“You’re right about that. My wife would be beside herself. She loves to embroider, and she bought a passel of these and embroidered our names and wedding date on them and gave them as gifts to our wedding party.” He smiled as he carefully shoved it deep into his pocket. “Still, if you knew my Claire,” he began pointing at an oil portrait of lovely woman with sandy-colored hair, a pale complexion, and soulful eyes that hung on one wall, “you’d know that would be nothing compared to the storm she’d pitch if I told her we had to move back to St. Louis!”
It was time to get moving, but as an artist, McKenna couldn't help but take a moment to admire the artwork. The brush strokes and the texturing were done under the hands of a master, that was clear. Before she turned away, her attention shifted from the craftsmanship to the subject. Claire Corday was a strikingly beautiful woman and the fact that her husband was quite handsome made them quite the attractive couple. Beyond her beauty, though, McKenna was suddenly struck by the fact there was something familiar about her face. Perhaps she'd seen her on the street as they rode in without realizing it?
As the trio stepped out of the office, McKenna pushed aside, trying to figure out where she might have seen Mrs. Corday and turned her attention to the serious matter at hand. She and the others saw the beleaguered wagon was just finishing being unloaded. McKenna watched as Clayton began to walk away, carrying a crate when another man approached him. He was walking with a pronounced limp. Clayton stopped, and the man said something to him. They both looked back for a moment before quickly turning away and started walking off together.
“Mister Corday, how short of miners are you? I imagine that man up ahead with the limp must be hard pressed to do any mining,” McKenna asked. Corday looked to where she was pointing at the receding men and then turned back to her.
"I'm not sure what's going on there with Brooks. He was fine yesterday, but mining is a dangerous profession. Anything can happen like a man swinging his pickax against a stratum of rock and it suddenly gives way and crushes his foot. I'll have to look into it. Right now, I need to speak to the men as said." With that, he hustled towards the mine.
Markham turned to McKenna and said they should get their horses fed at the livery before heading back. She was just about to agree when she saw a familiar face down the street sitting on a barrel outside a small shop. McKenna asked if they could tend to Cain too, and she would catch up with them after she went to have a word with someone down the street. Markham agreed, and he and Butler set out for the livery as she hurried on her way.
The seated man had his head bowed and his posture appeared solemn, but when she stepped in front of him and her body blocked the sunlight beaming down on him casting him in a shadow, he became aware of her presence. A smile bloomed on Red Horse's face as he looked up at her.
“Red Horse, I thought you’d be out at the farmstead already hard at work on the windmill.”
He was about to answer but paused while a woman clutching the hand of a small child hustled between where she stood, and he sat on the barrel. After they passed, he looked up at her.
“Red Horse arrived at farmstead, met by wife of homesteader. The husband down with the fever. She say job will have to wait until he is better before door closed in face.”
Planting her hands on her hips, she said, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Especially as you came all this way. What will you do now?"
“Back to Pine Bluff. There was small job offered to me that I turned down to come here. Barber need new sign. Will see if I can still get it. Will not take more than one day. Tomorrow, then I look for more work.”
The sound of raised voices suddenly drew their attention a short way down the main street. The mother and the child were standing by a man sitting wobbly in his saddle as he looked down at the pair, shaking his head.
“Please, Thomas! Don’t go!” the woman cried despairingly.
"It's a man's role to provide for his family!" he barked as he wiped his brow. "I'm going to Pine Bluff and get us those extra provisions, and we ain't gonna discuss it further!"
"But you've got the fever. You'll never make it. Besides, look! I just saw a supply wagon being unloaded. The mine is bringing in more food!" she said, gesturing towards the now empty freight wagon. The man readjusted himself to get a look, but the effects of the fever made him sway further in the saddle sending him crashing to the ground. The child shrieked at seeing his father fall. McKenna started to move to see if she could help but stopped midstride as the man staggered to his feet, assisted by his wife.
“See, I told you that you’d never get through the pass. Come on now, Thomas, let me get you to the doc.”
Common sense seemed to prevail, and after the boy tied the horse back to its hitching post, they set out towards the doctor’s office. The man leaned on his wife for support as he staggered away with his family.
“He lucky he not break an arm or a leg falling like that. When Red Horse was just boy, uncle fall from horse like that during a hunt. Break bone so bad, sticking through his arm.”
McKenna shuddered at the ghastly thought of a compound fracture bursting through the skin and muscle of an arm as she watched the feverish man and his family receding. Suddenly a small spark ignited deep within her mind as a few of the words Red Horse had just spoken registered on her and the flicker of a possibility took root as she snapped her head around and looked back at the now emptied supply wagon.
CHAPTER 32
DALTON’S CREEK
Standing soberly near the false front to the mortician’s shop, Riker and Luther Beckett removed their hats and bowed their heads along with Callie and Crewson the Blacksmith. Passing by them with their morbid cargo was Frank Denning, the undertaker, and his helper, a young colored boy by the name of Rufus. Up the two steps they went with the sheet-covered body on the plank stretcher, two dark stains were spreading where the man’s heart and head would be beneath the shroud.
After the men went inside, Luther climbed the steps pulling the door shut, and as he rejoined the others, he saw his son riding up. The Reverend Beckett brought his mount to a stop and looked at the grave faces of those assembled.
“Who was that I just saw being carried in?”
Callie wiped her red puffy eyes before answering her brother. “Grable. It was Mister Grable.”
Riker rubbed her back before he looked up at the preacher. “The town council vote extended to confiscating all his guns at the store to take them to the basement of the town hall where they’re storing them.” Pointing down the street, the reverend saw a cluster of Peace Officers and two wagons abreast the town hall. Men were busying themselves transferring weapons inside, while others stood at the ready with firearms drawn and ready lest anyone try and interfere.
“Your Mister Grable refused to give up his inventory and pulled a Colt on one of the men, but two of them cut him down. Took a shot to the head and one through the heart.”
“They’re animals!” Callie ranted, staring off at nothing.
"At least he's the only fatality. We tried to warn as many people as we could to stand down and not challenge them with weapons. Right now, down at that closed saloon at the end of Main Street, Dalton's using that as his stockade holding those that tried to refuse and were arrested. We saw Judge Crocket go in there a short while ago with some sort of booklet.” Riker said grimly.
“It’s safe to say that he's handing out steep fines, that they can never pay. Just another cunning way to seize their homes." Crewson added in disgust.
As Riker’s eyes swept down the main street, unconsciously, he was tapping on his now empty holster. Tapping was an old habit each of the Rikers had when lost in thought. On this day on the somber main street of Dalton's Creek, his mind was turning over option after option for the best way to end the hostile takeover of an entire community and close down this operation in progress. Suddenly he felt his body tense…Close down! Riker breathed out a sigh of relief and even managed to from a half smile. Slowly an idea was takin
g shape in his head, one that the more he replayed the scenario in his mind, the more and more he was cottoning to the idea.
After climbing down and tethering his horse and burro to the rickety old hitching post outside of Denning’s, the reverend filled the others in on his encounters along the way with the Peace Officers and the Dixon family. Riker and the others had heard of similar things as they had ridden about on their quest to alert the townspeople.
“So, the question now is what are we going to do. Our vigilante plan is completely useless without weaponry to back it up.”
“It’s a dead plan all right,” Crewson said as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. “Yep, dead and buried.”
“Then it’s time to raise the dead. We’re going to rearm ourselves,” Riker said so unexpectedly that all the men present suddenly stood ramrod straight, and Callie dried her puffy eyes and looked at him with hope.
“But how, consarn it?” Luther Beckett fussed.
“Gentleman, what I am about to tell you is only to be shared with a couple of select men. This time we can’t have Dalton tipped off to what we are doing.”
“Then maybe, the good reverend here should excuse himself,” Crewson said as he flicked the ashes away from his cigarette to the ground.
“What the devil are you saying, Crewson?” Luther questioned as he stepped closer to his friend.
"What I'm saying is I heard your son talking to Riker and Callie last night at the church. You weren't for the vigilante idea, Johann. You could have been the one who tipped off Dalton."
The only sounds for several seconds came from down the street from the Peace Officers who were laughing amongst themselves as they went about their business of stockpiling the confiscated guns. Finally, Luther Beckett stepped forward, his fists clenched.
“Now you listen up! Finn, you’re one of my best friends, but Johann is my son! I won’t have you talking about him that way! No, sir, no how!”
"He's a man of peace, he might not have been able to help himself," Crewson said calmly, but Luther's fists only tightened. Riker stepped between the two of them.
"Simmer down the both of you. Dalton would be happy to have us fighting amongst ourselves. It would only play right into his hands, and already he's got the advantage on us!" Gently he pushed on the chest of both men, shoving Luther gently backward. Pushing on Crewson had no effect; the man was built like a one-hundred-year-old oak tree. The sound of the reverend clearing his voice got everyone's attention.
“Everything I saw today has given me a change of heart. If we want to save Dalton’s Creek, then we are going to have to fight for it! I didn’t betray us last night, and I certainly won’t now. Whatever you have to say, Mister Riker, then say it.”
Riker cast a gaze towards Crewson to see if he was going to continue to be a problem, but the man had gone silent as he blew a puff of smoke from between his lips.
“First up, Callie already knows this, but I’m no prospector. I’m a special breed of federal marshal. My jurisdiction is the entire western United States and its territories, and my assignment came directly from Abraham Lincoln eleven years ago.”
Riker continued for several minutes explaining the Military Marshals and answering as many questions as he could, but he cut it short wishing to set the plan he had been stewing on into motion. Still, Crewson persisted with a final question that had the male Becketts shaking their heads in agreement wanting to know the answer for themselves.
“So, Riker, you’ve been a marshal this whole time? Why the hell didn’t you arrest Dalton when you at least had a weapon?”
"Even if I were to accomplish that with the small army of hired guns he's got protecting him, then what? Turn him over for trial when the judge is his right-hand man? No, I've been biding my time looking for the best option for you people to dethrone your man here who would be king. I'd hoped to have a little more time to figure out just what Dalton's game here is, what he's doing all this for, but stripping you all of your right to bear arms has forced my hand. We’re out of time and have to act now, and I've got a plan."
Overhead a hawk swooped low casting its shadow on the ground in front of Riker. He looked up and watched the graceful creature fly off over the roof of the funeral parlor. When he looked back down, it was into the smiling face of Callie Beckett. It was good to see her smile again, her glistening white teeth shone and the half-moon dimples in her cheeks returned to life.
“Nash, tell us, please!”
Hooking his thumbs into his gun belt, he looked from person to person. “Okay, friends, this stays between us. The only other people that can know about this are three others.” He ticked them off on his fingers as Luther rubbed his chin and the others all showed signs of their confusion.
“A carpenter, a piano player from one of the saloons and the last person needs to a citizen that is facing losing their place to Dalton’s taxes and has what we need, all of whom we also need to be able to trust.”
“I can vouch for Newt Corley as far as a carpenter goes, he hates Dalton and his crew with a passion. As far as a piano player, Jonas Grumbly at the Calico Saloon can be trusted, but why in the Sam Hill do you want them and the third person for?”
For the first time since the sumptuous breakfast he had enjoyed with Callie and her father, Riker smiled.
“Because, folks, they are going to provide the ticket for getting out of town and getting back into town with the guns we’re going to need to take down Dalton and his Peace Officers!”
CHAPTER 33
PEPPER HILL
After bidding Red Horse a hasty farewell with a promise to look for him later when they were back in Pine Bluff, McKenna had hastened off towards the cluster of buildings that supported the mine. As she searched, she saw Corday standing at the entrance to the mine with a group of the miners' clustered around him, listening to what he was saying.
McKenna passed a building where the ore was sorted, the stables for the horse, and a small shack that was secured by a considerable chain and lock with big red letters painted over the door saying "Explosives." Just after passing the dynamite shack, she saw what she was looking for—a small building with more red paint on it, but this time it was on the door and in the shape of a cross. Taking a quick look around to make sure no one was noticing her she made for the door. A moment later, she was inside.
She had expected to be greeted by the mining company’s doctor, but then she realized he was likely part of the throng milling around by the mine entrance, listening to what Corday had to say, probably concerned about the upcoming shipment of medicine. McKenna walked past what had to be the man’s desk to a doorway with a curtain across it. Drawing it back partially, she saw a small room with four cots in it. Three of them were occupied by men showing signs of the fever as they slept with their damp foreheads and matted hair, one of them was the family man she had seen not long ago. Apparently, he had confiscated a bed for himself as he waited for the doctor to return. She quickly drew the curtain back, knowing this was not a place she wished to linger in for very long.
Returning to the desk, she hoped she might find written down somewhere what she was going to ask the doctor. Her hazel eyes darted about the different papers on the desk, but they were instantly drawn to a log book. It was just what she was looking for! Quickly she flipped it open to find the most recently written on page before dropping her index finger to the top of the page and dragging it downward from entry to entry
It was a tally of accidents and injuries listing the injured party, the nature and time of the accident. It was a litany of what you would expect in a mine, injured feet, smashed fingers, irritated eyes as well as entries regarding the fever. A ghost of a smile appeared on her face as her finger stopped at the final entry. Not your usual accident and certainly not at a typical time when accidents at a mine would occur. McKenna had been so focused on the page of entries she did not hear the door open and jumped when a voice rang out.
“Ma’am, if you’re looking for me
dicine for your family, Mister Corday just assured me it’s coming tomorrow.”
McKenna turned around to see a middle-aged man whose face featured a Van Dyke beard and a pair of spectacles. She also saw the narrowing of his eyes as he noticed her with her finger jabbing the notebook that lay open on his desk.
“Can I help you?” he said, his tone instantly having lost the genial edge to it than when he had spoken the first time.
“Absolutely.” She held out the notebook with one hand and used the same index finger to point to the final entry. “I want you to tell me anything you can about this accident?”
“You’ll forgive me if I demand to know who you are and what this is all about. I come back to my ward to find a strange woman rifling through my desk and she’s asking the questions?”
“For starters, Doctor, I am a deputy marshal.”
“Where I come from women aren’t deputies,” he said, folding his arms as McKenna rolled her eyes. This was the third time in recent days she had heard this. It was a familiar refrain parroted in her direction on numerous occasions in the past. There was no reason this neck of the woods should be anywhere different than in her other travels.
“I don’t doubt that but you’re not there…you’re here and I am the law and I’ve got the badge to prove it. Now I don’t reckon I want to get off on the wrong foot with you, Doc, because I understand you have got a right to have ruffled feathers finding me in here, but this is important. Will you help me?"
***
As McKenna left the doctor’s office feeling buoyed she might be on the right track, she didn’t notice the pair of eyes that witnessed her departure. The same eyes followed her as she seemed to be searching for a specific building. Discreetly, the watching man followed her until she arrived at the miner’s quarters, and she began to walk the area between it and a nearby outhouse. He watched as she put her hands on her hips and grinned in satisfaction before she hurried off in the direction of the general store.
Six-Guns Or Surrender (Lincoln's Lawman Book 1) Page 20
