by Hunter Shea
* * *
The rest of the trip was uneventful, which was fine by me. We passed through Iowa and Nebraska. I caught up on some much-needed sleep and set about reading that book Teddy had given me. My first attempt put me to sleep in less than ten minutes. When I woke up, the book was on the floor and Teta was happily reading about Martians.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how a book about Norse legends would have any connection with our little mission. It wasn’t written in any kind of English that I could comprehend and sure as hell had nothing to do with mining towns. I gave up when we entered Wyoming and stuffed it in my bag.
The weather got hotter and the land dustier as we pulled away from the station at Cheyenne. Laramie was the next and, for us, last stop.
I spotted the conductor and asked, “How much longer to Laramie?”
He checked his pocket watch and said, “About three hours or so. We should pull in around half past six.”
Teta pulled his sombrero over his face. “That sounds like enough time for a good nap.”
“You’ve been asleep more than you’ve been awake since we left New York.”
“A man must always take advantage of opportunities to piss and sleep. I’ve done the one, now it’s time to do the other.”
I tried to follow his lead but sleep didn’t come easily. I was anxious to get back on solid ground. The closer we got, the more anxious I felt. Hecla was a mystery that had swallowed up U.S. troops and scared off anyone who dared to venture there. The sooner I could see things for myself, the easier I’d feel.
We stopped in Laramie right on time. The station was nothing like they had in places like Chicago or New York, but very much like every other station we’d passed through during the long trip. It was a fair-sized wood-frame building with a long porch dotted with benches. A few folks milled about. The horizon was pink and laced with low clouds.
Teta said, “I think it’s too late to get horses and supplies.”
“Me too.”
I walked to the station agent’s window. My spurs rang with each step. He looked disappointed that only the two of us had gotten off the train. I guess we weren’t much to look at.
“Excuse me, is there a place we can put up for the night?”
He used the rubber end of a pencil to scratch his forehead, pushing his cap in the process. A fly buzzed around his head and landed on his lip. He didn’t pay it any mind. “Hotel’s right up the street.” He pointed to my left.
There was a series of connected three-floor buildings not more than a hundred paces from the station.
“Thank you kindly. I’d also like to send a wire.”
He pushed a piece of paper and a pencil toward me. I wrote to Teddy that we had arrived safely and would set out in the morning. I passed my message and a coin back to the station master and we walked to the hotel.
Rectangular plots of grass were set up in front of the hotel and fenced in by long metal posts. In the center of each was a small tree. Very ornamental.
There was a sign for a lunch counter but the door was closed. We’d missed lunch by a good number of hours.
The front desk clerk wore a heavy wool suit despite the heat. He was bald and pale, which told me he didn’t leave the hotel much. It was hard to avoid the sun in Wyoming in the summer.
“We need a couple of rooms,” I said.
He sucked his teeth and cast a disapproving gaze at my sombrero-wearing companion. “There a problem?” I asked, at the same time communicating with my eyes that there’d better not be a problem. He broke his gaze quicker than a cat in a staring contest. I wasn’t in the mood for his bigoted bullshit.
“You’re in luck. I happen to have two available. How long will you be staying?”
“Just tonight.”
We signed his ledger and I paid him for the night with the money from the envelope Teddy had given me. He gave us our keys from a pegboard. I looked at one of the notes that had been stuffed in the envelope and asked, “Can you point us in the direction of the McCallum Stable?”
“Yes, I thought that might be where you were headed. Do you men break horses or something?”
“Something,” Teta replied.
Realizing that was all the information we were going to give, the clerk continued, “Just make a right out the front door and your first left onto Weed Street. You’ll pass the Methodist church on your right, the school and a few houses. McCallum’s is at the end of the road.”
We stowed our gear in our rooms and headed to a restaurant across the street. The steaks were rare and creamy as butter. There weren’t many people in the restaurant or about the streets. We tried the local beer, deemed it worthy and had a few more before heading back for what was most likely our last night in a decent bed for a while.
* * *
The next morning broke hot and humid. Teta and I left the hotel early and headed over to McCallum’s. Laramie was very much alive this time of the day. Men walked in every direction, some heading to the brickyard, others the plaster mill or slaughterhouse.
Folks gave us queer glances as they filed around us. I didn’t see a solitary Stetson in the herd. I felt like a man out of time, more so than I had in New York, because Wyoming was so close to my old stomping grounds. I’d only been on earth for fifty years and in that time I’d gone from riding in a rickety chuck wagon, herding cattle, to having to sidestep loud automobiles with tires skinny as a rat’s behind.
As we walked, Teta pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. “The Laramie Weekly Boomerang. What the hell kind of a name is that for a newspaper?” I asked.
Teta shrugged his shoulders. “I like it. It’s different. Not sure if you’ll like it, though. No crime to report.”
I stuffed it in my bag. “Might come in handy for something other than reading later.”
A bunch of kids were running around outside the school. One of them kicked a can our way and I sidestepped so it could skip by me. The Methodist church was across the street and I could see the sign for the small stable ahead.
We were met by a man as old and weathered as a deerskin coat. His skin was shriveled and lined like jerky, but I could tell none of his strength had been sapped by years or hardship. In most cases with old ranch hands like him, a life of hard work made them tougher than a one dollar steak.
“You here about them horses?” he asked as we strolled up to the round horse pen. He was shoveling piles of shit into a wheelbarrow.
“We are.”
“Court McCallum. Pleased to meet you. Got them waiting for you out back.”
This was a man I could take a shine to. I hadn’t run across many honest, old-time ranchers in New York, or any to be exact.
“That’s two Appaloosas, two quarter horses and one mule, plus tack. They were ordered by a man called himself Theodore Roosevelt. No chance that would be the president, is there?”
“They would be one and the same,” I said.
“No shit. You just cost me a dollar. I told my daughter it was just someone with the same name.” His ice-blue eyes, still clear and honest as the morning sky, took us in with newfound interest. “You and your vaquero friend don’t exactly look the presidential type, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Teta, who had been staring at the ranch house, said, “That’s why we left the job for Roosevelt.”
The old man considered him a moment, then jerked with an internal laugh. He shouted, “Selma!”
I heard a woman shout back, “Just about ready!”
“That’s my daughter. She’s getting everything fixed up for you. I also picked up the list of supplies. You should be all set to go. Hasn’t been much call for our services lately. Folks would rather drive those fancy cars. I swear people are going to get themselves killed on those things.”
“Thank you.” I decided now was a go
od time to see what he knew about Hecla and the troops that had been sent by Teddy. I had toyed with the idea of staying in town for the day and talking things up, but my desire to get my ass in motion was greater. “Were you the one to supply the troops that came here a few months back?”
“Troops? Can’t recall having any soldiers come through. At least not to my stable. Any reason why they would be in Laramie?”
“I’d heard about a squad passing through. Just wondering if you’d done business with them.”
“You a soldier too?”
I shook my head. “Not anymore. We did about four months of soldierin’. That was enough for us.”
I heard the steady clop of horses and spotted our cow ponies. There was a dun-colored quarter horse with rippling hindquarters leading the way. She looked strong and fast, and had just a hint of wildness in her dark eyes.
“I’ll take that Appaloosa,” Teta said, pointing at the spotted stallion. Its front quarters were chocolate brown, but the rest looked like a can of paint had been tossed over it. It wasn’t pretty, but I knew Appaloosas to be damn fine horses, especially in rough terrain.
Standing in between them was an almond-skinned woman with jet-black hair tied up under her hat. She had full, black eyebrows and a round, pretty face. Selma possessed a comely body that amply filled her clothes. She looked like she’d done her share of a man’s work. She smiled with teeth so white they reflected the sun.
“Thank you, Selma,” the old man said, taking the reins from her hands.
I think it was safe to say he’d taken on a Mexican beauty as a wife some, oh, thirty-odd years or so ago. My old heart did a little dance as I took her in.
“Thank you, Selma,” Teta mimicked. He struck his casual-but-dangerous pose, hoping to get a rise out of her.
She nodded in his direction and said to me, “You’ve got four of our finest, Mr. Blackburn. They’ll take good care of you.”
She wore a blue-and-white shirt tucked into tight denims. The buttons along the front of her shirt were working hard to keep things together. I actually had to take a moment to catch my breath. I’d only once before been taken by a woman like this and the feeling was like standing too close to a lightning strike.
She mistook my silence for confusion and added, “I remembered your name from the order. And you’re Mr. Delacruz, right?”
Teta tipped his hat.
I had to get while the going was good. Any more time around her smile and I’d be helpless.
“They look ace-high. Appreciate what you’ve done.”
She patted the dun horse and gave us some carrots. “A little something to help you bond.” She flashed that smile again. It was hard reconciling that this half-Mexican beauty was the old man’s.
“We’ll have plenty of time to bond on our way to Hecla. I looked at a map and it seems to be about a half day’s ride from here. That sound about right?”
The old man’s demeanor changed as quickly as a flash flood. He turned to his daughter and said through clenched teeth, “Best you get inside. I have a feeling those biscuits are about to burn.”
Selma’s smile vanished and her hand flew to her mouth. She started to say something, stopped, then turned and jogged to the ranch house.
When the old man saw she was out of earshot, he leaned over the pen fence and said, “I have a mind to keep these horses and save you the trip.”
“There a problem with Hecla?” I asked.
He ignored my question. “But seeing this was all ordered by the president, I don’t suppose I should stop you. I voted for the man and I’m not one to say I know more than him. All I can say is good luck to you.”
With that, he opened the pen and made a bowlegged walk to the house. “Another bad omen,” Teta said as he mounted his Appaloosa.
“Just another log for the fire. Giddup!”
With our spare horses and loaded pack mule in tow, we headed for Hecla. I was growing less enthusiastic by the minute.
Chapter Eight
As I suspected, my horse still had a bit of a wild streak left in her. She tried to rile me with a quick twitch a couple of times and fought the bit, but I held steady, letting her know this wasn’t a Sunday ride with a pretty girl.
It was obvious that the area had been going through a dry spell. The switchgrass wasn’t as tall as it should be and was turning a light brown. My nose felt like it was packed with dust. I tipped my canteen to let some water splash over my face.
“You hot?” Teta asked. He and his stallion rode in lockstep beside me.
“Not yet. Just clearing the airways.”
I breathed the water into my nose then turned my head and snorted it out.
We rode on a flat plain under a sun that felt inches above our heads. I could see the outline of what I figured to be the Deep Rock Hills in the far distance. That was where most of the mining had taken place in Hecla. Might as well rename them the Disappearing Hills.
I spotted a cloud of dust to our left and saw a small herd of antelope taking flight. There was a time you couldn’t set foot in Wyoming without seeing a buffalo. We’d yet to spy a single one.
“I suppose we’ll have our pick of places to shack up,” I said.
“Unless the soldiers decided to move in for good and aren’t the sharing kind.”
“Unless that.”
“How long has it been since anyone did any mining there?” Teta asked.
A red-tailed hawk sailed high overhead. I lost him when he crossed over the sun. “Few years. According to Teddy, one day the townsfolk were there, working the mines, next day they weren’t. No one knows where they went, but we both know it’s easy to make yourself disappear out here.”
“How many people were in the town and working for the mine?”
“About a hundred fifty or so, including the women and children.”
“Seems like a lot of people to take off without someone turning up somewhere.” He had a point.
“Maybe they did turn up, but no one’s really looking for them. What’s important is what’s under those hills.”
“You think gold is worth more than a person?”
“It is for a good number of people I’ve met.”
Teta laughed. “Me too. Don’t know many people who would trade a bar of gold for me.” In fact, I knew a few, myself included. Back in Cuba when we were starving from the lack of rations, hard tack was scarce, canned meat was revolting and beans were running low. It was Teta who worked beside Teddy, rounding up food from among the villagers, keeping our bellies full for a long, rough week. He was also the one who took out a Spanish sniper that had been fixed in a tree, happy as a murderous monkey. That damn sniper had shot one of my men in the face and nearly took off the top of my head.
When we made the charge up Kettle Hill, Teddy shouting, tall in his saddle, begging for a bullet, Teta had joined the madness after mounting a horse that had lost its rider. I thought we would all be killed that day. Teta, a man who by nationality had no dog in the fight, just a small mercenary fee that never materialized, jumped into the fray without a care for his own well-being. Before it was over, we would both save each other’s lives more than once.
He was worth his weight and more in gold.
I just didn’t give him the satisfaction of telling him that. I didn’t want his head to outgrow his sombrero.
We came upon the bone orchard about a couple of hours after noontime. It had been placed on the outskirts of the temporary town and judging by the number of crooked wooden crosses planted in the loose soil, the Hecla mines were a tad more dangerous than most.
Teta made the sign of the cross as we inspected the graves. He stared at me until I did the same. His eyes grew wide and I followed his gaze. Two fat crows were perched on a pair of neighboring crosses.
“Bone orchards are always full of birds,” I said to him. I
wasn’t in the mood to hear anything else about omens. “Good a place to rest as any.”
“I count one hundred fifty-nine graves. How long did you say this mine was open for?”
“I think it was only a few years. It only takes one big accident to claim a lot of men. But I’ll give you that it does seem like a lot for a place small as this. They must have had as many dead beneath the ground as living above in the end.”
We rode into a series of half-collapsed houses a stone’s throw from the graveyard. They were all leaning to the left. A windstorm must have swept through and had its way with the abandoned structures.
It didn’t take long to get to the town proper. It wasn’t much to write home about, with just a few structures on either side of the street. Glaringly absent was a church. Even the smallest mining towns usually had a church.
Teta dismounted to look inside one of the houses.
“Nothing but dust and broken furniture. I don’t even think rats would stay here,” he said. His hand was on the butt of his pistol. Just because a place looked empty didn’t mean it was empty. I laid my rifle across the saddle, just in case.
“I’ll check a couple more.”
The only sound was the sharp chink of Teta’s spurs as he carefully inspected all of the houses. There wasn’t a lick of a breeze and the silence was this side of unnatural. When my horse snorted, I gripped the rifle tighter.
Get a hold of yourself, Nat.
I remembered a similar day when I was with a patrol of scouts looking for the White Mountain Apaches that had started to cause some concern among the enlisted at Fort Apache. Their medicine man, Nock-ay-det-klinne, had roused them all up, swearing he was going to raise some Apaches from the dead. His secretive ghost dances had begun to sway the Apaches who worked as scouts for the fort. They thought if he could bring the dead back to life, he would be the most powerful Indian leader in the world, more powerful than any white man. It was time to choose sides, and it wasn’t hard to figure out which direction their wind was blowing.
I was sent with two other men to find out where Nock-ay-det-klinne was holding his ghost dances, since the Apaches who were still loyal to us refused to disclose his whereabouts or describe what was involved with the ghost dance. I guessed it was some form of Apache magic. My concern, all of ours, was that belief in that magic would lead to very real and violent action.