by Lou Bradshaw
“Ma was more concerned with keepin’ the farm and havin’ a man to operate it, than she was about what happened to me. If I can latch onto something here or with the railroad, I just won’t go back at all.”
I put two five dollar gold pieces in his hand and told him that would keep him eating while he looked for work. He didn’t want to take it, but I told him that when he got rich to send it to me at the Creede Bank in Creede, Colorado. He said he surely would and I wished him luck.
Cal and I tied up in front of the best hotel in Tucson, and I started counting my money. I was thinking of going back borrowing some from young Crocket.
“You think they’ll let us in there?” I asked.
“You better believe it.” Bailey answered, “Mister Banister owns it… I stay here whenever I’m in town.”
The man at the desk called him Mr. Bailey, and had someone take care of our horses. Dog followed along with the horses… He’d be waiting on the boardwalk when we went to supper… I’d make sure he was fed.
It was about a day’s ride to where the rails ended, and there was traffic both ways. Wagons full of ties were going one way and wagons full of other supplies were going the other way. Chinamen were leveling the roadbed, and other men were stacking ties where they were needed. All in all it was busy with something going on about half the way to where we were to meet Banister.
We went on passed the tent city, which followed the rails and provided liquor, gaming, and ladies of the night for the workers. It wasn’t for a hill top boy like me, and I don’t think Cal was too anxious to stop either. Besides, we hoped to travel another couple more hours. That would get us to the meeting place the following morning.
Cal Bailey was good company, and although he handled himself well in open country, he just wasn’t as comfortable as a man who was born to it. He never volunteered anything about himself, and he didn’t ask nosey questions. My first opinion of him was some sort of lawman, but from the way he carried himself, I’d say he’d been a military man.
The meeting place was no more than a water tank and a rail siding. We were the first to arrive. I found some browse for the horses not too far from the tank, so we unsaddled and picketed them back in the rocks and brush. We sat in the shade of the tank and didn’t mind a water drip from time to time. Dog took advantage of the damp ground and shade for one of his little naps…. We waited.
Chapter 3
We had coffee and jerky for our noon meal. Cal surprised me with a can of peaches for dessert. We just fished the halves out with our knives and shared the juice. That made the waiting more tolerable.
I calculated we’d been there about three hours, when I spotted the smoke on the horizon. Cal confirmed my reckoning by his watch. We sat in the shade and watched that locomotive get closer and closer until we could see it clearly. It consisted of one passenger car, a stock car, and a caboose.
The engineer started tugging on that whistle cord as he neared the siding. Then he pulled on up and brought it up to the tank. The brakeman was on hand to get the water going. When he had it started, he greeted Cal Bailey saying,
“How do, Captain. Didn’t know you was the one his nibs was meetin’ out here. But he must have been in somethin’ of a hurry… We must have broke a record gittin’ here.”
“Howdy, Pete… I reckon the boss is anxious to talk to my friend here… We’ll go see him now.”
Bailey knocked twice on the fancy door, and went on in. A large man was just getting up from a large desk as we went through the door.
“Cal,” he said, “I knew you wouldn’t let me down… And this must be the famous Shadrac Cain.” He shook Bailey’s hand and then mine with a firm grip.
“Cain, I’d like to present Mister Alan Banister, Chairman of the Texas West Coast Railroad.”
“Come in… come in… Please have a seat, Mister Cain. Captain, would you have Cedric bring three brandies?”
Then he turned back to me, and started making small talk about our trip. But Bailey came back in and took a seat beside me across the desk from Banister.
“Mister Cain…” I interrupted him and told him there wasn’t a mister in front of Cain.
“Very well… Cain it is… Did Captain Bailey give you any idea of what I wanted to see you about?”
“He didn’t even tell me he was a Captain… No sir, I have no idea what’s on your mind. But if you want me to drive one of those big locomotives for you, I’m afraid you got the wrong man.”
He smiled and nodded to Cal and went on, “Cal Bailey is the head of security for the railroad, and one of our most valuable assets. We stole him from the US Cavalry where he was a Captain.”
A man I took to be Cedric came in carrying a silver tray with a bottle and three of the fanciest glasses I’d ever seen. He poured a little into each glass and set them in front of us. I thought it was a waste of that big a glass until I tasted it. That stuff was so good, it had enough power to fill a five gallon bucket… that was pure sippin’ liquor.
Banister held up his glass and said, “To a happy ending.” Bailey and I did the same.
“Cain, I put out the word that I needed a man to do a job for me, and your name came up among those who know about that type of work about ten to one over the one in second place. That’s why I sent Cal and the others out to find you… Before I tell you what the task is, let me tell you the story behind it.
“Seven years ago, my only child… my lovely daughter, Eleanor, fell in love and married a man of the cloth. And that was fine with me. I traveled often, and her mother died young, so she spent most of her time with governesses and tutors as well as household staff. Her husband was a fine young man of strong faith. It was a good union… I planned to have him make bishop within ten years.”
“But the young fool opted for missionary work, and they were subsequently stationed on an Indian reservation… the Gila River reservation to be exact. I didn’t like it, but they had to try their wings and prove themselves. It wasn’t long until they had a baby boy. I argued for them to come back to civilization. I told them I’d arrange a post as pastor with a large affluent congregation in Fort Worth, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“When the lad was but three years old, a raiding party of Chiricahua Apache left the San Carlos reservation. On their way to Mexico they hit a number of whites in isolated ranches and mines. They swept through the Pima reservation at Gila River killing and ravaging as they went.”
“My son-in-law had his skull crushed by a war club, and my daughter badly injured but she survived. The boy, Alan… my grandson and namesake was taken in the raid. We’ve tried numerous appeals to the Mexican government for help, and I even offered to pay the expenses, but to no avail. I made many appeals to the war department, but nothing came of it. Recently I got word from another source that a blond boy of that age was seen in Gris Lobo’s village deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains.”
“How good was this source you talk of?” I asked.
“It was the result of a train robbery. He had bought stolen rifles and was planning to sell them to Gris Lobo.” Cal Bailey said. “When we put his feet to the fire, he told us much more than we needed to know. We’ve verified the village through several other sources, but we haven’t been able to verify the blond boy yet.”
I had the feeling they were going to ask me to go down into Mexico and get that boy. Getting the boy wouldn’t be easy and could mean a quick and painful end of Shadrac Cain. The problem I was having had nothing to do with the boy or the pain, but I didn’t care much for Banister or his trains or his money. I knew if that youngster had been living with the Apaches for three years, he was an Apache. He probably didn’t remember enough English to understand a thing I would say to him. But no matter if Banister was a big shot or a sodbuster, the boy should be brought back… Whether by me or someone else was the question.
“Cain, if you can go in there and bring my grandson out I’m willing to pay you two thousand dollars.”
I was ready to te
ll Banister that I wouldn’t go in there for any amount of money, but I’d think on it for the sake of the lad. But just as I was ready to open my mouth, a voice down the hall said.
“Papa! Papa, what are you doing? You said you’d pay five thousand dollars…. Papa, this is my son… your grandson… Don’t you dare be cheap with my baby!”
She stood there a shadow of a woman, with tears running down her cheeks. Her eyes were sunken and looked even more so due to the dark circles that rimmed them. You could tell that she had looked much different not long ago. She was almost a skeleton. The flesh had left her face and her clothes hung like they didn’t belong to her.
“Ma’am, I was just about to tell your pa that I didn’t care much about his money and go after the boy anyway, but since you brung it up, there’s folks I can help with it… Even though your daddy’s the one payin’ the bill… I’ll do it for you and the boy.” I had no idea what I was going to say until I heard myself say it, and somewhere in the back of my head there was a voice calling me a moron and like names.
Banister looked at me, like I’d just beat him on a deal that he couldn’t get the straight of, nor could he get out of. He coughed and cleared his throat a couple of times and said, “That’s correct. It seems I did say five thousand earlier… seemed to have slipped my mind. I’ll have Cedric make up the contract.”
“We don’t need contracts… a handshake between honorable men will do.” I told them.
“But how are you going to make sure I keep my end of the bargain?”
“Ask those folks that told you I could do the job… Now let’s have a look at what you’ve got for directions… or maps… whatever you have… and maybe some more of that brandy.”
Shad, I said to myself, you just can’t control your mouth…Well boy, you got it to do.
We spent several hours going over hand drawn maps, which were made by folks who had no idea how to make a map. That little crooked line might be a mile or a hundred miles. But they were alike in the sense they all had the crooked lines and the rivers and the same landmarks. The landmarks were the key. If I could find them, I could find the village.
It was getting close to suppertime, and my stomach was growling. I was ready to see if Cal was ready for supper, when Cedric and a Chinaman came out and started setting up a table at the other end of the car. In a few minutes they had it laid out with real china plates and silver utensils. I was wondering if those folks even did their own chewing.
Cal told me we could sleep in the caboose, but I wanted to bring in the horses and make sure Dog had something to eat. He ducked down the hall, and came back with an oilskin wrapped around some good sized chunks of raw beef… Dog dined well that night.
Sitting around my fire under the water tank, I sat wondering what lay in store for me down there in Mexico. Dog sat close by working on a bone. Every now and then I’d hear him crunch one. The door opened on the caboose and someone came out on the platform. Then I saw a match flair and a cigar being lit. Then the figure stepped down into the darkness and headed my way.
I watched the cigar get closer and closer, until Captain Bailey stood across the fire from me.
“Cal, what brings you out of your soft bunk in the caboose?”
“I got a couple of things for you.” He handed me an envelope and said, “Don’t bother opening it. There are a couple of company vouchers for supplies and what not. There’s another for the hotel. You can stay there till you’re ready to leave, and if you don’t mind droppin’ the horse at the livery. Horse and rig belong to the company, but they’ll pasture him.”
He seemed hesitant to leave. Finally he sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Cain… I’m supposed to tell you this, but I took a ten man party down there to get the boy back. Only three of us came back. So be careful. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. This is the map I made; you’ll find it a lot more accurate than any of the others. Banister doesn’t know about it… I was planning to go down there alone and bring the boy back.”
“Eleanor and I have known each other since we were children. I went away to fight the Sioux and she met her late husband. To make a long story short, she will never be a whole woman until she gets her son back or knows for sure he is dead… I pray it’s the former. If you can bring him back, we can give him a family to be a part of.”
“Does Banister know about you and her?”
“Yes, and he approves… He’s known me all my life. Our families were close.”
“You can believe me when I tell you, if her boy’s in there. I won’t come back without him. If that’s someone else’s boy and not hers, I’ll bring him out anyway.”
Chapter 4
They fired up the boiler about midnight, and they started moving around four in the morning. By four thirty they were backing off the siding and closing the switch. I watched them disappear down the line backwards, until that head lamp was no longer visible, and then I went back to sleep till first light.
I got up, took a good stretch, and climbed that water tank for a cold bath. Needless to say, I was wide awake climbing down that ladder naked in the morning chill. I’d built up the fire before I went topside, so I dried off fairly quick.
After breakfast, I got the horses ready and headed for Tucson. That livery stable horse came right along and I made good time getting there. It was well past dark when I reached the hotel. The hotel man looked at me as if he wanted to tell me they were full up. But the company voucher for up to two weeks stay changed his mind. After that he treated me like I was the King of Siam.
The hotel’s stable man had gone for the day, so I took the horses and stabled them myself… It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to do it. They both got extra grain, and then Dog and me went to an eating place. It wasn’t fancy, but the food was edible, and they didn’t mind if Dog ate his meat scraps under my table…. kinda like home.
Soon as the businesses started opening the following morning I was out picking up the supplies I’d need. Then I hauled it all back to the hotel and got the man to store it all for me. My next stop was to take Captain Bailey’s horse back to the livery barn. It wasn’t more than a quarter mile, so I just set the saddle on, left it buckled loose, and led him.
I no sooner got to the corral, when I heard a ruckus at the far end. It was a big corral and the noise was coming from around the building. So I tied that horse up and Dog and me walked around the corner to the screams of a horse being beat. I could see a half dozen hats over the nervous and milling horses. One horse was tied so close to a post that if he moved much, he would choke to death. That horse was screaming and trying to struggle, but all it could do was stand and take the lash.
As I broke through the horses and onlookers, I saw a big burley brute raring back with handful of rein leathers. I wasn’t in any position to stop him without shooting him… and it crossed my mind. I was too far a way to keep him from swinging that leather, but a hand reached up and grabbed the straps causing the big man to jolt to a stop and turn.
There stood young Tobe Crocket holding that leather with both hands. The big fella jerked the straps and Crocket went right along with them. It didn’t take much more than a backhand blow to send the boy sprawling. The big fella turned back to the horse and made ready for another lash. Tobe was getting up to try again, but by that time I had taken hold his straps. The big fella jolted to another stop.
He was surprised to see it wasn’t the boy, especially when I did the jerking and pulled him into a hard left fist aimed at his cheekbone. Now it’s a well known fact that two things just can’t be in the same space at the same time… Something had to give, and in this case it was the cheekbone. I let go of the straps or else he’d have broken his neck twisting in two different directions.
The big fella lay there in the mud and horse droppings, while I untangled the straps from around his wrist. I told Tobe to get me a bucket of water, which I poured on the horse beater. He came up spitting, cussing, a
nd choking, but a sideway kick to the chest sent him splashing back into the muck.
“Mister, I’ve seen stupid and I’ve seen mean, but you’re about as mean and stupid as a man can likely get. That ain’t the way to beat a horse….” I wrapped a fist full of straps in my hand and said, “This is how you beat a horse.” And I gave him a swat. He howled and rolled over into more mud. “And this.” I gave him a second swat, that time it was across the back side.
I turned around to see that the crowd had left except for one man with his hand dangerously close to his gun butt. He was backed up against the barn trying to decide if he could get the gun out, cock it, and pull the trigger before Dog launched at him.
“Just move your hand away from your weapon and relax. You make a sudden move, and he’ll rip your throat out.”
He cautiously moved his hand away and slowly changed his posture. Dog relaxed and moved back. Crocket was over cutting the rope from the quivering wild eyed horse.
“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” A red faced man yelled as he came around the corner of the barn. “Kid, get your stuff and get out… you’re fired.”
Tobe started to ask why, but I cut him off with, “He was just trying to save that horse from a beating. If I’d a found that fella out in the wild beatin’ a horse like that, I’d a shot him.”
He blustered and puffed up with his face getting redder and redder. He told me that it was the man’s own horse and he was training him, so there wasn’t any harm done.
“No harm! I yelled. That horse is ruined; no rider can ever trust that horse again. I was supposed to drop off one of the railroad horses here… but I’ll be damned if I will. And as soon as the railroad get’s my message, none of their horses will be boarded here.”
