by Lee Clinton
Less than four hours later, he was advised of an incoming telegram and returned to the telegraph office. It was from Sheriff Laird – Can confirm Limborg is a Cheyenne citizen. Kin advised and shocked at state of affairs. In Laramie on employment with CLA.
Gus said to the telegraph clerk, ‘Do you know what CLA stands for?’
The clerk looked at the telegram. ‘Don’t know,’ he said, and showed it to the junior clerk; he didn’t know either.
‘Better ask,’ said Gus. ‘Will you give me another form?’
The man waiting behind Gus said, ‘Cheyenne Livestock Agency. CLA. Here it’s the LLA for Laramie Livestock Agency, but everybody just says the livestock agent.’
‘Of course,’ said Gus, sliding the telegram form back towards the clerk. ‘You work for the CLA?’ he asked the informer.
‘No, I just raise hogs and sell them through the agent here. But I’ve sold some to the CLA when I can get a better price. Not supposed to. Supposed to keep to your district, but there’s no law against it.’
‘Obliged,’ said Gus as he tipped his hat before leaving to speak to Larry Earnshaw, the Laramie livestock agent.
CHAPTER 16
GUT
The Mayfield Stock
‘I heard there had been a shooting. But Davitt! I didn’t even know he was in town,’ said Larry.
‘Well, it seems he was here on business with the Cheyenne Livestock Agency. Do you know what that business could have been?’ asked Gus.
‘No, I don’t. If it was a market day, it’d be my guess he was here to see the condition and prices of stock going under the hammer. But it’s not a market day.’
Gus handed Larry the small book with the initials CLA on the cover. ‘Does this mean anything?’
Larry seemed distracted as he thumbed through the pages and kept going back to the start before he finally said, ‘Prices, stock type and numbers, that’s all.’
‘So, nothing surprising or suspicious?’
‘No, no more than this.’ Larry dropped a similar notebook with the initials LLA on to the desk. ‘That’s mine,’ he said.
Gus picked up both notebooks from the desk and thumbed through each. They did look similar, but he had no idea of the significance of the contents of either.
‘I heard it was just a stray shot,’ said Larry.
‘Who’d you hear that from?’ said Gus as he finished looking at Larry’s book and handed it back to him.
‘Just street talk.’
Gus shrugged, ‘Maybe,’ he said and pulled himself out of the chair to stand. ‘Would Davitt Limborg have had any business to do at the saloon?’
‘He was a temperance man,’ said Larry.
‘Never lapsed?’
‘Doubt it. Davitt was proud of his abstinence. He said drinking got in the way of work, and he liked to work. He was an ambitious man.’
There was something else Gus wanted to ask Larry but the comment on being ambitious side-tracked him, so he turned to leave, just to have it come to him. ‘Has all the Mayfield stock been sold yet?’
Larry nodded.
‘Get a good price?’
‘OK for a quick and convenient sale. All sold as one lot. The proceeds have gone across to the judge. It will go to young Chrissy when the estate is settled.’
Gus took one step towards the door, paused, turned and asked, ‘Did Rufus Cole end up purchasing any?’
Larry looked a little awkward as he said hesitantly, ‘Yes.’
‘How many?’ quizzed Gus.
Larry was slow in answering before he said, ‘The lot. He’s building up a nice holding.’
‘And where’s he holding them, then?’ asked Gus.
‘West.’
‘Where west?’
‘He has property not far from the Mayfield land. Purchased it not long ago from one of the settlers who decided to move on. Meant he didn’t have to move the stock far at all.’
Gus raised an eyebrow slightly. ‘How close to the Mayfield property?’
Larry paused before replying. ‘Just a little south-west. He said he might be interested in purchasing the Mayfield property if the price is right.’
‘How long ago did he purchase his land?’
‘Few months, I guess.’
‘Didn’t know that,’ said Gus, almost as a whisper.
When Gus caught up with Doc Larkin, he was writing up his report on the examination of Davitt Limborg’s body. ‘Does the wound tell you anything?’ he asked.
‘Not a lot. Fatal. Almost instant death.’
Gus asked, ‘Deliberate or a stray shot?’
‘Can’t tell. No powder burns to hair or skin to observe, and no smell of burnt hair,’ said Doc Larkin. ‘So, the muzzle would have been back some. It could be a stray shot. Have you any idea where such a shot could come from?’
‘Nowhere from where I could see,’ said Gus. ‘The location of the body was between two buildings. Just walls both sides of where he was found, and no windows.’
‘Enemies?’ asked Doc Larkin.
‘He was a stock agent from Cheyenne,’ said Gus. ‘Who’d want to kill a stock agent?’
‘So, what was he doing down at The Red Blood Saloon?’ asked the doctor casually.
‘I don’t think he was doing anything at The Red Blood. He’s a—’ Gus corrected himself. ‘He was a temperance man. Had a return ticket to Cheyenne and wasn’t too far from the stockyards. Two cowpokes found him just after the shot was fired. He may have just been taking a shortcut into town.’
‘Anything taken from him? Money?’
‘Seems not,’ said Gus.
‘So, no theories?’ asked the doctor.
‘None. What about you?’
‘Nothing from the examination. Just one shot to the head followed by almost instantaneous death.’
‘Who’d want to shoot dead a stock agent?’ reflected Gus.
‘Who’d want to shoot dead any man?’ responded Doc Larkin.
‘Where do you want me to start?’ said Gus. ‘Vengeance, theft, greed, fear, jealously, hatred, drunkenness, anger, a dispute, personal gain, or just plain loco.’
‘You left out one.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Gus.
‘To keep a secret,’ said the doctor. ‘Dead men don’t talk.’
Gus returned to the mayor’s office, but his clerk had yet to pass on his message, saying that Tuesdays were always busy down at the station. Gus said he’d try and catch him there.
He was to have better luck with the judge, who was in the mood for talking and offered a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, it was stewed and bitter. Gus informed him of what had transpired and the judge took notice and grunted his responses into his enamel cup.
In an act of self-discipline, Gus finished the last three mouthfuls of the burnt brew to signal that it was time for him to go. But he did raise one last question to the judge. ‘Did you know that Rufus Cole is now running cattle?’
The judge said, ‘Yes,’ and added, ‘he bought the Mayfield stock.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ said Gus without hiding his disquiet.
‘The proceeds have been banked and are being held in trust if that’s what you’re concerned about.’
Gus shook his head. ‘It’s not.’
‘But I can see something is bothering you.’
‘Do you believe in your gut?’ asked Gus. ‘Does it sometimes tell you when something isn’t right?’
‘I can’t let it,’ said the judge. ‘I have to rely on the facts, just as you do, Gus.’
‘I know, but sometimes—’
‘Sometimes your gut gets irritable when certain names are mentioned, like Rufus Cole?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘I can understand that,’ said the judge. ‘But it’s the same for a number of citizens in this town. It’s the nature of the West. It draws in men with a past.’
CHAPTER 17
PEOPLE
The Ward Family
Time began to weave its ma
gic as only time can do, often unnoticed by those it touches most. With each new day, life went on, returning to the familiar routine. In the Ward household chores had to be done, while Gus and Henry dealt with the matters of law and order as they arose. Most were no more than misdemeanours – disputes between neighbours, petty stealing, drunkenness, children lighting a fire down near the livery, and as always, fighting outside the saloon on a Saturday pay-night. The two large unresolved events, however, remained – the Mayfield killings and the death of the Cheyenne stock agent. Like a pot that had come off the boil to simmer then cool, both occurrences were no longer such a hot topic of discussion.
Gus could never understand how people could wax and wane on matters of justice. Maybe he just didn’t understand people. Surely, if justice wasn’t done, and seen to be done, then it was justice denied. And just as surely, justice denied was injustice. Wasn’t it?
He raised these concerns with both the mayor and the judge, albeit both casually and carefully, but neither seemed to share his concern. He also noticed that people seemed collectively to use words that toned down the actual details of both events. ‘The Mayfield family had been killed in their beds,’ was a common saying – not that they had been ‘massacred or murdered’. It was as if each member had remained asleep, never to be awakened during the slaughter. Gus wondered at times if he was the only person who saw it as a savage and brutal execution.
Common acceptance also decreed that it was all the doings of savage Indians. Except that nothing had changed Gus’s mind. Where was the evidence? Not one trace, from a search that had lasted one month when looking for the missing Mayfield daughter. The trouble was, however, if it was not renegade Cheyenne, then who? Gus could not bring himself to believe that anyone in his community could do such a thing. So, he looked outside and wondered if the Army had somehow been involved. They were at war with the Indians and on occasion attacked and killed women and children. Was it drunken soldiers? Yet the 2nd Cavalry at Fort Laramie had no such reputation, and besides, if he was chasing after drunken soldiers, he’d drawn a blank. The troops from the fort had been away from barracks and patrolling to the north at the time of the crime.
It was similar with Davitt Limborg. His killing had been described locally as ‘a death’, as if he had just fallen over and died. When his kin and employer confirmed that nothing had been stolen from his person and robbery was removed as the motive, it led to a wild rumour that he had killed himself, being a temperance man outside the doors of a saloon and tempted by the evil of drink.
‘Where do these rumours come from?’ Gus had asked his deputies.
‘The saloon, mostly,’ said Ivan Davies. ‘Some laugh about it and say he should have just come in and they would have bought him a drink.’
‘The saloon wasn’t even open at that time,’ replied Gus. ‘And he didn’t shoot himself. He wasn’t even carrying a gun.’ His deputies were busy and engaged in other matters and Gus wasn’t even sure they were listening, and that included his son.
Henry was back at work and keeping busy, but he didn’t say much and often seemed lost in his thoughts. He was always punctual and his field book was always up to date, as were his reports. But there was now a distance between father and son.
‘Just give him time,’ Doc Larkin had counselled.
‘Fine,’ said Gus with a touch of derision. Seems time is the solution to all medical problems, he thought.
Both Henry’s and Chrissy’s silence did not make for a cheery household, and why should it be cheerful? thought Gus. What was there to be cheerful about? At least we are warm, fed and together, he concluded. Cheerful would have to wait, maybe forever.
Chrissy remained mute but in other ways she had settled into the Ward household as a productive member. To some who caught a glimpse when visiting, and wished to voice an opinion, she was referred to as ‘that poor child’ as if deficient in some way. Gus knew it was not so, and told Martha they were wrong and to pay no heed. Still, such talk angered Martha, who was protective of Chrissy as only a mother can be.
What Gus observed was an attentive and alert young woman. This first realization occurred when he wanted to add a pinch of salt to a slice of potato pie. Before he even opened his mouth, Chrissy somehow knew what he wanted, saw that it had not been placed on the table, got up, quickly fetched the small bowl of sea salt crystals and placed it before Gus.
‘Thank you, Chrissy,’ he said.
And Chrissy smiled ever so slightly in response.
It was a simple and small instance, but Gus turned it over and over in his mind and decided that Chrissy had not entirely withdrawn into herself, but that she was observing with clarity and responding. In fact, the conclusion that he drew was that Chrissy was functioning in every way as normal, except that she chose or was unable to speak. He told this to Martha who confirmed that she was indeed both bright and diligent – completing all chores and doing them exceptionally well. Martha also told Gus that in their own way they did communicate, it was just that they didn’t use words.
Just one week later, Martha was using a wall calendar to date labels on jars of preserved fruit. Chrissy showed interest in the calendar and on the spur of the moment, Martha said, ‘Chrissy, when is your fifteenth birthday?’
Chrissy turned the page to the next month and pointed to the 7th.
Martha put her arm around Chrissy and gave her a hug. ‘Then we should celebrate and have a party.’
Chrissy’s response was a little disconcerting, as she suddenly became agitated. Martha could see it in her eyes, which darted from side to side.
‘Just us, Chrissy,’ Martha quickly said. ‘You, me, Henry and Gus. That’s all. Nobody else. And you get to choose what we should put on the table.’
Chrissy relaxed a little and her eyes lit up.
‘It’s people, Gus,’ Martha said. ‘I think Chrissy is fearful of people. Fortunately, she has taken to us as her family, but not to others.’
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Gus. ‘I’m damned if I can figure people out either.’
Martha chastised Gus for using a cuss-word in the house and he immediately apologized. But she didn’t say he was wrong about his assessment of people, just that he had been imprudent with his language indoors.
CHAPTER 18
GUN PLAY
Marksmanship
Henry took Chrissy riding on the day of her birthday. It was what she wanted. She had not asked, at least not directly, but that didn’t matter. Each in the family had now devised ways to communicate and in turn Chrissy would respond. Martha would have a running conversation that taught and encouraged, while Gus would smile in thanks for her attentiveness and Henry would say, as if talking to a young sister, ‘Come on then, let’s give the horses a run, but no racing till I say so.’
Chrissy would respond to each in her own way, but to Henry’s offer to take her riding she would be at her most enthusiastic, bolting for her room so she could change into either her baggy cotton riding breeches or warmer buckskins that had once belonged to Henry when he was younger. This did raise an eyebrow from Martha, who asked Gus the question, should a young lady, now aged fifteen, be wearing pants and riding cross-saddle?
Gus felt the least qualified of all to answer such a question, but guessed that this is what fathers faced with daughters who took to doing the same things as boys. He reminded Martha that Chrissy had worked the property with her father and sister, which entailed fencing yards and mustering cattle. ‘And through necessity,’ he had said, ‘when you muster, you’ve got to ride cross-saddle.’
‘Did Grace ride cross-saddle?’ Martha asked.
‘I think they all did,’ said Gus.
Martha frowned. ‘Fanny and Agnes too?’
‘I think so.’ Gus could see that Martha was not convinced. ‘If she goes back on to the land, she’ll have to work cattle.’
Martha hadn’t thought that far ahead. He could see it in her face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It will work itself out,
she is just fifteen.’ But as soon as he said the words, he knew that time was moving faster than they both realized. Grace had only been three years older than her younger sister, and only seventeen when she first met Henry.
Chrissy gave a wave as she passed through the kitchen like a whirlwind to get to Henry, who was now calling on her to hurry up if she wanted her ‘birthday outing’.
The ground that Henry selected he knew well. It was almost flat, with just a slight incline down towards the river, and free from ruts and traps for a horse at full gallop. He pulled up with the words, ‘This will be the start line.’
Chrissy drew up alongside. She knew what was coming and was itching to go.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘You can only go on my command and I will give you a ten-second start, and then I am coming after you. And you are to pull up at the river.’
He waited.
Chrissy’s eyes were fixed on the river ahead and awaiting his command.
‘Got it?’
Chrissy nodded.
He ignored her gesture. ‘I didn’t hear. I said, have you got that?’
Chrissy nodded again, this time enthusiastically to get her point across.
Henry looked away in silence.
Chrissy was getting annoyed and pulled her horse in close to reach across and tug at his sleeve.
He kept looking away. ‘I didn’t hear,’ he said.
She tugged again, this time pulling Henry across in the saddle.
‘If you don’t tell me that you understand then best we head home,’ he said.
Chrissy jerked at his sleeve wildly.
‘Then tell,’ he said.
An odd warm breeze that seemed to come out of nowhere brushed upon their faces to take the chill out of the air. It only lasted for a matter of seconds, like some tiny chinook wind that just swirled around the two of them. ‘Yes, Henry, I understand,’ she said quietly, then bolted her horse into a full gallop.