Davenport, himself, took an interest in the case, not enough to cause him to bestir himself forth from the Hotel Erle, but enough to send his representatives Arnholt Stebbins and Remy Markand to the jailhouse to investigate. Davenport’s millionaire status ensured that Assistant Deputy Osgood was most attentive to his wishes.
The Brothers of the Wolf, themselves intensely curious about the incident, attached themselves to Stebbins and Markand, using them to gain entry to the marshal’s office.
Harry Woods, editor of the pro-Cowboy newspaper The Nugget, gained access to the scene.
Also there were Lee Lindsey and Don Brown, who’d been there for the shootout in Cactus Patch and had brought eyewitness Linda Gordon to Tombstone.
Sam and Matt stood off to one side, eyeing Ringo and Curly Bill—who were eyeing them. “What’re you doing here?” Matt asked.
“Bob Farr was a friend of mine,” Ringo said.
“Mine, too,” said Bill.
“He was shot in the back,” Ringo added, his tone of voice boding ill for the perpretrators.
“Sorry,” Sam said. What else was there to say?
“Yeah, well, somebody’s going to be a whole lot sorrier,” Bill said. “What brings you here?”
“Good citizenship,” Sam said.
“We like to help people,” Matt said, open faced, showing every sign of meaning it.
“That what you were doing when you shot Justin Vollin?”
“He tried to jump our claim, Bill.”
“And the rest of his gang?”
“Them, too.”
“Well, you made a clean sweep of it.”
“Nice of you to say so.”
Ringo said, “Waco Brindle’s making noises about evening up on you two.”
“Is that right? He didn’t show much fight the last time we saw him,” Sam said.
“Waco’s a bag of wind. He’s a yellowbelly,” Matt said.
“Maybe we better talk to him again,” said Sam.
“Watch out—he’s a back shooter,” Curly Bill warned.
“I hate back shooters,” Ringo said feelingly. “They don’t deserve to live.”
Deputy Osgood came over to them. “Hush up now, the gal’s gonna tell her story.” He looked over the four of them, sour faced. “This is law-enforcement business. You don’t belong here. By all rights, I should put you out.”
“You would if you could.” Bill laughed.
Osgood pointedly ignored him. “I might need to call on you all to help out the law, what with Marshal Fred and the sheriff and them all out on the trail of them stage robbers. But no cutting up now, hear?”
“We’re here to help out,” Matt said.
“Uh-huh,” Osgood said. “Where’s them two bottles you promised?”
“I didn’t forget. Things got kind of busy in the rush. I’ll bring them along later, honest.”
“See that you do.”
The center of interest and the focus of all eyes was Linda Gordon, the young woman who’d fled Quirt Fane and Dorado at Cactus Patch. She sat in the marshal’s chair, the most comfortable chair in the office. It had been moved out from behind the desk and put to one side of it.
Those present grouped around her. Linda Gordon was sixteen, medium height, and weighed about one hundred and ten pounds. Her long blond hair was the color and texture of pale yellow cornsilk, spilling across her shoulders and down her back. Dark brown eyes contrasted with her fair hair and complexion. She was slender, but nicely rounded where it counted.
One of the women at Cactus Patch had fitted her out with a clean dress to replace her torn and dirty garments. She still wore her original shoes, a pair of lace-up, flat-heeled ankle boots.
Linda bore the marks of her ordeal, her well-tanned face showing exposure to the fierce desert sun. Her skin was peeling, her pale lips were cracked and parched. Her face and arms were scratched, bruised.
She had a firm mouth and a prominent, outthrust chin, a family trait she’d inherited from her father, Mal Gordon. There was strength in her, strength buttressed by the freshness and vitality of youth. She sipped water from a tin cup, moistening her cracked lips.
Nugget editor Harry Woods had strengthened it with a dash of brandy from his ever-ready pocket flask, to brace her up. Woods prompted her in telling her story, Assistant Deputy Osgood’s people skills being somewhat lacking, especially when it came to eliciting confidence and candor from young women.
“You’re safe here, among friends. No one can hurt you now,” Woods said. “I hate to bother you after all you’ve been through. But the sooner we know what we’re dealing with, the sooner we can get to work to do something about it.
“Lindsey and Brown here told us some of it, but you’re the only one who knows the whole story. The only one who can tell it all.”
“I’ll tell. They did all they could to stop me from talking. Nothing could stop me now,” Linda Gordon said.
NINE
This is the tale told by Linda Gordon:
Land! Free land! Prime real estate located in the Sacramento River valley of the Golden State of California! Rich bottom land, loamy black, well watered. Just throw handfuls of seeds upon the earth and sure enough, in due season, up sprouts massive crops of vegetables: red-ripe tomatoes, squash, beets, corn, wheat, you name it.
No savage Indian tribes lurking omnipresent to fall on the hapless yeoman farmer.
No need to wear a gun while tilling the fields. No fear of leaving wife and children unguarded back at the farmhouse, at the tender mercies of murdering savages.
The price? Best of all: free! Each tract of land is there for the taking, for the bold venturer with energy and gumption enough to stake his claim and make it his.
Public land, by virtue of a new Homestead Act passed by a bountiful government on behalf of its land-hungry masses!
So read the promotional literature on the handbills and proclamations circulated throughout the nation to pubicize the offering of a new Homestead Act.
It looked like a lifeline to Malcolm “Mal” Gordon, a stubborn, hardworking man who’d suffered more than his share of bad luck and hard times.
To his wife he said, “This is our big chance, Fran, and not a minute too soon, now that the lode’s played out and the town’s gone bust.”
He wasn’t talking to convince his spouse, Frances Gordon, who, being married to an inflexible hardnose like Mal, required her to be even more long suffering than he. Perhaps he sought to convince himself. What she thought didn’t matter, once he’d made his mind up. A man followed his own counsel only, for good or ill—that was the gospel according to Mal Gordon.
The Gordons—Mal, wife Fran, and daughter, Linda—made their home in Bear Paw, a mining boomtown on the front range of the Rockies near Denver, Colorado. Gordon was not a miner but a farmer. Miners have to eat, though, and Gordon farmed a piece of land outside Bear Paw, raising crops to sell in town. Then the silver lode played out and the boom went bust
“Most of the miners have already moved on, and only the diehards are left. Bear Paw’s gone belly-up. It’ll be a ghost town soon. No miners, no market for our crops. The nearest market’s down on the flat. It wouldn’t pay to haul them down there. The wear and tear’d kill off the horses, leaving us worse off than we are now,” Mal said.
“We have to move on in any case. We can’t survive another winter in the mountains. This way, we have some place to move to,” he went on, off on another tirade.
“Now, Mal Gordon is nobody’s fool. I’ve got sense enough not to believe a lot of pie-in-the-sky promises. But the fact is that the land is there in Sacramento. The government’s making it available to homesteaders. I’ve seen the proclamations and so have you. And whatever it is, free California land’s better than what we’ve got to look forward to here. All we’ve got to do is get there and take it.”
“California’s a long way off, Mal,” Fran said wearily, sighing. She did a lot of sighing. Being married to Mal Gordon was a wearying thing. �
��We’ve got to cross the mountains, then the desert, then more mountains before we get there. . . .”
“Nobody said it’s going to be easy. If it was, they wouldn’t be giving the land away. But it can be done. It has been done, by men not as good as me, lots of them. It’s being done every day. It’s not like the days of ’forty-nine. The trail’s blazed, well-known. And we won’t be alone. Others from Bear Paw are going, too, our friends and neighbors—”
“Friends, Mal?” Fran said, a bit sharply.
Mal colored, his face reddening. “Neighbors, anyhow. At least they’re not strangers. No crooks or malingerers . . . not much, anyhow.”
So it was. It was a done deal. There was no other choice, not really. Bear Paw was already close to being a ghost town. There were no jobs to be found in Denver, Colorado Springs, or wherever. Not for Mal Gordon. He was a farmer born and bred. Farming was what he did and that’s all there was to it. If he couldn’t farm here, he’d farm somewhere else, on the far edge of the continent in the Sacramento River valley, if need be.
Henry McGee was mayor of Bear Paw, when there’d been a town to be mayor of. He was white haired, beak nosed, and spry. Abigail was his wife. Their kids were long grown up and scattered across the country raising their own families now.
McGee had a plan, which he pitched at a meeting to the last handful of settlers still residing in Bear Paw:
“In numbers there is strength; in union there is strength. We shall go to California together. We know each other, know there are no thieves and cutthroats among us.”
That was a big worry about hitting the trail, the danger of falling among thieves and cutthroats, a very real danger. Not to mention wild Indians, including the dread Apaches, whose lands they must cross.
McGee roped eight families into his plan. They sold their possessions to raise money for the trip, buying wagons, horses, provisions. July was their departure date. A late start, but it couldn’t be helped. It took that long for the experts to confirm that the silver lode which had made the town was well and truly finished.
The pilgrims crossed the mountain passes, descending the western range to the flat. They followed the old Santa Fe Trail to Taos in New Mexico Territory, and were joined by several wagons of emigrants along the way.
From Taos, they set forth on the Overland Stagecoach route, winding southwest. It would ultimately take them through Arizona and Nevada territories, across the Sierra Nevadas into California.
McGee and the Bear Paw folks hoped to attach themselves to a larger wagon train for the rest of the journey. But few wagons were going west that season. Apache war chief Victorio had jumped the reservation earlier in the year, taking hundreds of his braves with him.
The braves had unleashed bitter guerilla warfare throughout their onetime home grounds in Arizona and New Mexico. In less than a year, they had slain close to one thousand white settlers—men, women, and children.
Many in the Bear Paw group were for stopping or turning back. But there was no real alternative. There was nothing to go back to and if they stopped, they’d eventually run out of supplies and starve.
Besides, the word was that Victorio and his tribe had fled south, into the Sierra Madres in Sonora, Mexico. The emigrants pressed on.
A day’s trek outside Lordsburg, the wagoneers made camp, bedding down for the night. The following dawn revealed that they’d been hit by horse thieves, who’d stolen a string of the animals undetected. It spelled disaster for the victims, left without enough horses to make proper teams to haul their wagons.
McGee managed to persuade the others to donate a horse or two each to make up the difference so their fellows could proceed. It was a tough sell, but he managed to make the case by mid-morning. As they were about to apportion the horses out to the victimized families, a stranger appeared.
The newcomer was an emigrant like themselves, driving a Conestoga wagon. He was not alone. With him was a woman and another man. Trailing his wagon was a lead rope to which was secured a string of horses—the same horses that had been stolen the night before.
The stranger hailed them, pulling up at their camp. “Howdy, folks. I’m Al Jensen. This here’s my wife, Carol, and my nephew Sonny Boy,” he said.
Al Jensen occupied the driver’s seat of the wagon, his big-knuckled, oversized hands holding the long reins of his team. He was in his mid-forties, tall, with long limbs. His curly salt-and-pepper hair was textured like sheep’s wool. Tricky mutton-chop side whiskers came down his cheeks, arching into a mustache and beard. His worn oval face was tobacco colored from sun and weathering. Warm moist brown eyes nestled in rings of laugh lines.
His hat had a round-topped crown and broad flat brim, like a preacher’s hat. A big-caliber Colt, holstered in an old leather rig, was worn on his right hip.
Seated beside him was his wife, Carol. She was about thirty. A big, floppy, colorless sunbonnet covered much of her face and head. Reddish-brown hair was tied up at the back of her neck. Her skin was a metallic golden brown. She had wide dark eyes, sharp cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and a full-lipped mouth turned down at the corners.
A lightning-bolt-shaped scar zigzagged along her left cheek, perhaps explaining why she sought to conceal her striking good looks under the sunbonnet. She seemed sullen, uncommunicative. A drab, shapeless Mother Hubbard shift and flat-soled, mid-calf, lace-up work boots completed her outfit. The baggy dress covered, but could not conceal a ripely curved physique.
Nephew Sonny Boy sat astride a roan gelding that was deep chested and strongly made.
Sonny Boy, too, was deep chested and strongly made. He was in his late twenties, with black hair, green eyes, thick features, strong jaw, and dimpled chin. Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, he wore twin guns strapped down.
McGee and some of the men went to the wagon. Mal Gordon hadn’t lost any horses himself. He just wanted to establish the Bear Paw emigrants’ right of ownership at the start.
Indicating the string tied to the rear of the wagon, he said, “Those’re our horses, mister!”
“I know. I saw them when you were passing through Lordsburg yesterday,” Jensen said. “I meant to introduce myself then and see if I could tie in with you, but a wagon wheel needed fixing and we were delayed.
“Some fellows tried to steal out horses early this morning. Sonny Boy and me opened fire on them and laced into them pretty good and they broke and run.”
Sonny Boy nodded and smirked, green eyes twinkling.
“Must’ve been the same bunch that hit us,” Henry McGee said. “What’d they look like?”
“Didn’t get too close a look at them. There was three of them. Mexes or ’breeds, I’d say. I think we hit one. There was blood on the ground. When they ran, they lost this string of horses. We rounded them up. We didn’t chase them—didn’t want to leave the missus alone, though Carol can take care of herself,” Jensen said. “She’s a danged good hand with a Winchester, ain’t you, dear?”
Carol nodded.
“We were lucky to come out of it as well as we did. Thought we recognized the animals as belonging to you all,” Jensen said.
“Uncle Al’s got an eye for horseflesh,” Sonny Boy chimed in.
“We’re following the westward trail same as you folks. I figured we’d run into you sooner or later. Glad it was sooner. A man can’t afford to lose a horse out here.”
“Ain’t it the truth!” said Ames Sutton, one of those who’d fallen prey to the thieves.
“Help yourself. I know you’ll be glad to get your animals back.”
The emigrants were relieved that Jensen wasn’t going to make any fuss about ownership. Others might not have been so broadminded, instead applying the principle of “finders keepers,” in which case things might have gotten ugly.
The owners untied the rope, leading the string away. “You sure are a lifesaver, mister. We’d have been in a mighty tough spot if you hadn’t come along now,” Henry McGee said.
“Folks have got to help out their ne
ighbors on the trail, that’s how I see it,” Al Jensen said.
“Me, too, but it ain’t everybody you find who feels that way. The fire’s still going. Step down and have some coffee with us.”
“Don’t mind if I do. Me and Sonny Boy’ll come along. Carol’ll stick with the wagon. She ain’t hungry anyway.”
Presently, Jensen and Sonny Boy sat on the ground near the fire, drinking black coffee out of tin cups. McGee and some of the Bear Paw men joined them.
“Where you bound, Mr. Jensen?” McGee asked.
“California—and call me Al.”
“Glad to, Al. I’m Henry McGee. Unity is strength, I always say. We’d admire to have you folks join up and travel with us for the rest of the way.”
“To tell the truth, Henry, I was hoping you’d ask. This is mighty lonesome country for three people and a wagon.”
Al Jensen, Carol, and Sonny Boy joined the Bear Paw wagon train. Jensen proved to be a sociable fellow, a companionable fellow traveler. He threw himself into the life of the emigrants without overstepping his bounds. He was ever ready to pitch in, lending a helping hand.
Never at a loss for a cheerful comment, quip, or pleasantry, he was a quick study, quick to learn the names and kinship of the wagoneer families. He liked people and they liked him. Even Mal Gordon warmed to him, in his grudging, guarded way. Linda Gordon thought Mr. Jensen was “nice.”
Al Jensen’s outgoing personality was balanced by the reclusive nature of his mate. Carol Jensen kept to herself, not exactly shunning the society of the other wives and mothers, but not seeking it out, either. She wasn’t one to coo over the youngsters, whose energetic antics she tolerated with tightlipped taciturnity.
Some of the wives thought she was unsociable because of the scar on her face, that it made her self-conscious around other people.
Sonny Boy was physically strong, a crack shot, and a fine horseman, three attributes respected by the men of the caravan. Sometimes he drank too much, causing his Uncle Al to have to rein him in with a sharp word several times. When tipsy, Sonny Boy was an amiable buffoon, clumsy but harmless, or so it seemed.
Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 10
