The Long Hitch

by Michael Zimmer

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Buck said, tapping Zeke’s ribs with his heels. “Where’d you hire him?”

  “In Ogden. I’m told he came highly recommended.”

  “From who?”

  “Thad was introduced to him by the superintendent of the Wall Street Livery.”

  Buck’s eyes narrowed.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “I’ve heard some stories about the Wall Street Livery,” he replied vaguely. “I couldn’t say if they’re true.”

  “I could speak to him,” she volunteered without enthusiasm.

  “You don’t sound like you want to.”

  “Frankly, Mister O’Rourke frightens me. An air of violence surrounds him, more so than even Thad, who I consider qualified for the job of bodyguard but wholly manageable. Thad obeys. I am not as confident of O’Rourke.”

  Buck twisted in his saddle to stare back down the long line of wagons. From here, he could barely make out the man handling the mud wagon’s lines, but, as he recalled the Irishman’s surly expression every time Buck came near him, he thought Gwen was probably right. Paddy O’Rourke would not be an easy man to handle. But was that reason enough to suspect him of murder or sabotage?

  They’d barely crossed into Idaho Territory when they met their first southbound caravan, a Leavitt Brothers train out of Ogden, returning from its first run of the season. The two outfits passed without stopping, although Buck reined to one side to talk with the Leavitt captain, a grizzled Mormon named Hans Schutz. Buck was eager to hear about the condition of the road to the north, and the progress of the first Box K train, led by Lew Walker.

  Schutz’s report on the road was about what Buck expected—hard and dry for the most part, with a few lingering bogs in the low places along the rivers. The higher elevations over Monida Pass, going into Montana Territory, would be the worst, the old German predicted.

  “Over Monida dere is still snow,” Hans warned. “You take care in dat places, you hear? A spot or two, to the axles you vill sink if you are not vatchful. Make you a base vit sapling poles if you have to. Dat’s vhat ve did.”

  Snow-packed roads could be either a blessing or a curse at this time of year, Buck knew. It all depended on how warm it was in the high country, how firm the trail.

  Lew Walker, Hans added, was already north of Camus Creek and approaching the mouth of Monida Cañon when the two trains had passed. “Yah, by now in Virginia City he vill be, contracting for a load of ore or lumber for to bring back vit him south.”

  “He’s making good time,” Buck observed.

  “Sure, dere’s one vhat knows his business, dat Lew Valker. Prob’ly around Monida you vill meet him, coming south vit full vagons, sure.”

  Buck thanked Hans for the information and the two wagon masters parted company. The Box K camped that night in a grassy oval in the middle of a waist-high forest of sage. Buck ate with the first mess again, discussing the day’s events with Pee-wee, Ray, and Joe. None of them expressed any real concern over Schutz’s opinion of the road, and only Ray pointed out the gloomily obvious consequence of a lingering storm.

  “We get a week-long rain and the bottom’ll drop outta all these roads,” he stated morosely.

  “Naw, these roads are too hard-packed,” Joe replied, fiddling with a briar-root pipe. “They’ve been haulin’ freight over ’em since the early ’Sixties.”

  “Don’t go tellin’ me what can happen to a road when it rains, Joe Perry,” Ray said churlishly. “I was haulin’ freight over these mountains when you was still a sucklin’ pup.”

  “Well, hell, pard, that’s right,” Joe said with a puckish grin. “I’d forgotten it was you ’n’ God who laid out these roads. You just go ahead and forget I said anything.”

  “You’re a damn’ fool, Perry,” Ray growled.

  “Likely that’s the problem,” Joe agreed solemnly. “The Lord’s work again, no doubt.”

  “Don’t go mockin’ the Lord, boy. I won’t stand for it.”

  Laughing, Peewee said: “Hey, Ray, remember the time we got bogged down on top of Malad?” He was watching Ray closely, a little anxiously, Buck thought. “You remember that?”

  Slowly Ray pulled his eyes away from Joe. “Well, I’ll say. Ol’ Lew was captainin’ that train, mebbe a year or two before Mase showed up.” His eyes brightened in the dancing light; he looked excited now, retelling an incident Buck knew had probably caused him to boil with rage at the time. But that was Ray, and, as far as it: went, that was Peewee and Joe, too, each as predictable in their own ways as blue skies in summer. Steadfast, loyal, resolute.

  Boring. The word popped unexpectedly into Buck’s mind, surprising him even if the voice didn’t. The voice belonged to Gwen. He remembered her using it that afternoon to describe buffalo. Or, properly, bison.

  He glanced around the fire at the faces of the men sitting with him, the word echoing in his skull. They were boring, all of them. Among the Box K teamsters, the subjects changed constantly but the conversations never did. There was a sameness about every tale as they were told and retold, embellished with age, sometimes festooned with half lies for humor. Like the time Ray’s jerkline broke making the turn onto Montana Street in Corinne, and how his mules had instinctively continued on without guidance until they came to a stop in the middle of the Box K wagon yard. Or how Rossy had gotten turned around one night while ’hawking the remuda and drove the entire herd into a sleeping Shoshone village, up on the Blackfoot River. Laughing at the same jokes, ribbing one another for past mistakes, they were like a bunch of old married couples. It was the way their evenings passed, the way the miles passed, and ultimately, Buck supposed, it would be the way the years would pass, too.

  He lowered his eyes to the fire. Until that evening it had never occurred to him that there might be more to life than freighting, a goal loftier than skinning mules. The idea that there could be had been planted in his brain that afternoon by a slip of a girl he didn’t really respect or care for. He was a wagon boss at twenty-four, a full decade younger than most men who achieved that rank. Some didn’t reach it until they were closer to forty, and many never reached it at all. Soon he would be a husband, too, and with that, a son-in-law, his future laid out like a Sunday suit before church. Marriage was expected of him. Peewee, Ray, Nate—they all teased him about it, and probably wondered why it hadn’t come to pass yet.

  Sometimes, Buck wondered about that, too, his reluctance to take the final step. He thought Dulce would say yes if he asked her, but he never had. Pushing to his feet, he left the fire, the conversation behind him continuing uninterrupted.

  The night air was chilly, and his breath created a thin fog of the same translucent hue as the dusty starlight. The big, double-hitched freighters weren’t corralled in the traditional circular pattern made famous on the plains. There was less need of protection against marauding Indians here, and no buffalo herds to stampede the stock in the middle of the night. For convenience’s sake, Buck had ordered the train separated into two units, then brought the rear half up even with the front, forming a thirty-fbot-wide corridor that served no purpose other than to make communication between the front and rear of the caravan easier.

  Stepping over a wagon tongue, Buck made his way onto the plain west of camp. He didn’t consciously try to be quiet, it was just an old habit acquired early in life. Tonight it allowed him to approach within twenty feet of a couple of men standing together in the sage in front of him. Although too dark to make out individual features, he recognized both of them by their silhouettes—Mitch Kroll, tall, beefy, arrogant even in profile, and the small-boned, furtive Paddy O’Rourke, his narrow shoulders sloping like the sharp pitch of a barn roof.

  The pairing surprised Buck and he stopped. Although he didn’t call out, O’Rourke immediately spotted him. Cursing, the jehu spun, making for the rear of the train.

  “Hold up!” Buck called, but O’Rourke kept going, his short legs paddling rapidly.

  Mitch’s reaction was just the op
posite. He came deliberately through the sage, keeping as straight a line as the brush would allow. Recalling his earlier encounter with the teamster, Buck planted his feet wide for balance and let Mitch come to him.

  “What’re you up to now, bub? Spying on your own people?”

  “I was taking a walk. I didn’t expect to find you two out here.”

  “What did you expect to find?” Mitch stopped half a dozen feet away and casually slid a heavy-bladed butcher knife from his belt. Buck tensed but kept his hand away from his pistol. Grinning, Mitch fingered a plug of tobacco from his vest pocket.

  “What were you two doing out here?” Buck asked, feigning a calmness he didn’t feel.

  “How do you figure that’s any of your business?”

  “Anything that might affect the safety and progress of this train is my business, Mitch. You know that.”

  “Was I you, I’d come up with a better excuse,” Mitch replied, using his knife to pare a wedge of tobacco from the end of his plug. “That one’s weak.”

  Buck’s anger stirred, overriding caution. “What were you and O’Rourke talking about?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Suppose I make it my business?”

  Mitch returned the tobacco to his pocket but kept the big knife in his hand. “Don’t push it, McCready. I got a short fuse where idjits is concerned, I don’t care what title they’re sportin’ or whose daughter they’re sparkin’.”

  Buck let his breath out slowly. He sensed Mitch was trying to goad him into a fight, and feared that, sooner or later, they would have to have it out, just to see who was the better man. At least according to Mitch Kroll’s standards.

  But not here, Buck thought. Not in the dark, with Kroll holding a butcher knife. Keeping his voice level, he said: “How long have you known O’Rourke?”

  “Long enough.”

  “I’m asking you a question, Kroll.”

  “You’re askin’ too damn’ many questions.”

  “How long?”

  Mitch hesitated, his stubbled jaw working furiously. He looked like a bull ready to charge, then all of a sudden the wind went out of him, as it had that first time outside of Corinne—abruptly, without warning. Twisting at the waist, Mitch spat into the sage, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I met him in Arizona in ’Sixty-Eight.”

  “You two haven’t been acting like friends,” Buck observed.

  “Never said we was friends. Said I knew him in Arizona, in Prescott.”

  He could have been telling the truth, Buck knew, but something about the way he said it didn’t wash. Buck had been keeping an eye on the new men ever since they’d started for Montana, and neither Kroll nor O’Rourke had acted as if they’d ever seen one another before. “Something’s going on here, Kroll. What is it?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on, bub. You’re just too jumpy.” He started forward and Buck closed his right hand into a fist, but Mitch walked past him as if he didn’t exist, continuing on to the wagons.

  Buck’s hand rose to the coils of Mase’s bullwhip as if seeking his old friend’s reassurance through the whip’s leather weaves. He was glad his conversation with Kroll had come to an end without violence. He wouldn’t have backed down if the burly teamster had pushed it, but he hadn’t been looking forward to a fight. The fact was, with or without a knife, he wasn’t sure he could whip Kroll.

  Although Buck had thought they were alone, he wasn’t all that surprised when a shadow detached itself from the side of a wagon and glided toward him. He peered into the darkness, then smiled.

  “He’s a sparky one, ol’ Kroll is,” Nate said.

  “Some,” Buck agreed.

  “You got to watch yourself around him, boss,” Nate added seriously. “He’s about as mean as they come, and I’ve seen some mean ones in my day.”

  “I won’t let him walk all over me like a headstrong mule.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about Mitchell Kroll, and not in any of them did I ever hear of him backin’ away from a fight the way he’s backed away from you twice now.”

  “I know.”

  “It don’t make sense.”

  “I know.”

  “He might not do it a third time. Third time, he might just kill you.”

  “He might.”

  “He easy could, Buck. It’s just that simple. Mitchell Kroll’s a killer.”

  “Maybe he ain’t as bad as the stories make him out to be,” Buck suggested.

  “You want to count your life on that?”

  Buck gave the older man a curious look. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

  The tall man’s teeth shone whitely in his black face. “Why, just keepin’ an eye on things.”

  “Watching my back?”

  “Kinda worked out that way, didn’t it?” Nate started to turn away, then hesitated. “You got to watch out for yourself, Buck, closer than you ever done before. Whoever killed Mase is still out there.”

  “You think Kroll could be involved?”

  “I don’t know what Mitchell Kroll is or ain’t involved in, but we’ve all heard stories about him. If he can push you into a fight, ain’t a jury west of the Mississippi gonna put him in jail for breakin’ your neck. Not that it’d matter to you, but it’d sure matter to little Dulce. Matter to the rest of us, too.”

  Buck was touched by the sincerity of the muleskinner’s words. “Thanks, Nate.”

  “Shoo, don’t be thankin’ me. You just get this train through in one piece, so we can go back to bein’ a normal crew again. This high-stakes gamblin’ is for younger men, not us old geezers.”

  Buck smiled as Nate made his way toward the wagons. After a moment, forgetting why he’d come out here in the first place, he followed the muleskinner back to camp.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They passed Malad City on their third day out, fifty-odd miles north of Corinne and the only real town they would come to between the borders of Utah and Montana Territories. There wasn’t much to the place, just a ramshackle collection of small adobe and log buildings surrounding a relay station, the town’s single street pounded to a fine powder by passing traffic.

  Buck led the train through town without stopping and kept it rolling for several more miles before he ordered a camp made near the base of the Malad Mountains. He was pulling the saddle from Zeke’s back when Gwen rode up on her chestnut. Flashing a saucy smile, she said: “It’s still light, let’s take a ride.”

  Buck dumped his gear in the grass, then pulled a brush from his saddlebags and set to work on the mule’s sweaty back. “Not tonight. Maybe when we reach the end of the trail in Montana.”

  “Why, Mister McCready, are you intimidated by the thought of being alone with me?”

  “Not so much intimidated as concerned about the evening chores. The reason we stopped early tonight is because we’ve got a long climb ahead of us tomorrow. We’ll.…”

  He shut up when he realized she was no longer listening. The rapid drumming of hoofs came to him from the south, and he stepped away from Zeke’s side for a better view. A stagecoach was coming up the road at a good clip, its driver perched on top of the high box with his boots braced firmly against the foot-board. Buck thought for a moment that it might be a runaway team, then recognized it as one of Gilmer and Salisbury’s express coaches, bound for Montana. Gilmer and Salisbury kept their express rigs running day and night, switching hitches every ten to fifteen miles, depending on the lay of the land. It was a hard run on drivers and horses alike, and even the passengers came out at the other end looking quite a bit worse for wear, but, if a man was determined to reach Montana in a hurry, an express was the way to go.

  As the stage rattled past, Gwen’s mouth parted in surprise, her eyes widened. Following the direction of her gaze, Buck saw a man’s face framed in the coach’s forward window—wide and square-jawed, his gray hair clamped down under an expensive hat. Muttonchops whiskers gave him the look of a full-maned African lion, but his e
xpression remained inscrutable as he stared at the tableau of wagons parked in the tall sage, the beautiful woman sitting her red horse beside it in the late afternoon light. Then he was gone, leaning back from the window as the coach rolled swiftly onward.

  “Something wrong, Miss Haywood?” Buck asked gently.

  She looked at him numbly for a second. “Why, no, I was … just watching.” Then something snapped in her eyes and the numbness vanished; a smile spread across her face like slim wings. “And what is this miss business? I thought we’d agreed it was Gwen.”

  “All right, but if there’s something I should know about.…”

  “If anything arises that I think you should know about, I shall rush to your side with the information.” She lifted her reins. “Now, if I can’t interest you in an evening’s excursion, perhaps I can talk Thad into one.”

  “Don’t be gone too long.”

  “I sha’n’t,” she replied, her smile undiminished.

  “I mean it,” Buck said. “Be back before dark.”

  She saluted him in the same sloppily patronizing manner she’d used in Jock’s office, then wheeled her horse and trotted toward the road. Collins caught up with her without being summoned and the two of them kicked their mounts into easy canters.

  Buck finished caring for Zeke, then turned him loose with the remuda. While Rossy and Manuel watched over the mules, the teamsters inspected their rigs. Even the independents who had never been this way before could see what they faced on the morrow. Buck pitched in where he could, helping go over wagon tongues and undercarriages, looking for splits that could snap under stress. He was especially careful to check the hemp straps that secured the oddly shaped pieces from BMC—the smokestack, the boilers, the steam engines. Everyone checked their brakes. With the climb and descent that awaited them, that was a given.

  Most wagons had two sets of brakes, the first a wooden pad that worked off a standard lever on the side of the wagon, set or released by means of a rope that was handled by the teamster from the saddle. The second brake was called a drag. It was a shoe-like device that rode up under the wagon’s bed for most of a journey, and was only lowered for the steepest grades. A heavy chain bolted to the wagon’s frame was just long enough to allow the rear wheel to roll up onto the iron cradle of the shoe, creating a sort of skid that prevented the wheel from touching the ground or rolling. Of course that meant the mules were forced to pull the wagon as if one, and sometimes both of its rear wheels were locked, but that was never much of a problem on a downgrade steep enough to warrant the use of drags in the first place.