by Stephen Bly
“Now remember, Drift, there was no shootout on this train. No gun was discharged.” Brannon tried to give the boy something of importance to tell. “I have shaken hands with the President of our country and so did Lewis and Clark, only for them, it was President Jefferson instead of President Roosevelt, and they surely are famous.”
The boy’s face brightened and he ran off towards his parents, who stole glances in his direction. He did a kind of wave and nod, but they turned their heads away.
Brannon browsed the fields and hills they passed, filled with town sites, barbed wire fences, painted barns. A landscape both frontier and modern. One scene portrayed a slipshod claim shack with a brand new motorcar parked outside.
Farmers and their families had come in droves at the enticement of railroad advertisements to fill up and fertilize the land, with promises of low prices and ownership. One way to populate the West in record time. Otherwise the tracks were laid on vast expanses of empty prairies and wilderness.
Before the railroads, those were the days. Vacant… wild… free.
Back when men like Stuart Brannon and Tom Wiseman established ranches, raised their families, tried to tame the borderlands by self-protection and the Code of the West before official law ruled.
In 1898 Wiseman called at the Triple B with a request, “We’re starting a volunteer cowboy regiment. Can you help us get some recruits?” Brannon didn’t hesitate. He did his part to enable them to be one of the first in the West to fill their quota to fight in the Spanish-American war.
Some mighty excellent men have been part of A Troop and Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Tom has served his country well.
Now Tom Wiseman needed someone in this country to come to his aid. How, exactly, Brannon didn’t know. He couldn’t believe that anyone could get the draw on his friend.
When Lady Harriet Reed-Fletcher learned that Brannon was headed to Portland, she hurried back a telegram of her own.
You’re needed in Gearhart. The orphans need you. Besides, Tom Wiseman last seen near here. We can help. Will meet you at Gearhart depot. Your friend always, Harriet.
Two
The train made a stop at the crowded Portland depot. Brannon took time to admire the impressive Italian Renaissance style in brick, stucco and sandstone, built in a graceful curve that confronted downtown. He craned his neck at the tall clock tower that he figured rose to a hundred fifty feet or so.
Posters everywhere advertised trolley lines, steamers, and exhibits for the Centennial Exposition. Brannon detected languages spoken from every conceivable country, a gibberish of noise. He expected to see the Tower of Babel rising to the cobalt, celestial sky. Or flames, tongues of fire, to appear and settle on their heads.
An excited, but orderly, procession of humanity buzzed and milled around him. Families rushed to coaches or ticket booths. Suited businessmen gathered in groups. Peddlers pushed carts full of soap, produce, flowers and amenities of all kinds. Free enterprise in its purest form.
Brannon gazed at signs that pointed out directions to the recently constructed baseball stadium at Vaughn Street Park and Guild’s Lake, the setting for the huge fair. One billboard boasted the motto: “Westward The Course of Empire Takes Its Way.”
Brannon opened one of the back cars. Tres Vientos reared up at the sight of him and pawed to get out. “I dread letting you out here in the public square, boy, but I know you’re gettin’ stiff and rank. You need some exercise. Ignore all that noise and confusion.” The big black horse tossed his head, shaking his ebony mane.
Brannon led him out for a short walk, then gently eased up into the saddle. Tres Vientos reared up again and veered into the traffic. Horns blared. Brakes squealed. Drivers yelled as they veered around and past them. Tres Vientos shook his head side to side in jerks and tosses. He pulled hard against the reins.
“Hey, you,” a man shouted. “Mr. Brannon, stop. We want to talk to you.”
Brannon yanked the reins on Tres Vientos and turned him around. Three in the crowd rushed towards him. Two of them he recognized as the brown-suited men on the train.
Brannon tried to steer the horse in their direction, but he galloped down the street the other way, weaving between pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, flower carts and fruit stands. Hats flew. People fell. Screams echoed everywhere.
Tres Vientos galloped past ticket booths and rumbled towards a huge colonnade entrance. Brannon groaned as he wondered how the big horse would choose an opening quick enough not to crash into one of the columns or visitors to the Exposition. Brannon tried to signal with his thighs, his knees, his heels, his shouts. Tres Vientos was too far gone.
They squeezed through an opening under the words “Westward The Course of Empire Takes Its Way,” but not without a painful scrape on Brannon’s left leg. Tres Vientos plummeted down a path headed to the Bridge of All Nations. The horse pounded across the wooden structure built to imitate solid masonry. More than two thousand feet long, it crossed Guild’s Lake dotted with manmade islands and singing gondoliers. A huge hot air balloon flew overhead with arms waving over the side. Tres Vientos refused to slow until they heaved in front of a building with two tall towers at the end of the peninsula with the title, United States Government.
“Whoa, boy, you’ve got us in a heap of trouble.” Sweat soaked Brannon’s shirt. He reached up to straighten his cocked black Stetson hat.
Plaid jackets and striped pants don’t make a quiet fashion statement. Neither do they calm a nervous horse. A man dressed like this crept close and opened a mahogany Commodore camera on the walk in front of them.
Surely he is not dumb enough to try to take our photograph.
The black horse kicked and wheeled around to circle a bronze statue of Sacagawea with baby in cradleboard, hand raised high to the west. But Tres Vientos shot east across another bridge to the other side of the Exposition.
Round they went as they streaked by parks, benches and gardens. Brannon strained forward to keep his balance. Flashes of gleaming white structures with archways, fluted columns and red roofs, manicured landscapes, domes and cupolas blurred on either side. Crammed squares of vendors hawked their wares. Street musicians and a team of acrobats performed on the walkway.
Far beyond the striated, fat cone of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, loomed. Brannon almost slowed his steed beside a Centennial Park, but Tres Vientos trotted to the amusement center and the whirlwind ride. A loud boom startled the horse into full gallop again. Parasol-twirling ladies gawked. Bespectacled gentlemen backed away. This world fair may have been constructed as a fantasy land, a fairy tale for visitors, but at the moment, it was a full-blown nightmare for Brannon.
I so want to be back at the Triple B ranch in Arizona. “Whoa, boy, whoa.”
Brannon re-centered himself, body upright, to get in rhythm with the horse. He focused to stay on, to keep riding no matter what. “Relax, boy, it’s okay. Stay calm,” he said in his best monotone. He tried a squeeze and release motion until Tres Vientos began to slow way down.
Brannon finally got him stopped near a huge log cabin building, very different in style than the other Spanish Renaissance architecture they passed. Walls were made of massive logs and fronted by a portico of tree trunks. A black canvas-covered wagon pulled by two teams of gray, braying mules was parked in front. One of the mules gave a half-hearted, sideways kick at Brannon. The others looked him over in that curious, quizzical way typical of the dim-witted brutes.
As Brannon tied Tres Vientos to a post, bells and whistles, loud clops of hooves and a whir of wheels squalled behind them. With white horses in the lead, three fire engines surrounded them. Brannon held tight as his horse attempted to whirl and buck.
At least six uniformed men from each red truck jumped out, plus a man in a black suit, starched white collar and harsh part down the middle of his hair above a stern, in-charge face.
They’ve got a fire department? This is an exposition in full party mode, but equipped like a city.<
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The dark-suited man about Brannon’s height called out, “What’s going on here?”
Brannon began to apologize when a gray- haired, gray-bearded man from the log building interrupted. “Good afternoon, Mr. Goode, you do know who this man is?”
A murmur rose up from the firemen as they whispered. Mr. Goode didn’t reply. “Stuart, this is Mr. Henry Goode, President of the Board of Directors for the Centennial. Mr. Goode, I’d like to introduce you to the one and only, Stuart Brannon, the real live hero of The Wild West Series dime novels. He’s here to help us promote the Exposition and did a better job than I expected.”
“Miller,” Brannon spewed out. Hawthorne H. Miller? Out of this big, wide world, how did he and I get connected again? I’m not here to do anything for him. And what does he mean our dime novels? I’ve never seen a single dime. Not that I care about that.
“You’re supposed to apply for special events. I don’t have any paperwork concerning this display. It’s not on our records.”
“That’s true,” Miller blurted. “I did not know exactly what day Mr. Brannon would appear. He is as big a surprise for me as he is for you. But I do vouch for his identity.”
“Very good, Mr. Miller. We do appreciate any legitimate entertainment. But we also have a protocol. The men will ride back to the fire station and I’ll get busy with the business of the Exposition. Stop by and fill out the proper papers, please.” He tipped his hat first to Miller, then to Brannon.
With much noise and bluster about who followed whom, the fire trucks caravanned back down the street.
Brannon offered a quick word of thanks to Miller, then reached for Tres Vientos’ reins. “Not so quick, Mr. Brannon. The least you could do is come in and sign some books for me.”
Brannon started to protest and wondered how much longer until the train pulled out for Gearhart. He sighed, tied up Tres Vientos, and followed Miller into the huge log building.
Inside Brannon gazed at an interior like the nave of a cathedral. Colonnades of tree trunks supported a high ceiling. Multitudes of displays exhibited samples of lumber, dioramas of wildlife such as elk and panthers, plus galleries of Indian photographs and artwork. He admired one of a youthful barefoot Indian who sprinted the length of a hilltop at dusk and held high a lighted torch. Below, villagers surrounded and attacked by another tribe, craned their necks up to the torch bearer. The painting was captioned “Catcher-Of-The-Sun Runs High.”
Then, he stared in stunned amazement at a large framed image of himself with school-teacher Rose Creek in her beaded buckskins, moccasins, and her long, raven hair braided.
That day at Paradise Meadow.
“I don’t like this any more than you, Stuart,” Rose had told him. “Posing as a trinket in these buckskins for some promoter like Miller is not my idea of dignity. But he did help us when we needed him.”
As compensation for his secreting an infamous prisoner out of town… whom vigilantes wanted to hang. Appreciated, but I wonder if he would have done it otherwise. He always has an angle for everything… and it usually means exploiting me.
Brannon hurried past the gallery of photographs and followed Miller to a table display of yellow-paged, paperback dime novels, small enough to fit in a soldier’s or sailor’s pocket, all of them with Hawthorne Miller’s name prominent on the covers. Each of them purported to be adventures of Stuart Brannon, illustrated and fantasized. A large circle surrounded the figure of ten cents.
“Be much obliged for your autographs,” Miller said.
“I don’t know if I could copy the signature that you use all the time,” Brannon commented. “Folks might think I’m forging my own name.”
Miller’s face turned a shade of crimson.
Brannon glanced at some of the titles: Brannon Blasts the Collectors, Brannon of the Wild West Series. He noticed the lithograph of himself and Rose Creek on the cover of Stuart Brannon Tames the Town. He picked up one entitled The Man Who Killed Stuart Brannon, flipped the pages and stopped at number 32:
“You think you’re going to kill me?”
Stale sweat hung thick as cigarette smoke as the startled occupants of the long, narrow saloon faded into the walls like a cheap backdrop curtain for a traveling stage play.
“I’ve got a gun. You have a knife. Seems unavoidable at the moment.” The tall, broad shouldered man with the drawn gun didn’t flinch. “Turn Jenny loose and we’ll renegotiate.”
The girl stumbled as she was yanked one step closer to the front door. “Back away, mister, and I’ll let her go unharmed.”
“Make your play.” The man with the gun inched his way to the right of the overturned table. “I’m tired.”
The man waved the knife like a painter at a grand easel. “You can’t kill me. Do you know who I am?”
“No, but your mama does.” He scooted to the right and slid another step closer. “I don’t think this is her proudest hour.”
As if unveiling a statue, the knife-wielder shouted, “I am Argentiferous Jones. I’m the man who killed Stuart Brannon.”
“So, you’re the one?”
“Yep. Causes you to pause and ponder, don’t it?”
“Not really. I’m Stuart Brannon and I’m very much alive.”
Brannon laid down the book with care, brushed it off with his hand as though to clear dust and germs, raised that same hand into a clenched fist… and punched Hawthorne Miller in the nose.
Hawthorne Miller screamed and grabbed for a handkerchief. Blood gushed down his white shirt.
Brannon stormed for the door, untied Tres Vientos’ reins, and climbed in the Visalia saddle. “I have information about what happened to Tom Wiseman,” Miller yelled after him. “But I won’t tell you. Not ever. Never. No matter what. You’re no hero, Stuart Brannon. You’re a coward. That’s what you are. And I can make you into a villain anytime I want. I’ve got the power. You better believe it.”
Brannon rode on until he couldn’t hear Miller’s rants anymore, afraid to turn his horse around and get himself, Miller or Tres Vientos riled again.
How on earth did that man even know I was looking for Tom? I shouldn’t have hit him. I should have stayed calm and friendly, fed into his confidence. Maybe he does know something. Perhaps I’d be going to find Tom right now. But I can’t be dishonest like that. So I had to slug him? Am I a violent man? Lord, help me with my temper.
Just as he approached the French exhibit, several men on horseback dressed as Swiss Guards rode beside him. They handed him a card and returned to the entrance.
He turned over the Official Mailing Card of the Lewis & Clark Centennial with a picture of the exhibit by France on the front. On the back it read: Stewart: Meet me in the Louis XIV Drawing Room. Wear your hat. Tom.
Three
Tom Wiseman had helped Brannon with several legal wrangles and filing of papers through the years, such as the adoption papers for Lightfoot when their friend Judge Quilici died since he knew the man who directed the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And what about the Spanish Land Grant fraud over his Arizona property? Tom Wiseman could spell Brannon’s given name. Second, that cursive handwriting… Tom preferred to print. This note wasn’t from Tom.
But Brannon was curious… and anxious to solve the mystery that surrounded his old friend Tom. He didn’t want to miss another opportunity, however suspicious. Perhaps some clue lurked in the Louis XIV Drawing Room.
He saluted at the Swiss Guards and stepped into an opulent display of European flourishes and centuries-old artifacts, now in view of crowds of vacationers. He weaved in and out of a throng of onlookers to follow a sign to the Drawing Room. How am I supposed to know who sent me that note? This place is crammed with people.
Decor of gold and silver brocade on crimson formed the backdrop to many world famous paintings on rich wood paneling.
Lord and Lady Fletcher would know the names of these works of art and their creators, I’m sure.
On several mantels sat porcelain vases, a bust of Louis XI
V, a barometer clock and four candelabras. A bed had been shoved into an alcove. A carved and gilded wood balustrade separated the alcove from the rest of the chamber. Over the bed hung a stucco allegory of France.
He gazed at a narrow plush dark brown and cream chair with white pillows studded with crystal gemstones and gold tassels.
How could anyone be comfortable sitting on such a thing?
A loud creaking movement from the ceiling caused him to reach for the revolver under his coat. He looked up to gawk at a woman who swung straight at him from a chandelier. Black sausage curls and a swirl of forest green and burgundy dresses over a hoop skirt swayed. She smashed against him and he sprawled across King Louis XIV’s bed, which crashed to the floor.
“So sorry. I was cleaning the light,” the young lady whispered. “I meant only to get a peek at you. Quick. Dash across the room to the sword display before they come get us.”
Brannon struggled to untangle himself from the woman’s wardrobe as both their legs and arms flailed. He cracked his hand against something hard.
“Ouch.” She slugged him in the back.
Brannon felt at a distinct disadvantage in this war of escape as her dress was cut low both in the front and back and off the shoulders. He had nothing to push or pull, so he shut his eyes and rolled hard to the right and banged against a burgundy wall that collapsed. Screams filled the room as he raised up and scooted through the crowd to a wooden panoply of crossed swords. Just as he reached them, a man in full mustache and beard pushed a blade against his side.
“Stay right where you are, mister,” he growled.
Brannon yanked at one of the swords as he elbowed the man’s arm but the weapon wouldn’t budge. I don’t know how to use it anyway. The knife slashed his jacket. The people around them scattered away while four Swiss Guards moved in. The chandelier woman grabbed his arm to pull him down a hallway and into a side door… a room full of mirrors.
