With her feet on the floor again, she staggered back a couple of steps before gaining her balance. “You crazy son of a bitch,” she blurted.
“I know,” Jeb hurriedly replied. “I said I was gonna marry you when I got outta jail, but I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.” As suddenly as he had arrived, he was out the back door again and in the saddle.
As baffled as Annie and the cook, Tanner hesitated a moment when the woman appeared on the back step and shouted at Jeb’s back, “You crazy son of a bitch, I’ve already got a husband!” She looked then at Tanner.
Wasting no time to attempt to explain his friend’s actions, Tanner tipped his hat, said, “Good evenin’ to you, ma’am,” and galloped away after Jeb.
They left Mound City behind, Jeb leading the way. Before striking out toward the northwest, however, Jeb had to make one more stop. After galloping out of town, they doubled back south of the town, where Jeb led them up through hills thick with sugar maples to an abandoned shack nestled close beside a busy stream.
“Home, sweet home,” Jeb announced in answer to Tanner’s puzzled expression when they pulled up before the shack. “This is where my pap and me was livin’ before they shot him.” He quickly dismounted. “I gotta get my things,” he explained.
Tanner dismounted and followed him inside, looking around at the dusky interior of the shack. It struck him as little wonder that Jeb had chosen to ride off to join the army. There was nothing left to suggest that anyone had ever lived there—only a table, a couple of chairs, and a small potbellied stove. While Tanner watched, Jeb rolled up a blanket that had been spread for a bed, grabbed a haversack containing some extra clothes and his razor, then turned to face Tanner.
“One more thing,” he said, “and then we’d best get outta here. If Ol’ Leadfoot gets out, this’ll be the first place he’ll look.” That said, he lifted his foot and kicked the little stove over on its side. Then he immediately removed several stones from the base the stove had rested upon, revealing a heavy canvas sack. He took a quick look inside to make sure of the contents before giving Tanner a wide grin. “I wasn’t about to leave without this,” he said. “This’ll take us to Montana.” He went on to explain how the gold coins happened to be there. “A few years back, my pap rode with a gang that held up a Yankee paymaster’s wagon. This sack of coins was hid under the wagon seat. Pap couldn’t spend it without everybody around here knowing where it came from.” He grinned broadly again. “So I reckon the Union army is payin’ our way to Montana.” Stepping up in the saddle, he cocked his head at Tanner and winked. “I told you back in Virginia I had somethin’ hid back for a grubstake. I bet you thought I was lying.”
“It crossed my mind,” Tanner replied.
Chapter 5
“By God, you was talkin’ a helluva lot bigger last night when you was soakin’ up most of my likker,” Garth Leach growled. “Maybe that was just the likker talkin’.” He glared down at the nervous young man in the army uniform, his eyes threatening.
Private Benjamin H. Wilkes glanced around him cautiously, as if afraid someone might see him talking to the dark hulk of a man. He was already regretting the contract he had made with the brooding bully and his three brothers the night before over a bottle in the saloon. What he had bragged about was not totally untrue. He did, in fact, have access to cases of old surplus Springfield rifles. Assigned to the quartermaster section that was responsible for warehousing the surplus weapons until they could be reissued or auctioned off, he had boasted about how easily he could short the inventory. “I ain’t sayin’ I can’t do it,” he pleaded. “I’m just sayin’ I have to be careful. It could be my ass if I get caught.”
Garth’s eyes narrowed, his thick black eyebrows closing down into an angry frown. “It’s damn shore gonna be your ass if I don’t get them rifles we agreed on last night.”
“We don’t cotton much to men who can’t back up their talk,” Ike Leach put in, adding to the threat. Standing behind his brother, he stepped up to look Wilkes in the eye. The frightened soldier looked anxiously from one menacing brother to the other, wishing he had never accepted their offer of a drink the night before.
“I’m gonna pull a wagon up to that back door tonight at midnight, right after the guard makes his circle around the building,” Garth said. “We’ll load them rifles in no time and be gone, and you’ll be a hundred dollars richer, just like I promised.” He forced a smile for emphasis, which quickly returned to a frown as he threatened, “If that back door ain’t open, and you ain’t there, the army is gonna be less one soldier-boy.”
“I wasn’t sayin’ I wasn’t gonna be there,” Wilkes insisted, doing his best to hide his fear. Looking into those cruel eyes, he had no doubt that the hulking bear of a man made no idle boasts. “I’ll be there, all right,” he stammered. “A deal’s a deal.” He glanced at Ike, who was grinning then. In contrast to Garth’s imposing size, his brother was tall and razor thin, but no less intimidating with his evil gaze. “Yessir,” the private emphasized, “I’ll be there, just like I said.”
A few minutes before midnight, a team of mules pulled an empty wagon slowly along a back alley that separated the quartermaster warehouse from the main armory. Stopping the wagon short under the branches of two old hickory trees that screened them from the back door of the warehouse, the five occupants sat quietly while waiting for the guard to walk his post past the building.
“Hold them mules still,” Garth ordered his brother Jesse, who was driving the wagon. Jesse was the third of the Leach brothers, after Garth and Ike. He had inherited much of Garth’s bulk and size, but had traded them for a shortage in mental capacity. “Joe,” Garth commanded, “hop down off that wagon and go see where that damn guard is.”
Joe, the youngest of the clan, hesitated for a moment to look at the young girl sitting in the back of the wagon at his side. When Garth looked around to see why Joe hadn’t obeyed, Joe quickly got off the wagon. “I’m goin’,” he protested. Then turning to the girl, he said, “Don’t you move till I get back.”
Jesse snickered at that. “Ain’t nobody gonna mess with your little wife,” he teased. “At least not with no more time to diddle than we got right now.”
“Why didn’t you leave Cora back there with the other wagon and the horses?” Garth scolded.
“He’s afraid she’d run off on him, that’s why,” Jesse said. “Ain’t that right, Joe?”
Joe turned to direct his reply to the frightened young girl huddled against the side of the wagon. “She knows I’d come after her if she did. I’m goin’,” he said then, when Garth was about to scold him.
In a short time, Joe returned to report. “He’s on the side of the building right now, fixin’ to come around the back.”
“All right,” Garth said. “Ever’body be quiet.”
From the deep shadows of the hickory trees, they watched silently as the sentinel plodded slowly around the corner of the warehouse. Moving along the back of the building, he paused momentarily to try the back door to make sure it was locked, then proceeded unhurriedly on to disappear around the opposite corner.
“Let’s go,” Garth commanded. “Pull the wagon up to the door. Ike, you go to that corner. Joe, you go to the other’n. Sing out if you see anybody comin’. Me and Jesse can load the rifles. Cora, when we get to the door, you get up here and hold these mules.”
Before the wagon came to a complete stop, Garth dropped to the ground. Tapping softly on the door, he waited for a response. He heard nothing from inside right away, and his anger flared. He was just about to kick the door in when he heard the crossbar being lifted. A moment later, the door opened to reveal a thoroughly frightened Private Wilkes. The sight of the shivering young man caused Garth to chuckle. “I see you ain’t lost your good sense,” he said.
“Have you g-got my m-money?” Wilkes stammered.
“Sure I got your money,” Garth replied. “We’ll load up them rifles first before we worry about your money.”
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“How do I know you’ll pay me?” Wilkes protested.
“I’m takin’ one helluva chance here.”
“You’re wastin’ my time,” Garth shot back. He reached out and with one hand shoved Wilkes aside. “Is that them?” he asked, spotting a flat cart loaded with wooden crates. “Jesse, pull that cart up to the door and start loadin’.” Turning back to the bewildered private, he ordered, “Get me a crowbar or somethin’. I wanna see there’s rifles in them crates.”
“I ain’t got no crowbar,” Wilkes said. “I ain’t crazy enough to cheat you. They’re rifles, all right, and you ain’t got but about twenty minutes before the guard makes another turn around the building.”
Garth seared the man with his gaze for a few tense seconds before deciding he was too frightened to lie about it. “All right,” he said softly, “we’ll go ahead and load ’em, but, friend, there better be Springfield rifles in them boxes. Nobody cheats Garth Leach—and lives to talk about it.”
In less than fifteen minutes, they’d loaded all the rifles on the cart. “We’ve got room for a couple more crates,” Jesse said. Wilkes was about to protest, but was saved the effort when Joe ran back to report that he had spotted the sentry turning the far corner of the building next to the warehouse.
“All right,” Garth said. “Let’s get outta here. We’ll pick Ike up at the corner.”
“What about my money?” Wilkes demanded.
“Hurry up,” Garth ordered Jesse, ignoring Wilkes. “Pull on out. I’ll catch up.” Turning then to the private, he said, “Step inside the door and I’ll pay you.”
“Hurry,” Wilkes pleaded as he stepped back inside the warehouse. “He’s gonna be here any minute.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Garth said, smiling. “Here’s your pay.” Wilkes reached out for his money, but the object Garth pulled from behind him was a ten-inch hunting knife. The massive bully quickly grabbed Wilkes’ outstretched hand and yanked the unsuspecting soldier toward him, burying the knife deep in Wilkes’ belly. Emitting a low scream, Wilkes tried to back away from the blade tearing at his stomach, but Garth was too powerful for the weaker man. He backed the gasping soldier up against the wall, forcing the knife deeper and deeper until Wilkes sank to his knees. Garth withdrew the knife and let his victim fall over on the floor. Then to make sure he was dead, he sliced Wilkes’ throat open. His business finished, he left the warehouse, closing the door behind him, and trotted unhurriedly toward the wagon waiting at the corner of the building.
“I don’t reckon we’ll be doin’ no more business with Private Wilkes,” Ike commented when he saw the knife still in his older brother’s hand.
“Let’s get outta here,” Garth said before responding to Ike’s comment. Of his three brothers, Ike was the only one whose ideas and criticisms were tolerated by the heavy-handed oldest brother. “There ain’t no chance he’ll tell anybody who got the guns.”
“He most likely wouldn’t of told anybody he’d sold the guns, and we mighta got some more from him,” Ike said. “I just hope that guard don’t try the door again. We might have somebody hot on our trail.”
“I killed him because I just didn’t like the son of a bitch,” Garth replied, getting a little heated. “We ain’t likely to be back in this part of the country anyway.” Upon giving his actions more thought, he knew Ike was probably right, but he didn’t regret killing the man.
Ike, knowing it unwise to push the issue, changed the subject. “Well, ol’Yellow Calf can quit his moanin’ about wantin’ guns for his Kiowas now. We’ve got enough rifles in this wagon for half his band, and whiskey enough so’s the other half won’t care.”
Garth laughed. “That’s a fact.”
Slipping in a word of advice, Ike offered another bit of caution. “When them soldiers find ol’ Wilkes back there, and suspect they’re missin’ some rifles, they’re gonna be out lookin’ for ’em. I’m thinkin’ it might be smart to see if we can hook up with one of those wagon trains passin’ through Council Grove. They ain’t likely to suspect a wagon train like they would two wagons alone headin’ out toward Injun territory.”
“By God, that’s just what I was thinkin’,” Garth responded, even though it had not crossed his mind as yet.
Tanner Bland had never seen the ocean, but his father had told him of a trip to the Carolina coast when he was a young man. His father had said that it was a sight that confused his mind. There was no end to it, stretching from horizon to horizon and constantly rolling like there was some great discomfort in its belly. Gazing out upon the seemingly endless expanse of tallgrass prairie on this summer day, Tanner was reminded of his father’s description of the sea. From horizon to horizon, the panorama stretched endlessly before them. The steady breeze combed the long stems of grass, causing a swaying much like he imagined the ocean might exhibit. Here and there, wildflowers sprinkled the prairie with vivid colors, making it appear docile and friendly, welcoming the two travelers.
With Jeb as the guide, they left Mound City behind them, heading for Council Grove, a town on the Neosho River. According to Jeb, it had long been a favorite rendezvous spot for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail, with plenty of good water and grass, and wood from the groves of hardwood trees. “Once you pass Diamond Springs,” Jeb said, “you’re in cottonwood country. No more hardwood, and accordin’ to my old man, cottonwood’s too soft to use to repair wagons.”
Council Grove was also a favorite river crossing for the long wagon trains that traveled the Santa Fe because of the Neosho’s natural rock-bed river bottom. It was a meeting place for all manner of travelers, not just wagon trains. Gold seekers on their way to California often passed through, as well as army supply wagons on their way to southwestern forts. This seemingly endless parade of pilgrims was witnessed with more than a little interest by Kaw Indians settled close by.
It was close to evening when the two travelers walked their horses past the stage company’s corral. “There’s been talk that the stage is gonna move out of Council Grove and go over to Junction City,” Jeb said as they passed. “I doubt there’s anything to it. Hell, folks been comin’ through here for about forty years.”
Enjoying his role as guide, Jeb continued his enlightening commentary. “That over there is Malcolm Conn’s store. That’s where we’ll get our supplies tomorrow.” Then he pointed to a building farther down the street. “That there is the Hays House. I’m gonna buy you as fine a supper as you’ll find anywhere right there.” He grinned at Tanner. “Courtesy of the Union army,” he said, and patted his saddlebag where the sack of gold coins was packed.
“Maybe you’d best hold on to that money,” Tanner said. “It’s a long way to Montana.”
“Don’t worry,” Jeb immediately replied. “I aim to use this money for a grubstake. But we ain’t got much for supper tonight, and anyway, we deserve one good meal before we start out on bacon and beans.”
“It’s your money,” Tanner replied, knowing it was useless to argue.
“It’s our money, partner,” Jeb insisted.
Tanner had to agree, supper at the Hays House was a fine meal. “Now all we need is a little drink before we turn in,” Jeb announced. “There’s a saloon down the street where some right friendly ladies used to hang around. ’Course, that was before I went off to war, but I’d like to see if the place has changed any.”
The early-evening crowd had thinned out somewhat by the time Jeb and Tanner walked into Brannan’s Saloon. “Brannan’s?” Jeb asked the bartender. “The place has changed names, ain’t it?”
“How long’s it been since you was here?” the bartender returned. “It’s changed names two or three times in the last two years. I own it now. My name’s John Brannan.”
“Well, Mr. Brannan, pour us a couple of shots of your best. Me and my partner are headin’ for Montana in the mornin’, and this might be the last drink we have for a spell.” Jeb looked around the narrow barroom for a few seconds before making his decision. “
Hell, might as well leave us the bottle,” he said.
There were only four tables in the saloon, and only one of them occupied. Grabbing the bottle by the neck, Jeb moved to a table close to the door. Feeling himself a guest of his partner’s generosity, Tanner followed. “Am I gonna have to haul you outta bed in the mornin’ and tote you to Montana on a packhorse?” he asked.
Jeb laughed. “Ol’ steady Tanner,” he teased. “Don’t worry. Hell, there ain’t that much left in this bottle. We’ll just finish it off, and then we’ll go to bed.”
Just as Jeb had promised, the two partners sat enjoying an evening drink with no distractions other than an occasional outburst of laughter from the other table, where three men were playing cards. It appeared to be a friendly game between locals who knew each other. After about half an hour, the door to the back room opened and a woman entered the barroom. She paused to exchange some brief conversation with the three men at the back table before moving on to Tanner and Jeb.
“Evening, gents,” she greeted them, a wide smile, bordered by a heavy application of lipstick, adorning her face. “You fellows ain’t been in before, have you?”
She was not a pretty woman, probably well into her thirties, her pale face already etched with hardship lines, but she was female. Consequently, she had the qualifications necessary to ignite the perpetual glow that burned inside the core of Jeb Hawkins. “Well, good evenin’ to you, ma’am,” Jeb immediately responded. “You’re right, we ain’t been in before, but if we’d known about you, we’da sure been in here sooner.” He favored her with a boyish grin while unabashedly looking her up and down.
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