by Lou Bradshaw
“No… stay, Cain. Nurse Helen was just writin’ some messages for me… My hand is so shaky; I couldn’t read what I’d written, so she took pity on me. I think she was afraid that I was gonna spill ink all over the sheets…. We’re just about finished.”
He gave her a few more lines and then some bla bla bla and she left.
“I’m sending off a telegraph message to US Marshal Stewart in Santa Fe telling him what I’ve gotten into and askin’ him to grease some wheels for you up Denver way. I’m also sending one to Patty Anne letting her know that I’m alright.”
“Nurse Helen was writing a letter to Jack Millburn the Deputy US Marshal in Denver. He’s a good man for a city fella.”
I told him, “I sent a message to Sheriff Nelson, saying you were wounded, but would be fine figuring that he would get word to your misses.”
He thanked me for being thoughtful, although I’d never thought of myself as being thoughtful, I brushed it off. Then Nurse Helen came back with a sheet of paper that looked so pretty, I couldn’t imagine anyone ever having written it by hand. She handed it to Ben and he read it over. Then she placed a tray on his lap, dipped a pen in an ink bottle, and carefully handed it to Ben.
Very slowly, he drew the lines that spelled out his name. She took the pen back and blotted the signature. Next he handed the paper to me and said, “Take this with you and give it to Marshal Millburn, and he’ll do all he can to clear the way with the local law in Denver.”
I read it through, but it was written so fancy that I had a hard time reading it. I just wanted to look at it and admire it. I finally finished and handed it back. It mostly just said who I was, who I was looking for, and why. Nurse Helen intercepted it and folded it to be put in envelope, which she did.
When I was getting ready to leave, Ben told me to turn over any money I recovered to Millburn, he’d give me a receipt, and see that it was sent to where it was supposed to go. Marshal Stewart would be getting that information together. “There might even be some reward money in it for you.” He said.
“And just what in hell would I do with it? I doubt if I spend a hundred dollars a year… Most everything I eat is something I’ve shot, picked off a tree, or caught on a hook. I live on the side of a mountain, I make my own clothes out of skins, and I’ve hardly touched any of that money from that pocket of gold I found.”
He laughed and winced with pain, and then said, “Well you could go get yourself a store bought suit of clothes, and maybe do some courtin’. Go pay Angelina Baca a visit.” Well, he did have a pretty good idea there… and I told him so.
I rode out of Creede that afternoon headed for Denver, I was going east. Leaving the spare horse for Ben to deal with, it was just me, Dog, and the roan. I figured it would be best to avoid the sand dunes over in the Alamosa basin, so I stuck real close to the San Juans until I’d skirted them. Working my way through the mountain range to the east, I took the long valley up to Canyon City and then north.
A week later I was in Denver. It was a town that couldn’t make up its mind if it was coming or going. Some of the more successful citizens were doing their best to present the town as the Queen City of the Rocky Mountains. Others were hell bent on a no holds barred, wide open boom town. I think both groups were making their marks. It wasn’t unlikely to see a gilded carriage being pulled by four matching blacks drive through and block the view of a crowd watching someone being beaten by street thugs.
Denver was a wild and glorious town. I kind of imagined San Francisco started out the same way, and to a certain degree… still was. I didn’t care much for either one of them. They were fun to look at, but not to live in. I guess some folks would likely call me a hermit, and that’s fine, they can call me anything they want. I’ve got no dislike for people in general; I just don’t care to have more than two of them in my line of sight at any one time.
I found me an out of the way hotel with a stable, so that Dog would have a place to spend his evenings. I had a feeling that he wasn’t going to find Denver much to his liking either. After taking care of the roan, I stowed my gear in my room and got directions from the hotel man to the marshal’s office. Moving along the streets of the city, I saw every possible combination of humanity and some that I didn’t believe were possible.
A fella couldn’t walk past a saloon without someone taking his arm and trying to steer him inside. Some of those doing the steering were of one sex or the other… a few didn’t fit either gender. I just brushed off their hands and kept walking. I was afraid Dog was going to take offense to those who were trying to coax me inside, but he read my signs pretty well. If I didn’t give a sign that it bothered me, he wasn’t too concerned about it.
When we finally reached the marshal’s office, I told Dog that he could come in but he shouldn’t bite anyone. When I walked through the door he moved against the wall and waited. He could wait real well. A young fella sat on the edge of a desk talking to another young man at another desk who was trying to work. The second young man looked like he should be working in a bank or a store.
The one sitting on the desk had law dog written all over him, from his flat brimmed black hat, down to his highly polished black boots. Between the hat and the boots the space was filled in with a finely trimmed full mustache, a black frock coat over a white shirt and black silk vest, gray stripped pants tucked into those tall boots, and a nickel plated Colt single action .45 pistol.
“Good morning.” The law dog said. “There something I can do for you?” I’d have to give him credit for observation. He looked me over from head to toe, and I doubt that he missed a single stain on my buckskin shirt.
“If you’re Marshal Jack Millburn, I’ve got a letter of introduction for you. If not maybe you can tell me where to find him.”
“You can find the marshal in St. Louie if you’ve a mind to go looking for him. He’s been pensioned out due to injuries he’s suffered through the years. I’m Deputy Marshal Claybrook, temporary head of the office. If it’s official business, then I’d be happy to look at your letter, Mister…?”
“Cain…. Just Cain.” I handed him the envelope.
He opened it and commenced to read… “Hmm, I don’t seem to remember this Special Deputy Ben Blue… he’s not that wild man down around Taos, is he?”
I started to get my back up and he grinned and said, “Oh hell man, Ben’s a good friend of mine. We’ve been on a couple of rides that I don’t even want to remember… especially blowin’ up a still and half a ranch house down in Texas.”
“You kinda had me goin’ there for a minute. I was afraid I’d got me a big city marshal that wasn’t goin’ to be any help at all.”
“I got a wire, that’s what they’re callin’ the telegraph now, from Marshal Stewart three days ago to be on the watch for those two… What’s your connection? How’d you get involved?
I told him how I rode in just a few days after they took the boy and Ben was out with a trail herd. “So I just took off and brung him home to his mama. I don’t normally get too involved with folks, but I was set on puttin’ my feet under Patty Anne’s table, and that bunch kinda ruined it for me. Besides they had that poor woman goin’ crazy. Then when they shot down a harmless old prospector for sport, and I had to bury him… that made it personal… so I made them my project.”
“I just get my dander up when folks act that way, and some mighty good people get hurt from it.”
We talked about the Doolys, and I told him that there were only two left in the gang. The rest had been taken care of, either by me or by Frank and Rita. He asked if I could give him a description.
“I only saw her once or twice. Once from about a hundred yards, and the other time, I was too busy trying to keep some fat lady from getting’ shot… while ducking Rita’s bullets to get a good look… I only got a glimpse of Frank before the fat lady landed on me.”
“But you oughta know Frank.” I told him, “He was in that bunch you and Ben sent to prison or to a hangin’ down in Tex
as.”
He pondered over that for a few minutes and said, “I vaguely remember the name, from having to fill out the paperwork, but I can’t put a face to it.”
“They’re packing about twelve thousand dollars that we know about and maybe as much as sixteen. Ben says that Marshal Stewart is collecting that information. They just go into a bank and start spraying lead around.”
“From what one of them that was dyin’ told me, Rita wants to set herself up as a fine lady here in Denver, and Frank wants to open a saloon and dance hall in Cheyenne. But I reckon that Rita’s the boss, so I’d expect to find them here.”
“You got any kind of a plan?”
“Well I’ve been thinkin’ on that, and I think I’ll go get me some city duds and mingle amongst the hoi-polloi. There must be a few old hillbillies walking around Denver all dressed up in ten dollar suits.”
“More than you can imagine.” He said.
“Dog, there got a good whiff of Rita, so he’ll know her when we run across her. Maybe we can find them together, or if I can get a line on Rita, I can follow her back to where they’re stayin’.”
“That’s as good a plan as I could come up with, but you won’t be able to take your dog into some of those places… but some of them you can take your horse in if you feel like it.”
“I don’t reckon my horse would know how to act, and I doubt if Rita will be visitin’ those places. Old Dog knows he can’t go in some places, but he’ll sit right outside the door. There’s places he goes where I can’t and don’t want to.”
I left Marshal Claybrook and went looking for some new duds. I went to the first general store I found and looked over their broadcloth suits. Everything they had was creased from being folded up on a shelf. I asked the store clerk if that would be likely to come out. And he said it wasn’t likely at all. He had a pair of pants that still had the crease after three years. At least I found a pair of black boots that fit me real well and a nice flat crowned, broad brimmed hat.
The clerk told me about a tailor down the block who could make up a suit of clothes in a couple of hours. I didn’t see that as possible, but he swore it was true. I usually trust a swearing man. So I took my bundles and walked down to the tailor’s place of business.
He was a little fella, not more than five and a half feet tall, and he couldn’t weigh as much as Dog. But he had those suits hung all over the place. He measured me up real good and said, “Mister Cain, you seem to be a bit short waisted.”
“Now how can that be?” I said. “I’ve never been short on anything… except grub and money from time to time.”
He chuckled and said, “It’s a term that means your torso isn’t in proportion to your arms and legs. It’s not a problem I can adjust the sleeve length to give you a perfect fit.”
I asked how long it would take and he said, “Oh, a couple of hours. All I have to do is have you try on one of these that I’ve already got made up and do a little altering and it’s done.”
While I was off getting a bath, a shave, and a trim he must have been really stitching. True to his word when I came back three hours later, he was finished. He had me a couple of new shirts to go with it and a vest all laid out. Standing in front of that tall mirror, I didn’t know who I was looking at. It might as well been a Senator or Congressman because it sure wasn’t no back country mountain man.
That was the fanciest fella I’d ever seen in a mirror… the best twenty two dollars I’d ever spent.
Chapter 17
When I walked out on the boardwalk, Dog’s ears perked up and he looked up at me kinda funny like. He came to his feet and walked toward me with some hesitance. When he got close, he started sniffing and snuffing. He wasn’t at all sure who I was or what I was for that matter.
I stuck my hand out so he could get a good scent. He sniffed it and sneezed, and then he sniffed again and his big old tail started whacking anything or anybody in range. His eyes might deceive him, but that nose would never let him down.
“Well, big fella, let’s go stow these old buckskins and start huntin’ skunks.”
The only plan I had was to start walking about the smarter parts of the town, and hope that my few sightings of Rita were enough to recognize her again. While at the hotel I pulled out that piece of Rita’s petticoat and let Dog have another sniff of it. It had been about three weeks or more since I’d found it, and I didn’t know how long the scent would be worth anything… not being a dog, I had no idea about such things.
He gave it a good sniff, and that was the best I could hope for. We strolled around the center of town like a couple of uptown gents, with him looking up at me from time to time making sure that I was real I suppose. For a fleeting moment, I considered getting myself one of those fancy walking sticks. But that would be too much.
The hotels, eating places, and gambling halls were the most likely places for them to show up. Dancehalls and plain old saloons wouldn’t allow Rita in. I’d like to see them try and keep her out if she had a mind to go in one. I was breaking in those new boots real good. A lot of western men won’t do anything that they can’t do a horseback. They just figure if you can’t do it on a horse… it ain’t worth doin’.
Us old mountain men generally count on a horse to get us someplace that’s too far to walk. Or when we got a load to carry, a horse comes in mighty handy. But we’ll often load him up and lead him. I can see how cattlemen have come to count on their horses. They’d be out of business without them.
That afternoon was pretty disappointing in the sense that we didn’t get a scent or a sight of Rita, so we gave it up and headed back to the hotel. On the way, I stopped at a butcher shop… yep, a place where city people buy meat. I reckon there ain’t much game in a town like this. I wanted to get some scraps for Dog; otherwise he’d likely be eating some old lady’s tabby cat. And that could be a problem.
I took my purchase out to the stable and gave him about a pound of beef parts. He settled down to his dinner and I took care of the roan.
~~~~~ 0 ~~~~~
After breakfast the next morning, Dog and I walked down to the Marshal’s Office to sort of check in and see if there was anything new that I should know. Deputy Marshal Claybrook was there aggravating the clerk as he was inclined to do. It seems that when a man is filling in on a job that ain’t his regular work, he really don’t have his heart in it.
“Cain, it’s good to see you,” he said as I walked through the door. “I got a wire from Stewart down in Santa Fe… he says that the Dooly gang has taken over eighteen thousand and four hundred dollars from banks in New Mexico and Colorado. And they’ve left at least eight men and a woman dead in their wake. That includes a prison guard and a fancy lady in Texas. That didn’t include the prospector you buried… That’s just the ones that have been reported.”
“I’ve talked to the County Sheriff and the City Marshal, but without descriptions or posters, there isn’t much they can do about ‘em. I told them that you were working the case as a private agent. They didn’t take too well to the idea, but they’re willing to give you some leeway as long as you don’t shoot too many honest citizens in the process.”
“And my oh my… don’t you look fine in those town clothes. I wouldn’t have recognized you if it hadn’t of been for that unholy beast you’re traveling with…. Had any luck so far?”
When he had finished saying more words than I’m likely to say in half a year I told him, “Nope.” Then I went on to tell him what I was doing and where I was staying, in case he wanted to get in touch with me.
The unholy beast and me left there and went back to our business of prowling around those uppity places where the rich and powerful go. I was in and out of so many of those gilded halls; I was getting short of breath from lack of real air being breathed by real people. Lord, I only hope I never get rich.
By the time I’d prowled around with the upper crust for nigh onto a week, I noted that my two new white shirts were showing signs of the good life I’d
been living and needed a washing. So I put on my buckskins and dropped them off at a Chinese place to be laundered. I felt pretty comfortable walking around in my regular clothes again, but old Dog was somewhat confused.
Since I couldn’t be showing up at those fancy places in my lowdown clothes, I decided to go to some of the third level saloons. There was a layer of saloons and eating places where the kinda rich hang out just below the upper level, which is for the filthy rich. But the third level was for them who still had to answer to a boss and was paid for the work he did. The levels went on down to the fifth or sixth tiers, which were plenty lowdown.
The Golden Spur Saloon was of that third level, and it catered to mine foremen, shop owners, and ranchers. So you saw folks dressed in all sorts of getups. I ordered a beer at the bar and turned to face the room. I had been rubbing elbows with fancy folk for a week, and it felt good to be back among regular people again.
I was watching several card games going on in my line of sight and not really paying much attention to any of them. Rita wouldn’t be expected to show up in a third level saloon because it was an all boy’s club. No ladies permitted. For want of a better way of sayin’ it, you might say, I was taking a day off.
There were three games going on in my immediate area, so I just absent mindedly sipped my beer and watched for no reason. A fella, dressed up like a dude at the table farthest to my left seemed to be raking it in. He looked to be a tallish man, but on the thin side. He was wearing a gaudy yellow and brown plaid suit with a red checkered vest. And sitting on top of his head was brown narrow brimmed hat… the kind they call a bowler or a derby. I never could keep them straight. Anyway, that hat sat at an angle, and there was a big black cigar poking out of the corner of his mouth.
Even though I found his costume and his way of wearing it to be cheap and low class, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. I found myself staring at him. He must have found me staring at him too because he was becoming agitated and fidgety. That boy was starting to squirm. I expected him to have to get up and visit the little house out back.
