Wind River

by L. J. Washburn

  Wind River

  James Reasoner

  and L.J. Washburn

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1994 by James M. Reasoner and L.J. Washburn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First printing June 1994 Harper Paperbacks a trademark of Harper Collins Publisher.

  Second printing: August 2011 The Book Place, P.O. Box 931, Azle TX 76020-0931 bookplc@flash.net

  For Barbara Puechner

  Chapter 1

  With the train rocking and swaying beneath his booted feet, Cole Tyler lounged in the open doorway of the boxcar and watched the rugged landscape of Wyoming Territory roll past. He was looking south, toward Big Buffalo Wash and the arid flats beyond that long gouge in the earth. Far in the distance, a nameless range of hills made a faint blue line on the horizon.

  By turning his head, Cole could look through the open door on the other side of the car and see the peaks of the Wind River Mountains far to the north, almost lost in the haze of distance. More than once he had ridden through the Wind River range and enjoyed the harsh but beautiful landscape. If there had been time, he might have gone up there again. . . .

  But there was work to be done: a railroad to be built, a continent to be bridged. His part in this was a small one, sure, but he had never been the sort to neglect a job once he had taken it on.

  A sharp whinny from one of the stalls in the converted baggage car drew his attention, and he turned away from the door to go to the big golden sorrel.

  Cole reached over the gate of the makeshift stall and rubbed the horse's nose. "Don't worry, Ulysses," he assured the animal. "You'll be able to stretch your legs soon. We'll be getting to the railhead in a little while, and then you'll get a chance to run."

  The sorrel tossed his head impatiently, and Cole smiled. He understood how Ulysses felt. He was getting a little restless himself.

  A well-built man of medium height, Cole had gray-green eyes that were accustomed to looking out over long distances. Since the end of the War Between the States a little over three years earlier, he had wandered over a good chunk of the country west of the Mississippi, scouting for the army, guiding wagon trains, and doing a little buffalo hunting. That was his job now—helping to provide meat for the thousands of workers laying the rails that stretched ever farther to the west.

  He wore buckskins and high-topped black boots, and a brown hat with a broad brim and a round crown hung on the back of his neck from its chin-strap. Thick brown hair that had been hacked off squarely fell to his shoulders. He was clean shaven, his features regular and deeply tanned. The Colt conversion revolver holstered on his right hip and the Winchester '66 snugged in his saddle-boot were both .44s, using the metallic cartridges stored in the loops of the shell belt around his waist. A heavy-bladed Green River knife, one of the few legacies of his mountain-man father, was sheathed on his left hip. Wrapped up in oilcloth in the pile of gear next to the stall was the massive Sharps .50 caliber he used for hunting buffalo.

  As Cole resumed looking out the door of the railroad car, the stock tender came up behind him and commented, "Mighty ugly country, ain't it?"

  Cole looked around in surprise. "Ugly?" he echoed. "Not so's you'd notice."

  The hostler frowned and gestured at the semi-arid terrain. "But there's nothin' out there."

  "Not much," Cole agreed. "But that doesn't make a place ugly."

  It was true there wasn't much to be seen here in southern Wyoming except miles and miles of open country bordered here and there by rugged mountains that seemed to fling themselves up from the plains.

  Indians lived here, of course; the Sioux and the Shoshone had been in these parts for a long time. And there were a few ranchers moving in, cattlemen who were either brave enough or foolhardy enough to think they could make a go of a spread in this nearly desolate wilderness.

  Forts were scattered across the territory, a reminder that the Oregon Trail ran through here and soldiers had been needed in the past to protect what had seemed like an endless stream of settlers in Conestoga wagons, bound for what sounded like the Promised Land.

  There weren't many wagon trains these days, and treaties had been signed between the Indians and the politicos in Washington City—not that either side really abided by those treaties all the time or had ever intended to. Wyoming Territory was still pretty wild country most of the time.

  The railroad aimed to change that. The Union Pacific was moving inevitably westward, just as the Central Pacific had started on the West Coast and was coming east. Somewhere, sooner or later, they would meet, and east and west would be finally, permanently joined, ensuring the spread of civilization.

  Or at least that was the plan, Cole mused with a faint smile as he watched the landscape roll past. But civilization might have finally met its match in Wyoming.

  He turned his head and asked the stock tender, "Didn't you say there's a town already set up at the railhead?"

  "That's what I've heard," the young man answered. "A real live, gen-u-ine town with a name and everything." He pointed through the other door at the far-off peaks to the north. "Named it after those mountains. They're calling the place Wind River."

  * * *

  "I tell you, my dear, this is the biggest day in the history of Wind River!"

  "Of course, Andrew," Simone McKay agreed. She couldn't resist pointing out the obvious, however. "But the town has been here less than a month, hasn't it?"

  Her husband ignored the question and leaned out to peer down the railroad tracks toward the east. The double line of steel ran straight as an arrow for several miles before vanishing in a bend around a ridge that jutted up from the south. Andrew McKay followed the rails with his eyes, and as he did he could almost see the riches coming his way along with the first train.

  His partner, William Durand, slapped him on the back. "Getting anxious, eh, Andrew?" boomed Durand. "History will be here soon enough, my friend. And that's what this is, you know—history. Yes, indeed, the first train to arrive in Wind River is quite a historic occasion."

  The two men were a study in contrasts, McKay tall and lean, clean-shaven and somewhat austere, Durand much shorter and beefier with a closely trimmed dark beard shot through with gray. They had been partners for over a year, because that was how long it had taken to prepare for this day. Without them, the settlement of Wind River would not even exist.

  The railroad station where they waited, a spanking-new building of timber and stone, was the centerpiece of the town, which spread out on both sides of the Union Pacific rails.

  To the north was what Durand and McKay intended as the industrial district, with warehouses and cattle pens just waiting for use.

  South of the tracks was the rest of the settlement, including the business-lined main street known as Grenville Avenue and the cross streets where residences were already springing up. The impressive homes of Durand and Andrew and Simone McKay were at opposite ends of one of those cross streets at the western edge of town, far enough away from the train station and the cattle pens so that Mrs. McKay was unlikely to be offended by any less-than-pleasant odors.

  Durand grimaced as the band waiting on the platform began practicing with their instruments. The musicians should have been better, he thought. They had been given their instruments only a week earlier and had not had enough time to practice. It was such small details th
at drove Durand mad when they weren't attended to properly. The Union Pacific deserved a proper welcome from the community when the first train arrived in Wind River.

  Nothing but handcars had reached the settlement so far; in fact, the final rails had been laid only the day before. But as soon as those spikes were driven, the word had gone back up the line: the UP had a new railhead! It was cause for celebration, and that was exactly what McKay and Durand intended to provide for both the town and the railroad.

  As for Simone McKay, she sighed and wished this was over so that she could go home. Summers in Wyoming, in this high, dry air, were not as hot as those in Philadelphia, but today was unusually warm and Simone missed the coolness of her parlor.

  She glanced around at the crowd waiting on the platform for the train's arrival. Many of them were Union Pacific workers, given the day off so that they could witness the official moving of the railhead, but most of the citizens of Wind River were here, too.

  Standing a few feet beyond Simone's husband was Judson Kent, the tall, bearded Englishman who served as the new community's doctor, and beside Kent was Michael Hatfield, the editor of the Wind River Sentinel. Like nearly everything else in town, the newspaper was owned by McKay and Durand, but neither one of them had any journalistic experience. The sandy-haired young Hatfield had been brought in to run the paper, and what he lacked in practical experience he had been making up for with sheer enthusiasm. At the moment he had his arm around his wife, who was holding their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and looking tired.

  Simone sympathized with Delia Hatfield. Wyoming was no place to be raising a toddler, let alone to be expecting yet another child.

  Someone jostled her, and Simone looked around angrily. One of the UP track layers stood there, a contrite expression on his broad Irish face. "I'd be beggin' yer pardon, ma'am," he said quickly as he tugged off his battered black hat. "I didn't mean t' bump into ye."

  "That's all right," Simone told him, her anger evaporating in the heat. "It's rather crowded here on the platform."

  "Yes, ma'am, it's all o' that! Ever'body's ready fer th' train t' get here, I reckon. Hell on wheels, they call it!"

  Simone smiled tolerantly at his exuberance. "Yes, I've heard that expression myself," she said over the bleating and blatting of the nearby band. "I'm sure it's deserved."

  Before the track layer could say anything else, another man shouldered him roughly aside. "Out of the way, you damned mick," the newcomer growled. He was tall and lean, wearing a stained white hat with a tightly rolled brim, a leather vest, a work shirt, and denim pants. A blond mustache drooped over his wide mouth and his hair hung long over the back of his neck. The well-worn walnut grips of a six-gun jutted up from his holster.

  Simone's mouth tightened as she recognized him. His name was Deke Strawhorn, and he had been hanging around Wind River for the last week. He was a hardcase, an outlaw, some said, and he had about half a dozen men of the same stripe with him. They moved up behind him now, and the UP worker, who had started to make an angry reply to Strawhorn's gibe, saw the other men and closed his mouth. His face dark with resentment and a little shame at being run off, he moved down the platform to look for another vantage point.

  Simone tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. For a moment she had been afraid that a fight would break out right there beside her.

  Strawhorn glanced at her, his eyes bold and a faint smile on his mouth, and Simone looked away quickly, turning her attention back to her husband. Suddenly she saw Andrew stiffen, and he lifted a hand to point down the track to the east.

  "By God, I think that's it," he said excitedly. "Yes, I'm sure of it. Here it comes!"

  In spite of her normal reserve, Simone felt a surge of emotion grip her. She clutched Andrew's arm and leaned forward beside him, craning her neck so that she could see past the other people waiting anxiously on the platform.

  She peered along the tracks and at first saw nothing except empty Wyoming prairie land. Then her eyes found the tiny black dot that came closer and closer as she watched, growing until she could make out the stack at the front of the locomotive with clouds of white smoke billowing up from it.

  What was it the UP track layer had called it? Simone caught her bottom lip between even white teeth as she remembered the answer.

  Hell on wheels.

  * * *

  Cole braced himself with a hand on the side of the boxcar doorway as the train slowed to a stop. Over the hiss of the steam and the squeal of the brakes, he heard the tinny notes of what sounded like a brass band playing loudly but not particularly well. The town of Wind River was putting on some sort of fandango to welcome the train, he saw as he looked out and took note of the crowd on the platform.

  Some of the UP bosses were riding in the first car behind the coal tender, and with practiced ease the engineer brought the locomotive to a stop so that it was next to the platform. Behind it stretched the rest of the train, three more passenger cars and nearly a dozen boxcars. All of them were full, too.

  The previous railhead had been Laramie, some eighty miles to the east. Some of the settlement had remained intact, but all the tent saloons had been taken down and the canvas structures stored on the train, ready to be set up again here in Wind River. Along with the tents had come their owners, the saloonkeepers who knew that the Irish work gangs would gladly spend all of their wages on cheap whiskey, games of chance, and gaudily painted women. Those things the saloon owners provided in abundance.

  They began pouring off the train once it had come to a full stop. The saloonkeepers, the gamblers, the soiled doves . . . banjo-plinking musicians, faro dealers, singers and dancers, swampers . . . all the men and women whose business was entertaining the laborers—and taking their money in the process. And if some of the Irishmen got robbed or even murdered along the way, well, that was just one of the risks of building a railroad through a wilderness, just like Indian attacks and rock slides and cyclones.

  Cole hopped down lithely from the boxcar. It would be a little while before the ramps were put in place so that the horses stabled inside could be unloaded. Since he couldn't collect Ulysses right away, he thought he would take a look around Wind River. He might even stay a few days before riding out to scout up more buffalo. Towns weren't his favorite places, but every so often it made a nice change to eat a meal in a cafe and sleep in a bed. Made a man appreciate the rest of his life that much more.

  From what Cole could see, there was more to Wind River than most of these railhead settlements. Quite a few permanent buildings had already been constructed, although there was still plenty of room along the streets for the tents that had been brought from Laramie. Some of the buildings appeared to be quite substantial, too, not just the clapboard-and-tin shanties that were sometimes thrown up behind elaborate false fronts. He saw a stone structure that was three stories tall, probably a hotel, and several other buildings along the main street had been built to last. Whoever was responsible for Wind River must have had visions of the settlement growing into another Chicago or St. Louis.

  Cole paid little attention to the ceremony on the platform as he walked alongside the train. The band had stopped playing, and now somebody was making a speech. Cole glanced at him, saw a tall, dark-haired man in a fancy suit and a top hat. Standing next to him was a shorter, heavier man with a beard, also well dressed, and just behind them was a woman who caught more of Cole's attention. She wore a gown of blue silk and a feathered hat to match, and her hair was dark and thick and glossy. She was as pretty a woman as Cole had seen in a long time, but judging from her expensive outfit and the way she stood with one hand on the arm of the gent making the speech, Cole figured her for the man's wife.

  He turned his eyes away from the dignitaries and started to veer around the station. From the looks of things, there would be a saloon or two already open in Wind River, and a cold beer would go down nice, he decided. Just being this close to a bunch of speechifying made him thirsty.

  That was
when all hell broke loose.

  A man yelled a curse, and a second later a woman screamed. Fists thudded against flesh as people began yelling. Cole hesitated, not sure if he wanted to turn around and look or not. This fracas was none of his business, after all.

  "Watch it, mister!"

  Cole ducked instinctively and twisted around in time to see a man come flying off the platform at him. The man was yelling and pinwheeling his arms and legs, but there was nothing for him to grab onto except thin air. He sailed past Cole and crashed headfirst into the ground.

  Somebody had thrown the man off the platform, not caring where he landed. But Cole cared, because the man had almost crashed down on top of him. He looked up and saw a couple of roughly dressed men standing at the edge of the platform, laughing raucously.

  Cole felt a red haze spreading through his brain. He walked toward the platform, calling up to the two men, "Think that's mighty funny, do you?"

  "Well, you sure jumped, mister," one of them replied. "Didn't really mean to throw that Irish ape at you, but I reckon it turned out a mite humorous."

  Cole glanced over his shoulder. The man who had landed on the ground was still lying there motionless, out cold. There was no telling how badly he was really hurt. And the two hardcases on the platform were still laughing about it.

  "Yeah," Cole grunted as he reached up without warning and grasped their shirts. "Damned hilarious."

  He pulled hard, and the struggling crowd behind the men gave him a hand by surging toward him. The two men plunged off the platform and sprawled in the dust on either side of Cole.

  One of them rolled over and came up reaching for a gun, but by that time Cole had turned around himself. The heel of his boot crashed into the man's jaw and sent him sprawling again, this time with a moan of pain. The other man scrambled to his feet, grated a curse, and swung a wild punch at Cole's head.

  Cole pivoted in time to block the blow with an up flung left arm. With his right, he hooked a hard punch to the man's stomach as he stepped in closer. A left cross caught the man on the jaw and jerked his head around. Cole dropped him with an uppercut.