Lost Trails

by Louis L'Amour

  The driver stopped in the middle of lashing a new brake handle onto the broken shaft. “You ain’t planning to go after them?”

  “Sure, their leader is gone, so they’ll be demoralized, and they’ll need to hole up and figure out what to do next. Besides, it’s the last thing they’ll expect.”

  “Here now, what about us?” one of the passengers, a stocky man with a florid face, asked.

  “If I recall, the next way station is only a few miles down the road. If you want to start walking, I’m sure Bill will pick you up on the way.”

  Nancy kept only one ear on the conversation, more occupied with ensuring that she was well supplied with bullets for both her pistols, then mounted the dead bandit’s horse.

  Leaving the rest of the passengers to argue about moving on with the driver, she watched as Wyatt unhitched one of the team horses and accepted the offer of a saddle from another one of the other passengers who had been taking it with him to Tombstone. Wyatt saddled the horse, then mounted and nudged his mount over to her. “Let’s get moving.”

  Nancy heeled her own mount into a trot and followed Wyatt as he set out into the desert, following the hoofprints, and soon leaving the stagecoach and its increasingly irate passengers behind.

  The desert around them seemed possessed of two things in abundance—dirt and silence, both of which were marred only slightly by their passing. She studied Wyatt as they followed the bandits’ trail, which was so easily marked that Nancy could have tracked them with little difficulty herself. Wyatt looked to be relatively average on the outside, but she sensed in him a resolute ability, even fearlessness, that almost seemed to be larger than the man himself. Now that she thought about it, his name had come up at the Pinkerton offices in their voluminous files on both criminals and lawmen alike, since Allan had always liked to know who he might be dealing with in an area. Mr. Earp had once been charged with horse stealing in his youth, but had skipped town before being summoned to court. He had gone on to make his reputation in Dodge City, although there had also been rumors of illicit behavior, including his keeping of tax payments that he collected, resulting in the city abruptly canceling his appointment. Which is most likely why he came south, she thought.

  After several more minutes, Wyatt slowed his horse, waiting for her to bring her mount alongside. “They’ve slowed to a trot—the horses are tired after all that running. Let’s keep going, slowly, and we should come upon them soon enough.”

  Nancy nodded, and they slowed their horses to a walk. After another mile, the sound of a gunshot broke the silent air. “Up ahead, and fairly close, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That I would. We should be cautious now, especially if they posted that rifleman somewhere high up.”

  They were coming to another butte, and it was obvious that the hoofprints curved around the rock outcropping, and suddenly, carrying clearly to them in the chill winter air, came the sound of an aggrieved voice, answered by another.

  “That sounds like them, all right.” Wyatt reined in his horse and secured the reins to a nearby madrone plant, with Nancy doing the same. “If we can hear them, then they’ll be able to hear the horses, so we’ll go in on foot from here.” He hefted the double-barreled shotgun, and Nancy drew her .38. “Pardon my forwardness, ma’am, but I assume by the way you handle that pistol that you know how to shoot.”

  “You assume correctly, Mr. Earp. Shall we?” Nancy picked her way across the uneven ground toward the voices, pistol at the ready, with Wyatt right beside her.

  As they approached, the sounds of an argument grew louder, although the voices seemed to be echoing so much that Nancy couldn’t pick out the words. But then she heard something else that was even more curious—a galloping horse approaching from the opposite direction.

  “Another bandit?” she whispered.

  Wyatt was no less intent on the unfolding scene before them, but he was just as puzzled as she. “Maybe, but then why wasn’t he at the stage?”

  “Perhaps he was the rifleman, or they thought they had enough men to get the job done, and the real leader stayed behind. Either way, there’s only way to find out.” Nancy crept up to the red rock wall of the butte and, using it as cover, began moving closer to the talking.

  With two large strides, Wyatt stepped in front of her. “No offense, ma’am, but the scattergun will do a better job of making them duck if necessary.” Without waiting for an answer, he walked forward noiselessly, with Nancy following right behind.

  By now they were so close that they could make out actual words, and they also realized why the voices were echoing—the bandits had holed up in a concave depression on the bluff that provided a good bit of shelter. In the lee of the rocks, Nancy and Wyatt eavesdropped, trying to get a sense of what was going on.

  “Yeah, what the hell is going on? Carson’s dead, and the damn lockbox is full of rocks, not the payroll like you claimed.”

  “You said we’d be paid well for this job, and that there wouldn’t be any killing involved. Now I don’t see Carson, ’cause he’s lying back there on the ground, and I certainly don’t see any money here either!”

  “All right, just relax, gentlemen,” said a third voice. “I agree that Carson’s demise was a regrettable accident, but from your story, it seems that the guard was faster on the draw than you gave him credit for.”

  “Guard nothing!” the first voice exclaimed. “There was a shooter inside the coach! Someone lit off a pistol, and my horse nearly broke her leg getting away from it. That was when the whole plan went straight to hell!”

  “Not to mention that we risked our lives for a box of worthless rocks! Now what are you going to do about that?”

  “After I’m through, there won’t be any need for me to do anything more.”

  While the third man had been speaking, Nancy poked her head around the rock wall in an effort to get a glimpse of who was speaking. What she saw made her raise her pistol and step out from the rock, calling, “Pinkerton agent, nobody move!”

  Wyatt, his eyes widening in surprise, slipped around the corner as well, trying to cover everyone at once with the shotgun.

  The scene that greeted them was right out of a dime novel. The three bandits that had gotten away stood in a loose semicircle around the open strongbox, in which could be seen ordinary rocks. A few paces away from them stood another man dressed in a suit, with a bowler hat and spectacles, and a pistol he had just drawn to cover the three men.

  At the sound of Nancy’s voice, he half-turned, and the pistol swung in her direction. Without hesitation she aimed her own pistol at him, calling out, “Henry Stanton, you are under arrest for embezzlement!”

  The bespectacled man’s face first registered shock, then anger, and his pistol, which had dipped a few inches in his surprise, came up toward her. Nancy didn’t warn him again, but squeezed the trigger of her Lightning twice. Her aim was true, and both bullets hit the natty gunman. He staggered, but didn’t fall until Wyatt’s shotgun roared, and a spray of buckshot crashed into him, dropping him to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  Nancy immediately turned on the three men, all of whom were in the act of going for their own weapons. “I said nobody move!”

  “Best listen to her, boys. I’ve got one barrel left that says I can take down any two of you in one shot.”

  Nancy guessed it was the cold, matter-of-fact tone in Wyatt’s voice more than anything that decided the issue for the rest of the bandits. Each of the trio froze, then slowly raised their hands. “Been too much damn killing already, I guess,” one of the men said.

  “You got that right, and Mr. Stanton there was about to add your dead bodies to his list of crimes.” Nancy kept her pistol on the three, and she was relieved to see that Wyatt’s shotgun didn’t waver from them in the slightest. “All right, all of you take two steps forward, and we’ll secure you for the ride to Tombstone.”

  Nancy kept them covered while Wyatt made sure each one was disarmed, then collected their various weap
ons together, bound their hands in front of them with rope from one of the men’s saddles, and loaded up the strongbox, along with Stanton’s blanket-wrapped body, on Stanton’s horse. They had each man lead his horse back to theirs; then everyone mounted up and they all proceeded back to the stagecoach.

  Once there, Wyatt posted the man who had loaned him the saddle as a rooftop guard to keep an eye on the prisoners. He took his customary position next to the driver in the box, and they continued on their way to Tombstone without further incident.

  In town, they turned over the bandits—all of whom were actually members of Carson Bramley’s former acting troupe—to the town marshal, a kindly-faced man named Fred White.

  Nancy was finishing her arrangements with the marshal to testify at the actors’ trial in Tucson when she heard steps on the sidewalk outside, and glanced behind her to see Wyatt walk into the marshal’s office.

  “The stagecoach has been taken care of, and the folks at Wells Fargo in Tucson have been alerted as to Stanton’s crimes. I expect they’ll find the money he stole soon enough. What I’m not sure of is how those actors fit into all of this.”

  Nancy signed a copy of her statement and passed it over to the marshal. “Remember when I said this was an inside job? Apparently Stanton, the accountant at the Sonoma company, must have caught on that we were getting close to catching him, so he decided to have the stage robbed to throw us off the trail. Too cautious to trust real bandits, he hired those actors—including the rifleman, a former buffalo hunter—to heist the empty strongbox.”

  “Empty because he had already removed the money before the stage set out.” Wyatt nodded. “Then he was going to kill the robbers and make it look like they had shot each other over the strongbox, and the money would have disappeared with the survivor, who, coincidentally, also wouldn’t have shown up for work at the Sonoma company the next day.”

  Nancy smiled.“Not bad, Mr. Earp. You know, you’d make a pretty good detective yourself.”

  “Funny you should mention that, Miss Smith, as I’m about to get out of the stage-guarding business, and into something a bit more lucrative. A deputy sheriff’s position has just opened up, and I’m heading over to the town hall right now to put my name in.”

  “I’m sure the town of Tombstone will be grateful for your services, just as I am.” Nancy nodded to the tall man, who tipped his hat to her and walked on out of the office, joining a group of three other men, two of whom looked as if they could have been related to Wyatt, and a slender third man with black hair and a handlebar mustache that rivaled Wyatt’s own.

  “I assume those are Mr. Earp’s brothers?” she asked the marshal, who looked at the group with an odd expression on his face and a sigh.

  “The two flanking him are Virgil and Morgan Earp. The fourth one is Doc Holliday, currently Tombstone’s most notorious shootist and gambler. One thing’s for certain, this town is going to be even more interesting with them around.”

  Nancy watched the four men walk down the bustling main street until they had faded into the distance. “Yes, I imagine it certainly will be.”

  Authors’ note: Although the accounts of Wyatt Earp’s life are varied in their accuracy, it is known that he had been both a stagecoach guard and driver for Wells Fargo as well as a city policeman, professional gambler, and later a saloon owner, deputy sheriff, and assistant marshal to his brother Virgil in Tombstone before the gunfight in 1881 that would make his name synonymous with the American West.

  The Wild-Eyed Witness

  Lori Van Pelt

  Rustling noises startled him awake. They sounded like those he had heard in the dream. But that vision had a more rushed quality, the sound of leaves crunching beneath boots, as if a person were running from something, and he recalled catching a glimpse of a blue shirt flashing among the pine boughs.

  He reached for his pistols. The familiar ivory-handled weapons were not at his waist. He felt of his pockets but the guns were not on his person. Frantic now, he flung off the wool blanket that had covered him. He felt a tug against the sleeve of his frock coat.

  “You lost, mister?” The child’s voice rang high and thin in his ears. He raised his heavy head, blinked, and focused his attention on a grubby youngster kneeling next to him. The boy peered at him through eyes the color of spring bluebells. One of those beautiful irises veered to the left and made him feel a little queasy. He let his head fall back, but the boy was not easily dissuaded. “Wake up!” He felt another tug on his sleeve and opened his eyes again, squinting against the painful bright sunlight.

  “My mama’s so scared. She says that Ramsey Kinkaid is a no-account thief and murderer. You ain’t with him, are you?” He again pulled at the cloth coat covering the man’s elbow. “She says you ain’t, but I said I weren’t so sure. You lost, mister?”

  When no response was forthcoming, he drew a hawk feather across the man’s cheek. The tip of the feather tickled the sensitive skin beneath his nose. The disoriented man wriggled his mouth and heard a deep giggle.

  “Your mustache looks funny when you do that. Do it again!”

  He did, and the boy, laughing hard now, collapsed into a ball. His mirthful chortling carried and echoed across the hill. The squirrels commenced their chatter atop the pines.

  The man struggled to sit up and get his bearings. His mouth was dry. The child appeared to be a boy of about seven or eight. They sat on the ground on the edge of a rutted road atop a ridge fringed with lodgepole pines. A creek burbled nearby. He blinked, but his eyes remained blurry. He squinted against the injurious sunlight, ruffling through his vest pocket for his dark glasses. They, at least, were intact. Putting them on brought some relief, but he knew he would soon need something stronger to calm the incessant thumping in his head.

  The boy crawled near and once again stared at him. “Those sure are fancy.” He sat back on his heels. “Are they magic speck tackles?”

  “They make my eyes feel better.”

  “Would they make my eye see straight?”

  A dust devil twirled along the two-track road, spiraling and throwing dirt as it moved forward along the deep rut of the grass-choked, rocky trail. The twisting wind sped toward them with a faint whistling sound, and almost as quickly as it had come upon them, the whirlwind dissolved.

  “Reckon not.” A spiderweb dangled from the branches of the nearby pine tree. The delicate threads formed concentric circles, bearing the force of the sudden spinning wind with sturdy grace. The heat of the heavy air intensified the sappy pine smell.

  “Oh. I still say you must be lost. I ain’t seen you round here.”

  “What’s your name, son?” The words came hard through his parched throat. He reached inside his jacket for his flask, but when he held it to his lips, he drank only dry air.

  “Joey. What’s yours?”

  He hesitated a moment, then extended a hand toward the boy. “James,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” the youngster said proudly. “What about you?”

  “I came to stake a claim,” James replied. He must have been doing that. But the truth was he could not remember how he got here. Memories of women, raucous laughter, and a creaking, rickety wagon merged in his clouded brain.

  “Gonna say you’re lost?”

  “I came to stake my claim, ” James repeated, struggling to stand. The movement made him dizzy. He put hands on his knees and bent, his face even with Joey’s.

  “This ain’t your claim. It’s my pa’s.”

  “Who’s your pa?” He rose, putting a hand at his back for support.

  “Oliver Hemming.”

  James brushed the dust from his blue velvet coat. One sleeve was torn. His shirtsleeve had been ripped as well. He winced when he touched his elbow. Dried blood and dirt covered a nasty cut. “Well, then, I guess this ain’t my claim. So I s’pose I’d better admit I’m lost or you won’t be helping me none, will you?”

  Joey smiled. “My pa’s claim has the stream
coming through it. We’ll have gold enough to live like kings one day.”

  “What’d he name it?”

  “The Deadwood Dancer.”

  “In honor of your ma?”

  The child giggled again, holding his sides this time. “She don’t dance.”

  “Joey! You get away from there!”

  They both turned to see a slight woman wielding a Winchester. “You get over here with me.”

  “But Mama, this man ain’t with Ramsey. His name’s James.”

  “That’s fine, then. You get over here.”

  “Obey your ma,” James said. He raised his hands. “I don’t mean you any harm, ma’am.”

  “He’s lost, Ma,” Joey interceded.

  “I see,” she said. “Well, maybe he’d best be lost somewhere else.”

  “Ain’t you gonna give back his guns?”

  Her cheeks turned the color of wild roses. “Joey!” The tone of her voice indicated her deep displeasure. “How did you know about the guns?”

  “You put ’em up on top of the china cupboard. I climbed up on the chair to look. That’s where you always put things you want me to stay away from.”

  Despite this disturbing revelation, she did not waver in her aim with the weapon.

  “I’d be much obliged for the return of my pistols, ma’am.”

  “They’re right purty,” Joey remarked. “White handles. Just like Wild Bill’s in the story we’re readin’.”

  The two adults exchanged a knowing look. Joey’s mother said, “Yes, just like Wild Bill’s.” She examined James a moment longer, and then relented. “I see you’ve hurt your arm. Best come inside and let me tend it. Then I’ll give you your guns and you can be on your way.”

  The log cabin was dark and cool. James removed his sunglasses. The throbbing in his head made thinking difficult. He sat in the chair she offered and gratefully drank water from the tin cup she placed before him. “Thank you, ma’am.” He leaned his forehead on the palm of his hand.