Wanted: A Western Story Collection

by Robert J. Thomas

  Crossing the little tail end of that hill, we went from tall grass to bare rocky ground for a few minutes, and there was no way to hide the sounds of iron shoes on rock. Whoever was waiting for us was well aware we were coming. But we had come here to do some business, and you need two parties to do business, so I took a deep breath and continued on. I was pretty sure Princess Rachel was taking several deep breaths. But she was a game little gal and came right along.

  I gave a little chirp of a whistle, and Dog held up. I didn’t want him out there in the front alone. Seeing a big critter walking along by himself could be a little too tempting a shot for someone who might have mistaken him for a wolf. So I kept him close to my side. He wasn’t happy, but he knew I had my ways, and he dealt with it.

  That little island hill was pine and brush covered almost from the edge of the tall grass, but it wasn’t thick like it would be in the Tennessee or Arkansas hills. Up ahead about forty or fifty feet, I could see the forelegs and hooves of a horse. The rider must have thought since he was hidden from view behind a young pine, that he was completely invisible… he wasn’t.

  I pulled up and motioned Rachel to come along on the far side. I wanted to be between him and her, but I wanted her to be seen, since she was who he was waiting for.

  Slowly, we moved ahead…

  Chapter 3

  Pointing out the hooves and forelegs under the tree, she looked up with those huge frightened eyes nervously nibbling on her lower lip. She had been a rock until now, but I think reality had come crashing down on her, and temporarily jolted her. There was no doubt in my mind she was a tough kid and could hold it together until we got her pa back. She might come unglued later, but for now she would stand.

  I reached over and squeezed her hand, and she took a deep breath, stuck out her chin, and nodded ahead. It would have been easy to calculate where the man’s body was and put a couple of bullets into it, but we’d have to play by their rules… for now.

  As we came even with the hidden man, he moved out with a rifle in his hands. He motioned us on ahead of him and didn’t say a word. The only things he said during the whole ride were to give us directions. I looked down and saw that Dog was gone. Somewhere along the way, he had simply dropped into the tall grass and vanished. He wouldn’t be far, and that gave me confidence.

  We went behind another of those islands and back into a long twisting snake like valley for about a half mile. The valley was damp and gloomy. Instead of the humped up hills we’d been surrounded by earlier. It was almost like a tunnel with walls of granite going straight up for three or four hundred feet. Above the granite walls the rounded pine covered hills continued for several hundred feet. I’d never been this far back in Foley’s Cove, but little in nature surprised me.

  I could see where the trampled grass trail split, and one led off to the left the other went on following the valley. I was waiting for our silent escort to give me some direction, but we were past the turn when he finally said, “Left”. He must have fallen asleep at the rein. So we turned back a short distance to make the change in direction.

  The new trail was as primitive as anything I’d been on in a while, and it went uphill in a hurry. I had a mental picture of Princess Rachel tackling this trail with her buggy. That brought a slight upturn to the corners of my mouth. I had taken her reins and was leading the mare, while she had her hands full just holding on. The mare was used to streets in town and country lanes, so her footing wasn’t the best. But she stumbled along as best she could.

  As it turned out we weren’t going to the top. At about three quarters of the way up, we came to a ledge. When I cleared the pines, I could see a shack and what looked like a mine entrance. Neither the shack nor the mine looked like there’d been any work done there for years.

  Immediately, there were three guns pointed in my direction, but I kept coming. I wanted them to see the main attraction, which was riding a worn out mare right behind me. She came into view and the guns were lowered but not put away. At least they were a bit less hostile.

  Leading her up onto the ledge right into the middle of them, I slid down and went around to lift her from the saddle. When I had her firmly on solid ground, she handed me her little beaded handbag and commenced dusting her clothing… just like a regular princess would.

  When she was finished, I handed her bag back and she held it close. With her head up and her chin stuck out, she took two strides forward and demanded, “Where’s my Father?”

  A man wearing a black frock coat and white shirt came from the shack and walked to within ten feet of her. He looked at her and then at me, not liking what he saw he said, “My message was quite clear Miss Silverman… no law.”

  She started to answer, but I cut her off with, “I ain’t no kind of lawman… I found this young lady all broken down and in trouble, so I lent a hand to get her here… you need to give better directions.”

  “And you need to keep your mouth shut.” He snapped.

  “I reckon.” Was all I said.

  At that point I was expecting lead to start flying. But I guess no one considered me a threat.

  The dude in the preacher suit turned back to the girl and asked, “You bring the money?”

  “I have most of it…”

  “I said twenty thousand, and I meant twenty thousand.” He stated as he took a step forward.

  “You didn’t let me finish, sir.” She came right back at him. “I have about twelve thousand dollars in jewels…. But… I cannot sell my father’s mining stock without a signed affidavit from him… otherwise there is NO money to be had… If my father is already dead, then we have no business to conduct, sir.” She turned to me and started to say something, but the preacher suit interrupted her.

  “Your old man’s alive… go fetch him, Porter.”

  One of those boys stuck his pistol in his belt and ambled over to the mine workings and disappeared into the darkness. He was gone a few minutes; there was silence among those of us who waited. Finally he returned pushing a small man with a rather long beard and a wide black hat. The bright sunlight caused the little man to draw back and try to shade his eyes. Porter shoved him on, and he stumbled but kept his footing.

  His daughter started to bolt toward him, but I took a firm grip on her arm and held her in place. She had been doing so well with her haughty attitude. She needed to hold her bargaining position, as slim as it was, but if she caved in she’d be at their mercy. And that was no place she wanted to be. She took another deep breath and gave me a nod, so I let her go ahead and walk to her father.

  Mister Silverman looked to be much older than a man with a fourteen year old daughter should look, but I guess there’s no time limit on such things. He wasn’t more than five and a half feet tall and weighed less than a hundred and twenty pounds. His long black coat was made of plain cloth and hung on him like a blanket. With the exception of his dirty white shirt the rest of his clothing was black. He smiled when he saw his daughter approaching him.

  She embraced him and turned to the man in the frock coat and said, “Sir! My father is being mistreated and starved… How dare you keep him in a dark dungeon, with little to eat and no sunshine?”

  “You think because we are Jews we can be driven like sheep… Not so, sir. We never pay full price for damaged merchandise. And we pay nothing for merchandise that has been destroyed.”

  “Now see here, Missy, I don’t take orders from little girls.”

  “No… whatever your name is… You see here. I will get your blood money, but I will leave only one gemstone with you as a down payment…. When I return, my father will be in much better shape than he has been up to this point… do you understand?”

  Danged if I would ever want to play poker with that little gal. She was running a blazer on that gent, with a busted hand. I was holding my breath to see if he would fold or call.

  “Maybe we’d be content with what you have in that little purse. There ain’t nothin’ to keep us from just killin’ you
and your pa… and your guide.”

  “You may as well start shooting. I have no intention of leaving here knowing my father is being starved and tortured.”

  He started to say something, but she interrupted him with, “I should tell you that Mister Cain here is a well known gunfighter.”

  I nearly choked when she said that…I was thinking, Ma’am… you were reachin’ for an Ace, but you pulled a Joker. But the fella next to the dude whispered something to him. The boss’s eyes blinked twice and looked at me, and back at the man at his side, and then he looked at the princess. I was trying my best to look as mean as a man could look.

  “You just get your old man’s signature on that affydavid… and you be back here by sundown tomorrow.”

  “Impossible!” she snapped. “It will take at least three days to raise the money. We cannot make it into Creede today before the bank and the mine offices close. We will need three days… starting tomorrow… if we can get here sooner, you may be assured we will.”

  They took the old man into the shack to sign the document, and Miss Rachel handed over a red stone about the size of her thumb, which she said would be worth nearly eight hundred dollars. They all looked at it and at least one of them drooled a little.

  As we mounted to be on our way the boss, who had been called Cletus said, “You won this round Missy, but don’t pull any tricks, and don’t go to the law because that old Jew will be the first to die, and you’ll be the second… Now do you understand?”

  With her posture ramrod stiff and her chin held high she said, “I understand.”

  Chapter 4

  I led off, and this time we didn’t have an escort. I reckoned he and the others were up there making sure Mr. Silverman was well fed and comfortable, when they weren’t drooling on that ruby. Miss Rachel was silent, but that was fine with me. I wasn’t one who set much store in idle chit chat.

  Looking back, I saw her posture was quite different from the one she had showed up at the cabin. Her shoulders had dropped and her head hung down. I was sure she was fighting tears, or she may have been already silently shedding them. Something caught my eye behind her, and I saw Dog slip out of the brush and fall in line behind the mare.

  Reaching the valley I called a halt, and was about to comment on how well she had handled herself, when she lifted her leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground. Dropping to her knees in the tall grass, she buried her face in her hands and let it all out.

  Dog came up from behind and nuzzled her cheek. She looked up and wrapped her arms around his scruffy neck and bawled like a baby. I stood patiently holding her mare, and Dog whimpered a little in sympathy. He didn’t move a muscle, but his eyes never left me. I never knew a dog could look so miserable.

  After a few very long minutes, she untangled herself from Dog and stood up apologizing for being such a baby. She felt bad for being impersonal when discussing her father as merchandise.

  “Little lady, when you were giving your demands to that bunch, I was watching your father, and he was smiling. I’d never seen a man prouder of his offspring. I reckon he felt like you’d learned a thing or two about dickering.

  “Ma’am, your daddy knows you love him, and he knows you were doing what you had to do to insure his safety and better treatment until we get back with the money.”

  ***

  I gave her a foot up into the saddle, and we were putting Foley’s Cove behind us. We made good time and only stopped at the cabin to pick up her little valise, and then we pressed on toward Creede.

  Camping along the trail that night, we were up and gone before the sun had cleared the lowest point to the east. I had to give that little girl a lot of credit for being as tough as a hickory nut. We’d spent a long day in the saddle, and she did it with her leg hooked over the saddle horn. But she never whimpered or complained once. She was worn to a frazzle when we reached town.

  Creede Colorado was just “town” to me and many others in that part of the country. It had been a boom town three or four times and went bust all but the last time, when a silver strike gave it some stability. It was made up of one main street and several streets branching off from that. The Silvermans lived on one of those branches.

  It was a small but nice little house with flowers in the yard. Dog and I waited and watered the horses while she went in to change and freshen up a mite. When she came out, she looked like a new penny. She had brought some extra blankets and food for the trail. The clothes she was wearing were much more suitable for riding in wild country than the princess gown she’d worn before. She stood there for a brief, few seconds as if she had something to tell me.

  “Mister Cain,” she said, “please forgive me for getting you mixed up in all this. I was desperate and didn’t know what to do… I especially want to apologize for saying you were a gunfighter… They might have started shooting at you.”

  “I was a mite surprised to hear it, but I’ve been shot at before and hit more than a few times… I’m still standin’. Don’t give it another thought.”

  Our next stop was at the bank. Dog stayed on the boardwalk keeping watch on the bank, or he could have been taking a little nap… it was hard to tell sometimes.

  The banker, Mr. Carroll, was surprised to see me escorting Miss Rachel through the door. At first I don’t think he realized we were together and said… “Good morning, Miss Silverman…. I’ll be with you in a moment, Mister Cain.”

  She explained that we were together, and he sure looked confused. I reckon I’d have been a little muddled seeing her and me together too. So I took the bull by the horns and opened the business.

  “Mister Carroll, Miss Silverman’s father is in a bit of a pinch up in the hills, and she needs to either sell some of his mining interests or use them as collateral against an eight thousand dollar loan… and if you can’t make a loan that large you can take the difference from my money.” She looked up at me in disbelief.

  I’d cleaned out a little pocket of nuggets a few years back. It was pure gold and pure luck, but it put about thirty five hundred dollars in Mr. Carroll’s bank. Since then, I’d built it up to around forty five hundred dollars over the last few years… I live in a cabin, shoot most of my food, and make most of my own clothes out of hides. What do I have to spend money on? I sure don’t spend much on haircuts.

  The bank chose to give Miss Rachel her loan holding some mining stock for security. She signed the papers and collected the money.

  Before leaving town, we stopped at the livery stable where I rented a tough little mustang and a saddle. The mare was pretty well used up. I left her in the corral.

  ***

  We were back at my cabin late that afternoon. She was busy fixing supper, and I was getting my weapons ready while pondering on a plan, which didn’t include a girl kid.

  “Princess,” I said out of the blue, “I’m gonna get your pa outa there, but I gotta do it by myself… I can’t risk having you there when they get everything they want. I’ve seen what men like that are capable of, and I don’t intend putting such a sweet young maiden in their hands.”

  It took her a few seconds to digest what I had said.

  “Shadrach Cain, if you think I’m going to stay here and worry about what may be happening at that place, you had better do some more thinking… I would go insane with worry… It’s not your problem; it’s mine and my father’s.”

  “It’s better you go crazy worryin’ than gettin’ killed or worse.”

  “What would be worse than getting killed.”

  I didn’t think it was my place to talk to her about such things. Her growing up without a ma and all, I reckoned there were some things she may not have learned about. And I just didn’t feel comfortable telling her how things were. So I stalled and waited to give her a little time to think about it.

  ***

  Later everything was done and the lamp was lit. I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer if I planned to leave at first light.

  “Rachel, there a
re two very important reasons why I don’t want you to go tomorrow. And if you will hold your piece until I’m finished, then I’ll listen to your argument… First, I doubt if they will be willing to let anyone leave… we are all witnesses to a crime and they won’t want the law on their trail. When I go in there, I’ll be going with the knowledge they plan to kill us all.. and I will be ready to kill or die. I can’t be thinking about you when all that’s goin’ on.”

  “The second reason is very personal and very important where you’re concerned. I found a woman half starved and half clothed on the trail. She had escaped from some men, who had used her in unspeakable ways. They took her again, and I killed the lot of them… She was the only woman I ever asked to be my wife, but she was terrified at the thought of any man ever touching her, so she turned me down… If you was to get into their hands I couldn’t live with that… I can’t allow it to happen.”

  She sat quiet for a moment and then she said, “I’m sorry, Shadrach… I hadn’t even thought of… that. Please….please be careful… and bring Father home to me.”

  It was settled, and I showed her how to get into the cave behind the bunk. I showed her how to pull the cords to draw the bunk into place. Then I showed her how to use a Navy Colt. I had it loaded with extra rounds handy. There were plenty of candles and matches ready if she needed them.

  “Anyone comes through that opening that ain’t wearin’ your pa’s face or mine… you just cock it and pull the trigger… I’ll leave Dog here and he’ll let you know if someone comes. If we ain’t back by the time you get up on the third day, you and Dog head for Creede, and have someone send these telegraph messages for you. If your pa shows up, both of you go to Creede and wait two days before you send the messages.”