Outlaw Pass (9781101544785)

by West, Charles G.

  The two dismounted then. “My name’s Rob Hawkins,” the one doing all the talking said. “My partner here is Jim Highsmith. We’re headin’ to Virginia City. Which way are you headin’?”

  “Adam Blaine,” Adam said. “I’m goin’ the same way you are.”

  “You headin’ to the diggin’s to try your luck at prospectin’?” Highsmith asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Nope,” Adam replied. “I’m lookin’ for my brother. He’s the prospector in the family. I don’t know much about it, to tell you the truth.” He continued to watch the men carefully as they tied their horses near the stream, taking special note that they left their rifles in the saddle boots. In a show of equal trust, he walked back over to his saddle on the ground and slipped his rifle back in the sling.

  The gesture did not go unnoticed by his guests. Rob smiled and unbuckled his gun belt. “Why don’t we just hang our handguns on our saddles, so we don’t have to keep an eye on each other, and cook up some of this meat?” His remark served to clear the tension from the air, and all three chuckled as Jim and Adam followed his example. “Matter of fact, I might pull off my boots and pants. They still ain’t dry.” He went on to relate the encounter with the deer at the river. “If Jim had waited till the damn deer climbed up on the bank, I wouldn’ta had to go in the river after him. I swear, he shot him when he was right in the middle, and he was about to wash downstream with the current.”

  Jim shrugged and replied in defense of his actions, “How was I to know if he was gonna come on across or turn and go to the other bank? You’da got your ass wet either way.”

  “Oughta made you go in after him,” Rob groused. “You were the one that shot him.”

  Adam recharged his coffeepot to accommodate the new arrivals while Rob carved off some of the fresh venison. There was no need to conserve. The meat wouldn’t keep much longer with the weather as warm as it was, so everyone ate their fill. By the time a state of satisfaction was reached, the three men felt at ease with one another, and the talk turned to prospecting. Rob, sitting by the fire in his underwear, complained that he and Jim were too late in arriving at the diggings, but decided they had nothing better to do. “There’s always some little spot that nobody found, and that might be the place we hit it big.”

  “Maybe so,” Adam said. “You sound like my brother. The only difference is my brother ain’t much for hard work. He’ll likely look for some way to have somebody else do the diggin’.” He studied his two visitors without the sense of suspicion he had applied at first. They were an interesting pair. Rob was tall and lanky, and his face wore an expression of carefree indifference. His partner, Jim, was a study in contrast. He was short and stocky, his face reflecting a sense of constant worry. He walked with a slight limp, the result of having been born with one leg considerably shorter than the other, according to him. Before the evening was over, Adam invited them to unsaddle their horses and ride on in to Virginia City with him in the morning.

  The conversation eventually got around to the many rumors of gangs of road agents that preyed upon the trails between the gold fields and Salt Lake City, and the lack of law enforcement to protect stagecoaches and freighters. “Bannack, Virginia City, and all the other little towns along those gulches are wide open for outlaws,” Rob said. “And since you say you ain’t ever been to any of them places, you’d best beware of who you talk to, especially if you’re carryin’ any money on you.”

  “Well, I reckon I don’t have anythin’ to worry about,” Adam lied, “’cause I’m dead broke. But I ’preciate the warnin’. Like I said, I’m just lookin’ for my brother, and as soon as I find him, the outlaws are welcome to Alder Gulch and Daylight Gulch, too.”

  “Still ain’t a bad idea to sleep with your six-shooter handy, though,” Rob said, and that’s what all three did when it was time to turn in.

  The night passed without incident and Adam, long accustomed to short nights working with cattle, was out of his blanket and reviving the fire before his two visitors were awake. “Damn, Adam,” Rob commented upon awakening to the aroma of fresh coffee, “I might trade ol’ Highsmith in for you.”

  Sitting up then and scratching his head vigorously, Jim replied. “Hell, I’m the one that shot us a deer. You’d starve to death if I left the huntin’ up to you.”

  Adam had to laugh. They were a pair, all right. He was going to miss them. On his own, he would already have been in the saddle, but he waited for his new acquaintances, who were evidently not endowed with his workmanlike urgency to get started. Since it was no more than a half day’s ride to Virginia City, however, that estimate confirmed by Rob and Jim the night before, he figured he could afford to dawdle a bit on the trail. Once they were on the way, he learned that they were as familiar with the territory as they had claimed, for they left the main road and led him on a less-traveled trail over the hills that shaved a good two miles off the trip.

  “Well, there she is,” Rob announced when they topped a high hill after leaving the game trail where it again intercepted the road. Below them were the buildings of Virginia City, structures of all kinds: log stores, some with board facades, tents, brush wickiups. There were even some houses that had incorporated stone, evidently quarried from the hills surrounding the gulch. And there was new construction still going on, on every vacant piece of ground, which was in extremely short supply. The timber on the surrounding hills had all been clear-cut to provide lumber for the saloons, hotels, and bawdy houses. Adam was amazed. He had heard of the population explosion that had taken place along the approximate fifteen miles of the gulch, but nothing he had heard could have prepared him for the scene below him. The gulch was like an open anthill, with thousands of people working away at their claims. Some labored with picks and shovels, digging for bedrock, while others wheeled loads of dirt to sluice boxes. The narrow street was jammed with sixteen-, even twenty-horse bull trains, pulling as many as four wagons hitched together. They were competing with mule trains and packhorses to navigate the muddy streets.

  The thought struck Adam that there couldn’t possibly be enough gold in the gulch to accommodate all these people. Watching his reaction to the chaotic scene below them, Rob guessed what he might be thinking. “Ain’t gonna be easy findin’ your brother, is it?”

  “Reckon not,” Adam replied thoughtfully. “I didn’t figure it was gonna be.”

  “Trouble is,” Jim interjected, “this here is just Virginia City. There’s half a dozen or more places along Alder and Daylight gulches that’s already big enough to have a name—Junction, Adobetown, Highland, Summit, and a few others.”

  “You say he started out from Bannack?” Rob asked. When Adam nodded, Rob suggested that his brother might still be there.

  “Maybe,” Adam said. “But if he did leave Bannack, he mighta stopped on the way, so I expect I’d best look around here before I move on to Bannack just to be sure.” The odds were against his ever finding Jake in the writhing mass of humanity below him, but he had no choice. He reached over to each side to shake hands with his new friends. They were not going into Virginia City, planning instead to join some friends farther up Daylight Gulch. “You two take care of yourselves,” he said in parting, “and good luck prospectin’.”

  “Good luck to you,” Rob returned. “Hope you find your brother.” Jim saluted with a finger to the brim of his hat, and the two continued along the ridge while Adam turned the roan down the hill.

  Chapter 2

  Unlike his younger brother, Adam was not comfortable in the noisy cauldron of a boomtown. As he guided Brownie through the clogged thoroughfare called Wallace Street, he was often forced to pull the roan up sharply to avoid running over a drunk staggering from one of the saloons, or a collision with a bull train. As unaccustomed to the turmoil and noise as his master, the roan was not able to adapt and soon became skittish and jumpy. Adam decided he had better stable the horse and canvass the town on foot. The best choice turned out to be a livery stable at the upper
end of the street.

  “Howdy, neighbor,” a wiry little man with a shiny bald head and a long flowing gray beard called out in greeting when Adam dismounted at the stable door. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to board my horse for a night or two,” Adam replied. “He ain’t used to so much noise and confusion, and I think he’d be better off in a stall.”

  “Well, I reckon my place is about as quiet as anywhere else in town,” the stable owner said. “Three dollars a night in advance.”

  “Three dollars?” Adam exclaimed. “That’s a little high, ain’t it?”

  “You are new in town, ain’tcha? Hell, I’m the cheapest around—three dollars a night—in advance,” he emphasized.

  It was plain to Adam that his money would soon run out at that rate, so one night was all he was willing to splurge on the red roan; then he would camp outside town. “We’ll go for one night,” he said, then hesitated before asking, “How much for a ration of oats?”

  The bald man smiled. “Dollar extra.”

  “Damn!” Adam exclaimed. “A dollar for a quarter’s worth of oats.”

  “I give a fair measure.”

  Adam shook his head in disbelief. “I reckon there ain’t no banks in town to rob, so an outlaw has to go into the livery stable business to get by.”

  The owner was not amused. “Like I said, mister, you’re sure as hell new in town.” He shrugged. “But them’s the rates. Ain’t gonna be any cheaper anywhere else. All the same to me if you leave your horse here or not.”

  Adam stroked Brownie’s neck and said, “Well, boy, you can go in style for one night, but don’t go gettin’ used to it.” He reached in his pocket and brought out his money. He had peeled off only a couple of bills when the stable owner stopped him.

  “Whoa! I don’t deal in no paper money. Dust is the currency hereabouts. Nobody deals for paper.”

  Adam didn’t respond at once, remembering then what his father had said when he gave him the double eagles. The old man was right on that call. After a few seconds’ pause, he went to his saddlebags and retrieved the small pouch. Taking out one of the coins, he handed it to the bald man and said, “This is a twenty-dollar gold piece, so you damn sure better have sixteen dollars’ worth of gold dust for change.”

  The owner took the coin, turned it over two or three times inspecting it before placing it in his teeth to test it. “I reckon it’s genuine,” he conceded. “I can give you dust for it.”

  Adam followed him into a storeroom where a set of scales sat on a shelf. The man pulled a pouch from inside his trousers and weighed out a small pile of dust. “There you go,” he said, “sixteen dollars.”

  Adam could not be certain the man had used the proper weight to measure the gold dust, but he looked at it closely as if he did know. “How do I know that’s pure gold dust?”

  “It’s as pure as you’ll fine. Don’t matter how pure it is as long as it’s worth sixteen dollars—and that’s what it’s worth.”

  “I’ll be using it to buy some supplies, so if it ain’t sixteen dollars’ worth, I’m comin’ back to shoot your ass,” Adam stated.

  There was something in the broad-shouldered young man’s eyes that convinced the stable owner that he didn’t waste words in idle boasting. “Listen, young feller,” he hastened to reply, his tone much less indifferent than before, “ever’thin’s high in this town. You ask around, anybody’ll tell you Jack Samson’s an honest man. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Since you’re new in town, I’ll give your horse a double order of oats and no extra charge. How’s that?”

  “The horse will appreciate it,” Adam answered, although his deadpanned expression did not change. “You by any chance know a man named Jake Blaine?”

  Samson shook his head. “I can’t say as I do,” he replied.

  Adam hardly expected him to remember Jake by name even if he had seen him, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. With Samson watching, he pulled the saddle off Brownie. Then Jack led the horse into an empty stall. Adam followed him in and threw his saddle in a corner of the stall. “My saddlebags be all right here?” he asked. When Samson said nobody would disturb them there, Adam put the pouch with the two remaining double eagles in his pocket, drew his rifle from the saddle sling, and left the stable to begin his search of the saloons.

  It took very little time to verify the difficulty he had anticipated in looking for Jake. In every saloon he entered, the response was a variation of a similar reply. “Hell, mister, I ain’t got the time or the inclination to know every prospector and drunk that comes in here. I just sell ’em whiskey and beer. I don’t wanna know their names.” When he had canvassed all the saloons in Virginia City, he tried his luck in the stores with the same lack of success. As a last result, he inquired at the hotels on the possibility that, if Jake had actually struck it rich, he might have sprung for a room. That was not the case, however. There was no Jake Blaine on any hotel registries. At the end of the evening, he stopped back at an establishment called O’Grady’s, the first saloon he had visited, to have a glass of beer while he thought about what he should do next.

  The bartender recognized him as having been in earlier that evening asking about someone. “You find that feller you were lookin’ for?” he asked when he set the glass of beer on the bar before Adam. “What was his name?”

  “Jake Blaine,” Adam replied. “No, I ain’t found him yet.” He took a step to the side when a man pushed into the bar beside him. Adam took another step to the side to give him more room, but was stopped when a second man moved in to box him in. Not sure if it was intentional or not, he stepped back away from the bar, still holding the glass of beer in his hand. A quick look right and left told him there was plenty of space on either side, and no reason to crowd him, so he took a moment for a closer look at the two. Nothing unusual, he decided, two men who looked pretty much like most of the men in the saloon, so he moved down the bar a few paces to drink his beer.

  “What’s the matter, big’un,” one of the men slurred, “was we crampin’ your style too much?”

  Why, he couldn’t imagine, but it was obvious now that the crowding by the two was intentional. “As a matter of fact, you were,” Adam answered, “but there’s plenty of room at the bar, so I’ll move out of your way.” He could see that he wasn’t going to be allowed to avoid a confrontation, judging by the malicious grins in place on each face. What he couldn’t understand was why they had picked him out to hassle.

  The one who had spoken to him, a man of average height, wearing a fancy hand-tooled leather vest and two revolvers with their handles forward, gave his partner a sideways glance and said, “You hear that, Rafe? He said we was crampin’ his style.” Turning a contemptuous gaze toward Adam, he said, “I hear you been askin’ a lot of questions around town about somebody you’re lookin’ for.”

  “I reckon that’s right,” Adam replied. “I’m lookin’ for somebody. Does that bother you for some reason?” He took a sip of his beer and let his free hand casually drop down next to the barrel of his rifle, propped against the bar beside him.

  Leather Vest’s sneer widened as he continued to lock his eyes on Adam’s. “He wants to know if it bothers us, Rafe.” Rafe nodded with a cruel grin still in place. “I’ll tell you what bothers me,” Leather Vest continued. “You smell like a lawman to me—come in town askin’ ever’body if they’ve seen some feller around. We got a sheriff in this town, and we ain’t got no use for no federal marshal to come nosin’ around where they got no business. So why don’t you tell me if you’re a damn marshal and who the hell you’re lookin’ for?”

  Adam glanced at the bartender, who had stopped polishing a shot glass, and now stood watching his reactions. He was also aware that the entire barroom had suddenly become silent as every eye was upon him, waiting for his reaction. Hoping to quickly defuse a tense situation, Adam smiled and replied. “I ain’t a marshal. The man I’m lookin’ for is my brother. He’s been missin’ for a while and I came
to find him, so I reckon there’s nothin’ to worry you.”

  “Is that so?” Leather Vest said, not willing to let the matter drop, and encouraged by Adam’s apparent reluctance to cause trouble. “Just lookin’ for your brother, huh?” He winked at his companion and continued his obvious intent to intimidate the stranger. “So you’re sayin’ that if I was to pull your coat aside, I wouldn’t find no marshal’s badge pinned on your shirt. Is that right?” He took a step closer, and his partner moved to position himself at Adam’s left.

  Having reached the limit of his patience with the two troublemakers, Adam resigned himself to what appeared to be inevitable. With another glance at the bartender, he decided the altercation would be confined to the two men and himself, with the bartender merely an interested spectator. With his hand still loosely grasping the glass of beer as it rested on the bar, he gazed into Leather Vest’s eyes and replied, “What I’m sayin’ is, if you stick your hand on my coat, you might not get it back.”

  “Whoa!” Leather Vest mocked, and threw his hands up, pretending to be terrified. “I believe we’ve got us a rattlesnake here, Rafe. Better jump back before he bites ya.” He took an exaggerated step back then to Rafe’s amusement before the smile of contempt returned to his face, and he focused his gaze upon Adam as he issued his warning. “Now I’m gonna teach you a little respect, and show you what happens to jokers who threaten me.” He reached for one of his pistols.

  Before he could pull it, Adam threw the glass of beer in his eyes, at the same time grasping his rifle by the barrel. Swinging it like a club, he cracked Rafe beside his head before the startled bully could pull his revolver halfway out of his holster. In almost one continuous move, he spun around to face Leather Vest, who was sputtering and spitting, trying to wipe the beer out of his eyes. One quick thrust with the butt of his rifle smashed Leather Vest’s nose and dropped him to the floor on top of Rafe. Checking to make sure the two were temporarily incapable of further action, he pulled their weapons from their holsters and threw them over in a corner behind the bar. With a quick glance in the bartender’s direction, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you just let those pistols lie where they are for a few minutes.” The bartender nodded. There was the hint of a grin on his face. Adam cast a precautionary glance around the crowded barroom, then walked deliberately toward the door.