by Tim Champlin
"About a ton of flour was saved, too," Cathy added. "And there are men out hunting for meat right now."
"Well, it's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good," Curt quoted, shifting his splinted left arm in its sling so he could reach the sandwich Cathy handed him. "I don't think anybody's going to hold it against us for starting that fire, considering that their stages and their gold will be safe now."
The men from nearby towns and camps had brought their wagons and tools to help clear the smoking ruins and to start the rebuilding. No sawmills had been touched by the fire, since they stood too far from town. And they were going full blast. The tortured whine of saws ripping new lumber rose and fell over all other noises.
Most of the buildings in the new Deadwood would be made of something more durable, the mayor had assured the stunned townspeople—stone, and bricks made from the irritating gumbo. He also promised that an adequate water supply would be available to fight any future fires.
"Where's Stoudt?" I asked nobody in particular.
"Sheriff Pierce and a few deputies took him and Stumpy McCoy and about six of his gang and started for Cheyenne in one of the Wells Fargo coaches about an hour ago," Mortimer replied. "When I saw Stoudt coming down the street the other night, I almost didn't recognize him," Mortimer added. "He was staggering like a drunk and he was totally black with soot. His glasses were gone and his clothes were in rags. Somebody ran over to help him, and then I realized who he was. As soon as he'd been treated for minor burns and shock, I arrested him. By yesterday he was lucid, and I started pressuring him to tell me where Stumpy's gang was holed up."
"Did they get the fake shipment?" Wiley asked.
"No. Jason Thomas got to Stumpy in time to warn them off." He grinned. "I guess that wagon load of rocks will get through safely to Cheyenne."
"Some of Sheriff Pierce's posse went through the ashes of Stoudt's bank after they cooled down yesterday, and found the safe intact. He wouldn't give us the combination until Pierce ordered it blasted open. They didn't find anything out of order there—just three hundred or so buckskin pokes of dust tagged with individuals' names, waiting to be melted and shipped. But a search of his house turned up a tin box with some scorched ledgers detailing a record of payments to S. McCoy, G. Zimmer, and an R. Telford. It also showed a tremendous amount of gold received by himself. He still refused to say anything except that it was his own returns from private investment.
"We told him Zimmer had been killed in the explosion, and that if he wanted to face murder and robbery charges alone and see Stumpy get away with the rest of the gold, he could. At first he pretended not to know who Cassius 'Stumpy' McCoy was. But then the idea of taking the punishment all alone finally got to him. He confessed and told us where Stumpy was. He led the posse right to a cavern less than a dozen miles from here, and the gang, not expecting anyone, had not posted a guard. They were all captured, along with about a half-million dollars worth of gold, most of which had been smelted and recast right there. Some of the ingots still had the Wells Fargo stamping on them. Plenty of evidence to convict. That's where we found your watches and a lot of other personal things that had been taken from stage passengers.
"Nobody had known of this natural cavern; that's how the robbers could disappear so quickly without a trace. It was plenty big enough for horses and a good stock of provisions. Probably could've housed half the town in there."
"Stoudt looked like a wealthy man. Why did he get involved with a bunch of robbers?" I asked.
"He wasn't so well off as he appeared. He was heavily in debt. For a generous cut of the profits, he got the help of McCoy's gang to rob the gold shipments. Then Stoudt and his partners were using their share of the loot to buy up promising mines in the Hills. He was also paying off his own debts. As soon as he was in a good solid financial position, he was going to pay off the gang and send them on their way. If they wouldn't leave voluntarily, he himself was going to leave and assume a new identity in some eastern city. From there he could manage his developing mines through a dummy company."
"How did he know all about these treasure shipments in advance?" Curt wanted to know.
"We had a little trouble getting that out of him, but we found a couple of telegrams in the cavern that had been sent to Stoudt from Cheyenne. They were apparently routine bank business, but they were really coded messages about the dates, routes, times, amounts, hiding places, and number of guards for two different gold shipments at different times. Written above each line of the coded telegrams, in Stoudt's own hand, was the translation —very damning evidence that Stumpy failed to destroy." He laughed, rubbing the silver stubble on his cheeks. "I told you Stumpy was slippery, but not too intelligent."
"You never said who his contact was."
"Oh, yes. The other name in the ledger—Telford turned out to be the Wells Fargo agent, Bundy's counterpart, in Cheyenne. Bundy never suspected and routinely notified Telford in advance of every shipment. The agent turned right around and sent a coded wire to Stoudt, who tipped off Jason Thomas, who carried the information to McCoy."
"Simple enough. But how did Zimmer fit into all this?"
"When General Buck's troops came through here last September, Zimmer met Stoudt. Turns out he and Stoudt had known each other as kids years ago. Grew up in the same German community in Wisconsin. They hit it off right away. When Zimmer got suspended from duty, pending a court-martial, he faced the end of his career, the loss of his pension, and a dishonorable discharge. He was thinking of recouping his fortunes by looking up his old friend Stoudt. Stoudt took him into his scheme as a partner, along with Telford at Cheyenne."
"Right. After all, what are friends for?" Wiley asked dryly.
"Did Stoudt have anything to do with shooting you?"
"Don't know for sure, but he may break down and tell us yet, since he's already facing charges of murder, attempted murder, and robbery. I have a hunch he put Jason Thomas up to it. Even though my mission was kept pretty quiet, even within the company, I imagine Telford was the one who identified me."
"By the way," Curt said, glancing around at the crowd with a concerned look, "has everyone been accounted for? I haven't seen K.J. since the fire."
"He's okay," Wiley replied. "I saw him yesterday afternoon and again this morning. He was really busy helping the men clean up. In fact, I saw him with Missus Hayes and one of the miners who hung around her place a lot and helped her. They had a couple of wheelbarrows made out of pieces of sluice boxes, and were hauling off loads of ashes."
"Good. I'm glad to know the kid and Missus Hayes weren't hurt."
I glanced around at the swarms of men shoveling, digging, salvaging a few useful items from the heaps of black and gray ashes. Teams of mules were dragging heavy timbers and pulling down the remainders of brick chimneys.
"You know," I remarked, "I'll bet a man could leave here today and come back in six months and never know this for the same place."
"You're. right. And it's a bit sad in a way," Mortimer said. "I think this fire will probably knock some of the raw edge off Deadwood. With the Hills officially given up by the Indians last month, this town'll be a different place by the time it's all rebuilt. A little tamer and more settled, maybe. A little less placer mining, and more hard-rock mining—and more stamp mills as the surface gold starts to play out. The Homestake is already developing that way. And the Father DeSmet, the Golden Star, the Giant, and Old Abe will be into the deep shafts and tunneling before long; and then most of the mining will be done by men working for wages—Cornishmen and the like. Developing a mine takes lots of capital and know-how. But it's not as exciting as those first discoveries, when it's every man for himself and everyone, potentially, has an equal chance."
"Stoudt saw it coming and wanted to raise some quick, easy, illegal money to buy into these mines," Curt said.
"Speaking of that," Wiley said, "what are we going to do with our claim? Just keep sluicing until we come up empty, and then start digging? Most
of our gold probably washed down from somewhere higher up. There may not be any veins under our section of creek."
"I've been giving that some thought," Curt replied, adding some water to his tin cup of whiskey and sipping it. "I want to discuss this with the three of you. What do you think of the idea of possibly selling about twenty percent of our two adjoining claims to some miners to finish it up or develop whatever it leads to?
"Personally, I've got some plans of my own." He reached for Cathy's hand with his good right hand. "I've asked Cathy to marry me, and she's accepted."
Cathy held out her left hand for us to see the delicate gold ring. I took a closer look at the finely crafted design. The slender gold band curved gracefully at the top into two grape leaves fanning out from a tiny bunch of grapes. The tiny leaves were a pale red and green in color.
"A young jeweler down at Rosenthal's came up with that design," Curt explained. "The colors are obtained by alloying the gold with copper and silver. He's produced quite a few of them over the past few months. That design of his in Black Hills gold is already becoming popular."
"Beautiful," I commented, rubbing my fingers over the roughened surface of the leaves.
"I can't let a girl get away who's as good with a shotgun as she is," Curt continued. "I may hire her out to Wells Fargo."
"And I'm a terrific cook, too," Cathy retorted.
"By the way, where did you get that double-barreled gun?"
"When you didn't come down right away, and we heard voices in the hallway, Wiley and I decided we'd better get up there quick. Wiley had a revolver, but I wasn't armed, so I just ran behind the desk and grabbed the shotgun I'd seen the night clerk stand in the corner when he came on duty. He hollered at me, but I just kept on going. Checked to make sure both barrels were loaded on our way up the stairs."
"I'm sure glad you did. If it weren't for the two of you, we wouldn't be sitting here right now," I said.
"Anyway, I'd like to settle right here in Deadwood for a time," Curt went on. "With my engineering degree, I can foresee plenty of work—building bridges, and mine-tunnel construction. I may even look into the possibility of working for the railroad. They'll probably be running a line in here within a few years if this area grows the way 1 think it will."
"Congratulations," Wiley said, grinning broadly. "I can't think of a better match. But for the life of me, I can't figure out which one of you is going to be the boss."
Cathy made a face at him and put her arm around the seated Curt's shoulders.
"What about your troubles with the army?" I asked.
"I think that would hurt me back East," Curt replied, his lean face serious. "But out here, they look more at a man's skills and current behavior, rather than at his past. I know of several sheriffs and marshals who used to be on the wrong side of the law.
"But I still think I was right in my actions. In any case, I'm not going to hide. If the Army wants to come looking for me, I'll be here. And I'll even face a court-martial if they want me to. In effect, I've already resigned my commission. Zinmer's dead, so his testimony won't be there to hurt me. If they want to give me a dishonorable discharge for the record, there's probably nothing I can do about it, but I want to get my side of the story on the official transcript of the trial for anyone who might be interested in it in the future—like our kids."
"Talking about kids, look who's coming," I said, pointing at K.J., who had set his empty wheelbarrow down to get a drink of water from a nearby barrel.
"Hey, you're really working," Cathy said to him. "The way you're going at it, somebody must be paying you to clean up this whole town by yourself."
K.J. put the dipper back in the barrel and wiped the back his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing soot on his cheek. The black eyes gleamed in the round face as he came over to our group.
"Nobody's paying me," he said. "We're paying ourselves. Since all of you are good friends of mine, I'll let you in on our secret. But please don't tell anyone else until we're through."
We all promised.
He lowered his voice. "That miner who's helping me and Missus Hayes gave us the idea. We're picking out certain stores and saloons and washing out the ashes of those places in his sluice box. And we're finding gold dust," he whispered. "That miner says Missus Hayes was good to him when he was down on his luck, and he wanted to help her build her house back and get her a good stake. He says before we're through, we should get about two thousand pennyweight of gold out of there!"
"Two-thousand pennyweight!" Curt exclaimed, doing some quick mental calculations. "That's upward of four thousand dollars or more."
"Now, that's what I call enterprising," Wiley said.
"By the way, part of that thousand dollar reward for capturing those stage robbers will go to you for helping us," Curt said. "We couldn't have done it without you."
The boy's round face split into a huge grin, showing his dimples. "Thank you!" he said. "I gotta go now. Missus Hayes is waiting on me." He waved and went to trundle off the wheelbarrow, which was almost bigger than he was.
"I'd like to adopt that kid and get an early start on a family," Curt said, half to himself. And then aloud he asked, "What are your plans, Matt and Wiley? Going to stay on here?"
"As for me," I answered, "I'll stay for the wedding if it isn't too far off. But these winters are a little rough for me. I've been hearing about some promising silver strikes down in the Arizona Territory. I've never been in that part of the country, and I'd like to check 'em out. I want to get a good look at different parts of the West and see what's available before I settle down. You know, I never did get a reply from my old newspaper. Guess they're not going to pay me for my summer's work."
"If you don't mind the company, I'd like to tag along with you," Wiley said. "I haven't got any definite plans.
Besides, you may need some looking after. I was over that part of the country a few years back before the Apaches got rough, and I had to get out. Besides, I've got enough from my share of dad's inheritance to give us a good stake and plenty of time to look around."
It was a comforting thought to know I would have an experienced guide, and I stuck out my hand.
"Done," I said. "You be my scout and guide, and I'll try to keep you out of trouble."
He grinned that boyish grin and gripped my hand. "Looks like we've each got a full-time job."
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