“Our one good eye brought us to your village,” Hank pointed out.
“And now it seems you both are blind,” Red Feather replied. “That does not seem better to me.”
“He’s right,” Paul said. When he saw the smug grin taking root on Hank’s face, he quickly added, “I mean Red Feather is right. If we don’t come up with a plan, then we’re just a pack of blind dogs wandering around hoping to stumble on a bone. My daughter doesn’t have the time for that kind of nonsense.”
“Are you certain your child was poisoned?” Red Feather asked.
“Yes. Would it help if you got a look at her?”
“I am not a medicine man,” the Comanche replied. “One sick child looks the same as another to me.”
“So if we’re supposed to believe that none of them raiders were using poison—” Hank said.
“Believe whatever you like,” Red Feather snapped. “I spoke the truth.”
“Fine, fine,” Hank continued. “All I meant to say was that if you know she was poisoned, then maybe you know someone else who uses a weapon like that. Or maybe you can think of someone else in your tribe who hates the white man enough to do more than break a few windows.”
“Every member of every tribe has reason to break more than the white man’s windows,” Red Feather pointed out.
“Good Lord,” Paul exclaimed. “How could I be so stupid?”
Both of the other two men forgot about their argument for the moment when they saw the startled expression on Paul’s face. “What’s got into you now?” Hank asked.
“If it was a snake, it would’ve bit me!”
Paul sat still for a moment, sifting through everything he was thinking before saying another word. Just when the other two were getting impatient, he told them, “Doc Swenson was sure about one thing and that was that both of my children were poisoned.”
“I thought you already knew that,” Hank grunted.
“But if the Comanche didn’t poison them,” he continued without taking notice of Hank’s comment, “then somebody else must have.”
“You think someone else shot that arrow through a window?”
“No. I think both my daughter and son were treated by the same man after they were hurt!”
Scowling even deeper than usual, Red Feather asked, “You think your doctor poisoned them?”
“No,” Paul said. “There was another kind of medicine man at the trading post that day. The kind that mixes his own tonics and sells them from the back of a wagon.”
“Are you talking about Leandro Prescott?” Hank asked.
“Yes! You know him?”
“We ain’t exactly close, but I buy laudanum from him all the time. I started drinking that stuff to relieve headaches. It does a whole lot more good for me than that, if you know what I’m saying.”
Paul and Red Feather both knew what Hank was saying but ignored it.
“This man you both know,” Red Feather said, “sells firewater and calls it medicine?”
“Well . . . yes.”
“He is your enemy?”
“No,” Paul replied. “We’ve been friends for some time.”
“Then why would he want to harm your children?”
“I don’t think he wasn’t trying to harm them.” Paul paused and his face darkened. “At least, he better not have meant to harm them.”
“Weren’t you there?” Hank asked. “Wouldn’t you have seen him do anything that would hurt those young ones?”
“What I saw was him clean off their wounds using some of the tonic he mixed up in the back of his wagon,” Paul said. “Far as I know, that stuff never hurt anyone, but maybe it was a bad batch or just wasn’t supposed to be mixed into an open wound. Right about now, it’s all I’ve got to go on.”
“Are you speaking about the tonic that is the color of whiskey and has sand in the bottom?” Red Feather asked.
“I don’t know if it was sand,” Paul said to him, “but there was some kind of grit at the bottom.”
“And it tasted of rust?”
As he thought back to the taste he’d gotten, Paul reflexively winced. “Something like that. Sounds like you know of it.”
“I do,” Red Feather said. “Much of that swill was sold to tribes all through the mountains and along the river. Some of them acted as if they’d been given firewater, and many became sick.”
“Firewater, huh?” Hank scoffed. “Sounds like Prescott, all right. He mixes a potent drink!”
“It is a kind of poison, to be sure,” the Comanche told Paul. “Although I cannot say for certain if it is the same poison that was given to your children. Those of us that were sick got better in a few days.”
“There’s one way to find out if that’s the stuff or not,” Paul said. “We’ve got to find Prescott and see what he’s got to say about it. Last time we spoke, he told me he was headed toward Leadville.”
“If he’s driving a wagon from that trading post into Leadville,” Hank said, “there’s only two trails that would suit him, and one of them was washed out in the last big rain.”
“I know this trail,” Red Feather announced. “We can get to it quickly, but it is a hard ride.”
“Let’s go,” Paul said. “The horses are up for it.” As he snapped his reins to follow the Comanche’s lead, Paul hoped his horse was up to the ride. More than that, he prayed he was up to it.
Chapter 20
Paul was no stranger to hard rides. In his younger days, when his backside hadn’t grown so accustomed to the feel of a wagon’s seat beneath it, he’d ridden through country that didn’t seem fit for a rodent to call home. He’d led horses through hip-deep Louisiana swamps. He’d crossed stretches of desert where the only thing to hear was the clap of iron horseshoes against arid rock. He’d even seen a good portion of the Rockies from several different angles. Even with all of that experience behind him, Paul hadn’t been fully prepared for the Comanche’s definition of what a hard ride truly was.
The worst part of the ride filled an entire day. In that time, the only words spoken between the three men were reports of bear sightings and requests to stop for a spell before someone fell from his saddle. Not a single one of those words came from Red Feather. The number of times the Comanche had spoken that day could be counted on one hand. By the time they’d finally made camp, Paul couldn’t remember what Red Feather had even said since he was too tired to recall his own name. He laid his head down on a rolled-up coat, closed his eyes, and slept so soundly that he barely felt as though he’d drifted off at all.
When his eyes snapped open again, Paul thought it was to a nightmare.
Something sharp scraped against his shoulder. A figure loomed over him, glaring down at Paul with sharp, predatory eyes. Paul wanted to reach for his gun but was too afraid to move.
“Time to go,” Red Feather said.
Paul caught his breath and let it out. “You scared me,” he said through a nervous chuckle.
Without taking a moment to share the awkward moment, Red Feather stepped over to where Hank was sleeping and slapped his shoulder with the side of his knife. Hank convulsed on the ground and fumbled for his pistol, which prompted Red Feather to pluck it from the holster strapped around Hank’s waist.
“Good God!” Hank exclaimed. “You tryin’ to scare me to death?”
Red Feather gave back Hank’s Colt by tossing it so the gun landed heavily on his chest. “Time to go.”
The trio ate a few scraps of bacon, drank some cool water, and resumed the treacherous course in front of them.
After seven grueling hours, Paul felt a strange warmth on his face. So far, he’d spent most of his time focused on the rump of the horse directly in front of him so he couldn’t get lost amid a particularly thick patch of woods where they’d spent that afternoon. Looking up, he realized the warmth came from sunlig
ht that had been blocked for too long. Even more shocking was the wide, mostly level terrain in front of him.
“What’s this?” Hank asked as he also emerged from the dense trees. “Did we take a wrong turn?”
“No,” Red Feather replied. “That is the trail to Leadville right in front of us.”
“So we’re done with that godforsaken shortcut?”
“Yes.”
Both Hank and Paul let out deep, relieved sighs. When he took another breath and surveyed the land in front of them, Paul felt invigorated. “How much farther to Leadville?”
“Haven’t you paid attention while we rode?” Red Feather asked.
“To be honest, I lost track of where we were after the twentieth cut I got from all those brambles and bare branches.”
“Shouldn’t be far,” Hank said. “I’d guess less than a day’s ride.”
“For once, he is right,” Red Feather said. “We’ll join up with the main trail, take it all the way into Leadville, and we should be there before nightfall.”
“Sounds good to me,” Paul said. “Lead the way.”
The Comanche and Hank galloped on ahead with Paul not too far behind. Already, the air was growing thinner from the increasing altitude of the ground beneath them. Although this was far from Paul’s first time into the Rockies, being within the majesty of their towering embrace never ceased to amaze him. Throughout most of the journey after he’d left his children’s bedside, the mountains always seemed to be on the horizon but just out of reach. Then, as soon as the woods had thinned out moments before, they appeared directly in front of them as if the mountains had been lurking in wait to pounce as soon as the riders had completed Red Feather’s gantlet. Once they’d begun riding along the trail to Leadville itself, the Rockies closed in on them from all sides.
They arrived in Leadville on schedule, and as they rode through town, Paul felt as if he hadn’t seen civilization for years. That wasn’t due so much to the hardships of the last few days, but from the constant wringing of hands he went through in regards to his children. He was doing everything he could for them, but he had no way of knowing if they were getting better or had taken a tragic turn for the worse. Rather than put himself through the turmoil of those somber thoughts, he set himself back onto the path before him.
“There’s Harrison Avenue,” Hank said. “That’ll take us downtown. Is that where we should be headed?”
After thinking for a moment, Paul replied, “I recall him saying something about visiting the Board of Trade. Downtown seems like a good place to start. Either that or city hall or possibly the business district.”
Hank grinned and nodded. “I know the place. It ain’t far.” He then led the way to Harrison Avenue.
Leadville was a town that had its own distinct energy. Being a well-known spot on the gambling circuit, it was filled with saloons, gaming emporiums, and all the services that catered to patrons of such places. David had pestered his father several times to go there, and Paul had always insisted that they wait until he was older. Once he got a look at downtown Leadville, Paul knew his judgment in that regard had been perfectly sound.
The first thing he saw was a Western Union office on the corner of East Second and Harrison. Farther down the street were a clothing store and the offices of the Leadville Chronicle. From then on, saloons sprouted up like mushrooms around a dead tree stump. North of Third Street, several of them were lined up in a row. Every last one was filled with raucous sounds, men in varying stages of inebriation, and women in varying stages of undress.
“Looks like it’s going to be a wild night,” Paul mused.
Hank chuckled once. “Every night’s pretty wild around here.”
“Where are the offices for the Board of Trade?”
Hank reined his horse to a stop near a cross street that looked more like an alleyway. “Right over yonder,” he said while nodding to the other side of Harrison. “Don’t know if I’d call it much of an office, though.”
The Board of Trade was actually a saloon. Although it was one of the quieter ones in sight, that was akin to calling one particular cloud in a roiling storm more tranquil than the rest. At the very least, there were no soiled doves in sight and no drunks collapsed anywhere on the street directly in front of the place.
“That ain’t one of my favorite places to spend an evening,” Hank said.
Draping a coat over his shoulders, Red Feather glanced up the street to where three more large saloons had been built in a row. “Those are more to your liking, I’d imagine.”
Hank twisted in his saddle to get a look for himself. “Yeah,” he said wistfully. “The Monarch’s up that way. Great place. Cheap beer and cheaper women, if you know what I mean.”
“It is never difficult to know what you mean,” the Comanche replied.
“Great,” Paul said. “If you’d like to go there and have a drink or two, be my guest.”
“I thought you’d want some help,” Hank said.
“Prescott is a friend of mine. I doubt I’ll need any help.”
“He may not be much of a friend once you accuse him of poisoning your young’uns,” Hank pointed out. “Fact is, most men tend to get downright nasty when accusations start to fly.”
“I agree,” Red Feather chimed in. “If this medicine man is able to harm children, he may be capable of many other things.”
“Let me just get a feel for the situation,” Paul told them both. “However things go, I’ve got to believe they’ll go better if he’s talking to me instead of me and two others wearing guns.”
Anxious to make his way down to the rowdier section of the street, Hank shrugged and grunted, “Suit yourself. You know where to find me.”
Red Feather stayed put after Hank rode away. “Are you sure you don’t want someone to watch over you?” the Comanche asked. “I could stay behind and wait until there is trouble. If there is no trouble, then nobody needs to know about me.”
“There are plenty of folks on this street,” Paul said as he motioned toward the men and women flowing past them in every direction. “Surely someone’s bound to have noticed you.”
“And they will forget as soon as I leave their sight. Most people see only what they need to see.”
“Why so much concern all of a sudden?”
“Buffalo Horn sent me to help and guide you. That is my job and I will do it. Also,” Red Feather added grudgingly, “I am a father as well. If my little ones were sick, I hope someone would help and guide me.”
“Much obliged.” Paul was just about to send the Comanche to keep an eye on Hank but got a better idea instead. “Something that could be a big help is if we found Prescott’s wagon. It’s tall and has an awning on one side that can be folded out to give him a place to sell his wares.”
Red Feather nodded. “I have seen many white men selling their oils and salts. Their wagons are hard to miss.”
“Hopefully I won’t be long in there,” Paul said as he dismounted and cinched his reins around a wooden rail. “When I’m done, I suppose I’ll join Hank at the Monarch.”
“I will look for you there.” Without another word, the Comanche pointed his horse toward the narrow side street and rode away.
A cold wind blew through town, carrying with it a biting chill from the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Paul drew his jacket in tight around him and stepped up to the front door. Before opening it, he took a walk around the outside of the place to see if he might be able to spot Prescott’s wagon on his own. When he found nothing but a few small carriages and a row of horses tied to a long rail beneath an awning behind the building, he made his way inside the Board of Trade Saloon. Upon first hearing the name of the place back in Keystone Pass, he’d expected to find clerks sitting at desks or tellers within bankers’ cages to discuss matters of business and commerce. Instead he saw a short bar at the back of a large
room, a row of faro tables on one side, and round poker tables scattered throughout most of the rest of the available floor space. Paul had done some gambling in his youth but not a lot of winning. Even after years of being away from the tables, he had no trouble recognizing the large amounts of money piled at some of those card games and the slick, professional look of the men making the bets.
As he approached the bar, Paul nearly walked straight past an attractive young woman wearing a simple dress that hugged a nicely rounded body. She stepped in front of him just enough to catch his eye and asked, “What would you like, mister?”
“Oh . . . um . . . I’m not interested,” Paul replied.
“Are you sure? You seem like you could use something special.”
“You’re real pretty and all, but I . . .”
Her face became even prettier when it was adorned with a warm smile. She gave him a little giggle and put a hand gently on his elbow. “No need to be so nervous,” she said. “I was asking if you wanted something to eat.”
Paul looked around and saw that not every table was occupied by cardplayers. Some of the people sitting there were just folks having a conversation over a plate of food. And when he saw those plates of food, Paul was reminded of just how much dry jerky and cold beans he’d eaten in the last couple of days.
“You look hungry,” the young woman said. “There’s a nice hot batch of beef and vegetable stew in back. Would you like a bowl?”
“Oh, dear God, yes.”
“How about some bread or biscuits to go along with it?”
Already taking a seat at one of the tables, Paul replied, “Biscuits, please,” before he knew what he was doing. Even though he still had a job to do, his body wouldn’t allow him to get up from that chair until he’d gotten something to eat. “How long will it take for the stew to get here?” he asked.
“You really are hungry! I’ll go fetch you a bowl right now and be back as quickly as I can.”
True to her word, the server returned with a bowl of stew and a small plate of biscuits before Paul had a chance to rethink his decision to take the time to have lunch. The instant he drew some of the steam rising from that bowl in through his nostrils, he felt as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. He attacked the meal with vigor and only paused so he could swallow without choking.
The Dangerous Land Page 13
