The Hickory Staff e-1

by Rob Scott

  This morning O’Reilly absentmindedly polished the buckle as he waited for his coffee to brew. The drawer was unlocked and the scales tared; after he poured himself a cup of coffee he would unlock the safe.

  Yesterday’s newspaper rested on the counter above his cash drawer; he looked over the pages as he sipped from the steaming mug and awaited the day’s first customer. An ongoing investigation in Oro City had yielded no further evidence in the grisly murder of three men near the Silver Shadow Mine. Henry Milken, Lester McGovern and an unknown man had been found dead two weeks earlier. Though it was not uncommon for quarrels over claims to end in a miner’s death, the mysterious and horrible nature of these deaths made it plain that this had not been a run-of-the-mill argument. Milken’s skull had been crushed, but no obvious weapon was found at the scene. The unknown man had been shot five times, but his body must have been transported to the murder site because there was so little blood on his clothing or the ground where he lay. The grisliest death was that of Lester McGovern, whose head had been forcibly torn from his body – and was missing.

  There was another death report, this time the discovery of a young girl’s body less than a mile south of the mine on Weston Pass Road. Her age was estimated at eight or nine years, and her clothing – a light cotton dress – suggested she had come from a warmer climate. She had not been wearing shoes, and apart from an open wound on her wrist, her body showed no signs of foul play.

  News of the deaths had quickly travelled throughout the Front Range mining towns; the newspaper reported that miners across the state had seen large, man-like monsters capable of ripping body parts asunder and drinking victims’ blood directly from their veins. An artist’s rendering of one such creature appeared on page five: a hairy version of a large man with strangely human features, especially around the eyes, which conveyed a sense of homicidal madness.

  O’Reilly laughed at the absurdity: superstitious people would latch on to anything outlandish when confronted with a situation they were unable to explain. The real explanation was most likely simple: a robbery, even though Horace Tabor’s ownership of those mines was unquestioned and only the most ignorant of claim jumpers would attempt a takeover in that valley. Miners working the Silver Shadow told investigators they had hauled a large quantity of silver that week, but none was found at the site.

  O’Reilly’s reading was interrupted by the sound of the door opening; a cool breeze elbowed its way through the lobby. Snow was certainly coming. He peered through the thin vertical bars of the teller window: a man, probably a miner, carrying two bulky, grey canvas bags in each hand.

  The bank manager hadn’t heard of any large strikes in Empire or Georgetown in the past weeks; such news here in the Springs always reached him within a day. He watched with anticipation as the man hefted his bags onto the thickly varnished pine counter. ‘There’s more,’ he said quietly, and turned back towards the street, returning a moment later with four more bags. These he placed carefully on the floor.

  ‘Looks like y’all had a big strike,’ O’Reilly mused aloud. ‘I hadn’t heard anything around town. Which shaft did you bring this out of?’ The miner remained silent, but O’Reilly was not really surprised. There were hundreds of mines between Idaho Springs and Georgetown alone, and most of the men refused to discuss the location of their strikes for fear claim jumpers or bandits would track them back to their camps. O’Reilly didn’t press the issue.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, looking over at the door, ‘where’s the rest of your team?’

  ‘I’m alone.’

  ‘Alone? They sent you down here alone? Which company do you work for? Do they have an account here? I mean, I can weigh this, but until it’s refined I can’t even give you credit unless you’re willing to come way down off the New York price per ounce. Your company’s probably got credit, though. What’s the name on the account?’

  ‘I’m alone. There is no account. I wish to open one today.’ The miner indicated the bags and said, ‘This is already refined.’

  O’Reilly was silent for a moment, then he laughed. ‘Millie put you up to this? Or was it Jake? I know I had a few too many in there Thursday, but this is just too much.’ The bank manager made his way through the door adjoining the lobby and quickly crossed the floor to where the miner stood silently, surrounded by his eight large bags. They looked filled near to bursting.

  He reached for one, then thought twice. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ the miner replied, removing a glove from his right hand. His left remained sheathed in worn leather.

  O’Reilly untied the cord holding one of the bags closed and felt his heart race. ‘Sheezus.’ It was silver, an enormous cache of silver. The refined ore still looked dirty, and he could smell the vestiges of burned quicksilver, but he knew that there must be twenty thousand dollars’-worth of the ore right here in his lobby.

  His speech took on a more businesslike tone. ‘You’re alone, and you rode into town with eight bags of refined silver? You wear a holster but no handgun, and no one is with you to make certain you don’t run off with their hard-earned strike? And you tell me again you don’t work for a mining company? You just want to start up an account.’

  The man stared at O’Reilly impassively.

  ‘Are you planning to just stand here while I spend the rest of the day and evening assaying this load?’

  The man repeated, ‘I’m alone, and I’d like to start an account.’

  ‘Well-’ O’Reilly looked again at the bags and nodded. ‘Okay. It’ll take me a goodly while to get this together, and there are a few forms I need you to fill out. If you can’t write, I can talk you through them, and you can make your mark. But either way, we’ll get this done. And I swear I’ll be straight with you, if you want to deposit this rather than just have an assay, I’ll give you a good price against the New York standard. New York was in the paper a couple weeks ago at 132 cents per ounce. With this much silver, I can give you-’ O’Reilly furiously calculated how much the bank could make selling this at or near the New York price. ‘I can give you 122 cents an ounce. Now that’s right fair. You can head on over to Millie’s or wherever and ask any of the silver men here in town, and they’ll tell you that’s fair. It’s a bit more than I’m used to moving through here-’ which was a lie. It was the largest cache of precious metal O’Reilly had ever seen in one place. ‘But I’ll get you a good price, and you’re going to be a very rich man.’

  ‘I need a safe deposit box as well,’ the miner added quietly. He had not moved since placing the last four bags on the lobby floor. He stared, grim-faced, across the counter, waiting for O’Reilly to tell him what to do.

  ‘Well, we got those, too, but they’re a bit extra, two dollars a month.’

  ‘Take it out of the account.’

  ‘Yessir, we can do that. It’s just another form that allows me to take that money out on the first of each month. You don’t ever have to think about it, and I’m sure it’ll be the end of my lifetime before a two-dollar charge would drain this deposit to any noticeable degree.’ He went to pick up the first four bags, but they were much too heavy.

  ‘Christ! Oh, excuse me, but my, these are heavy,’ he gasped as he half-lifted, half-dragged the bags one by one through the door to the rear of the building. He suggested, ‘Why don’t you run out and get something to eat, and when you get back I’ll have the forms together, and I can give you an idea how much you have here. I can’t believe you carried these in alone. You must be a strong one. Me, I’ve never been in a mine. I don’t own any clothes suitable for mining.’ He chuckled, remembering how Chapman had hooked him with that same phrase.

  ‘I’ll complete the papers now, and I need a safe deposit box.’

  O’Reilly was getting aggravated with his decidedly odd customer: the man carried hundreds of pounds of silver into the bank as if it weighed nothing, but didn’t offer to help carry it to the scales in the back. He was doing his best to be accommodating, but the miner s
hrugged off all his attempts to be helpful or friendly.

  Then the bank manager thought again of the huge quantity of ore and swallowed his ill-humour. ‘All right, I’ll get the papers for you, and begging your pardon, but can you write, or should we go through them together?’

  ‘Bring me the papers. I’ll write them here now,’ was the toneless reply.

  ‘Sorry about that, but we have a lot come in here who can’t fill out the papers. But of course whoever you work for would send someone who had some schooling down with such a large haul.’ He had to work for a company; no one man could mine, refine and haul this much silver from any of the mines in the canyon without a team of at least twenty men.

  O’Reilly produced the account and safe deposit box forms and returned to weighing the silver and calculating its net worth. Most miners or mine company representatives insisted on watching the weighing and checking the calculations themselves, but this fellow hadn’t asked, so O’Reilly didn’t offer. Let the odd bird catch hell from his foreman tonight, he thought as he struggled to lift another bag onto the pine table against the back wall of his office. He could skim quite a bit off the top of this weigh-in, and perhaps pocket a large sum for himself, but he would have trouble selling anything he stole. All the buyers who made the trip west from Denver knew he had never been in a mine in his life – and that Chapman paid him in cash. O’Reilly put the thought out of his mind.

  It was several hours before he took a break. His fingers were sore from separating and washing the dirt and charred mercury from the silver before weighing it, and his lower back ached from repeated trips to the pump on the corner for more water. It was growing colder outside, and he could see snow flying among the rocky peaks above the canyon. It was snowing hard above ten thousand feet; he figured the storm would be upon them by late afternoon.

  He had finished the first four bags and already the lone miner was worth over $10,000, even at 122 cents per ounce. It was nearly pure silver, among the best he had ever seen. O’Reilly would easily bring in 132 cents per ounce, or perhaps more if he could find a buyer willing to speculate on high-grade metals. Pouring another cup of coffee, he went back to the lobby and added a log to the fire; again he felt the pain of the coming storm in his thigh. The skies had turned grey and swirls of dead aspen leaves blew up against the side of the building in small tornadoes that lost their gumption after only a few seconds.

  The miner had left without a word, but all the papers had been filled out in the fine-lined script of a well-educated person and left in the teller window on top of the now forgotten newspaper. O’Reilly read through them as he warmed himself near the lobby stove.

  The miner’s name was William Higgins. There was no next of kin listed as a beneficiary of the account, and the only address given was one in Oro City. O’Reilly stopped. That couldn’t be right. Higgins had to come from this side of the pass. Oro City was two passes southwest of Idaho Springs. Neither the stage nor the train travelled that route, and by now the snows would have closed even the horse trails until next April. There was no way one man could have driven a team of horses and a wagon loaded with nearly a thousand pounds of silver across those mountain passes in late September. Claim jumpers and raiders would have killed him several times over had they suspected what he was carrying. Perhaps he lived in Oro City but worked the mines near Georgetown, Empire or any of the small encampments along Clear Creek Canyon. Nodding contemplatively over his coffee, O’Reilly decided that was the only answer, and went about setting up Mr Higgins’s new accounts.

  It was after 4.00 p.m. when William Higgins returned to the Bank of Idaho Springs. He stood silently in the lobby; had it not been for the cold breeze that blew in when he opened the door, O’Reilly would not have known he was back. It was snowing hard and the miner had a light dusting of flakes scattered across his hat and shoulders.

  ‘Well, Mr Higgins, you are a wealthy man. I’m about finished and it appears you have-’

  ‘I need the key to the safe deposit box now,’ Higgins interrupted. He carried two items: a metal cylinder about fifteen inches long and a small wooden box that looked as though it had been carved from rosewood or mahogany, nothing like the scrub oak, pine or aspen that grew in the area. O’Reilly had seen a rosewood cutlery box in Lawrence Chapman’s Alexandria home ten years earlier; he remembered the darkly coloured wood and tight grain pattern.

  O’Reilly also noticed, for the first time, that Higgins wore spurs on his boots. He thought again what an odd customer this miner was: wearing spurs to drive a wagon?

  ‘Uh, yessir, well, on that issue we have a small problem. You see the deposit boxes are basically drawers in the top level of our safe. Each has its own key, and we keep one copy here while you take the other copy with you. When I checked after lunch, we only have one drawer left, and I’m sorry to say, there’s only one key for that drawer here. I’m not certain what happened to the other copy, but I’d guess the last customer lost it somewhere.’

  ‘That’s fine. Bring me the key.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. I need to keep the last copy of the key here; so you won’t actually be able to take a key with you tonight. Do you still want the box?’

  ‘I do.’

  O’Reilly opened the door to the lobby, allowing Higgins to enter the area behind the counter near the bank’s safe. He indicated a row of drawers inside, each adorned with a slim brass plate, and pointed to the one engraved 17C in short block letters. Handing Higgins the key, he excused himself.

  ‘I’ll give you some privacy. If you have trouble with the lock, give a holler and I’ll come help you out.’ As O’Reilly left the safe, Higgins quickly unlocked the drawer, placed the two items inside and re-locked it with a sense of finality.

  The rack of keys from which O’Reilly had taken this one hung on the wall behind the teller’s window. The miner stealthily took a key from the hook numbered 12B and secreted the key marked 17C into his vest pocket. ‘I’m finished here now,’ he called.

  O’Reilly came hurriedly out from his office. He quite failed to realise he was returning the wrong key to the rack.

  ‘I’m about through here as well, sir. I have the account established. Here is your account number, and you have a current balance of $17,802. You brought in approximately nine hundred and twelve pounds of refined silver, Mr Higgins.’ O’Reilly watched the miner for his reaction: that was an enormous amount of money; when the man failed to respond, he went on cautiously, ‘If you don’t mind my asking, sir, how did you manage it? How did you get it all here by yourself, across those passes – or do you live in Oro City and work the mines here in the canyon?’

  Seconds passed in silence. Setting his jaw, O’Reilly continued with business. ‘On the first of each month, we will draw two dollars from the account to cover the rent on your safe deposit drawer. Now, can I get you any cash this evening?’

  ‘No. I’ll be back when I need cash,’ Higgins said, and his spurs sounded with a rhythmic chime as he turned, left the bank and walked into the coming darkness.

  The bank manager sat alone in his rented room above Millie’s Tavern. He had money saved, but he was alone. This way he had Millie and Jake Harmon to provide pleasant company in the evening. Women were numerous in Idaho Springs, but most made their living as prostitutes, several right here at Millie’s. O’Reilly had not fallen in love with a woman since he moved from out east; unless and until he did, he felt no need to build himself a home.

  He generally dined downstairs in the bar, but this evening he had asked Millie to bring a plate to his room so he could finish reading the paper before going to sleep. As he reviewed the news, he came across the linotype of the malevolent beast that was supposedly stalking the mines of Oro City.

  Oro City. O’Reilly paused, his hand frozen above a smudged listing of Denver’s upcoming social events. There had been something about Oro City. Quickly he turned back to the story of the killings in Empire Gulch two weeks earlier. A large cache of silver had disapp
eared. Could Higgins have made it all the way to Idaho Springs in two weeks? Perhaps he was not alone. He had worn spurs today; O’Reilly had seen them. He must have ridden, and had a partner, or partners, driving the wagon. And he’d been too quiet. He had not talked like most mine workers did when they finally had some time in town – especially those with a large deposit, they always liked to pass the time while he washed and weighed their strike. Jesus, was Higgins that killer? He slowly ran his finger across the raised letters of his new belt buckle. Refined silver. Why keep it in Colorado? Why not head for California, Santa Fe or Kansas City? Why try to sell it here, where it would be under suspicion? And what was in that safe deposit box?

  Checking his watch, he saw it was already 10.15 p.m. Late. The silver was locked up and the key to the deposit box was hanging safely on the rack near his office. O’Reilly decided he would contact the sheriff in the morning; tomorrow was time enough to get to the bottom of these strange events. He rubbed his aching thigh and looked out of the window at the falling snow. Tomorrow he could deal with William Higgins.

  Just after midnight, Millie Harmon carried whiskey shots to a group of miners squashed around the table. One of them made a joke and she forced herself to laugh, though she did not find the young man particularly funny. He tried to engage her in conversation but she excused herself to get back to the kitchen. As she turned, she saw Gabriel O’Reilly, still in his suit, heading out the front door.

  ‘Gabe,’ she called, but he didn’t answer. Millie hustled to the door and pushed it open. The snow was coming down hard now; over a foot had fallen in the past three hours, and the gusting wind made the night time seem as though it had a nefarious purpose. Without thinking, she pulled her shawl more closely around her shoulders. O’Reilly was already halfway across the street.

  ‘Gabe,’ she called, louder this time, but again he ignored her. Light from the fireplace illuminated snowdrifts through the tavern windows. Millie could see that O’Reilly was wearing gloves, but had no coat or hat. ‘You ought to have a coat on, young man,’ she yelled after him. ‘I’ll not be playing nursemaid to one so ignorant as to be out walking out on a night like this.’