by S. L. Stoner
He also thought about the exchange. The calculating looks between the partners seemed cool, not angry. Still, the dentist’s meager smile never reached his eyes. And once, Sage thought he’d seen desperation glittering in those stony depths. Did this mean they were plotting revenge? Nah. If they were desperate, it was probably because they were facing a mountain of unpaid bills. Time will definitely tell, Sage told himself as he signaled for a refill on his coffee, this one without Twill’s alcohol enhancement.
ELEVEN
“Well, Sir, you’ve done quite well for yourself. It’s a far easier job sharpening pencils here in town than wading a chill creek looking for gold flakes,” commented the barber as his scissors snipped around Sage’s ears.“Besides, ‘ole Mexican Manny’s been panning the Scissors for years and he hasn’t got but two nickels to rub together.”
Dang, news flashed through Prineville like fire through Hell. He’d told the barber about working for Thomas and Van Ostrand. He’d said nothing about gold prospecting. Earlier in the day, Sage had moved back into the Poindexter Hotel. Now that he had a legitimate job in the sheepmen’s ranks, he didn’t have to sleep on the floor. Besides, he wanted to keep an eye on Xenobia Brown’s house.
The well-equipped barber shop opened off the Poindexter’s lobby, its sign announcing proudly, “Shaving, hair cutting, shampooing, with the finest bathing room in the City.” Sage had taken advantage of the latter offering. Now he was smoothly shaven and getting a hair trim. He had to admit, the rough clothes and stink of an itinerant worker were not as comfortable as they used to be.
The barber, “call me Walter,” was a balding, dapper fellow with precisely trimmed hair and moustache. The shop floor was a clean expanse of red and white diamond tile. Up-to-date hydraulic barber chairs smoothly raised, lowered and twisted. The shop’s nickel-plated mountings and green leather upholstery were definitely top of the line. An elegantly carved oak and marble counter, sporting drawers underneath, held all the grooming implements. Above the counter hung two beveled mirrors, each elaborately ornamented with carvings and fluted columns. A carved cup case hung on a side wall, each cell proudly displaying a ceramic shaving mug, the owner’s name printed on a neat label below. The display advertised that the barber had plenty of regular customers.
Briskly snipping away, Walter nattered on, sharing what he knew about Sage’s employers. “Funny partnership, that one. Everyone likes Newt but hardly anyone likes Van Ostrand. Oh, he’s a very good dentist, don’t get me wrong. But he’s not the friendliest person in town, if you get my meaning.”
“Hmm, I did notice the dentist was a brusque man,” Sage offered. “What’s their sheep business like these days?”
“Oh boy. Your question certainly smashes the nail’s head,” Walter said, eager to impart additional information. “They’ve been summering their sheep on the Santiam Military Road allotments for years. Doing pretty well. Matter of fact, just last summer they grew their herd to five thousand. Right after they made that purchase, the road company says they can’t lease the grazing land no more. That hurt them plenty. What can you do if you’ve got no place to graze thousands of sheep? Had to sell a bunch off at a loss.”
“Road company? How did a road company get acres of grazing land?” Sage asked, hoping to nudge the barber into more disclosures.
“Well, that there’s a damn swindle and shame,” the barber said. “Officially it’s the Willamette Valley and Cascade Military Road. Most folks call it the Santiam Military Road because it crosses the Cascades through the Santiam Pass at Albany.”
“Seems like that’s a fair bit from Prineville.”
“That’s where the scandal comes in. The road company contracted to build all the way to Fort Boise, just across the Idaho border. Got paid federal money because the military would be using it. They did a fairly passable job over the Cascades. But, Lord, from Prineville east the so-called road was fraud, plain and simple. Some places, they just dug a single twelve-inch wide trench on the upside of a slope for the wagon wheels to roll in.”
The mirror showed Walter shaking his head. “Tell me, do you wish me to refresh that black dye in your hair? The one covering your blaze?” he asked.
“Umm, yes, please,” Sage said embarrassed the barber had noticed this part of his disguise. He quickly changed the topic, “I still don’t understand what a military road has to do with grazing land.”
“You surely aren’t from the plains,” Walter said without rancor, clearly relishing the opportunity to further educate. “Every thirty-six-square-mile township is broken into thirty-six, one-square mile sections that are numbered, 1 through 36. The federal government gave the military road builders odd-numbered sections of land along the route. Funny little scheme. Once surveyed, the road builder could pick three odd-numbered, 640 acre sections, for every mile of road built. The picked sections had to be within six miles on either side of the road. That comes to almost two thousand acres for every mile of road.”
“Why did the government do that?” Sage wondered aloud.
“The idea was that the company would sell the sections to pay for constructing the next mile of road. Of course, like all good government plans, it never worked that way because the greedy guts always manage to get involved. The rascals spent next to nothing building a non-existent road but still got title to all the sections they picked.”
“Sounds like theft,” Sage observed. “How many total acres are we talking about?”
“You bet it was theft—over 440,000 acres of theft. And it hurt the homesteaders because sometimes the road company claimed their homesteads. And, because the government had not surveyed the land, the homesteaders couldn’t lay claim to it before the road company did. Bunch of them lost their little homesteads when the road company sold the sections to the timber barons. The homesteaders have to pay rent on the land they were the first to tame. Dad-burned scheme sticks in folk’s craws, it does.”
“So what happened with Thomas and Van Ostrand?”
“Road company decided to lease their grassland sections to the Kepler brothers instead.”
“You know, I’ve heard that name recently, just since I’ve been in town,” Sage said, hoping to learn more about that the missing shepherd who had worked for the Keplers.
“That’s probably because people are still talking about their sheep barn out in the Ochocos being burnt to the ground. Theirs was the first sheep barn to be torched. People say it was the sheepshooters,” he said before returning to Sage’s original question.
“Your employers’ troubles got worse right after they lost the lease because somebody ran a dead line across part of the federal range that Van Ostrand and Thomas were using to run their remaining sheep. Then, just days ago, their shepherd got murdered,” Walter told him.
Groomed and suitably dressed, Sage strolled to the dentist’s office. He noticed that the newer commercial buildings were more substantial and showed more architectural detail than the older ones. Prineville was here to stay, unlike many western towns that quickly deteriorated into tumbled structures and tumbleweed once their original purpose ceased to exist.
Sage climbed the stairs to Dr. Van Ostrand’s office which occupied two rooms above the drug store. The dentist was working in the first room, busy in a woman’s mouth, when Sage stepped through the door.
Seeing him, Van Ostrand stopped pumping the drill pedal and said to the woman, “One moment madam, I must speak to this gentleman.” The patient cast a frantic look toward Sage and abruptly closed her mouth. A blush flamed her neck and face.
Ushering Sage into the second room, Van Ostrand said, “Glad to see that you have the virtue of timeliness, Miner. That desk over there is your workspace.” He gestured toward a desk overflowing with papers and unopened envelopes. “You’ll need to sort through and figure out what needs paying immediately, what we can wait on and what needs response letters. I do my own book work for the dentistry practice. Everything on your desk should only pertain to our ranching bu
siness. Keep a list of your questions. I don’t want you interrupting my work again.” With that, the dentist left the room, his back “straight as if his hind end rode a pitchfork,” as his mother would say.
Fortunately, the office window opened to the north so Sage was spared the blazing sun. That didn’t stop the heat from building as the afternoon wore on. Sage finally had to remove his suit coat. He wondered how Van Ostrand was doing in his doctor’s smock. Still, it was bearable compared to full sun or the Rimrock’s sleeping loft.
He began sorting through the correspondence. There were at least two months’ of bills. He found charges for stock pond digging, metal water troughs, tobacco dip and something called ‘docking’.” That last was a puzzler.
Van Ostrand came to check on his progress and seemed mildly pleased that much was already tidied. He authorized Sage’s suggested payments, and told him to enter the payments in the ledger, write out the checks and leave them for signature on the dentist’s desk. He also dictated responses to a few letters once Sage displayed his legible penmanship.
Work over, Sage dined in the Prineville Hotel, reading the Crook County Journal and contemplating all he’d learned. Van Ostrand told him to write checks only for those bills that were overdue by at least sixty days. Not a good situation for a business. Those past due bills were an indication of why the partners were tense. Sage sighed as he concluded that, so far, he’d learned nothing that would help Siringo.
The night sky was cloudless, letting moonlight brighten Xenobia Brown’s back yard. Sage stepped to the shrub’s side, hoping no one was gazing out the hotel’s back windows. A boot scuffed on hard packed dirt, causing Sage to retreat further into the shrub. Seconds later a figure rounded the privy and paused. It was a man wearing a cowboy hat who froze, listened, then shrugged. A match flared and seconds later smoke drifted upward from a cigarette. The man sucked deep and gazed up at the moon. For the first time, Sage saw his face. Siringo.
Sage stepped away from the bush. The Dickensen detective whirled silently around, his hand grabbing at his holster.
“Slow down, partner. It’s me, John Adair.”
He heard the other man release held breath before he drawled, “You ‘bout got yourself shot, Adair.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Sage’s voice sounded both sullen and challenging to his own ears. If he had only a few minutes to spend with Lucinda, he sure didn’t feel like sharing them with this cowboy.
“Well, John,” Her voice sounded behind him. “Charlie and you sure can’t converse on Main Street, can you? Not after you two brawled publically. In case you haven’t figured it out, people in this town chatter more than magpies. He’s heading back out to the range and needed to see you. Besides, the three of us should talk.”
Siringo didn’t hesitate. “So, Adair, have you managed to meet Asa Rayburn yet? He’s the fellow I told you about. Used to work for Bellingham.”
“Nope. I haven’t. A fellow in the Rimrock said Rayburn went to Farewell Bend the other day but will be returning soon. Maybe it doesn’t matter because I’ve managed to get in with the sheep ranchers. Van Ostrand and Thomas have hired me temporarily to straighten out their book work.”
That brought a grin from the cowboy detective. “Now that’s fast work. Already friends with both the shepherds and their bosses. Lucinda said you were darn clever. Have you heard whether the sheepmen are hatching any retaliation plans for the shepherd’s death?”
“Don’t forget they also killed the shepherd’s dog,” Sage said. “His name was Felan. Seems that’s just as great a sin. Anyway, thanks to our little dust up on Main Street, I’m now fast friends with Twill McGinnis. He seems to be a natural leader of the shepherds. He’s that big fellow I sided with during our ‘public brawl’.” Sage glanced toward Lucinda who merely raised an unapologetic chin.
He returned to Siringo’s question. “Something’s up with the shepherds. Some kind of plan is a’brewing according to McGinnis. I’m thinking that’s why McGinnis is sticking around. I haven’t worked long enough for Van Ostrand and Thomas to get a handle on what the sheep ranchers might be planning. All I can say is their partnership has financial troubles. Mostly because they’ve lost an important grazing lease, have a dead line across their current grazing land and now have lost both sheep and a shepherd.”
“Well, I wish I could say things are calm as dozing cattle out on the range but that’d be a damn lie,” said Siringo. “Cattlemen from the Mauer Mountains, southeast of town, plan to move against a sheepherder early tomorrow morning. I came into town on the excuse I had to pick up a delivery from the stage. Thought I’d ride out after our talk, swing by the herder’s wagon and give warning.”
Lucinda spoke in a low voice, “They’re going to launch another attack this soon after that poor Timothy O’Dea’s murder?”
“Yup, ‘fraid so.” Siringo looked grim. “I managed to over-hear their plans. They’re going to do some sheep shooting, then set a blaze around the meadow.”
“Why would they set it on fire?” Sage was puzzled.
“Not fire. They’ll carve marks in the tree bark. They only post a few signs. They use tree blazing in between. You know . . . .”
Before Siringo could explain further Lucinda interrupted. “Listen fellows, I don’t know how long I have. Remember that poor young man who died of the pox? I learned that he also rambled when Frank was taking care of him. He said enough to make me certain he was definitely involved in an attack where someone died.”
“Lucinda! Are you all right?” It was a woman’s voice, softly calling from the house’s back porch.
“Yes, Xenobia, I’m fine. Be right there,” Lucinda called back. “That’s our signal. Dr. Rosenberg’s here to see our patient. He’ll
wonder where I am. You two wait a few minutes before leaving. And be quiet. He might hear you.”
A swish of skirts through dry grass and she was gone. She’d left him with a question he hated to admit having. Had she smiled at him any longer than she’d smiled at Siringo?
TWELVE
Three hours before dawn, Siringo found the meadow carpeted by still, white forms. His soft cursing ceased once a few sheep stirred sleepily at his quiet approach. He wasn’t too late after all.
A black and white dog rose from the grass, its entire body straining toward him, ears pricked alert. As he ambled past, the herd dog caught up, silently pacing right behind horse and rider. The herder’s round-top wagon stood next to a solitary pine. The dog barked softly and, seconds later, a light flared within. Siringo pulled his bandana up, covering his lower face. Halting, horse and rider waited about twenty feet from the wagon’s back door.
“Who goes there?” called a quavering voice.
Siringo slowly raised both hands as the door’s top section swung open. Metal glinted as a rifle barrel slid out the opening. “I am a friend,” Siringo called, “here to warn you. Take your wagon, your dog and your sheep and leave immediately. They are coming for you and the sheep in a few hours. Head northwest and you’ll be all right.”
“Who? Who’s coming for me?” asked the man inside the wagon, fear sharpening his voice. In response, the dog stiffened and growled low in his throat.
“You know who. Get moving. You don’t have much time.”
With that, Siringo turned his horse around and walked it away. His back twitched at the thought of that rifle barrel but he retreated slowly. He didn’t want to startle the sheep into bolting. At the hillside’s base, he urged his horse upward. Reaching a level bench he halted, slid off and stepped forward to study the meadow below. A man’s figure bustled around the wagon. His high whistles spurring the dog into racing around the herd. Using a series of yips and charges, the dog got the sheep up and bunching.
Meanwhile, the man rapidly harnessed his mule to the wagon. Within ten minutes, the entire outfit was on the move, the racing dog running to and fro—not letting a single animal dally. Siringo waited, letting his horse graze and rest, until the me
adow below was empty of man and beast.
Wearily remounting, Siringo leaned forward and scratched between the horse’s pricked ears. “Come on old fellow, let’s head in. We’ll take it slow this time,” he promised. He straightened, gently squeezed with his knees and worked the reins. The horse began picking his way over the rocky ground between the pines, heading south in the pre-dawn light.
Sage knew something was different the minute he strolled into the Poindexter’s dining room. Although three-quarters full, the restaurant was strangely quiet. He made a beeline for a table in the far corner so he could face into the room. A few minutes later he concluded it wasn’t his imagination. People were speaking in hushed voices, their gestures subdued. The waiter was placing the breakfast plates onto tables as if they were fragile crystal instead of sturdy, thick porcelain. Normally, the fellow just thumped them down.
Some patrons he recognized as hotel guests. The others appeared to be townspeople or local ranchers, since many nodded to each other as they entered. As he watched, a table of four such locals finished their meals, stood and departed in complete silence. Other mornings, they had lingered and laughed, clearly enjoying each other’s company. The waiter arrived at Sage’s table with menu and coffee, poker-faced and speaking so softly it was hard to hear him.
Opening the day’s Crook County Journal, Sage sipped his coffee and studied the room over the paper’s top edge. It had to be the stranger sitting near the room’s center. The man was studying a variety of documents as he ate. He appeared oblivious to everyone else. Yet, they were clearly aware of him because every person entering the dining room took his measure before sitting down as far away from him as possible. Once seated, the newcomers repeatedly darted looks in his direction.
