by Paul Lederer
‘What happened to you, Miles?’ she asked with concern. She was dipping a washcloth in her basin.
‘Obvious, isn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Just don’t ask me why it happened or who did it, because I don’t know.’
She dabbed lightly at my nicks and pressed the cool cloth to the lump on my head. Turning the lantern up a little she looked more closely at my face, made small ‘tsking’ sounds and then sat on the bed, tucking her robe between her knees.
‘I didn’t mean for there to be any trouble,’ she told me.
‘I expected some – but not this soon,’ I told the dark-eyed woman. ‘Listen, Della, we have to get out of town tonight. I’ve been told that your brother and Tom DeFord have a blood grudge between them.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘This is bad news for us – Brian showing up in Deadwood. With what I’ve already learned of Brian’s temper,’ I said, ‘and of DeFord’s brutal nature, one of them would have to be killed if they learn of the other’s presence.
‘Yes,’ Della said unhappily, ‘I know that. You’re right, unfortunately.’
‘The sooner we get out of Deadwood, the better. Too many people are waiting for us to pull out anyway. Everyone in town knows that you’ll have a purse full of gold. I know you asked me to help, but I can’t fight off a gang of men alone. Brian can’t ride a horse and shoot at the same time, Henry’s … well, he’s Henry. There’s no time to look for other trustworthy men – assuming we could find any.’
‘This is too much, too fast,’ Della said, poking at her loose hair with her fingertips. I knew the lady. She was strong and confident, but I had apparently shaken her with the news about DeFord and Brian.
‘I’m sorry, Della. I know it is hurried. But we have to leave tonight – I feel that’s the best way. Henry has a Conestoga and a four-horse team. He and Jocko Gates are hitching the team and greasing the axles. The wagon will be ready within the hour. We should gather what you consider necessary and load up.
‘I haven’t. …’ Della seemed suddenly overwhelmed. Maybe like a lot of people the distance between conceiving a plan and the reality of putting it into motion was a large step for her.
‘If you’ll get dressed, we can go and try to talk to this Scotsman, this McCulloch. He was planning on paying you in the morning, signing the papers. He might have planned for the transaction, withdrawn the money from the bank.’
‘He’s a Scot; he doesn’t believe in banks.’
‘All the better. We have to do this, Della. I don’t want you to think I’m pushing it, but. …’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, her voice growing more hectic. ‘I can see that we have to try it. There’ll be Jocko Gates’s bill … I can see that we have to try to do this tonight.’ She rose and touched her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘What can I tell Brian and Regina without giving away the reason for this change in plans?’
‘Keep it vague,’ was my advice. ‘Tell them that there have been threats. Embellish it any way you like.’
‘I suppose I can pull it off. The surrey. Brian’s horses,’ she continued as if talking only to herself. Swiftly she went to her closet and began sorting through her clothes with rapid fingers. I rose to look out the window at the still-bustling streets to give my eyes something to do while she dressed.
It was then that Regina burst into the room.
‘You!’ she shouted as the door banged open. The blond girl, her hair free in the night, dressed in a cotton robe, glanced at her half-undressed sister and returned her slashing gaze to me. Her voice was a heavily emotional pant. ‘Didn’t you learn anything tonight? Leave my sister alone! It’s men like you that…!’
She came nearer, her tiny fists clenched, her face an angry mask. Della grabbed Regina from behind and spun her around.
‘Stop it!’ Della yelled. Still panting, Regina drew away, brushing her sister’s hand from her shoulder.
‘You have no right to tell me what I should do – look at you!’ Regina hollered back. I didn’t like the anger in the two women’s eyes. I didn’t like witnessing an apparently long-held bitterness come to the surface. Such scenes always make me uncomfortable and I never know how to defuse them.
‘I’ll be out front,’ I muttered in Della’s direction and left the room, hearing low angry words being exchanged behind me.
It was fifteen minutes before Della emerged from the hotel to join me on the porch. In that time I had seen two fights, saw one riderless horse racing through town, heard more curse words than even I knew, seen a bottle thrown through a storefront window and once a woman accosted. And yet presumably normal people chose to live in Deadwood. Me, I’m for the long open prairie and the woodlands. Living a solitary life leaves me alone with company I’m more comfortable with – I seldom cuss myself.
‘I’m sorry,’ Della said breathlessly. Her hair was still loose, having had no time to pin it up, but it was concealed under the hood of her fur-lined jacket.
‘You did nothing, Della.’
‘I did. I’ve been hurting Regina deeply for years. I just never knew how much until tonight.’
I didn’t respond to that. I’m not bright enough to give advice about such matters. ‘Where does this McCulloch live?’ I asked.
She led the way up the still-rowdy main street and turned off along a lane lined with struggling newly-planted chestnut trees. Here there were widely spaced new homes of sawn lumber and even a wrought-iron fence or two. Deadwood’s nouveau riche, what few there were of them had built here to distance themselves from the common element – of which there were many.
We walked past an unfinished brick gateway and groups of elm saplings to the front door of a respectable two-story brick house. It was unlighted, and no wonder considering that midnight had come and gone.
‘I don’t know. …’ Della said hesitantly as we approached the heavy oaken door with its brass knocker.
‘We have to, Della. You’ve done things in your time that took a lot more courage than this.’ She smiled with gratitude in response to my encouragement, lifted the heavy knocker and banged it down sharply three times. I immediately heard grumbling from above. When the Scotsman appeared in a black robe, his thin reddish hair tousled, he was taken aback by the sight of the hooded lady in red and the rangy, rough-dressed plainsman he saw.
‘Mr McCulloch,’ Della said, pulling her hood back, ‘it is very important that I talk to you. Now.’
McCulloch hesitated, looking at me as if I might be ready to rob or assault him, but finally he nodded and stepped aside, ushering us into a dark entranceway of which I could see little and into an office where he lit a lantern with a green shade and sagged behind an ornately carved oak desk.
‘What is it, then?’ he asked, impatience obvious in his voice. Della began to explain, leaning forward. Her hands constantly gesturing, earnestly she asked if there were some way he could finish executing the sale of the Eagle’s Lair and find the funds to pay her off on that night.
The Scotsman’s eyes narrowed as he leaned back. ‘I might not be able to come up with the full amount on such short notice,’ McCulloch replied after a while. I thought he was probably lying, but the business end of this matter was not my concern. Della had made herself a neat fortune out west, starting with nothing at all. She was every bit a match for the investor.
I let them talk while I gazed around the room. An assortment of antique firearms and medieval weapons hung on the paneled walls. There was a small glass-fronted bookcase and a white-brick fireplace so new that there were not even smudges on it.
I turned as the Scotsman rose and walked to a small green safe I had not seen in the corner. He glanced at me furtively, and now I saw that there was a holstered pistol beneath his robe on the right side. I turned away again, not wanting to give him the wrong impression of my intent.
I shifted my eyes back at the clink of a small sack filled with gold coins striking the desktop. Della had finished signing the deed. Now she blew on the ink to dry it
and handed the papers over to McCulloch.
The Scotsman looked satisfied. He must have managed to dicker Della down a little, her urgency being obvious.
Outside I told Della, ‘I hope I didn’t cost you much.’
She laughed. ‘I was gouging the old faker to begin with. Here.’ She handed the gold sack to me. At my look of surprise she said, ‘You’ve signed on to protect me and my money, Miles. Here’s where you start earning your pay.’
I nodded, tied the rawhide thongs at the top of the bag around my belt and stuffed it inside my trousers. We walked through the heavy cold shadows back toward the heart of Deadwood. Della’s face was hidden by her hood. I couldn’t make out her expression, though I could see starlight in her eyes. I admired the woman in a way that I found hard to define. So many men had loved her and a few had become almost obsessively fascinated by her. Too many. To me she was a fine, strong woman doing her best to survive in a difficult time and place. And a good friend.
‘Now for the hard part,’ Della said as we reached main street again, finding it as rowdy as ever. Dozens of boisterous drunks crowded the boardwalks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Waking Brian up and telling him that we’re going on to Steubenville this very night. They’ve only arrived, and haven’t had but a few hours’ sleep.’
‘Do you want me to…?’ I began.
‘No, Miles,’ she said, touching my wrist. ‘It’s much better if I do it, believe me.’
She was right of course. Brian Adair and I hadn’t hit it off well at our first meeting. Nor had Regina fallen for my charms. I was recalling what the young woman had said earlier: ‘Didn’t you learn anything tonight?’ It gave me pause to wonder if it had been Regina who had hired two goons to beat me up, perhaps convinced that I had led her sister astray. I said nothing to Della who was, I imagined, composing a speech in her mind to explain the sudden urgency to Brian; to manage that without having to mention Tom DeFord.
‘If Father had only known,’ I heard Della sigh. I had no idea what she meant, but she was willing to tell me as we walked along the plankwalk toward the hotel. ‘Brian has always been a bit of a problem. I do love him, but it seems he complicates things wherever he goes. Of course those years in Andersonville Prison did nothing to soften his rough edges. He was adopted, Miles.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes, Father took him in when he was only four years old. Mother had died by then, and Father – I suspect – had always wanted a son. There was always something a little disturbing about Brian. I don’t know,’ she said, shrugging one shoulder.
‘Such as?’
‘Small things. He would steal trinkets from me that he had no use for. A ring my mother left me. Once we had a kitten that … well, it seemed that someone had tortured the poor creature. Brian was always peeking into personal items. My diary, clothing … did you know we were being followed?’ Della asked, squeezing my arm.
‘Yes.’ I had noticed it, but hoped that Della hadn’t. Someone had been walking nearly on our shadows since we left McCulloch’s house. ‘It probably means nothing,’ I said to ease her mind. Then I asked with some concern, ‘Della, do you think that Brian could possibly want your money himself? That the gold could be the reason that he came west after all these years.’
‘Of course not!’ she said sharply, and I was immediately sorry that I had spoken up. ‘He is my brother.’ The look in her eyes did not have the same conviction as her words. She murmured a slight apology and then instructed me as we reached the hotel door, ‘Check on Henry and the wagon, all right? Pay off Jocko Gates. …’ She hesitated, making up her mind, and decided.
‘Just go ahead and sell Brian’s surrey and his matched sorrels to Jocko if you can. Brian will be angry, but I’ll pay him well for them when we reach Steubenville.’
‘All right. Henry and I will bring the wagon around back. If there’s things you need from your room. …’
‘Only my trunk.’
‘Della, are you sure that you want me holding all this gold? I mean, a man could just saddle up and ride off with it, couldn’t he?’
‘Some,’ she said in a way that touched me, ‘but not a man like you Miles Donovan.’ She went to tiptoes, kissed my cheek and swept into the hotel lobby leaving me on the boardwalk while the riotous town continued its wild ways.
I went off to find Henry Coughlin, fully aware that I still had a man following in my shadow. Tom DeFord? An aimless wanderer? Someone McCulloch had sent to reclaim his gold? One of the two men who had jumped me earlier? Brian Adair?
It was too much to consider. I simply walked swiftly toward Jocko’s stable, my hand on the staghorn grips of my Colt, the small cold bag of gold coins thumping against my thigh.
At sometime around 2 a.m., I saddled my black horse and gave him his bit, swung aboard and started toward the alley behind the hotel, Henry Coughlin driving the four-horse team drawing the creaking Conestoga wagon in my wake.
I swung down from my black in the coolness of the night. Henry looped his reins around the brake handle and walked toward me, rubbing his hands together. ‘Seen any more of your tail?’ he asked, for I had told him of the man following me.
‘No. Maybe he was just somebody wandering around aimlessly.’
‘But you don’t think so,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve something to show you, Miles.’
‘All right.’ I followed him back to the wagon, leading Dodger. Henry lowered the tailgate of the wagon and gestured me nearer. His hand touched the floorboard of the wagon, worked around a little and then lifted a neatly sawn length of wood from the bed. His voice dropped even lower. ‘The man who owned this last had built himself a little cubbyhole here. I found it while I was checking the wagon over.’
‘Can’t see it in the dark, that’s for sure,’ I commented.
‘It was put back in a little cockeyed or I’d have never found it even with my lantern back at Jocko’s. If you throw a trunk, some bedding over it, no one will ever find it.’
That was a stroke of good fortune. I couldn’t continue with the gold sack down my pantleg, nor did I just want to thrust it into my saddlebags where any searcher could discover it.
‘Anybody around?’ I asked Henry, and he looked up and down the alley, at the unlighted hotel windows.
‘Not a soul,’ he said, and I undid the ties on my belt, hoisted the gold pouch from my pant-leg and stuffed it into the hidden compartment, carefully replacing the sawn plank the right way so that the wood grain matched.
‘Where are the others?’ Henry asked when we were done.
‘They should be out in a few minutes. Della has a trunk she wants to bring along. I don’t know what else.’
‘This brother of hers,’ Henry said cautiously. ‘What do you know about him?’
‘Nothing much. I just wouldn’t mention to him that the gold is on board the wagon. Maybe we shouldn’t even tell Della,’ I said, thinking that she might somehow slip up. She had given the money into my care and so I was going to play it my way.
‘You know, Miles, there was a man come by the stable and asked me if I had seen a one-armed man. That wasn’t more than an hour ago.’
I didn’t like that, but I said nothing. Too many people were interested in what our party was up to. The back door to the hotel swung open and a rectangle of lanternlight spread itself against the rutted alley.
Della emerged first, holding one end of a heavy trunk by its leather strap. Brian held the other handle. Behind them came the so-pretty and angry Regina Adair. She marched right up to me while the other three leveraged the trunk into the wagon bed.
‘Where is Brian’s surrey?’ she demanded, looking up at me from my collar line.
‘It seemed best that we all travel together.’
‘Why? I can handle that surrey. I drove it all the way up here.’
‘That surrey’s awful light for rough travel, and the horses were weary. It seemed better to purchase a fresh team.’
�
�Who decides what’s for the better – you?’
Behind me Brian Adair said in a surprisingly controlled voice. ‘It’s done, Regina. Leave it alone.’
Biting back some other harsh words she had for me, Regina flounced off toward the wagon box to clamber up beside Henry who had gloves on now, reins in hand. Brian and Della scooted up into the wagon, Brian seating himself on the tailgate, watching me with cold thoughtful eyes as I swung aboard Dodger, and Henry Coughlin started the heavy wagon rolling through the alleyway.
I kneed the black and started along after them, glancing around. There was still someone following us. But now they were mounted, and now there were two of them.
What had I gotten myself into?
FOUR
The cluster of crows rose in dark, raucous unison from the barren cottonwood tree as dawn streaked the long skies with burnt orange and deep purple. I shifted in the saddle, already a little trail-weary after the night ride. The crows circled us, like some unknown enemy, and drifted back toward the broken tree as the Conestoga wagon passed. My black horse plodded on tirelessly, though I could tell by the way his head hung that he was ready for a rest. The same must have held true for the team of horses drawing the wagon and I heeled my pony on ahead to signal Henry Coughlin that it was time to draw up and let the big horses breathe.
It would have been nice if there were water for the animals, but so far as I knew there was no creek or river along our path, and it had not rained recently to leave ponds in the low-lying areas. The land was dry and quite cold as morning joined us. The first glint of golden sunlight spread across the stubble grass, and with it rose a breeze that brought a chill to my bones.
If there was anyone following us, they were cautious, wily. I had held myself back during the night ride, watching and listening. There was no sign of the two riders we had spotted as we left Deadwood. Maybe we were too jumpy. They could have been nothing more than two men who happened to hit the trail late, traveling in the same direction as we were. I just didn’t like coincidences, considering the way matters lay.
Now as daylight blossomed, coloring the land, I still could see no riders although we were on open prairie now. Flat, featureless land, uninhabited except by the small buffalo herd I’d spotted to the east of us. There were no more than five hundred of the shaggy beasts, grazing their steady way south as they followed a primitive urging, sensing that winter would soon be upon us.