by Peter Grant
“What’s wrong, Smith? Cat got your tongue?”
“I… ah… I…”
“Start talking. I want to know everything—how and when you met Parsons, how you came to work for him, what he’s had you do, your reports about me, every single damned thing.”
“I can’t! He’ll kill me!”
“He may kill you, but only if he finds out, and only if he can find you. I will kill you if you won’t talk. Isom, tell him what’s in store for him if he won’t do it the easy way.”
Isom described, in appalling detail, the corpses left behind by Comanches after they’d tortured their captives to death. Smith paled visibly at some of the details. Walt then called on Pablo, who told Smith how the Mescalero Apaches treated their prisoners. While he talked, he stropped a knife incessantly on a leather strap wrapped around his hand. By the time he’d finished, Smith was trembling violently, imagining that same knife at work on him.
Walt took over again. “If you want to be a damned fool, we’ll do some of those things to you until you tell us what we want to know, then we’ll kill you. On the other hand, if you decide to be sensible, we won’t. Parsons won’t forgive you, but he isn’t here right now. Besides, we won’t tell him. If you don’t, either, how will he ever find out?”
Smith shook his head. “You’ll never trust me enough to let me go. You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Only if you don’t talk. That’s up to you to decide. You helped Parsons, so you share his guilt; but you didn’t raid my house or pull a trigger, so I reckon you aren’t as bad as Furlong was. Make your mind up. Do we do this the easy way, or the hard way?”
Smith’s shoulders slumped. “I-I’ll tell you.”
“Start at the beginning. When and where did you meet Parsons?”
The story came tumbling out. Smith had been a young journalist when he met Parsons in Chicago during the Civil War. “He was in business—I never knew what, exactly. I interviewed him about a couple of issues; corruption in Army supply contracts, shipping down the Mississippi, that sort of thing. A month or two later, he invited me to lunch. He said he needed someone to investigate his rivals. He wanted to know their weaknesses; how many of them drank, or kept mistresses, or embezzled money from their companies. He knew I didn’t earn much as a reporter, and he offered to pay me in gold for every report I put together for him. I… I couldn’t afford to say no. I worked for him on the side for three years, doing that.
“Parsons left Chicago after the war, but I’d gotten used to the extra money. I tried to carry on for myself, instead of for him. I’d dig up dirt on people, then tell them I was writing an article about it; but, if they paid me, I’d keep quiet. That worked for about a year, but in ’66 a businessman wouldn’t cave in. He brought in the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and they had me arrested. I was convicted of blackmail and extortion, and served three years in Joliet Prison.”
He shuddered. “It was horrible! The food was terrible; there was no running water in the cells; we had to use buckets for our night soil, and they were emptied only once a day, so our cells, beds and clothes always stank; and the prisoners were the roughest, crudest villains you can imagine. The guards weren’t much better. I nearly went mad! My health suffered, and I’ve never been the same man since.
“After I was released in ’69, I couldn’t find a job. Every newspaper in town knew what I’d done, and none of them would hire me. I met Parsons again, quite by chance. He was in Chicago on business, and I saw him getting out of a cab. After he heard my story, he said he needed people in Colorado to keep an eye on local events and report them to him. He said he already had people in several of the larger towns, but needed someone in Pueblo. He’d take me back on the train with him. He offered twenty dollars a month, plus ten for food, including the use of this place. I had to promise to work for him for at least five years.” He shrugged. “How could I refuse? I had no other prospects.”
“What sort of reports did you send him?” Walt asked.
“He wanted to know about any big shipments of horses or mules moving through Pueblo; how many there were, when and where they were coming from, where they were going, and the route they’d follow. He also wanted news of anyone needing to buy lots of horses or mules. It figured that he must have had people stealing them for him, but that’s all I knew. I was bored and frustrated, but I knew enough about him by then to be sure he’d hunt me down and punish me, if I didn’t keep to our five-year deal.
“A few months ago, he sent me a letter telling me to drop everything else and concentrate on you. He wanted to know everything about you. I’ve been sending him weekly reports ever since. He came here the day you were attacked, but you already know about that.”
“Tell me about it from your side.”
Smith nodded jerkily. “Parsons rode here all the way from Salida, in a little over a day. He wired me from Cañon City, asking me to buy two fresh horses for him, and hire any good gunmen that were available. There weren’t any in town worth hiring, but I bought the best horses I could, using every cent I had. He refunded that, and gave me his two old horses as well. He said they were a bonus for my help. I took him to get a bath, and buy new clothes and other things. Just before he left, he told me there might be gun trouble in town, and it might involve you. That’s all he said, Mr. Ames. He never mentioned any other men at all. I still don’t know exactly what happened at your house that night—only what the newspaper printed.”
“And you carried on sending him reports after that?”
“Y-yes. He gave me six months’ pay in advance, before he left, and a new address to use.”
“What is it?”
Smith pointed at a folder lying on the desk. “It’s in there.”
Walt picked up the folder and opened it. Inside was a two-page letter, written in daily entries, most very short, giving details of what Smith had observed and heard about him over the past week. It was unsigned. On the inside cover of the folder was printed an address in Taos, New Mexico.
“I guess you hadn’t finished this report yet?”
“N-no, Mr. Ames. I was going to do that tomorrow, then post it.”
“Tell me about those horses you gave Parsons. I want to know everything; their height, color, any marks they had, any brands or scars, the lot.”
“Uh… the bill of sale for them described all that. Parsons didn’t take it with him. It’s in my desk.”
“Get it—and don’t try any tricks!”
“I won’t,” Smith promised. He opened a drawer and slowly pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Doing so revealed the butt of a revolver underneath it. Smith didn’t touch it, but used his body to hide the half-open drawer as he turned around. “Here it is.”
Walt took the paper from him, unfolded it, and read swiftly. “This is great! It’s all here. Smith, you’re going to add a last section to your latest report. Tell Parsons you’ve just heard that my left arm still isn’t working too well, so I’m going to visit surgeons back East to see if they can do anything for it. I’m leaving here in a few days, heading for Denver, where I’ll take the train. You don’t know when I’ll be back, but you’ve heard I’ll be gone for at least two or three months, maybe longer. You’ll stop sending reports for now, because there won’t be anything to tell him, but you’ll start again as soon as I get back. Sign it, and address an envelope. Got it?”
“Y-yes, Mr. Ames.”
“Start writing.”
Smith took the second page of the report from Walt, sat down, and set to work. As he wrote, Isom said quietly, “How’re you gonna stop him from warnin’ Parsons you made him write that, just as soon as we’re gone?” He didn’t notice that Smith heard his words, and stiffened slightly as he strove to hear Walt’s response.
“We’ll just have to make sure he can’t do that,” Walt replied, equally softly. “We’ll take him with us, and put him in the cellar for now. I’ll go up to Denver next week, and ask that Ranger whether he can hold Smith in jail on som
e trumped-up charge until we’ve found Parsons.”
“That’ll work.”
Smith felt a wave of horror sweep over him at the thought of prison. He was certain he’d go mad if he was forced back into a barred cell. He had to do something—anything!—to prevent that. He tried desperately to hide his terror, but he couldn’t stop his hand trembling as he turned and held out the finished report and its envelope. “H-here it is, Mr. Ames.”
Walt took the papers and read swiftly, not noticing that Smith’s hand fell to his lap, then crept back to fumble in the half-open drawer behind him. “This ought to do it. I’ll post–”
“Look out!”
Pablo, squatting on his heels by the door, shouted a warning as he saw Smith start to pull the gun out of the drawer. His right hand darted into his boot and pulled out one of his throwing knives. With a lightning-fast lunge, he launched it across the room. It spiked deep into Smith’s neck, drawing a gurgle of agony. Blood spurted out as it pierced both his carotid artery and jugular vein, where they passed next to each other.
Walt dropped the report as his hand flew to his holstered revolver, but he hadn’t drawn it more than half-way from the leather before Smith froze, immobilized by the paralyzing pain of steel impaling his flesh. He released the gun, which bounced off the edge of the drawer and fell to the floor. His hands clutched at his neck as he collapsed backwards into his chair, gurgling, choking and twitching.
“Thanks, Pablo,” Walt said gratefully. “I wonder why he decided to be a damned fool? It’s a good thing you stopped him shooting. Even if he’d missed, the noise would have reached the neighbors, and we’d have been in big trouble.”
He retrieved the documents from the floor and put them in the folder, along with the bill of sale for the horses Smith had bought for Parsons. Bending, he picked up the revolver Smith had dropped. It was an old Colt 1851 Navy model, well-worn but still serviceable. He put it on the table, next to the wallet and revolver he’d taken from under Smith’s pillow. That gun was a small, four-shot Colt Cloverleaf revolver, firing the same .41 rimfire round as his Derringers, but holding twice as many.
Pablo pulled his knife out of Smith’s neck, producing another gurgle of pain. The blood pumped even more swiftly out of the wound as he cleaned the blade on the dying man’s clothing, then replaced it in its sheath in his boot. Smith slowly toppled from the chair to the floor, moving weakly as blood loss drained the strength from his body. A pool of red spread beneath him as they watched silently. It took only a few minutes for his breathing to stop.
“That’s it, I guess,” Walt said with a sigh. “At least he told us most of what we need to know before he died.”
“What’re we going to do with him, boss?” Isom asked.
“Leave him here. Folks will reckon someone killed him during a robbery. We’ll take his guns and wallet with us, to make it look that way.” He counted the money in the wallet, riffling through it quickly. “Looks like there’s seven or eight hundred dollars here. At least I got my money back for the horses Jack and Pablo bought this morning.” He glanced at the Mexican. “Tell Jack I won’t take the cost of those horses out of your bonuses, since Mr. Smith kindly gave it back to me. You get to keep them, free of charge. We’ll call it a bonus for spotting Parsons’ name on the bill of sale.”
Pablo grinned. “Thank you, señor. Jack will be very pleased. They are good horses.”
As they walked their mounts quietly away from the house, pieces of blanket tied over their hooves to reduce their sound, Isom asked, “What was that about goin’ to Denver, boss?”
“I’ll have to go, to make Smith’s last report look accurate. Don’t forget, Parsons has agents there too, and probably someone working for the railroad as well. If he asks them, they’ve got to be able to confirm that I bought a ticket and left Colorado on my way to the east coast. While I’m fixing that up, I want you to go to Fairplay, to talk with Rosalva.”
Isom shivered. “Snow’s already deep up there, boss.”
“Yes, I know. You’ll just have to dress warmly. Take Pablo with you—his Spanish might come in handy. Tell Rosalva I’m on my way to New Mexico. I want to know whether she has any friends or contacts in or near Taos, or anywhere else in the Territory, who might be able to find out more about Parsons. If so, ask her to write them that a man may come to see them, and that it’s safe to talk to him. She mustn’t tell them who I am or why I’m coming, in case anything leaks to Parsons. She can give you a list of their names and addresses, and a letter of introduction for me. I’ll show that to them. I’ll give you a hundred dollars, to pass on to her if she helps us. Be back in no more than ten days.”
“I’ll do that, suh. How are you goin’ to make Parsons’ men in Denver think you took the train outta town?”
“I’ll ask that Ranger, Dunnett, to help me fool them. As soon as I’ve arranged that, and a few other things, I’ll come back here, then we’ll head for New Mexico.”
Pablo said dolefully, “It will be a slow, cold journey, señor. The snow is already deep in the passes. It will take weeks.”
“Yes, it will, but that may be an advantage. Parsons won’t expect me to travel long distances on horseback during winter. We may catch him off-guard. Tell you what. You can start to teach me Spanish while we travel.”
“Me, too, Pablo,” Isom agreed. “If we’re gonna stay in this part o’ the world, we’re prob’ly gonna need it. For a start, thinkin’ of all that snow, how do you say ‘Brrr!’ in Spanish?”
Pablo shook his head in mock despair. “¡Ay de mi! These gringos are crazy!”
Dunnett arrived at Walt’s house in Denver late in the evening, well after most people were already in bed. Walt had the lamps lit in the kitchen at the rear of the house, and heard his horse clip-clopping up the icy driveway. He opened the back door, and called softly, “Evening, Mr. Dunnett. Put your horse in the stable to keep warm. Jethro will give it some oats while we talk.”
“Thanks, Mr. Ames.”
Dunnett came through the back door, huge and bulky in a buffalo robe calf-length duster. He put down his saddlebags, stamped his feet as he took off his heavy overcoat and hung it on a hook, then went over to the kitchen range and warmed his hands over it, standing close to his heat with a grateful sigh. “That’s better! It’s real bitter out there.”
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry you had to come out so late at night. It’s damned awkward, not being able to be seen with you for fear of upsetting your boss. That buffalo coat looks warm, though. I think I’ll buy some of them while I’m here. My men and I will need them.”
“Yeah, if you plan on travelin’ at this time o’ year, they’re the best. There’s a store in town that sells rabbit-fur-lined mittens. You might want to get some o’ them, too.”
“Thanks, I will. What have you got for me?”
“A lot.” He picked up his saddlebags. “Where do we talk?”
“This is the warmest room in the house right now, thanks to that cooking range.”
“All right.” Dunnett took out three fat envelopes, and laid them on the kitchen table as they sat down. “I told you I’d have my contacts look into Colorado companies that bought land out west of the Continental Divide. There’s a lot of them, but three areas caught my eye. You see, a lawyer here in Denver registered exactly one hundred bearer share companies, almost four years back. They all had the same name, followed by a number, one to a hundred.”
“And no-one knew who owned them?”
“That’s right. Soon after they were formed, properties began to be registered to them out west, one per company. They were all bought within a few months of each other. We know Parsons was out there at the time, because that’s when he met Sanchez an’ his brothers. A short while later, once most of the company names had been used, the same lawyer here in Denver consolidated them into just three companies, and re-registered the properties in their names.”
He produced a map, and folded it to show northern New Mexico and southern Colorado
. “The first group of properties is out here, due south of Animas City and the New Mexico border, near the Navajo reservation. They’re in a valley, about five thousand acres in all. There were half a dozen homesteads there, an’ some Mexicans also owned parts of it. All of them were bought up within about six weeks. If it was Parsons, I reckon he hired men to bully those livin’ there into selling. That’s common enough, these days.”
“Yeah,” Walt agreed. He wondered whether Parsons had done the same thing to buy the land he’d acquired in Fremont County. None of the sellers had remained in the area, so he’d probably never know for sure.
“The next area is also in New Mexico, north of Taos, in the bottom part of the San Juan valley.” Dunnett traced it on the map. “The properties there were larger, totaling close to ten thousand acres. The last area’s in Colorado, south an’ east of Alamosa, also in the San Juan Valley. It grows a lot of hay, an’ they’re startin’ to grow alfalfa out that way, so it’s great for hosses an’ stock. That’s also about ten thousand acres in total.”
“So we’re talking about twenty-five thousand acres in all? That must have taken a whole lot of money.”
“If whoever bought it paid the rulin’ prices, yeah; but if it was Parsons, an’ if he used strong-arm men to persuade the owners to sell, he prob’ly paid a lot less.”
“There is that. What’s it worth today?”
“I dunno what land values are out there—you’ll have to ask the locals—but I’ll be surprised if it’s less than three to four dollars an acre for well-watered land, maybe up to two, three times that for the best properties.”
Walt whistled softly. “I’ll have to find out more about that.”
“Uh-huh. I had your lawyer pull details of all the companies an’ their registrations. They’re in the envelopes. I’ll leave them with you.” Dunnett handed them over.
“Thanks. I’m real grateful to you. Didn’t your boss suspect anything?”
“Naw. You’re in Pueblo, not out there, so there’s no obvious connection. I told him I was lookin’ into fake companies bein’ set up to fleece investors.”
