by Jim Woolard
“How you coming, Burt?” Ira asked.
“I’m drilling the last hole.”
Ira tugged a gold watch from a vest pocket. “Not bad. We’ve ninety minutes before the train leaves. Mrs. Zhang, do you need help with Mrs. Tanner?”
“Yes, I have need of you, Nathan, and Burt.”
The paleness of Alana’s face shocked Nathan. Her eyes were dull and her lips thin, the consequence of constant pain. But she smiled weakly and bore up like a trooper. She didn’t so much as whimper when they slid her into the sleeping bag.
“You’re a tough lady, my girl. Damned if I don’t think you’ll survive just to spite those murdering bastards,” Mary Zhang said. “And I ain’t apologizing for my language neither, Ira Westfall.”
“No call to,” Ira said. “We ready for the box?”
Mary Zhang studied the wooden coffin. “Believe some extra padding might be in order. Zeta, bring the pillows from the bed and the hamper.”
Mary Zhang and Zeta lined the coffin with feather pillows, leaving a hollow in the center for its occupant. “That’ll keep her from rolling side to side,” Mary Zhang observed. She nodded, and with Nathan gripping Alana’s shoulders, Ira her hips, and Burt Dawes her legs, they lowered her into the coffin.
An alert Sam watched their every move, but obeyed Nathan’s command to “Stay.” Once Alana was resting on the pillows, the huge dog moved alongside the coffin, paused near her head, and licked her cheek.
Despite her pain, Alana managed another weak smile. “Good boy. Go with Nathan.”
Nathan had come to appreciate that her command to “Go” with someone else effectively transferred control of Sam to that person. Sure enough, Sam stepped away from the coffin and sat at Nathan’s feet.
Ira and Burt Dawes hefted the lid of the coffin. “You’ll have plenty of air, Mrs. Tanner, and don’t forget we’ll take this off as soon as we’re aboard the train.”
Zeta couldn’t keep her hand from flying to her mouth as the lid thunked home. Mary Zhang glowered at Ira. “Your fool idea doesn’t pan out, you won’t be safe anywhere.”
Ira grinned as if he’d received the finest of compliments, winked, and opened the parlor door. The eyes of the onlookers widened at the sight of the closed coffin. Those possessing an innate respect for the dead doffed their hats. One of the nightgowned, disheveled ladies of the night hid her cigar behind her hip.
“We’re taking the remains of Mrs. Tanner to Alamosa on the afternoon train,” Ira announced. The ex-policeman pushed a finger at the six biggest males in the crowd. “I need pallbearers. I’ll pay five dollars to each of you, if you’re sober and have sound backs.” The three men bobbed their heads. “You’re hired. Wait in the lobby.”
Ira took the bottom of the coffin and Nathan the top. They descended the narrow stairs without a hitch, Nathan pondering how scary it must be imprisoned in a wooden box with your fate in the hands of others. In the lobby, Ira detailed the six men he’d hired to opposite sides of the coffin, and with Sam snarling and growling in front of them, the crowd parted and they gained the street. There the sight of a funeral possession slowed the rush of shoed and hoofed traffic and they were given a wide berth.
Eight inches of fresh, sunlit snow overlaid Creede’s canvas and board stores, temporarily diminishing the mining camp’s raw ugliness. Creede Avenue was a morass of crusty, pulverized slush. Ira maintained an even pace, which enabled the pallbearers to hold the casket as steady as possible. Nathan couldn’t keep from dwelling on how Alana had to be biting her lip and wincing at the slightest bump or dip.
The customer line at the boxcar serving as the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad ticket office was three bodies wide and twenty yards deep. Nathan worried there wouldn’t be any tickets left by the time they reached the window.
“Make for the express car, gentlemen,” Ira instructed his pallbearers.
The express car was at the head of train behind the coal tender. With everyone in the rail yard staring and gaping, for not many of the dead left Creede for burial elsewhere, they crossed the tracks and lowered the coffin to the ground before the sliding door of the express car.
Ira stepped forward and pounded on the door with the butt of his revolver. A chubby face appeared in the barred window of the express car. Glimpsing Ira and his drawn gun, the owner of the face shook his head, signaling he had no intention of opening the door, and ducked out of sight. Undaunted, Ira began pounding in earnest.
“Here, stop that damn fool nonsense!”
Sam whirled and growled. Nathan expected the speaker to be the conductor or the engineer. It was a lean, towering man instead. The man was so tall he appeared to be walking on stilts. Any resemblance he had to a circus performer ended there. Serious eyes peered from beneath his black range hat and the Silver Star pinned to the wide lapel of his canvas coat sparkled in the autumn sunlight. A double-barreled shotgun rode comfortably in the crook of his left arm.
“Keep that beast off me or else,” the towering stork warned, aiming the shotgun in Sam’s direction. “I’m Marshal Blue Arnett. What are you men up to?”
Metal scratched against stiff leather as Ira opened his sack coat and holstered his pistol. “Keep Sam quiet, Nathan. Marshal, I need passage for this coffin. I believe they’re permitted to travel in the express car.”
“That depends entirely on the Denver and Rio Grande. Got any paperwork granting you or that box permission to board?”
“No, I don’t,” Ira admitted. “That’s where I need your help.”
The marshal’s laugh was a high-pitched cackle. “I ain’t putting my self contrary-wise to the Denver and Rio Grande for no reason, mister. They don’t brook nonsense from nobody. They’d have my badge.”
Nathan groaned. All their effort was for naught. They might be days securing the consent of the railroad. In the meantime, they couldn’t obtain medical treatment for Alana without word of their deception leaking to the populace of Creede. One summoning of the doctor to treat a dead person would be their undoing. Ellie Langston and Alamosa seemed a million miles away.
Ira Westfall withdrew a metal object from his coat pocket. “Marshal, I’m Detective Ira Westfall of the St. Louis Police Department. I’m escorting the body of Mrs. Seth Tanner to Alamosa for burial. Two men I trailed here murdered her a few hours ago. The same two men murdered Nathan’s father in St. Louis a few weeks ago. I need your help to trap them and have them arrested.”
It was too much for Blue Arnett to grasp. He was accustomed to mining camp disturbances best resolved with a shotgun and brute force, not complicated murder plots stretching across three states. “Mister, I’m fresh off a two-day ride after a thief and I don’t appreciate having my leg pulled.”
Ira Westfall showed his palms. “Stand easy, Marshal,” he said, fishing in a coat pocket for his leather purse. He counted out six five dollar gold pieces and gave one to each of the hired pallbearers. “Gentlemen, I much appreciate your assistance. Go enjoy yourselves.”
Ira waited for the pallbearers to cross the tracks, and then addressed Blue Arnett. “Marshal, now that there are no big ears around, let me explain our situation. Mrs. Tanner’s not really dead.”
Anger hardened Blue Arnett’s gray eyes, the skin of his throat reddened, and he swung the shotgun to cover Ira. “Mister, you just won today’s grand prize—a night in jail for you and your two friends.”
“Now, hold on, Marshal,” Ira said. “I’m not funning you. Mrs. Tanner’s not dead. She’s badly wounded and the two men who shot her are still on the loose. I couldn’t come up with any better idea for getting her safely out of Creede. If you’ll step closer you’ll see the air holes we drilled in the top of the coffin to keep her from suffocating.”
Blue Arnett did just that, after which he braced the shotgun against his side with one arm, retrieved a wedge of molasses cured chewing tobacco from his pocket, pouched it in his cheek, and stood chewing and thinking, his gaze drifting from Ira to Nathan, and finally, to Burt Dawes.
“Who’s the one with no chin?”
Burt Dawes bristled at the insult. Ira’s slight shake of the head was the same as a verbal order for Burt to curb his temper. “Mr. Dawes is an associate of mine. He scrounges up information for me.”
“He got a badge like you?”
“No, he’s paid if what he learns is useful.”
Blue Arnett chewed and thought. A healthy stream of brown tobacco juice warned a decision was forthcoming. “I don’t know you from Adam, Westfall. But there ain’t nobody, drunk or sober, could make up a story wild as one you’re telling. So, it’s most likely got to be true,” the marshal concluded, lowering the barrel of his shotgun.
Ira pocketed his badge and said, “I thank you, Marshal. But we must still deal with the railroad.”
Passengers were boarding the eight coaches behind the express car. The engine bell clanged. Blue Arnett waved his shotgun and a uniformed trainman came toward them. Even at a distance, Nathan instantly recognized the stiletto beard, immaculate uniform, and polished shoes of Amos Longworth. He had a sinking feeling their luck had finally run out, that was unless Blue Arnett was willing to buck the Denver and Rio Grande, something he’d vowed he wouldn’t do.
Conductor Longworth recognized Sam and Nathan just as quickly, and his posture was straight and rigid as a fence post when he paused beside Blue Arnett. “Marshal, I’ve no time to waste on fruitless endeavors. I’ve no document stating that I’m to permit a coffin aboard my train. Do you?”
Nathan sighed. If Blue Arnett wasn’t the most artful liar on God’s green earth, it was back to Zhang’s.
Maybe it was because the Marshal of Creede harbored a genuine dislike for Conductor Longworth. Maybe it was because above all else he took great pride in being a forceful man of the law. Either way, what followed made a giant cavity of Nathan’s mouth.
Blue Arnett swelled like a stuffed bird, spat tobacco juice next to the conductor’s highly polished shoes, and said, “Ain’t got no paperwork. It’s back at the office and there ain’t no time to chase after it. The telegram I received from U. S. Marshal Kell Bryan states I’m to cooperate fully with Detective Ira Westfall of the St. Louis Police Department in a murder investigation. That’s this gentleman here with the walrus moustache.”
Conductor Longworth wasted no time dithering or fretting. “And exactly what do you want of the D&RG, Mister Westfall?”
“I want this coffin to travel as far as Alamosa, along with Mr. Tanner, Mr. Dawes, and myself. Mr. Tanner and I will ride in the express car with the coffin. Mr. Dawes can ride in one of the passenger coaches.”
“What about the dog?”
“He rides with his dead master’s coffin. We’d have to shoot him otherwise.”
Amos Longworth wasn’t slow on the draw. “Just who might the dead person be, Mr. Westfall?”
“Mrs. Seth Tanner of Alamosa and the ST Ranch. She was murdered in Creede earlier today.”
Longworth’s widening eyes indicated he’d recognized the name. Nathan thought he saw a sympathetic expression flash across the conductor’s features. “Marshal Arnett, I don’t care two hoots about your supposed telegram. But I won’t abide the murder of a woman. Fred,” Conductor Longworth shouted, “roll her back!”
The door of the express slid open and the conductor consulted his Robinson railroad watch. “Mr. Westfall, you have five minutes to get your party aboard. That includes the dog. If you’ll excuse me, other duties await.”
Marshal Blue Arnett, scratching above his ear, stared after the conductor. “Well, Land of Goshen, it ain’t true. There’s a tad of warm blood in Amos Longworth. Damned if there ain’t.”
Amazed the touchy situation had worked entirely in their favor, Nathan helped Burt and Ira slide Alana’s coffin into the express car. Fred, the chubby-faced, wide-bottomed clerk, accepted the presence of the coffin without a qualm, but was leery of Sam. It wasn’t until the train was underway and Sam sought a corner and curled up to sleep that Fred stopped stammering and shaking.
A few miles from the station, with the clerk writing atop his stool at the opposite end of the express car, Ira motioned to Nathan, and together they lifted the lid from the coffin. Nathan was alarmed at Alana’s total lack of color. “Have we lost her?”
Ira knelt beside the coffin and felt beneath Alana’s jaw. “Lord God, what a woman,” he exclaimed. “She’s with us. She’s just sleeping.”
A squawk at the clerk’s end of the car was followed by a meaty thud. When Nathan turned to look, he saw Fred sprawled on the floor beside his overturned stool. The clerk had fainted dead away.
Twenty-Three
The express car swayed sideways and lurched forward and backward, a motion peculiar to Colorado’s narrow gauge railroads. Then there was the jolt of stopping and starting at water towers and coaling stations every twelve miles. If the constant bouncing and jostling wasn’t enough to keep a person awake, there was the clickety clack of the wheels crossing every single rail joint. Somehow Alana Birdsong, weakened by loss of blood and exhausted by her ordeal, slept through it all. Nathan and Ira eventually ceased checking her pulse every minute.
Fred survived his fainting spell unharmed. The wide-bottomed clerk fired the oil heater at the center of the car, and was working on his stool again when Ira, his voice deliberately lowered, said to Nathan, “I want you to tell me everything you’ve learned about Roan Buckman and Eldon Payne since you arrived in Colorado, and we’ve plenty of time.”
Nathan told everything, from dinner at the ST and his ride along Rock Creek with Heft Thomas to the ambush on the porch of Zhang’s that very morning. Ira listened without interruption. When Nathan finished, he leaned against a wooden crate, and did some serious thinking.
“Nathan, we’re up against a rough, dirty crowd. Whether it’s the Buckman brothers, Corbin and Hobie, or Eldon Payne, they’re in too deep to quit. The only weak link in the Buckman scheme is Eldon Payne. Unless he talks we don’t have enough evidence to jail any of them, and I wouldn’t put it past the Buckmans to shut Eldon’s mouth permanently.
“We’ll be stopping at Del Norte and I’ll send Constable Allred a telegram from there. He’ll meet us with a wagon and team. I figure we can stay in Alamosa two or three days before folks start wondering why your aunts not being buried. Where can we put her up in Alamosa?”
“At the Imperial House. She maintains a room year round and Mr. Ming, her Chinese servant, is waiting for her there. You think we can trust Constable Allred?” Nathan inquired.
“Yes, I know Bulldog Jack from Chicago. He walked a beat in the saloon district before he was promoted to sergeant. He’s tough, honest, and won’t turn tail if there’s shooting.”
“When do you plan to meet with lawyer Abbott?”
“While you’re mourning your aunt at the hotel, Bulldog and I will prod Abbott into seeing the judge immediately, even if we have to roust him out of bed this evening. The sooner we confront Eldon Payne the better, as I’m sure Corbin will wire Roan Buckman from Creede yet today. Hell’s bells, for all we know both he and Hobie might be on this train.”
“Now wait a minute,” Nathan protested. “I’m not hiding behind a coffin while you sic the law on Eldon Payne and Roan Buckman. I’m not some young snot from St. Louis. Maybe Eldon Payne and Roan Buckman think that, but I’m not.”
Nathan himself was surprised at his defiance of Ira. Ira had always given the orders and Nathan obeyed, without question. It had always been that way, whether they were practicing shooting on his father’s farm or guarding the Tanner warehouse at night, a duty given Nathan by his father as part of his learning every aspect of the family business. He was glad he was sitting on the floor and not in a chair, for Ira might have otherwise heard his knees knocking.
Ira took so long to respond it seemed the ex-copper was assessing Nathan inch by inch. “Nathan, I don’t doubt your courage. I saw you drag your aunt to safety on the porch of Zhang’s. It just appears to me that if you were overcome by grief yo
u’d accompany the coffin to the hotel. Might look a little strange if you’re seen gallivanting around town visiting an old lawyer with a retired policeman. Wouldn’t you be with your aunt instead?”
Nathan couldn’t deny his normal place would be at the hotel, but where before he would have accepted a lesser, safer role in the fight against the Buckmans, that was no longer true. Much had fallen on his shoulders and he knew that if he left the settling of affairs with the Buckmans to others, he would forever question if he were his father’s son. And where a few weeks ago he would have thought it crazy, he realized death was better than a lifetime of doubt.
“I’ll accompany the coffin to the hotel,” Nathan conceded. “Once you secure the court papers ordering an audit of the Payne Company, I want to be there when you hand them to Eldon Payne. I won’t be left out, Mr. Westfall.”
Ira Westfall’s soft brown eyes shone, a brightening Nathan mistakenly attributed to excitement, for he’d no way of knowing how proud he’d just made an old copper from St. Louis. “All right, all right. I guess the son is the boss now,” Ira said with a deep laugh. “And if that’s true, then it’s time you started calling me Ira, don’t you think?”
Nathan had longed for Ira Westfall’s respect as much as he had his father’s, and at first he sat breathless, overwhelmed by his good fortune. Then, before the silence became embarrassing, he managed a sharply voiced “Yes, sir!” that evoked yet a deeper laugh from the old copper.
A faint moan from the coffin broke in. Nathan looked inside. Alana Birdsong was pale as ever and her breathing very shallow. “She needs a doctor bad. We’ll have to sneak Ellie Langston into the hotel somehow.”
“Maybe that won’t be necessary. Is she the only doctor in Alamosa?”