The Virginia City Trail

by Ralph Compton

  ATTACK AT THE BUTTE

  The attack came on the morning of the third day. The Sioux came in such numbers, even with Remingtons in their hands and a sheer stone wall at their backs, Story’s riders were awed.

  All the wagons were already drawn in close to the butte. The teamsters and many of the riders lay behind wagon wheels or steadied their rifles across a wagon box. The Sioux seemed bound for a head-on clash, but before they were within range of the rifles, they split their forces. Half rode north of the butte, while the rest circled to the south.

  “They aim to ride in from both flanks,” Story cried. “Those of you who are handiest to the left, concentrate your fire. If you’re nearest the bunch attacking from the right, go after them. We can’t come out of this with whole hides if we’re all shooting at the same fifty Sioux.”

  The outfit followed Story’s lead, and when he judged the galloping warriors were close enough, Story fired. And twenty-nine rifles roared . . .

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks Titles

  by Ralph Compton

  THE TRAIL DRIVE SERIES

  THE GOODNIGHT TRAIL

  THE WESTERN TRAIL

  THE CHISHOLM TRAIL

  THE BANDERA TRAIL

  THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL

  THE SHAWNEE TRAIL

  THE VIRGINIA CITY TRAIL

  THE DODGE CITY TRAIL

  THE OREGON TRAIL

  THE SANTA FE TRAIL

  THE DEADWOOD TRAIL

  THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL

  THE GREEN RIVER TRAIL

  THE SUNDOWN RIDERS SERIES

  NORTH TO THE BITTERROOT

  ACROSS THE RIO COLORADO

  THE WINCHESTER RUN

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction, based on actual trail drives of the Old West. Many of the characters appearing in the Trail Drive Series were very real, and some of the trail drives actually took place. But the reader should be aware that, in the developing of characters and events, some fictional literary license has been employed. While some of the characters and events herein are purely the creation of the author, every effort has been made to portray them with accuracy. However, the inherent dangers of the trail are real, sufficient unto themselves, and seldom has it been necessary to enhance their reality.

  THE VIRGINIA CITY TRAIL

  Copyright © 1994 by Ralph Compton.

  Cover illustration by Bob Larkin.

  Map illustration on cover by Dennis Lyall.

  Cover type by Jim Lebbad.

  Map on p. v by David Lindroth, based upon material supplied by the author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-95306-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / September 1994

  10 9 8 7 6

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  Not a man in Texas trail-driving history had more determination and cool indifference to the dangers of the frontier than Nelson Story. Born on a farm in Meigs County, Ohio, in 1838, Story was orphaned when he was fourteen. After two years of working his way through Ohio University, he was qualified as a teacher, but Story’s dream reached far beyond a little country schoolhouse. In 1854 he boarded a steamboat that took him to St. Louis. There he traveled up the Missouri to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, arriving with thirty-six dollars and a determination to move west.

  Despite Story’s youth—he was only sixteen—he was hired by an outfit that freighted west from Fort Leavenworth. The young man from Ohio silenced those who thought him too young and inexperienced. Story became a bull whacker, took his turn at night guard, and sought the advice of the old-timers who knew the mountains and the prairies. He became a dead shot with rifle and pistol, a dreaded adversary with his fists, and led the charge against Indians who had come to regard wagon trains as a source of horses, weapons, and scalps. By the time Nelson Story was eighteen, he owned his own wagon and oxen.

  When gold was discovered near Pike’s Peak in 1858, towns sprang up quickly. Gold-seekers were willing to pay almost any price for supplies and equipment, so twenty-year-old Nelson Story bought another wagon, six more oxen, and moved his freighting business to Denver. Following the great gold strike at Alder Gulch, Montana Territory, in 1863, Story went there, built a store, and began hauling goods from Utah. But he found the life of a merchant too tame, and had been around the camps long enough to know something about mining. Story got gold fever and bought a claim he felt hadn’t been worked out. By spring of 1866 he had forty thousand dollars, but Story was a marked man. It was a time when infamous outlaw sheriff Henry Plummer and his band of road agents were murdering men for their gold. Nelson Story, cool, quick, and deadly with a gun, had become captain of an Alder Gulch vigilance committee. From December 21, 1863, to January 11, 1864, Story and his men captured and hanged twenty-four of the road agents, including Henry Plummer himself.

  Nelson Story’s next venture led him to Fort Worth, Texas, where he bought three thousand Texas longhorns and hired a crew of Texas cowboys. Texans were already trailing herds north, and Story planned to avoid the glut at Sedalia and Kansas City by taking his herd to Quincy, Illinois. But approaching Sedalia from Baxter Springs, Kansas, Story quickly found there was no possible way he could reach Quincy, for there was no graze. Moreover, there were toll collectors, some of them demanding as much as two dollars a head. Texans who had gone ahead of Story’s herd were selling for what they could get. Story backed off, trailing along the Kansas border. He would take his herd west, to Montana Territory.

  Story would begin the western leg of his trail drive in Fort Leavenworth, the town where he’d begun his life on the plains as a bull whacker. He had friends there he could trust, and he bought work oxen and wagons. He loaded the wagons with equipment and provisions and hired a crew of experienced bull whackers. Since he was heading for the bloody Bozeman Trail, he would make the drive as profitable as he could. He took the old Oregon Trail west until he reached southern Wyoming, driving north to reach the Bozeman at Fort Laramie. Army officers at Fort Laramie tried to talk Story out of going farther, but Story had an edge. His twenty-five Texas cowboys were armed with Remington breech-loading rifles.

  Their first fight with the Sioux came south of Fort Reno. One cowboy was killed and two were wounded. At Fort Phil Kearny, Commander Henry B. Carrington forbade Story to continue, but Story moved out in the darkness. On October 29, five hundred Oglala Sioux, led by Crazy Horse, attacked Story and his men. After heavy losses, Crazy Horse withdrew, and on December 9, 1866, Nelson Story’s drive reached Virginia City, Montana Territory.

  PROLOGUE

  Virginia City, Montana, December 21, 1863.

  “I am innocent,” George Ives said confidently. It was the password of the infamous Plummer gang to which Ives belonged. He stood on a wooden box, a thirteen-knot hangman’s noose about his neck. The other end of the rope had been looped over a beam in a newly constructed building, pulled taut and tied to a spike driven into the floor. Four men with drawn guns stood between Ives and those who had come to see him hang. One of the four men was Ken Tanner, himself secretly a member of the Plummer gang, and it was Tanner who spoke.

  “Back off. Sheriff Plummer’s been sent for, and we’re waitin’ for him.”

  “Like hell we
are,” a miner shouted. “The Dutchman was killed an’ robbed, an’ when this Ives was caught, the varmint had the Dutchman’s mule. Now this miner’s court says he’s guilty, an’ Plummer ain’t gonna change that. Hang the bastard.”

  “I say we’re waitin’ for the sheriff,” said Tanner, “and I’ll shoot the first man makin’ a wrong move.”

  Even some of the vigilantes who had captured Ives seemed intimidated, and Ives grinned. But the grin changed to a frown as a tall man with sandy hair, a three-day beard, and a cocked pistol in each hand elbowed his way through the vigilantes.

  “I’m Nelson Story,” he said, “captain of this vigilance committee. George Ives has been tried and found guilty by a miner’s court, and he’s going to hang. I’ll kill the first man who interferes.”

  His cold blue eyes were on those four men with drawn guns, and one by one they backed down, Tanner being the last. Story kicked hard, sent the wooden box tumbling, and George Ives was left dangling at the end of a rope. The lawyers hired to defend him turned away, unable to bear the grisly sight. Ives revolved slowly, his face contorted, kicking his life away. The four men Story had backed down glared sullenly at him, and Story glared back. He made no move until he was sure George Ives was dead. Then he backed away, into the ranks of the vigilantes with whom he rode.

  “His friends can cut him down,” said Story. “Let’s get the rest of them.”

  In knee-high boots and sombrero, Nelson Story was six and a half feet tall. Belted around his middle was a pair of 1851 Colt 38 caliber revolvers, and he could draw and fire as swiftly and as accurately with one hand as with the other. After the hanging of George Ives, the weather changed dramatically, and Story moved to take advantage of it. He gathered his vigilantes in the bitter, bone-chilling cold, before first light.

  “There’s three feet of snow on the plains,” Story said, “and fifteen to twenty feet in the mountain passes and draws. Plummer and his bunch will try to quit the territory, but they can’t get out until the weather breaks. We have them trapped, and we’re going to finish them once and for all.”

  Bannack, Montana Territory. January 10, 1864.

  “Let’s hang the others first,” said a miner, “an’ save Plummer fer last. I want the low-down, murderin’ son to watch his pards die, knowin’ he’s gonna foller ’em to Hell.”

  There were shouts of agreement, and four of Plummer’s gang went to their deaths without complaint. But Henry Plummer, whose bloody reign had resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred men, begged for his life. His hands bound behind him, the infamous outlaw sheriff fell to his knees.

  “Please,” he wept, “I don’t want to die. I’m not prepared to die. Cut off my fingers, a hand, a foot, but let me live. Have mercy.”

  Some of the vigilantes turned away in disgust, but Nelson Story faced this man who deserved no quarter and would be given none.

  “You murdered men for their pokes,” Story said, “every one a better man than you. You deserve no mercy. You’re going to pay with your life.”

  The gallows had been built by Plummer himself. He was dragged to it, and his crying and begging didn’t cease until the rope cut off his wind. In all, Plummer and twenty-three of his outlaw companions were hanged by Nelson Story’s vigilance committee. But several Plummer lieutenants escaped. One of them was Ken Tanner, and he vowed to kill Nelson Story.

  Nelson Story was only twenty-six, but having been a captain in the band of vigilantes that had destroyed the Plummer gang, Story had become prominent and respected. He moved to Denver and began his own freighting business, accepting a contract to haul for the government from Fort Leavenworth west to Wyoming. As Story rode the high plains with their abundant grass, an idea began to take shape. Miners wanted beef, and at Fort Leavenworth, Story had heard that Texas cattle were selling for two dollars a head. Why not go to Texas, buy a herd, and cover the high plains with longhorn cattle? While Story lacked the money for such a venture, he wasn’t lacking in ingenuity. Having spent considerable time in Virginia City, Story knew something about gold mining. With a final load of trade goods—two loaded wagons and sixteen loaded mules—Story headed for Virginia City. He bought a gold claim that hadn’t been properly worked, and by late fall of 1865 had accumulated thirty thousand dollars in gold. Money had been depreciated because of the war, and for his gold, Story received forty thousand dollars in greenbacks. Knowing the risk he was about to take, he sewed ten thousand dollars into the lining of his coat.

  Preparing to leave Virginia City for Texas, Story encountered Tom Allen and Bill Petty, two young bull whackers he’d known in Denver.

  “I reckon I’ve had enough bull whacking,” said Petty. “I’d like to hire on for the drive from Texas.”

  “Welcome,” Story said.

  “I’d like to go too,” said Tom Allen. “One day these mines are gonna play out and there won’t be enough work here to keep a man in plug, but I’d gamble there’s enough grass on these plains and in the mountain draws to last forever. I wouldn’t mind havin’ me some seed cattle. I got near two thousand dollars. You got any objection to me buyin’ as many cows as I can, and then trailin’ ’em north with your herd?”

  “None,” Story said, “long as you don’t mind riskin’ your scalp.”

  “Nels,” said Allen, “I purely admire your sense of humor. Ever’ time I climb up to the wagon box and take that trail west out of Leavenworth, I’m offerin’ my scalp to outlaws, Injuns, and anybody else wantin’ it. By God, if I got to fight, then I’m ready to fight for somethin’ that belongs to me. Bill, you ain’t rich, but you’re as well off as I am. Why don’t you buy some cows and trail ’em with us?”

  “Can’t,” Petty said. “I just hired on with Nels, for wages.”

  “Consider yourself fired,” said Story with a grin. “Now you can buy cows of your own, and I’ll have you helpin’ fight Indians for nothing.”

  “That’ll be some ride, just gettin’ to Texas,” Tom Allen said. “Any idea how far?”

  “I figure it at fifteen hundred miles,” said Story. “We’ll ride south across the divide to Fort Hall, cross the Rockies again into Wyoming, and go south to Denver. From there we’ll cross Indian Territory into Texas and ride on to Fort Worth.”

  Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory. December 1865.

  Story and his two companions spent the night at Fort Laramie, and it was in Bordeaux’s Trading House that they met an old mountain man known only as Coon Tails.

  “Yep,” said Coon Tails, “I been through the territory a time er two. I got friends amongst the Cheyennes an’ Arapahoes. I oncet had me a Cheyenne squaw fer a while.”

  “I can use a scout who knows the territory,” Story said. “We’ll be going to Fort Worth from here, buying a herd of Texas longhorns and driving them across eastern Indian Territory to Quincy, Illinois. Interested?”

  “Mebbe,” Coon Tails said. “Depends on if’n I git paid in gold coin. I ain’t wantin’ no Yankee paper.”

  “Gold it is,” said Story. “A hundred dollars for the drive.”

  “Two hunnert,” Coon Tails countered.

  “Hundred and fifty,” said Story.

  “Deal,” Coon Tails said, lighting his pipe.

  “We ride at first light,” said Story.

  1

  Fort Worth, Texas. February 1, 1866.

  Nelson Story and his three companions arrived in Fort Worth in the early afternoon.

  “Wal,” Coon Tails said, “I dunno what else this place has got goin’ fer it, but they’s a blessed plenty of blue bellies.”

  “Texas and all the South is under reconstruction,” said Story. “We’ll have to report to the officer in charge and identify ourselves. Since the war’s end, there are renegades from both sides looting and killing. Us being strangers in town, we’d best find the soldiers before they come looking for us.”

  Before they reached the end of the block, a pair of Union soldiers confronted them. One of them was Negro, and neither seemed more than a y
ear or two out of their teens. They stood in the muddy street, their muzzle loaders at port arms. Story and his companions reined up.

  “We’re from Montana,” Story said, “here to buy cattle. Take us to your officer in charge for whatever clearance we may need.”

  “Ride on the way you’re headed,” said the white soldier, “and take a left at the next corner. From there you can see the unfinished courthouse, and the post commander’s tent in front of it. Ask for Captain Clark.”*

  Story and his men rode on, and when they turned the corner as directed, Story could see the pair of soldiers following on foot. Having stated his intentions, he found it irritating that he and his men were not trusted to ride to the officer’s tent without an armed escort. Reaching the tent, they were eyed suspiciously by a corporal who stood near the closed flap of the tent. He faced them, his rifle at port arms, a question in his eyes.

  “We’re from Montana,” Story repeated, “here to buy Texas cattle. I want to speak to Captain Clark, the post commander.”

  Before the soldier could respond, the tent flap was swept aside, and the officer who emerged could only have been the officer. He was smartly dressed, and from the epaulets of his blue tunic, captain’s bars flashed in the afternoon sun.

  “I’m Captain Clark,” said the officer.

  “I reckon you heard what I said,” Story replied. “I’m Nelson Story, and these men are part of my outfit. I only want you to be aware of our purpose here. Is there any reason why we can’t ride from ranch to ranch, buying the cattle we want?”

  “None that I know of,” said Clark. “However, I must remind you that Texas is under federal jurisdiction. If you hire Texas cowboys, they’ll need permission to leave the state.”

  Story and his men were still mounted, and Story sidestepped his horse nearer, so that he looked the captain squarely in the eyes when he spoke.