Nick Stolter

by Lee Anne Wonnacott

  From the front veranda of the ranch house Stolter had a view down the slope, past the road and several hundred yards into the scrub mesquite, cacti and rocks. Beulah set a glass of lemonade down next to him on the rough wood table.

  She had lowered her voice. “In the past, I’ve cooked up a pot of something and taken that and a quilt over to the family that lost a loved one. I’m feeling a bit lost in how to help you.”

  Stolter looked up at her. “Part of me wants to leave the herd here and ride home as fast as I can. But that would cause even more difficulties. You were right when you said that I’ll have to stop and look for telegrams on the way home. I figure by the time we get into Tucson, there should be word waiting for me on how everyone is doing.” Beulah sat down in the rocker to the left of Stolter.

  “I wanted to thank you, for coming and getting me to tend to Griff. I had been thinking of Griff on and off for a couple of weeks. I hadn’t seen him since the winter when he stopped by. I can be somewhat abrasive to folks so I figured I just got on his nerves and he avoided me.” She chuckled.

  Stolter sipped the tangy drink and nodded. “I think Griff might have been meaning to stop in and say howdy on his way back from Red Springs. I didn’t get the impression that he was a gadabout social butterfly with a full dance card, Ma’am.” Beulah chuckled.

  “I have three very good friends that I write to in Tucson. I’m actually thinking of riding along with you so I can get into town and see them. That’s the least I can do without seeming to be pushy. I got plenty of time on my hands and Marcus can handle anything that comes up here at the ranch,” Beulah said.

  Stolter looked at her. “It might not be an easy ride. We may have to make several stops to let Griff rest. And I got no idea if that man from the hotel who tried to rob us would be following us waiting to try again.”

  Beulah looked at Stolter. “I’ve ridden both stage and horseback all the way to Los Angeles, Mr. Stolter. It’s always a series of stops, towns, drinking and rowdy folks. This is the West where people make their own way. I may be a bit older than the last trip, but I still know how to do it. Getting myself to Tucson should not be that big of a deal.” Stolter nodded and took another sip.

  The first part of the month had been warm and comfortable days with nights that needed no blankets. The gentle rolling hills to the south had turned brown in the heat. Some of the desert and valley flowers dotted pink, red, blue and purple in amongst the scrub brush. Soon the red, gold and burnished copper color would be scattered on the hillside in the coming autumn.

  Beulah’s ranch was fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle, wild rose and jasmine mixed in with wheat grass and lilies in the wind. Hummingbirds flitted in and out of blossoms in the planted flower beds by the porch. Bees hovered over the climbing vines on the trellis at the side of the veranda. Near the barn was an old weeping willow tree that leaned out over little creek that ran down the side of the hill.

  Stolter recognized the hard work that had been put into the land, the buildings and the house. It was a family home and it reminded him of his own. Stolter touched the brim of his hat and thanked her for the drink. He stepped down off the veranda headed for the corral.

  The next morning in the gray light of dawn, they saddled the roan, the hammerhead and the black mare. Marcus waved goodbye and tied the gate shut after the herd had followed Southcott out onto the road. Stolter was anxious to put miles behind him, but he was also thankful for the generous help of two new and very dear friends.

  ###

  Nine miles down the road, just outside of Round Butte, they came up on a wagon with a busted wheel. Stolter saw one of the rear big wheels laying on the ground and an older, white-haired man and a woman were struggling to hoist up the rear of the wagon. The big wheels helped the open buckboard wagon roll with ease over bumps and dips in the road and the wide rim kept the wagon from sinking into soft ground. Stolter had helped his father trade out many wagon wheels, but they were heavy and hard to reattach once they popped off.

  The man was struggling to lift the rear up high enough, but the woman just didn’t have the strength to push the wheel on. They stopped when they heard the approaching party. Southcott and Beulah stopped off the side of the road under the trees.

  “Can I give you folks a hand with that?” Stolter was down off his horse before they could object. The older woman pushed back a strand of graying hair and wiped her hands on her apron and shielded her eyes to see who had stopped.

  Stolter picked up a long limb and helped the man brace up the wagon end and then the woman moved to push with wheel onto the hub. The woman pulled the pins out of her apron pocket and with a small hammer drove them into place. The man bent the pins fixing the wheel firming onto the old wagon.

  “Richard Dixon, Sir. This is my wife, Amy. Glad you came along, I was not sure how we were gonna handle this.” Watery blue eyes smiled as he gripped Stolter’s hand. “I thought that wheel would hold until we got up to Beatrice Corners, but I guessed wrong.”

  Amy smiled and shook Stolter’s hand in thanks. “Our youngest daughter married a rancher up at Beatrice Corners and she had a little girl baby last week. We are going to see our four grandchildren and visit for a while.”

  “Please let me give you something for your help, Sir. How about a piece of apple pie I made last night. I’d like to repay your kindness here. Three people rode right on by us earlier without once asking if we needed help.” Amy bustled into the wagon bringing out a piece of pie wrapped up in a blue cloth.

  “Nick Stolter, glad I could help out. My pa taught me how to fix those wheels. Said it wasn’t right for a man to not know how to fix a wheel.” His hands took the pie and used a fresh bandanna to wrap it up. He smiled at the thoughtfulness of this couple.

  Beulah called out. “I have a cousin up in Beatrice Corners. Johnny Watson, works in the general store up there. Or at least he did. If you run into him, tell him his cousin, Beulah, said hello. I would like to see him again.” Her eyes smiled at the thin older man as his gnarled hands rubbed his forehead. Amy waved at Beulah and smiled.

  “I had pounded spikes on the railroad for four years. I had strong hands. One morning I woke up and couldn’t get a strong grip anymore. Its hell to get old, son.” Dixon wiggled his twisted fingers with a grimace.

  Stolter said, “I know what you mean. I held a crosscut saw on a tie camp for several years. Twisted my back pretty bad one day. I had this vision in my mind of being hunched over in pain for the rest of my life. I moved on.”

  “My brother worked high iron building in New York and Chicago. He’d help put up floor after floor. One year we were back there for Christmas and I found out that he’d left the job he was good at,” Dixon said as he rubbed an eye. “He said he didn’t want to see another man fall to his death ever again.”

  Beulah said, “My youngest brother worked in the mountains. He helped sink a shaft high in the Rockies. Said he never wanted to see a man fall to his death again. He told me he felt so helpless. He moved to Louisiana and started building roads. Last I heard he was filling in parts of the swamps and bayou for roads.”

  After the wagon moved back on the road headed east, Stolter mounted up and waved.

  “There are some truly heartless folks in the world nowadays. To think that others would not stop and help a kindly old man and his wife out of a desperate situation.” Beulah clucked her tongue.

  Southcott nodded to Stolter and said, “Thank you, Nick, for helping those folks. Normally, I would have been right there helping, but until I’m healed up, I’m not much use to folks in need.”

  “Don’t think anything of it now. Many folks have helped out me and my wife when we first got the ranch. It’s just part of living out here.” Stolter grinned.

  The threaded their way up and over slight hills and then out over the hard packed desert. When they headed up a hill with some trees, the hammerhead nickered and tossed his head. Southcott had slowed the big horse down to a walk when from the bru
sh alongside the dusty road stepped a young girl with both hands clenched on an old raggedy doll.

  ###

  Beulah reined to a halt ten yards behind Southcott. The girl sported blood on the side of her face and on the front of her shirt.

  “My pa is hurt real bad. He needs help. Some men knocked down ma and me earlier. I think he might die.” Stolter could see that her hands were white from gripping a bloody rag doll.

  “Griff, if you’ll stay with the horses, I’ll go take a look,” Stolter handed the lead ropes to Southcott and then rode closer to the girl.

  He got down off his horse and held onto the reins. “My name is Nick, this is Griff and this is Beulah. We had some trouble in Rio Mesa with some men and other people came to help us.”

  Tears began to slide down her cheeks and she blinked several times. “I’m sorry, Mister. I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. Stolter frowned and watched Beulah dismount. She untied the carpet bag and handed her reins to Southcott.

  “Let me take a look at them, honey. I’ll see what I can do for them.” She drew back her hair into a bun and fastened it with a couple of pins. The small girl walked about twenty yards off the road down into a narrow path in some trees. There she saw another woman knelt near a man moaning. Beulah knelt down beside the woman and examined her.

  “She has a big lump on the side of her head. His right leg is swollen like a broken leg would do. Honey, do you have..” Beulah’s voice faded away and she stood up as three men carrying guns and rifles came out of the bushes.

  ###

  “Y’all drop your guns now. I don’t want to be shootin’ anybody.” Luke Iverson had small dark eyes and a receding reddish hairline of short thinning hair. The man had a thick belly hanging over his belt and wore a sparse mustache. Dirty, unshaven, clothes were worn and bloody but there was something about his darting eyes that was disturbing. It was an old revolver he waved.

  The dark haired man unbuckled his gun belt and it felt into the dirt. Iverson didn’t take his eyes off the man. He looked dangerous and ready to make a move.

  “Little girl, you go get that gun belt for me and bring it over here.” Iverson waved his gun at the girl without taking his eyes off the man.

  A stubborn lip stuck out beneath teary eyes. “Don’t hurt my ma and pa no more.”

  Iverson turned and glared at her. “Shut up and go get that gun.” He whipped the gun back to see that the dark haired man had taken a step.

  Iverson looked at the middle-aged woman who had dropped the carpet bag. “Ma’am, if you’re carrying a gun, you’d best drop it now. I’ll get mean if I have to take it off you.” He leered at the woman dressed like a man in shirt and slacks and boots.

  “I’m not carrying a gun.” She took in a deep breath and let it out as she squinted her eyes. Iverson saw that she had clenched her fists.

  There was a commotion back up the path and they all flinched as they heard a gunshot. Another man with short slick backed hair and wild black and brown bushy beard came limping down the path carrying a revolver and shotgun.

  “Them horses scattered. I caught the black and the gray mare, though.” Stolter could see the wide jaw was rubbed raw and bloody. He had that leathery skin of a long-time cow puncher that made his living on the range.

  The girl picked up the gun belt and took it over to the man with the revolver. He motioned for her to move over with her folks. The tall man knelt down in the clearing and took Stolter’s gun out to look at it.

  “What were you shooting at, Hafton? I told you do this quiet like and we’ll get gone.” Iverson badgered Hafton.

  “That other man. The old one. He took a shot at me and then took off on the hammerhead,” a pouting Hafton said. His voice sounded like he had smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much whiskey.

  “Don’t worry about it. Glass will get him. He don’t let nobody run.” The dark haired man gave a worried look to the woman who had begun to look scared.

  Iverson said, “Tie ‘em up separately. One over by that tree and the woman over near those boulders.” Hafton laid his rifle on the rocks and picked up a couple lengths of rope.

  Around the other side of the boulders came a stumbling man with his hands tied behind him and Thornton Glass followed him with broad shoulders and a long, thin scar on the left side of his face. Unshaven, down at the heel and everything about him spoke of desperation.

  “We got all three.” Glass shoved the grimacing man over next to the woman. Neither one wore a wedding ring so perhaps they weren’t husband and wife.

  “It’s gonna be hell to round up those head, though. They scattered pretty good and they’re running scared.” Glass took a long slow look with penetrating black eyes at the man and the woman. He watched Hafton tie up the man and sit him down next to the tree and run the rope around him and the tree four times.

  The woman spoke up. “At least let me look at that man over there before you tie me up. Let me see if there is anything I can do for him. He dies from his wounds, you’ll be facing murder charges.”

  Iverson contorted his face in anger and walked fast over to the woman and drew back the pistol as if to strike her with it. Glass stopped him.

  “We don’t beat women, you fool. Your temper gets you into more trouble, Luke. One of these days, you’re gonna mouth off to the wrong person and they’re gonna beat you eight ways from Sunday,” Glass sneered at the younger Iverson.

  After a few minutes looking over the man, the woman stood up and looked at the young girl. “I need two straight limbs or sticks. Can you go find those for me?” The girl nodded and dashed through the boulders towards the trees.

  She looked at Iverson, then at Hafton and then brought her eyes to Glass. “I need a pan of hot water and my knife so I can get that bullet out of his leg. He’s twice as old as you are and you felt he was such a big threat that you shot him?” Glass’ mouth fell open at this woman berating him.

  “Don’t be mouthin’ off to me, woman,” Glass glared at her. Then he pointed at Iverson. “That lame brain shoots first and then thinks about asking questions later.” Iverson looked at Glass with exasperation.

  Just then the girl came back dragging two limbs over close to the woman. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Desiree. Desiree Lambert. Is my pa gonna be okay?” Fresh tears welled up in brown eyes. Beulah laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  “I need hot water and a fire built. I have to heat up a knife so I can get that bullet out. I need your help.” Beulah’s voice was soothing.

  Desiree’s mother spoke for the first time. “There’s a pan in the box in the wagon and you can tear up one of those cotton sack towels for the bandages.” She held her husband’s head in her lap and wet tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Beulah looked at Hafton who was fidgeting with his belt. “You there, clear out a spot for a fire. And can one of you full-grown men have the decency to get some water for the pan?”

  “Now look here, woman..” Iverson leaned in a threatening way towards Beulah, pointing his finger at her.

  “Shut up, Iverson. If you hadn’t shot him, we wouldn’t be here like this right now.” Glass had lost his patience.

  “Frisco, get a fire going so she’ll shut the hell up.” Glass pointed at a patch of bare dirt.

  “Iverson, make yourself useful and go see if you can find them horses. And if you shoot someone else, I’ll shoot you!” Iverson grunted and walked muttering back up the trail towards the road.

  Half an hour later, the bullet was out of Mr. Lambert’s leg and Beulah had put in a dozen stitches. A white bandage was wrapped around the leg and two limbs on both sides held the leg still. Beulah had given the man a drink from the bottle of laudanum to help calm him down and then gave three drops to Mrs. Lambert.

  Beulah stored her supplies back into the carpet bag and then went over to sit next to the older man. Glass had frowned, rubbed his hands together, kicked the dirt and muttered under his breath. He had grown tired of
all of them. He watched them look at each other but not say a word.

  Chapter 10

  Glass used the tip of his knife to dig into the wood of the old stump while watched the old man and his wife. It had been over an hour since Iverson walked out of camp to get the horses. Only now did the thought cross his mind that the younger outlaw might just keep right on going and not come back. The older Glass sneered at himself and made another vicious gouge into the wood.

  Born in Canada, his mother had died when he was four. His father left to get work and never came back. By age eleven, Glass had herded cattle to the south on trail drives into the US. By the time he was twenty five he had made the ride from Dodge to Houston to New Orleans half a dozen times. His luck did not hold out after he tried to put a brand over a brand on a pretty buckskin mare. He served 3 years in prison for stealing horses. Back in the Dakota Territories, he was joined by his brother Dan and together with Mikie Herndon and JoJo Barrington, he graduated to moving strings of horses all over the west.

  “What do ya wanna do, boss?” Hafton brought over a cup of coffee from the steaming kettle in the fire. Glass took the tip cup and thanked him.

  “Iverson never came back. He might have kept on going. What do you think, Frisco? We move on without him?”

  “Aw, he’ll be back, boss. You know he ain’t much of a thinker. He loses track of time. Maybe he found something shiny and is stuck looking at it,” Hafton said with a chuckle. Glass stifled a near giggle at the thought. He looked at the other man.

  “How long we been riding, Frisco?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

  As a child Francisco Josef Hafton moved with his father from the Bavaria region of Austria to United States at age six to help in his uncle's trading post store in Iowa. The little family escaped oppression and near starvation to find peace and plenty in the new world. With a desire to roam the west, Hafton moved to Montana at eighteen where he met and married Lilianne Jacobson.