted.
Byron Chambers tugged on his boots. “I trust you two will be discreet when recalling this scene,” he said. “It is quite humiliating!”
“Runaway carriages are common occurrences. You didn’t break your neck, your arm, or your leg. You did alright. Mind you, you’ll probably want to get the trousers cleaned and have a bath before you head back to Toronto,” Robert added. “But think of the stories you can tell the other chartered accountants back in Toronto.”
“Yes, well … there will be a few adjustments in details, I can assure you of that,” Chambers declared.
After Robert reset the rigging on the team, he and Chambers climbed into the carriage. “Are we ready to proceed?”
“Maybe I ought to stick a little closer, lil’ brother,” Sam said.
“Yep, I’ll need you to shoot Oscar if he tries to escape.”
“I ain’t goin’ to try nothin’,” Puddin insisted.
“Well, then, Oscar, why don’t you lead the wa
y?” Robert suggested.
“I don’t know where you’re goin’.”
“Neither do we. We were just told to head east, and that’s what we’ll do.”
“If you don’t know where you’re goin’, how will you know when you get there?” Puddin called back.
“We’ll know when we’re there ’cause they’ll start shooting at us.” Robert slapped the leather lines on the team. “Why do you think I want you to lead?”
Jamie Sue was at the sink washing out her beige dress when she heard the pounding on the front door.
That must be the express company. And the girls aren’t here.
She wiped her hands on a cotton towel and smoothed down the front of her green satin dress.
The pounding on the door continued.
I would think the express company could be a little more courteous.
She scurried into the living room.
The pounding began once again. “I know you’re in there!” a deep voice shouted.
“Just a minute …” Jamie Sue called out. When she swung open the door, a tall, broad-shouldered man with narrow eyes, drooping mustache, and tight-fitting bowler greeted her with a scowl.
“Well, just what do you intend to do about it!” he shouted.
Jamie Sue’s hand flew up to her mouth. “Do about it? I want you to tote all the trunks and crates into the living room!”
“What?” he hollered. “You think I’m a servant?”
“You’re from the express company aren’t you?”
“I most certainly am not! I want to know what you’re going to do about my window!”
“Window?” Jamie Sue had a strong urge to go back inside and slam the door between them.
The veins of the man’s neck pulsed with every word. “You’re Little Frank’s mama, aren’t you?”
“Oh, my, yes.” Jamie Sue let out a sigh. “Little Frank came home and started to tell me something about a window, then tripped and broke his finger. It’s been quite hectic. I’m very sorry about the window.”
“Looks like someone punched you in the nose.”
Jamie Sue’s fingers patted her nose. “I, eh … also fell, while trying to help my son.”
“It still looks like you been beat up. Where is that kid of yours?” the man demanded.
Friends and Enemies Page 14