by John Legg
“They ain’t no friends of mine,” Wilson said stiffly. “They said, though, that they headed down there in just the past week or so.”
“Any particular spot?”
“Not that they knew. Or if they knew, they weren’t sayin’.”
Coffin nodded. “Well, if any of that’s true, it might be of a help. At least I got a direction to go in now.” Wilson stood. “You need my help again, don’t wait to ask,” he said. Then he got out of there. Wilson was not a coward, but something about Coffin got to him, sent little crystalline pieces of iciness into his innards. He was glad Coffin would be leaving town soon.
Coffin finished his meal and went to a saloon. Two hours later, he was back in his room twelve dollars poorer since he had had his usual luck with cards. He was sure at least two of the men were cheating, but he did not have the heart or energy to call them on it. He climbed into bed.
He was on the trail early, his loaded pack mule placidly following the horse’s lead. He turned south once he was in the valley and moved on steadily if not too rapidly. Three nights after leaving Virginia City, he came on the small town of Bendersville. It did not appear to offer too many amenities, but Coffin figured it was better than spending another night in the open, especially since it had been raining off and on for the past day and a half.
A tent had a sign saying it was a hotel. Next to it on one side was another tent announcing it had whiskey for sale. On the other side was yet a third tent, this one proclaiming it offered EATS. Coffin stopped in front of the “hotel.” Minutes later he was the proud renter of a cot in a room with eight other cots.
Since there seemed to be no real livery, Coffin brought the horse and mule back around the hotel and cared for them. He wondered what he should do about his saddle and other tack. He finally shrugged and carried it inside and dropped it near his cot. Then he went to the proprietor of the grand establishment. “My saddle and other gear’s back there by my bunk,” he said “Anything happens to it, I’m gonna hold you responsible.”
“Sure.” The man sounded disinterested.
Coffin felt like clubbing the man on the head, but he didn’t figure it would change the man’s attitude any. He went to the restaurant next door and managed to swallow something they told him was a beefsteak. Coffin suspected that the charred, gristle-ridden thing had never been part of a steer, or a buffalo. He politely decided it was horsesteak, or maybe even mulesteak. To really try to figure out what it was did not fill him with joy.
After the meal, he went to the saloon on the other side of the hotel. Like the other two places, it was a makeshift affair. Two or three old tables with rickety chairs were scattered about. A few planks on a barrel on one side and a sawhorse on the other comprised the bar.
Coffin ordered a whiskey, hoping it would kill the aftertaste of the meal. Trouble with that was that the whiskey was about as poor as the food was. “Jesus,” he complained to the bartender, “which end of the mule did this shit come from?”
The bartender shrugged. He couldn’t care less what folks thought. His boss paid his wages, and if the boss wanted goat piss served, then he would do it willingly.
Coffin shrugged and ordered another shot. He had managed to down three of the foul beverages when two familiar-looking men walked in. Coffin stood sideways to the front of the tent. That kept his badge hidden for the time being while allowing him to keep an eye on people who entered the tent.
Coffin turned back to face the bar square. He slid a hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out the papers he still carried on Merkle’s men. He quickly looked through them. With a smile, he put two faces with two names. He shoved the papers back into his pocket and then drained his whiskey glass.
Coffin drew one of his Remingtons and, making sure his slicker was flapped open enough to allow people to see his badge, he turned. He walked to where the two men stood, backs to him, at a table. He tapped the nearest man on the shoulder with the barrel of his pistol. The man started, then turned to stare into the muzzle of Coffin’s revolver.
“You’re under arrest, Mr. Burke,” Coffin said quietly. “What for?”
“Murder, theft, robbery, rape. There’s more, but that ought to do for now.”
“You got the wrong man, Marshal,” the man said nervously. “My name ain’t Burke. It’s Stephens.”
“I don’t give a pile of squirrel shit what your name is. I got paper on you under the name Orval Burke. That’s what I’ll call you. And I’ll let a judge tell me I got the wrong man. He does, I’ll apologize to you. But go before a judge you will. Unless you’d rather visit with St. Peter at the pearly gates.”
“Whoa, there, Marshal,” he said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I ain’t in no hurry to die.”
Coffin nodded. “Tell your partner there that if he takes another step toward the outside, I’m gonna blast a big, ugly hole in your head.”
“Dammit, Hubie,” Burke snapped, “stay where you are.”
“By the way, Hubie,” Coffin said, “you’re under arrest, too.”
“You ain’t takin’ me, boy,” Hubert Pendergast, Alvin’s brother, bolted for the open end of the tent.
Coffin drew his pistol back and then slammed Burke in the face with it. Burke fell, giving Coffin a clear shot. He fired, hitting Pendergast almost in the center of the back. Inertia and the bullet’s impact pushed Pendergast ahead. He slid to a stop face down in the mud a few feet outside the tent.
Coffin bent to pull Burke to his feet, and a bullet whizzed past his head. He dropped Burke’s shirtfront and dove toward the door. As he came up on one knee, his eyes took in everything in one quick glance, and his brain processed the information. Two heartbeats had passed. He fired twice and hit the pistol-wielding bartender in the throat with one shot. The other missed by half a foot.
Coffin swung toward Burke, who also was on one knee, pistol in hand. Blood dripped down his face, giving him a devilish look. Both men fired at the same time. Coffin felt Burke’s shot tear through one of the flapping ends of his yellow slicker.
Coffin’s shot shattered Burke’s chin, knocking him back a little. Coffin fired once more, and finished Burke off. Slowly he stood, slipping the empty Remington away and pulling the other. He turned in a circle, but no one else was threatening him.
Coffin checked on Burke, who was dead. So was the bartender. Pendergast was alive, though not by much. Coffin knelt in the mud next to Pendergast. “Where’s Merkle?” Coffin asked.
“Down along the Yellowstone somewhere,” Pendergast gasped.
“Anyplace in particular?”
“There’s a place where hot water shoots out into the sky every so often,” Pendergast said, his voice growing fainter. “He likes to stay near there.” Pendergast wheezed a few times. “Bastard,” he muttered and died.
Chapter Thirty-One
Coffin followed the Madison River southward through the long, rugged valley. Three days later, he left the Madison and rode southeast through Reynolds Pass and then the next day, he made it through Targhee Pass. Two days later, sitting in a small saddle of land between two low peaks, he wondered which way he should go. He had no clue as to where Merkle could be. This land was so vast, so filled with canyons, valleys, peaks and strange landscapes that Coffin was afraid it would take an army years to cover the land. How could he do it alone? he wondered.
Not being a man given over to worrying too much about things he could not change, he made his camp, and the next morning he turned north, riding near the bottom of one of the small peaks.
He continued on for days, taking the easiest paths he could find. He moseyed north and then east, later south. Despite a pressing urge to want to find Merkle’s men as quickly as possible, he took his time, weaving from side to side trying to find tracks, stopping to check out small canyons, caves and crevasses, scanning far-off ridges and hills with the collapsing telescope he had brought with him.
Time seemed to lose its meaning after awhile. There were just too many bizarre sights. T
here were small founts of burping mud; steaming holes in the ground surrounded by odd-colored, circular hillocks of crystalline salts and rock; the stench of sulfur. It was, at times, a nightmarish vision of Hades.
The grotesque scenes made Coffin’s horse and mule difficult to handle. That also slowed his progress. And it caused him no end of frustration, annoyance and, finally, anger. Yet he pressed on, stoically doing his chores each morning and evening, patiently searching and probing during the long days on the trail.
He was no longer sure of how much time he had spent in this hellish place, but after he had turned east and later southward, he saw a giant falls, tumbling hundreds of feet. Its roar blocked out all other sounds. This, too, spooked the animals, and Coffin pressed on more quickly.
Soon after, he found frequent meadows, populated by great herds of buffalo and elk. And bears. More than once he had to warily move past a grizzly, going well out of his way. With all the buffalo, though, he did eat well. It was of no consequence that he killed a buffalo every day and took only a couple pounds of meat. There were more buffalo than man could ever kill.
Finally he reached the shores of a great lake. Here, too, animals abounded. He saw buffalo, elk, deer, moose, grizzlies, black bears, and a host of smaller animals and birds. He spent the night there, eating well, and trying to beat back a steadily growing sense of urgency. In the morning, he decided to go eastward, following the lake shore.
The next day he left the lake, since it had headed southward. Soon after, the meadows gave way to low, rugged hills, and his horse struggled on the steep slopes that were more plentiful. That night he decided to head back to the lake. This trail apparently was going nowhere. He figured that if he did not find Merkle that way, he would try tackling this mountainous route again.
He headed south along the lake, and found himself distracted a few times by long fingers of land that stretched out into the lake. So annoyed was he, that when he found what looked to be a gently swelling pass, he headed that way. He tried to figure out exactly how long he had been gone from Madison. He wasn’t sure, but he knew it had to be at least three weeks, maybe closer to four.
As he chewed on fresh buffalo tongue that night, he decided it was time to head home. It was still odd to him that he considered Madison his home now. It became a less-strange thought when he conjured up a vision of Amy Pembroke waiting for him.
Smoking a cigarette, he argued silently with himself about the decision. He sort of half believed that he might want to get back to Madison just to see Amy. His more rational side told him that after this long, it was almost certain that Merkle would be long gone from this area. “Bastard’s probably back around Madison holdin’ up stages again,” he muttered. That was the factor that made up his mind.
He wasn’t sure how he felt the next morning as he rode out of his little camp. He was, in some ways, glad. On the other hand, he felt miserable, seeing as how he had failed to catch Beryl Pembroke’s killers. That hurt him deeply. He tried to assuage his conscience by telling himself firmly that there was still a chance he would run Merkle to ground on the ride back. He was only partly successful in making himself feel better with such thoughts.
Early the next morning, he started through Craig Pass. It was tougher than he had anticipated, but still quite a reasonable way to go. On the western side of the pass, he found a nice stand of tall, thin pines along a little narrow, fast-running river. He stopped and dismounted. It was, he concluded, a good place to stay. It was only midafternoon, but he needed some rest, and more importantly, the animals needed some rest.
He took care of his horse and mule, then pulled out his Spencer breech-loading rifle. He walked off a little way to the edge of a line of trees. Spread out before him was a marshy meadow. And, as he had thought, game. He fired, and brought down a moose. Taking his time, he butchered out some meat and walked back to camp. A fire was quickly made, coffee was heating, and moose was sizzling.
Coffin found out with one bite that moose meat was not for him. In disgust, he threw away all that he had cooked. With growing annoyance, he again set out with his rifle. He found a bison cow, which he dispatched and butchered.
There was still quite a bit of daylight left after he had eaten his fill of buffalo tongue. After a cigarette, he drowsed. He awoke several hours later, feeling fairly refreshed. He ate again, watching the storm clouds gathering in the north and west. The wind had picked up, and the temperature was swiftly falling.
After eating, Coffin put his canvas tarp over his supplies, cleaned up a little, opened his bedroll a little away from the trees and crawled in. Minutes later the rain started with a roar and a rush. Coffin curled up in his bedroll—made of two thin blankets and a large piece of waterproofed canvas-so his head would be out of the rain. He had his slicker inside the bedroll, too, so that in the morning he could slip it on without getting drenched. As the lightning snapped and crackled, and the thunder boomed, Coffin fell asleep.
It was still raining in the morning, and Coffin had a devil of a time trying to get a fire started. He finally managed, but it was such a puny thing that it was unusable. With a curse, he kicked the feeble blaze into oblivion and ate a cold breakfast. His foul disposition turned worse.
He started loading his small store of supplies on the mule. While doing so, he found the one bottle of whiskey he had allowed himself to take along. He had not touched it, since he had brought it mostly for emergencies. He felt now was an emergency of spirit, so he pulled the cork and drank deeply, smacking his lips as the whiskey warmed his mouth and gullet. He took one more long swallow before reluctantly corking the bottle and putting it away.
At last he pulled himself into the saddle and rode off slowly, winding through widely spaced trees. That helped keep some rain off him. It was a cold, gray day, with a biting wind and periods of hard, driving rain between times of a light, prickly drizzle. Fog and mist shrouded everything beyond a few yards away. With the clinging fog, Coffin had no idea which way he was going. He thought it was north or northwest, but he was not certain. He just let his horse pick its way carefully along. Occasionally he could hear the bubbly rush of the river to his left, and he figured he was all right.
By noon, the fog was even thicker, and Coffin was to a point where he could barely see the mule when he looked behind him. In a fine fit of annoyance, he finally pulled to a stop and made a camp, such as it was. He did find enough dry wood under the trees to manage a small but adequate fire, which lasted long enough to boil coffee and roast some of the buffalo meat he still had.
Then he sat back and tried to relax. There was nothing to do, really. He had done all the necessary chores, including cleaning his rifle. He was sort of half dozing when he heard a gunshot. He jerked to full awareness and listened alertly.
Finally he shook his head. “Damn fool,” he muttered, “gettin’ spooked by imaginary gunshots.”
Then he heard another, followed by several more. He rose, checked his two pistols and walked off, heading to where he thought the gunshots had come from. Occasionally there were other shots, and that helped him head in the right direction. Still, it took him a while. With the fog, the sounds of the river and the wind, the flat echoes off mountainsides, it was difficult to get a bead on the gunfire.
It was two hours and twenty minutes by his pocket watch before he heard voices. He stopped and then crept quietly forward. He finally stopped behind a tree, watching intently. The scene before him seemed ethereal. The mist shifted and moved, created a world that was somehow not real. It was disconcerting to Coffin. He would think he saw someone or something, and then it would be shrouded, and Coffin was left wondering if he had really seen anything at all.
He carefully made an arc around the camp, stopping every few feet behind a tree to watch the camp. He still occasionally heard gunfire, and each time, he froze, just in case.
It was another hour and forty minutes before he got a good look at one of the men in the camp. His eyes narrowed in anger when he spotted Kurt
Ochs, one of Merkle’s two lieutenants. That did not mean Merkle was here, but Coffin knew now that at least some of Merkle’s men were in the camp.
Coffin mentally debated just attacking the camp. The fog, as well as the rain and the river, would mask him and any sounds he made. That would boost his advantage of surprise. On the other hand, he had no idea how many men were here. There might be only a few, but there might be a dozen or more. Walking into that snake pit would be fatal.
Another problem was that with the moist air, his pistols might not be as surefire as he would like them to be. Even hidden under the slicker, the powder might be dampened by the fog.
He decided to wait. It was too risky to just go charging in there now. He might not have any better chance tomorrow, he knew, but he figured patience would be best now. There was always the chance that the fog might be gone by tomorrow, thus costing him the element of surprise. But it would also let him see more clearly how many men there were and what he was up against.
He stood watching the camp a little while longer, trying to get even a rough count of how many men there were. He spotted several others whose likenesses were on wanted posters he carried, but he still had no good idea of the total number of men in the camp.
It was getting dark already, what with the thick black clouds overhead and the translucent fog. Coffin did not want to get caught out here away from his own camp in the darkness. He’d never find his way back. It was tough enough even in the faint daylight. Coffin had found himself disoriented several times before, and he had taken to marking each tree he passed. He used those marks now to guide him back to his camp. It was a less-than-direct route because earlier he had been going in all directions trying to locate the gunfire he had heard. But it was the easiest way for him to get back to his camp. By the time he did, the gunfire had stopped, and night had closed in.
Chapter Thirty-Two