by Matt Braun
Upstairs, Starbuck entered the office and pegged his Stetson on a hat rack. Verna Phelps, his secretary, glanced up from an accounting ledger. She was a spinster, on the sundown side of thirty, and prim as a missionary. She wore her hair in a tight chignon, and pince-nez eyeglasses were clipped onto the end of her nose. She looked every inch the old maid.
“Good afternoon.” She greeted him with starch civility. “How was your meeting?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Pardon me?”
“It’s a queer setup,” Starbuck told her. “Dexter’s only the front man. Turns out he’s representing some mine owner up in Butte.”
Verna lifted an eyebrow in question. “Why should that bother you?”
“Don’t know,” Starbuck admitted. “Guess I get a little leery when a man won’t do business face to face.”
“Some people would consider it routine practice. After all, a lawyer often has power of attorney to act in his client’s behalf.”
“Maybe.” Starbuck hesitated, then shrugged. “Or maybe it’s Dexter that worries me. I never did trust a man who’s got nothing to hide. And he comes across like every word’s sworn testimony.”
“Humph!” Verna sniffed and looked away. “Your cynicism never ceases to amaze me.”
Starbuck grinned. “So far, it’s kept me fogging a mirror. Which isn’t exactly no small feat, considering the company I keep.”
Verna Phelps conceded the point. She appreciated the danger involved in Starbuck’s work, and understood the need for expedient methods. She even took a certain macabre pride in the number of men he’d killed. Yet she thought him too cynical for his own good, and secretly worried it would lead to some darker alienation of the spirit. She abruptly switched topics.
“Speaking of company,” she observed, squinting querulously over her glasses, “Miss Montana sent a street urchin by with a message.”
“Urchin?”
“That’s correct!” Verna said with frosty disapproval. “No doubt some poor orphan she and her associates have corrupted with handouts.”
“The girls at the Alcazar would be mighty pleased to know you’ve elevated them to ‘associates.’”
“A charitable term,” Verna noted with a feisty scowl. “Would you care to hear my real opinion?”
“I’d sooner not.” Starbuck warded her off with upraised palms. “Let’s just stick to the message.”
“Miss Montana,” Verna said sharply, “requests the pleasure of your company at tonight’s performance. I have the distinct impression she feels you’ve been neglecting her.”
Starbuck’s expression was one of amiable tolerance. “What do you think, Verna? Should I give her a break or not?”
“I’m sure I don’t care one way or the other.”
By no means monogamous, Starbuck entertained any number of women in his hotel suite. Yet his affair with Lola Montana—a headliner at the Alcazar Variety Theater—appeared to be a thing of some permanence. Her disclaimer aside, Verna had mixed emotions on that score. She applauded his constancy to one woman, which was a singular departure from his normal behavior. Still, she thought the woman—who shamelessly flaunted herself onstage—was little more than a common strumpet. It was all very perturbing, and Starbuck himself did nothing to alleviate her anxiety. His overall attitude was that of a boar grizzly in rutting season. He took his women where he found them.
Verna considered it not only scandalous, but thoroughly reprehensible. And more than a little titillating. She often wondered how Lola Montana felt, locked naked in the intimacy of Starbuck’s embrace. The mere thought prompted a vicarious sensation that gave her naughty dreams, and vivid awakenings. Even now, she felt a tingling warmth along her loins, and her face suddenly reddened to the hairline. She took hold of herself, ruthlessly purged the thought.
“You have your message,” she said in a waspish tone. “Now, perhaps we can return to business. You were telling me about Mr. Dexter.”
“Nothing more to tell,” Starbuck said equably. “He just struck me as a man with secrets … lots of secrets.”
“Then you intend to refuse the case?”
“Nooo,” Starbuck said slowly. “Tell you the truth, I’m tempted to have a crack at it.”
“Oh?” Verna gave him a quizzical glance. “Something unusual?”
“Out of the ordinary,” Starbuck affirmed. “He wants me to track down a payroll robber—last reported at Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“Hole-in-the-Wall!” Verna suddenly appeared apprehensive. “I understood Hole-in-the-Wall was certain death to lawmen!”
“Yeah.” Starbuck chuckled, and lowered one eyelid in a conspiratorial wink. “A place where angels fear to tread. Sounds like just my speed, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds like you could get yourself killed.”
“What the hell!” Starbuck deadpanned. “Nobody lives forever.”
“On the other hand,” Verna said, a hint of reproach in her voice, “why leap at a challenge simply because it’s there?”
“Always look before I leap,” Starbuck noted wryly. “Suppose you dig out your directory on mining companies? I’d like to know if there’s a Grubstake Mining Company in Butte.”
“Anything else?”
“Dexter told me the owner’s name is Ira Lloyd. Check that, too.”
Verna rummaged around in the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a directory published by the Denver Stock Exchange. Starbuck left her flipping pages and moved into the inner office. He walked to a large double-door safe standing against the far wall. He spun a sequence on the combination lock, then turned the handle and swung open one door. On an inside shelf were stacked four loose-leaf ledgers, each of them bound in dark leather. He removed the top ledger, which was stenciled A-F on the cover, and crossed the room to his desk. He sat down and opened the ledger to the section flagged with the letter C.
Not quite a year ago, Starbuck had begun organizing his personal rogues’ gallery. As a first step, he subscribed to dozens of newspapers throughout the states and territories that constituted the western United States. He next circulated his name throughout the law-enforcement community and got himself on the mailing list for wanted posters; the dodgers on fugitives included across-the-board felonious crime, from horse stealing to murder. Finally, he undertook a program of correspondence with various peace officers and U.S. marshals across the frontier. The response was far more productive than anything he’d imagined. The post office began delivering his mail in a sack.
Quite soon, Verna inherited the project. She read the newspapers, clipping out all articles dealing with criminal activity. She sorted through the wanted posters, cataloguing them by name and locale. And she attended to the correspondence with lawmen, cleverly forging Starbuck’s signature whenever he was out of town. The final step, bringing all the intelligence together, involved the four leather-bound ledgers. A page was assigned to each wanted man, and therein were detailed his physical description, his habits and associations, and every known fact regarding his crimes and method of operation. Whenever possible, a tintype or photo was acquired and added to the file. The result was a complete and rather meticulous dossier on nearly three hundred western outlaws. A Who’s Who of desperate men and desperadoes.
The page on Mike Cassidy was revealing. There was no photo, but listed there were the salient, and somewhat surprising, details. Cassidy was age thirty-eight, with dark hair and brown eyes, and a pronounced scar on his left jawbone. He was five feet ten inches in height, of muscular build, and considered extremely dangerous. A former cowhand, he had turned to rustling in 1879, operating principally in Utah and western Colorado. He was wanted on four counts of cattle rustling, three counts of horse stealing, and one count of murder. The murder victim, a Utah rancher, had been killed attempting to halt a livestock raid. Following the homicide, barely two months past, Cassidy had vanished. His associates were not identified by name, and his only known haunt was the Robbers Roost country of southea
stern Utah. There were no further reports on his activities since the murder. He was thought to have skipped Utah, present whereabouts unknown.
Starbuck fished a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He shook one out and struck a match on his thumbnail. After lighting up, he took a deep drag, exhaling little spurts of smoke. He studied the fiery tip of the cigarette a moment, his expression abstracted. Then his eyes went back to the page and stopped. His gaze centered on two words—Robbers Roost.
Several years past, peace officers had discovered the existence of an Outlaw Trail. Extending from northern Arizona to the Canadian border, it traversed the western territories, with three principal hideouts along the route. The first stop, commonly called a station, was Robbers Roost. Bounded by mountains, the desolate wasteland was a maze of canyons and windswept mesas. With only three entrances and a few isolated water holes, the Roost was hazardous country for anyone unfamiliar with its layout. On several occasions, lawmen had penetrated the Roost in pursuit of outlaws. Those who returned told hair-raising stories of being lost and near death before stumbling upon a hidden water hole. Outlaws enjoyed every advantage in the deadly game of hide-and-seek within Robbers Roost.
Farther north, the second station on the trail was Brown’s Hole. Located in the northwest corner of Colorado, parts of the Hole extended across the eastern boundary of Utah and the southern boundary of Wyoming. Roughly three hundred miles from Robbers Roost, the Hole was a narrow valley surrounded by mountains. There were only two known entrances into the valley; both of them were down steep and precarious paths from mountain rims to the north and south. Few law officers dared the treacherous passageways, and those who did were confronted by a baffling legal problem. Their quarry eluded capture by skipping back and forth across a patchwork of territorial boundaries. Brown’s Hole was a jurisdictional nightmare, where outlaws forever held the edge. Fugitives drifted in and out of the valley almost at will.
The last station on the Outlaw Trail lay some two hundred miles to the northeast. Known simply as Hole-in-the-Wall, it was considered the most formidable of all the hideouts. Located in the barrens of upper Wyoming, the refuge was centered in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. According to legend, there was only one entrance, which wound through a narrow gorge into a remote valley. Steeped in mystery, the mountain stronghold was reportedly impregnable. The entrance, by all accounts, could be defended by a mere handful of men. At any given time, it was believed that upward of a hundred outlaws found sanctuary at Hole-in-the-Wall. Lawmen never ventured there, and for all practical purposes it was sacrosanct to the outside world. A true no-man’s-land where death awaited any stranger.
Starbuck took a last drag on his cigarette and stubbed out the butt in an ashtray. He pulled at his earlobe, lost in thought. With time and hard-won experience, he had developed the trick of putting himself in the wanted man’s boots. All he’d gleaned from the file—added to that hunter’s sixth sense—led to an obvious conclusion. Mike Cassidy, like most western badmen, was familiar with the hideouts along the Outlaw Trail. Intelligence reports indicated that rustlers and horse thieves regularly worked the route, disposing of stolen livestock outside their own home-ground. It was reasonable to assume Cassidy had quit Utah following the murder and journeyed northward to avoid the hangman’s rope. The logical hideout, and by far the safest, was the last station on the trail. Hole-in-the-Wall.
One thought led to another, and Starbuck found himself pondering an unknown. Cassidy was a horse thief and rustler—no robber—a fact clearly documented in his dossier. Yet he was now charged with payroll robbery, which seemed somehow out of character. Outlaws generally stuck to one line of work, and their crimes almost always followed a pattern. But, of course, the only inviolable rule was that there were exceptions to the rule. Perhaps, after shifting his base of operations to Hole-in-the-Wall, Cassidy had decided on a shift in occupation as well. Even the lowliest horse thief could aspire to greater things, and robbery was definitely the more lucrative profession. All of which would account for the payroll job and dovetail neatly as well with Cassidy’s disappearance from Utah. It was, moreover, a matter of proximity. Butte, and the Grubstake Mining Company, were only a few days’ ride over the Wyoming line. A quick hit-and-run, within easy striking distance from Hole-in-the-Wall.
Starbuck silently repeated the name to himself. Hole-in-the-Wall. There was a foreboding ring to it, and he wondered if all the stories were actually true. In his experience, anything shrouded in mystery and legend generally weighed out to about twelve ounces of bat crap to the pound. The fact that lawmen accepted the stories at face value merely intrigued him all the more. He thought it might be worth the ride just to have a look-see for himself.
Verna appeared in the doorway. She walked to the desk and laid the mining company directory before him. Then she stepped back, hands clasped at her waist.
“You can read it for yourself,” she advised him. “But the information you received is essentially correct.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The Grubstake Mining Company,” she recited in a singsong voice, “was organized in August, 1874. The original owners of record were Thomas Benson and Fred Wells. The mine has been in continuous operation, and its principal business is copper. All stock certificates were transferred to Ira Lloyd on July 12, 1879. No current production figures are available.”
“About three years,” Starbuck mused out loud. “Any indication of the mine’s value?”
“None,” Verna said briskly. “The company is wholly owned, and no shares are currently listed with the exchange.”
“How about Lloyd?” Starbuck persisted. “Anything on him personally?”
“Only his name,” Verna remarked. “His mailing address is the same as that of the company.”
An instant of weighing and calculation slipped past. Then Starbuck leaned forward and took a sheet of foolscap from the desk drawer. He dripped pen in the inkwell and hastily scrabbled a note. He signed it with a flourish and handed it to Verna.
“Stick that in an envelope and get it over to William Dexter.”
“Am I to surmise you’ve taken the case?”
“Have a gander and see for yourself.”
The frown lines around Verona’s mouth deepened. She adjusted her pince-nez and held the paper at arm’s length. Then she quickly scanned the note.
Assignment accepted. Will depart upon receipt of your check.
Luke Starbuck
“You’re really going, then?”
Starbuck smiled. “You might say that.”
“Might?” Verna fixed him with a stern look. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither will the boys at Hole-in-the-Wall.”
Chapter Three
Some while later Starbuck left the office. He caught a crosstown trolley and hopped off at Blake Street. Dodging a carriage, he walked to the corner and proceeded along a block of business establishments. He turned into a small shop flanked by a pool hall on one side and a hardware store on the other. The sign on the window was faded and peeling, barely legible.
DANIEL CAMERON
GUNSMITH
PISTOLS—RIFLES—SHOTGUNS
A bell jangled as Starbuck moved through the door. He passed a rack of long guns and walked toward a glass showcase at the rear of the shop. Beyond the showcase was a workbench, and off to one side there was an entrance leading to a back room. A small gray-haired man hurried out, wiping his hands on an oily cloth. He was stooped and wiry, with a face like ancient ivory and a humorous expression suggesting incisive wisdom. His features creased with a wide smile.
“Well, well, who have we here?”
“Afternoon, Daniel.”
Starbuck pulled the Colt and thumbed it to half-cock. Though the pistol was in excellent condition, the bluing was worn and the barrel showed signs of wear from years of contact with the holster. He opened the loading gate and slowly spun the cylinder. One at a time, five cartridges spilled out on the counter. Wi
th practiced ease, he closed the loading gate and deftly lowered the hammer. Then he laid the pistol before Cameron.
“Time to trade,” he said crisply. “I leave tomorrow.”
“How were you so sure I’d have the new one finished?”
“Just on a hunch”—Starbuck eyed him keenly—“I’d lay odds you had it ready last week.”
Cameron gave him a bewildered look. “Now you’re a mind reader!”
“You’re an open book, Daniel.”
“Am I, now?”
“I’ve got twenty dollars that says I’m right.”
“So tell me, Mr. Detective! What makes you so certain?”
“Simple,” Starbuck said confidently. “You won’t let go of a gun until someone comes and takes it away from you. You’ve always got to tinker with it just one day more.”
There was no arguing the point. Daniel Cameron was a master gunsmith and a superb craftsman. The inner workings of a firearm were to him like the movement of a fine timepiece. To men who knew weapons, his work bore an invisible, albeit unmistakable, signature. The smoothness of operation and overall functional reliability were hallmarks of his skill. Yet he was a congenital perfectionist; no matter how flawless his work, he was convinced one more day would make it still better. As Starbuck had noted, he surrendered a gun only under duress. The artisan in him simply would not let go.
Cameron laughed, spread his hands. “You know me too well, Luke! Not that it couldn’t stand a bit more—”
