Sins of Motherlode

by Gillian F. Taylor

  ‘Don’t take up law work,’ the marshal said. ‘I just spent half an hour sorting a dispute between two saloons about who was dumping trash in whose yard.’ With that, he went back to his slow writing.

  Jonah passed the time by first writing some details of the ambush in his small notepad. Tucking notepad and pencil back into the pocket of his waistcoat, he started rummaging through the wanted posters. When Tapton gave a sigh of relief that fluttered the ends of his moustache, and closed the log book, Jonah brought two posters over and put them on the desk. The marshal gave him a stare that said he was being most inconvenient, but looked them over anyway.

  ‘Eli Brewster and George Wilde. Thieving, rustling, horse stealing and robbery,’ he said. ‘Were busy around Boulder a few years back and Wilde was identified for certain sure at a robbery in Florence a couple of years back. I ain’t heard mention of them round here.’ Tapton looked at Jonah thoughtfully. ‘You got a general interest in them or you reckon they’re involved in that stagecoach robbery?’

  Jonah nodded. ‘These two and a couple of others have been hanging about Gladstone recently: Brewster’s been bragging on how he assaulted Miss Louise.’

  ‘What about the payroll?’ Tapton asked. ‘That was worth a darn sight more than what passes for that fancy whore’s virtue.’

  Jonah bit back his first reply. ‘No sign of them flashing money about,’ he said. ‘But there’s someone serious about that money not being found.’ He described the ambush, and the heavyset man who’d threatened him.

  Tapton grunted. ‘That’ll be Russian Peter. He’s been around town a few months. Does casual work here and there – anything that needs muscle more than brains. Has a side-line in debt-collecting. He shows up, flexes his muscles and reminds people they need to pay up.’

  ‘And I guess they usually do,’ Jonah said, remembering the sheer size of the man.

  ‘He doesn’t often need to hit anyone, but when he does, he hits them from hell to breakfast.’

  ‘Does he ever get arrested for it?’ Jonah asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘He’s not robbing anyone, just taking what’s owed,’ the marshal pointed out. ‘He don’t go too far; he’s smart enough for that. I’ve locked him up a couple of nights when he’s had a hideful of rotgut,’ he added.

  Jonah nodded. ‘So, if someone’s paid him to put a scare into me, it’s a fair bet it’s someone local who doesn’t want me making enquiries into the robbery.’

  ‘Seems likely,’ Tapton agreed. He thought for a moment. ‘Brewster and his gang aren’t locals, so far as I know. And iffen they robbed the stage, then why aren’t they telling you to butt out for themselves?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jonah admitted. He picked up the wanted dodgers. ‘Mind if I borrow these a couple of days?’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Jonah folded the papers neatly and tucked them in the pocket of his frock coat. Thanking the marshal for his help, he left the office and made his way back to his hotel.

  Robinson stared at his reflection in the mirror, twisting slightly from side to side to see how the light moved across the peacock-blue satin of his new vest. It was a bolder colour than he usually wore, but Jonah had suggested it and there was no doubt that the manhunter had style. Robinson felt uncommonly satisfied with his appearance; he relaxed and smiled, which was more charming than the new clothes or tidy hair. The satisfaction lasted until he met up with Jonah in the lobby of their hotel.

  ‘You look swell,’ Jonah said warmly.

  ‘I believed I did until I saw you just now,’ Robinson replied ruefully.

  Jonah offered a wry smile. ‘Handsome is as handsome does. I won’t look like this forever.’

  ‘Everyone gets old, yeah?’ Robinson said. ‘Unless they die prematurely, and being alive is surely better than dying, even with grey hair, and lines on your face.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Jonah said thoughtfully. ‘In either case, I guess it’s best to make the most of being young and handsome. Come on.’ He led the way out.

  Unsurprisingly, when they entered the temporary dance hall, it was Jonah who drew the attention. Robinson watched with some amusement as women preened themselves and shuffled around, trying to draw attention without looking too obvious, and various men stood straighter and scowled at the manhunter. They had entered as a dance finished and there was a pause as people mingled and returned to friends or took drinks. Jonah looked around with interest, fully aware of the attention he was drawing. It pleased him, as always, but he was more conscious of it somehow. He tried to imagine the reaction if his face were disfigured by Russian Peter and felt a kind of cold nausea. Taking a deep breath, Jonah put the thought to the back of his mind and switched his attention to the present.

  The next dance was soon announced, and Jonah looked around again. There was an immediate rustling among the younger women present as they discreetly jostled for position. Robinson’s eye was drawn to the lamplight sparkling on the jewelry worn by Millard’s wife and the two daughters with him. All three women wore earrings, brooches and rings that glittered with jewels. The statuesque girl giggled and waved coyly in Jonah’s direction; the slender one tossed her brown ringlets and fidgeted with her fan. Jonah flashed a quick smile in their direction, then looked around a moment more before making his choice. The young woman he approached wore a modest dress of dark-green, trimmed with cream lace. She wore no jewelry, only a ribbon topknot in her light-brown hair, and she was one of the plainest women Robinson had ever seen.

  Her eyes widened as Jonah approached and asked her to dance. As he took her arm and led her onto the floor, she gazed at him with wonder, and a dawning look of happiness. Robinson smiled as he watched them. As the dance floor began to fill up, he looked around and realized that every woman present had been claimed for a dance. As was common on the frontier, the men outnumbered the women, and Robinson had been too engrossed in watching his friend, to get a partner himself while he had the chance. With a mental shrug, he headed for the bar.

  An hour later, Robinson found himself talking to the Millards between dances. He’d managed several dances now, and was enjoying the event. After stopping to greet the stage-line owner, Robinson had been engaged in conversation by the daughters, though that conversation kept coming back to his acquaintance with Jonah.

  ‘You say his father is a doctor?’ Opal asked, her green eyes wide. ‘Why that’s just too too wonderful! Isn’t that a gentlemanly profession, Mama?’

  ‘Young Mr. Durrell is not a doctor,’ Mrs. Millard said. ‘A bounty hunter is hardly the kind of man who would be well received in good society.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, but Jonah Durrell has excellent manners and is worthy of anyone’s society.’ Robinson turned to face Mrs. Millard as he defended his friend. As he spoke, a piece of jewelry she wore caught his eye. Robinson paused, and the band leader announced the next dance. Thinking fast, Robinson offered his arm to Mrs. Millard. ‘I would be delighted if you would honour me with the next dance.’

  Mrs. Millard blinked, then smiled kindly. ‘That would be welcome, thank you.’

  Robinson led her onto the dancefloor; they joined a set and according to the called instructions, turned to face one another. As he bowed to her, Robinson took the opportunity to study the gold bar brooch pinned to the front of her gown. It had two small garnets set into it, and he was close enough now to see that the centre was engraved with a picture of mountains.

  With his thoughts occupied by the brooch, Robinson almost missed the cue to begin dancing. Mrs. Millard took charge, grasping his hands to whisk him across the set. The dancing was too active to allow for chatter, but Robinson did manage to plan his next move as he carefully steered Mrs. Millard about the floor. When the dance finished, he escorted her back to her husband, and escaped before the girls could corner him to ask about Jonah again.

  Robinson managed to catch the manhunter at the bar and urged him to step outside for a breath of fresh air. Jonah raised an eyebrow, then followed
his friend.

  ‘I’m hoping that you have a plumb good reason for wanting to come outside while there’s still dancing going on,’ Jonah said, once they were outside.

  Robinson nodded earnestly. ‘Have you made acquaintance with the Millards this evening?’

  ‘I danced with both the daughters,’ Jonah replied. ‘The older one is given to baby talk, and the second one was sweet to me but sounded like she was raised on sour milk when she talked about her sister. Why, do you want advice on courting them?’ He grinned wryly.

  Robinson shook his head. ‘Mrs. Millard is wearing a brooch just like the one Miss Louise had that was stolen by the bandits.’

  The humour dropped from Jonah’s face. ‘You’re sure?’

  Robinson fished out his notebook and flipped through it. ‘I wrote down her description of it, yeah? A gold bar brooch with a garnet at either end, and mountains engraved between.’

  ‘It could be a coincidence,’ Jonah said carefully. ‘There must have been more than one made like that.’

  Robinson nodded. ‘Do we know where Miss Louise got her brooch?’

  ‘She said it was given to her by a gentleman she knew in Independence, Kansas. The jewelry store in Silverton told me they’d had nothing that matched the description I gave. Have the Millards operated in or near Independence?’

  Robinson consulted his notebook again. ‘No. They came from Pennsylvania originally. Millard set up his first stage-line in Springfield, Missouri. A few years later he moved to Denver, then Boulder, then Cañon City for two years before settling here.’

  ‘Settling is not what they seem to do,’ Jonah remarked dryly. ‘We need to find out when she got it; if it was before the stagecoach robbery, then it is just a coincidence.’

  ‘You need to talk to her,’ Robinson said. ‘Ask her to waltz and then charm her so she answers your questions and doesn’t even recall what you talked about, but only has the memory of your smile.’

  ‘Are you my pimp now?’ Jonah asked, half-indignant. ‘Exploiting my looks for gain? There’s more to me than being damned good-looking,’ he added with some feeling.

  ‘Of course there is,’ Robinson said sincerely. ‘But it’s for a good cause, to which you have already applied intelligence and courage, yeah? And you’re much better at charming women than I am so you’ll get the task done more efficiently.’

  Jonah relaxed a little and smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .’ He gestured vaguely by way of explanation, then dismissed the subject. ‘I’ll go sacrifice my self-worth to the necessity of getting information from Mrs. Millard.’

  ‘Good. I’ll sacrifice my toes to the feet of Miss Pearl in case she can offer more information about the family as we dance.’

  ‘Miss Opal’s older; she might know more.’

  Robinson shuddered. ‘As a newspaperman, I pride myself on the correct and clear use of the English language. It hurts my soul to hear Miss Opal speak of this “too-too exciting lickle dance”.’ He mimicked her baby talk in a high-pitched voice.

  Jonah laughed outright. ‘I’ll tell Jenny to have her girls only ever speak like that to you.’ And dodged aside as Robinson tried to thump him on the shoulder.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Late the following morning, the two men met with Miss Jenny in her office.

  ‘Her brooch was exactly like Louise’s?’ she queried, looking from one to the other.

  ‘I must admit that although I saw Miss Louise wearing her brooch, I didn’t pay too much attention to it,’ Robinson said. ‘Therefore, I cannot swear to the exact likeness, but Mrs. Millard’s brooch, which I did observe with care, matched the description that Miss Louise gave of hers, yeah?’

  ‘Mrs. Millard told me that her husband gave her her brooch four days ago,’ Jonah said.

  ‘That would be when he last came here,’ Jenny said immediately. ‘The bribe she extracts for allowing him to indulge his pleasures elsewhere.’

  ‘So, she definitely got her brooch after the robbery,’ Jonah said, thinking aloud. ‘I asked in the jeweler’s shop in Silverton, and they hadn’t sold anything similar in the last few months, certainly not since the Millards arrived in the area. So, he didn’t buy it locally.’

  ‘Could Millard have gone to Durango or Denver to buy it?’ Robinson asked.

  Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s been coming here pretty regularly, almost since they arrived. I don’t think he’s been away long enough to travel as far as Durango or Montrose, let alone Denver.’

  ‘It seems Millard can’t have bought the brooch since moving to Motherlode. He could have purchased it before they relocated and simply not given it to his wife until now, but that does seem unlikely, as it was not given for a special occasion, like a birthday,’ Robinson said. ‘It appears he acquired a brooch just like Louise’s recently, but not from a store.’

  ‘It could have been a private trade: he took it in payment for a debt, maybe?’ Jenny said doubtfully.

  ‘That’s possible,’ Jonah agreed. ‘But it’s also possible that it is Louise’s brooch, stolen during the stage robbery. The robbery’s main target was the payroll and you’re sure that the robbers knew it was there, aren’t you?’ he asked Robinson.

  ‘As sure as I’m sitting here,’ the newspaperman replied.

  ‘The only people who knew the payroll would be on that stage were the bank, the mine and the stage company,’ Jonah said. ‘We never found any sign of anyone from the mine who might have been involved. Millard owns the stage company and he’s recently gotten hold of a brooch just like one that was stolen in the robbery. What’s more, someone in this town wants me to stop looking into the robbery, and hired Russian Peter to put a scare into me,’ he added with some feeling.

  ‘Well, Millard didn’t hold up the stage himself, so if he’s involved, he must have tipped off the robbers,’ Jenny said.

  Robinson turned to Jonah. ‘You identified two of the outlaws, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sure.’ Jonah produced the two wanted notices from the pocket of his frock coat and handed them over. ‘Here you are.’

  After studying them for a minute, Robinson took out his notebook and flipped through it. His bony face was transformed with a smile as he read the squiggles of shorthand. ‘I thought so.’ He jabbed a finger at one of the notices. ‘Both men were involved in a stage robbery near Boulder in ’71. Millard was operating his stage line out of Boulder back then.’

  ‘Was it his stage that was robbed?’ Jenny asked eagerly, leaning to see the notice.

  ‘That information isn’t supplied, though I can check it,’ Robinson admitted. ‘But it does seem a coincidence, yeah? I thought it a little odd that they seemed to move so often; it surely doesn’t make sense to get a business running, and then move to a new city a couple of years later and start over again.’

  ‘People do that if their business is failing,’ Jenny pointed out.

  ‘But the Millards aren’t struggling,’ Robinson pointed out. ‘Look at all the jewelry they wear. And it’s a complete set up for the stagecoach business he has, with a carpenter shop and harness shop for repairs, and a . . . oh!’ he exclaimed. ‘There was a large man working in the yard when I went to interview Millard. I remember his face and the way he looked at me. I think he was Russian Peter, yeah?’ He was talking faster and more excitedly. ‘All the moves make sense if Millard is arranging for his stages to be robbed. He pulls it off two or three times in one location, then moves somewhere else and does it again there, then moves again before anyone sees a pattern forming.’

  ‘Two payroll attacks over a couple of years wouldn’t look too suspicious,’ Jonah agreed. ‘But if it happened more often, or kept happening to the same line, folks might start to wondering.’

  ‘At the very least, they’d think the line was unlucky, and stop using it,’ Jenny said.

  ‘This is outside of Marshal Tapton’s jurisdiction, I believe,’ Robinson said, looking at Jonah for confirmation. ‘Should we inform the local s
heriff of our suspicions?’

  Jonah shook his head. ‘That’s all we got, suspicions. There’s a mighty lot of coincidences here – the brooch, Russian Peter, those outlaws attacking stage lines twice,’ he said, gesturing at the wanted posters. ‘And we don’t even know for sure if it was Millard’s line they attacked in Boulder. But it’s all circumstantial.’

  Robinson flopped back untidily in his chair. ‘You’re correct,’ he admitted.

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Jenny fiddled with her shawl; Jonah frowned and flexed his fingers. Robinson lifted a hand and inspected his fingernails.

  ‘Our theory only works if Millard and the outlaws are working together,’ Robinson said slowly, still staring at his nails as he thought. ‘We need a way of showing that Millard is passing information to them, yeah?’ He absently began chewing on a hangnail.

  Jonah watched him with a pained expression. ‘It can’t be another payroll robbery. The bank and the mine will know when the next payroll’s due, so that’s two other possible sources for the outlaws’ information. It doesn’t narrow it down to Millard.’ He extracted a small pair of folding scissors from a pocket, opened them and passed them to Robinson.

  Robinson studied him a moment, took one more nibble on the hangnail, then picked up the scissors to tackle it: Jonah relaxed. Jenny hid a smile, and resisted the temptation to start chewing on one of her own nails. Looking at her hands, the simple garnet ring she wore gave her an idea.

  ‘We need a bait that will lure Millard specifically, and something he’s greedy for.’ Jenny smiled. ‘Jewels.’

  The men looked at one another.

  ‘He’s sure got a thing about jewels,’ Jonah agreed.

  ‘Do we have a quantity of jewels to be the bait?’ Robinson asked.

  ‘We don’t need a casket of jewels,’ Jenny pointed out. ‘He just has to believe that there is one on his stagecoach. When the outlaws attack, all they find is people armed and waiting.’