The Virginia City Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “By God,” Arch yipped, “you’re famous.”

  “Famous be damned,” said Story. “I reckon I’ll have to start ridin’ to Butte.”

  Story was in for considerable hoorawing from the outfit, but it ceased to bother him when he realized his riders actually were proud of him. One week before Christmas, Cal got up after supper and made an announcement.

  “Christmas Eve,” he said, “Lorna and me’s gonna buckle on that double harness.”

  “I feel kind of responsible for this,” said Story when the whooping and hollering had died down. “There’s a grand ballroom at the Palace Hotel. I’m going to pay for that ballroom for the night, and for you and Lorna, a room in the hotel after the ceremony.”

  Nobody slept that night, some due to merriment and hoorawing, others because the proximity of such an event forced them to consider their own circumstances. Jasmine McDaniels and Tom Allen often spent their evening hours together, even on the trail, but Cal’s announcement had somehow changed things, and they both knew it.

  “We knew they were going to do that,” Tom said, “but it’s still hard to believe.”

  “I know,” said Jasmine. “Lorna’s five years younger than me. God, I feel so old.”

  “You are old,” Tom said, “and so am I. I was twenty-five in July.”

  “I envy Lorna and Curly. Especially Curly. I’m so damn old, no man would want me.”

  “I’m a man,” said Tom, “or I was last time I looked, and I want you.”

  “Why?” She frowned and he realized she was serious. He tried again.

  “I want to strip you naked and have my way with you.” He leered at her.

  “Why, besides that?” She ducked her head, blushing furiously despite herself.

  “That’s it,” said Tom. She hid her embarrassment behind mock anger.

  “Damn you, Tom Allen. It’s the money, isn’t it?”

  “Half the money belongs to Bud. I’d want you if you were broke.”

  “Then damn it, take me, before I change my mind.”

  “Christmas Eve,” Tom said, “with Cal and Lorna.”

  She came to him, smiling through her tears, and he held her close.

  In Virginia City there was much excitement, as a committee made plans for Story’s appearance. But there was one man, hard-eyed with a tied-down Colt, who anticipated the event for more sinister reasons. Strong on his mind was that winter day when his friends had died at the end of a rope, and the man on the vigilante end of that rope had been Nelson Story. . . .

  After Tom and Jasmine announced their intention, the shaky truce between Bud and Curly threatened to collapse.

  “I don’t care a damn what everybody else does,” Curly said. “Am I some kind of dancing bear that’s got to shuffle its feet to somebody else’s tune?”

  “Let me put it another way,” said Bud, “and this has nothin’ to do with you and me. Jasmine and Tom aim to start a spread, and I’ll be pardners with them. When the Sioux trouble is over, we’ll be goin’ back to Texas for another herd. Damn it, you’ve got to be somewhere, and I want you with us.”

  “I can be somewhere without bein’ with you. Anyhow, I don’t want your charity.”

  “No charity,” Bud said, struggling to control his temper. “I’m talking riding, roping, and branding. You’re a better-than-average cowboy, even if you’re never worth a damn as a woman.”

  He’d said it with a bitterness he hadn’t intended, but it wasn’t lost on her. With a cry more of anguish than of anger, she hit him, not with the flat of her hand, but with her fist. He was staggered, his nose bleeding, and he caught her wrist as she was about to slug him again. She swung at him with her other fist and he caught her wrist just shy of his already bloody nose. With both arms imprisoned, she aimed a boot at Bud’s crotch, but he was expecting that. He let go her right hand, caught the offensive foot, and sat her down without hurting anything but her dignity. He then got astraddle of her legs so she couldn’t kick and then caught the freed hand before she could fist it and hit him again. She retaliated in the only way she could, cussing him and his family back three generations.

  “By God,” Bud panted, “I can hold out as long as you can. We’re goin’ to talk normal to one another like a man and woman ought, if I have to keep you here till dark. I’ll turn you loose when you promise to stop swearing and fighting. You’ve showed me you can be a lady when you want to be. Is that askin’ too much?”

  “No,” she said softly. All the anger had gone out of her eyes when they finally met his, and tears slid down her pale cheeks.

  It was enough for Bud. He got up, helped Curly to her feet and led her to a windblown pine. He sat down, pulling her down beside him.

  “I haven’t cried since I was six,” she said. “When Mama left me. When Daddy died I couldn’t cry. I stood beside his grave and I . . . I just felt all dead inside.”

  Bud held her close while she wept long and hard. When there were no more tears, she looked into his eyes and his heart leaped at the promise in hers.

  “I do want to go to Texas with you, Tom, and Jasmine,” she said, “but I’m not ready for the preacher yet. When we get back, if you still want me . . .”

  “I’ll want you,” he said, “and I’ll wait. Just so you’re with me.”

  Leaving the trail drive, Russ Shadley had ridden on to Virginia City. He had taken a room in a boarding house occupied by miners. He had no interest in them or in the dingy mines where they labored. While he had no intention of returning to Texas, he found Montana Territory desolate and even less desirable. He had money, but boomtown prices were taking their toll, and he decided to move on to California. But first he had a score to settle. He was on the outer fringes of the crowd the day Story and some of his riders had driven in the longhorns, but there had been no sign of Cal Snider. In one of the saloons, however, there was talk of Story having rented the grand ballroom at the Palace Hotel. Snider was getting hitched to the woman he’d brought from Texas, and in Shadley’s sadistic mind, it seemed an appropriate time for his act of retribution. He went to the hotel, found the ballroom unoccupied, and wandered through it. The room was encircled by a balcony that was an extension of the second floor. It had possibilities, and Russ Shadley grinned to himself. . . .

  When Bud and Curly revealed their plans to Story, the big man laughed. “This is grand.” He wrung Bud’s hand, and to Curly’s surprise, he grabbed her and kissed her.

  “One big ranch,” said Tom Allen, grinning. “With Jasmine and Curly to do the ridin’, ropin’, and brandin’, I reckon Bud and me can get in plenty of time hunting and fishing.”

  “Don’t make any hard and fast plans in that direction,” Jasmine said. “If the next drive from Texas is anything like this one, I reckon Curly and me will have enjoyed all the cowboying we can stand. If you lazy varmints want cowboys, you’ll have to hire them, not marry them.”

  December 22, 1866. Virginia City.

  Tom, Jasmine, Bud, and Curly moved to the hotel, Tom and Bud sharing a room, Jasmine and Curly sharing another. Bill Petty had taken a room for himself and one for Alicia. Story had tried to talk them into becoming part of the big event on Christmas eve, but they seemed satisfied to wait until another time. A podium had been set up before the courthouse, and it was from there that Story would speak. Without giving them a reason, Story had arranged for Bud, Arch, Hitch, and Cal to wander among the crowd, discouraging anybody who seemed inclined to pull a gun. But the crowd was not unruly, and for December, the day was unusually mild. The sun put in a brief appearance, and that’s all that saved Nelson Story. He had just reached the podium, the sun to his back, when there was a wink of light from atop the two-story Masonic building. Story dropped, rolled, and came up before the courthouse door, Colt in his hand. Two slugs slammed into the wooden podium, screaming off the stone steps. Story was off and running toward the Masonic building, his riders right behind him.

  “The bastard’s on the roof,” Cal shouted. “Come on, Arch.�
��

  Cal and Arch found the front door standing open, and once inside, took the stairs two at a time. Hitch and Bud followed Story as he circled the building. The roof was flat, with a false front, tapering off toward the back.

  “He ain’t had time to get down,” said Hitch, “unless he jumped off the back. We could see the door. Cal and Arch may have him cornered.”

  “The two of you move around back,” Story said. “There’s a back door.”

  Cal and Arch crept cautiously up the narrow stairs to the second floor, and but for tables and chairs, it seemed deserted. A ladder ran up the back wall, and at the very top of it was an open skylight.

  “The varmint’s still up there,” said Cal. “I’ll climb up and take a look.”

  Story crept along the side of the building, considering possibilities. At the very back, extending well above the second floor, was a pinion pine. The branch moved just a little, and there was no wind.

  “Drop the gun and come on down,” Story said. “You’re covered.” Story dropped to one knee as he spoke, and when the bushwhacker fired, the lead went well over Story’s head. Story fired three times. Once at the puff of smoke, once to the left of it, and again to the right. A Colt hit the ground first, and then with a thrashing among the branches, the body of the dead man followed. Within minutes most of those who had come to hear Story speak had gathered around. Arch and Cal had come down from the roof and were working their way through the throng. Rolling the dead man over, Story didn’t recognize him, but others did.

  “Why, that’s Brace Jackman,” somebody said.

  “I don’t know him,” Story said, “or why he’d be gunning for me.”

  “There was talk,” said the man who had identified Jackman, “that he was part of Plummer’s gang. I reckon the sheriff will shake your hand, ’cause he didn’t have proof enough to do nothin’.”

  Story spent some time with Sheriff Jules Hardy, and the sheriff soon confirmed what Story had heard.

  “Everything pointed to him bein’ one of the Plummer gang,” said Hardy, “but I couldn’t prove it. There’s more of ’em, but they’ve hightailed it out of the territory. Somebody else will have to hang or shoot the varmints.”

  Story had taken advantage of the new sawmill and lumber yard, ordering enough two-by-sixes for the new cabins and the proposed bunkhouse to have decent floors. The first cabin on Story’s spread was finished two days before Christmas.

  “That one belongs to the segundo,” Story said. “It’ll be a place for Cal and Lorna to come home to.”

  “Now we can start on the bunkhouse,” said Quanah Taylor.

  “You’d better,” Story said. “I’ve never seen Montana weather so mild this late in the year. You’d best take advantage of it.”

  Despite the attempt on Story’s life the day before, preparations were begun on Sunday for the cowboy wedding on Christmas Eve. It was rare that anything taking place on the frontier could be considered ordinary, but nobody could remember there ever having been two knot-tyings on the same day, by the same preacher. Story had donated three whole steers for a Christmas barbecue. The weather turned bitter cold during the night of the twenty-third, and snow-capped mountains to the west left little doubt that the long-delayed winter was indeed on the way. Huge tents were thrown up, guy ropes pulled taut and stakes driven deep, and the barbecue went on. The big event would take place in the Palace Hotel’s grand ballroom at eight o’clock that night, and long before the prescribed time, the hotel was filled to overflowing.

  To Shadley’s dismay, tables and chairs were placed along the balcony overlooking the ballroom, and every table was jammed with drinking, laughing people. Shadley drifted back to the ballroom on the main floor, losing himself in the crowd. A not-quite-in-tune piano had been borrowed from one of the saloons, and a not-quite-sober saloon musician to play it. Jasmine and Lorna had been in their rooms on the second floor, and shortly before eight o’clock the two of them descended the stairs. Lorna wore her white satin while Jasmine wore pink. Somehow they had managed to find slippers that matched their dresses. For a heartbeat there was total silence. When the men got over the shock, their shouting and whistling drowned out the howling of the wind.

  “Quiet,” Story shouted when the uproar showed no signs of ending. He finally pounded on a table with the butt of his Colt until there was silence. “Save it for after the ceremony,” he said. “These ladies have no fathers to give them away, and I’ve been asked to do the honors, so let’s get on with it.”

  Story turned to find a duo of cowboy grooms struck dumb with awe.

  “God Almighty, Jasmine,” said Tom, “is that you?”

  The women thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard, and burst into a fit of giggles. Their mirth proved contagious, and when most of the crowd joined in, Story again had to pound the table for silence. Story nodded to the preacher, and before there was another diversion, the ceremony was under way.

  When it was over, Story kissed the brides and did a better job of it than either of the lucky cowboys. The piano tinkled on, the man punishing it seemingly unaware the event was over. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the grooms and kiss the brides. Even Quick-enpaugh was there, having bought a hat for the occasion. He looked at the couples, and when he spoke, it was directly to the men.

  “Get squaw,” he said. “Kill buffalo, squaw scrape hide.”

  “You heathen varmint,” Jasmine said. “I get my hands on you, and I’ll scrape your hide.”

  Those who had heard the exchange told others, and the Indian was soon surrounded by laughing, shouting men. Either they had forgotten he was Indian or they didn’t care, and drinks were thrust at him from all sides.

  “Givin’ whiskey to an Indian,” said Tom Allen. “If Colonel Carrington was here, he’d have the whole town under military arrest.”

  The handshaking, drinking, and back-slapping went on until Cal grew weary of it. He found Story and excused himself and Lorna.

  “I feel like I been throwed and stomped,” Cal said. “We’re goin’ up to that room you reserved for us.”

  Story laughed. “I don’t blame you. I reckon this bunch will have to be run out of here at daylight.”

  Cal and Lorna started up the stairs, and Russ Shadley slipped down the hall toward the back door. It would suit his purpose eventually, but now he was interested in the stairs that led to the second floor. Reaching the landing, he eased the door open as Cal and Lorna paused before the door of their room. Shadley cocked his Colt and stepped into the hall. Lorna saw him first.

  “Cal,” she cried.

  Cal dropped the key and went for his Colt, but Shadley had the drop. The first slug ripped splinters from the door frame, and the second slammed Cal against the door. He slid to the floor, and Lorna took the Colt from his limp fingers. Hoisting the long dress to her knees, she ran toward the door through which Shadley had vanished. Already she could hear the thump of boots on the front stairs. Cal would have the attention he needed, but Shadley was getting away.

  But Russ Shadley’s luck had run out. The back door at the end of the first floor hall was locked. He had his shoulder to the door when Lorna’s first shot crashed into the wood just inches from his head. He hadn’t expected this, and he blasted a shot at the girl. He missed, but Lorna didn’t. She shot Shadley just over his belt buckle, and he dropped the Colt. His back was to the door, but his knees buckled and he fell facedown. When Story and the riders found Lorna, she was sitting near the bottom of the stairs, still gripping Cal’s Colt with both hands.

  Lorna seemed in shock. Story took the Colt from her, while Jasmine and Curly helped her up the stairs. When they neared the door of the room where Cal had been shot, it all seemed to come back to her.

  “Cal,” she cried. “Cal!” She ran, tripped on the long dress and fell.

  When they got Lorna into the room, the doctor was working over Cal. He had been stripped to the waist and his boots removed. Quanah Taylor, Arch Rainey, and Bud McD
aniels were there. The doctor had forced the rest of them to remain in the hall.

  “How is he, Doc?” Story asked.

  “I had to dig the slug out,” said the doctor, “but it wasn’t difficult. I’ve never seen the like of this. He’s been shot before, and this one hit him almost exactly where the first one did. He’ll recover, as long as we can keep down the infection and he doesn’t do anything foolish.”

  Three days later, Nelson Story knocked on the door of Cal’s room. He found Lorna sitting beside the bed and Cal awake for the first time since he’d been shot.

  “Well,” Story said, “how’s married life?”

  “Nothing’s changed,” said Lorna. “Everytime he gets in bed, he’s been shot, and I end up in a chair, waiting for him to heal.”

  Story laughed. “He does seem a mite accident prone. When I reserved this room, I didn’t know he’d be here two weeks.”

  “I ain’t stayin’ two weeks,” Cal said weakly.

  “The doc says different,” said Story. “Seems like we’ve been through all this before. Snow’s almost neck deep, and there’s nothing you could do if you were up. The rest of the outfit’s holed up in your cabin, and with you and Lorna thrown in, it’d be a mite crowded.”

  “I reckon.” Cal grinned. “Maybe I’ll just stay here for a while.”

  Story left, allowing the rest of the riders to visit Cal, and they did. For together they had been through the fire, accomplishing what the Union army said couldn’t be done. They were more than an outfit, more than just friends. They were a family, and they had the feeling they had become a part of history, for the odds against them had been a hundred to one. They had whipped Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and the bloody Bozeman. They believed Nelson Story was destined to ride into the pages of western history, to leave his mark on Montana Territory, and they would side him all the way. Just as they had sided him for a treacherous twenty-six hundred miles, on the Virginia City Trail. . . .