“Thank you, Mr. Pierce. I’ll call on you if I need any assistance.”
“Good luck, boy.”
Two weeks of searching gave Griff no leads. No one he contacted had ever heard of the Tucker family. After exhausting all of the hotels and rooms for rent places, he began a sweep of the immigrant campgrounds. Most were filled with new arrivals, families who had reached St. Louis too late to make the long trek across the plains, mountains, and deserts to Oregon or California. They waited for the last run in August that would see them on as far as Fort Bozeman or somewhere in Nebraska. At a few of the outfitting stations that adjoined these travel centers, he received vague comments from old-timers who had ‘settled in.’
“Blacksmith, wasn’t he?” one grizzled wheelwright inquired in the middle of the third week of inquiries.
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Could be, then again might not be. Lots of folks passes through here. Bunch of ’em are blacksmiths. He have a wife and boy?”
“Yes, yes he did. He had only one hand, lost his left in the war.”
“Well, then, you’re lookin’ in the wrong town. They pulled out near a year ago for Saint Joe.”
“Can you tell me anything else?”
“Nope. Only that they talked about headin’ West, like all these other damn fools. I been out there, Sonny, and I can tell you, ain’t no hospitable place for man or beast. Injuns all the time lookin’ to lift yer hair, bands of white outlaws lootin’ and murderin’ worse an’ what Sherman did to Georgia. Summers so hot and dry it fries your brain. Winters so cold as to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Why anybody wants to live there, I dunno.”
“What about Evan Tucker? What part of that ‘inhospitable place’ of yours did he head for?”
“Now that I can’t tell you. I’d suggest you get yourself to Saint Joe and learn for yerself.”
Chapter Five
“I’M SORRY, MR. Treadwell,” the dapper little man in the gray swallowtail suit told Albert Treadwell. “We have simply lost too many men. Unfortunately none of them can be proven to have been killed by Stark. Three operatives have resigned because of that, including my best woman agent. We are going to have to withdraw from this case. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry! It might interest you to know you can’t withdraw from this case. I’ll show you what sorry is.”
“But our board of directors ...”
“I’m your board of directors when it comes down to it. The Federated Rail Consortium owns the Railway Protective Agency. You will not withdraw from any case assigned you by the F.R.C. unless you are directed to do so by me. Unless, of course, you would like to seek new employment elsewhere. Now, do I make myself entirely clear?”
The man’s gray visage grew even more funereal. “I ... I never realized... I am sor—I wish to apologize, Mr. Treadwell. Certainly no question of your authority was implied in our decision.”
“Where is he? Where is Stark?”
“I ... we, don’t exactly know. After the bodies of our two operatives were found alongside the track, we took everyone off the pursuit. One of them had been cut in two, mind you. We … we’ll have to start over. Obviously he was headed for Chicago. From there … Give us a week. We should know in that time.”
“See that you do. You may go.”
“I—” Dismissed like an errant school boy, the president of the Railway Protective Association turned on one heel and walked out of Albert Treadwell’s office. His trip to New York had been even more of a disaster than he had imagined. If only he could get some really top operatives, like that lucky Allan Pinkerton always acquired. His spirits sank as he descended the four flights of stairs.
Albert stared at the desk for a while, letting the fury build. Griffin Stark. Rich, Georgia-boy Stark. He had a part of the key, though he probably didn’t know it. So did that overrated athletic type, Damien Carmichael. The tendrils of the Consortium ran far back into history. Colonial officials bribed, Indian tribes dispossessed, tax wars, smugglers, all had played a part in the establishment of the fortunes that now joined in the Consortium. Coal oil, really kerosene, a petroleum distillate, was just becoming popular. Well, the oil fields of Pennsylvania would be ingested by the Consortium. Their agents would create disasters, provide union agitators, arrange stock manipulations—all designed to be able to buy out the present owners at an attractive price. He wondered if Damien was aware of the stock his father had in the oil business? Probably not. A little tin soldier like that rarely looked beyond the end of his saber.
Yes, oil. Who knew what magic could be wrought with that? Perhaps even trains could be run on it. Well, then, the Rocky Mountain Railroad would be the first to convert. Using, of course, petroleum fuel from their own fields. Yes, fitting. But first Carmichael – both Carmichaels, he amended – had to be put out of the way. They could expose the whole thing.
“Milly,” Albert called to his secretary^ “Come in and take a letter, please.”
An attractive young woman entered and seated herself at the corner of the large Oriental desk, adjusted her skirt and put pen to paper. Albert reached out and patted her knee. “Oh, Mr. Treadwell.”
“Tut-tut, my dear. Colonel Chester Braithwaite,” he began. “Palace Hotel, Silver Creek, Colorado Territory. My dear Colonel. By the time this missive reaches you, I shall be en route to Silver Creek for the inaugural of our track laying endeavor. I congratulate you on fully staffing your operation and count on your efforts being successful in acquiring the disputed property necessary for our line to extend into the Dakota Territory. I am aware that the hostiles are in arms about incursions of white men into this land at the present. I trust that your judgment will suffice to render them ineffective. Progress has been made in Washington toward opening the Territory to white settlement. When that day comes, we expect that the Consortium will be first to enter this vast new Golconda. Drive the savages out if you can, or bribe them or exterminate them. Do what you must. Also proceed on dealing with stubborn farmers in the manner you described in your last letter. Until we meet in Silver Creek, sir, I remain … Your humble servant and all that. Read it back to me.”
Millie complied. While her dulcet voice enunciated the words, Albert felt a warmth spreading from his groin. His flaccid member stirred and began to swell. His breath came hard by the time she finished. “Excellent. Now, Milly, dear, come sit on my lap.”
Milly’s eyes went round and she put one small hand to her mouth. “Oh, Mr. Treadwell, I don’t … think we … should—”
“Nonsense. Close and lock the door if you wish. Only hurry.”
With a soft rustle of her heavy blue silk dress, Milly crossed the room and secured the dividing panel between their offices. With coy shyness she returned to the desk and approached her employer. He had already opened his trousers and his face had twisted into an expression of expected delight.
Milly hoisted her dress, straddled him and lowered her already moistened passage toward the engorged organ that throbbed with anticipation to enter her.
“Oh, Mr. Treadwell!” Milly squealed as she impaled herself on his burning flesh.
In mid-August, Griffin Stark rode into St. Joseph. The jumping-off point for westward migration looked like a ghost town. The wagons had all gone. Those that he passed on the road, or that had left St. Louis behind him, had not yet arrived. Dust blew in the streets and children played in a sort of noisy desperation, as though conscious that September lay not far ahead and, with it, the confines of school. Routine directed Griff to the post office.
“Nope. Not for a long while now. I remember the Tuckers. Nice folks. They left here on a wagon train last fall. Can’t recall which one. There’s so many.”
“Where can I find the people who organize these trains, lead them?”
“Why, they’re gone West with this year’s batch. Won’t be back until next spring. The snows will be closing in soon. No travel on the prairie or across the mountains then.”
“Thank you. You�
�re sure they left? Who might help me more?”
“Try Ansel Thorson. Down at the campground.”
“Thank you again.”
Ansel Thorson turned out to be stooped and bowlegged, his blond hair and beard shot through with gray. The youthful light of a plainsman glowed in his eyes, though, and he answered Griff’s questions with alacrity. “Evan Tucker. Ja, sure. Tall man, like me before the rheumatiz caught up, big shoulders. A blacksmith and horse doctor? I remember him. Ja, sure.”
“Then … do you know which train they took?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Cap’n John’s final immigrant string out last August. To the South Fork of the Platte.”
“Where’s that?”
“In Nebraska. Ja, sure. They usually make it before the big snows came. Say, October, early November. No more travel after that. Ja, sure, they had a little boy with them. Handsome lad, he was.”
“Right. He’s my son.”
“Then what in the world is he doin’ travelin’ West with the Tuckers?”
“The war. The family got split up ...”
Ansel peered closely at Griff’s gray hat, the cloth darker where his gold braid had been. “You’d a been with the Rebels, I’m thinkin. Ja, sure. Well, Mr. Stark, the day might come, an’ soon, when I will have to fight you over that. My brothers all are dead by Rebel bullets. But a boy shouldn’t be separated from his paw, I’m a-thinkin’, so I’ll lend what help I can until you two are joined up. Then I’ll take you out behind the barn. Ja, sure.”
Griff wanted to laugh, but the pale blue eyes held such glowing sincerity that he refrained. Instead he held out a hand and clasped Ansel’s big mitt in a grateful handshake. “Thank you for that, Ansel.”
Three days later, great thunderstorms broke over the plains. Rivers, then lakes of water pelted down out of the sky. The winds howled and shrieked around. Griff had found a small place to stay; an old soddy that remained on the far end of the main east-west street in St. Joe. His legs took to aching again. He endured torment and fiery pain. The left one continued to feel tingly and cold. His right knee swelled and throbbed. He tried cold packs and hot ones, epsom salts and drawing salve. Nothing seemed to work. He hit a new depth of despair. Someone directed him to Doc Miller. To his horror, he discovered that the sign over the doctor’s establishment read:
DR. AARON MILLER
COUNTY CORONER
UNDERTAKING SERVICES
USED FURNITURE
Miller turned out to be a jolly man, round of face, rotund of body. He started by offering a glass of excellent Kentucky bourbon. Griff accepted gratefully. His own intake of liquor had increased as a means of combatting the pain. Then, after the first ceremonial swallows, the doctor got down to cases.
“What brought you here?”
“My legs.” Griff lowered his trousers and Miller examined the scars closely. Puckered and ugly, they gave more sign of not being healed than the contrary.
“You know I can’t practice medicine anymore,” Miller started by way of rendering an opinion. “I was considered too controversial. You ask me and I’d say you are damned lucky to have any legs at all. Marvelous technique. Used in Europe, but not a hard-headed sawbones educated in this country will listen. Be glad, young man. What’s a little pain? At least you can use them. I’d advise some sort of exercise that would employ the whole leg and body. Swimming in the summer. In winter … try snow-shoeing.”
“That’s … all?”
“You want more, I’ll have to charge you a fee. Now get out of here and let me proceed to get drunk.”
“I think I might want to join you in that.”
Within three months, Griff’s money had run out. What had started out as a fairly easy task had lengthened into a battle of attrition. He dare not quit now, only to have to take it up again next year. He must stay in St. Joseph. Only his empty pockets mocked him. The flat report of a gunshot ended his contemplation of finances.
Griff stepped into the street outside the small soddy he had rented. A brisk, chill November wind whistled off the prairie, blowing fallen leaves ahead of it. Griff wore a heavy wool jacket, in imitation of wiser and more experienced plainsmen. Under it he had holstered his Starr .44. It was a precaution that observation of St. Joseph, Missouri had soon taught him. Down the street, toward the center of town, he heard another thump of detonating black powder. He looked that way and saw the town’s peace officer, Marshal Nate Corbett stagger backward. Then a ball of greasy, gray white smoke billowed in front of the lawman.
Beyond him, two men released drunken laughter when the marshal’s bullet missed, and advanced two more steps before they both raised their six-guns and fired into the marshal’s body from point-blank range. The lawman went to his knees, then tried to raise his revolver again. Two more shouts sounded. The heavy slugs flung him backward, head first into the dirt. The corpse twitched for a while, pumping spurts of blood out to dampen the black Missouri soil. The killer guffawed and started to turn away.
“Hold it a minute,” Griffin Stark called out. He didn’t take time to work it out. It simply seemed the proper thing to do. “Stop where you are and put up your hands.”
“M’God, they got more than one law dog in this burg,” one hardcase slurred to his companion.
“Let’s kill him, too.”
“Drop those guns,” Griff began walking toward them, his Starr out now, pointed at a spot midway between him and the drunken murderers. “I won’t warn you again.”
“Smartass, ain’t he?” The older of the frontier misfits pronounced. Lazily he brought up his smoking Colt. A grin spread on his thick lips as he started to ear back the hammer. This fancy-dressed dude was actually gonna throw down on them. The sear notches clicked loudly in the still afternoon air. Closer to the business district a muttering crowd had begun to gather to take in the event.
Confidence soared as the reprobate began to squeeze the trigger. Only five feet separated him from his target.
Then something dark flew through the air and struck him painfully in the breast. His knees sagged momentarily and his Colt went off into the ground.
Out in front of him, the Starr in Griff Stark’s left hand belched fire and smoke, and the hardcase heard the ball crack past his head. Then came a painful grunt from his older brother. He turned his head to look, blinking to keep back the darkness.
“Brother Mel, Brother Mel, what …?” His closest kin lay in a spreading pool of blood, a large bullet hole in his left breast. Fury seized the slow-witted bully and he whirled on the cause of this atrocity, the Colt’s hammer already eared back.
A charge of dynamite went off in his chest. He staggered backward, mouth slack, eyes blinking furiously, nose twitching. The pain swelled to an unbearable point and turned off. He felt nothing. Desperately he tried to raise the heavy gun again. Saw the muzzle swing up toward the stranger who had interfered with their funnin’ the Marshal. Then a giant’s fist slammed into his midsection and he doubled over.
“Oh, m’God, I’m shot,” his mind finally registered and informed the rest of his body. It didn’t make any difference that he had identified the nature of his discomfort. Three seconds later he lay dead in the street beside his brother. The excited crowd rushed forward.
“That was some shootin’, mister,” a chubby shopkeeper enthused as he came up. He slapped Griff on one shoulder. “Mighty nice.”
“Yessir, we was afraid of what would happen iffin those boys did in the marshal. No problem now.”
“Why didn’t you do something about it?” Griff challenged. Two more men had died at his hands. It didn’t make him joyous. It only made him feel empty.
“What’s that?”
“I said, ‘Why didn’t you do something’ …?”
“Oh, that ain’t our job,” the blubbery general mercantile dealer interrupted. “The marshal’s got to deal with the rowdies.”
“He’s laying back there dead as last year’s buffalo,” Griff snarled, taking out his tensions and revuls
ion on these hopeless cowards. “What the hell did you expect would come next? Those two, if they are indeed alone, would have taken this town over if it were left up to you. What then? Make them peace officers? Throw a party for them?”
Shamed faces looked away and several men shuffled off without comment. The tubby merchant tried to bluster. “Now see here, what business is it of yours?”
“I just killed two men. The ones who did in your marshal. I don’t want your praise, I don’t even expect your thanks. All I want is a civil answer to a reasonable question. What were you going to do now that the marshal had been killed and none of you seem to have the guts to capture the murderers? Evil cannot be contained by running away from it.”
“I … I suppose we had that coming,” a walrus-mustached, portly man in a broadcloth suit muttered through the strands of his facial hair. “I’m Phil Ormsby. I’m the mayor of Saint Joe. We do appreciate what you done, young feller. Honest we do. I can’t answer for the rest of these idlers and laze-abouts, but most likely, if they got the length of the block, I would have tried to take them in the back with a shotgun. I’m not a shootist, Mister Stark. I like to believe I’m a man of peace. Now I am faced with a problem. We need a new peace officer. Could I …Would you …?” The mayor took a deep breath and started again. “What I am trying to do, sir, is offer you the position of marshal. Would you accept it?”
Griff gave it a long moment’s thought. “Well, now, Mr. Mayor, I’m not acquainted with the principals of law enforcement. I don’t know how to go about testifying in court or what to ask a judge to get a warrant. Nothing like that. I don’t even know how to use a pair of handcuffs or unlock a jail cell.”
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