Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2)

by James Reasoner

  "I'll see that it gets back to the right folks— sooner or later."

  Simone stood up. "Thank you for coming to see me about this, Cole. I understand that you're trying to do a difficult job here in Wind River."

  He had to grin as he replied, "It's sure a lot more complicated than shooting buffalo for the Union Pacific. But I'm sort of getting to like it here."

  There was genuine warmth in the smile she gave him in return. "I'm glad to hear that."

  Cole paused in the arched entrance to the parlor and looked back at her. "By the way, Major Burdette and his men are back in town. They lost the trail of whoever killed Sawyer's men and stole his cows."

  "You still don't believe the Shoshone are responsible?"

  "No, I don't. But the major intends to stay around here until he finds out. Thought you might like to know."

  "Is there any particular reason you thought that, Marshal?"

  Cole wished now he had kept his mouth shut about this. He had gotten in deeper than he'd intended. "Well, you and the major seemed like you hit it off pretty well . . ."

  "Major Burdette is a very handsome man," Simone pointed out.

  "I reckon," Cole muttered. "I got to be going—"

  "But I'm still in mourning for my late husband, Marshal," Simone went on, "and even if I wasn't . . . Well, I don't think there would be anything romantic between myself and Major Burdette. He's much too interested in his career. But I appreciate you letting me know."

  Cole just nodded and headed for the front door, well aware that anything else he might say would likely just get him more flustered. He was glad to know, though, that Simone wasn't smitten with Major Burdette.

  For some reason, he thought as he headed back to the Territorial House, that knowledge made him feel better than it should have . . .

  * * *

  Wang Po and his family left Wind River before first light the next morning. Judson Kent had assured Cole that the wounded young man was not badly hurt and would be able to recuperate during the family's journey back to San Francisco.

  Except for the saloons, the town was still asleep as the wagon carrying the eight Chinese rolled down Grenville Avenue and out of town. Cole and Billy Casebolt stood on the boardwalk and watched them depart, and Cole was glad to see them go. Their arrival had signaled the beginning of a turbulent period for Wind River, and maybe with them gone, things would settle down a little.

  Cole wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for that, however. Not with Major Burdette still in town and the threat of an Indian war looming on the horizon.

  The morning passed quietly. Burdette came by the marshal's office to tell Cole that his troop would not be leaving on patrol until the next day; after the long ride earlier in the week, their horses needed some rest and the soldiers likely did, too.

  As Burdette was about to leave he asked casually, "Have you spoken to Mrs. McKay recently, Marshal?"

  "Talked to her just last night." Cole nodded, without explaining what the conversation had been about. He certainly didn't intend to mention that Burdette's name had come up.

  "I see," the major said. "Since she's the most influential citizen in Wind River, I wonder if I ought to pay a call on her—strictly as a courtesy, you understand—so that I can let her know what my plans are regarding the Indian trouble around here."

  Cole said coolly, "Do what you want to do, Major. But I thought we'd cleared up this business about Indians being behind all the trouble. We don't know that."

  "We don't know that they're innocent of wrongdoing, either," Burdette snapped.

  Cole shrugged disdainfully, and Burdette turned on his heel and stalked out of the office before the discussion could deteriorate into a genuine argument. Cole leaned back in his chair and thought that he was going to be damned glad when Burdette moved on to another assignment. The glory hunter wanted to fight the Sioux, and it would be just fine with Cole if that was what Burdette wound up doing.

  Casebolt ambled into the office a half hour later and said, "That major wants me to see about gettin' Two Ponies to come in for a parley. You reckon I ought to do it, Marshal?"

  "I'm not sure it would do any good," Cole said bluntly. "Burdette has your testimony that the Shoshones weren't involved in any of those raids, and I don't know that he'd be more inclined to accept Two Ponies' word for it. I don't much think I trust him, either."

  "You reckon once he got Two Ponies here, he'd have them soldiers blue arrest him?" Casebolt speculated shrewdly.

  Cole nodded. "It could happen that way. Then all hell would break loose for sure." He thought for a moment, then went on, "Stall Burdette for now. If he gives you trouble, tell him I've got chores for you and won't let you go. I can handle Burdette if I have to."

  Cole hoped that was true. So far they had been lucky that Burdette hadn't caused any real trouble.

  While Casebolt held down the fort at the office Cole walked over to the boardinghouse and had some of Abigail Paine's excellent chicken and dumplings for lunch.

  Gretchen Hatfield was staying at the boardinghouse these days, and the sight of her skylarking with the Paine children reminded Cole of the close call that Delia had suffered. He had heard about the sudden illness and the emergency operation Dr. Kent had performed to save her life, but he hadn't talked to Michael in several days to find out how the young woman was doing.

  "What do you hear about Delia Hatfield?" he asked Abigail as he spooned some greens onto his plate.

  "She's doing quite well," Abigail replied. "Michael came by earlier today and took Gretchen to see her. He said that Delia should be able to come home in another few days. I'm going to continue taking care of Gretchen for a while, though. With the condition that Delia was in to start with, plus having to recover from that operation, she doesn't need a child underfoot right now."

  Cole nodded, glad to hear the good news. "If you see Michael again, tell him I was asking about them. If there's anything I can do to help . . ."

  "I'm sure Michael knows that." Abigail smiled.

  After the meal, Cole headed back toward the office. He hadn't gotten there, though, when gunfire suddenly erupted behind him. He heard the rapid hoofbeats of a galloping horse, and men began to shout. Cole wheeled around, his hand going to the butt of his gun as more shots rang out.

  The man doing the shooting wasn't aiming at anybody, though. He was emptying his six-gun into the air as he raced down Grenville Avenue. "Gold!" he shouted. "Gold in the Wind River range!"

  Cole stiffened as more and more pedestrians took up the frantic cry. Men leaped into the street, tugging off their hats to either fling them into the air or use them to wave the rider on.

  People began running along the boardwalks, and kids and dogs scampered along in the wake of the shouting rider. The news brought to town by the man went through the setdement like a flash flood.

  The uproar grew and grew steadily, swelling until it had swept over everything in its path. The striking railroad workers came tumbling eagerly out of the saloons where they spent their days and took up the cry louder than anyone else.

  Gold! The word had a magic sound to it, especially here on the frontier. Twenty years earlier, the news had come out of California, launching a rush to the West that still hadn't completely stopped. Ever since the gold fields in California had practically played out after a wild, tempestuous few years, people had been waiting for the next big strike, confident that it would come sooner or later. Now, evidently, it had, and within a few days' ride of Wind River to boot, in the mountains to the north that had given the settlement its name.

  Cole stood there, watching the chaos building around him, knowing there wasn't much he could do to stop it. Not that he had any authority to. If people wanted to go looking for gold, they had every right to do so.

  But they weren't going to find any in the Wind River range, he thought. He had been all over that country, just like his father before him.

  There had been a time when the mountains were rich with be
aver, but even that day was over now. Cole was confident that if there had been any significant gold deposits up there, some of the hordes of fur trappers would have found them before now.

  Nobody was going to listen to him. They were too busy rushing to the general store to lay in some supplies before they headed north. Casebolt emerged from the marshal's office, spotted Cole down the street, and made his way through the crowd to join him. "You ever see anything like this in all your borned days?" the deputy asked in amazement.

  "Nope. I wasn't at Sutter's Mill in forty-eight, though," Cole replied. "Reckon we're seeing the same thing here, only on a smaller scale."

  "Who started this fandango?"

  Cole thought back to the man who had galloped down the street past him. He shook his head. "Never saw him before. Looked like a drifter, maybe a cowboy." He looked up and down the street and didn't see the man in the growing mob. "I don't know where he went. Maybe he headed back to the mountains to get the jump on everybody else?"

  "You believe it?" Casebolt asked over the din. "You figure there's really gold in that range?"

  Cole shook his head again. "I'm not saying there's no dust in the streams, or no nuggets scattered here and there. But there's not enough to justify . . . this."

  Casebolt said dryly, "I ain't sure folks'd like to hear you say that, Marshal."

  "They wouldn't pay any attention to me if I tried."

  Cole heard his name being called and looked down the street to see Major Burdette striding rapidly along the boardwalk toward them. The officer had a concerned frown on his face. As he came up to Cole and Casebolt he demanded, "What in blazes is all this?"

  "It's a gold rush, Major," Cole drawled, "in case you hadn't noticed. Somebody rode into town a little while ago yelling his head off about a gold strike up in the Wind River range, and you can see for yourself what happened."

  "Aren't you going to do anything about it?" Burdette snapped.

  "What do you suggest? You want me to arrest damn near everybody in town? What's the charge, Major? Making damn-blasted fools out of themselves?"

  Burdette frowned darkly. "You're being uncooperative, Marshal."

  "No, sir," Cole said flatly. "Just realistic. It only takes a few minutes to start something like this, but it takes a hell of a lot longer to end it. People are going to have to go up there and see for themselves there's no gold to be found. Then they'll come back, dragging their tails between their legs."

  "But it's not safe for a lot of civilians to be wandering around the countryside!" Burdette protested. "This is just going to cause more trouble with the Indians."

  Cole nodded. "You could be right."

  Casebolt added, "I don't reckon Two Ponies and his people'll want anything to do with this, Major. They'll just figure all the white folks've gone crazy, which the Shoshones consider most of 'em to start with. You'll see; this'll blow over in a few weeks."

  "I hope so. I don't have enough men to protect a horde of gold seekers, and besides, I've no orders to do so." Burdette nodded grimly at the evidence of the madness, the gold fever, gripping the town. "These people will just have to fend for themselves."

  Cole didn't much like that, but he knew Burdette was right. One troop of cavalry wasn't enough to police an entire gold rush.

  There was another angle to be considered, too. With Wang Po and his family gone, Cole had hoped the striking railroaders would see that their jobs weren't in jeopardy from any source except their own contrariness. He had thought there was at least a chance that the dispute could be settled quickly and the Irishmen would be back at work on the Union Pacific.

  Now, with this gold rush, the track layers, the gandy dancers, the spike pounders would all head for the mountains in search of a fortune that would doubtless prove elusive. They would come back eventually, but for the time being, the railroad was still being held up, and every day of delay meant less money for the Union Pacific once the transcontinental link was finally made.

  Cole didn't give a damn who wound up making the biggest profit, the Union Pacific or the Central Pacific, but he did care about restoring law and order here in Wind River. He figured things wouldn't really settle down until the railroad construction was back in full swing.

  Major Burdette broke into Cole's reverie by saying, "Gold rush or no gold rush, my men and I are riding out on patrol again tomorrow, and we're heading west. I still want to try to pick up the tracks of those stolen animals again."

  "Well, good luck, Major," Cole said. "Reckon you'll need it."

  He looked at the insanity surrounding them, sighed, and added to himself, Likely we all will.

  Chapter 17

  By the next morning, Wind River wasn't a ghost town—but it was considerably less populated than it had been the day before. As Cole walked down to the Wind River Cafe for breakfast, he thought there were fewer people on the streets than he had ever seen at this time of day. Some of the businesses were closed, their boarded-up doors and windows mute testimony that their owners had been gripped by the same gold fever infecting the rest of the town.

  The general store and the hotel were still open, of course, and as Cole passed on the opposite side of the street from the newspaper office, he saw Michael Hatfield through the window. The young editor was working on something, probably getting ready to print the next edition of the paper. Wouldn't be near as many people in town to read it, though, Cole thought.

  The cafe was open, too, and he was glad to see that. As he went inside he saw that only one table and a couple of stools at the counter were occupied. Rose Foster was standing at the end of the counter, obviously not busy. She smiled when she saw Cole.

  "Good morning, Marshal," she said. "You didn't take off your badge and go gold hunting like the rest of the town?"

  "I've got more sense than that," Cole replied as he sat down on the stool nearest Rose. "There's not enough gold in those mountains to make it worth anybody's while to look for it. I'd rather have some breakfast instead."

  Rose's smile widened. "We've got plenty. Monty cooked like he normally does, and I'm afraid a lot of it is going to go to waste. So eat hearty, Marshal; everything is half price this morning."

  "Can't beat that deal." Cole grinned at her. "Start me off with some flapjacks, ham steaks, and a big pile of fried eggs. Plenty of coffee."

  "Sure thing." Rose ducked back to the kitchen to tell the cook, Monty Riordan, what Cole wanted to eat, then returned to pour his coffee.

  Cole took an appreciative sip of the strong black brew, then asked, "Have you heard whether or not Sawyer's ranch hands are going off to look for gold, too?"

  Rose flushed slightly. "Why would I know anything about Mr. Sawyer's hands?"

  "I just figured, what with young Lon Rogers sweet on you, he might've come by here and said so long before he took off for the mountains."

  The pretty glow on Rose's face deepened, and she asked quietly, "Does everybody in town know about Lon?"

  "About him courting you? I imagine most folks do. This is a good-sized settlement, but not so big that people can't keep up with other people's business."

  "Well, for your information, Marshal, I haven't seen Lon Rogers for a couple of days, and he's not courting me."

  Cole grinned again and drank some more coffee. "Does he know that?"

  "You can be an annoying man, Cole Tyler," Rose snapped. "I'll see if your food is ready."

  She disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen, then came back a minute later with a big plate that was heavily laden with food. She set it down in front of Cole with a clatter and added insincerely, "Enjoy your breakfast." Then she went to check on her other customers.

  Cole smiled to himself as he started eating. He liked Rose, but he could see the humor in the way the young cowboy had started following her around like a lovesick calf. It was one of the few things lately that had given him any cause to smile.

  He was halfway through breakfast when the door of the cafe opened and someone with a heavy step
came inside. A voice he recognized said harshly, "I been looking for you, Marshal."

  Cole looked over his shoulder and saw Hank Parker striding toward him. The burly, one-armed saloonkeeper was up either late or mighty early for somebody in his profession. Parker didn't look happy, either, but that was nothing new. He'd been on the prod for one reason or another ever since arriving in Wind River.

  "What's wrong now, Parker?" Cole asked wearily. "Another fight in your saloon?"

  Parker gave an explosive snort. "Hell, there's not enough people in there drinking to start a good fight! No, I just came to tell you that you've got to do something about Langdon."

  "Abner Langdon?" Cole asked with a frown.

  "Who the hell do you think I mean? Yeah, Abner Langdon and that enforcer of his, Bert Sweeney. They're nothing but a couple of thieves."

  Cole tried not to sigh. Parker was the belligerent type who had trouble getting along with anybody. Cole had listened to his complaints about Langdon—and other saloon owners, for that matter—stealing his business in the past. Protecting somebody from competition wasn't part of a marshal's duties, however, and for the most part he had ignored Parker's bitching.

  "What've they done now?" he asked, not really wanting to know the answer but all too aware that Parker wouldn't be satisfied and leave him to finish his breakfast without at least a show of interest.

  "Bribed one of the freight clerks at the depot to let them have some cases of whiskey that I had shipped in."

  That statement brought a glance of surprise from Cole. He said, "You mean you actually bring in that who-hit-John from somewhere else? I figured you got a little gunpowder and arsenic and rattlesnake venom and mixed it up yourself."

  "I don't sell anything but the finest stock, Marshal," Parker said stiffly. "You ought to know that. And now Langdon's stolen it from me, and I'm not going to let him get away with it! I want him arrested!"

  With everything else that had been going on, Cole didn't want to get mixed up in a petty dispute between Parker and Langdon any more than he had to, but Parker was making an official complaint. Cole knew he was duty-bound to investigate it. He nodded reluctantly and said, "I'll go talk to Langdon in a little while, see what he has to say about it. I'm not going to promise to arrest anybody until I'm sure what happened, though."