Golden Spike

by Robert Lee Murphy

  He looked at Jenny, who now rode almost even with him. She fought to keep her balance by holding onto the front of her McClellan saddle with her tied hands.

  “You bloody, Irish mick!” That must have been the hundredth time she’d cursed at him since they’d ridden away from Dodge’s railcar.

  “Ye’ve sure got a foul mouth for a lady. If it weren’t so entertaining listening to ye, I’d gag ye.”

  A five-mile ride brought them to the mouth of Sawmill Canyon, which led north off Echo Canyon. Paddy had discovered this narrow canyon several days ago while exploring the countryside around Echo City. He’d heard the woodcutters talking about their work there, logging the hills for railroad ties to pave the roadbed as the tracks had crept westward. Having nothing better to do one day, he’d ridden up into the canyon and discovered an abandoned shack that the tie cutters had used. When the woodcutters had moved on to stay ahead of the advancing rails, they had left the cabin with its crude furnishings and some utensils behind. The old shelter would be ideal for what he planned.

  Paddy guided the two horses away from the railroad tracks. No train had passed during the hour they had ridden parallel to the rails, so he was pretty certain no one had seen them.

  “You’re a cussed fool to think you can get away with this, Paddy O’Hannigan,” Jenny said.

  “Well, sure, and just who is going to be stopping me, I ask ye?”

  “They’ll come after you. What do you expect out of this, anyway?”

  “Why, money, to be sure, and lots of it. I heard Sean Corcoran hisself telling General Dodge that ye were worth yer weight in gold. So I did.”

  “Humph! That’s a figure of speech. You’re too dumb to understand that!”

  “Sure, and we’ll be finding out soon enough. Wells Fargo and the Union Pacific are companies with plenty of money. And, if the luck of the Irish is with me, yer boyfriend, Will Braddock, will be bringing me lots of it.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Ye could fool me. When he comes, I might have the opportunity to rid meself of him. Then ye wouldn’t have to worry about him being yer boyfriend.”

  They rode in silence for a while as the horses labored to climb the steeper grade in Sawmill Canyon.

  “I know you hate Will Braddock because he kept you from stealing Buck, but why do you want to harm Mr. Corcoran and Homer?” asked Jenny.

  “Well, do ye see, them two is who started all my grief. I intend to get even, so I do.”

  “Will has told me about how your father tried to lynch Homer, and why it was necessary for his uncle to defend himself. Your father would still be alive if he hadn’t been trying to hang Homer. What did Homer do to deserve such treatment?”

  “He and all them blacks was taking jobs away from the Irish, don’t ye know. And, why are ye defending the nigger? Ye are a lass of the south. Yer kind fought the war to defend yer right to own slaves.”

  “My family didn’t own slaves. My father fought for states’ rights.”

  “States’ rights? Sure, and that’s another way of saying fighting for the right to own slaves, in my way of thinking.”

  Paddy looked sideways at Jenny. She glared back at him.

  “So you think Will is going to rescue me? And you intend to kill him?”

  “That’d be a side benefit, ye might say. It’s the money I’m really after. I intend to use this as my way to shed me godfather.”

  “Your godfather?”

  “Mort Kavanagh.”

  “Mortimer Kavanagh is your godfather?”

  Paddy looked at Jenny, saw her mouth hanging open, and nodded in response to her question.

  “Why do you want to get away from him?” she asked.

  “He promised me ma to look after me. They be cousins, ye see. But Mort don’t look after me as much as he gives me a hard time. He pays me only enough to send a pittance to me ma and sister back in Brooklyn. I need some real money, don’t ye know. I want to bring them out west to start a new life. Take them away from that hard labor cleaning other folk’s dirty clothes.”

  Paddy watched Jenny shake her head. “You think you have the right to kidnap me and demand ransom because your godfather doesn’t pay you well enough. You’re despicable!”

  Paddy ignored her and snapped the reins to encourage his horse to pick up the pace. During the time they had been talking, they had ridden higher up Sawmill Canyon. Patches of snow still clung to the cliffs. The temperature had dropped since they’d turned off Echo Canyon. A shallow stream flowed down the narrow defile. The steep walls of the canyon kept the water from meandering far from the bottom of the deep cut. Adjacent to the creek, the woodcutters had managed to find enough room to carve out a wagon road to facilitate hauling ties down to the railroad.

  A half-hour later they reached a fork in the creek where the meager flow of water from two smaller streams joined to form the larger one that raced down Sawmill Canyon. A few yards up the slope, beyond the joining of these two creeks, sat the log cabin that was his destination.

  “Sure, and that be yer home for a while, lass.” Paddy nodded to the shack. He guided the two horses across one of the branches and reined in before the small cabin.

  Paddy dismounted and removed the potato sack and coil of rope from his saddle.

  “Aren’t you going to help me dismount?” Jenny asked.

  “Hold onto the saddle and let yerself down.”

  Paddy pushed open the door of the cabin and entered. Jenny stepped into the dirt-floored single room behind him. A solid, wooden bed frame was nailed to a side wall. Two chairs sat at a rough, wooden table in the center of the room. A single, bent tin plate and two battered cups rested on the tabletop. An iron skillet, encrusted with the remains of a meal, occupied the center of the hearth where a pile of ashes had been left after the last fire had died out. A battered, tin coffee pot lay on the floor in front of the fireplace.

  “What the devil?” Jenny said. “You expect us to stay here?”

  “Well, sure, and I plan to stay here. Ye can sleep outside under a tree, if ye prefer. Ye might get a little cold, don’t ye know.”

  “Humph!” Jenny responded with a shake of her head.

  “Aye, it will be right cozy-like after ye clean this place up.”

  “Me? Clean this pigsty?”

  “Aye, ye got that right. And when it’s clean, ye can cook us something to eat. Sure, and I’ll be untying yer hands now, if ye promise not to run away.”

  “That’s kind of you.” Jenny sneered. “Seeing as how I’m to be your slave, as well as your prisoner, it would be a bit difficult to clean and cook with my hands tied.”

  Paddy untied her wrists and hung the colorful scarf on a peg by the door.

  “Before I start my chores, I have to have some privacy.”

  “Privacy?”

  “I have to pee, O’Hannigan!”

  “Oh . . . aye . . . sure.” Paddy stood aside to let Jenny pass back out the door.

  “No peeking,” she said.

  Paddy nodded and remained standing in the doorway while Jenny went behind the cabin.

  After several minutes, and Jenny had not returned, Paddy stepped around the side of the cabin. He could not see her. He heard a muffled grunt from the slope that stretched upward behind the shack. He shook his head. Jenny was scrambling up the hill, falling onto her hands frequently because of the steepness of the denuded ridge. The woodcutters had cut all of the harvestable timber. All that remained were stumps and saplings.

  He had to give her credit. She had chosen the one escape route on which he could not use a horse for pursuit. Paddy took off after her. He was soon puffing from the effort to catch up. He might not have caught her if her dress hadn’t tangled in some underbrush. She was struggling to free her skirt when he reached her. He backhanded her, hitting her in the mouth and knocking her to her knees. The cut he’d made earlier on her cheek with his pistol barrel reopened and glistened with a seeping of blood. The opposite cheek showed scratc
hes and smudges from where her face had scraped against the ballast gravel when she’d tumbled off the platform of the coach.

  He withdrew his Bowie knife and slashed at the bush that had Jenny trapped. A portion of her skirt tore away with the blow, but she was free of the entrapment. Her bare knee showed through a rent in the material and was streaked with blood from when he’d knocked her into the antelope carcass. Paddy grabbed her arm and pulled her back down the slope.

  “Paddy, you’re hurting me,” Jenny cried.

  “Ye should of thought of that before ye broke yer promise and ran away.”

  “I didn’t promise anything. I only said I couldn’t work with my hands tied.”

  When he dragged her back to the cabin he pushed her down in front of it. He grabbed one of her feet and jerked off her shoe. He removed the other shoe and walked over to one of the creek branches. He threw one shoe across the stream and deep into the brush on the other side. Then he moved to the other creek branch and threw the second shoe as far as he could across that stream.

  He stomped back to the cabin.

  Jenny sat on the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Paddy, you can’t do this to me. You can’t!”

  “Inside!” He grabbed her upper arm, hauling her to her feet.

  “Ow,” she said. “That’s hard on my feet.”

  “Sure, and that’s too bad.” He pushed her through the open door, back inside the shack.

  “But, I haven’t gone to the privy, yet.”

  “Squat in the corner over there. That’s yer privy from now on.”

  “Oh, you miserable, cussed skunk!”

  “Whatever. Soon’s yer finished with the necessary, straighten this place up.”

  He kept an eye on Jenny’s cleaning work, while he sat on the single bed and scribbled out a note on the reverse of the waybill with the stub of a pencil he’d stolen from the UP depot.

  Jenny’s long black tresses tumbled down during her exertions, and she pushed the hair back over her shoulders. Paddy saw where her tears streaked through the grime on her face, making rivulets down her cheeks.

  “Sure, and I have to be taking this ransom note on the way back to town.” He waved the waybill. “But since yer not to be trusted not to run away, I’ll be tying ye up.”

  “What?”

  “Sit in that chair.”

  “I will not!”

  Paddy raised his hand in preparation to strike her, but she sat before he could swing.

  “You are a danged devil, O’Hannigan,” she said.

  Paddy shrugged. He used his knife to cut four three-foot lengths off the coil of rope and proceeded to tie her hands and feet to the chair.

  “You’re not going to leave me like this?”

  “Not for long, lass. I be getting hungry and ye’ll be fixing us supper soon’s I’m back.”

  Paddy took Jenny’s scarf from the peg and rolled the ransom note inside it. He went outside and tied the scarf to a saddle ring on the horse Jenny had been riding. He mounted, grabbed the reins of her horse, and headed down the wagon road to the mouth of Sawmill Canyon.

  He paused before riding out of the smaller canyon into Echo Canyon and surveyed the surrounding area. No trains or workers were visible. He drew Jenny’s horse up beside him and looped the reins loosely around the saddle horn atop Jenny’s scarf.

  “Ye were so anxious to return to the stable earlier, horse, now let’s see how fast ye can run there.”

  Paddy swatted the animal on the rump and watched it gallop off alongside the tracks heading for Echo City.

  CHAPTER 24

  Jenny let her breath out and told herself she needed to relax. She gave up trying to get out of the ropes with which Paddy had tied her wrists and ankles to the chair. She’d rubbed herself raw in all the places where the rope had chafed against her skin. The bottoms of her feet throbbed. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were cut from walking shoeless around the cabin while Paddy had kept her at the task of cleaning the place. The oozing blood she had felt trickling off the soles of her feet and soaking the bottoms of her stockings when she was first tied to the chair had stopped. She’d been there long enough for those wounds to congeal.

  She thought back to the time a year and a half ago when she’d been the prisoner of the Cheyennes. Small Duck had abused her with a rawhide thong around her neck. She could almost feel that strangling feeling, now. At least, the Cheyenne chief’s wife had protected her feet with moccasins while she’d forced her to do chores.

  How could she possibly be the victim of a second kidnapping? One such terrifying experience was more than most people would ever have to endure. This time she was being held for ransom, not to be used as a slave. Will Braddock had rescued her from the first ordeal. Would he aid her now? Paddy might kill him if he brought the ransom money. She had no way to warn Will of the danger. She felt tears fill her eyes.

  The sound of a horse’s hooves clopping toward the cabin jerked her out of her musing. Paddy had returned. She blinked her eyes to clear them of the tears. She didn’t want Paddy to see her frustration. How long would her captivity last this time? Where would her father and the others find money to cover whatever ransom amount Paddy demanded?

  The door to the one-room cabin opened and Paddy entered.

  “Sure, and let’s hope it don’t take long to raise the money to set ye free.”

  “You’re despicable!” Jenny spat toward him.

  “Aye, I’ve been called worse.”

  He pulled his Bowie knife from his boot and approached the chair. He ran the tip of the blade down her arm, slicing an opening in the sleeve of the calico dress.

  Jenny shivered from the painful contact and pulled her arm back against her body. She glanced at a thin streak of blood where the blade had sliced down the length of her upper arm.

  Paddy laughed. “Tickles, don’t it?” He glared at her. “And, sure if it won’t do more than tickle if ye know what’s good for ye.”

  He waved the knife under her nose, then returned it to its boot scabbard. He stepped behind the chair and set about untying her.

  “Now, up ye come.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her to a standing position.

  “I hate you, you scalawag,” Jenny said. “You . . . you . . . rapscallion, you’ll get yours someday.”

  “Sure, and I doubt that lass. But, what I am going to get now is supper. Move yer fanny over there and cook us that antelope steak and some potatoes.”

  “There’s no fire,” she said. As much as she didn’t want to be forced to build a fire, she realized the temperature would drop as the afternoon wore on and a fire would be welcome. She only had her calico dress—no coat, no shoes, no scarf. It would turn even colder in this mountain cabin tonight.

  “Well, sure and build one! There’s kindling and firewood right there beside the hearth.”

  “I don’t have any lucifer matches to start a fire, you numskull.”

  “I’ll start the fire with my flint and knife, soon’s ye have it stacked and ready.”

  Jenny set about the task of arranging a pyramid of kindling in the bottom of the fireplace Paddy had made her clean out earlier. Her hands, as well as her dress, were streaked with black from the soot. With the kindling stacked, she drew some larger sticks of wood nearby to be ready to add to the fire once it started to burn. She remembered Will coaching her on how to build a fire when they’d made their escape from her captivity with the Cheyennes. She’d almost smothered that flame when she’d added wood to the fledgling fire too fast.

  “Now, step back.” Paddy pointed for her to go to the side of the cabin. He withdrew his knife from his boot and a piece of flint from a vest pocket. He knelt and with two quick strikes ignited the kindling. He blew on it, and it burst into flame.

  “Get back over here,” he said.

  Jenny returned to the fire and nurtured it slowly into a suitable cooking fire.

  “Sure, and we need water for coffee, darlin’.”

  “How m
any times do I have to tell you, I’m not your darling.”

  Paddy laughed. “Move!”

  Jenny picked up the iron skillet and weighed it in her hands. If she were close enough to him, she could whack him over the head with it.

  “Don’t even think about it, lass.”

  She laid the skillet back on the hearth and picked up the battered coffee pot. “I don’t have any shoes.”

  “Like I said before, ye should’ve thought of that before ye ran away. Now, get to the creek with that pot.”

  Jenny staggered out of the cabin, trying to step from one clump of dry grass to another in order to avoid the rough gravel. She selected the nearest of the two creeks to reduce the steps she’d have to make in her stocking feet.

  “Ouch!” She could not avoid the stones that stabbed the bottoms of her feet. No matter where she stepped, it seemed to be on something sharp.

  “Hurry it up,” Paddy said.

  Jenny looked over her shoulder and saw him standing in the open doorway. “If you’re in such an all fired hurry, you do it, you cussed, ne’er-do-well.”

  Paddy chuckled.

  At the water’s edge she was tempted to sit and dangle her feet in the water to soothe her pain, but then she’d have wet stockings and her feet would be even colder. She filled the pot and limped back to the cabin.

  Compared to the rocky banks of the creek, the dirt floor of the cabin almost felt smooth. Her feet were bleeding again, but there was nothing she could do about it. She hobbled over to the fireplace and set the pot next to the fire. She dumped a fistful of coffee grounds into the water. Too bad she didn’t have some rat poison to add.

  A half-hour later she had cooked two of the antelope steaks and a couple of the potatoes she’d pried into pieces with a stick. Paddy wouldn’t let her near his Bowie knife. She wished she’d dropped a knife into the sack on the train.

  “Ain’t that ready, yet?” Paddy asked.

  “It’s ready. We don’t have any utensils.”