I noticed he didn’t say sleep. After we dismounted and unsaddled the horses, I realized this would be a close space for three men and three horses, but it was too dark to find another place for the horses. Perhaps McAllen didn’t intend to sleep.
“Build your goddamn fire,” McAllen said with bitterness. “We ain’t hiding from anyone now.”
McAllen normally kept his thoughts to himself, and his current mood certainly did not invite questions. Sharp and I gingerly felt our way in different directions to gather up some wood. Soon we had a decent fire, but that was all. Coffee and anything that might be improved with cooking had been left at base camp. We sat around the light and warmth of the fire, gnawing on jerky and hardtack between sips of Kentucky whiskey from our flasks. It had been one hell of a day.
Sharp went to his bag and pulled out a small burlap sack. As he stood over us, he popped raisins into his mouth. Finally, he dangled the sack by its tie string in front of McAllen. “Raisins, Joseph?”
I wondered for a moment whether McAllen would draw his gun or accept the offer. Eventually, he reached up and accepted the sack and then spilled some of the raisins into his palm. “Sit down, Jeff. I’ll tell you two what happened.”
Sharp plopped down close to the fire, and we exchanged glances as we waited. I suspected that McAllen might be crying. After a long moment, he tossed the burlap bag over the fire to me and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say.
McAllen slammed his fist into the dirt. “Murdered.” Sharp and I waited, and when McAllen spoke again, he seemed to have regained some control. “A white man paid the Utes to seize and murder my daughter. He told them when and how. Nothing was spur of the moment.”
“Was it one of the men in the posse?” Sharp asked.
“The boy doesn’t know. He wasn’t allowed to hear the men talk.” McAllen threw the handful of raisins into his mouth and chewed. “He knows that a man entered their camp loaded down with supplies and left with her scalp and a necklace.” McAllen’s voice broke with the last word of that sentence. After a minute, he continued. “I gave her that necklace last Christmas. I know that was the one the Indians gave him, because she wrote to me that she wore it every day.”
“The body?” Sharp asked.
“The boy has no idea. Somewhere back along the trail. He was sent away from the camp to hunt when they murdered her.”
Sharp seemed to think things over. “Could be the man just haggled to get her effects for the family, but it don’t sound right. Why didn’t the posse just kill ’em all an’ simply take her stuff?”
“Stuff?” An edge had come back into McAllen’s voice.
“Sorry, Joseph. Poor choice of words.”
“Forget it,” McAllen said. “But you’re right. Two big questions. Why did the posse barter instead of attack, and who paid the Utes to do this?”
“You think we can get the answer in Durango?” I asked.
“Yes. From that posse. We’ll leave at first light and ride down to the base camp to gather up our supplies and the packhorses. I want to be in Durango by nightfall.”
That will be a hard day’s ride, I thought. “When will Red join us?” I asked.
McAllen made a motion with his hand, and I threw him the bag of raisins. After chewing a mouthful, he said, “We didn’t hurt the boy. He saw no reason not to tell us what little he knew.” McAllen had understood the real intent of my question. “Red will stay with him until he’s well enough to fend for himself or possibly take him back to Durango. The boy’s choice.”
Sharp put another stick in the fire. “Ya said there were two big questions. I think there’s three.”
“What else?” McAllen seemed nervous about what might come next.
“Why did someone do this?”
“I don’t give a damn why.”
“Joseph, I don’t think preachers and schoolmarms make a hell of a lot of enemies.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning, the person who did this probably meant to hurt Captain Joseph McAllen.”
Chapter 14
When we rode into Durango the next evening, not a single person could be seen on the street. We stopped in the middle of the road and looked around for some sign of life. It felt ghoulish until I heard a hymn coming from the church.
“Could the whole town be in church?” I asked.
McAllen spurred his horse forward. “They’re conducting services for my daughter.”
The only church in town sat at the end of the lane, and the entire area around it was crowded with carriages, buckboards, and horses. After we corralled the packhorses at the livery, we tied up our horses in front of a saloon about seventy yards away from the church. As I stepped out of the stirrup, I could see only four or five people inside the saloon instead of the normal bunch of rowdies just off their shift.
McAllen immediately marched off toward the church. I followed reluctantly. I smelled bad after nearly a week in the wilderness, I needed a shave, and my clothes were covered in filth. When McAllen opened one of the church’s double doors, a sea of men’s backs blocked our entry. McAllen pushed his way in, and we followed. Once inside, McAllen continued to push his way to the front, but Sharp and I remained standing just behind the last row of pews.
The hymn ended, and it didn’t take long to discover that we had arrived at the end of the service. I could hear wailing at the front and sobs from all over. After a final prayer by a layman, Sharp and I jostled our way out of the church and returned to where we had tethered the horses.
Walking our mounts over to the livery, I asked, “Did you see Doc?”
“Too many people. Let’s get the horses quartered an’ go find him.”
The liveryman was at the services, so we unsaddled the horses ourselves, pitched fresh hay into their stalls, and made a quick pass at grooming them. After seeing to our mounts, we unloaded the packhorses and stacked our supplies and gear in a corner of the barn. I brushed each packhorse while they ate and then returned them to the corral. I would have preferred to spend more time brushing Chestnut, but we wanted to get back to the church so we could ask Dooley what had happened when the posse came upon the Ute renegades. A few more pitchforks of hay thrown into the corral, and we were walking back to the church.
Dooley was not hard to find. There must have been about forty people talking quietly outside the church, and Dooley stood with a couple other unattached men. We caught his eye and waved him over.
“Sad day for the town,” Dooley said.
“Sadder for Captain McAllen,” Sharp said.
Dooley looked puzzled, so I explained. “McAllen used to be married to the schoolmarm. Long time ago. The girl was his daughter.”
“Oh, my God. I had no idea.”
“What happened out there?” Sharp asked.
Dooley turned his back to us and whispered to himself. “So that’s why McAllen rushed here.”
“What happened?” Sharp repeated in a commanding voice.
Dooley returned his attention to us. “We got there too late … damn it, Grant should’ve gotten off sooner.”
“Doc?” Sharp was getting impatient.
Dooley wiped his forehead. “The half-breed tracked us right to them. He went in to parley—to see if he could barter for the girl—but they had already killed her.” Dooley went in another direction again. “Did you hear about that Meeker massacre up north?”
“Yeah, go on,” Sharp insisted.
“Well, Grant went in with a bunch of supplies and got her, uh …”
“Scalp,” Sharp said with a sharp tone. “Why didn’t ya attack and kill the sons a bitches?”
“They had already joined up with a bigger war party. The half-breed said there had to be over thirty of ’em. It woulda been suicide.”
Sharp and I looked at each other. Finally, I asked, “Did Grant say that there were over thirty, or just the half-breed?”
>
“What? Why?”
“Damn it, just tell us. Did they both confirm a large war party?” I was getting as frustrated as Sharp with Dooley’s obfuscation.
Dooley rubbed the back of his neck. “No, I don’t think Grant said anything about it, as far as I can recollect.”
“When we came on ’em, there were only six braves and one boy,” Sharp said.
“Maybe they split up after we left.”
“There were no signs of a larger party,” I said. “I searched the camp myself.”
“You checked the camp? How? Had they left?”
“In a way of speakin’,” Sharp said. “We killed ’em. All but the boy.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Doc, no war party camped in that meadow.” Sharp had lost all patience. “Only a ragtag band of renegades. Now, where’s this half-breed and Grant? I want to talk to ’em.”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“The half-breed left us on the trail. Said his work was through. Grant paid his respects to the family and left for Leadville yesterday.” Dooley looked back at the crowd in front of the church. “Grant said he had urgent business, but everyone assumed he was actually embarrassed by our failure.”
“We better find McAllen,” I said.
Dooley looked back at the church again. “He’s still in the church. We’re waiting for the burial service.”
“Burial?” I asked.
“The minister bought a coffin and put her, uh, remains in it. They’re going to bury her in a few minutes. As soon as the wife is a bit more under control.” Dooley looked beaten. “Damn, I’m sorry. Grant seemed such an upright fellow.”
Sharp put his hand on Dooley’s shoulder. “Not your fault. He had the whole town buffaloed.”
“Jeff, what’re we going to do?” I asked. “We’ve got to get after Grant and this half-breed. I think they’re both in this up to their necks.”
“I know. We’ll deal with ’em, but first we gotta help our friend bury the dead.”
Chapter 15
About two hundred people attended the burial, and even though I had never met the girl, the somber mood caught me. Evidently, she was well liked and her parents respected. It brought to mind my father’s funeral. I was just twenty-four and his death jolted me. With his passing, I inherited his business interests, his substantial bank account, and his greed-driven family. I had no siblings because my mother had died in childbirth. By the time I was old enough to understand there should have been people who cared about me from her side, we had lost track of her family. I became convinced that my father’s side had pushed them away. After all, they were barely middle-class, and we were among the elite of the New York City social set.
My father and I were friends. Although he had many business interests, we spent most of our time at his gun shop. He loved guns, especially expensive European shotguns. The shop catered to rich bird hunters, and we used every sale as an excuse to escort our client into the countryside to test his purchase. After his death, I grew to understand that he had no more use for his family than I did, and he used his enthusiasm for guns to escape their meddling.
My father’s brothers and sisters were all the family I knew, but we did not get along before his death, and a heated feud developed afterwards. At first, they just seemed obsessed with marrying me off to some appropriate girl to seal a business partnership between two social register families. Then they dragged me into nefarious business dealings that always seemed to involve some large bribes to shady politicians. No thank you. I headed west.
A chorus of amens brought me back to the burial. Captain McAllen didn’t stand beside his ex-wife and her current husband. I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for their relationship, or if there was ill will between them. After everyone had walked by and thrown a handful of soil into the grave, Sharp and I joined the other people moving down the hill and into town. At the bottom, Sharp stopped and glanced back up the hill. I assumed he wanted to wait for McAllen. I felt self-conscious because we looked like a couple of unwashed trail hands too ignorant to find proper dress for a funeral. As the crowd passed, we just stood there making solemn nods to people we didn’t know.
Eventually, McAllen came down by himself. When he saw us, he came right over. “They want some time alone at the graveside,” he said.
“What about you?” I blurted.
“I’d just as soon be by myself as well. That’s the way I always saw her. I’ll go back after dark.”
“Did you see her often?” I asked.
“Once or twice a year. My ex-wife was always polite, but I knew I wasn’t welcome. She had a new family, and I had become an intrusion.”
Without a word, we started for the livery to collect our belongings. We waited for McAllen to open the subject of the Utes and the abduction. At the camp, he had seemed vengeful and anxious to get to the bottom of things. Now he kept his thoughts to himself as we worked for about an hour collecting our stuff and storing it in my room. Because Sharp had thought that we might be gone for a long time, the unused supplies took up both available corners.
As we stacked the supplies, McAllen said, “Steve, the circuit judge came around early, so they already held an inquest. No charges were filed against you. Deemed self-defense.” He threw another sack onto a pile. “If you haven’t written Jenny, I suggest you do it tonight.”
“You too?” I threw my own sack. “Isn’t it enough that Jeff keeps haranguing me about Jenny? Well, I already wrote her, but we got back too soon for a reply to arrive.”
McAllen grabbed my forearm. “I don’t care about any damn love letter. Write her and tell her what happened. She needs to be warned her mother-in-law ain’t just socializing with the Nob Hill crowd.”
Chagrined, I simply said, “I did. Jeff and I also sent a telegram before we left town.”
“We need to check with Western Union,” Sharp said. “She may have responded to our telegram.”
We finished our work, and the three of us stood looking at my cluttered room. “I didn’t pay for all this,” McAllen said, “but if you don’t mind, could we donate what we don’t need to the church in my daughter’s name?”
“Of course,” Sharp said.
I gave Sharp a sideways look and said, “Jeff, we better get over to the Western Union office.”
Sharp made a move toward the door, but McAllen stopped us by finally broaching the subject. “Did you find Dooley?”
“Yep, but ya won’t like what we found out,” Sharp said.
“I already know Grant left town. What else?”
We told him. McAllen eyes grew dark and mean, but he merely nodded. After a moment, he went to the window and looked out. “It’s dark,” was all he said. Then he turned to face us. “Let’s get a soak and a beer. There’s nothing more that can be done tonight. Besides, I need to see my ex-wife again this evening, and I think my request will be better received if I clean up.”
“What do you want from her?” Sharp asked, confused.
McAllen headed for the door. “The necklace.”
Chapter 16
Jenny had indeed sent a return telegram, but, as we predicted, no letter had arrived yet. The telegram was terse. It simply said, No problem here. Being careful. Glad Steve unharmed.
She had used my first name. Was that a good sign? I told myself not to get my hopes up. She had only responded to the warning of danger, not my more personal letter, which she may not have received yet. After I got through with my wishful thinking about her feelings toward me, I took comfort in her statement that there were no problems at the ranch. Hopefully, Mrs. Bolton would aim her wrath only at me. Then I realized that would be completely out of character for Mrs. Bolton. If she had resumed the warpath, Jenny would undoubtedly be a target.
After we returned to our boardinghouse, Sharp and I found McAllen and commandeered the bathroom. I paid the owner’s son to run across the street for some chilled beers. Few things in life felt more comfo
rting than slipping into a hot bath with a large tankard of beer in hand. The common bathroom provided little privacy, so I tipped the boy to keep the water fresh in the single tub and to shoo away any other tenants.
The stove used to heat the bathwater kept the room warm, so after our soaks, we sat in straight-back chairs with towels wrapped around our waists. After the boy had fetched our second beers, McAllen got down to business.
“Any of you got any answer other than that Grant planned this?”
“Nope,” Sharp said. “He led the posse right to them. Might have been good tracking, but my bet is he knew exactly where they’d be. We know he lied about the number of Indians in order to keep the posse away from ’em.”
“And the half-breed lied as well,” I added.
“Yep,” Sharp said, “so the two gotta be in cahoots.”
McAllen took a swallow of his beer. Then another. “We know a white man paid the Utes and told them how to pick her up. The boy said nothing about any half-breed, but the two of them musta been partners.”
“Does the town think this was part of the Ute uprising?” I directed my question to McAllen because he had had more contact with townspeople at the funeral and burial.
“Yep, and no use getting the people worked up about some conspiracy we can’t prove.” Another swallow of beer. “Besides, they all think pretty highly of this Grant fella.”
“You ever have a run-in with Bob Grant?” Sharp asked.
“Not that I recollect,” McAllen answered. “What’s he look like?”
“Big guy, good lookin’ with brown hair … what he’s got left of it,” Sharp said. “Looks to be about forty, probably six-two, heavy built, dresses like a city feller, an’ carries a shoulder gun under a frock coat. Walks heavy-footed. Ready smile, especially for the ladies.”
Sharp’s description impressed me. For some reason, I had difficulty describing a person unless I had already made notes about them in my journal. Grant had not warranted an entry. Until now. I suddenly realized the book I planned about my trek through the Wild West would include at least one chapter on this nefarious character. At the next opportunity, I had to catch up my journal on recent events and make some notes on Bob Grant.
Leadville Page 6
