“There is one thing, boss, we need to fill the wagons quickly,” Rawlings said. “I don’t know how much longer the overhang will hold up, if you catch my drift. It’s already dangerously undercut.”
“At your present pace, how long before the entire greenstone seam is removed?” Clouston said, worry suddenly niggling him.
“Three, four weeks if the entire hill doesn’t come down before then.”
“We have a thousand Chinese men at the diggings, but we obviously need to increase the workforce. Get the women, children, old people, anyone who can use a pick, shovel, or load wagons.”
Rawlings did a quick calculation and said, “That takes in everybody, say three thousand people. But if that cliff comes down . . .”
“Do you really care, Rawlings?” Clouston said.
“No, can’t say as I do.”
“Nor do I. Get them to work and shoot those who won’t. One other thing, I want ten, not six, mounted men on guard with orders to shoot to kill. If you need to, step over Chinese bodies to get my wagons to the railhead.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Coming up from the boom town of Medicine Bow, Deputy United States Marshal Saturday Brown thought of the Union Pacific smoking-car cushions with nostalgic longing as he rode south of the Rattlesnake Hills in a roaring rain.
His ass hurt from the McClellan saddle, designed to favor the horse, not the rider, and his rheumatisms punished him. At fifty-five, he knew he was too old for manhunts, but the law was stretched thin, and the army, their hands full with resettling Indians, had no interest in helping the civil authority.
In fact, Brown wasn’t really on a manhunt; he was chasing wild rumors that had percolated down the southern trails as far as Medicine Bow and had ousted him from his cozy berth as the resident law and much sought-after raconteur.
A gray-haired man of medium height and build, he didn’t look like much, but Saturday Brown had stories to tell. In the course of a law enforcement career that spanned more than three decades, protecting himself and stopping fleeing felons, he’d killed twenty-eight men. Not one of them troubled his conscience or disturbed his sleep o’ nights. A lifelong bachelor, he lived for his work; yet he’d never gained a reputation as a fast gun or found fame as a lawman, and he’d sought neither.
Now in the twilight of his career, the marshal contemplated retirement and a move to Detroit where his younger sister had a hat shop and a spare bedroom.
A man much addicted to a tobacco habit he’d picked up from Texas cowboys, Brown pulled his horse into the shelter of cottonwoods that lined a creek bank and with the steady hands of the gun-skilled built himself a cigarette. He smoked and gloomily stared out at the rain that moved in the wind like a glass curtain.
“It’s an easy assignment, Sat,” U.S. Marshal Cliff Miles had told him. “An afternoon’s ride in the park. Gold is a hard-kept secret so believe me all you’ll find in the Rattlesnake Hills are rattlesnakes. It’s wide-open country with just one quiet town close by where the folks go to church on Sunday and the saloon serves cake and ice cream. You head up there, take a quick look around, then come back to Medicine Bow, make your report, and put your feet up.”
“The word around this town is—”
“Rumor, Sat. And most times rumor is a kinder word for a damned lie. Men killed over a gold strike, drums beating in the middle of the night, and a crazy doctor leading a band of desperadoes.” Miles smiled, his brown eyes bright with sincerity. “I’ve even heard a big windy that Pete Caradas is there, him and that other feller they call the Town Tamer—”
“Shawn O’Brien,” Brown said.
“Yeah, him. What’s a big-time hired gun and a millionaire’s son doing in a burg on the edge of the civilized world. Huh? Answer me that.”
“Well, it don’t seem likely,” Brown said.
“Damn right it don’t seem likely,” Miles said.
“Cliff, them hills are a fair piece, maybe eighty miles,” Brown said. “I’m getting too old to sit on a hoss for that long.”
Miles patted Brown on the shoulder and said, “You can do it, Deputy.”
And that had signified that his talking was done.
Saturday Brown had started on his second cigarette, rain staining the shoulders of his slicker, when he squinted his brown eyes and stared into distance. He was a long-sighted man who needed spectacles to read a newspaper. A rider emerged through the downpour angling to the west of him into rolling brush country.
Brown did some quick thinking.
No God-fearing white man would ride out on such a day under a sky as black as mortal sin. This wilderness was owlhoot country, filled with hardcases on the scout, and Brown saw his chance to return to Medicine Bow. If, as he suspected, the rider was a wanted man, he’d arrest him and take him back and there would be no wild goose chase into empty hills.
Brown flicked his cigarette butt into the rain, slid a Winchester from the boot under his knee, and kicked his horse into motion. He moved southwest crossing rolling country where prickly pear and bitterroot thrived among the sagebrush. The rider hadn’t seen him yet. The man’s head was lowered against the onslaught of the rain and he kept his horse to a steady walk. But every now and then he checked his back trail, and on the last of those occasions he caught sight of Saturday Brown. The man immediately kicked his horse into a chaps-flapping run and lashed the animal with the reins.
Brown was not close enough to shout, but he drew rein and snapped off a quick shot. His intention to put a warning round across the rider’s bow, but he badly misjudged the speed of the galloping horse and his bullet smacked into the animal’s shoulder.
The horse staggered, then cartwheeled into the wet ground, throwing the rider over its head. The man rolled clear of his fallen mount and sprang to his feet, hand clawing for the gun under his slicker.
Brown drew rein and yelled, “Stop that!”
The rider, a youngish man who’d lost his hat in the horse wreck, had a shock of bright red hair and a temper to match. He shouted an angry obscenity at Brown and his right hand come out from under the slicker with a hammer-back Colt.
It was his death warrant.
Brown triggered the Winchester and punched a hole in the redhead’s chest. The man took a step back, cursing, and tried to level his revolver. Brown’s second shot hit him low in the belly and the redhead was done. The Colt dropped from his fingers and he followed it to the ground.
Brown climbed stiffly out of the saddle and stepped to the dying man who said, “Why did you bushwhack me?” There was blood in his mouth and it trickled down his chin.
“I took ye fer an outlaw,” Brown said. “Figgered that’s why you ran.”
“I ain’t an outlaw,” the man said. “I am . . . I was a puncher for the Four Ace ranch and I wanted to put a power of git between me and them Rattlesnake Hills.” The man coughed up black blood. “Now I ain’t anything but dead.”
“Hell, boy, I’m sorry,” Brown said. “I shot you under false pretenses.” He took his badge from his shirt pocket and pinned it on his chest. “I’m a Deputy U.S. Marshal and right now I’m real sorry for what I done.”
“Well,” the puncher said, “I’ve never been partial to lawmen. Robbed me a general store one time and spent three years in Lansing mining coal. Damn the law.”
Brown took a knee beside the man. “Son, your time is short and you best make your peace with God. Don’t die with a cuss on your lips.”
The puncher’s bloody hand grabbed Brown by the front of his shirt. “Say a prayer for me,” he said.
Brown took off his hat and held it above the dying man’s face to shield him from the rain. “Sing this with me and the gates of Heaven will surely open wide for you, even though you’re a general store robber and a bounder.”
The deputy tilted back his head and in a powerful but tuneless baritone sang . . .
“There’s a land that’s fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar.
For the
Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.”
Then louder, warming to his task, Brown launched into the chorus . . .
“In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”
“Sing it, boy,” Brown said. “Lift your voice . . .” He trailed off, aware that he talked to a dead man. After he replaced his hat, he said, “I don’t know your name, feller, but I’m right sorry that I shot you by mistake. I’ll make things right an’ see that you’re planted decent.”
Despite the rheumatisms and a bad back from years of long riding, Brown easily manhandled the dead puncher across the back of his bronc. Besides, the man was a wiry little feller, made only two ounces heavier by lead.
The deputy marshal regained his own saddle and sat head bowed in the rain for long moments. The man had said he was fleeing the Rattlesnake Hills. Did that mean there was a grain of truth in the rumors concerning the place? He should have questioned the man when he’d had the chance, but it didn’t seem hardly polite after shooting him over a slight misunderstanding.
Brown glanced up at the leaden sky and then his shoulders slumped and he sighed loud and long. He was too softhearted. That had always been his trouble.
Saturday Brown picked up the wagon road that led to Broken Bridle and rode into town under a clear sky where a crescent moon horned aside the first stars. Mud lay in the street to a depth of four inches, and the marshal’s high-stepping Morgan made a splashy show of it. Brown drew rein when he spotted two men smoking on the front porch of the hotel.
“Howdy, boys,” he said. “Is there a lawman in this burg?” he asked.
“You could call it that,” Hamp Sedley said. “Some don’t.”
“What do you have there, stranger?” Shawn O’Brien said.
“Feller I shot by mistake,” Brown said. “I took him fer a bandit.”
“No shortage of them around this neck of the woods,” Sedley said.
Brown opened his slicker and showed his badge. “Name’s Saturday Brown. I’m a Deputy United States Marshal. Came up from Medicine Bow and regret every minute of it.”
“So does the ranny on the yellow mustang,” Sedley said.
“Afore he passed away, he told me he was a puncher, worked for the Four Ace ranch. Said he was hightailing it away from the Rattlesnake Hills. That was after I shot him, like.”
“He was a wise man, at least until he met you,” Sedley said. “Name’s Hamp Sedley, a knight of the green baize. This handsome feller here is Shawn O’Brien. He’s a mick, but we don’t hold that against him.”
“Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” Brown said, touching his hat. “Heard of you, O’Brien. Your pa owns half the New Mexico Territory and they call you the Town Tamer.” He looked along the muddy street and the deserted boardwalks and said, “Well, seems like you sure tamed this burg.”
“This town doesn’t need taming, Marshal,” Shawn said. “It needs saving.”
Perhaps made restless by the near proximity of the dead man, the Morgan restlessly pawed at the street, sending up great gobs of mud.
Brown said, “I heard all the rumors. That’s why I’m here.”
Hamp Sedley said, “No rumors, Marshal. You just rode into hell.”
“Been there afore, boys,” Brown said. “Now where’s that law dog?”
“Down the street a ways on the left,” Shawn said.
“Don’t expect much,” Sedley said.
Brown touched his hat again, then kneed his horse into motion. “See you boys around,” he said. He stopped again. “I plan to bury this poor feller tomorrow morning. It would be real neighborly of you to come pay your respects to another white man.”
“I don’t think—”
Shawn elbowed Sedley into silence, then said, “We’ll be there, Marshal.”
“I’m beholden,” Brown said.
After the lawman rode away, Sedley said, “Kind of long in the tooth for a peace officer.”
“Maybe, but he’s killed more than his share,” Shawn said.
“How do you know?”
“I read it in his eyes,” Shawn said.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Name’s Deputy United States Marshal Saturday Brown and I got me a dead man outside.”
Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy had gotten up from his coat at the back of the office to answer Brown’s pounding, and he looked tousled, his weak eyes blinking behind his glasses.
“What happened to him?” he said.
“My official report will say that I shot him in error, that I mistakenly took him fer a lawbreaker. Mistakes like that can cost a man his pension.”
“What’s the deceased’s name?”
“I don’t know. Afore he died he said he’d been working for the Four Ace ranch, said he wanted to put a heap of git between him and the Rattlesnake Hills. That’s all I know about him.”
“We all want to put a heap of git between us and those hills,” Purdy said. “This town has already lost a third of its citizens.”
“I figgered something like that. The wagon road was mighty churned up. Take a lot of wheels to do that.”
“I reckon some of that was caused by Thomas Clouston’s ore wagons. Seems he has more arriving every day.”
“By nature, I’m a drinking man, Sheriff,” Brown said. “You got any whiskey to wet my pipe, like?”
Purdy opened his desk drawer and produced a bottle of Old Crow and a couple of glasses. “Take a seat, Marshal,” he said.
“Don’t you want to see the dead man?” Brown said, his eyes measuring the young lawman. “Maybe you can put a name to him.”
“You sure he’s dead?” Purdy said.
“When I shoot a man that’s the way he usually ends up.”
“Well then he can wait.”
Brown watched Purdy pour the whiskey, picked up his glass, then said, “All right, Sheriff, tell me what’s going on with this town. I want to hear everything, so start at the beginning.”
“It will be long in the telling,” Purdy said.
“The night is young,” Brown said. “It ain’t really since it’s past my bedtime, but I’m listening.”
After many stops and starts and pointed questions from Saturday Brown, Purdy told the story of Clouston’s arrival in the Rattlesnake Hills and the tragic effort of the men of Broken Bridle to oust him from his stronghold. He also mentioned his college education and the kidnap of his betrothed by Burt Becker.
It took Brown a while to answer, as he mulled over what Purdy had just told him. Then he said, “Clouston’s a doctor, you say?”
“Yes. A psychiatrist.”
“I’ve heard o’ them. Never had much need for one though,” Brown said. He shoved his empty glass across the desk. “Fill that, son,” he said.
Glass in hand, the marshal said, “Clouston ain’t stupid. He’ll attack this town all right, but only when the Chinese dig the gold out of the ground.”
“I don’t catch your drift, Marshal,” Purdy said. “I told you, Clouston fears a gold rush.”
“Hell, you already said a third of the folks in this town have lit a shuck. Don’t you think that the word is already out that there’s gold in the Rattlesnake Hills? He’ll work the Chinese to death, get all the gold he can in the shortest possible time, and then attack this burg. And do you know why?”
“No, why?”
“For a college boy you ain’t too smart, are you, son?” Before Purdy could answer, Brown said, “He’ll cut down on the number of shares. If Clouston has a score of men, he knows he’ll lose half of them in an attack on Broken Bridle, especially with three big-name draw fighters in town. That’s ten less fingers in the pie. Now do you catch my drift?”
“Pete Caradas won’t fight for this town and neither will Burt Becker,” Purdy said. “O’Brien might, but then, who knows?”
“What about you, Sheriff ?” Brow
n said. “Will you fight?”
“I have no choice.”
“You can run.”
“I won’t do that. How about you, Marshal?” Purdy said. He looked small and insignificant, blinking behind his round glasses, about as potent and dangerous as the .32 on his desk.
“I’ll see this out,” Brown said. “It’s my job.” He smiled. “This Clouston feller has never had to deal with the likes of Saturday Brown afore.”
The marshal rose to his feet. “The gambling man with Shawn O’Brien says you ain’t much, Sheriff.”
“And what do you say?” Purdy asked.
“I don’t think you’re much, either,” Brown said. Then, “There’s a dead man outside.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Purdy said. He sounded tired, defeated.
“I’ll want his hoss an’ traps,” Brown said.
Purdy nodded. “You’ll get them.”
The big marshal stepped to the door, his spurs ringing in the quiet. He turned. “Sheriff Purdy, if my gal was kidnapped I’d tear this town apart board by board to find her, and I’d kill any man who got in my way, including Burt Becker.”
Brown opened the door and delivered a parting barb. “For God’s sake be a man, and be a peace officer.”
After the marshal left Jeremiah Purdy buried his face in his hands. He knew he could no longer be either.
Saturday Brown rode past the hotel on his way to the livery. Shawn O’Brien was no longer there, probably in bed, but the marshal planned to wake him up later anyway.
As was his habit, Brown leaned from the saddle, opened the stable door, and rode inside. A couple of rubes lay asleep on hay to his right, but the Colt in the fist of the man to his left cost more than a farm boy could ever afford. A spotted pup lay curled up between them.
“I can drill you just fine from here,” Milos D’eth said.
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