Long Road to Cheyenne

by Charles G. West

  As Foley had stated, armed robbery was not his line of work, and he was a bit too old to start, but he was rapidly talking himself into giving it a try. The stakes were high enough to warrant it. Mabel reminded him again of the fate of Leach and Fuller, but he assured her that he intended to be very careful. And if he couldn’t get a safe opportunity to assassinate Cam and Ardella, he had no plans to take them on face-to-face. She followed him out to the barn and talked to him while he saddled his horse, cautioning him to be careful. “Don’t leave me here by myself for too long,” she said.

  “If I get the chance I’m countin’ on,” he assured her, “it’ll be tonight when they camp. I just hope they don’t go a long way before they decide to stop. I’ll be back before mornin’. You oughta be all right for that long. Just keep that shotgun where you can get to it quick.”

  “Don’t forget to tie that bandanna over your face,” she reminded him, “and pull your hat down low. Make sure that woman don’t recognize you.”

  “She won’t,” Foley assured her. “I’m takin’ my rain slicker, so I’ll put that on before I walk into the camp to take the gold.” He climbed up into the saddle. “I’d best be goin’. I don’t want ’em to get too far ahead.”

  She stepped back when he turned his horse toward the path, and stood watching him until he reached the trail by the creek and disappeared from her sight. That old fool, she thought. He ain’t got no business going after a man as handy with a rifle as the gunman riding with those women. She turned to look back at the store with their living quarters behind, and it suddenly struck her that it was a lonely place, maybe the loneliest place in Wyoming Territory. “I hope to hell he makes it back, with or without that gold.” For she never really thought he’d get up enough nerve to go through with the plan. It was just talk.

  • • •

  Overcome with the frustration of not being able to find a trail left by six horses, all carrying riders or packs, Cotton Roach reined his horse to a stop and looked left and right at the mountains before him. “Damn it, they couldn’t just disappear!” he complained aloud. It was bad enough to know that he had wasted so much time back on the mountain when Cheney had fooled around and broken his neck or whatever it was. Then on top of that, he had followed a ledge that only led him to a cliff. He was still convinced that the people he stalked had taken some other trail down that mountain, and he was concerned that it might have increased their lead on him even more. Whoever joined them at that cabin must know every inch of these mountains, he thought, for he had spent the rest of the day searching every pass and draw he could find with no results. And now he was faced with rapidly approaching darkness. He was going to be forced to make camp, so he had to forget the search for the day and try to find some water if he could.

  He found a small trickle coming down from a mountain before darkness set in. It was the first piece of good luck that had struck him all day, and his mood was hardly lifted by it. At it again early the next morning, he worked his way back to the eastern side of the mountains he had left the night before. Around noon, he finally admitted defeat, knowing he could not possibly search every ravine and gully in the whole mountain range, looking for a trail that was getting older as each hour passed. Cursing his luck, he decided to head back to Foley’s, for want of a better idea. It was a bitter pill to swallow, after having come so close to finding Red Bandanna, to have to admit defeat. He would find him again, he swore it. He would show up again, and this time maybe I’ll be there. After resting his horse, he set out for the Chugwater.

  With no more than four or five miles left to go, Roach was reluctant to stop for the night, even though it was already getting dark. His horse was in need of rest, but he decided to push on in to Foley’s, feeling in need of something to eat and a stiff drink to go with it. He had downed the last swallow from the bottle he had stolen from Foley while resting his horse that afternoon. He and Cheney had done most of the damage to it before finding that game trail up to the cabin.

  When at last he struck Chugwater Creek, he guided the weary horse along the trail that led to the trading post. It was somewhere around nine or ten o’clock by the time he turned down the path and rode up to the store. There was no light in the store or the rooms behind it, but Roach did not hesitate to pound on the door until a light from a candle appeared in a small window in the living quarters. “Open up!” Roach shouted.

  “Who is it?” Mabel called back.

  “Cotton Roach,” he answered. “I need somethin’ to eat. What the hell are you all locked up for?” He had never known Foley to go to bed early.

  “Foley ain’t here,” Mabel answered. When there was no immediate reply to that statement, saying he’d come back in the morning, hopefully, she said, “Wait till I get my robe on and I’ll let you in. I reckon I can find you somethin’ to eat. Go around to the front of the store.” With a tired sigh, she put her candle down long enough to pull a robe around her and tie the sash. She was not happy to see Roach show up again now that Foley was making a move on that gold. If Roach found out what her husband was up to, he was going to insist that he be made a partner. If Foley was successful and returned with the gold, it was going to be difficult to deny Roach a share. He was too dangerous to fight over it. The result might very well be that she and her husband would end up with nothing.

  “Where’s Foley?” Roach asked as soon as she unbarred the door.

  She looked past him while she formulated an answer she thought he might believe, then answered with a question since she saw only one horse behind him. “Cheney ain’t with you?”

  “Nah, Cheney’s dead, broke his neck in a rock slide,” Roach replied. “Where’s Foley?”

  “He’s gone lookin’ for some horses,” she answered. It was all she could think of at that moment.

  “Lookin’ for some horses,” he repeated, “in the middle of the night? What the hell’s he doin’ lookin’ for horses? What’s Foley gonna do with horses?”

  She tried to make her story as believable as she could. “A feller told him about some wild horses on the other side of the creek, and he went to see if he could find them.”

  “Foley don’t know nothin’ about horses,” Roach said. “What’s he gonna do, try to sell ’em?” She nodded. It sounded pretty strange to him, but he wasn’t interested enough to pursue it, especially when his belly was running on empty rumbles. “You reckon you could rustle me up some coffee and a little somethin’ to eat? I ain’t had much all day.”

  “I reckon,” she said. “There’s still a little bit of coals in the stove. I can warm up some biscuits left over from supper. If you need more’n that, it’ll take a little time.”

  “That’ll do,” he said. “I’ll go take care of my horse while you’re doin’ that.” He went out the door and led his horse down to the barn, pulled his saddle off, and fed the horse a healthy portion of Foley’s oats. By the time he returned to the store, the coffee had boiled and was sitting on the corner of Mabel’s iron stove. She placed a plate of warmed-over biscuits she had heated in the oven with some dried apple slices on a table in the corner of the room, then poured two cups of coffee.

  “Might as well have a cup myself,” she said, and sat down at the table across from him. “I don’t reckon you caught up with them folks totin’ the gold.”

  “Who said me and Cheney was goin’ after somebody?” She shrugged in answer to the question. He thought about it a second before deciding it made little difference now if she knew what they had left there to do. “Nah,” he said, “they got away, just seemed to vanish to someplace. I couldn’t find ’em.” That reminded him. “Where’s Leach? Is he still here?”

  “No, he didn’t make it,” she replied. “Foley tried to save him, but he was shot pretty bad.” She watched him eat for a few minutes before asking, “What are you gonna do now?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, then paused to take a sip of the hot coffee.
“Ain’t nothin’ changed. I’m still gonna track that son of a bitch down.” He raised his right hand and stared at the rawhide binding holding his fingers in a cupped position. “I’ll get him.” He studied the crippled hand a few moments longer before abruptly changing the subject. “So Foley’s gone chasin’ wild horses in the middle of the night?”

  “Yep, don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “Left you all by yourself. You interested in makin’ a little extra money, doin’ somethin’ besides cookin’?”

  “Reckon not.” It was not that she was above such doings. It was more the eerie feeling she got when looking at the sinister-looking man, what with his long white hair and those crazy eyes.

  “Thought I’d ask. How about a drink of whiskey, then?” He wasn’t especially attracted to the weary-looking, matronly woman, so he was not overly disappointed. But it was worth a try, he figured. She got to her feet and went over to the bar to get a bottle and a glass. She poured him a drink and left the bottle on the table, thinking it might be a good idea if he drank himself into a sleepy stupor, all the while wondering what kind of situation her husband might be facing.

  • • •

  At that particular moment, Bill Foley was crawling up the side of a low rise on all fours, dragging his rifle behind him, aware of his heartbeat pounding inside his chest. So far, everything had gone just the way he had told Mabel it would. They had stopped after riding no more than ten miles. He had followed a fresh trail left by the horses carrying Cam and the females, and had almost ridden right in on them until he caught sight of the horses hobbled in the trees beside the creek. Stopping just in time, he backed slowly away and guided his horse over behind a sizable swale back some distance from the creek bank. There he left the horse and crawled up to the top to see if he could look into the camp from that position. He found that he couldn’t get a clean look at the entire camp because they had pitched their bedding behind a stand of cottonwoods. He moved several feet from side to side, trying to find an unobstructed view of the camp. In his thinking, it was mandatory that he should be able to pick two clear shots. He was afraid of getting Cam and missing Ardella. He had to have two clear shots. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to risk a shot.

  Perplexed, he looked at a stand of high shrubs a good twenty yards closer to the creek bank. From that spot, he should be able to see into the side of the clearing beneath the cottonwoods, but he was not willing to risk moving across a small clearing between his present position and the shrubs until they had gone to bed. So he waited. Although he could hear voices muffled by the trees, he could not get a clear view of everyone in the camp.

  After what seemed a long time, he could still hear voices but felt that surely the camp must be settling down for the night, so he told himself that it was time to move. Feeling his heart pounding again, he forced himself to leave the relative safety of the swale. With his rain slicker rustling with every movement he made, he ran to the clump of shrubs, sliding to a stop on his knees in the sparse grass. The thought flashed through his mind that he had no business trying to do this, and in spite of the cool of the evening, he was perspiring heavily under his arms. He could already feel the dampness, causing his shirt to cling in that spot. He had been right about the new position, however, because he could now see the entire camp from a side perspective. The little girls were already tucked away in their blankets, and he could see their mother kneeling by the fire, tending something in a frying pan. He lifted his rifle and slid the barrel through the leaves as he sighted on the other woman who just then appeared, coming up from the water’s edge. She paused to say something to the woman by the fire, giving Foley a stationary target. His finger nervously brushed the trigger, but he hesitated, knowing that when he pulled that trigger there would be no turning back. All hell would break loose, and he’d have to finish what he started. He decided it might be unwise to take the shot until he knew where Cam was, and the broad-shouldered rifleman was nowhere in sight. It was then he felt the light tapping of a rifle barrel upon the crown of his hat.

  Foley went ice cold inside, his body freezing in a helpless paralysis as Cam reached over him and grabbed his rifle barrel, forcing it upward until Foley could no longer hold on to it. “Doin’ a little huntin’, Foley?” Cam asked softly.

  Terrified, the would-be assassin crumbled into a quivering mass, trying to think of some plausible excuse for his presence there, while knowing there was none. “I wasn’t gonna . . .” he started, unable to finish his explanation. “I was just gonna . . .” he tried again but could find no words that would explain what he was doing there with a rifle aimed at the camp. He quickly abandoned the notion of trying to think of a believable explanation for his presence in their camp in the middle of the night, instead made a simple but sincere plea for his life. “Please don’t kill me,” he cried. “I admit it, I thought about it, but I wouldn’t never have gone through with it. I swear.”

  “I find that hard to believe, Foley,” Cam calmly replied. “It don’t take much for a man to pull a trigger.” Although there was no evidence of indecision in his tone, Cam was not sure what he wanted to do about the attempted assault on his camp. The man quivering fearfully before him was such a pitiful sight, it seemed a cruel thing to execute him. He wasn’t sure Foley would have had the nerve to do it if he had not been stopped. By this time, the altercation in the shrubs was discovered by the rest of the camp.

  “Cam!” Ardella called, already moving toward the clump of bushes, her pistol drawn. “You all right?” Mary picked up her rifle and moved to stand before her children.

  “Yeah,” Cam answered her. “I’m all right. We got a visitor.”

  Ardella strode up to find Foley cowering at Cam’s feet. “What the hell?” she exclaimed. “Foley?” She took a quick look around then. “Anybody else with him?”

  “No,” Cam said. “I don’t think so. Is that right, Foley?”

  “No,” Foley sputtered. “There ain’t nobody else. I swear there ain’t, and I was fixin’ to turn around and leave. I couldn’t bring myself to do you folks no harm.” With eyes pleading for mercy, he looked up into the stoic face of the formidable man standing above him.

  “You believe that, Ardella?” Cam asked.

  “Shit no, I don’t believe it,” she answered at once. “The cowardly little bastard was sneakin’ up on us, fixin’ to kill us in our beds. I say let’s kill him right now.” She was struck with the same indecision that Cam felt, but she maintained the same bluster that Cam was displaying, unsure what action he had in mind.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Cam said. “He was fixin’ to cut down on us.”

  That brought a frantic plea for mercy from the trapped man. “Oh Lordy, please don’t kill me. I swear I’ll run from here and you won’t never see me again. I wasn’t really fixin’ to shoot anybody. Please, I got a wife that won’t have nobody to take care of her. I need to get back to her.”

  Cam’s stoic expression never changed as he looked into the eyes of the desperate man. He almost wished Foley had shot at him. Then he would have felt no hesitation or conscience about reacting to the attack, returning fire, and killing him. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to brutally execute him. “Get on your feet,” he finally ordered. Foley, convinced that he was about to meet his Maker, struggled up to stand on unsteady feet. “You got any other weapons with you?”

  “No, just this rifle is all,” Foley answered, his voice quivering.

  “Start walkin’,” Cam commanded, and prodded him in the back with his rifle, heading him toward the swale where he had first watched the camp. Cam handed Foley’s rifle to Ardella and walked Foley back over the rise to his horse. When they reached the horse, Cam took a quick search in his saddlebags to make sure Foley had no additional weapons. “Get on,” Cam said, motioning toward the saddle. Foley did as he was told, not sure what was about to happen. “All right, you miserable bastard,” Cam told hi
m, “I’m lettin’ you go back to that wife of yours, but if you show up around my camp again, you’re a dead man.” Foley’s body, having been locked in rigid anticipation of the fatal bullet, almost turned to liquid in his relief. Cam, still holding the horse’s bridle, had one last thing to tell him. “Listen, Foley, somebody has been feedin’ you a big story about a lot of gold. There ain’t no gold but that in that little pouch you saw Mary pay you out of. Everything else we’re totin’ is stuff to set up house with. It ain’t worth killin’ nobody for. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Foley quickly replied. “You won’t never see me again.”

  Cam released his bridle. “And, Foley,” Ardella said, “we don’t never sleep. One of us is always awake.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Foley said, gave his horse a sharp kick, and was off at a gallop.

  “I didn’t think you was that softhearted,” Ardella said as they watched Foley disappear in the dark.

  “You think he believed that story about the gold?” Cam asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe, maybe not, but I don’t think we’ll see him again tonight,” she said. “He’s got too far to ride to get another gun. But we need to be gone from here in the mornin’ in case he gets his nerve up again.” She walked with him back to the camp. “That little weasel would have shot at us if you hadn’t caught him in time. How’d you know to look for him? I didn’t see you slip outta the camp.”

  Cam shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard the horses makin’ some noise like they heard somethin’, so I just thought I’d go take a look around. I guess I’m just touchy when it comes to hearin’ noises that don’t belong.”

  “Out here on the prairie, that’s a good way to be,” Ardella said. “Long Sam was like that. He could hear a mouse fart in a dust storm.” She paused, as if recalling something. “Except that one time on the Powder when them damn Sioux jumped us. It cost him his life.”

  Cam thought about her comment for a moment, then decided to question her. “I thought you said you and your husband got jumped on the Platte by Pawnee.”