Hell's Jaw Pass

by Max O'Hara

  But, again, he thought the suggestion might offend the young man.

  “Here we go,” Daniel said, drawing a breath, hardening his jaws, and resuming the climb.

  His boots clomped loudly on the stairs—one loud clomp at a time, spaced about two seconds apart. Wolf followed patiently, running his own left hand lightly along the rail. He found himself prepared to catch the young man if he fell.

  When they’d gained the top of the stairs, Daniel took another short breather, sucking deep breaths, blowing the air out, sucking it back in again, all the while smiling, laughing, his thick, mussed, dark-brown hair hanging over his eyes.

  “All right,” he said, brushing his hair back out of his face with one hand. “To the end of the hall. I’ll be damned if I won’t make it!”

  Stockburn strode beside him, going slow.

  The hall was paneled in simple, unadorned, vertical pine planks. Only one picture hung on the wall—an old tintype of a young couple in wedding attire, the man sitting, the white-clad young lady standing beside him holding flowers in a photographer’s faux parlor getup. As per the times, neither smiled.

  “Your folks?” Stockburn asked as he and Daniel passed the picture on their right.

  Breathless, Daniel merely nodded.

  As he and Stockburn continued, a door in the hall’s left side opened, hinges whining.

  A young woman with lusterless blond hair and ashen features leaned her head into the hall, frowning. Her eyes found Stockburn’s host, and she said wearily, “Daniel? What’s all the commotion?”

  Daniel laughed and poked Stockburn in the ribs. “This is my lovely sister-in-law. Appropriately named Grace. Ain’t she sweet?” To Grace, Daniel said in a razor-edged tone, “The commotion dear, sis, was me climbing the stairs. I’m sorry if I awoke you from your slumbers, but it is well past noon. We missed you for the midday meal.”

  “I have a headache,” she snapped.

  “Yes, well, the boy is running around like a mad dog downstairs. Why don’t you fetch him and keep him up here with you before he kills himself in a tumble outside?”

  “Oh, go to hell, Daniel!” Scowling, her face growing even paler, Grace slammed the door. She’d given Wolf a single, passing glance, dismissing his presence out of hand.

  Daniel smiled. “Told you she was sweet.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Stockburn followed young Stoleberg to the closed door at the end of the hall.

  CHAPTER 20

  Daniel Stoleberg knocked on the closed door lightly with the back of his hand. “Pa? Can I come in?”

  Stockburn heard only muttering on the other side of the door.

  Frowning, Daniel twisted the knob and opened the door. “You have a visitor, Pa.”

  Stockburn waited in the hall, hat in his hands, while Daniel limped into the room, which was no larger than the average bedroom. Beyond Daniel, Wolf saw a cluttered rolltop desk and some simple pine shelves bowing under the weight of many books and papers. A clock on a wall showed the wrong time.

  Young Stoleberg turned his head to his left and said, “I have a visitor for you, Pa. Isn’t that nice? We don’t get many visitors.”

  “Oh?” came a low, phlegmy voice. It sounded like someone waking up from a nap. “Who is it?”

  Daniel glanced at Stockburn.

  Wolf stepped into the room, shuttling his gaze to the left. Rufus Stoleberg sat on one end of a battered sofa partly covered by an old Indian trade blanket. The man looked ancient and lumpy and unshaven in his longhandle red underwear and frayed plaid robe loosely tied about his bulbous waist. He wore thick wool socks; his big toe with a thick yellow nail protruded from a hole in the right one.

  The room was badly cluttered with disarranged chairs and a couple of low tables on which sat glasses, bottles, playing cards, and overfilled ashtrays. There were plates with old food scraps. A small plate bearing an uneaten sandwich sat on a pile of yellowed papers on a low table to the old man’s left, accompanied by a half-full glass of milk with a faint vertical steak on one side, where the man had recently taken a sip maybe a half hour ago.

  The room was foul with old-man odors and stale cigar smoke.

  Rufus Stoleberg looked at Stockburn, squinting each eye in turn, his heavy gray brows moving out of sinc with each other, like two hovering moths above eyes as blue as the autumn sky over the Wind Rivers.

  “Hello, Mister Stoleberg,” Wolf said. “I’m Wolf Stockburn. I’m a rail detective from Wells Fargo. I’m here to investigate the murder of the Hell’s Jaw Rail crew.”

  Stoleberg appeared not to have heard the question. He stared at Stockburn with a strange expression, the moths of his brows still fluttering above his eyes. His face looked like an ancient hide water flask only half-full, creased where it fell in around itself. It was carpeted with several days of steel-filing beard stubble.

  Stoleberg sat slumped back in the sofa, his neck bulging out and forming a thick, fleshy pedestal for his bullet-shaped head.

  “Did you hear me, Mister Stoleberg?” Wolf asked. “You let me know if I need to speak loud—”

  “Sandy?” the old man said, his blue eyes slowly widening and glinting with a strange recognition. He jerked to life, squirming around, twisting his shoulders, struggling to sit up. “Sandy-boy?”

  Stockburn glanced from the old man to Daniel, who returned the look then turned to his father. “No, Pa. This isn’t—”

  “Sandy!” Stoleberg squirmed around, leaning forward, getting his weight settled over his knees. With a fierce grunt, he heaved himself to his feet.

  He stood staring at Stockburn, eyes wide now, a delighted smile slowly shaping itself on his broad ruin of a face. “Sandy!”

  “No, Pa,” Daniel said, shaking his head. He cast Stockburn a nervous smile then said again, “No, Pa. This isn’t—”

  “Sure, it is.” Stoleberg began walking toward Stockburn, slipping on scattered papers and old account books.

  He knocked a plate of food scraps and a half-eaten apple off a table. Ignoring it, he continued toward Stockburn until he stood four feet away from the rail detective, staring up at him, appearing almost giddy with joy.

  He was short—as short or shorter than Norman McCrae—but he was as broad as Stockburn. While old and obviously soft in his thinker box, the old rancher’s body gave the impression of still-great power.

  His arms were thick as were his short, stubby legs. He’d probably dug a lot of wells on his dry land in his day, back before he had sons or could afford other men to help. He retained the thickly muscled body to prove it.

  He smiled, showing his small, square, discolored teeth between his thick, pink, badly chapped lips.

  “Sandy, you’ve grown up on me, boy!”

  Stoleberg reached up to place his hands on Stockburn’s square shoulders. “A big strappin’ lad!” He frowned, curious. “Where’ve you been all these years, Sandy? So many years. Didn’t you know your mother and I have been waiting for you? You had us worried sick. We were heart-sick! We thought McCrae hung—”

  The old man’s puzzled frown deepened.

  Stockburn and Daniel shared a glance. Neither man said anything. What was there to say? Obviously, the old man was out of his head. Now, Stockburn knew what Daniel had meant when he’d said that his father would enjoy company if he was “in the right frame of mind.”

  Stoleberg stared up at Wolf now with a mix of rage and sorrow brewing in his eyes. His cheeks rose as the muscles tightened. “That black-hearted devil hung you, Sandy! Leastways, we thought so. All those years ago . . . he hanged you!”

  A sheen of tears dropped down over the old man’s eyes, and he shook his head in grief and misery. “We done found you on that hill in a thunderstorm. Just hangin’ there—you and three others. You . . . my son. Hangin’ there . . . I can see you now . . . turning in the wind . . . dead !”

  Daniel placed his hand on Stoleberg’s shoulder. “Easy, Pa.”

  “Who are you?” Old Stoleberg dug his fingers into
Wolf’s upper arms, raging, “Who are you? You’re not my son! My son’s dead! What are you tryin’ to pull on me, you devil?”

  “Pa!” Daniel reached up with his one hand to pry his father’s hand off Wolf’s arm. “You’re mixed up, Pa—let him go!”

  “What trick are you tryin’ to pull on me . . . makin’ me believe my son is still alive?”

  Daniel was shoving his father back away from Stockburn but the old man looked around his son to continue raging at the rail detective: “He murdered my son! My firstborn! Hung him from a cedar tree! Took him from me forever, my firstborn, Sanderson Rufus Stoleberg! Why are you tryin’ to trick me? You want my land? That it? You tryin’ to weezle my land away from me—so he can have it all?” He raised his small, clenched fist. “I been waitin’ for this! I’m still here! I’m ready!”

  “Come on, Pa. Let’s go sit down. Let’s go sit down, Pa!” Daniel glanced over his shoulder at Wolf and jerked his chin to indicate the door.

  Stockburn stepped back, glancing once more at the raging old man, then stepped into the hall and drew the door closed behind him.

  As he did, Stoleberg shouted, “First we take that devil child in! That demon spawn! His spawn! And now he sends some son of a bitch over to make me believe he’s my son? Why, Daniel?”

  “No, Pa!”

  “Why, Daniel? Why? Why have you thrown in with McCrae against me? For that girl?”

  “Pa!”

  “You can’t have her, I tell you! And we should kill the child! Kill the boy, I say, or there’ll be hell to pay—you mark my words!”

  “Sit, Pa. Sit, now, or you’re going to give yourself a stroke. There you go—easy does it!”

  Stockburn heard footsteps on the stairs, two people coming fast. He peered down the shadowy hall. Grace had opened her door and was staring toward him with concern in her wide, round eyes that looked more than a little drugged. Slowly, she shook her head and said to Stockburn, “He’s goes out of his head, but . . . never this bad.” She smiled faintly as though she’d found something amusing in the situation.

  The Mexican couple hurried toward Stockburn, the woman, Estella, on the heels of her husband, Oscar. Stockburn stepped aside as Oscar, casting Wolf a dark glance, brushed past him and moved into the room.

  Estella followed. She was holding a flat, blue bottle that Stockburn took to be a narcotic of some kind.

  Estella closed the door. The old man was still raging but not as loudly as before. He was crying now, as well, and the emotion garbled his words.

  Stockburn felt rattled. It must have shone on his face.

  “Need a bracer?” Grace had pushed a bottle, not unlike the one that Estella had taken into Stoleberg’s office, out toward Stockburn. “Go ahead. Around here, you can’t do without a bracer.”

  Stockburn read the fancy lettering on the bottle: Laudanum.

  He smiled, shook his head. He could hear Daniel and the Mexican couple talking behind the door behind them, but he could no longer hear Rufus Stoleberg. They must have gotten him settled down. “No, thanks,” he said. “The old man—how long has he . . . ?”

  He let his voice trail off when he spied movement on the stairs. The little boy, Buster, just then crawled over the top step and into the hall. He gained his feet with a grunt and ran toward Grace’s half-open door, yelling, “Ma-Ma! Ma-Ma! Ma-Ma—yohhhhahhhh!”

  “Oh, Buster,” Grace said with a pained look. “All right, all right.” She took the boy by the hand and led him into her room. She glanced once more at Stockburn—a decidedly dark, ominous look. She closed the door with a click.

  Stockburn studied the door. What had that look meant? It had almost seemed like a warning.

  Other questions needled the rail detective.

  Was Buster the boy Stoleberg had been raging about, calling him “that devil child”? Was Buster the boy Stoleberg, in his mania, wanted to kill?

  What about “the girl” the old man had mentioned?

  The questions continued to roll through the detective’s mind until the door to Stoleberg’s office opened behind him. Daniel limped out and drew the door closed softly, quietly.

  Turning his hat in his hands, Wolf said, “I apologize if I was the cause of that.”

  Daniel shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault, Mister Stockburn. He goes out of his head sometimes. He’ll be in a happy dream state for days. Those are the good days. Other days, not so good days, he believes that I and my brothers have thrown in with the McCraes, and we’re out to take his land away from him, send him packing. It makes no sense. All that you heard in there—put it out of your mind. Pure nonsense.”

  “The girl?”

  Daniel laughed, shook his head. “Utter nonsense.”

  “Hmm.”

  Daniel threw his hand forward to indicate the stairs then began limping that way, unsteadily, brushing his hand against the wall for support.

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “We started to see changes in him over a year ago. Sometimes he’d be sitting downstairs with a glassy stare and a dreamy smile. Seemed happy enough. But he was confused. He’d get we boys mixed up. He’d lose track of the seasons. Sometimes, when he was riding alone on the range, he’d get lost, and I or someone else would have to ride out and fetch him.”

  Now Daniel and Stockburn were starting the slow descent of the stairs.

  “After he took a fall from his horse early this spring—he simply hadn’t cinched the belly strap—he got worse. He cracked a couple of ribs and had a helluva back ache for a few days, so he took to bed. That’s when he started imagining things and speaking nonsense. He’s grown steadily worse. Carlton fetched the doctor out from Wild Horse, and the doc looked at him and just said he was getting old-timer’s disease. Some get it, some don’t. Forgetfulness, confusion, hallucinations, that sort of thing.”

  Daniel winced and shook his head. “Poor Pa. It’s hard to see him like this.”

  As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Daniel turned to Wolf. “He really did think you were my older brother, Sandy. He was just talkin’ about Sandy the other day, Pa was. Talked about how he had a dream that Sandy came back and he was a big, tall, square-shouldered man. A man to be proud of.

  “Poor old fella just broke down in tears. Cried almost as hard as he did the day they buried Sandy. I remember it well though I was only eight years old at the time. Long time ago now, but I don’t think a day goes by Pa doesn’t think about him. He was his oldest. For that reason, his favorite.” Daniel shrugged. “I don’t begrudge him that.”

  “He has a pretty good reason to hate the McCraes, doesn’t he, Daniel?”

  “Are we back on that again, Stockburn? You’ve seen my father. Does he look like he’s in any condition to reignite our war with the Triangle?”

  Stockburn pondered it briefly.

  “I reckon you’re right,” he admitted. Again, he looked at Daniel. “Who do you think might have attacked those track layers?”

  “I have no idea, Mister Stockburn. All I can tell you is it wasn’t us.” He and Wolf walked toward the front door, Daniel adding, “There are a lot of men in these mountains who’ve gotten crossways with Norman McCrae. McCrae has hung a lot of squatters and nesters, calling them rustlers. That means there’s a lot more men who’d like to see him ruined.”

  “Makes no sense,” Stockburn said as he stepped out onto the porch.

  “What doesn’t?”

  “You don’t ruin a man as big as Norman McCrae just by ruining—or trying to ruin—a spur rail line crossing his property. That would be a thorn in his side, sure. But little else.”

  “What do you think the motive is, then, Mister Stockburn?”

  “It’s gotta be somebody with a bigger dog in the fight.”

  “Chew that up a little finer for me, will you?”

  Stockburn looked at Daniel. “It has to be somebody with a reason beyond McCrae for not wanting that rail line completed to Hell’s Jaw Pass. Usually, issues like this can be a
ttributed to a competitor.”

  “So now you’ve come back to Tin Cup again.” Daniel gave a sardonic chuckle and shook his head.

  “I didn’t mean that. It may not be an issue over the sale of the right-of-way. It might be an issue of someone wanting to ruin the Hell’s Jaw outfit so they can move in and lay the rails themselves, for their own company.”

  “Ah.” Daniel nodded. “Now, that makes sense.”

  Stockburn sighed and gazed off past the Tin Cup portal and into the scrubby rangeland beyond, where Stoleberg cattle peppered the fawn-colored slopes. “So now I reckon I gotta see if I can root out that competitor.”

  “If it is a competitor.”

  “Right, right. If it is a competitor.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know. They’re likely laying low. Wouldn’t want to show themselves or betray their intentions until the Hell’s Jaw Line is kaput. Then, after enough time passed so they wouldn’t draw suspicion, they could make their own move on building a line.”

  “Boy,” Daniel said, nodding, smiling at Stockburn admiringly, “you’re good at this. Now I know why you’re such a big name. If anyone can root those killers out, Mister Stockburn, I reckon it’s you. Faster the better, to my way of thinking. I’d just as soon there be no doubt that my family has nothing to do with it.”

  “All right. I reckon I’m not getting any work done standing out here palavering.” Wolf extended his hand to young Stoleberg. “I appreciate the hospitality, Daniel. I am truly sorry about the trouble with your father.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, Mister Stockburn. I mean that. It’s been nice to meet you.”

  “Enough with the Mister Stockburn stuff.” Wolf was walking down the porch steps, smiling over his shoulder. “The name’s Wolf.”

  “The Wolf of the Rails!”

  “Well, that’s a big mouthful for casual conversation.” Chuckling, Wolf untied Smoke’s reins from the hitchrack.

  Standing atop the porch steps, Daniel said, “Where you off to next, if you don’t mind my asking?”