Ironhorse

by Robert B. Parker

“Jenny say which Tall Water Falls operator?”

  “Ernest,” I said. “Ernest C.”

  Jimmy John looked at me and nodded very slowly.

  “The ransom note spelled out the demands, which provided us a radius,” Virgil said.

  Jimmy John looked off toward the river, thinking before he responded.

  “A radius?” Jimmy John said. “From where an exchange would take place?”

  “That’s right,” Virgil said. “Part of the exchange, anyway.”

  “The money part?” Jimmy John said.

  Virgil nodded and pointed up the track.

  “The last pass switch in the south mountain pass,” Virgil said. “Want the ransom strapped on a pack mule.”

  “Mule takes it from the pass switch to the mines?”

  “That’s right,” Virgil said.

  “Smart,” Jimmy John said.

  Jimmy John turned back to his horse, opened the saddlebag, and pulled out a wide leather-bound book.

  “Tough route up through,” Jimmy John said. “Hard to follow a mule.”

  “Know any arrieros,” Virgil said. “Any muleteers operating in these parts?”

  “Don’t,” Jimmy John said. “There were many of them years ago. All the mines had working mules when they were operating, but I’ve not seen any of them, not for a while.”

  Jimmy John moved toward us and opened the book he got from his bag. He turned the pages until he found what he was looking for. He got down on one knee with the book opened up for us to see.

  “Here are the mining camps,” Jimmy John said, pointing to a spot on the page of the book. “Or what used to be the camps. Here is the main telegraph line along the rail, and this here is the south pass switch you are talking about. The line runs through this valley and across the top through here, connecting to the mines here.”

  “Did all the mines connect to the telegraph line?” I asked.

  “They did when they were operational. They had just one operator that traveled between them with the relay, key, and sounder. I took care of the main line only. Each mine had a station, though. When one station was not operating, that station had a cutout that kept the telegraph loop closed.”

  “Did they just close the cutout when they shut down operations?” Virgil asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Is there any way to determine if one of these telegraph lines is still operable?”

  “A man should be able to do that,” Jimmy John said. “Need to test the current, one by one, of each line that drops into the camps to determine who is connected and who is not.”

  Jimmy John stood, turned back to his bay, and returned the book to the saddlebag.

  “You being that man,” Virgil said.

  Jimmy John looked back to Virgil as he tied the flap on his saddlebag.

  “Nobody else,” Jimmy John said.

  “We got the better part of the day to look for them,” Virgil said.

  “How long a ride do you figure it is to the pass from here?”

  Jimmy John turned back to face Virgil. “The road into the mines runs to Division City, not toward the tracks. Riding along the rail would take three and a half, four hours,” he said. “I have a short cut, get us there in two and a half. But it will take time to check each line.”

  “You can do this?” Virgil asked.

  Jimmy John looked at Berkeley, me, and back to Virgil. “I can.”

  “Could get tricky,” Virgil said.

  “It could,” he said, nodding his sombrero slightly, “or it will?”

  “Most likely will.”

  “Most things do.”

  “They do,” Virgil said.

  “Take a bad lot to hold women for money.”

  “They are.”

  “How many?”

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said. “A few, maybe a few more.” Virgil nodded to the bow and arrows packed on the side of Jimmy John’s bay. “You shot anything besides rabbits with that stick ’n string?”

  “Man does what a man has to do,” Jimmy John said.

  “You packing anything with a primer?”

  Jimmy John pulled back the flap of his denim coat, revealing a shoulder-high holster with a pearl-handled pistol sticking out.

  “Not afraid of using that?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Jimmy John said.

  “So you will do it?”

  “Sure,” Jimmy John said. “Can’t have somebody stealing wire service, it just wouldn’t be right.”

  90

  WE LOWERED THE ramp from the stock car and one by one got the horses out. We walked them around in slow figure eights across an open patch of grass covering the middle ground of the wye track before walking them to the river so they could drink. We gave them some hay. Then some feed. After they got comfortable and situated we got them saddled. Uncle Ted served us up some coffee he brewed over a patch of coals inside the firebox, and we took off.

  Virgil figured we’d make a pass through the town of Crystal Creek on our way out. He wanted to be sure we didn’t see any sign of the getaway horses, or Gobble Greene’s dun that Lassiter absconded with. Or anything in general that might be out of the ordinary before we set out for the camps.

  Virgil, Berkeley, Jimmy John, and I walked the horses through Crystal Creek as the town was waking up. I pulled the extra horse, which had the money packed on its back inside an oilcloth bedroll, tied behind the cantle. Crystal Creek was a sleepy little place, bigger than Standley Station but not by much. We saw only a few folks moving about as we walked down the short street. We passed through a bunch of chickens picking over dried grass. A big Cochin rooster with a bright red comb perched on a short gate watched as we passed by. When we got to the end of the street and it was obvious there was nothing that registered out of place, Virgil turned to Jimmy John.

  “Let’s get.”

  Without a word, and without the benefit of the stirrup, Jimmy John swung up on his horse and was on the move.

  “That was an unnecessary display of”—Berkeley grunted as he climbed slowly into the saddle—“something, don’t you think?”

  Virgil grinned a bit.

  We mounted up and trailed Jimmy John north out of town toward a tall grass meadow surrounded by a wall of loblolly pines.

  At the edge of the meadow Jimmy John entered the forest between two huge pines and we followed. The sun slanted through the trees making what was left of the morning dew on the pine-needle floor shine a little.

  We followed a deer trail paralleling the river for close to an hour and crossed the river at a wide beaver ford and started up a steep grade on the other side. When we got to the top of the high ridge, Jimmy John stopped and turned back, looking at us. When we all were close to him, he pointed down. A hazy fog was slowly crawling up through the valley below.

  “There is the rail,” Jimmy John said.

  A quarter-mile away the rail cut through the valley along where the fog was coming in.

  “The south pass switch is just down there,” Jimmy John said, pointing, “and Tall Water Falls is just around the other side of that mountain over there.”

  He turned and pointed to the west.

  “If it were clear you could see Division City over there. The mines are just ahead, beyond that next rise. It will take us an hour to get over there, and just on the other side is the telegraph line.”

  “So we’ll be coming down on top of them?” I asked. “Behind the mining camps?”

  “We will. The mines are all lined up side by side on a straight road about a quarter of a mile apart. The wire is above them on this side. The mining camps and the coal road are on the other side, below. That is how the mines shipped out what they’d harvested, on that road. The coal was loaded onto big wagons and shipped west to Division City.” Jimmy John pulled at some pine needles from a branch that lay just in reach. He looked up and back behind us. “It’s going to get bad.”

  Jimmy John moved on, and we followed.

 
We rode down the rocky north face, and when we got to the bottom we crossed a stream lined with sumac. When we started back up the other side, the fog was starting to get heavier.

  I rode just behind Jimmy John as we worked our way through a forest of cypress, elm, and cedar. Jimmy John looked back to me. We rode a ways.

  “Little Jenny was my fiancée,” Jimmy John said.

  Jimmy John offered a slight glance back to me.

  “That right?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Silence.

  “Well, she is a lovely young lady,” I said. “Smart, too.”

  Jimmy John nudged the bay around a wide evergreen.

  We rode in silence for a while longer. I looked back to Virgil and Berkeley, who were out of earshot. I could see their horses clearly but their top half was hazy with fog.

  “At one time,” Jimmy John said. “Been a while now. Years. We had a future in front of us.”

  Silence. We rode a bit farther.

  “Things change,” he said.

  “They do,” I said.

  We skirted west around a watery rock bluff covered with wax myrtle and yellow pimpernel, and when we got to the other side, two whitetails, a buck and a doe, scooted out of some thickets to our right. They leaped once, twice, and with the third leap they were out of sight.

  We rode for a while longer before Jimmy John stopped and looked back to Virgil and Berkeley. We waited, and as soon as they were close, he spoke.

  “Just up here a ways,” Jimmy John said, pointing, “is the top of this rise, and just on the other side is the telegraph line. That way”—he pointed to the west—“is the farthest of the mines and the road out to Division City. Each operation has a pole above with a service line dropping down below to the mine offices. The only way to determine if the line is active or not is to check at the top of each pole that drops into each of the separate camps.”

  “How far down is each camp from where you check the line?” Virgil asked.

  “About a quarter of a mile,” Jimmy John said, “give or take. When we get to the top of this rise up ahead here, we’ll follow the line to the west. Start there and work our way back toward the track, toward the main line.”

  “How much time is needed to get down to the pass switch from up here where the line runs?” Virgil said.

  “Well, like I said, there is no road past the east end mine. It’s not a real long ride, but it’s rough and it takes longer than the way we rode in. There is a long rock bluff between the lines and the track we have to go around.”

  I looked to Virgil.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Hence the mule,” I said.

  91

  THE TELEGRAPH POLES were creosote-soaked oak and stood more than twenty feet tall. Some were crooked and some were fairly straight. Jimmy John moved ahead a ways, and we rode under the line for about twenty minutes, heading west.

  Berkeley nudged his horse up near me.

  “This line is not that old,” Berkeley said.

  I looked up overhead through the growing mist as we rode. I could see the line and the insulators at the top of the poles. They did look new, and the telegraph wire that ran between the poles was taut and didn’t appear to be much weathered.

  “The mines weren’t up here that long,” Berkeley said. “They just moved south when the rail to Denison came to Half Moon last year. Move more coal faster. Fatter pay. Bigger business south to Texas.”

  “Texas,” I said.

  “Yes, great big Texas.”

  “That it is . . .”

  “Taller grass, fatter cattle . . .” Berkeley said.

  When we got to the farthest west section of the line, Jimmy John turned his bay around to face Virgil, who was riding in front of Berkeley and me. Virgil stopped Cortez, and we stopped behind Virgil.

  “I will start here and work my way back,” Jimmy John said, pointing to the pole just behind him.

  Virgil had both of his hands draped over the horn of his saddle, looking up at the pole.

  “If I find one of the lines is active, what will you do?” Jimmy John said.

  “We’ll figure us a plan and get right in the middle of it,” Virgil said.

  Jimmy John just looked at Virgil for a moment and offered a short nod. He swiveled his bay around, moved on down the line, and stopped close to the last pole. Jimmy John turned sideways in his saddle and faced the pole. He untied one of the pole climbing spikes from his saddle and slipped it under the sole of his boot. The bay stood stock-still as Jimmy John wedged his boot, pushing the spikes underneath it into the pole, and fixed the leather straps of the spike tight over the top of his boot. After he got one spike on, he strapped on the other. He pulled a wide braided belt with clasps on each end from his saddlebag. He pulled back his coat and clipped the belt to metal rings that were attached to his trouser belt on each side of his hip. This was most certainly a routine the horse and rider were accustomed to doing. He opened another bag and took out a leather-covered box with a strap.

  “What is that box?” Berkeley asked.

  “Galvanometer,” Jimmy John said as he lifted his sombrero, slid the strap of the box over his head, and replaced his hat.

  Berkeley looked at me.

  “Measures the flow of the electric charge on the wire,” Jimmy John said as he pointed up to the telegraph line. “Tells me who is home and who is not.”

  Jimmy John placed first one foot followed by his other foot on each side of the pole. He unfastened one side of the belt, passed it around the pole, and refastened it to the metal loop on his trouser belt. Without saying another word, he lifted himself off the saddle and was on the pole.

  With the aid of the belt we watched Jimmy John climb swiftly up.

  “I don’t think that boy is altogether normal,” Berkeley said.

  When Jimmy John got up to the wire, he leaned back into the braided belt like he was sitting in a comfortable armchair and opened the leather-covered box that was hanging from his neck. From the box he took out two wires with what appeared to be brass clamps on each end. He connected the two wires to the telegraph line, one on the line going in and one on the line coming out, and looked at the box in his hand. He wiggled the wires connected on the line, making sure he had good contact, and looked at the box again. He wiggled the wires again. Then he looked down to us and shook his head.

  “Nope,” he said. “Nothing on this one.”

  Jimmy John undid the brass connectors from the wire and climbed down the pole. Within a moment he was sitting back sideways in his saddle aboard his trusty bay, which had not moved one step.

  Jimmy John disconnected one side of the belt from his hip and pulled it around, freeing it from the post. He swung one leg over the saddle, straddling the bay, and with his spiked boots hanging free of the stirrups he moved the bay at a quick pace down the line and we followed.

  By the time Jimmy John had checked the next line that dropped into the second camp, the fog was so thick we could barely see him at the top of the pole.

  He checked three more lines and found nothing, and after he climbed down from the fourth pole, the fog that had turned into a mist, then finally became a steady drizzle.

  The wire checking took some time. It was getting on in the afternoon by the time we got to the halfway point and Jimmy John got to the top of the fifth pole. I figured if Jimmy John’s judgment of distance to the pass switch was correct and if we were going to deliver the wherewithal to the mule before sundown, we didn’t have too much time left. I pulled out my watch and it was half past three. I turned to Virgil, and before I could say anything Jimmy John said, “Hombres?”

  We looked up to Jimmy John.

  “This hobby horse has a hickory dick,” he said.

  92

  THE AIR WAS thick, and our sound was contained. The volume of our voices and movement didn’t carry too much. Being up on the wooded ridge in the dense wet haze was like being inside a big tent with a low ceiling. The drizzle thinned out the f
og some, but our visibility was still limited to not more than about forty feet.

  “What are you thinking, Virgil?” Berkeley said.

  Virgil turned and spoke to Jimmy John: “You have any idea what the lay of the land is with the mining camp?”

  “Been a while since I was in any of these camps, but the layout’s pretty much the same.”

  “Being?” Virgil said.

  “The mining takes place across the road.”

  “At the bottom of this rise here?” I asked.

  Jimmy John nodded. “Don’t remember this particular camp exactly, but I think the miners had bunk quarters that were along the road.”

  “This side or the other?” Virgil asked.

  “On this side,” Jimmy John said. “Mess hut, too.”

  “Tents?” I asked.

  “Yes, wood walls, canvas roof,” Jimmy John said, “makeshift as they were, I’d say more than likely they’re not there anymore, but don’t know.”

  “What about the offices?” Virgil asked.

  “Across the road were the mining offices. Shacks really, and tool sheds. Best I can remember.”

  “Good and downhill here?” Virgil asked.

  “Steep, you mean?” Jimmy John asked.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Is,” Jimmy John said.

  “Don’t want to ride in there,” Virgil said.

  “Don’t want to leave our horses uphill, either,” I said.

  “No, we don’t,” Virgil said.

  “That road down there. The way out is that way, west, toward Division City, right?” Virgil asked Jimmy John.

  “It is.”

  “What does the road do in this direction,” Virgil said, pointing east.

  “It dead-ends,” Jimmy John said.

  “And this ridge we are on here,” Virgil said, pointing east. “Where these telegraph posts are?”

  “If we stayed on this ridge we are on here,” Jimmy John said, “following the poles, it gradually drops to the road. There are two more mines before the road. The telegraph line crosses the road there, and there are three small mines on the other side of the road, but the road itself just dead-ends there.”