After living near Payson for better than a dozen years, folks knew that John McMasters could be hard to get a drop on—but Bea and the family had caught him by surprise.
“Happy birthday, Pa!” Eugénia pulled away from him, only to jump up, wrapping her arms around his neck, and pulling him close.
He kissed her forehead. She frowned so he rubbed his nose against hers. That brought out a radiant smile, and he kissed her blond hair again and lowered her to the floor.
“I thought you were visiting Lilly,” he told her.
“Mama lied,” she said and scurried back toward the table. “I was hiding in the barn with James and Nate.”
“I see.” McMasters found his eyeglasses, wiping the lenses with an end of his bandanna, and after he had set them on his nose, he held out his right hand to the approaching Dan Kilpatrick.
The lawman, his soon-to-be son-in-law, had removed the slicker while McMasters had been preoccupied with Eugénia. The six-point tin star pinned to the lapel of his green coat reflected the flickering light of the candles as Bea set the cake on the center of the table.
“Good evening, sir,” Kilpatrick said. He had a strong grip, but not as hard as McMasters’.
Working horses—especially the temperamental ones McMasters seemed to be drawn to—did that to a man’s hands . . . and the rest of his body.
“Where were you two hiding?”
“Up the road apiece where we could see you when you turned off the road.”
“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” McMasters said, “or wet.”
“We did not mind, Pa,” Rosalee said.
McMasters frowned and gave Kilpatrick his hardest, most fatherly stare. The deputy’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he suddenly looked almost frightened. Those law books, and that tin star, would not help him.
To give Rosalee’s betrothed a moment to gather himself, McMasters turned to face James, who was loading one side of the table with wrapped gifts.
“I suppose you left that gate open on purpose.”
James beamed. “It was Ma’s idea.”
Bea had returned to collect plates and utensils. Rosalee and Eugénia joined to help. Nate kept tooting his whistle.
“You couldn’t have sent me to town on some fool’s errand?” McMasters said.
“You’re too suspicious,” Bea said. “We needed a plan that you would not suspect. Though it took much longer than we had anticipated.”
Shaking his head, McMasters laughed . . . just to ease any tension. He couldn’t be angry at Bea or his family or even Dan Kilpatrick for too long. But some time later, he decided, he might explain to his wife the folly of her plan to get her husband out of the house long enough to bake a cake and plan a birthday surprise.
Let’s see, he thought as he moved to watch the bees busy themselves setting the supper table. What all might have happened? That damned fool colt could have gone over the edge of the Mogollon. I came this close to going over the rim with that wanna-be widow maker. I could have been killed by lightning. Drowned. Caught a fever and died in bed. Got stranded by a flash flood and spent the night in a cave or underneath a bunch of pines while you ate my cake.
“Where did you finally find that harebrained colt?” Kilpatrick asked.
McMasters shrugged. “Up the road a piece.” Maybe he wouldn’t let anyone know where he had found the bay after all. No sense in putting worry in Bea’s head or frightening his children. Besides, that cake smelled wonderful.
“Have a seat,” Bea commanded. “And, Nate, I think you have serenaded us enough with your whistle.”
The music—if one might call Nate’s renditions music—came to a merciful end as James pulled out McMasters’s chair.
“You’re a mite short on candles.” McMasters jutted his chin toward the cake.
“One for each decade,” Bea told him.
“No supper?”
“It’s your birthday, John. Cake first. Supper later.”
“I can’t wait till my birthday,” Nate said, and everyone laughed.
* * *
With a belly full of lemon cake, mashed potatoes, stewed carrots, roasted venison, sourdough biscuits, and black coffee, John McMasters forgot all about his adventures on the Mogollon Rim.
Nate had presented him with a pair of socks, likely woven by his sisters, but McMasters went through so many socks in a year that they were always welcomed. James had given him a blue bandanna, silk with white snowflakes, or some design similar to snowflakes. Kilpatrick’s present was a gold-plated double watch chain with an ivory fob that had been hand-carved into a Federal eagle. The fob likely set the deputy marshal back a lot more than the chain. From Eugénia, he received a book, The Minor Poems of John Milton, published in England in 1889, with gilt on the cover and spine. Bea would have picked that one out for his youngest daughter at Blake’s Books, Newspapers, and Candies, and likely had Isaac Blake let Eugénia pick out a special piece of peppermint for herself. Rosalee had made him a shirt, and it looked nice, red and black checks with mother-of-pearl buttons, even two pockets on the front and a collar to boot.
He held a heavy watch—fourteen-karat solid gold, a Waltham repeater with a porcelain dial, Arabic numerals, and straw-colored spade hands—in his hand. His initials were engraved on the shield on the checkered hunter’s case. It sang its song as he removed his eyeglasses and wiped his eyes with the bandanna James had given him.
McMasters had been admiring that watch at Brandenberger’s shop for two years, always fearing the Swiss merchant would sell it—even though the price on the tag told him nobody in the county could afford it. He wondered how Bea had managed to buy it . . . or what from her family treasures she had traded for it.
He snapped the case shut, ending the mechanical serenade, and put his glasses back on. “Well, if I’d known I’d be getting all this plunder, I would’ve turned fifty years ago.” He cleared the frog out of his throat. Frog? Hell, it felt more like a whale.
“Happy birthday, Pa,” James said.
“Yeah,” his daughters chimed in. “We love you.”
“Can I eat the rest of the cake?” Nate asked.
“No,” Bea answered firmly, “you may not.” Shaking her head at the youngest child’s audacity, she grinned at her husband. “Brandy, dear?”
His head bobbed. He could not find any more words. The brandy helped, although only he and Kilpatrick drank.
“More cake?” she asked her husband.
“Not if I want to get up before daylight,” McMasters said.
“That reminds me,” Kilpatrick said as he pushed his chair from the table and stood. “I need to be getting back to Payson.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Dan Kilpatrick,” Bea said. “It is too late and far too dark for you to be going anywhere.”
“The buggy I let from Dunkirk’s livery has headlamps, Missus McMasters,” the deputy argued. “I only rented it for one day.”
“Dunkirk can wait and so can those prisoners.” Bea had assumed command. “Rosalee, make a pallet for James by the fireplace. Dan, you will sleep in the boys’ bed upstairs. Eugénia, help your sister. Nate, collect the trash. I’ll do the dishes.”
“Missus McMasters,” Kilpatrick protested, “I can sleep on the pallet. I won’t put James out—”
“No,” James said. “This will be like camping on the trail.”
“We want to do it,” Nate said. “It’s an adventure.”
James whirled. “But . . . Ma . . .”
Everyone stopped, remembering something. McMasters looked around, suspicious.
“Oh, yes. Fetch it, James.” Bea beamed at her husband. “There’s one more thing, John.”
“Not more cake, I hope.”
James vanished up the staircase, but came down quickly, holding a long box, wrapped in red, white, and blue bunting. Unable to control his excitement, he shoved the last gift into his father’s arms. Whatever the box held, it was heavy.
“Looks like it’s for the Fourth of Jul
y rather than my birthday,” McMasters said.
“Hush. Just open it,” Bea ordered.
The bunting came off easily, revealing a long wooden box. Laying that on the tabletop, he opened the lid and stared at the shotgun that rested on red cushioning.
“It’s a Remington,” James sang out. “Model 1894. Ma said that Evans of yours might blow up in your face and a nine-gauge is too much for you anyhow unless you’re hunting buffalo . . . and there ain’t no buffalo in Arizona these days.”
“Hardly anywhere,” Rosalee added.
James couldn’t shut up. He was more excited than his father. “Besides, you don’t even have that old gun you carried in the war, and you rarely even shoot the Henry anymore.”
“That old gun your father carried in the war was a Sharps,” Kilpatrick said. “Too much for anything around these parts. But that Remington”—he stared at McMasters—“that’s the best of its class, sir.”
It looked that way. McMasters lifted it out of the box. A side-by-side twelve gauge, double triggers but without hammers. Damascus barrels, graded walnut stock with a leather covered, hard-rubber butt plate. He read the engraving just above and in front of the trigger guard. REMINGTON ARMS CO.
And on the other side
TO JOHN MCMASTERS
Happy Birthday, 1896
from your devoted family
He loved the balance of the weapon, and opened the breech. The smell of gun oil and newness, enthralled him. It had been a long time since a weapon had made him feel like that. A long, long time.
Somehow, he managed to swallow down that whale in his throat.
Bea had been ready for him. She had refilled his snifter with brandy.
Setting the shotgun back . . . atop, but not inside, the box, he picked up the glass and sipped.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Can I hold the gun, Pa?” James asked.
McMasters bobbed his head, and with excitement, the boy hefted the Remington then looked at his mother.
“Did you get the shells, Ma?”
“James,” Kilpatrick began, “it is much too late—”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Bea’s cry stopped Kilpatrick and made McMasters smile.
“Ma!” James whined.
“I was so excited to find that shotgun, and I’d just bought that Waltham, I just . . . I just . . . I did not think about getting any shells.”
“I was hoping I could shoot it,” James said, remembering quickly to add, “after Pa shot it once, I mean.”
“Why don’t you shoot the Evans?” Rosalee asked.
“That cannon!” James’s head moved rapidly from side to side. “Not a chance.”
“I don’t want you to be shooting nothing,” Nate said. “My ears will hurt.”
“It’s too dark to be shooting at anything,” Kilpatrick reminded them.
Bea’s hands clapped, ending the assaulting voices. “Let your father enjoy his brandy and let’s get back to work. A pallet for the boys. Dishes to be washed. Trash to be put in the fireplace. And then”—her hands slapped again—“to bed. To bed. To bed. Your father needs his rest.”
“Because I’m ancient,” he said.
“Hush. Just sit. Relax. You had a grueling birthday.”
McMasters found the snifter and sipped more brandy. French, of course. Bea wouldn’t let anything else inside her house, even if she never drank any spirits. The girls busied themselves while Nate, Kilpatrick and James went outside to put away the rented horse and buggy.
Bea settled into a seat beside her husband.
“I am sorry about forgetting that ammunition.”
“Don’t fret. I’ll ride in to Payson in the morning with Dan. I’ll buy a box of shells at Johnson’s store. Maybe two boxes. Some birdshot so James can shoot a few rounds. We’ll go down to the creek, so Nate’s eardrums won’t burst.”
He also thought that maybe, just maybe, before he bought boxes of twelve-gauge loads, he might mosey down the boardwalk from the Johnson’s Firearms & Gunsmith to Brandenberger’s Clocks and Watches. Perhaps he could talk that old Swiss gentleman into letting him know exactly how much Bea had spent on that Waltham repeater. He hoped it wasn’t the price on that tag. McMasters wasn’t suffering for money—the horses he bred, raised, and trained had earned him quite the reputation in northern Arizona. He had a nice house, a good half-section with a creek that flowed year-round—even if only a trickle in the dry years—a well, and good pasture for the horses. But he would not consider himself a rich man. He still remembered all those lean years in Missouri . . . Kansas . . . Colorado . . . and New Mexico Territory.
“Don’t even think about it,” Bea said, interrupting his thoughts.
He drained the brandy and looked into her wonderful eyes. “Think about what?”
“Asking Noah Brandenberger how much I paid for your watch.”
He laughed. She knew him too well.
“Now”—she put her hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet—“you need to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“You don’t know how long,” he said, remembering the Mogollon Rim, the monsoon, and the bay colt. He rose, too, kissed his wife and started for the bedroom.
“John,” Bea whispered.
Turning back, he stared into those emerald eyes again.
“Don’t go to sleep. Not yet.”
CHAPTER 4
Duke Gold’s first shot hit the lead rider plumb center, knocking the white-hatted fool off his paint horse and sending him tumbling down the embankment and into the clear, cold creek that had carved a path between the rugged hills covered by forest.
The second rider quickly snapped a shot at Gold’s muzzle flash.
“Ha!” Gold levered another round into his Winchester.
Moses Butcher felt like shooting Duke Gold, but that idiot had started the ball. Butcher knew he had no choice but to finish the dance.
His Winchester already cocked and ready, he drew a bead on the second rider and fired. The .44-40 rifle slammed against his shoulder as the gun roared. He did not bother looking to make sure the man was dead. He knew his aim had been true.
Biting his lip, Butcher watched both horses the posse members had been riding, then swore.
The bay ridden by the man Duke Gold had shot had tumbled off the road and slid down the embankment, too, causing a minor avalanche of rocks that splashed into the creek. The horse had come up and was swimming across Clear Creek to the far side. Filled with water from all those damned monsoons, it flowed hard and deep, too dangerous to cross at this bend. For all practical purposes, once that bay reached the other bank, it was good as dead. The sorrel, the mount Moses Butcher had just made riderless, was already dead.
Duke Gold had put a bullet in the animal’s chest, sending it somersaulting down the dip in the road.
“Damn it!” Gold shouted and fired again.
“Damn you!” Butcher yelled, but no one could hear him. The roar of rifle fire had turned deafening.
It was not supposed to be this way, Butcher thought. But he had not counted on those residents of Winslow being so spirited, and he certainly had not figured on Duke Gold being such an idiot.
Two days earlier, Butcher had led his gang into Winslow for some whiskey to get the boys ready. He’d planned on hitting the westbound Atlantic and Pacific express when it stopped for water down the tracks at Canyon Diablo. His thoughts turned to that day.
* * *
The bartender at that rawhide saloon was talking to a cowboy about all the trains that had been held up at Canyon Diablo of late, how the railroad and express offices were getting mighty sick of things, and how the last outlaws who had robbed the A&P had only gotten as far downstream as the Black Falls on the Little Colorado before they had been shot to pieces.
Once he had a glass of rye in his hand, Butcher walked over to the batwing doors and stared across the dusty street at the Winslow Bank. That had not been in town the last time he had ridden through. He look
ed up and down the street and saw nothing resembling a town marshal’s office. Not even a jail.
He did notice telegraph wires, and what he assumed was a telephone wire that would connect the desolate patch of desert with the law in Holbrook to the east and Flagstaff to the west. Those, of course, could be cut down. There was nothing but rough country south. He quickly planned on going in that direction—take a long trip through the rich conifer forests along the Mogollon Rim and into the Sonoran Desert. Cross the border into Mexico. Drink tequila and eat spicy food until the money ran out.
Just like he had been doing for ten years.
Ten men were riding with him, including his kid brother, Ben. Gomez, the big Mexican, and Milt Hanks, who had started with Butcher back in Texas, were veterans. Dirk Mannagan, Miami, and Bitter Page had been with him for five years. The others, the taciturn Indian who called himself Zuni, the two drifters—Cherry and Parks—and the pockmarked kid named Duke Gold were new. Gold was the most recent recruit.
Robbing a bank—especially one in a flea-bitten wind trap like Winslow—would be better than an express car for breaking in the rookies, Butcher figured. Banks usually did not send many Pinkerton or Wells Fargo agents after robbers. Just posses from hayseed desert towns.
He walked back to the bar, drained the worst rye he had tasted in years, and signaled to Greaser Gomez and Milt Hanks to follow him outside. “Change of plans. The bank,” he said quickly, then separated from them.
Robbing banks was nothing new. They knew their parts.
Staggering their exits, the others left the saloon in twos the same way they’d entered the town. Eleven men riding into any place attracted too much attention, especially in a desert burg like Winslow. Butcher was nowhere to be seen, but Gomez and Hanks stood on opposite corners. Mannagan, Miami, and Page knew their parts and walked right on by. The newest members stopped and struck up a conversation, receiving their parts in the new plan.
Remington 1894 Page 3