1882 5o2027

1882

Robert P. Fitton

Copyright © 2014 by The Robert P. Fitton Revocable Trust.

ISBN:

Softcover Ebook

978-1-4797-8182-9 978-1-4797-8183-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/22/2014

Xlibris 1-888-795-4274 www.Xlibris.com 109454

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“. . . It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith…”

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1

San Francisco, California June 17, 2012 2:15 PM

It was a time when liars were heroes and killers walked free. Jake splashed cold water over his sweaty face and peered into his chestnut eyes in the smudged men’s-room mirror. His auburn hair, tinged with red strands, floated over his forehead. As assistant district attorney, he had pleaded his case perfectly in front of a sympathetic jury, yet the trial left him with deepening circles ringing his bloodshot eyes. He cupped his hands in stark the frosted wind light. Then he doused his face again. Even the local and cable reporters said he had convinced the jury that Johnny Rheingold had committed murder. Johnny arrived at Marina Green Park in a red Lexus 350. Seven minutes before, he had left the Quick Serve holding a 20-oz. cup of Cold Harbor coffee and walked under the camera across the concrete to his convertible beyond the pumps. Two pedestrians, women just over twenty, were returning from dancing at Tempuro’s. Usually they walked along Van Ness Avenue, but tonight, they were trying to hide from two inebriated guys from City College. They witnessed Johnny run the Lexus through the Market Street traffic light at 12:14 a.m. on May 21, 2010. At 11:45 p.m., Mary Jo Simmons dropped off her fiancé Tom Dunbar at the entrance of Marina Green Park. They argued about Dunbar waking her from a deep sleep to head to the park. His nervousness prompted him to fear for his life. She had surmised that a month had ed since Dunbar received the first heroin shipment to their apartment off Twenty-First Street. Yet the rumor on the street involved a hijacked shipment of heroin worth millions from Southeast Asia and someone named Josh Gordon. Dunbar knew about the boatload of heroin off Stinson Beach. Everyone had kept quiet except Dunbar. He threatened to talk to Jake’s office. Alby and his investigators could not locate Johnny, but Jake thought John Rheingold went by the name of Josh Gordon. On May 20, Johnny told Dunbar he wanted to see him.

Four 9mm, 125-grain, hollow-point jacketed bullets entered Dunbar’s body. Johnny carried a 9mm that night, stolen from an off-duty cop in Stafford’s Saloon on Sixteenth Avenue. Three people witnessed the fight in the alley. The cop, Sergeant Hancock, lay dead on the pavement, and his gun had disappeared after the fight. Johnny placed four bullets matching the hollow points— purchased at Info Ammo in Alameda—in his gun earlier that evening. A straggler named Fred Early, forty-five years old, living at the YMCA, staggered along the bay near the boathouse. He heard four gunshots along the water where the extra boats were moored. Early covered his head and hid under a boat until the cop car’s red-and-blue lights flashed around the marina. Then he crawled out and walked over to Dunbar’s body in the gazebo. Early spent the next fifteen minutes telling the cops he did not fire the gun, but they kept him in the cruiser because he heard the shots. Johnny’s prowess in driving the Lexus three hundred miles to Brinson, Nevada, irked Jake. He deposited the Lexus inside his friend Maguire’s auto body shop, where they disassembled the car and crushed it in a Reno junkyard. Harry Maguire blabbed about the escapade to his drinking buddies. Word got back to San Francisco. The cops had him downtown within twenty-four hours. Then he vanished. Not long after Maguire’s disappearance, Lieutenant Scott Dooley called Jake in his office. Dooley, a loudmouth cop with twenty-five years of street experience, liked doing things his way. He assembled the case against Johnny in less than a week. Jake wanted a methodical approach that made sure everyone told the truth about what they saw that night Dunbar was murdered. Lieutenant Dooley enjoyed driving by and then following those he was about to arrest. That brought him to near the freeway on a Sunday afternoon. Johnny played first base in a softball game in Ocean View Recreation Park. Dooley found a seat along the first baseline and taunted Johnny for five innings until Johnny leaped the fence. Four teammates pulled him away from Dooley. Dooley might not have jeopardized the case had he not produced his badge for the umpires. Johnny then hired pricy L.A. lawyers, headed by legal legend Sam Turner. In court Turner’s team of slick city boys pounced on Dooley’s ballgame stunt. Jake kicked the bathroom floor and pounded his fist on the peeling plaster. At

first he believed Johnny would spend the rest of his life in prison. Turner’s attorneys destroyed Dooley on the stand, and the jury knew it. Now, at twentyseven years old, he feared losing his first case. The deranged legal system favored a man who had ruthlessly gunned down Dunbar. Judge Mackenzie would enforce the law. “Johnny is a damned killer. What kind of justice is that?” Then he heard a voice. “There is no justice here.” Jake circled the painted blue stalls. “Okay, there’s no one in here!” He moved to the window and pushed it open. The traffic sounds and cooler city air filtered inside. Cars slowed in a rush-hour crunch, people crossed the busy streets, and the inner city traffic formed a mass of red lights and blaring horns. He took a deep breath and turned. A darkened corridor extended to a hazy light source within the tiles and chipped plaster. A bearded, rotund man in a vested brown tweed suit held a silver pocket watch in his pudgy hand. “Who the hell are you?” The man produced a quixotic smile, and his azure eyes gleamed. “And how can there be a ageway in the wall?” “Why not?” “I didn’t see any corridor here.” “Then you were not looking, sir.” “I repeat my question: Who the hell are you?” “I am Mr. Melbourne.” “O… kay.” Jake laughed and shook his head. “I’ve finally cracked. Two and a half years, a perfect record… Now I lose my first case and start hallucinating.” Melbourne’s voice had a credible smoothness, laced with great emotion, “I

assure you, Mr. McBride, what you are seeing is real. I apologize if I have startled you. I know you’re under tremendous pressure by losing this case.” “How do you know anything about me? And how do you just show up here? Come on.” “Letting Johnny go free is not right.” Jake gestured toward the corridor. “Judge Mackenzie will have no choice.” “Not in this reality.” “And Johnny has the drug money to pay them all. Listen, I have to get back upstairs and then I’m calling a shrink.” Melbourne tucked his watch into his vest pocket. He squinted and pressed his lips together before he spoke. “I understand your apprehension… I want to offer you a deal.” “What?” “I’ve been watching from the shadows of your life. I know the intensity of your commitment to the truth, your integrity, and your quest for justice. What will happen in Mackenzie’s courtroom in the next half hour is not justice. It’s a mockery. I can assure you of that.” “Have I lost my mind?” “Not at all. You have to appreciate I cannot let you inside until you have accepted my . Again, please forgive my suddenness and my intrusiveness.” Jake smiled and tightened his red tweed tie. “I’m getting out of here. I have to get back to court.” “I can arrange for you to bring Johnny to justice.” Jake turned and faced Melbourne back in the strange corridor. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m an officer of the law—not a vigilante.” “You’re a man who wants justice. I have the ability to bring people into

situations where, using their own abilities, they can seek the justice not offered in this life.” “I am losing my mind. Good-bye, Mr. Melbourne.” Jake spun on the slippery men’s room floor and stormed by the white ceramic sinks. He pushed open the swinging door. The corridor chatter and confusion overtook him. The reporters turned in unison and descended upon him. They stuck a plethora of microphones in his face. “Mr. McBride, any chance the judge will change his mind?” “No comment.” “Do you think this is fair?” asked the stringy-haired Cara Connolly from Channel 8. Jake looked back toward the men’s room door. Melbourne’s image inside the wall corridor remained in his thoughts, and his words about justice bounced around Jake’s brain. “No, Cara, I don’t think this is fair.” “Can we quote you on that?” she asked, pencil in hand and ready to inscribe his words in her notebook. “Any luck in finding Mr. Rheingold?” Jake slowly shook his head. “Would you indict Rheingold?” “I would if we could find him.” Jake veered left up the spiraling marble staircase to a rotunda with a mosaic floor. Around the rim, marble Greek statues stood like guardians outside the courtroom as huge murals from American history led to the varnished courtroom doors. Alby’s forehead wrinkled against his disheveled gray hair. “I wish I could have uncovered more, Jake. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing we can do about it, Alby.” “The guy is a lowlife scum. All I keep hearing is about his rights. What about Dunbar? He’s dead.” Jake bit his lower lip. The sunlight pierced the open venetian blinds and cut across the voluminous courtroom. Judge Mackenzie’s empty bench, bordered by huge, fluted white pillars, loomed over the shiny defense table twenty feet away. Johnny had not returned to the courtroom, but his leather-clad girlfriend stretched out in the seats behind the defendant’s table. Her long, perfectly formed legs extended toward Jake, and the deep scent of Pizzazz perfume surrounded the courtroom. She had the sly look of a cheap street-walking slut. “You lost the big one, Jakey Boy.” Jake’s eyes swept across her sheer silk blouse and leather skirt. “You’d be best to stay away from him, Pam, before you get yourself into any more trouble.” Some part of him regretted sleeping with her. Her brushed mascara and sultry green eyes cast a seductive lure Jake still found arousing. She spoke in a low direct voice. “You call me… Mr. District Attorney.” Alby pushed Jake up to the prosecutor’s table. His young assistants, glum and silent, looked up to him. He pursed his lips and said nothing. Letting them down added another aspect to this travesty. The heavy wood side doors opened, and three bailiffs brought Johnny into the courtroom. A wide smile covered Johnny’s thin face, and his blue eyes focused on Jake. He puckered and sent a kiss in Jake’s direction. A pewter cross earring swung from his ear above a clump of sinewy brown hair dangling down his neck. Jake read his lips: “You’re a loser, Jake.” “Son of a bitch,” Jake replied, continuing the silent dialogue. Johnny tilted his head back and laughed. Even Sam Turner, his silver-haired lawyer, a man about to launch a campaign for governor, had a grin on his pockmarked face. The chamber doors opened, and everyone stood when the white-haired Judge Mackenzie shuffled to the bench. The gavel banged against the wood and echoed about the courtroom. Jake’s mind focused on Dunbar’s autopsy photos. He glanced over at Bart Bowers, the FBI agent involved in tracking Johnny’s drug activities. Bowers gritted his teeth as he shook his bald head.

For five minutes, Mackenzie’s strained voice pronounced Johnny the victim because of Dooley’s attack at the ball field. Mackenzie always told Jake he did not relish sending criminals back to the street. He chastised Dooley but never condemned Johnny. When the judge finished, Bowers stood and turned like a military man toward the courtroom doors. The judge’s gray eyes moistened as Bowers exited to the rear. Jake and Bowers had eleven witnesses and a cruiser surveillance camera. Yet, in less than hour, Johnny would be free.

2

Coltraine’s Health Club San Francisco, California June 17, 2012 2:15 PM

Jake swung the racket and sent the little black ball careening off the wall. Jim Coltraine blasted it back. Jake cocked his arm quickly and missed. The sweat dribbled down his temples. He clamped his eyes. The anguish had intensified after Johnny left in the limo. His game was off. Coltraine scooped up the ball and faced him. “You and I have been buddies for twenty years, Jake. You all right?” “I’d like to say I’m all right.” He looked into Coltraine’s sharp brown eyes. “What do you do when somebody like Johnny is on the streets after committing murder? I don’t know what to compare it to. Would be like someone refused to pay the bill at your restaurant and then the courts sanctioned it.” “Except it was murder.” Coltraine squeezed the black ball with his left hand. “I think you have to let time take care of it.” “Time, come on… I’m never going to get over this.” “You will.” He dropped the ball onto the glossy wood floorboards. “What about Pam—she keep calling you?” “Getting involved with her was a mistake. She swore she hadn’t seen Johnny in months.” Coltraine stroked his scruffy mustache. “Woman is poison. I wouldn’t believe anything she says.”

“You have no idea what that woman can do.” Coltraine nodded and raised his brows. He put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You want another game?” “I may hit the showers,” said Jake as he rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to get a little more exercise. I’ll you in a few minutes.” “Good. Let’s stop by the restaurant later and have a drink.” “Sounds good.” Coltraine bounced the ball and lobbed it forward. “Don’t worry, Jake. You’ll straighten this thing out.” “We’ll see. I think I’ll get on the Kawasaki and just keep riding, Jimmy.” Coltraine put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake lowered his head and wandered toward the locker room. Maybe at some remote location, he could clear his head and let the Johnny thing settle in his mind. He waved his key over the beam, and the door opened. His cell phone buzzed inside the locker ahead. After fumbling, he pulled open the metal door, but the phone had stopped ringing. He plopped himself on the center bench, and sweat rolled down his cheeks. The phone rang again. He scooped it from his bag. “Jake… Alby.” “What’s the good news, Alby?” “I don’t have good news.” “Lay it on me.” “Johnny—he’s on the run again. Jake, he…” Jake squeezed the phone and started along the locker room benches. “What the hell did he do now?” “Levi Hansen. Shot from behind and then in the head. He’s at Bancor Hospital. I know Johnny was involved.”

“Levi’s worked for you for over a year.” “He was running down the connection with Johnny along the docks. Levi got too close.” Jake fell onto the bench and put his head in his hands. “You there, Jake?” “Yeah, I’m here.” “You want me to do anything?” “Change the system. I don’t believe this. The bastard has no damned conscience. And he gets away with murder and hijacking sixty million in heroin. And now he’s at it again.” “Somebody’s got to plug him, Jake. Track him down and plug him. That’s the only way.” “I’m hitting the showers, Alby. I’ll call you.” He pushed the yellow button and set the phone back in the sport bag. The shower area rumbled. Brightened steam swirled inside and leaked into the locker room. “What’s going on in there?” Some kid must have turned on all the showers. Jake stomped into the haze and clenched his fists. “Hey, one shower at a time.” Melbourne called out from the fog, “Levi Hansen just died at Bancor Hospital, Jake.” “I’m losing my frigging mind.” The mustard tiles along the shower wall spread like an invisible zipper. Down the same wood-ed corridor, the midsized Melbourne—in a lighter vested suit, silver watch chain draped from his vest pocket—stepped to the foggy edge of the showers. An empathetic smile trickled up his bearded face. “I think you want justice.”

“Maybe.” “I can offer you justice, Jake.” “Okay,” said Jake, looking back toward the empty locker room. “I’ll bite. How are you going to offer me justice?” Melbourne motioned toward a spacious room, also wood ed, with a silver framed painting of a clown above a marble fireplace. “I invite you to accompany me into the Nexus House. Under your own accord, of course.” “Nexus House?” Jake smiled. “How can you produce a corridor from your house to a shower room wall?” “Reasons are not as important as reality.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Do you want to bring Johnny to your own kind of justice?” “How?” He shook his head. “This is bizarre.” “Yes, I know what you must be thinking. And I do apologize for my lack of hospitality. You see, I make it my business to seek out those who long for justice.” Jake moved closer through the fog until he stood only a few feet away. “How?” “I bring people into a new existence as real as the world you live in now. If you accept my offer, you will experience the range of human emotions and consequences. You can love and hate… live and die.” “Then what? If I get the justice I seek?” “You’ll have a choice. You can stay where I place you, or you may return to the world you live in now.” Jake stroked his chin. “I don’t even think you’re real, Melbourne.” “Johnny’s killings and crimes are real.”

“Am I committed if I walk inside?” Melbourne removed a finely wrapped cigar from his coat pocket. He struck a thin wooden match against an abrasive strip and produced a flaring orange flame. He lit the cigar. After a few puffs, once the tobacco glowed red, he exhaled a blue smoke stream. “No, you are free to visit the Nexus House. No final agreement is reached until you actually walk into your new existence.” Jake grinned and continuously shook his head. He moved his hand back through his sweaty hair. “You know, I just may do this…” “Your choice.” Jake crunched his teeth and walked through the fog. He stepped into a clear and dry corridor permeated with rich tobacco. Melbourne held the cigar in his left hand and extended his smooth right hand. “Welcome.” Flowery, raised red velvet wallpaper spread above the wood ing into a larger room. Jake turned back. A wall now existed where the showers had been. “Where’s the health club and Jim?” “Still there,” said Melbourne, puffing. He motioned Jake toward the larger room. A long polished wood table reflected a silver chandelier’s sculptured glass bulbs. “Will he be looking for me? How will he know—” “Jake.” Melbourne put his hand on Jake’s wrist. “I’ve taken care of all that.” “Interesting.” Jake moved past Melbourne. His eyes were drawn to the odd painting of a clown with wide red lips and waxy white makeup, balancing on a unicycle and pedaling toward a high door marked in black letters. He clutched a wad of cash in his left hand and a brilliant silver key in his other hand. The tarnished brass tag on the bottom of the silver frame had the painting’s title etched into the metal.

ANYTHING GOES

“I was always pleased with this painting.” Melbourne’s milky eyes exuded an overpowering ion. As a man Jake could respect both his intellect and spirituality. “Has a certain surrealistic quality about it, wouldn’t you say?” Above a roll top desk, an oak roman numeral wall clock chimed on the hour. Jake faced the gentle rocking silver pendulum. He counted eight chimes. “This is an interesting place. Forgive my impertinence. Are you from another world? It is very difficult to absorb all this.” “Realms exist all around us. You’d be surprised.” A tall olive-skinned butler in a maroon uniform motioned to two French maids pushing a food cart to the table. They removed the silver top and spread smaller hors d’oeuvre trays across the table. “Champagne?” The butler awaited Jake’s reply. “Sure.” As the butler set the crystal goblets on the table, Melbourne placed his cigar in a glass ashtray and motioned Jake to the high-back chairs. The butler popped the cork of a large green moisture-smattered bottle. Jake slowly sat down, and the butler nudged his chair forward. Melbourne lifted the champagne glass into the air. “To justice.” Jake pinched the stem. Melbourne’s image wavered through the bubbly golden champagne. “To justice.” “Yes, of course.” Jake pressed the glass to his lips and let the liquid tickle his mouth. He set the glass on the table as the maids offered him a spinach twirl pierced with a toothpick.

“I am quite impressed you saw fit to me here. Many do not heed my call. Many stay away from new possibilities.” “I’m still hesitant.” He held the toothpick and munched on spinach. “What exactly do you propose, Melbourne?” “I can show you that once we are upstairs. Suffice to say, I can put you, Johnny, and other persons notable to this miscarriage of justice into a certain place. You will have no knowledge of me or of your past life. You will accept the challenges the new situation offers.” “You mean somehow bringing Johnny to justice?” “Yes. But only within the reality I give you. And I have to warn you. Your new reality will be as real as your life now. And your life and everyone’s life can be at risk. When you’re dead, you’re dead.” Jake sipped some more champagne. “I don’t care if my life is at risk. Not if it means getting a chance at Johnny.” Melbourne nodded and lifted the cigar from the ashtray. He puffed as Jake leaned forward. “What about the other people?” “I will only indicate they will be people you already know from your life now. But in your new existence, they will have their own identities.” He finished the champagne, and the butler stepped forward. “No more for me… Jake?” “I’m all set.” Holding the champagne glass in his hand, he gazed back to the health club wall. “I don’t know how you’re pulling off all this, and I don’t know what exactly you have in store for me.” “Then you’re ready?” “Why not?” Melbourne brought the tobacco to an orange-red luminescence. “Good, there comes a time when a man has to come to with himself. Stand up for those things he knows are right.” Jake pushed his chair back and walked around the table. He wanted to smile but pursed his lips before he spoke, “Interesting.”

Melbourne balanced the cigar between his fingers and motioned him along the painting. The butler slowly nodded as Melbourne guided Jake to an antique elevator with a rounded luminous green dial above the polished silver doors. “The Nexus House has three floors. We, of course, will be going to the fourth floor.” In his white shorts, Jake seemed out of place compared to the well-dressed Melbourne. “Fourth floor?” “The realm of the imagination and chance.” The silver doors spread with machine precision, and Melbourne pulled back the inner gate. Clear sconces, set amidst more red velvet wallpaper, cast a crimson glow across the car. Jake stepped onto buffed black and white tiles and stood next to a leafy plant filling the corner. The same clown painting, in a smaller form, hung in another silver frame on the side wall. Melbourne closed the gate, the outer doors clamped shut, and he stood next to a manual silver lever. “Would you like to operate the elevator, Jake?” Jake shook his head. “You sure like that painting.” Melbourne grinned, moved the lever forward, and the car hummed slowly upward. As if he were still in the service, Jake assumed an at-ease position and clasped his hands near the corner plant. Several minutes ed before the car slowed, and the doors opened to an extraordinary drawing room. The wooded walls were as tall as the courthouse interior, and a prodigious wood pendulum clock next to a white marble fireplace dwarfed the two men. A warm fire—hearth the size of a tunnel, with massive logs—blazed at full intensity. “A little intimidating, Melbourne. And the same painting,” said Jake, staring at the silver frame above the fireplace. He wandered under a vibrant crystalline chandelier but he focused on a silver-framed mirror as high as a basketball hoop. Melbourne smoked the cigar behind him. “Where am I? I don’t see myself.” “You aren’t here. You’ve ed from the substantive to the transcendent.” “I assume this mirror means something… What’s beyond the mirror?” “Your destiny.”

“Really?” “You walk through and you become Jake McBride, respected and revered in your town of Brinson, Nevada.” “Come on…” “The town marshal living in 1882. A world of challenge in the great American West.” “Marshal?” Jake faced Melbourne and smiled. “So that’s it. The Old West. Listen, how do I even know I can trust you?” “If you find my credibility suspect or you sense that my offer is disingenuous, I will bring you back to the health club now with, as they say, no hard feelings.” Jake laughed nervously and rubbed his mouth. “Listen, this is too weird.” Melbourne held his wrist and spoke in a lower voice. “You only have one chance against Johnny, Jake. In this new world, whatever happens, happens. If Johnny dies, he dies. But the converse is true. You can die too.” “When you’re dead, you’re dead.” “Exactly.” “You’re saying if Johnny is killed, he’ll really be dead?” “Yes, sir.” He raised his brows. “I want the son of a bitch dead.” Melbourne’s eyes tightened, and he nodded slowly. He rubbed his thumb against his forefinger. “You’ll have that opportunity.” A confined hallway with two café doors formed inside the massive mirror. Bouncy piano music spread outward, and glasses clinked within a loud buzz of conversation. Several women in red pleated dresses with low-cut fringe around ample cleavage sat on the laps of patrons at center tables. A broad-shouldered bartender—clad in a white shirt and apron, his hair parted in the middle—mixed

a rusty drink for a dingy man with steel-gray hair and a wide-brimmed dusty hat. “Is that 1882?” “The Arroyo Saloon. Are you ready?” Jake surveyed the saloon ahead. “I’m not sure.” “I’ll tell you this: You’ll never get justice if you don’t walk down through the doors. And Johnny will live his life free to kill again.” Jake shuffled closer. Perfume from the dance girls mixed with beer and something cooking. Glasses clanged on the bar, and the piano music lured him forward. He stepped into the dank air. Afternoon light covered the group of soiled, dust-covered cowhands packed along the wood bar. When he turned to speak to Melbourne, he faced a rough sawed plank wall. “Melbourne!” Then a rising smile brushed his face. His dusty black leather boots clicked against the worn wooden floorboards, and his spurs jingled. He wore leather chaps and felt a drooping mustache. Marshall Jake McBride sidestepped toward the bar. The loud saloon sounds, the dried beer, and the pungent drift of cowpunchers in need of baths provided relief from the range. Dozens of gritty, drunk, animated patrons surrounded the chipped and stained pine tables below a stretch of bright, frosted front windows. Rows of colored liquor bottles lined the bar mirror, reflecting long-haired, unshaven cowhands plopped down the long waxed mahogany bar. O’Malley—a little man in a white shirt and red-striped vest, his hair thinning—banged the piano keys near the unoccupied stage’s faded red curtain. In the cracked mirror, he eyed his long-barreled pearl-handled Colt, tucked in a new leather holster. He stroked his mustache. His blue shirt, pinned with a marshal’s dented tin badge. His blue bandanna that hung loosely around his neck. From the top of his wide-brimmed hat to the dust-sprinkled leather of his boots, he appeared taller than his six-foot-two-inch frame. His chiseled face angled at the nose and chin. He had deep buried brown eyes and sandy hair. He was Jake McBride, the marshal of Brinson, Nevada.

3

Brinson, Nevada June 17, 1882 12:00 PM

“Buy me a drink, Marshal?” asked Suzette, adjusting the red fringe around her breasts. Despite a missing a tooth in back, her dark eyes brought in the men. “Not now.” “Maybe you still chasin’ Pam.” The pudgy bartender—his mustache waxed and curled at the corners, and his greasy dark hair parted center—wiped down the glossy bar with a clean linen rag. “Hey, Jake, whaddaya have?” “Whaddaya got, Orville?” Orville removed an oblong green bottle with a bright yellow label from the back shelf. “Just gut a case of this stuff in from San Francisco. Smooth bourbon. Whaddaya say?” “Fill it.” “How wuz yur trip east? You catch that rustler?” “Nope.” He placed both hands on the wood bar and panned the liquor bottles. “A wild-goose chase, brother. I ain’t so sure there wuz rustlers out at the Comstock Ranch.” Orville nodded, opened the bottle, and filled the shot glass. “And what’s this ’bout someone’s fiddlin’ with them telegraph wires. Andy Bisbane says they’re still down. But that ain’t the big news.” Orville plunked the stubby glass and then hit the bottle on the shiny bar. Jake

lifted the glass and poured the bourbon down his throat. Smooth, just like Orville said. Real smooth. “Well?” asked Orville, crossing his arms. “Good stuff, brother.” He leveled himself another shot as Orville leaned forward and whispered across the bar. “Ya picked a fine time ta be out of town, Jake. There was a wreck, and silver stolen north of Sorroyo Canyon yesterday. Tracks were dynamited.” “Yeah, I wuz told. I reckon ta look inta it.” An oversized mammoth of a man with scissor-sniped hair and a horse mouth opened his blue eyes wide as he set an empty glass on the bar. In his fringed leather coat, he stood a full six inches taller than Jake. “I wuz roundin’ the bend up near Restriction Mountain. Lookin’ fur food.” “Whaddya see, Sawtooth?” asked Jake. “Not whad I see, Marshal. It wad I heard. Ground. Ground she wuz a-shakin’.” He opened his eyes wide and pointed into the air. “You tell me it wuzn’t them sons of bitches blowin’ up the 924 on the way ta Carson City.” “You been out there, Sawtooth?” asked Jake. “Nothin’ left out there… nothin’.” Orville poured him more whiskey, and Sawtooth took gigantic steps across the bar. He sat in the corner table with Annette Baily, the most petite dancer in the saloon. “I think she takin’ her life in her hands bein’ with Sawtooth.” Jake held the shot glass halfway. Then he set the drink on the bar and pointed at Orville. “Railroad ain’t sayin’ much ’bout the wreck. Andy’s last wire said there’s a railroad man comin’ in. Silver wuz headed to the U.S. Mint in Carson City. I intend ta go out to the wreck presently. If it happened in my town, it’s my responsibility.” “Silver’s real important now, Jake. The government’s buying it up.”

Jake nodded. “Mandated now, Orville. I read in one of them Virginia City papers Congress made it a law four years ago. The U.S. Treasury is re-quired ta buy silver. President vetoed it, but goddamned Congress over-rode it.” “Sawtooth says you know the president.” Jake swigged more bourbon and gazed over at Sawtooth and Annette. “Hayes commanded the Ohio boys. ’Bout a thousand at the beginnin’. Hell, Hayes convinced us to wear them damned government uniforms.” “Don’t know nobody who knows the president.” “Ain’t no big deal, Orville.” He pointed at the bartender. “Haven’t seen him since they reviewed the armies in Washington when the war ended. Didn’t know him back in Ohio. He was involved in politicin’. He never did nothin’ fur me. Congressman from Ohio wuz the one who wrote the letter that gut me the deputy’s job in Elko. Fur that, I was punchin’ cattle in Texas. Left just before the Hoo Doo Wars. All hell broke loose back there. You wanna talk ’bout real rustlers? Talk about the Hoo Doo Wars.” Jake stared at his mustached image in the smoky mirror. Then he thought about the wreck. “Damned heads will roll if the government finds out that silver’s been stolen.” “Soaring Bird and the Shoshoni saw the wreck, Jake. Injuns were lookin’ fur food.” “I know that too.” Orville leaned toward him again and lowered his voice. “Everybody headed out to Sorroyo like Sawtooth says, but the area was deserted.” “Don’t understand that.” “Somebody at the hotel told Jim Coltraine the railroad is offerin’ a re-ward,” said Orville. “Ain’t heard nothin’ ’bout no re-ward.” “Coltraine says the freight car wuz stuffed with silver bars. Stuffed, Jake!”

“That silver is the property of the U.S. government.” “Yup.” “I need ta talk ta the U.S. Army men, or engers… maybe the engineer,” said Jake. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout the engers. Ain’t seen none of them in here. I tell ya, they’re all gone.” “Gone where?” asked Jake. “Dunno.” “I don’t like it, Orville. I’m headin’ out there.” A lanky woman, brown hair tucked under a black hat, strutted like a well-formed mustang through the swinging café doors. Like a man, she wore a short-barreled Colt in a side holster. Jake eyed her tight dark britches and new chaps but stopped at her smooth face and luminescent green eyes. She sauntered over to a table like a tumbleweed blowing into town, turned a chair around, and faced the hawk-nosed Gene Hawkins, a hand from the Turner Ranch. “Pam Grayson. What the hell is she doin’ back in town?” “I heard she was workin’ on the Turner Ranch. The sheep among the wolves. Those Turner boys—” “She ain’t no sheep. She can hold her own, brother. She can hold her own.” Jake filled the glass, but he let it sit on the counter. Pam looked wilder in her dusty garb and wispy, windblown hair. She could reel in a man with the wink of an eye. Yet she never bought fancy dresses and silk stockings from the city boutiques. She could punch the cows just as well as the men. Her seductive earthy eyes dazzled Jake but she was selective in choosing her men. She sat with Hawkins and a bunch of rowdy ranch hands at the table across the room. They ordered up a drink for her. Two months ago, she had left for Texas, and rumors said she rode with Kid Curry for a time. Jake was surprised to see her back.

“She’s fine. Real fine,” said Orville. “As an old forty-niner, Alby always says: she ain’t no petticoated astonishment.” “No, she ain’t… Speak of the devil.” Jake turned as Alby crashed through the front doors. His deputy, worn green leather hat crunched into his thick mass of gray hair, raised his finger and slipped around the tables. His high pitched voice annoyed Jake. “Jumpin’ Jerusalem! Marshal! Marshal!” “What is it, Alby?” Alby reeked of body odor and stale whiskey. He grunted and spit a mass of tobacco juice toward the brass spittoon. “Marshal, Dan Dalton! Dan Dalton!” “Calm down, Alby. What the hell’s under your skin?” Alby’s dark eyes opened wide as he spoke. He curled his top lip and exposed two missing teeth as he jumped up and down like a monkey. “They wanna string up Dan Dalton!” “Dan Dalton?” Jake glanced at Orville and stepped off the barstool. “The Turner boys. They gut him out at the Dunbar place. Somebody shot Tom Dunbar! Shot in the back! Shot in the back!” “Turners don’t give a damn ’bout the law,” said Orville. “This ain’t another one of your wild stories—is it, Alby?” “I tell ya, Tom Dunbar… they shot the bastard in the back!” “Is he alive?” “I just know they shot him in the back, Jake. Shot him in the back.” Jake plucked out a silver coin and flipped it onto the bar. It spun around like a top, and Orville scooped it up. He tipped his hat to Orville and plowed behind Alby through the saloon, but he made eye long enough with Pam Grayson to send a burst of energy through his gut. Alby parted the café doors.

The sunlight stung his eyes as his boots hit the boardwalk. Menewa, his black coat shiny in daylight, remained hitched near his office across the street. His horse snorted twice when he saw Jake. He stepped across the prairie dirt, unhitched Menewa, and climbed into the smooth leather saddle. Dan Dalton, a quiet man, washed dishes in The Coltraine for years and did not even carry a gun. Jake gave Menewa a spur kick, and the horse galloped down the street through town. The Turners were powerful enough to lynch Dalton. He followed after Alby’s crooked-leg horse, Willie, in a swirl of dust. Why would the Turners do something stupid like hang Dan Dalton?

* * *

Under gray cliff ledges, in the shadow of the distant Sierras, Menewa leaped over a small gulch and scrambled up the sandy sage-covered slope. Jake leaned forward in the saddle, gripping the reins as he chased Alby and Willie along the ridge to the Dunbar Ranch near Hammer Creek. He gazed south toward Sorroyo Canyon, carved deep and red into the flat land. Clouds formed dark along the horizon above Sorroyo. The vague outlines of the jackknifed train appeared like a broken line across the mottled brown plains. The engine and two cars remained on the track. He slowed and removed his field glasses from the saddlebag. The engine, marked 924 near the smokestack, sat on the prairie like a lonely buffalo. He swung the glasses to the left. The twisted tracks outlined a substantial crater in the desert floor. An open stock car door near the jackknifed section indicated trouble. Where were the engers, the engineer and crew, or even the U.S. Army? To the west, jagged foothills led toward the higher peaks silhouetted against the open blue sky. After he investigated the Dalton thing, he would head out to the wreck.

* * *

Elton Dunbar built his log ranch after the war under Freeman’s Ledge. Hammer Creek flowed quickly about two hundred yards beyond a long line of lofty oaks and manzanita. Everything went to his son Tom when Elton died a few years back. Tom moved with his family from Mississippi and maintained Elton’s house. He raised a few head of cattle, minded his own business, and had no battles with the Turners. Now he was dead. Jake slowed Menewa along the cascading creek. A dozen people had gathered under the tree clump ahead. The burly Rody Turner rode wildly on his black steed in front of the boisterous crowd, trying to move them back. A thick hemp noose dangled in the midday sun from a bare branch extending toward the creek. Dan Dalton, hands tied behind his back, stood next to the dark stallion. Jake pulled out his Colt and fired into the air. Alby, never missing an opportunity to create commotion, fired both his revolvers upward. The crowd turned, and Menewa galloped into the encampment. Fat Junior Turner quickly looped the noose over Dalton’s neck. Jake fired his gun again and pulled back on the reins. “What in hell do you think you’re doin’, Junior?” “This man killed Tom Dunbar,” said the unshaven Mike Turner, standing to the right. All the brothers looked the same: dark eyes and hair, beard-stubble faces with pig-snout noses like the old man. The heavier Junior walked up to Jake. “Shot him in the back.” Mary Ellen Dunbar, her brown hair a tangled mess in the breeze, held her two children back in the crowd. “He killed my husband. Tom is dead!” “You ain’t gonna let some murderin’ bastard go free, are you, Marshal?” asked Rody, the eldest and most arrogant of the three Turner boys. “I don’t intend ta.” “Good, that’s what we wanted to hear.” Rody turned toward the bug-eyed Junior. “Loop that noose around the son of a bitch!” Jake vaulted off Menewa and drew his gun squarely in front of Rody’s beady eyes. “Belay that, Junior. This man is going back to my jail!”

“So the marshal won’t serve justice,” said Rody, stepping back to Junior. “What’s the matter, Marshal, worried about what the judge might say when he come to town?” Jake, with his gun still drawn, trailed the smaller Rody across the dirt. This would not be the first time he shot someone threatening his manhood. “You can talk plainer than that, brother.” Rody stared at his gun hand and looked at Junior and Mike. “Don’t try nothin’!” cried Alby, his guns pointed at the other Turners. Jake sensed fear in Rody’s little eyes. Rody looked back to Junior and waved his arm. “Let ’em go!” “Now why don’t you and yur brothers get back to your place. And you tell Sam how you were out here this morning tryin’ ta string up a man without a fair trial.” “Pa is fur it,” said Junior. “Shut up, Junior!” yelled Mike. “You haven’t heard the last of this, McBride,” said Rody. He and his brothers strode together back to their horses beyond the trees. Jake turned to Alby and then they mounted up. “Bring him in, Alby.” “Close call, Danny! Close call!” said Alby. The Turner horses produced a dust cloud along the creek. The brothers crossed at the ford and headed west under the high clouds. Alby pulled out his glistening Bowie knife and sliced the rope around Dan Dalton’s wrist. Mary Ellen, clutching her children, wept as Dalton, only in his early twenties, staggered forward and meekly stood in front of Jake. Jake did not see guilt in his blue eyes. “What happened, Dan?” “I rode in, Marshal. Came over ta borrow Tom’s saw. Talked about it yesterday at The Arroyo. Got witnesses.”

“You rode in, and what happened?” “Found him inside. Dead on the floor. I run out just when his wife and kids come up in their carriage.” Jake stroked his chin and studied Dan’s glassy eyes. “You kill Dunbar, Dan?” “Nope.” “Okay.” Jake checked the clearing back to the house. “You’ll have a chance to prove yourself when Judge Mackenzie comes to town. Alby, bring him back and… lock him up.” “Will do, Jake. Will do.” Jake turned to the neighbors. “You men, Griffin and Early. Ride back to town with them.” The Turner boys had disappeared over the yellow grazing land across the river. They rode out here to seek their own kind of justice, and Jake wanted to know if Sam Turner knew about it. As Alby and the others marched Dan Dalton away from the clearing, Jake meandered through the crowd to Mrs. Dunbar. “Marshal, are you sure you did the right thing?” asked Newton Cory, one of the old miners. “Yeah, I did the right thing, Newton.” “Marshall Tuckerman would have—” “I don’t care ’bout Tuckerman. Dalton will be proven either guilty or innocent at his trial.” He looked into Mrs. Dunbar’s washed-out red eyes. “You heard what I just said, Mary Ellen. If Dalton killed your husband, he’ll hang.” “Tom was a good man, Marshal. Made it all the way through the war and now… to be… to be shot in the back. At his own place. You make sure Dalton hangs!” She cried on the bushy-haired Grace Whitman’s shoulder. The kids looked up at Jake with wide tearful eyes. Growing up without a father was not fair. They

could not fully know or understand the death of their father. Jake spun back to the crowd. “Did anybody see what happened out here?” “I’m the one who saw Dalton,” said Newton, moving his mouth around his beard. “Saw the whole damn thing.” “Whaddaya tellin’ me, Newton—you saw Dan Dalton shoot Tom Dunbar?” “Well, not, ah…” He tightened his white brows and scratched his head. “I didn’t think so. I think you and Alby softened yur brains drinkin’ in the mining camps a long time ago.” Jake faced the crowd. “You listen ta me, all of you! I’m gettin’ sick and tired of you people accusing Dan Dalton of things you think he did. You were about to string him up because Newton thought Dalton shot Dunbar. Man’s innocent until proven guilty.” “But I saw him comin’ out of the house!” cried Newton. “He run from the house and left in a gallop!” “So what?” Jake put his hands on his hips. Back along the creek, a single brown horse pulled a surrey toward the grove. “Who the hell is this?” Jake took a few steps forward. The aging Doc Talmadge and Jim Coltraine sat in the front. They brought the carriage to an abrupt stop. The mustached Coltraine, in his San Francisco vested blue suit, his black boots still spit-polish clean, leaped out first. He rushed across the clearing ahead of Talmadge. “Jake, I heard Tom Dunbar is dead. If you think Dan Dalton killed him, you’re dead wrong.” “You heard correctly, Jim. He’s dead. And Dalton wuz out here.” The unkempt Doc Talmadge stumbled around the horses. “Little late for your services, Doc.” “ed Alby on the way, Jake. Dalton do it?” “Damned if I know,” said Jake. He motioned for Jim and Talmadge to follow him to the barn. Dunbar’s tools hung neatly along the barn wall, and his horses ate hay inside the stalls. Jake rubbed the darker horse’s snout. “Good fellah.” Jim held his arm. “I have one question for you, Jake.”

“What’s that?” Talmadge ed a silver whiskey flask among them. “No thanks, Doc,” said Jim. “Dan Dalton worked in my kitchen at the hotel. I don’t ever recall the kid wearing a gun, Jake. I can’t believe that he would come out here and just shoot Tom in the back.” “Stranger things have happened,” said Jake, wiping the whiskey from his mouth, and he handed the flask back to Talmadge. “Come on, let’s go in the house.” Jake studied the dirt as they crossed the yard. He crossed the porch and stepped inside. Across the cleanly swept floor, Tom Dunbar, a mass of curly peppered hair spread on the floorboards, lay facedown under his stone fireplace. One precise round hole had pierced his dark vest. Talmadge checked the body while Jake walked through the house. “What’s this?” asked Jim, holding a shiny wide blade saw. Jake turned. “Looks like a saw.” “Yeah, but what is it doing here on the floor? All the other tools are hanging in the barn.” “I don’t know.” Jake faced Talmadge. “Any other wounds, Doc?” “Nope. One shot. From behind. I’d say he never knew who killed him. I reckon he’s been dead three or four hours.” The whole thing bothered Jake. Whoever shot Dunbar in the back did not want to be seen and wanted him dead quick. Dan Dalton did not even own a gun, and why would he be so yellow to shoot Dunbar in the back? Jim set down the saw on the table. Because the rest of the tools were in the barn, maybe the saw had something to do with Dunbar’s killing. “Okay, when the wires are up, I’m sendin’ a wire to the judge ’bout this.” “Good move,” said Jim. “Let the judge try Dalton, but with Sam Turner’s boys involved in this, I’d keep

your ass out of this,” said Talmadge. “I want this thing handled the way it’s supposed ta be handled.” The sunshine blinded his eyes for a second. Near the barn, Talmadge and Jim continued to discuss the shooting. He walked down the length of the porch. Several greasy scuffs covered the outer boards. He bent down and ran his finger through what looked and smelled like creosote. He ducked under the rail and stepped into the yard. Boot prints, rounded from someone running, began at the porch and formed a trail in the dirt to the cattle pens beyond. Another set of prints almost paralleled the first trail. Boot imprints were pressed near horseshoe marks near the corral. Someone had dismounted from a horse, headed onto the porch, and then returned. He followed the horse trail along the fence toward the open range. The horse had come and gone from the east. Amidst the sand grains, stray grass blades, and pebbles, an alternating bright reflection shone in the dirt. He marched forward, reached down, and picked up a spent Remington shell. Then he gazed across the long stretch of range. Anyone riding in from the desolate eastern land would be riding some distance. He snuck the shell in his vest pocket and headed toward Dunbar’s barn. “You find somethin’ out there, Jake?” asked Talmadge. He reached in his pocket and placed the shell between his fingers. “This.” “Remington,” said Jim, inspecting it closer. “Could be anyone.” “No, someone with creosote on his boots. A rider came in from the east, hitched his horse away from the house next to the cattle, and then sneaked up the side porch. But his boots scraped them boards.” “Better check Dalton’s boots,” said Talmadge. “Yup.” “Andy says an Overland Railroad man, John Rheingold, should be arriving soon on the evening stage. He reserved a suite,” said Coltraine. “Why are the telegraph lines down?”

Jake stroked his chin. “Don’t know. You said this man is named John Rheingold? Can’t place him. Why would a railroad man be arrivin’ on a stage and not on a train?” “Don’t know.” “Jim, I’m ridin’ down ta Sorroyo. Why don’t you and Doc come with me?” Coltraine looked over at Talmadge. “You won’t find nothin’.” “Whaddaya sayin,’ Doc?” asked Jake. “Train’s empty.” “Train’s empty? This happened yesterday mornin’. Yur tellin’ me, in thirty hours, the silver and the engers are gone?” “Guess the engineer gut the engers out on the wagons to Carson City,” said Talmadge. “Yeah, but what about the silver? When the hell did the silver disappear?” “Dunno…” “Well, damn, where’s the engineer?” asked Jake. “He’s not in town. As a matter of fact, I was preparing to get rooms ready. Then we find out the engers are gone.” Jake looked toward the brown ridges folded against the wide blue sky and blocking the view to Sorroyo Canyon. “You comin’ with me?” “Yeah, we’ll go,” answered Coltraine. In the shaded grove, the parson had arrived and comforted Mrs. Dunbar and her children. To the east, the old mines burrowed into the distant rock knolls. Someone rode to the Dunbar Ranch from that direction, and Jake reasoned it was not Dan Dalton. If he and Alby had not arrived when they did, Dalton would be swinging from the tree branch back in the grove.

4


Jake brought Menewa across the packed-dirt desert floor ahead of Coltraine’s surrey. The train’s long green enger cars had jackknifed across the desert. Jake counted six cars. He brought the horse alongside the car nearest the tracks. A thick dust layer coated The Overland Railroad’s gold letters above the windows. Doc Talmadge was right about the empty cars. He peered at the shiny leather seats and oak wainscoted walls inside. Then he motioned Menewa toward the massive metal locomotive 924 and two cars that remained on the tracks. He climbed out of the saddle onto the stony rail bed. The railroad gangs had laid this track only two years ago. Beyond the forward cars, the steel rails twisted into a deep crater like he had seen in Virginia during the war. The tracks toward Carson City had rusted along the sides, but the polished steel shined in the sunlight. Grass sprouted through the rocks. He stepped over the wood crossties and checked the telegraph wires looped on the poles under the high thin clouds. He wondered who ordered all the engers to Carson City. Jake guided Menewa down the gravel bed to the rear car. Where was the engineer and the conductor? He slowly removed his Colt from the leather holster as the wind rustled the dust across the tracks. Coltraine slowed his surrey and stepped out with Doc Talmadge. Coltraine focused on his gun. “Trouble, Jake?” “I ain’t sure.” He looked toward the engine. “Soaring Bird first saw this?” “Last night, Jake,” said Coltraine. “He told Alby.” “That wuz his first mistake.” Doc Talmadge laughed. “Did anyone in town see

the engers or the silver?” “No, sir. Only that engineer and his helpers,” answered Coltraine. “Then where the hell are they?” Jake figured somebody got that engine and cars farther up the track. “Dunno what happened to them.” Jake turned back. “Orville told me someone gut the tracks good.” “Dynamite,” said Doc Talmadge, adjusting his glasses. Jake stared at the scalloped crater. “Damn right, Doc. Damn right. Somebody knew this here train wuz comin’ by with silver.” “Like we saw after Cold Harbor. Sheridan tore up the rebel tracks,” said Coltraine. “Wuz in ’64. This time of year,” said Jake. They followed Jake around the caboose. Deep, crisscrossed wagon ruts cut the brown gritty soil. “Look at this, will ya? Them are wagon tracks,” said Talmadge. “I know what they are, Doc,” said Jake. “Wagons removing the engers?” asked Coltraine. “Or the silver,” said Jake. “Wuz the army guardin’ that silver?” “The army usually guards valuable cargo,” said Talmadge. “How did they git all them engers out so fast, and where the hell is the silver?” asked Jake. They walked up to the hollowed-out crater. Splintered lumber and rail covered the grit and brush. “Maybe the silver isn’t stolen,” said Coltraine. “Maybe the army men just

removed it.” “Unlikely, Jim,” said Jake. “You know as well as me, boys, them bastards waited fur this train. Someone with a dynamite box. When the train wuz close, they pushed the charge. They needed to know the train had silver.” “Maybe that railroad man knows more,” said Coltraine. They trampled the debris toward a new assortment of wagon ruts. “Well, that’s another good one,” said Jake. The wagon tracks converged and had chewed up the gravel beds. “Wreck happens yesterday and the railroad has a man out here in less than a day? The Overland’s office is in Omaha. Too many unknowns here, brother.” He led them around the crater. “Why is the rest of this train still on the track? Damned cars are a hundred feet up there.” “Must have split with the force of the explosion,” said Coltraine. “Don’t make sense fur the car and the engine ta still be on the track. Hell, Jim, they were all connected.” “Well, that’s true.” Jake crawled up the perforated metal stairs and lifted himself into the cab. Wood had spilled onto the metal floor below the boiler. The metal around the boiler was still warm. “Whaddaya see, Jake?” asked Talmadge from below. “Ain’t nothin’ in here.” Jake stroked his whiskers as Coltraine pulled his way up the handrail. “Somethin’ ain’t right. When we get back ta town, I wanna wire The Overland, the army, and the Pinkertons.” “Good luck with the wires down,” said Coltraine. “Funny the telegraph line went down just as the silver disappeared.” Jake nodded. “The army musta taken the silver to the U.S. Mint. We gut no witnesses sayin’ it wuz stolen.” Coltraine put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I submit there are no witnesses at all,

Jake.” Jake pursed his hardened lips and panned the purple Sierras to the northeast. The rugged trails would hamper wagons full of silver. He had a hunch the wagon tracks would lead south toward Sorroyo Canyon. The canyon tapered into Death Valley through California to Arizona and New Mexico Territory. “Well, we gutta folla them tracks wherever they lead. And soon. Just in case it wuz stolen. Wagonloads of silver require strong and fresh horses. We should be able ta catch them. I say we leave tonight if we have ta.” “We?” “Ya, you comin’ with me?” “Jake, you and I go back a long way. We’re both Ohio boys. But I’m not a scout.” “You’ve gut the good life at The Coltraine is what you’ve gut.” Coltraine grinned. “We all have our responsibilities.” “We do.” “You can take Alby with you,” he said, smiling as he looked across the prairie. Jake grinned. “Thanks.” “Look!” shouted Talmadge. Jake leaned in the open window. From the western foothills, a ghostly image of galloping horses crossed the range. He squinted in the sun. Soaring Bird rode bareback on his white pinto, and three Shoshoni on darker horses trailed behind. Jake climbed down the engine ladder and dug his boots in the gravel bed. The ground rumbled as the sleek horses and their Indian riders approached. Soaring Bird’s lean muscles tightened as he rolled off his horse. His skin was sun toned, and his high bronze cheekbones housed intense but quiet black eyes. He walked slowly to Jake. A single black-and-white feather emerged straight up from a swirl of dark hair.

Tiny blue ribs clamped strands near his shoulders. Numerous red and bright green beads looped about his smooth neck. He wore an open tanned vest and army-issued leather britches. Jake gripped his smooth hand. “I thought you wuz up at Duck Valley, hainji.” “Agent Palmer received your letter on my behalf. Thank you. I have a .” The Indian had a mellow but melodic tone to his voice. He learned English when he was a child. Jake had known Soaring Bird since his days as a deputy in Elko. He found the Indian smarter than most white men. “There are many Newe who wander, McBride. Some have become farmers with the white man’s army. Others work on ranches now as laborers. And others are at Duck Valley or Ruby Valley. When Yepani arrives, we find ourselves returning to Pia Sokopia, the Earth Mother.” “I’m glad you’re free fur a while. Wuz a time you roamed about and nobody bothered you.” “Those days are behind us, McBride… gaihaiwate.” Thoughts about his friend rounded up on a reservation only made him angry. “I just gut back ta town.” “Welcome back.” “Some welcome.” “We were out on the flats yesterday. We saw this train.” “You saw the wreck?” asked Jake. “No. The train had already left the tracks. When we tried to ride closer, the army kept us away.” “The army?” “Two army men. They told us to leave, or we would be killed.” Jake traced the mud-caked flats toward the Sierra foothills. “Many soldiers?”

“We were too far away. They said they were loading engers into wagons for travel to Carson City. Rough terrain.” “What about the silver?” asked Jim Coltraine as he approached. “Mexicans. According to the lieutenant, they were robbed by Mexican banditos led by Estrada.” “Mexicans?” shouted Jake. “Did you see Mexicans?” asked Coltraine. “No, Coltraine. We were too far away, and they forced us to leave. We went back to town to look for McBride.” “I went after rustlers.” Jake shook his head and put his hands on his hips as he studied the train again. “I’d give my month’s stipend not ta have been chasing rustlers.” He jabbed his finger at the numerous wagon tracks in the soil. “Whaddaya make of this?” Soaring Bird squatted and ran his fingertips over the powdery ruts. Then he and the other Indians wandered away from the train. They faced the canyon rim a few miles to the south. Soaring Bird pointed as he looked over his shoulder. “Deep tracks lead toward the canyon. Nehwe . . . Perhaps a heavy load.” Jake gazed toward the rim. “Why the hell would Estrada take heavy wagons full of silver into Sorroyo Canyon? Most of Estrada’s gang was killed last year. Shootout in Arizona after they raided Monterrey last summer. They took almost seventy-five thousand. Then the Arizona boys gut ’em. Even shot their mules, brother. Less they re-organized.” “The canyon trail will allow wagon travel,” said Soaring Bird. Jake questioned how Mexicans could overpower a trainload of soldiers. “And why not bring the engers back ta town?” “I agree. Why the canyon?” asked Coltraine. “You’re talking about traveling along the rapids. You reach the spilt where the land levels, and what have you got? Dry parched land down to the Panamints.”

“Death Valley to the southwest, and if yur lucky, you hit the trail to Arizona and New Mexico Territory,” said Jake. “And then Mexico.” “Sorroyo is a good place to hide silver,” added Talmadge. “Maybe.” Jake stared at the buckled train. Then he turned to Coltraine and Soaring Bird. “I’m movin’ out tonight. Tommora mornin’ at the latest. We’ll find out whether the army has the silver or if it wuz stolen. I’d like to wire Fort Churchill and San Francisco right now. I want you to come with me to find that silver.” “I will go,” said Soaring Bird, looking at the Shoshoni. “But my people will return to Duck Valley.” “Good, I need yur help. If that silver wuz taken, it ain’t gonna be given up easy. Sure you don’t wanna go, Jim?” “No, I’ll stay back in town. Wait for the railroad man.” “Probably a good move. I need you in town. Having Alby in charge don’t exactly make me wanna jump for joy, brother. I’ll see if I can locate Levi Hansen or his girl, the schoolteacher.” “Sarah.” “Maybe she can find him. I’ll deputize Levi and have him check the telegraph lines. Meantime, Soaring Bird and me will track them wagons.”

5


The cowpunchers and townsfolk laughed and drank dark beer from oversized frosted glasses. Metal plates clanged, and the conversation maintained a background buzz inside The Coltraine Hotel’s wide dining room. Along the bright yellow walls and a long row of white pane windows, Jake bit into his steak. Alby slobbered mashed potatoes around his mouth and onto the bluecheckered tablecloth. The crimson-haired Andy Bisbane pinched a piece of crumpled paper between his fingers as he stepped between the tables and the prancing waiters in white aprons. He spoke in a low, reluctant voice as his eyes wandered. “Hey, Jake.” “Andy.” He lifted up a wrinkled telegram. “I furgot ta give ya this.” Jake left the steak and potatoes on his fork. “Wires up yet?” “They keep goin’ down as soon as Levi fixes ’em. Somebody’s messin’ with them wires.” “Levi Hansen’s a smurt kid. He’ll find the bastards.” “He’s gut Sawtooth with him,” said Andy. Jake gave a quick nod and lifted his fork. “Good shot that Sawtooth.” “Sawtooth bit a man ta death!” shouted Alby. “I’ll that if we run out of bullets.” Jake looked at the yellow telegram

and set the fork back on his pewter plate. “Whaddaya gut?” “Telegram. Came from Carson City. The judge is…” Alby tried to grab the wire. “Whad he say? Whad he say?” “What does he say?” asked Jake, wincing at Alby. “Here, read for yourself.” Jake held the paper in his hands.

LEAVING CARSON CITY MONDAY STOP GET CRIBBAGE BOARD READY STOP GIVE YOU SECOND CHANCE STOP WILL TAKE CARE OF ALL BUSINESS STOP WILL ARRIVE TUESDAY LAST STAGE MACKENZIE

“Well, that’s two nights away.” With a grin, Jake set the message on the

tablecloth. “I just wish I couldda talked ta the judge now ’bout Dalton.” “Whad he say? Whad he say?” asked Alby, gushing more potatoes between his missing front teeth. “He says he’ll be here on the last stage on Wednesday. Dalton’s gonna need a lawyer.” “Judge think he did it?” asked Alby. “Now, the judge ain’t gut no way ta tell me that, Alby, with them wires down.” Jake flipped a silver piece to Andy. “Thanks, Andy. Much obliged.” “You want me ta wire anyone when the wires are up again?” “Hell, we need ta Fort Churchill and The Overland Railroad. Then again, that railroad man’s rivin’ tanight. You hear anythin’ else, Andy, you let me know. Specially if them wires are up again. If I didn’t have ta folla the silver, I’d ride out along the line with Levi.” “Them wires keep comin’ down in different places, Jake.” “Anybody new here in town before the wreck?” “Nobody un-usual. ’Cept Alby.” “Go ahead. Make fun. You don’t find that silver, Jake, the government will kick yur ass.” Jake scooped up some potatoes on his fork as he thought. “He’s right.” “I am?” asked Alby. “Yeah… Somethin’ ain’t sittin’ right with me. Like how fast this here thing happened. The tracks git blown up, and the silver and them engers and army men move out like jackrabbits.” “A con-spiracy,” said Alby. “Maybe, Alby. I’m gonna talk ta that railroad man when he gets in. I’d like ta know where the hell them engers are stayin’.”

“I’ll let ya know, Jake.” “Obliged, Andy.” Jake watched him leave the dining room and then he cut into the charcoal chunk of beef on his plate. Alby cackled again. “Jake, Dalton kept tellin’ me! He kept tellin’ me! Said he didn’t do it. Said Tom Dunbar was on the floor, Jake. Already dead! Already dead!” “Maybe he was. I never took Dalton for a liar.” Alby’s talking and eating at the same time annoyed him. A mixture of potatoes and peas hung from Alby’s chin. “All he did wuz go over to borrow a saw, Jake.” “Come on, wipe your chin, for cryn’ out loud,” said Jake, sipping the coffee. “I don’t think he did it. I told ya, someone rode into that place from the east. The spent shell was out on the range. And his boots wuz covered with creosote. Dalton’s boots were clean. Listen, I gut some papers to get in order for Judge Mackenzie, case I ain’t back when he comes in.” “Ain’t you comin’ ta the saloon, Jake?” Alby swiped the rest of the food and gravy from his plate with a piece of bread. “I’ll be over later fur I head out,” he said as he stood. He put a Morgan dollar down on the tablecloth and picked up his hat. Alby raised his bushy gray brows. “Jake, can ya spot me some drinkin’ money?” “You just tell Orville I said ta put it on my tab. I’ll se ya over there.” Jake nodded to the waiter, scurrying between the tables, and then he stepped into the hotel’s walnut-ed lobby. Several men in formal eastern clothes and a woman and child, all coated with dust, lingered at the buffed mahogany hotel counter. The clerk handed a key from the slots behind the counter to a man in a dark wool suit. Jake peered around a leafy green plant near the grandfather clock’s brass face. The late stage must have just come in early. He pushed the heavy hotel doors and stepped onto the boardwalk. Silhouetted gray buildings etched the starry sky along the dirt-packed road. A few men from the stage led the horses into the livery. The coach, luggage rack empty, angled

downward across the street. A man with a thin face and auburn hair dabbed on his high forehead and stretched his black polished boots out the stage door. He stepped on the bottom brace and pulled himself out the side s. His wide comb mustache—too wide for his face—and rounded jaw added a few years to his countenance. In his black suit and string tie, he might have been from Chicago or even New York. He checked his silver watch and then tucked it back in his vest pocket. His smooth black leather gloves fit tightly on his fingers as a varnished cane with a brass head appeared from under his coat. He draped his coat over his arm, and Jake was sure he had seen those bright blue eyes somewhere. One of the drivers, holding a rifle, dusted off his pants as he approached. “How’s the trail from Eureka, Ed?” “Trail’s the trail, Jake. You drinkin’ later?” “Ya, I’m drinkin’.” Jake watched the stranger. “That the railroad man?” “John Rheingold, from Omaha,” replied Ed. “Transferred on the stage at Eureka.” “Transferred from where?” “Hell, I’ll have to check when I get back. That big lady—Matilda Parsons.” “What about her?” “Never shut up all the way from Carson City. I like ta just drive the horses. I could hear her clear up top.” Jake grinned. “There she is now.” The well-dressed man extended his hand to a round-framed lady in a yellow dress. She had a wide mouth full of teeth, and her boisterous chatter was evident even from across the street.

“Thank you so much for being my traveling companion, Mr. Rheingold.” “My pleasure, Mrs. Parsons.” He bowed slightly, and she twiddled her crimson curls. Several men from the Coltraine appeared for her luggage. With a sly, engaging smile, the six-foot-tall Rheingold veered toward Jake and spoke in a crisp Midwestern voice. “If we didn’t make it to Brinson, I was going to jump off the stage.” “Sounds like you had some fem-in-in company,” said Jake. Rheingold crunched his lower lip up to his looping mustache. “You’re the marshal?” “We met before?” asked Jake. “I don’t think so. I’m John Rheingold.” He balanced a stogie between his white teeth as Jake shook his strong and callused hand. “Jake McBride… You in town ’bout the silver?” “I’m here to find the silver for the railroad, yes. That shipment was due in Carson City. Although I have very little information with your wires being down. I was wired in Eureka by my company and was told the 924’s engers were sent to Carson City by the army. I was on company business in Eureka.” “Yup.” “And the engineer, Wiehl, wired The Overland from Carson City, saying that Mexicans had stolen the silver shipment. I think you, as a lawman, would understand the implications of Mexican bandits.” “Why the hell is the engineer in Carson City and not here?” “I instructed Wiehl to return with his men to Brinson for the investigation.” Rheingold’s eyes swung down the dirt-laden street toward The Arroyo. “This is Brinson, correct?” “Correct.” Jake furrowed his brow. “Rail line heads north to Carson City and then west to San Francisco on the other side of the Sierra.”

“Oh, I want a room facing east,” said Mrs. Parsons in a shrill voice as she ed with three porters and an odd number of trunks. She gave Rheingold an engaging smile as she ed. “I love to see the sun rise.” “I think you could see the sun rise, Mr. Rheingold,” said Jake. Ed laughed hard enough to hold his knees. Even Rheingold chuckled as he followed Mrs. Parsons as she entered The Coltraine. “I don’t think I could survive seeing the sun rise, Marshal.” “One big woman,” said Jake. Rheingold twisted back to Jake. “I was told you were out of town, Marshal.” “I wuz… trackin’ some varmints who wuz rustlin’ cattle south of town… But I gave up. They’re long gone, and I’m back early. But this silver… it just disappears under the U.S. Army’s nose?” “Mexicans overpowered them. Man named Estrada, according to Wiehl.” “Estrada musta reorganized his gang. ’Cause there wasn’t much left of it last year.” “Wiehl and McAlister say the army men onboard were tied up and brought south in wagons with the silver.” “Who is McAlister?” asked Jake. “He’s the conductor and helps with the engine, according to Wiehl. Now, nothing has been proved about army men. I need to wire my company, but again, your wires are down.” “I’m aware of that. Listen, Mr. Rheingold.” Rheingold smoothly puckered his lips on the stogie. “You been out to the wreck?” “Yeah, I been out there. Place is deserted.” “Well…”

“How’d you git out here so soon?” asked Jake. Something about Rheingold bothered him. “I told you I was on company business in Eureka. With the track destroyed, I took the stage. These lines being down is like war.” “I wuz in the war. I know that.” “Union?” asked Rheingold. “Was with McClellan early. Then the Twenty-Third Ohio with my friend Jim Coltraine. He owns this hotel. Later, we wuz with Sheridan in the Shenandoah. I wuz just a lowly private until Antietam,” said Jake. “We wuz in ordinance. Kept supplies coming. I seen you somewhere. Yur too young to have been in the war.” Jake folded his arms. Images of fighting back and forth over the stone bridge over the Sharpsburg Creek were still in his head. A. P. Hill forced them back late in the afternoon. So many corpses were strewn over the fields in that Maryland town. “At that time, I was a boy in Indiana.” “Nope, never been there.” “Can I ask you a question, Mr. Rheingold?” “Yes, sir.” “Why the hell would The Overland have all that silver on a train full of engers? Where did they get on?” Rheingold’s expressive eyes trailed to the side. “I don’t make the arrangements, Marshal. I will get more information. Once your wires are up.” “Right… I’m gonna folla them wagon tracks inta Sorroyo Canyon.” “That is Estrada’s modus operandi.” Jake set held the stogie by his side. “Whaddya talkin’ ’bout?” “He did it in Skeleton Canyon in the Peloncillo Mountains. The canyon straddles

the Arizona and New Mexico Territory. There’s loot in the canyon. I’m certain that’s what he’s done here.” “Estrada wouldn’t head this fur north. And most of his gang were killed along with their mules, if I recollect co-rrectly.” “Gangs reform, Marshal.” “Maybe. You sure know lotta ’bout that territory down there.” “The Overland goes down there.” “But you don’t know nothin’ ’bout engers on that train.” “No sir.” Rheingold inhaled and finished the stogie. He snuffed it in the dirt. “You should let the Pinkertons handle the silver, Marshal. I think you’re over your head trying to track the Mexicans.” Jake stepped close enough to inhale Rheingold’s fancy cologne. “I ain’t over my head, brother. And I keep hearin’ ’bout Estrada and them Mexicans, but as fur as I’m concerned, it’s all secondhand bullshit. I wanna talk ta them engers.” “You’re welcome to talk to Wiehl or McAllister. They should be back by tomorrow from Carson City. They said José Estrada led the attackers. They were all dark-haired and speaking Spanish. They loaded the silver in wagons before heading into the canyon.” Jake leaned against one of the hotel’s wood posts. He struck a match and lit a rolled-up bunch of tobacco. “Few weeks ago, I looked at wanted posters ’bout Estrada… in Texas. He’s been givin’ the Rangers trouble fur years. I’ll tell ya again. Estrada’s in the border region, and he ain’t never come this fur north.” “Maybe for a freight-car load of silver bars, he would. That would set a man for life.” Jake had heard that phrase, but he did not know where. He puffed on the tobacco. “A car full of silver, and they let a bunch of Mexican banditos just take it.” “Couple of army men were killed. Some helped the engers to Carson City.

They and the rest were taken by Estrada from what my company said on the wire.” “Just where were the army men from?” “Fort Churchill.” “And the goddamned Mexicans overpowered the cavalry?” “Apparently.” “Bullshit.” “I have two army men from Fort Churchill due in tonight. They’ll help me, and my company is bringing in a Pinkerton detective.” Jake produced a staccato laugh. “Waitin’ fur Pinkertons ain’t gonna do nobody no good. We need ta get afta them wagons and then wire Fort Churchill.” “Wait until daylight. We’ll ride out to Sorroyo Canyon together,” said Rheingold. “It’s my job ta look into this. I would like ta talk ta Wiehl and his railroad men.” Rheingold placed his spindly fingers on Jake’s shoulder. “We’ll have some breakfast and all meet out at the canyon. What do you say?” He was sure he had seen Rheingold somewhere. “I’m leavin’ tonight. Get a jump on them wagons.” “I frankly think traveling at night is not prudent.” Jake tightened his brow. “What exactly do you do for The Overland, Mr. Rheingold?” “I’m a vice president and am personally responsible for the track from Omaha to San Francisco. If I don’t find that silver, I will be responsible for nothing.” Jake turned toward his office. A single oil lamp burned in Dalton’s cell. Deep in thought, Rheingold stared across the prairie stars and abruptly plucked another stogie from his inner pocket. Jake rapped his arm. “If them Mexicans left

yesterday, we can catch wagons stuffed with silver in a few days if we leave now. They’d be near Death Valley, or they may have already headed back to New Mexico Territory.” “Marshal, I do need your help in finding that silver. And there is the reward.” “I have my duty… Don’t care ’bout no money, but ya might want ta get some reward money ta the widda Dunbar. Her husband wuz gunned down. Shot in the back.” “Whoever earns the railroad’s reward can do whatever he wants with it.” “I’ll that.” Rheingold removed the stogie and held it between his fingers without lighting it. Jake faced his clear blue eyes. “I just have trouble believin’ Estrada and his gang came up from Texas.” “You can talk to Wiehl in the morning.” “Nope. I wanna leave tonight.” “You’re a persistent man.” “I aim ta folla them wagons south to Sorroyo.” Rheingold seemed troubled as they drifted onto the boardwalk. “Listen, I’m going out to inspect the 924 in the morning. I’d be glad to go down in the canyon with you then.” “Then I’m gonna miss ya.” “You want the two army men with you?” asked Rheingold. “I’m bringing a Shoshoni friend with me.” Jake laughed and clamped his hand on Rheingold’s shoulder. “You may be good at railroadin’, Mr. Rheingold, but Estrada don’t come up here. Texas is too fur away.” “I believe what Wiehl is saying.”

“Well, in my business, you believe half of what you hear, and the other half you shoot the sky with… I’ll be in The Arroyo.” Jake pointed across the street to the glowing frosted window. A few cowhands staggered through the split café doors. He heard the piano. Rheingold started down the boardwalk. “Maybe I’ll get in some card playing.” Jake stopped and then turned. “You a gamblin’ man?” “I can be persuaded. Look, I’ll meet you before you leave. I’m sure that, working together, we can solve this thing quickly.” “That’s another thing ’bout this business,” said Jake from twenty feet away. “You never can count on nothin’.” “I suppose that’s true.” Rheingold tipped his hat and strolled down the boardwalk to the hotel entrance. Hotel help descended upon him and scrambled to get his bags. Ed approached from the livery. “Thought you’d be drinkin’ by now.” “Who the hell is Rheingold, Ed? Likes people to carry his bags.” “Says he’s a big railroad man. I never heard of him. Come on, let’s get to The Arroyo.” “Man should carry his own bags.” Jake glanced at Ed. “Have ta check my prisoner first. I’ll see ya at the saloon.” “I wuz beginnin’ ta wonder if you gave up drinkin’.” Jake smiled and shuffled across the dirt to his office. The stars brightened as he moved away from the hotel lights. The moon would not be up until later. Something was not right about Rheingold. Maybe he should telegraph The Overland and get a reference on Rheingold when they repaired the line. He opened his office door and struck a match against the plaster. He placed the open flame on the oil lamp wick. The wick flared, and the office brightened. Holding the desk lamp, he moved with the shadows down the hall. He pushed the keys into the backdoor lock and opened the door. A singular low flame

flickered inside the steel wall sconce. Dalton, hands folded on his chest, slouched on the corner of the bed. Jake again checked Dalton’s boots against the bed. The heels were clean, but the black leather was scuffed and dusty. “You all right, Dan?” “As right as an innocent man can be.” “I hear what you’re sayin.’ I need ta get ya a lawyer.” “I don’t want no lawyer. I didn’t do nothin’. I went over ta borrow Dunbar’s saw.” Jake leaned against the rough stucco wall. “You’ll get your chance ta tell yur side. You need some water or somethin’?” “I don’t want nothin’ ’cept gettin’ out of here.” He stood and held the cell window bars. “I advise gettin’ a lawyer, but that’s your choice.” “They all think I did it.” “I know, I know. Them Turner boys gut everyone all stirred up. Mackenzie will decide this with no help from the Turner boys.” Dalton shook his head and gazed outside. Jake hung around for close to a minute. “You want some grub?” “Nah. Ain’t hungry. Jake, you’re the marshal. Alby says you found that shell and the creosote. I saw you lookin’ at my boots. Now that you don’t see no creosote… find out who killed Tom Dunbar.” “Do my best.” Dalton swallowed, his eyes moistened, and he continued to stare toward the saloon. “I hear yur followin’ Mexicans down Sorroyo.” “Gutta.” “Turner boys could come in here and string me up.” “No, that ain’t gonna happen with Mackenzie comin’. And I already done

appointin’ Levi Hansen deputy last April. While I’m gone, he’ll have Sawtooth with him. And Jim Coltraine will be my eyes and ears in town.” “Levi and Sawtooth ur both damned good shots. Just , Marshal, if you don’t find who gunned down Dunbar, I’ll be hangin’ from that tree out at his ranch.” “Not if you didn’t do it. Get some shut-eye, Dan. I’ll be back in a couple of days.” “If Estrada don’t kill ya.” “When yur dead, yur dead.” Dalton returned to the mattress and sprawled his legs out straight. Jake locked the cold bars and shuffled with the oil lamp into the hall. He locked the outer door and stepped back to his office. At the desk, he scribbled notes for Mackenzie on a sheet of paper. Dalton might be lying, but he doubted it. The creosote on the porch might be from something else, but Dan Dalton did not carry a gun. Jake pulled the worn wood cribbage board from his desk drawer and placed the wrinkled card deck on a yellowed Carson City newspaper. Maybe this time, Mackenzie would beat him. Quickly, he lifted his saddlebags and supplies onto Alby’s desk. He packed enough provisions to last a week. As he lifted the lantern onto the desk, he debated whether to wait until morning. Twelve hours might be just enough time for Estrada to move the silver somewhere else. He needed a drink before he left, and kept his bags unpacked. Before extinguishing the wall sconce, he blew out the desk lamp and looked around his office. He crossed the creaky floor directly to the wanted posters nailed to the plaster near the door. A couple of the killers had actual photographs. Near the bottom of the pile were two sketched posters, ripped at the edges, of José Estrada. His mustache was full and twirled on both drawings. He had a sombrero hanging around his neck on the first poster, but both depictions showed him in a striped vest. The warrant specified bank robberies in New Mexico Territory and Texas. Jake looked up in the oil lamp’s light. He stroked his chin. New Mexico was a long way from Nevada. Traveling over distance would be stupid. Someone might see the Mexican and collect the five-hundred-dollar reward. One of the

warrants involved the killing of two bank guards in Santa Fe. He let the posters fall back on the wall. “Estrada would be takin’ a big chance,” Jake said out loud.

* * *

With the stagecoach safely stored inside the livery, Jake walked steadily down the street toward the saloon. O’Malley’s piano playing and the crowd clapping broke the nighttime silence. He pushed open the café doors, and tobacco smoke swirled around the room. On the stage, the showgirls danced in bright crimson satin dresses, kicking their legs higher as men below yelled louder. He nodded to O’Malley and pushed through the crowd to the bar. Alby was at the far table with Ed. “Over here, Jake!” “I’ll be right there, Alby.” Jake sidestepped to the bar. Orville already had a bottle and shot glass ready for him. “Thanks, Orville.” He poured himself a drink and then proceeded along the bar to the rear table. Alby leaned back in a chair behind a dozen smaller bottles. “Glad you’re havin’ a good time on my tab, Alby.” Alby leaned over his whiskey. “Ed says John Rheingold’s here about the missin’ silver, Jake. You still leavin’ tonight?” “Yup, I’m headin’ out. You seen Soarin’ Bird?” “Ain’t seen ’em. Ain’t seen ’em.” “Rheingold gut out here too damned quick,” said Jake. Alby grabbed Jake’s wrist. “Rheingold’s meetin’ two cavalrymen from Fort Churchill, Jake. I hear the railroad’s sendin’ a Pinkerton detective too.” “Old news, brother.” Jake lifted the shot glass to his lips and drank the whiskey.

He rapped the glass on the table. “Well, it’s The Overland’s own damn fault. They shouldda had that train filled with just soldiers, not engers.” “I heard Injun bands been out there,” said Alby. “Maybe they took it.” “I don’t think Injuns are gonna do much with that silver, Alby. You believe every rumor that come floating inta town. Soarin’ Bird would have known if other Injuns were involved.” “Rheingold keeps talkin’ ’bout Mexicans,” said Ed. “Somebody took the silver and the army men away in wagons. I seen the tracks.” “Listen, Alby. Find Sawtooth and track down Levi Hansen. Tell Levi he’s in charge while I’m away.” “What about me?” “What about you? Just tell Levi. Simple message. I don’t want them Turners comin’ back ta town with the hangman’s noose.” “I’ll keep a lookout, Jake.” “You’ll find Levi.” Jake caught sight of Pam Grayson’s dark hair across the bar. He focused on her tight, dusty dark britches. “Pam ain’t been around here in a while,” said Alby. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” “Cat’s on the prowl,” said Alby with a hyena laugh. “Cat’s on the prowl!” Jake rounded the tables. Pam’s bright green eyes focused on him. He tilted his hat. “Pam, hear you’re stayin’ out at the Turner Ranch.” “Jake McBride.” She drank the whiskey straight. “Last time I saw you, you were tryin’ ta get me up to your room.” “Maybe I still am. How ya been?” “Punchin’ cows and listenin’ to them Turner boys tell me I don’t know what the

hell I’m doin’. The old man made it too soft for ’em. They wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it crawled inta bed with them. Leave it to the punchers and the ranch hands.” “I’m sure you don’t take any of their guff, sunshine.” She spread her tanned arms across the back of the chair. Her muslin jersey opened at the collar, just enough to expose her firm breasts. “So, who you gut behind bars, Marshal?” “I gut bigger problems than that. Silver in Sorroyo Canyon. Still within my jurisdiction. The Overland’s gut a Pinkerton comin’ out here, rail man’s already checked in, and I really don’t care ’bout them comin’ in here. Oughtta let folks solve problems where them problems happen.” “Amen to that,” said Pam, tilting the shot glass. She smacked her lips. Her green eyes sizzled. “Let me tell ya… just let the railroad handle it. Don’t you get involved.” “I don’t trust the railroad, the Pinkertons… none of them bastards. But there’s a re-ward out.” “So you really are ridin’ out to Sorroyo Canyon tonight?” “Yup,” he said, sitting next to her. She whispered and purposefully leaned forward so he could see her rounded breasts swivel inside her jersey. “You ain’t answered my question. Who you gut behind bars?” “You haven’t heard about Tom Dunbar?” asked Jake. “Shot dead, right?” she asked. “Yeah. Dan Dalton was found over there.” “He do it?” “Hell no. He was over there borrowin’ a saw. Somebody came in from the east, I reckon, Pam.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked. “Call it intuition, sunshine.” “You know, Jake”—she ran her fingers down his rough beard stubble—“I’m upstairs in 220 at The Coltraine . . . that is, if you’re interested.” “Ain’t you goin’ back to the Turner Ranch tonight?” “Think it would be worth my while to stay in town?” She smiled and finished the whiskey. “Unless you have to leave tonight.” “Depends.” She stood and stretched her tight form before him. Jake let his eyes walk up her leather britches. She placed her finger against his lips as she leaned over. Her eyes were heavy. “Don’t wait too long.” Jake followed her as she sashayed toward the cafés, but she turned and smiled before she stepped outside. Chasing her into The Coltraine would nix his plans to ride into Sorroyo tonight, but he had been after her for months. He finished another shot, checked the pendulum clock, and figured he was about to give Estrada another twelve hours.

6

Brinson, Nevada June 18, 1882 1:20 AM

Three showgirls lounged around his table for about half an hour, but Jake’s thoughts were stuck on Pam Grayson. She was like a wild horse, working alongside the men, and never took any lip. Her unsavory reputation made him want her even more. Maybe he could spend a few hours with her and then move out. Or maybe he would just worry about Estrada in the morning. Ed Ferrier slipped upstairs with one of the girls as Alby staggered over to the bar with a few cattle punchers. Jake paid the tabs and then glided into the cooler air outside. His eyes adjusted to the star spread above the prairie. He recognized the big dipper from his days in the army. Night after night, he waited to fight the rebs in Virginia. Night after night, he became friends with the stars. Men died, but the stars were still there. He glanced up to the second floor of The Coltraine and then trotted like a proud steed down the boardwalk. Some rooms had lamps burning, others were dark, and he had suspicions whether Pam Grayson was just leading him on. Inside the hotel, Buford Peck, his feet propped up, slept behind the counter. Jake crossed the lobby rug and pounded his fist loudly on the wood counter. “Good god!” cried Buford, his eyes opening wide as he exploded out of the chair. “Where do I get some service around here, Buford?” “My Lord, you scared me half to death, Marshal.” He took out his green handkerchief and wiped his high forehead. “I have had a rough night.” “Well, ain’t that bad?” “That woman, Matilda Parsons. She thinks she’s the queen of England.”

Jake smiled. “That’s what you’re here for, Buford. To serve your customers.” Buford shook his head. “You know she not only wants flowers in her room tonight, but she wants fresh flowers in her room tomorrow morning.” “When the sun rises.” “Yes, that is exactly what she said.” “Then I suggest you find some flowers.” “Well, at least she only comes through here once a year.” “Really…” Jake tapped his finger on the counter. “Goes to visit her sister every June in Carson City and then heads back to—” He looked down at the . “To Fresno City, California.” “That’s nice, Buford… Pam Grayson,” he said in a lower voice. “Is she in 220?” “Pam Grayson?” Buford stuffed the handkerchief in his back pocket. “Oh yes, Pam Grayson. The cowgirl,” he said, grinning. Jake scowled. “Well?” “Ah, let me see.” Buford stuck a pencil between his teeth and scanned the guest . “Yes, you are absolutely correct. She is ed, but—” Jake studied Rheingold’s flowery inked signature in the book. “John Rheingold.” “The railroad man.” “I know who he is, Buford. He ever been here before?” Buford stared at the book. “Well?” Buford’s little face tightened. “Yeah, I saw him before, but I couldn’t find his

name when I checked the book.” “I seen him somewhere too. But I’ll be damned if I know where.” He pointed at Buford. “Keep an eye on him.” “Yes sir, but—” “And Buford…” “Sir?” “Keep it under your hat. And tell Jim the marshal said he was leavin’ in the mornin’ to look at the wreck.” “But, Marshal…” “That’s all. Go back to sleep.” Buford leaned back in the creaky oak chair as Jake headed for the dark carpeted staircase overlooking the lobby. As he climbed to the second floor, Buford quickly looked down. Upstairs, Jake followed the oil lamps down a narrow hall with ripped green-flowered print paper. He approached a varnished door. The shiny brass numbers indicated he was outside Pam’s room. He rapped his knuckles against the wood and waited. His mind drifted back to Pam as she walked from the saloon. This woman must have been crazy in a bedroom. As he knocked louder this time, he began to think he had been conned. Half a minute later, he rumbled down the hall and descended the stairs. “The lady’s not in, Buford.” “I was going to tell you that, but you interrupted me,” said the clerk. “Well, where the hell is she? You couldda saved me a trip up them stairs.” “I saw her earlier with that railroad man.” “Rheingold? She don’t waste no time landin’ a man with money.” “You know what Sam Turner says.” Jake took off his hat and wiped his forehead. “Get near the money, and you’re set for life. They talked over by the fireplace.”

Buford pointed to the dying fire across the lobby. “They talked for fifteen minutes just after he got off the stage.” “What did you do, time them on the clock?” Buford produced a meek smile. “They leave?” “Yes, with the two cavalry soldiers.” “Where’d they come from?” “Just showed up in town.” Jake nodded and stroked his chin. “Interestin’ ’bout her and Rheingold.” “Pam knows everybody,” said Buford, covering his mouth as he snickered. “If she don’t, she will.” “You don’t miss a beat, do you, Buford? I won’t bother buying The Bugle no more. I’ll just wait ta hear from you.” Across the lobby, Pam Grayson slowly slid her riding hat back so the cord dangled around her neck. Her long brown hair bounced down over her muslin jersey. She nursed a smoldering stogie as if she were posing for a photograph inside the open hotel doors. Jake stepped away from Buford and swaggered across the wood floor. “Evenin’, Pam. Didn’t see you up in yur room.” “You weren’t lookin’ too hard.” “I got sidetracked, sunshine. But I ain’t sidetracked no more.” He placed one hand against the wall and leaned over her shoulder. She took a final drag from the stogie, blowing the smoke out slowly across his face. “I think it’s time I git upstairs, Marshal. Whaddaya think?” She kissed him hard and held the back of his neck. Then she tossed the stogie through the open doorway. He eyed her rounded breasts below her jersey and now did not care who she was talking to or what she had ever done. She tiptoed

her fingers under his shirt and dragged her arms around his chest. They backed toward the stairs as Buford ducked into the back room. Jake clipped her at the knees and lifted her up. The remnants of a sweet city perfume that mixed with an outdoor freshness sent him reeling. He kissed her again as he hoisted her up the staircase. About midway, he let his hand slip up her jersey, and he cupped her smooth firm breasts. She enveloped her lips around his mouth. He staggered to room 220 and kicked open the door. Rose scents filled the room as he lowered her to the satin sheets. He shut the door and lit the oil lamp, but as he turned, Pam had removed her jersey. Her hair fell over her bare shoulders. Jake threw his vest and shirt on the floor. Pam sprang from the bed and trampled across the shirt. Then she flipped off her hat and pulled off her dark leather boots. She clawed her way across the bed like a wild mountain lion and climbed on top of Jake. The oil lamp flickered, and she peeled off his clothes. Jake forgot about Tom Dunbar or Estrada and the missing silver. He would ride out to Sorroyo Canyon in the morning.

* * *

Jake drifted in and out of sleep with Pam’s arm resting over his chest as she lay on her stomach. He let his hand slide down her buttocks. In the dim twilight, her long dark hair swept across the satin sheets, moving with each breath as she slept. He slowly changed his position and gazed at the almost indiscernible clothes and boots scattered across the floor. He wanted her again as he waited for dawn. Although restless, his heavy eyelids slowly closed. The room brightened when he awoke. A clothing trail was strewn across the wood boards. He heard splashing in the tub in the next room. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as he looked between the white lace curtains. Daylight touched the steeple top, and the embroidered curtains, taken by the morning breeze, were silhouetted on the wall. He rolled off the bed. She sat in a raised tub in the middle of the other room, her

hair pulled up, and her breasts nestled in the suds. A wide smile came over her face. “I wuz wonderin’ when you’d get up. I thought maybe I wore you out.” “Came close.” He walked naked toward the tub. “What do ya know about John Rheingold?” She played with the suds and did not look at him directly. “He’s an important railroad man. He has money. Thought I’d talk ta him.” “You sleep with him?” “Now, Marshal,” she said, standing, the suds slowly meandering down her slick skin. “That ain’t none of yur business.” “Maybe not. I wanna know who went after that silver.” She stepped out and curled a white linen towel around her upper torso. “Then I suggest you git out to Sorroyo Canyon.” He peered out the lace curtains at the sunlit town. “I intend ta.” She walked by him with a mild indifference. He peered out the window toward his office. The shades were still drawn, and Dalton needed breakfast. “Word has it you were talking to John Rheingold and army men last night.” “Marshal, I think that silver makes you tighter in yur britches than most anything.” He turned from the window and raised his left brow. “I’m headin’ to Sorroyo.”

7


Alby stomped into the office as Jake set the speckled blue coffeepot over the wood stove. He stuffed the coffee grinder back on the wall shelf. Given the liquor his deputy had consumed last night, Jake was surprised to see him so early. His dusty green wide-brimmed hat covered his eyes as he prattled on about Rheingold wanting to see Jake at the hotel. Jake pushed the hat back up his forehead. Rheingold and the two cavalry soldiers had plans to travel to Sorroyo Canyon. “Soaring Bird and Jim Coltraine said they knew. They knew.” “They knew what?” “’Bout you and Pam.” “Neva mind ’bout me and Pam,” said Jake, checking the coffeepot. “If I had ta choose between Pam Grayson and ridin’ inta Sorroyo Canyon—” “Alby, shut up. Listen, you go tell Rheingold I’ll him and the soldiers at The Coltraine. Then I am headin’ south. Got ta make up fur lost time.” “Yur a fox, Jake.” Jake sneered and then pointed at Alby. “Go tell Rheingold ’fore I shoot yur ass full of lead.” “I’m goin’. I’m goin’.” Alby cackled as he opened the door and left. Jake poured the coffee. He took some bread rolls from the cabinet and placed everything on a metal tray.

Thoughts of Pam in the hotel-room bed clouded his mind. He gazed out the window toward room 220, but he kept thinking back to what Buford said about Pam talking to Rheingold. He grabbed the tray, unlocked the back door, and walked down the dank hall. Dalton stared into the sunshine through the window’s metal bars. “Not bacon and eggs, but it will have ta do, Dan.” “Ain’t hungry.” Jake unlocked the cell and held the tray. “Suit yourself. I’ll leave it here on the table.” “Don’t matter. I’m a dead man, Jake.” Jake stared at him and thought he might confess to killing Tom Dunbar. He set the coffee and the rolls on the table and turned. Dalton tapped his fingers against the bars. “You wanna tell me somethin’, Dan?” Dalton turned. His reddened eyes tightened, and he pushed his teeth together. “Don’t let me hang.” “You ain’t gonna hang. You sure you didn’t see nobody out there?” “No… But you have the shell.” “Yeah, I have the shell, and it don’t mean nothin’ right now. I’m more concerned, Dan, as to why someone would kill Tom Dunbar. If I knew why, maybe I’d find his killer.” Dalton put his head in his hands and nodded. He kept mumbling something about the judge not believing his story. “Judge Mackenzie will carry out the law. If yur innocent, you’ll go free.” “I wuz in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marshal.” “Justice has a way of gettin’ out. Nothin’s gonna happen till I git back. I’ve

already written a note ’bout this for Mackenzie.” Jake put his hand on Dalton’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, son.” He left the cell, and Dalton fell back on the mattress. The coffee steamed upward from the cup as Jake locked the metal cell door. He headed down the hall to his office gun cabinet and pulled out a Remington rifle. A fresh oily residue coated the barrel. He locked the cabinet and loaded extra ammunition from his desk drawer into a saddlebag. Then he packed his bags and secured the straps. He filled his canteens for the ride into the hot desert near Death Valley to the south. Jake poured some more coffee and stepped through his office doorway. Alby scrambled like a sidewinder across the dirt. “John Rheingold is all set! He’s all set!” Jake crossed the boardwalk. “Where you been, Alby? What he say?” “Says he knows.” “Knows what? Did you give him the message or not?” Alby bit his lower lip and held the brim of his hat. “He says it’s his job to look into that train goin’ off the tracks. They’re goin’ to Sorroyo! And for… well.” “And?” “They were havin’ breakfast. I had some grits.” Jake looked over toward The Coltraine’s unpainted wooden clapboards in the morning sun. “Alby, he’s an important railroad man. You don’t go barging in and eatin’ breakfast. You probably wolfed it down too, didn’t ya?” “Rheingold wanted to see you. But then he tells me. He tells me ta get the hell out when I asked fur more food.” “Well, I don’t blame him.” “You got her last night, Jake.” Jake squinted and held his coffee cup. “You best worry about yur own business.”

“You gut that look on yur face. I bet she wuz a crazy one.” “Alby, shut up. Listen, I want you here. You watch Dalton while I’m gone. Where’s Levi Hansen and Sawtooth?” “They been riding the telegraph lines lookin’ fur the cutter. Levi said he’d be over. Jake, let me go south with ya.” “No.” “Come on, Jake. I don’t want ta stay back here. First, Rheingold tells me ta get out, and now you—” “That should tell ya somethin’, brother. And the last thing I need is a railroad man in a snit. Start usin’ your head, Alby.” “He wuz drinkin’ all night. Rumor has it that Rheingold has a drinkin’ problem, Jake.” “And you don’t? Shut up, Alby, and get the hell out of here!” Alby mumbled as he trudged back into the office. Jake started across the street and looked at The Coltraine’s gray clapboards. The sun heated his back, but something gnawed at him inside. Maybe it was Dalton held in that cell while a killer was free. The killer smeared creosote on Dunbar’s porch, and he dropped a spent shell on the range. Jake preferred to look into this thing on his own. John Rheingold or the Pinkerton man might hamper his finding Tom Dunbar’s killer. The Coltraine’s dining-room windows glowed with the morning sun. Only a few people remained from breakfast. He did not see Jim Coltraine or Soaring Bird. Near the empty brick hearth, Rheingold ate breakfast with two blue-uniformed cavalry soldiers with bright-knotted yellow bandannas. The dark-haired soldier wore lieutenant’s stripes, and the other man, a sergeant, had bleached suspenders and a faded uniform. He ed what Buford said about them speaking with Pam in the hotel last night. Rheingold wore a brown vest, a silky blue bandanna, and a smooth white linen shirt. He set down his utensils when he saw Jake. Something about his eyes still looked familiar. Rheingold stood and extended his hand. Unlike his arrival on the evening stage, his eyes were ringed with deep circles. “Marshal. Always a

pleasure.” “Mr. Rheingold.” “Please, sit down. You want something to eat?” “Much obliged. I had my chow earlier,” said Jake. “But I’ll you, thanks.” He sat between the two soldiers as they finished eggs and steak. “I apologize fur my deputy pushin’ his way in and eatin’ yur food.” “He’s a unique individual.” Rheingold raised his brows and lifted his coffee cup. “Guess you decided to wait until morning to head south.” “Yup. Yur company must be mighty anxious ta get that silver back.” “Panicky is the word. And the telegraph wires are still down. We have to find the silver.” “How?” “Maybe the army. Company’s got a Pinkerton man heading down from San Francisco. You may meet up with him if you’re heading south.” “I’m heading south from Sorroyo.” “Good.” Rheingold smiled, glancing at the soldiers. He sipped the coffee and nodded. “And I have Wiehl and the conductor, McAllister, ready to talk to you out at the train.” “I thought they were in Carson City,” said Jake. “They rode in with us,” said the lieutenant. He had dark hair and midnight eyes. His mustache was thicker and darker than Rheingold’s. “By the way, this is Lieutenant Scott Dooley and Sergeant George Glidden. Marshal Jake McBride.” “Gentlemen. You weren’t on the train when—” “I never said I wuz on the train,” said the lieutenant. He had a cocky Texas accent. “We just come in from Fort Churchill.”

“I wuz in Texas, brother. You both sound like Texans.” Both men looked at Rheingold. “When was that?” asked Rheingold. “My friend Jim Coltraine and me, we sold some cattle back in ’74. Then I headed north.” Rheingold pushed his silver fork into a fluffy mound of scrambled eggs. “Enough of this small talk. As you know, the railroad is responsible for the silver shipment. I have raised the reward to five thousand dollars.” “Hefty re-ward. I wuz never one ta turn down money. But my job is upholdin’ the law out here.” He thought about Tom Dunbar’s widow and kids. They could use the money. “Any new leads?” “The cavalrymen guarding the car with the silver were all taken south,” said Rheingold, raising his index finger. “Where were them soldiers from?” “They were our men up at Fort Churchill,” said Dooley. “Wiehl saw it all.” “What did he say?” “Mexicans,” said Glidden. “José Estrada and at least fifteen of his men. All the bastards got away.” “José Estrada?” asked Jake, laughing. “I keep wonderin’ why José Estrada would be here in Nevada.” “The silver, Marshal,” said Rheingold. “He was aware of enough silver to set a man for life. Word must have got out in California that silver was headed to the U.S. Mint in Carson City. Someone gave him inside information. If Estrada and his gang went through the canyon, he could be headed to New Mexico Territory. But we can’t be sure. Other trails head across the Grapevines into Death Valley.” “Where was the lode?” asked Jake.

“Whitney Side Mines. Silver was smelted there and loaded on Overland 924 coming up from San Bernardino.” Jake tightened his eyes. “I need more cavalry from Churchill.” “Wires are down, Marshal,” said Dooley. “You know that. Or ain’t you payin’ attention.” He did not like Dooley from the second he walked into the dining room. “I’m paying attention just fine, Lieutenant.” I will tell you one thing,” said Rheingold, holding his index finger in midair. “If you find Estrada and the others—just find them, mind you—I will offer another five hundred of my own stock to you.” “That’s quite an offer. Where is the engineer for 924, Wiehl?” “Wiehl be out at Sorroyo with his men,” said Dooley quickly. “If it’s all right with you.” “You lookin’ fur trouble, Lieutenant?” “Depends.” Jake slowly let his hand slide onto his Colt handle. “Let me get this straight. All them engers from San Bernardino… all gut swept out of there real quick. And the army guardin’ that silver get taken south by banditos. ’Cept the engineer and four of his men went with them engers to San Francisco.” “Now you got the story straight, Marshal,” said Glidden, holding his fork as if he were going to stab somebody. Jake stared into his dark eyes. He did not like him, Dooley, or Rheingold. Rheingold set down his own fork again. “We’ll find out more at Sorroyo Canyon this morning. Your deputy should have told you all this.” Jake was still miffed about Alby trying to scoff a breakfast from Rheingold. “Ya, he told me. Not much for witnesses.”

“Wiehl and McAlister are your witnesses,” said Dooley. He sat back, folded his arms, and grinned. “And, Marshal… you’ll just have to live with that.” “I’ll help you, of course,” said Rheingold. “This is a railroad investigation. My job—” “Just ta let you know. I’m the kind of guy who likes to do his job without any outside interference. No offense.” “No offense taken.” Jake pushed the pewter plate forward. “As I was about to say, my job is to find them silver bars. We won’t tread on what you’re doing. I think we both are after the same thing.” “No argument from me.” “Then we’ll meet you out at the wreck and talk to the men?” “I’m plannin’ on it.”

8

Sorroyo Canyon, Nevada June 18, 1882 10:11 AM

Levi kissed his girl, a petite chestnut-haired nineteen year old, in the wagon and then walked toward Jake. Jake lit a stogie and stuck it in the corner of his mouth under his mustache. He stood between Menewa and Levi. Jake made the darkhaired Levi a deputy a few months back. The kid looked at Jake as if he were some war hero, and although he tried to please Jake, he was tough and quick with the gun. Sawtooth—who once lifted a horse over a fence—talked with Alby near the hitching post as Sarah’s wagon headed back to town. “Don’t take no guff, Levi. No guff at all from them Turner boys. You deputize anyone you need. Judge will be here on the Tuesday night stage. I ain’t worried once he’s in town. And find them bastards who are cuttin’ the wires, will ya?” “I ain’t seen much of the Turner boys since they tried ta hang Dalton,” said the long-haired Levi. His dark eyes looked at Jake for answers. “Must be back on the ranch.” “The old man doesn’t like you. Tuckerman was his man.” “I ain’t responsible fur Rody Turner challengin’ Frank Tuckerman. Wuz a fair fight. Coltraine told me that when he wired me ’bout the marshal position down here.” “Old man Turner said you wuz never in the war.” “You tell that old man to say that to my face. I’m aware the old man don’t like me. I’m not his lackey is why.”

“Rody’s a weasel,” said Sawtooth, exposing his angled canines. “Bite ’em, Sawtooth!” shouted Alby. “Bite ’em!” Sawtooth pretended to snap his teeth at Alby. He growled, and Alby hid behind Levi. “Jumpin’ Jerusalem!” Jake grinned as Jim Coltraine walked with Soaring Bird and his fully packed pinto to the jail hitching post. “The old man ain’t gonna risk nothin’ with the judge comin’.” Jim Coltraine, always well dressed, spoke in a cocky lower voice. “You’re finally leaving town, Jake, or shall I reserve 220 for another night?” “I don’t think I could take another night, Jim,” said Jake, and all the men laughed. Even Soaring Bird had a slight grin on his normally stolid exterior. Jake’s Shoshoni friend wore a red-and-black Mexican blanket over his shoulders and a rounded white hat. “Hell, Soaring Bird, you look like one of Estrada’s gang. How is your horse?” “I have a fresh horse. My horse was lame.” “I’m tellin’ ya, boys, you find out who’s climbin’ the poles ta wreck them telegraph wires. Andy has my messages all set ta go once the line is clear.” Jake placed a wide-brimmed hat on his head and swung his foot in the stirrup over Menewa. He checked the street as Soaring Bird mounted his horse. “And, Jim, watch John Rheingold.” The mustached Coltraine patted Menewa and looked up at Jake. “Buford tells me John Rheingold got back to the hotel early with the soldiers… about five o’clock. They were at The Arroyo late in a card game.” “I thought the son of a bitch looked tired and hung-over. “Jake pulled his brushed leather gloves over his hands. “And—” “I have ta get to Sorroyo, Jim.” “No, Jake. You have to hear this.”

“I’m listenin’, brother,” he said from the saddle. “I believe Rheingold was up on charges from a poker game. Stole the pot with another guy.” “How do you know that?” “O’Malley was in the game at The Arroyo. He heard Rheingold say he beat the charges because witnesses showed up. He was drinkin’ heavily.” “Where wuz that game?” “Dunno.” “I would think the railroad wouldn’t stomach a guy like that.” “If he is from the railroad, Jake.” Jake raised his brows. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Have old Buford keep an eye on him and them two soldiers. If anyone can stick his nose inta other people’s business, Buford can.” “Will do, Jake. You be careful out there. Following those wagons could be risky. Real risky.” “When yur dead, yur dead.” Jake puffed on his stogie and tipped his hat as Menewa cantered left. “See you men in a few days.”

* * *

Jake pulled back on the bridle, and Menewa slowed near the gulch. Sorroyo Canyon, cut deep into the prairie’s red sandstone ledges, was five miles west of town. He wiped his brow with his blue bandana and pulled a water flask from his saddlebag. As the cool water trickled down his dry throat, he kept wondering why Rheingold would offer up five hundred of his own stocks to find the silver. Maybe his job was on the line because the railroad was liable for the silver, or

maybe it was another one of those things that did not make sense. “Rheingold and the two cavalry soldiers are back at train,” said Soaring Bird. He bent over and continued to study the wagon ruts. “Heavy wagons, McBride. Heavy if filled with silver.” “Tricky part was gettin’ it down the canyon. Once they did that, they could head south along the river. Estrada did that at Skeleton Canyon.” Soaring Bird stood and held the rope to his pony. He gazed across the flats back to the train. “Why were engineer and other man not in town?” “They were in Carson City for some damned reason.” Jake followed the wagon track trail winding toward the canyon. “We’ll talk ta them.” He brought Menewa away from the canyon walls. Rheingold, Dooley, and Glidden were less than half a mile back across the dry land. In the wavy heat ahead, the outlines of the train were scattered like huge buffalos over the desert floor. Only the engine and two cars remained on the track. Two men in striped railroad hats and overalls moved along the cars. Jake gave Menewa a kick, and he galloped closer. The imposing dynamited crater rose, dissected the rusted rails past the third car. He had seen twisted rails and craters in Petersburg during the war. Rheingold and the soldiers huddled on their horses along the broken cars. As he slowed Menewa, something about this wreck bothered him. Rheingold brought his black sheen horse up front, leaving Jake with the arrogant Dooley next to the splintered car. The blast hole meant considerable dynamite—probably planted precisely to coincide with the train’s schedule. “Whaddaya think, Dooley? Them Mexicans got explosives like this?” The lieutenant straddled the horse, adjusted his dusty hat, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I really don’t know.” Jake swung out of the saddle. Menewa stayed back as he walked toward the debris. “Haven’t seen nothin’ like this since the war. What unit were you with?” “Ah… Michigan. Sixty-Ninth Michigan.”

“The Iron Brigade with a Texas accent?” “Shut up,” said Dooley, holding his gun handle. Jake brought Menewa toward Rheingold near the engine and two cars, still on the tracks. He started singing.

There’s a yellow rose in Texas, that I am going to see, No other fella knows her, nobody only me She cried so when I left her it like to broke my heart, And if I ever find her, we nevermore will part. She’s the sweetest rose of color this fella ever knew, Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew.

“You shut yur damned mouth, lawman,” yelled Dooley from behind. “Tough talk.” Dooley had his gun drawn. “Put your gun away, Dooley!” shouted Rheingold, and he galloped from the engine. He had two guns drawn. When Dooley saw Rheingold with the guns, he put his gun back in the holster. Jake glanced at Rheingold and then put his hands on his hips. He studied the folded train cars one more time. “Man must be good with the gun.” “You gut all the answers—haven’t you, Marshal?” asked Dooley. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re just a tin-horned little sheriff.” Jake brought Menewa closer to Dooley’s unshaven face and crow’s peak lined eyes. “Don’t push me, brother.” He turned toward Rheingold and George

Glidden up front talking to two men next to the tilted derailed engine. Before he left, he faced Dooley again. “You weren’t with no Iron Brigade.” Dooley raised his brow but said nothing. Both men and Glidden rode back to the engine marked 924. Jake was more concerned about the engers and what they might have seen. He mounted Menewa and again rode along the derailed train. The people responsible for taking the silver had to know of the shipment to the Carson City Mint, and they knew the precise train schedule. That meant planning. According to the wanted posters, Estrada’s bandits were hit and run and stole cattle along the Rio Grande. They would not likely have the information about the train schedule, but they might have helped execute the heist. Inside the heavy black locomotive, Rheingold turned quickly at the cab’s open window. He whispered something to a man with gray striped overalls and a navy cap. Jake brought Menewa up to the window. Soaring Bird had dismounted a few hundred feet away and walked around the wreckage. “Right this way, Marshal,” said Rheingold. “Which car held the silver?” Rheingold pointed to the jackknifed train. “Second from the end. There’s wagon ruts all around.” “I seen them.” Jake looked over his shoulder and leaned down. “I’d like to speak with the engineer.” Rheingold faced the man in the overalls and an engineer’s cap. “Wiehl here was the engineer. He hid under the wood stacked in the next car.” “You see who held up this train?” asked Jake. Wiehl looked at Rheingold and then at Jake. “I saw them Mexicans. Wearin’ bright-colored sombreros. They kept yellin’ for Estrada. All them bandits, they killed an army man.” “Don’t see no body.”

“Who knows what they did with it,” said Wiehl. “Then they loaded the bars and the army men into the wagons.” “Mexican banditos?” “Yup, and then they headed south into the canyon.” “And wagons weighted down with silver?” “Yes sir,” said Wiehl. “That’s what the man said,” said Dooley, arriving on foot. “Wouldn’t be my route.” Jake tightened his lips, ignoring Dooley and again studied the train. “Well, it mustta taken some time to unload a car full of silver, Mr. Wiehl. Didn’t someone go for help?” “We were too scared, Marshal. Too damned scared. My feeling was to get the engers to San Francisco.” “Why not Brinson?” “Carson City was where they connected to San Francisco.” “From San Bernardino?” Wiehl hesitated for a few seconds. “Correct… and then we have stops along the way.” “And nobody thought it was risky puttin’ that silver on the train?” asked Jake. “Listen, McBride. They had tickets, and they got on.” “When did ya git the silver?” “Trunk line,” he said quick. “From the Whitney Side Mines. Brought up on mules to The Overland Line.” A hefty man in a white shirt, maybe thirty years old, stuck his blue hat from inside the engine.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Jake. “McAlister.” “What did you see?” “Same as Wiehl.” “And you wuz the conductor… All the engers make it to San Francisco?” “I would assume.” “Whee ya from, McAlister?” “Illinois.” “Where else?” “What the hell difference does that make? I wuz just workin’ this damned train, Marshal.” “Man shouldn’t be afraid ta talk ’bout his past.” McAlister stared at him. “Texas… Arizona Territory.” “And what about them Mexicans?” “Went south.” “So you’re all tellin’ me, it was Estrada up here?” “Estrada,” answered McAlister, his eyes like slits. “What the hell is wrong with yur eyes, McAlister? You look like you have trouble seeing anything.” “Heat bothers my eyes.” “How many men?” asked Jake. Rheingold and Wiehl walked around the cowcatcher. “Fifteen of them—right,

Wiehl?” “Fifteen. Simon and me wuz thrown against the wall and out of the engine. Damned Mexicans. Simon wuz right there.” “I wuz,” said McAlister. “And the lot of them went south?” asked Jake. “How many times does he have ta repeat it, Marshal?” asked Dooley to his left. He now had a rifle cradled in his arms. “Estrada robbed the goddamned train.” “Were you here, Lieutenant?” asked Jake. “You’re not listenin’. I wasn’t here, Marshal.” “Tell me again. What did you see, McAlister?” Jake whistled for Menewa. “What Mr. Rheingold said.” “Never mind what Mr. Rheingold said.” Rheingold lit a stogie. “We just want you to tell what happened, Simon. You too, Wiehl.” “Mexicans. Swarmin’ with Mexicans, shootin’ and cussin’ in Spanish,” said McAlister. “They loaded the wagons and went into the canyon.” “After Estrada and the soldiers left, what did you do?” Wiehl glanced at Rheingold before he spoke. “We had wagons in one of the cars. In case we needed them for the silver.” “Understandable,” said Rheingold. Jake tilted his head and paused before he spoke. “And the Mexicans overpowered the cavalry soldiers?” “They told you that several times, Marshal,” said Dooley. He raised his rifle up a few inches. “Yur the lawman. Worry more about Estrada.”

“You actually saw Estrada? What he look like?” asked Jake. When both Wiehl and McAlister looked over at Rheingold, Jake pushed his lips together. “He looked Mexican,” said the conductor, squinting again. “Led the rest of them. They went right for the silver car.” “The car with the silver?” asked Jake. “Yeah. Rounded it up. Took ’em a while to unload the bars.” Jake nodded as Menewa nudged against his shoulder. “Listen, I’d like ta talk with them engers in San Francisco.” “I’m afraid that may take time with your telegraph down,” said Rheingold, leaning on the windowsill. “Mayor Blake is a personal friend of mine. He is housing the engers at the Palace Hotel when they get in from Nevada.” “Never could afford the Palace,” said Jake. Wiehl shrugged his shoulders. “The company didn’t want them inconvenienced. After all, this is a private railroad matter.” “Get me a enger manifest. We need to what these men are sayin’.” Rheingold tightened his brow and sprang from the window. He scampered down the angled ladder and onto the desert floor and threw the stogie on the ground. “I think these men have told you as much as they can.” Dooley swaggered across the dirt, rocking the rifle in his hands. “Why don’t you head south now, Marshal?” “And the railroad is required to procure a manifest,” said Rheingold. “I’d be obliged if you did.” Jake swung around in the creaky saddle. Both Rheingold and Dooley upset him. “I am the law here, Rheingold.” Dooley tilted his head back and laughed. “The army is the law here, Marshal.” “I want that list.” Rheingold nudged closer to Jake. “I said this is a private railroad matter. I

brought you out here as a courtesy.” “The marshal ain’t too courteous,” said Dooley. Rheingold pointed at Jake. “You want to help us, fine. I’ll even send one of the soldiers south with you if you wish.” “No thanks.” Jake took Menewa by the reins and started along the derailed cars. He was ready to punch either man. As the horse shuffled in the gravel, Jake sensed they were covering up something, but he could not prove it. He ed what Jim Coltraine told him about Rheingold itting to stealing a poker game pot and then being charged. “Marshal!” called Rheingold. Jake brought Menewa toward the silver car down the end. “Marshal!” Jake turned. “What is it?” “Listen, we’re being pressured by the railroad, and the government will be involved soon. I apologize if we’ve been abrupt with you. This attack could cost me my job.” “I need that list.” “I’ll wire the railroad.” “Good, ’cept the wires are still down.” “I’m sure they’ll be fixed soon, and I’ll get you a list.” Jake held the saddle horn. The sun warmed his back, and Menewa trotted along the buckled train. He stopped at the freight car. Soaring Bird crossed the floorboards. “We won’t find anything here. We need go to canyon now, McBride.” “Agreed. We’re losin’ time.” Rheingold moved on foot toward them. He thought about Buford seeing Rheingold talking to Pam last night. “You were talking to

Pam Grayson?” Rheingold squinted. “Looks like you got first dibs.” “And it looks like you were up late yurself…” “Little drinking, little fun. Little poker. Didn’t get much sleep.” “You know the feeling, Marshal,” said Dooley. Jake swung his gun, but McAlister drew his gun quickly. “That is one fast draw, Mr. McAlister.” “Has saved my life many a time.” “Why is that?” asked Jake. McAlister immediately looked toward Rheingold. “Can’t speak for yourself?” “Just the way life goes.” Jake nodded. “I see you men in a few days… Anything breaks, you know we’re headin’ near the Panamints, maybe farther south.” “Good luck, Marshal. I will stand by my reward,” said Rheingold. “I hear ya.” Soaring Bird mounted his pony and started with Jake down the train. Jake checked the empty rear car one more time as he ed. “Weren’t no horses or wagons in this car.” “It would appear you are right.” The two men quickly galloped away from the train. When they had covered some distance, he looked over his shoulder back at Rheingold and the soldiers gathered with Wiehl and McAlister in the distance. “That man is a liar.” “Which one?” asked his friend. Jake grinned. “All of them.”

“Rheingold is afraid for his job, McBride.” “I tell ya, his being out in Nevada is just too damned convenient,” said Jake. “Are you saying he is a part of this?” “I don’t know. Too many unexplained things. Too many people just disappeared out of here real fast. And why did he come in by stage? He’s a railroad man.” Soaring Bird shook his head. “It doesn’t matter whether he’s involved, McBride. We need to follow the trail. Move fast and locate the wagons.” Jake spotted Dooley walking around the engine. “Dooley don’t like me singing the ‘Yellow Rose’.” He smiled and sang loud enough for Dooley to hear it.

You may talk about your Dearest May, and sing of Rosa Lee, But the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me.

9

Brinson, Nevada June 18, 1882 3:15PM

Jim Coltraine pulled the leather book across the counter. He dragged his finger down the guest list and stopped at the flamboyant brown-inked signature of John Rheingold. Rheingold had returned to the hotel at noon and spent a few hours in his room before dining with one of the soldiers. Coltraine noticed nothing of interest during the lunch, and later in the afternoon, the two men had casually strolled over to The Arroyo. “Andy says the telegraph is still down,” said Buford from the back. “Cut in new places, and Levi can’t find nobody.” “How can that be?” asked Coltraine. “It gets fixed, and someone climbs the creosote poles and cuts it again. Sabotage, Mr. Coltraine.” Coltraine pushed the book back. “You may be right.” “Really?” asked Buford. He shuffled around the counter and adjusted the book to what he deemed its proper position on the counter. “You think it has to do with the silver?” “I’m beginning to wonder. It’s like the town is cut off from the outside world.” Buford lifted a stack of invoices over his mouth as he whispered. “Junior Turner was in town today.” “Why is that news, Buford?” asked Coltraine. “Who are they hanging now?” “Filled his wagon. Spent over an hour in the general store. Ben Wiggins says he was buyin’ supplies.”

Coltraine rounded the counter. “I’m going to see John Rheingold and the soldiers in the saloon.” He moved toward his side office but turned abruptly. “What kind of supplies? Why just Junior? Where were the rest of them?” “Filled his wagon. I think Sam was over the bank.” “I see“Mean anything?” asked Buford. “I don’t know. Listen, Buford. You keep watch out here. I know you will.” Coltraine lifted his coat off the brass rack in his office. “I’ll be across the street.” He walked briskly across the flowery lobby carpet he bought at the Persian Emporium in San Francisco. The teak grandfather clock chimed four times as he stepped onto the boardwalk. As he crossed the dusty sun-drenched street, he thought about Jake and Soaring Bird tracking the wagons from Sorroyo. Whoever cut the telegraph lines meticulously planned the silver heist. Afternoon shadows covered The Arroyo’s whitewashed clapboards, and the sound of raucous patrons and a piano serenade blared into the street. A couple of men he did not recognize lay drunk against the outside wall. He pushed the café doors and surveyed the bar. Rheingold, clad in a black coat, smoked a finely wrapped cigar at the green felt gambling table. He flipped some cards down, and Ed Freeman dealt him a new hand. The railroad man’s face remained flat as smoke sauntered upward toward the red-shaded oil lamps. The players solidified their poker hands. The Turners were usually at The Arroyo every Saturday afternoon and night, but they were not here today. Rheingold’s face brightened with a wide smile when the other men folded. He scooped an assortment of coins across the table. His associate, Lieutenant Dooley, played a banjo and sang with Alby near the stage. Coltraine spotted Ben Wiggins at the bar. As he moved through the crowd toward Ben, Rheingold’s self-assured demeanor caught his attention. Back at the table, the game broke up, and several disgusted men wandered out of the saloon. “Ben.” “Jim.”

O’Malley adjusted the worn sheet music. His fingers then tapped a new melody on the dirty ivory keys, but he could not drown out Alby’s off-key mining songs and Dooley’s banjo strumming. Coltraine stepped up to the bar. “Say, Ben, Junior Turner in your place today?” Ben’s wide jaw moved up and down, and his smoky eyes opened as he spoke. “He wuz. Hell, he wiped me out.” “What did he buy?” “Everything, Jim. Mostly provisions. Some wood planks. Things like the Turners always do when they drive their cattle.” “Where did he say they were going?” asked Coltraine as Orville set a glass of whiskey on the shiny wood bar. “Thanks, Orville.” “Junior kept repeatin’ how he and his brothers were going with Sam east to buy cattle ’cause head are cheap now afta the panic. Thought I heard somethin’ ’bout Abilene. Hell, he bought all my grain and mule harnesses.” Coltraine straightened his frame. Mules could transport silver over rough terrain. Linking the Turners to the silver was risky. Although rumors had followed Sam Turner west, no one ever proved he skimmed money from the government during the war. He was in the shoe-manufacturing business and supplied the Union troops. Maybe people jealous of his wealth started innuendoes or maybe he really did move west to avoid any Congressional investigations. Deliberately stealing a government silver shipment required nerve and risk. “What was Junior going to do with mule harnesses?” “Put it on mules,” said Ben, smiling and holding his drink. Coltraine grinned. “He didn’t mention that, eh?” “No, sir. He brought enough provisions to feed the Army of the Potomac. I figure maybe they’re makin’ some kinda cattle deal, and they’ll ship heads of cattle back on the train.” “When are they going?” “Junior said right away, and then the old man comes in, pays the bill, and pulls

him outside. They both went inta the bank.” “Business at the bank?” asked Coltraine. Rheingold had drawn in more men at the table and was already dealing cards. “Man knows how to play goddamn poker,” said Orville. “And he can shoot.” “He shot somebody?” asked Coltraine. “Not that I know of. Last night or, I should say, early this morning. Even Alby had left. Rheingold bet a couple of punchers he could turn and shoot the necks off two beer bottles at fifty feet.” Coltraine raised his brows. “Did he?” Orville leaned closer. “Not once, Jimmy. But twice.” “Pretty good shooting for a railroad vice president.” “Rheingold is the nicest gentlemen—until he’s drunk.” Coltraine shrugged his shoulders. “How many times have you seen that in a man, Orville?” “Part of the job, Jim. Part of the job.” Ben leaned toward Coltraine. “Sam Turner paid me in coin. Seventy-five Morgan Dollars.” “Hefty amount for an afternoon’s shopping. They ever shop like that before?” “Like I say. Only before their trips back east.” Alby’s discordant singing made Coltraine wince. “The lieutenant isn’t bad on that banjo, but Alby sounds like a sick cow.”

Oh, the miner works hard with a shovel and a pick Till his body is feeble and tender

And then he goes into town at the end of the week And spends all his dust on the benders.

Alby, his wispy gray hair askew, shook hands with Dooley then staggered back to the bar. Dooley set down his banjo against the piano and wandered to Rheingold at the poker table. “Them wuz hard days,” said Alby. “Out at Grisley Flats and Whiskey Diggins.” “Sounds like you survived the rush, Alby,” replied Coltraine. “I thought you were supposed to be watching the town?” “Let Levi watch the town. Fella needs song and drink. I have ta drink ’cause I’m worried ’bout Jake and the Injun. And them Mexicans are killers.” Alby’s breath was worse than his singing. Coltraine brushed his hand through the air. “Jake can take care of himself.” “So can Estrada,” said Alby as he caught sight of Rheingold at the table. “Well, there he is. The all-important Rheingold. Why the hell isn’t he out there lookin’ fur the silver? Let Jake risk his life—” “Rheingold has his own company’s agenda. He’ll conduct his own investigation. But he does look like quite the gambler.” Alby looked over at Orville. “Orville, give me some gin.” “Alby… where’s yur money?” “Put it on the marshal’s tab.” Orville twisted his waxed mustache and wiped the counter. “Hell, I ain’t doin’ that ta Jake.” “Jake always lets me drink on his tab.” “Well, he didn’t tell me nothin’ when he left.”

Alby looked at Coltraine like a dog wanting food. “Alby, I know what you’re thinking, and forget it.” “Maybe the magnificent Mr. Rheingold will spot me a few rounds,” he said, falling back from the stool, but he remained on his feet. “Alby.” Alby gripped his guns and took large strides across the saloon floor. With a half-smile, Orville peered over his shoulder. “He’s gonna get himself inta trouble.” Alby approached the gambling table, and Coltraine raised his brows at Orville. “Thanks for the information, Orville. I’m returning to the hotel.” Orville pretended to salute him. Across the room, Alby babbled incessantly, sticking his face near Rheingold’s cards. Rheingold’s furrowed brow and pursed lips indicated his annoyance. His eyes shifted, and he finally set his cards facedown on the felt table. He drew a pearl-handled Colt fast enough to take notice. He pointed it at Alby’s gut. Coltraine heard his words across the noisy saloon. “Get the hell out of here, old man!” Coltraine rushed over to Alby. “Best not bother Mr. Rheingold when he’s playing cards. Come on.” “He wuz gonna shoot me, Jim!” He dragged Alby toward the cafés as Rheingold put the gun back in his holster. “Can’t say I blame him.” “All I wanted wuz drinkin’ money.” Coltraine looked at Orville, but Orville spoke first. “I know what you’re thinkin’.” “I’m thinking I don’t recall ever seeing a man draw that fast on anyone.” Coltraine shared Jake’s feeling about Rheingold. His sly look and the timing of his visit west were too coincidental. Coltraine had the odd notion the Turners

were in the middle of the heist because of the Turner purchases in Ben Wiggins’s general store. Maybe it was time to take a ride out later to the Turner Ranch.

* * *

Soaring Bird’s pinto gingerly followed Jake down the narrow ledge trail above the canyon. The smooth red rocks hid any wagon tracks, but the disrupted sand and moved stones, along with the scraped surface, indicated recent travel down the trail. A stiff warm breeze from the canyon walls flailed his face. The river’s roar grew louder as they reached level ground. Jake peered toward the distant sandbars and trees spread under the lofty sandstone walls. Whether Rheingold told the truth about Estrada depended whether Jake found wagon ruts along the softer sandbar’s ground. He regretted leaving Rheingold behind. From the moment Jake saw him get off the stage last night at The Coltraine, he distrusted the railroad man. And his two army men angered him even more. Jake pinched some tobacco from his side pouch into a paper wrapper and rolled the paper over the mixture. He grinned as Pam Grayson crossed his mind. He struck a wood match against his belt. Menewa moved along a level stretch above a long string of rounded boulders fallen into the canyon. Pam was like homemade still whiskey: potent, effective, and irresistible, but potentially deadly and a guaranteed hangover. As much as he wished he could meet up with her again in The Coltraine, he kept thinking Rheingold might have set him up. He had no reason to be talking with Pam. None of that mattered now. Water sloshed over fallen rocks, gushing with a force he did not understand, but like other things he did not understand in his life, he only knew the effect. The river could kill a man if he fell into the surge. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Soaring Bird continued along the gritty dirt. His Shoshoni friend’s voice echoed through the canyon walls. “McBride, the wagon tracks.” “Maybe Rheingold wuz tellin’ the truth,” he called back. “Looks like we’re

gonna head south.” Soaring Bird, off his pony, studied the red gritty soil, furrowed with ruts. “Deeper ruts.” “Could be the moist soil.” “No, McBride. The wagons are heavier. They may have moved silver into fewer wagons for journey south.” “Even better. Means a slower time fur them horses pullin’ the silver. We’ve gutta move quick. They’ve gut at least eighteen hurs on us.” He knew his time with Pam caused the delay, but he had no regrets. “Agreed.” Soaring Bird flipped his body onto his horse. “We should travel by night. Cut down the distance. There is something else.” “What’s that?” “I will help you track the silver, but I have seen too much killing, McBride. Neetsiigwa . . .” Jake nodded. “I understand, hainji. I understand your people’s pain. And your people, Soaring Bird, how long have they been here? Where did they come from?” “Let us find the silver. Then I will tell you, McBride.” The shadows cut a definite diagonal line along the canyon rocks. Jake squinted. The ledge followed the canyon as it widened in the sun’s blaze. Menewa galloped toward the open ground along the riverbank. The river looped and meandered through the sand and around the green tree clumps ahead. He pulled on the reins and slowed. More wagon tracks laced the moist dirt down to the trees. Menewa trotted along the sandbar. Beyond the long stretch of trees, the canyon

walls tapered as the river veered south. In the late afternoon sun, the compacted red dirt blended into the developing purple horizon. Darker slopes and suntopped hills were visible to the south. The milky blue Panamint Mountains materialized on the southwestern horizon. Near sunset, he brought Menewa to drink at the river’s edge. The horses would not be fresh if they traveled by night, but he needed to gain on Estrada. Menewa dipped his head and drank the freshwater as Jake refilled his own canteen. He cupped the cool water over his bristly face and wiped the droplets off his cheeks, but as he looked back into the canyon, he had a bad feeling. “Someone’s out here.” “Did you see someone?” asked Soaring Bird “Just a feelin’.” He stood and grabbed his Remington. For a few minutes, he scanned the canyon rocks before he climbed back in the saddle. Menewa backed away from the water onto the dirt. Jake fanned the rifle along the towering walls. He wondered whether Estrada had posted a guard in the rear while the wagons carried the silver away. “We gutta ride all night ta git near Estrada.” Soaring Bird nodded, and Jake looked ahead. The river emptied across level ground, leading out of the canyon and across the wide stretch of dry prairie covered by late-afternoon orange light. They followed the tracks out of the canyon and onto the southern trail. Deeper fresh wagon wheel ruts were imprinted through the mesquite and the heavily compressed trail. The evening stars appeared over the flat desert. Jake clung to his rifle and kept looking back along the darkening rocks toward Sorroyo.

10

Death Valley, California June 19, 1882 6:21 AM

In the morning, hazy gray clouds moved in from the west. By late afternoon, a few stray raindrops melted on Jake’s nubby cheeks. Riding all night had left his eyes stinging, and the horses were tired. The purple Grapevine Mountains’ ridges bordered Death Valley ahead. Jake slowed Menewa and faced Soaring Bird. “When I first met ya, you spoke of this area and the Sierras ta the north. Yur people harvested the pine nuts in the higher elevations, and nobody bothered ya.” “We did.” Soaring Bird turned, and McBride could only see the feather upright in his long dark hair. “It was inevitable, McBride.” “What was inevitable?” “That your people would dominate.” “Don’t seem right, if you ask me,” said Jake. “Should be able ta live tagether somehow.” “No. Pia Sokopia remains, but we are scattered. Do you understand?” “Ya, like me. I can always go back ta Ohio. But I can’t say I want ta.” “Why did you leave your land?” asked the Indian. Jake wiped his brow. “A woman. I came back afta the war, but she wuz dead. I headed west and then to Texas.” He studied the two sets of tracks across the barren soil. “Them wagons split. They split them wagons!” Soaring Bird nodded and climbed from his pony. “The tracks here are fresher.

We’re gaining on them.” “But why did they split?” asked Jake. “Maybe it was their plan.” “I’ll head down through the . The north rim of Death Valley.” “Tomesha.” “Ground afire.” Jake gazed up at the darker clouds. “Rain will cool the ground afire.” He faced the bare brown mountains. “We’ll have ta separate, track them till that Pinkerton comes up from San Francisco.” Soaring Bird shook his head. He squatted and smeared red sand from the lighter soil across his fingers. “Basiwambi . . .” “What are ya sayin’?” “Sand… sand from Sorroyo Canyon.” “Good, at least we know we’re afta the right wagons.” “I wonder if the silver went one way and empty wagons the other way.” “Don’t know. Maybe they both didn’t go the right way. We’ll find out, my friend. We’ll meet back here tomorrow… Good luck, Soaring Bird.” “Be careful, McBride.” “In Death Valley, you have to be careful.” Menewa trotted slowly west along the slope. Jake lifted his canteen to his lips. The water soothed his dry throat. Soaring Bird waved once and disappeared on his pony in the mist across the tapering eastern ridge. The darkened peaks touched the heavy clouds. Twice, in springtime, he had ridden through Death Valley, but not in summer. The heat had always worked against him up here, and he welcomed the storm. A pink spotted gecko shot across the wagon tracks cut deeply into the white gritty soil. The wagons must have swayed from side to side, spilling sand as they moved down the empty pastel slope. He knew he was

close, maybe only hours from catching Estrada.

* * *

Jake smoked more tobacco after munching smoked beef stick and a hard roll. Nearby, sunset-scattered yellow rays broke through broken gray clouds above the lofty blue Panamint Mountains. The loose rocks along the nearby slope formed shadows on the dirt. The potent tobacco filled his lungs as he sat, knees propped to his chest, on a wool army-issue blanket. With the wagons not far ahead, he doubted whether he could personally apprehend Estrada, but reporting the Mexican’s location would alert the army or the Pinkertons to the silver, and they could telegraph the information. As he stared into the sporadic mist, the stars twinkled between breaks in the silver clouds, chugging like puffy train cars above the desert. Menewa grazed in the gray light a few feet away from his bedroll. As he dragged his saddle closer to his own blanket, Jake still had a feeling someone lurked behind him in the hills. Then he brought a small metal pot to Menewa and let him drink. The horse’s ears would occasionally flutter as he looked back along the trail. He rubbed the horse’s snout and then stuffed the pot back in the saddlebag. “You keep yur eyes open.” He lifted the Remington out of its saddle holder and removed a second blanket from his pack. The desert’s cool air descended over him, but as he lay back, thunder rumbled to the south. His head rested against the saddle leather, and he gently sucked the tobacco as he pulled the flannel blanket over his chest. The stars blinked between the cloud openings, and his eyes hung heavy. He ground the cigarette into the soil, but the lingering fire smoke hung over him. His thoughts floated back to Pam Grayson, and he fell asleep thinking about her in The Coltraine.

* * *

Rain drizzle woke him in the morning. He ate quickly and broke camp. Menewa’s hoofs dug into the moistened sand, and he dodged the rock talus spread over the crushed brown slope. More red soil, darkened with the rain, appeared sporadically along the incline and the wagon tracks all morning. He rolled off the saddle and quickly bent down next to Menewa, holding the reins as he smudged the soil between his fingertips. When Soaring Bird first saw the mixture yesterday, he had not thought much of it. More tapering piles appeared along the tracks up the next slope. Jake now doubted whether the wagons contained silver at all. At the top, within the foggy spray, a water pool sunk between smooth tan boulders. As the ghostly inclines and weighted ridges spread before him, he twisted in the saddle. Along the line separating the dense sky from the land, he was sure he saw a rider, but the fog descended and shifted. The wide stretches of land, especially in the fog, could convince a man he saw something that was not there. He yanked out his rifle and stepped onto the rocks. He filled the canteens, took off his shirt, and dunked his head in the cold water. After scanning the east ridge, he pushed his hair back. He rubbed his eyes and grabbed his shirt. As Menewa nibbled on grass clumps, he removed his field glasses and climbed up the rocks. Under the bulging silver clouds to the west, an ash-and-cinder field surrounded a small volcanic crater within the ashen slope. The Shoshoni called it Ubehebe because it looked like a basket. The wagon tracks led up the crushed cinder fan, yet he saw no sign of the wagons. He wiped the glasses and then pushed his arm through one of the shirtsleeves. Several rounded brown smudges highlighted the shirt wrinkles. He raised the back of his shirt to his nose. Creosote. Damned creosote just like out at Dunbar’s ranch. He conjured up an image of Pam’s dusty boots next to his clothes strewn on the hotel rug. His stomach sank. He had no regrets about spending the night with her—except he may have slept with Tom Dunbar’s killer. Sheets of rain furrowing in the wind filled the bleak northern horizon back toward Nevada. He draped his shirt over his moistened skin. With the rain now bouncing off the rocks, he untied a lower saddle wrap and took out his slicker.

Again, he checked the land behind him as he buttoned his shirt. He grasped the glasses and slid down the rocks. The sight of the Dunbar children huddled against their mother’s skirt remained fixed in his head as he donned his vest and lowered the slicker over his head. He secured his hat and climbed back on Menewa. He brought the horse quickly between the rocks. The wagon trail cut into the crater’s ash incline. Even with a week’s worth of provisions stuffed in his saddlebags, he knew that eventually returning to Brinson meant arresting Pam Grayson. He stroked his gristly chin as the rain dripped off his rounded hat. Then he wiped his mustache as he started down the crater’s elongated cinder slope and laid the butt of the Remington under his slicker and across his legs. Shadows in the storm made him think someone was out here with him. The full view of the volcanic rim widened as he turned and pulled back on the reins. A muslin sandbag trail led to five wagons, all flipped over along the eroded crater walls. “Son of a bitch… Yur getting’ old, Jake, or plain stupid. Or maybe both.” A silhouetted figure in the mist prompted him to aim his Remington. Someone— a man in a brown slicker draped over a deep blue army uniform and yellow bandanna—approached. Lieutenant Dooley’s white riding gloves gripped his rifle, and he aimed. Jake pointed his own rifle. “Don’t try anything, Dooley!” Jake figured he had caught Dooley off guard. Dooley slowly lowered the rifle. Jake massaged his finger on the rifle trigger and kept the gun on Dooley. The army lieutenant emerged from the rocks and started up the cinders. His dark horse was fully loaded with two extra Colt six-shooters in a side pouch as well as two Rolling-block rifles and a new Winchester Jake did not recognize. “Marshal, I thought you wuz Estrada.” “I know when a man’s stalkin’ me, brother.” “That’s a bold assumption. I only stalked criminals when I was with the Rangers.” “You don’t mind if I ask what the hell you’re doing down here? And who the hell are you. You and Rheingold both.”

He had the same arrogant smile. “Doin’ the same thing you are down here. Tracin’ them wagons out of the canyon. You didn’t believe what we were sayin’ about Estrada.” “Yeah, well, you look down this crater and you tell me if Estrada isn’t a figment of somebody’s imagination.” “What do you mean?” Jake kept his eyes on the lieutenant’s hands and pointed down the crater gullies to the abandoned wagons below. “Look, goddamn it!” “I’d say someone had played us fur fools.” Jake stared at the arsenal of rifles and ammunition. “You expecting trouble, Dooley?” “Why, aren’t you?” “Yeah, but I don’t know who from.” Again, Dooley grinned. “Somethin’ funny?” “Army wants me ta find the truth.” “That right?” asked Jake, moving Menewa away from the rim, but he kept his rifle aimed at Dooley. “I’m headin’ back ta Brinson right now. Yur engineer and his pal are liars. Rheingold is a liar. He sent you out here! Who is he? He ain’t no railroad man!” “I came on my own, and Rheingold works for The Overland.” “Well, I sure as hell don’t believe it!” Jake raised the rifle. “Where’s the silver, Dooley?” Dooley’s hands moved toward his Winchester. “This here is a new issue… lighter than the old sixty-six. Longer range.” “You take every one of them rifles, brother, and you put ’em on the ground right

now.” “You don’t think I had somethin’ ta do with that silver, do ya, Marshal?” Jake brought Menewa closer through the steady rain. He looked into Dooley’s washed-out blue eyes. “I think you’ve been followin’ me since yesterday aftanoon.” “Yur too suspicious.” “Shut up! Get the guns down, or I shoot ya where you sit.” Dooley dropped the Winchester to the cinder floor. Then he threw the pistols down. Jake slid off the saddle, keeping his rifle pointed at the soldier as he picked up the weapons. “If I didn’t see ya behind the rocks, I’d be dead now. Right, Lieutenant?” “I tell ya, you and me have the same purpose. Get that silver.” “Rheingold planned this whole thing, didn’t he?” Dooley pressed his lips. “My orders come from the army.” “Bullshit. Yur gonna tell me where that silver is.” “I can’t tell ya what I don’t know. I wanna find the silver just like you do. There’s a Pinkerton comin’.” “Everyone says there’s a Pinkerton comin’, but he sure as hell is takin’ his sweetass time… Yur all liars. Git down!” The rain fell harder now as Jake raised his rifle again. Dooley kept his hands in the air as he dismounted. Jake lunged forward and pressed the muzzle against Dooley’s neck. Raindrops slowly dribbled from the soldier’s blue cap and down his cheek. “I’m givin’ ya one last chance, Lieutenant. You tell me where the silver is and who’s involved, or I’ll shoot ya dead right now.” Dooley’s eyes darted. His cockiness transformed suddenly into fear. He squinted and nodded once. “Yeah, Rheingold planned it. Planned it down south. He planned it. Then we all came up here on the stage to Eureka and then back to

Brinson.” “Why ain’t I surprised? The bastard… What did he do with the silver?” “Moved it into caves in Sorroyo.” “In Sorroyo? Well, damn. Right under my nose.” Dooley squinted as if he were in deep thought. “You ain’t gonna kill me ’cause you need ta know where the silver is.” “Yur just gonna have ta weigh that in yur mind, Lieutenant. Bring yur horse around. We’re headin’ back ta Brinson.” The lieutenant grabbed his horse’s reins. He taunted Jake as he walked the animal along the cinder rim. Jake would not hesitate to kill him. He gritted his teeth through the rain as they moved back toward the murky Grapevine Mountains. “How’d you become marshal, anyway?” Jake tightly held his rifle. Maybe he would shoot Dooley in the ass. “Heard you got lucky. Somebody shot Tuckerman.” “And where’d you git that uniform? You ain’t no army man.” “Sure I am,” he said, holding the reins and following his horse up the muddy rock-strewn slope. “The Iron Brigade.” “What battles? You tell me what battles the Iron Brigade wuz in.” “I know where the silver is at.” Dooley’s smile developed into a full-bellied laugh as he trudged forward. But then he started singing.

“Fall off the overcoat, roll up yur sleeves Minin’ is a hard kind of labor, I believe.”

“Whaddaya know ’bout minin’, Dooley?” “I know there’s silver missin’.” Again, he laughed and broke into another song as the rain steadily hit the slope. “I kin sing just like you, Marshal.”

“Whenever Jake gut full of gin he went lookin’ fur a fight One night he ran against the knife in the hands of old Bob Kline And over Jake we held a wake in the days of forty-nine.”

Jake spun off Menewa, his rifle thrust out as if he were charging into battle. He swung the butt against the soldier’s head. Dooley’s knees buckled, but he kept grinning as he hit the mud. Jake ripped out his Bowie knife and sliced off an end from Dooley’s lariat. Quickly, he wound the heavy hemp around Dooley’s wrists and tied a timber hitch he learned working the range in Texas. He yanked Dooley up by the scruff of his neck and then secured the line with his right hand. He then mounted Menewa. “Am I some kinda animal, Marshal?” “You keep that mouth shut ur I’ll tie ya bandanna through yur damned teeth.” “You ain’t gonna find that silver, McBride, without my help.” “Get movin’.” Like little rivulets, the rain traced the soldier’s face. He smiled as he ed. Jake’s cheek twitched. Maybe the lieutenant would divulge the silver’s location, or he could say nothing. He had trailed Jake since Brinson and only made his appearance once Jake found the sandbag wagons. As the afternoon darkened and the rain pellets pinged his face, he had the urge to shoot Dooley. When you’re dead, you’re dead.

* * *

Under a jutting rock ledge, Jake finished a hard roll and took a swig of canteen water. Earlier, Dooley sang and insulted him as they rode through the rain and made camp late in the afternoon near Nevada. Rainwater, like the falls he ed on the Green River, cascaded over the rocks. Jake gripped his Remington. Dooley pushed against the ledge, his arms bound, and the rope looped along the dirt, but his high-pitched singing grated on Jake.

Oh say, little doggies, when are you goin’ to lay down And quit this forever shiftin’ round My horse is leg weary and I’m awful tired, But if you get away I’m sure to get fired.

Jake grabbed another bandanna from his saddlebag. “I’m ready ta put this around yur mouth, Dooley.” “I miss my banjo.” “I oughtta shoot ya right now, brother,” said Jake, leaning toward the outside. He cupped his hand and yelled. “Menewa!” His horse neared the cave, and Dooley looked up. “Why do you call him

Menewa?” “Don’t try and distract me.” “You gut me wrong, Marshal.” Jake lifted his hand toward the horse. “He wuz an Apache mustang… wild. I broke him.” “Why the name?” asked the lieutenant. “Menewa wuz a Seminole in General Jackson’s time. Wuz against the army, but he came around. Even wore an army uniform.” Jake studied Dooley’s faded blue uniform and worn cap as Menewa finished the grain. “You ain’t no soldier, but I seen you before in Texas.” “You ain’t never seen me.” He leaned his head against the damp rocks, and the refrain started again.

“The silver is there, most anywhere You can take it out rich with an iron crowbar And where it is thick, with a shovel and pick You can pick it out in lumps as thick as a brick Then ho boys ho, to Pike’s Peak we’ll go.”

“You know a lot of minin’ songs, Dooley. Yet ya tell me you wuz in the war,” said Jake, taking another fistful of grain from the bag. “I wuz the backbone of the Iron Brigade.” “Where did you meet Rheingold? In the mines?” “You make too many conclusions, Marshal.”

“Maybe… Yur gonna spend yur life in Fort Leavenworth. You know that, don’t ya? Lessen you wanna tell me where they brought the silver.” “I ain’t done nothin’.” Dooley leaned forward and pointed his finger at Jake. Jake raised the rifle barrel. “Nobody can prove nothin’.” “Rheingold tell you to kill me?” “I don’t take orders from Rheingold.” “Yur his boy. He says jump, and you jump. Sure, he’ll throw a few silver bars at ya, but he wouldn’t put himself at risk, Dooley. He’ll kill ya. He ain’t gonna want no witnesses. Where’s the silver?” Dooley turned and knelt as if he were praying near the water flowing over the outside ledge. “What’s in it fur me?” “Less time, or maybe I’ll just turn my back and let you go. You tell me where they took that silver.” Dooley stared through the cascading rain. He thought for several minutes before finally turning back to Jake. “Silver’s not in Sorroyo.” “Where is it?” asked Jake, thrusting out the rifle. “I can kill ya out here and nobody’s gonna know it, brother. Who is Rheingold, and where is he goin’?” Dooley grinned and shook his head. “If it weren’t rainin’, I wouldda gut a clear shot at ya back at the crater.” “Who is he?” “Name’s—” Jake cocked the rifle. “Don’t matter to me if I kill ya. Matter of fact, killin’ you would be like pluggin’ rats on the boardwalk, brother.” Dooley stroked his bristly chin. Then he pursed his lips and nodded.

“Yur an asshole, McBride. I don’t have ta tell ya nothin’.” Jake pulled the trigger and shot him in the thigh. As Dooley grabbed his leg and wailed, Jake fired again, brushing his hand. “What was his real name, Lieutenant?” asked Jake, raising his gun. “Rheingold.” “Bullshit! And he don’t work fur The Overland. You were sent out here ta kill me, ya bastard.” “Hard ta kill ya with no weapons, Marshal. Come on.” “Where’s the silver?” Dooley’s voice was high pitched, and he sounded scared. “John Rheingold!” Jake winced and aimed the gun barrel at him as the so-called soldier stepped forward. Dooley bowed his head but abruptly swung his arms up. He threw sand and mud into Jake’s eyes. Then he dragged something across the dirt. Jake fired the rifle, but his eyes burned in a blurry glare. He gripped his rifle with his left hand as he doused his eyes with the canteen water. A salty mix formed in the corners of his mouth. He blinked and then opened his eyes, but he did not see Dooley. Rain flailed against his hat brim as he staggered from the overhang. “Damn you! Damn you! Don’t be a fool, Dooley!” The dim gray twilight edges blended into the desert mist. Thunder cracked, and jagged lightning danced over the distant dark hills. He fanned the gun, but Dooley was hiding or gone. A bullet hit the rocks behind him, followed by a rifle crack echoing through the rocks. Jake dove onto the soggy ground. An orange flash ignited in the fog, and another bullet whizzed over his head. He fired the Remington at the flash. More shots followed. Menewa splattered the mud and galloped into the night. He aimed over the rock and fired. Lightning flashed over the long rock-strewn slope, silhouetting the folded Grapevine Mountains and clouds above. It might take a week through the blazing sun to get back to Brinson without Menewa.

* * *

Lightning daggers zipped through the packed clouds, temporarily illuminating the ledge and rocks. The valley shook with deep thunder. Water dripped off Jake’s hat brim, and the rain pelted his shirt, but his thoughts centered on Rheingold. Now he ed. Texas is where he saw Rheingold shoot his weapons all over the town square. He was arrested, and Jake never saw him until he arrived on the stage. He leaned against the rocks above the lower ledges. His eyes hung heavy, and he drifted out of a fatigue-induced sleep. He could have stayed in the canyon instead of following the wagon tracks south. The mounds of red sand spilling onto the ground should have alerted him. When you’re dead, you’re dead. “I know yur up here, Marshal!” Jake’s head snapped. He pulled the rifle closer to his gut. Dooley, in the purple lightning flash, lifted his rifle in the air and rode his horse across the ledge. “Yur a dead man!” After the next round of lightning, the thunder merged with a quick bullet volley that chewed up the rock about fifteen feet away. Jake sprinted through the downpour along the boulders. More shots hit the rocks above, and he fought to keep his balance. “Marshal, I’m gonna kill you!” In the next lightning brightness, Dooley’s army cap appeared just above the rocks ahead. Jake raised his gun but doubted whether he could kill Dooley with two bullets in a rainstorm. He waited until more lightning illuminated the landscape. He swung his gun toward Dooley near the boulders and squeezed the trigger. The lightning faded with the shot. Thunder rolled up the valley in the darkness. He waited again.

With each successive lightning burst, Jake searched for the lieutenant. Not until Dooley’s riderless horse galloped aimlessly along the slope did he raise his head above the rock. He breathed quickly. Just like the war, his stomach wrenched with the persistent fear of death. With the rifle nestled against his chest, he was sure he had killed Dooley. He clawed along the rocks. The dense black clouds blurred high above him as the thunder persisted. John Rheingold’s blue eyes, like a chilling desert night breeze, coalesced in his thoughts. Darkness and settling cold air grabbed him as he crawled onto the ledge. Huge bolts cut the clouds, and thunder again boomed up the valley. He pressed his boot against several smaller loose rocks and lost his footing. His shoulder hit the rocks and pushed the air from his lungs. He tumbled over the talus below, and his skull smacked against lower slab. The rain sheets riddled his body as he whipped over and finally landed at the edge of a huge water runoff between the slopes. He choked as the water encircled his scraped face. His bruised ribs throbbed as he used all his remaining strength to roll back in the dirt, but his boots were too close to the swift running water. He half-heard the thunder as the lightning brightened, but he could not move his battered body.

11


Coltraine looped his hitch around the telegraph office post. He had just fought a steady rain from the Turner Ranch north of Brinson. Josephine Turner and the servants confirmed Ben Wiggins’s suspicions about the Turners’ trip. She insisted the three boys and Sam had headed east to purchase cattle near Tucson. They would be gone for a month. Coltraine stepped under the roof s and wiped his boots on the rough edges of the boardwalk slats. He shook the water off his poncho and opened the telegraph office door. The glass rattled when he shut the door. He brushed off the water beads. Andy Bisbane’s chair creaked. He peered over the oil lamp flame. “Wire’s still down. Rain ain’t helpin’.” “Oh, come on. How can the wires still be down?” The warm dry air soothed Coltraine’s chilled body. “Maybe we need to ride to Carson City. This town is isolated, and I don’t like it.” “It is.” Andy lowered the papers in his hand as the rain pitter-pattered against the dark window glass. “Levi’s gut men ridin’ the line, but we can’t find nobody. You want some coffee, Jim?” “Yeah, I just rode in from the Turner place. I could use hot coffee.” Andy stepped to the cast-iron stove, grabbed the brown pot, and poured the thick black liquid into a blue metal cup. Coltraine rubbed his hands together. He looked into Andy’s azure eyes as he sipped the coffee. “We really need to wire The Overland or anyone in Carson City. I’m having breakfast with Rheingold. Mr. Rheingold, to me, appears to be more than just a railroad man.”

“Rheingold wuz in here last night.” The steam flittered across his face. “What did he want?” asked Coltraine. “Pounds on the door. I wuz sleepin’.” The hot coffee trickled down Coltraine’s throat. “What time?” “Hell, past midnight, Jim. Wants ta know if the wires wur still down. Fine thing ta be askin’ me afta midnight.” “Late. Real late.” Coltraine sidestepped to the window and stared through the rain-smeared glass. “He was in The Arroyo playing cards earlier. He’s good. Damned good. I’m beginning to wonder about him.” “Jim, I asked him some questions about Bud Kendall and Warren Oates. They come down the line every now and then.” “Oh yeah. From The Overland Railroad.” “Rheingold doesn’t know either man. You’d think he would if he’s a vice president of the line. What the hell is going on here?” Coltraine lifted the mug and finished the coffee. “Thanks for the coffee, Andrew.” “Be careful, Jim.” Coltraine nodded and grasped the doorknob. “I am going to have a little talk right now with Mr. Rheingold back at the hotel.” “Good idea.” Coltraine opened the door, and the damp air slammed his face. He stepped from the boardwalk and unhitched his horse. As the rain tapped his cheeks, the clouds raced across the desert, producing a luminescent glow over the town. He shielded his arm into the storm as he led the horse to the small barn behind the hotel. Inside, one of his men dried the horse as Coltraine entered the hotel through the

rear stairway. He removed his dripping coat once he was in the lobby. The fire cracked from the side wood stove as he hung the coat and hat on the brass rack. He had Buford leave a message for Rheingold to meet him right now. Then he headed for the dining room and pulled back the chair at his corner table along the rain-dotted windows. He ordered coffee, ham and eggs, and picked up a folded Carson City newspaper. Buford appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. Coltraine looked up as the clerk flew across the room. “What did he say, Buford?” “Hard ta say.” “What do you mean?” asked Coltraine as they served him coffee. “Rheingold ain’t in his room. He was never in his room, Mr. Coltraine. Bed’s not slept in. Luggage gone.” “Hell, that’s mighty strange,” he said, setting down the paper. “I don’t like this. I don’t like the Turners all being out of town either.” Alby Conner tripped through the lobby doors and traipsed mud across the dining room floorboards. “They gut ’em! They gut ’em!” “Got who?” asked Coltraine, looking at the mud trail. “Gene Hawkins. Dead, dead, dead. Sawtooth beat him ta death.” “Slow down, Alby,” said Coltraine as he stood. “Why did he kill Gene Hawkins?” “Hawkins wuz cuttin’ them damn telegraph wires! It was Hawkins!” Levi Hansen, his tan coat beaded with water, waddled into the dining room. The smooth-skinned kid took off his hat, and his dark hair shook around his neck. “Mr. Coltraine.” Coltraine set down the paper. “Levi… What’s this about Hawkins?” “Dead. He pulled a gun on Sawtooth, and he shot Sawtooth when Sawtooth went to grab the gun. His hands wuz covered with creosote from the poles. Sawtooth

kicked him and then hit him until he said who sent him out there to cut the wires.” “Who sent Hawkins?” asked Coltraine. “Rody Turner.” “God damn those Turners.” Coltraine kept thinking about Junior Turner buying the mule harnesses and the grain. “Where is Rheingold, Buford? Where is he now?” Levi pointed at Coltraine. “I just heard he won big at The Arroyo.” “Seems he never went up to his room last night, and his luggage is gone,” said Coltraine. “Maybe he beat the wrong man at cards…” “Get word around town. If anybody has seen Rheingold or saw him leave town, we need to know about it.” Coltraine looked into Levi’s blue eyes. “I’m more concerned about Hawkins and the Turners.” “Hawkins is a Turner man!” cried Alby. “Cash in his pockets! He did it! He did it!” “Is the line operational now?” asked Coltraine, sitting down. “Huh?” asked Alby, eyeing Coltraine’s ham and eggs as it was set on the table. “Can Andy send out wires now?” “Guess so,” said Alby. “You want ya meal?” “Yes, I want my meal,” said Coltraine, sipping on the coffee. “Levi, make sure Andy gets a wire out to The Overland. We need the Pinkerton man down here now. Tell them Jake and Soaring Bird have tracked the silver south. And somebody has to find Rheingold.” “If I find Rheingold… you buy me a meal?” asked Alby, smacking his wide lips under his bristly beard.

“You find Rheingold and I’ll buy you meals in here every night for a year.” “Year? Year? You heard him, Levi. One year. One year… Tell him about the Danforth Lode and Bancor . Tell him!” Alby hobbled out of the dining room. Levi held his gun handles and furrowed his brow. “This ain’t lookin’ good, Mr. Coltraine.” Coltraine motioned to one of his workers and ordered him to clean Alby’s muddy mess off the floor. He rolled his eyes and cut into the ham. “Levi, I think we need to take a trip out to the wreck and the canyon when the storm breaks. Someone may have gone to a lot of trouble to get Jake out of town.” “You mean while they got the jump on all of us?” “Exactly right.” “We’ve been talkin’ ’bout the silver. Ain’t a man in town who doesn’t think it was stolen. I gut my theories,” said Levi. “With the help of Alby.” “Alby? You’re losing your credibility.” “No, sir. Alby’s been mining the Sierra fur years. Since ’49. He wuz tellin’ me ’bout a railroad spur line west of Bancor . If you bring silver up there, you can go right through the mountains along the Bancor trail. Then the line goes straight down past Stockton into the valley to San Francisco.” Coltraine set down his fork and thought. “Unless the Turners took that silver to Arizona Territory from Sororo. Maybe Jake went south when he should have gone northwest.”

* * *

Coltraine positioned his shiny brown boots on the hotel boardwalk’s wet boards. Water cascaded off the roof as a team of horses, snorting foggy breaths, trudged through the mud. They towed a freshly honed, rain-soaked pine box, darkened

by the rain. The larger rear wheels spun the mud at the turn toward the undertaker’s building near the whitewashed church. Coltraine dipped his shoulder to the rain again and splashed through the mud to the corner telegraph office. Was Sam Turner risking everything for silver? His ranch brought him great wealth, and he was one of the largest landowners in Nevada. Talk abounded about him running for governor. Yet Turner and his boys left town exactly when the silver went missing, and a Turner man had kept the town isolated by cutting the telegraph wires. Coltraine opened the telegraph office door. Andy tapped the key wildly as the rain descended the pane windows up front. Andy raised his index finger and kept tapping. When he finally stood, a thin sweaty glaze covered his reddened face. He spoke in a lower voice. “Jim, the railroad… they never knew the silver was missing. Neither did the army at Fort Churchill. They were waitin’ for it in Carson City. They’ve been trying to us for a day and a half.” “What?” “I’ve wired Omaha and Carson City. They’re wild! The silver was supposed ta be in Carson City yesterday afternoon.” “Rheingold said the railroad sent him!” “Rheingold is a liar,” said Andy. Coltraine sat at the chair in front of the stove. “Jake was right. John Rheingold’s being out here was way too convenient.” “And… and… that train had no engers. The whole bunch of them—the soldiers, the engineer Wiehl… all of them were lying.” Coltraine nodded. “Stalling. Sending Jake south… Of course. It all makes sense now.” “Then the line went out again.” “Another Turner lackey.”

Alby ed the outside window as he ran up the boardwalk. He kicked open the door, and it hit the front window casing. His steely hair curled over the side of his soaked green hat. “Jim! Jim! They’re all dead! Dead!” “Who’s dead?” “Back on the range near the wreck. Newton and the others wuz ridin’ back inta town. Mass grave. Just like Cold Harbor. Somebody killed them soldiers from the train. Newton counted eighteen bodies!” “Jesus God Almighty.” Coltraine peered out the foggy window as more darkness settled over the town. “We’ve all been duped.” “We gutta do somethin’, Jim!” shouted Alby. “Gutta do somethin’. Find Jake! Find Jake!” “They’re sending federal troops out here from Fort Churchill. Still, that will take a day and a half. More time for Rheingold and the others to get away. Wherever they went…”

12


The pain riddled Jake’s head and ribs as the water surge dragged him forward. He fought the current as he spun toward a runoff a few dozen yards ahead. Soaring Bird, trailed by Menewa, brought his pinto through the fog. His Shoshoni friend leaped off the horse and, with a coiled lariat in hand, ran along the torrent. Jake tumbled over, coughing and choking as he gasped for air. He feared he would not reach the slope. In a sweeping motion, Soaring Bird unfurled the rope in the gray rain, and it splashed somewhere back in the water. Quickly, the Indian retracted the line. Jake swam through the rippling current. His legs knotted over his head until he surfaced. Soaring Bird hurled the rope again. The line hit Jake’s fingers, but he clamped his right hand over the rope. His body careened obliquely as Soaring Bird anchored the rope on his horse. Jake moved his knees up, scraping the sharp rocky bottom as the horse trudged up the incline and pulled him onto the loose sand. “McBride!” The rain hit his face. “Ribs. I busted my ribs… head cut.” Soaring Bird lifted Jake under the arms and dragged him up the talus. Jake caught his breath each time the Indian paused. When they were back under the ledge, Jake rested his head against the solid rock. Water drained over the edge. “You were granted life, McBride.” “You… saved my life, my friend… hainji.”

* * *

Soaring Bird checked the makeshift bandage, wrapped tightly around Jake’s ribs. The storm had ed, and the thick clouds brightened. “When the soldiers threatened my people in Duck Valley, you wired the agent, Palmer.” “Them soldiers weren’t under official orders.” Menewa leaned under the ledge, and McBride rubbed his snout. “Yur damned lucky Dooley didn’t shoot ya.” “I found abandoned wagons with sandbags near Badwater, McBride. We were deceived.” Jake, groggy, his eyes heavy, nodded. “I know. They dumped three wagons in Ubehebe. Dooley… Dooley, he tried to kill me.” “The cavalry soldier?” Jake shook his head. “He weren’t no soldier. And he’s dead. Somewhere out there. He worked fur John Rheingold.” “Rheingold?” “Rheingold ain’t Rheingold. He don’t work for The Overland. I just don’t know who the hell he is.” “Of course.” Soaring Bird gazed through the overflowing water to the downward slope. “And the silver?” “Not in the canyon.” “We should not have allowed ourselves to have been fooled.” “Don’t matter now. Don’t matter.” “We need to go back to Brinson. The doctor… Talmadge should help you.” Jake shook his head. “No. I’m gonna git this man, Rheingold. I don’t care ’bout the silver. This man made a fool out of me. I’m gonna kill him.” The crisp topaz sun now shone clearly through the afternoon desert clouds outside the ledge. Shadows fell.

“Don’t really feel that bad,” said Jake. He nibbled on a piece of smoked meat and stared at the gooey mess Soaring Bird removed from his pouch. “What the hell is that?” “Waappppittan sanappin . . .” “Yeah, so what?” Soaring Bird smeared the mixture on the open cuts on Jake’s arms and face. “It is the pitch from cedar. It will soothe.” “Yur right. It don’t sting no more.” “You need rest.” Soaring Bird picked up Jake’s vest and blue jersey. “No rest. I’m gonna get that son of a bitch.” Jake scanned the slope for Dooley’s body. The flood-washed arroyo was now only a trickle after the storm. He reached for his shirt and held up the scuffmarks across the shirt wrinkles. “You know what the hell this is?” “I don’t understand.” Jake took the shirt and lifted the marks to Soaring Bird’s nose. “Creosote. You found creosote on the Dunbar porch.” “Yup. Now, the only time I had this shirt off back in town wuz when I wuz in the hotel with—” “The Grayson woman.” Jake studied the marks again. “Why would she kill Dunbar?” “I don’t know.” Jake gripped the shirt. All pleasurable thoughts of Pam Grayson now merged into anger. He shook his head and slowly lifted his arm into the shirt. Soaring Bird tried to help, but Jake waved him back and brought up his other hand through the sleeve. He buttoned the shirt and struggled to his feet. The Indian grasped his hand and pulled him outside. Jake squinted in the bright afternoon

sun near the darkening Panamints’ peaks to the south. “She wuz workin’ fur the Turners.” “Do you think the Tuners had anything to do with the missing silver? Turner has much land.” Jake tucked in his shirt. His tender lower ribs hurt, but he knew he could ride. “Sam’s gut big ambitions.” Jake took a few steps away from the ledge into the clear open air. “I intend ta track John Rheingold down.” Soaring Bird gazed skyward to the opening blue sky. This is the land of the Panamints. There are stories on the origin of our people.” Jake rested on the rock again. “That would be the proper thing to do. Never understood them stories.” “All our stories have meaning, McBride. Meaning for a greater understanding of life. Even for this moment.” “What is the origin of yur people?” Soaring Bird smiled and sat between Jake and the sun. “Water was about the Earth.” “I reckon that’s pretty much true right here.” “The water dried up quickly.” “Amen to that.” Soaring Bird gazed into the sunrays linear from the cloud breaks near the Panamints. “At this epoch, the birds—and even animals—were human beings.” He pointed toward the deep blue mountains. “Coyote journeyed along the Panamint Mountains. There appeared a beautiful woman who had white, white skin. Pabon’ posiats she was called.” “What does that mean?” “Ttan louse. Coyote snuck behind her as she carried a water vessel. Finally, he

overtook her and said he wanted water. Some distance away was a place where she could quench his thirst. She instructed him to meet her there.” “Maybe it wuz Badwater in Death Valley.” Soaring Bird continued to look into the sun and clouds. “Coyote walked to the given place. But the girl again directed him to yet another more distant place. Safely she hurried home by tricking Coyote in this way. “Coyote went to some water and started to drink near the house where she lived with her mother. While he was drinking, the girl attempted to hit him many times, but Coyote was quick and she missed. She sent Coyote to the opening in the house. Inside, he found bows and arrows on the walls. “When the sun had left and night fell, the girl prevented Coyote’s manifestations toward her. When sun broke through, Coyote wanted to know the true owners of the bows and arrows. The mother had Coyote take the bows and arrows to hunt some ducks. Coyote returned later with fish and ducks he had killed. “In the evening, they ate some of the food. But Coyote later went after the girl and the woman. The girl’s stomach had grown by morning, and she gave birth. Her children were placed in a large water basket container. ‘They are your babies,’ said the girl. ‘You will bring the babies in the water basket. They will cry for water, but you must be hesitate with water and opening all the babies will leave.’ “Later, the babies cried for water as Coyote carried the heavy container. Coyote opened the top to pour in water. Out came the babies. All of them. They went in all directions. The males fought with bows and arrows. These people from the basket became our Indian tribes.” Soaring Bird turned from the sun and looked down at Jake. “As good an explanation as I’ve heard,” said Jake. “I will not refer to his carnal advance, McBride. I will only say the actions of men have unintended consequences. It is said the people knew how to write before Coyote opened the jug. The same may be true for your Mr. Rheingold. His want has led to things he had not intended.”

“How do you know this?” asked Jake. “It is true for us all.” Over a mile away, they saw buzzards circling in the brightening skies. “Dooley must be down there. We gutta bury his body.” “That would be the proper thing to do.” Jake peered down the salty brown slope as he stepped up to Menewa. He raised his foot in the stirrups. Pain spread across his ribs as he hoisted himself onto the saddle. Maybe he had just bruised his bones. Soaring Bird climbed on his pony and started down the talus. Jake returned in his mind to numerous corpse-strewn battlefields back east. He grabbed the Remington from his pack and fired twice at the vultures sweeping around the burgeoning blue sky. The noise was enough to send the birds flapping toward the folded brown mountains to the east, but the lure of the flesh kept them hovering at a distance. He returned the rifle to the side pack. “Damn buzzards.” Soaring Bird found a soft spot farther down the slope. Jake used his hands to push back the rocks. The Indian removed an old army-issue shovel from his pack and scooped the sand, hollowing out a grave for Dooley. Jake looked into his eyes. “I’m gonna check his pockets.” Soaring Bird nodded and pushed back his dark hair off his shoulders as he continued hacking the ground. Jake lifted his bandanna over his nose and mouth. He never could tolerate the stench of death. Dooley’s mud-soaked blue uniform and hands blended into the desert floor. Jake’s shot had impacted in the lower back, but the rain doused the blood away. In his lower pockets, Jake found a few silver coins, which he left alone; the hardened remains of a biscuit filled a side pocket. He ran his fingers along the lieutenant’s stripes. Dooley’s contorted lips were exactly like the soldiers he had seen gasping for air as they died after a battle. He unbuttoned the top pocket. Inside was a still-soggy folded piece of paper. With his bandanna over his nose, he walked away from the body and squatted in

the sunlight. He carefully peeled back each moistened fold, revealing the smeared black ink of a hand-drawn map. In the lower right corner were the letters S.C. Inverted V-shapes formed mountains to the west of a sketched com cross. A straight line extended through the mountains toward the south. Someone had written Bancor in darker ink. Jake held the moistened map. Soaring Bird leaned the shovel against his legs and furrowed his brow. “Did you find something, McBride?” “Could be where they’re bringing the silver.” The water-laden paper glowed tan in the sunlight. “Look here. This has gutta be it. If they could cross the Sierra to Bancor Ridge. There wuz a lode ten years ago near the Bancor Ridge. I ain’t never been up there, but I heard Alby talk of a railroad trestle built ta haul the silver to San Francisco.” “Yes. The Newe, the nut gatherers, harvested pinion nuts and ed behind the ridge. We have seen the trestle you speak of. It extends into the valley.” “You git that silver through the mountains and inta the valley, you got it made. Rheingold must have s.” “He seems like a clever man.” “Damn right. I can see this in my head. Them bastards hid the silver in Sorroyo and moved out afta they sent us south. He thought he had me out of town before. I Rheingold bein’ surprised when I showed up at the stage as he paraded round like somebody he ain’t. He just made it seem like he come in on the stage. Then he talks ta Pam. Gits me upstairs. She’s workin’ fur him… that Dunbar-killin’. . . Dunbar wuz involved in this. Had ta be. And Pam gunned him down. When yur dead, yur dead.” Soaring Bird held the edge of the map. “If this is true, Rheingold is well into the Sierra by now.” “Afta we bury Dooley, we’re heading north toward the Bancor .” “The area you speak of… the high ground of ponderosa and juniper. It is some distance away.” “I’ll get him.”

Soaring Bird nodded and gripped the shovel. “I only hope we have the time, McBride.”

12


Coltraine and most of the townsfolk gathered in front of the hotel as the evening stage from Carson City crossed the prairie. After the storm broke, he brought men out to Sorroyo Canyon to bury the soldiers’ bodies. The rain had washed away all wagon tracks, and he now feared Rheingold and the Turners had successfully moved the silver out of the area. With the Fort Churchill troops still days away, he realized Brinson provided perfect isolation for the heist. The team of six horses pulled the stage around the church. The driver yanked the reins. Coltraine stepped off the boardwalk. “Dalton’s all set! He’s all set!” yelled Alby. “Set him free! Set him free!” “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Alby.” Alby tucked a small flask in his pocket. “Turners did it.” “That is unproved. All we know is the Turners could be involved in transporting the silver.” “You ain’t the marshal.” “Nothing could please me more,” said Coltraine as the mud-splattered stage came to a slow stop beyond the hotel. Coltraine waved to the driver and walked briskly to the coach door. A bald man in suspenders and a blue shirt leaned out the coach sidelight window. Beard stubble coated his pudgy face. “You Coltraine?” “I am.”

He moved his wide shoulders through the open coach door. “Hobart Bowers. I work for the Pinkertons. The Overland wants me to investigate your telegraph lines being down. I need to report on the shipment of silver due in Carson City yesterday.” “The damned silver is gone! It’s gone!” cackled Alby. Bowers’s face fell flat. “What is he talking about—the silver being gone?” “He’s right,” said Coltraine. “Damn it, we had eighteen soldiers from Fort Huachuca!” Bowers wiped his chin and shook his head. “What the hell happened?” “They dead! Killed outside of town!” Alby stood alongside him. “See, it wuz like this: They blew up them tracks and said the Mexicans took the silver south. Marshal McBride went afta them.” “It looks like a massacre, Mr. Bowers,” said Coltraine. “We’re talking about the murder of U.S. soldiers!” He had the tense look of a man angered, yet disgusted with the turn of events. “When we couldn’t wire Brinson, I hopped the stage with the judge. This is a serious matter now. That silver was headed for the U.S. Mint.” “Not anymore! I tell ya, they’re headin’ to Bancor! Headin’ ta Bancor!” said Alby. Bowers turned to the coach. “Come on, Judge, you want that meal or what?” “I do,” answered the stiff voice inside. “See, them Mexicans,” said Alby, “they—” “Mexicans… that is highly unlikely,” said Bowers. “Didn’t you see the engers in Carson City?” asked Coltraine. Bowers folded his arms and stepped onto the boardwalk. “Why would they load a train with silver and risk engers? The soldiers would have guarded silver.”

“They said the engers went on the wagons headed for Carson City.” Bowers spread his lips and exhaled. “Judge has to try Dan Dalton!” cried Alby. “This is unprecedented,” said the white-haired, wrinkled Judge Mackenzie, finally stepping outside. The judge wore a long dark coat, a black string tie, and narrow-collared shirt. “No wonder we couldn’t wire Andy Bisbane!” They all started into the hotel lobby. Bowers rubbed his pug nose as Alby squeezed between him and Coltraine. Coltraine smelled last night’s liquor on Alby’s breath. “We found a Turner man, Judge! A Turner man, Mr. Pinkerton!” “That is not surprising.” Bowers tried to keep ahead of Alby. The judge straightened his back and stretched his arms. He had huge milky veins in his large hands. “We had rain all the way. Just broke an hour ago. What’s the story with Dalton?” “Dalton wuz gonna be strung up till Jake stopped them Turner boys!” yelled Alby. “Well, maybe the law has finally caught up with Sam Turner,” said the judge. “He’s been talking to people—important people—in Carson City about being governor.” “Coincidentally, that takes money.” Coltraine tried to nudge Alby out of the way. The whiskey and body odor made him wince. “Alby, why don’t you tell Dalton that the judge is here.” “For how much?” “A meal. Now go tell Dalton.” Coltraine motioned Bowers and the judge toward the dining room. “Please, gentlemen. I have hot meals waiting for you.” Alby continued talking as he left the hotel. “Don’t forget about me!” “How could I forget?” asked Coltraine, and they all laughed and stepped into the lobby. He brought them directly into the dining room and sat them at his private

table. “Jake went south?” asked Mackenzie, taking off his coat. “He and a Shoshoni have been gone for two days,” said Coltraine. “Shoshonis are supposed to be at Duck Valley and Ruby Valley,” said Bowers, pulling up the chair. “The Shoshoni saw the train wreck, but soldiers kept them back,” said Coltraine. He went on to describe a chronology of events up to Rheingold’s winning in the poker game at The Arroyo last night. Bowers drank some water from a large glass and cleared his throat. “Who the hell is Rheingold?” “Supposedly sent by The Overland to investigate the derailment,” answered Coltraine. Bowers’s face tightened. “Gentlemen, we’ve been had. What did this man look like?” “Light brown hair, blue eyes. Around six feet. Well dressed.” “Probably an act. Obviously, they’ve headed out of this area.” “Levi Hansen says you can go direct but still hide in the mountains,” said Coltraine. “I talked to Ben Wiggens at the general store. Sam Turner’s son, Junior, bought a mule harness, bridles, and loaded up with supplies to cross some mountain.” “Looks likely they did travel into the mountains,” said Bowers. “If they went south, the marshal and the Indian will spot them. North, they would be on the open prairie, and we or anyone on the stage route would have seen them.” “That includes the eastern prairie too,” said Mackenzie, gulping the whiskey in the fluted glass. “If you’ve got people waiting there for you in the San Joaquin Valley, you can get that silver anywhere. We’re heading west in the morning. Early. We need to

wire Stockton and Fresno City. Get people heading east to Bancor . It’s Rheingold that bothers me. I want to know who the hell he really is.” “I want to know how he planned it,” said Mackenzie. “I’m sworn to uphold the law, but, Bart… this was brilliant. Shutting down the town. Blowing up the tracks at the right time and getting the silver out.” Bowers stood and banged his fist on the table. “The son of a bitch moved fast and got the silver out ahead of everyone else. And apparently had enough resources to massacre the soldiers. I’m going to wire San Francisco and get wanted posters out on Rheingold.” “That’s all well and good, Bart. We need a posse to find that silver,” said the judge. Bowers tightened his brow. “Even if they left days ago, the mules can’t move that fast. The terrain is rough. I need somebody who knows the Sierra Nevada to the valley.” “I knows that area like the back of my hand!” said Alby, just outside the door. The men looked at each other. “Levi Hansen, he’s a mountain man.” “He lived up there for a while,” said Coltraine. “He’s no mountain man, Alby.” “You live in the mountains, yur sure as hell are a mountain man.” “Get over to Dalton!” yelled Bowers. “I’m goin’. I’m goin’.” Coltraine rolled his eyes and leaned toward Bowers. “But you’re right. If they reach the valley, they can get the silver eventually to San Francisco. Put it on a ship and make their money. Or hide it… I’m with you. We leave at sunrise. I’ve got a dozen men who will track that silver. Horses and guns are ready. Finding the trail will be the hard part after the storm. Levi can get us through.” “Soldiers from Fort Churchill will be here in a few days,” said Bowers. “But that doesn’t help us now. I’ll wire the army. I have a bad feeling about this, gentlemen. There’s going to be trouble. These men aren’t going to easily give up that silver.”

13


The fifteen-man posse thundered across the sagebrush flats as a sunrise flared across the eastern prairie. Coltraine rode next to Bowers. By midmorning, they ascended the rising evergreen hills at the base of the Sierra above Brinson. The storm had smoothed the slopes clear of any tracks. Bowers told everyone he wanted to find evidence of Rheingold’s people moving west along the Bancor Trail. Levi Hansen pointed his finger and panned across the forested hills to the west. “My father and me, we tracked game there since I wuz a boy. I figure the valley and railroad trestle at Bancor is still another sixty miles. “Let me make this clear to everyone here,” said Bowers. “This isn’t going to be easy. And apprehending Rheingold will be impossible if they reach the spur line from the Danforth Lode at Bancor . We can’t keep pace with a train heading down into the valley.” Just hours ago, Bowers instructed Andy Bisbane—once the wires were connected—to The Overland, the Pinkerton office in San Francisco, and the U.S. Mint in Carson City about the missing silver and John Rheingold. In that same telegram, he had Andy lay out the posse’s plan. Those actions would cut off Rheingold should he attempt to reach San Francisco. * * * At midafternoon, the men stopped near a rapid-moving mountain stream under the scraggly juniper trees and weathered gray rocks. Coltraine cupped his hand above his eyes and surveyed the straight rows of ponderosa and Jeffrey pines atop the silhouetted peaks under cloudless skies. Several horses drank from the stream. To his right, Bowers leaned against the rocks and chomped on a fat cigar.

He glanced at Coltraine but spoke to the white-haired Mackenzie. “We’re not moving as fast as we could. I’m afraid that railroad line is going to be our death knell. Damn… This man is very clever. Perfect planning. Quick movement and execution.” “You sound like you ire what he did, Bart,” said Mackenzie. “I’m just telling you, Judge. That damned thing was planned with perfect timing in an isolated area.” “Somehow, Rheingold became aware of the silver shipment on that train,” said Mackenzie. “But where?” barked Bowers. “I need scouts up ahead. We have to know how close they are to that spur line. If we delay them even with a few men, my office will send people once the telegraph operator is able to send my wires.” Alby, a silver flask in his hand, yelled out from the rocks, “I say take the Lassen cutoff! Take ’em by surprise.” “Lassen cutoff?” asked Bowers. “What the hell is that?” “North. A few men could make it,” said Alby. “Go north. Go south and Rheingold is gone.” “I’ll go ahead. I know the area,” said Levi. “It’s slower travel but a shorter distance. We could find them before they hit the spur.” Coltraine wondered if Levi’s youth made him more impulsive than smart. Maybe Jake put too much confidence in him. “Rheingold will be well armed.” Levi glanced at Coltraine. “Jim, we need ta move or he’ll get that silver away.” “Levi, fighting these men will be dangerous.” “Nobody is asking for a fight,” said Bowers. “Levi, take three men with you. We’ll trail behind. If you spot them, send somebody back here. You shadow them.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Coltraine. “But none of us have taken this trail to Bancor . We risk not getting there.” “I’ll draw it out fur ya,” said Levi. “You have ta head south fur a while and then due west to Bancor .” “Draw it out,” said Bowers, looking around. “Somebody get this man some paper.” “Over here,” said the judge. He reached into one of his saddlebags and pulled out a notebook and a green lead pencil. Levi moved the pencil about the page. Bowers puffed on the cigar and paced around the juniper. Levi held up the page. “Don’t head west at these peaks. You’ll recognize the long jagged peaks. No trees. Look like ram horns. Yur head tells ya ta head west, but don’t. That trail ends fifteen miles and north of where ya want ta be. Take this trail at the peaks. Head due south fur at least a day. You’ll see Bancor to the west. It’s a steep climb, but that spur line swings down out of the woods. Then the highest railroad trestle ya ever seen in ya life brings that line inta the valley. You gut two days traveling at a steady pace.” He ripped the sheet from Mackenzie’s notebook. “Good, you select your men for the Lassen cutoff,” said Bowers, taking the paper. “We can’t waste any more time with these bastards.” “I will state for the record that we are taking a risk,” shouted Coltraine. “Sometimes you have to take risks, Coltraine,” said Bowers. “Or you get left in the dust.” Levi turned slowly. “If I spent time waiting for everyone to arrive, Mr. Coltraine, I’d have been dead long ago.” He walked down to the men eating lunch on rocks above the stream. He cornered Pete Crimmins and Hank Nevins, men his age. Coltraine shook his head as he grabbed Bowers’s wrist. “This is a mistake. He’s just a kid.” “Sometimes a kid has to become a man.” Bowers looked angry as he squinted over Coltraine’s shoulder. Alby had mounted his horse and rode around with his guns raised in the air. “What the hell is that crazy old man doing now?”

Coltraine turned as Alby brought a shorthaired horse with crooked legs toward Levi. “We’ll git ’em, Levi!” Bowers stomped across the rocks and drew his gun. “You stupid son of a bitch.” “You talkin’ ta me?” asked Alby. The horse, eyes wide open as if he were spooked at a fire, shuffled in the dirt. Bowers then swung a rifle at Alby. “I don’t see any other stupid son of a bitch around.” Alby glanced around the trail. “Guess yur right. I wuz just gonna help them.” “Put those guns away, you jughead. You want to help them, you’ll stay back here. I don’t want Rheingold to know we’re on to them. That’s the surest way to get into a fight and get everybody killed.” “I say fight ’em! And fight ’em now!” “Yeah, and I say if you don’t get off that half-breed horse, I’ll shoot you in the arse myself.” “Well, damn,” said Alby, looking at his posterior. “And your horse too!” “Man wants ta help and they spit in his eye, Willie.” Alby slid down the back of the horse, but the horse bucked and nearly kicked him as he jumped. He held his green brimmed hat as he backed away and put away his guns. Mackenzie chuckled and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Man just wants to help, Bart.” “Don’t you start, Judge.” He marched over to Levi and the other two men, now on their horses and preparing to head higher into the Sierra. “Give me an estimate on all this, Levi.” “If they left Sorroyo yesterday, we should catch ’em before they reach the spur line. They just can’t move all that silver all that fast. I think you’d be less than a day behind ’em. If you continue this pace and at night, you might catch them.”

“Good. I don’t know how long we can go at this pace. This isn’t the best trail.” “Ya, but they gut them mules and silver boggin’ them down.” “True.” He put his hand on Levi’s shoulder. “Everything depends on you, son.” “I won’t let ya down, Mr. Bowers.” “I know you won’t,” he said as he shook Levi’s hand. The three men started up the ridge trail on their horses and soon disappeared between the rocky pine ledges. Bowers threw his cigar into the stream. Alby mumbled something but hid behind the junipers when Bowers ed. Bowers grinned and pretended to move toward the sinewy tree. Alby scuttled back. “He’s harmless,” said Mackenzie back at the horses. “Harmless as a cyclone in an outhouse. We should have left him back in Brinson.” Coltraine, already on his horse, smiled. “Then you might have nothing to do along the way, Bart.” Bowers put his boot in the metal stirrup and flung his stocky body into the saddle. He held the horn and leaned toward Coltraine. “I tell ya. When I said I’ll shoot him in the arse—I will.”

14

Bancor , Nevada June 21, 1882 2:40 PM

Johnny stood upright and squinted. The tapering mule train stretched like a sidewinder along the rocky mountain trail. The Turners had orchestrated the movement of the silver so well. Compensation was their reward, but he alone had planned it, and he alone suffered any risk. The risk was almost as exhilarating as the actual execution of the plan. Getting McBride heading south was part of that risk and had freed him and the Turners to haul the silver in the mule train from the cave in Sorroyo Canyon. He still feared getting caught. In all his days in Texas and the shootouts down south, nothing had scared him and thrilled him like this operation. George Glidden, his faded cavalry uniform soiled and dusty, started up the slope on his horse. Johnny cupped his hand. “Any sign of Dooley?” “Nah, Dooley ain’t back yet. I’m worried, Johnny. You shouldda just killed McBride before Dunbar blew up the train. Who would know McBride would come back? I thought we had him set up. Bad luck, he come back. And Dalton borrowin’ the saw. Turners almost had Dunbar strung up ’cept fur McBride again.” “World isn’t perfect, George. You think all the time we rustled that everything went the way we wanted it to? Ever wonder how I came up with this plan?” “I figured you just thought it out.” “Dunbar was a Confederate Partisan Ranger under Colonel Mosby. You know who he was?” “Nope.” “Ever hear of the Greenback Raid?”

“No, sir.” “I heard the story from an old reb in Galeyville. Mosby and eighty-four Rangers rode and derailed a Union express and netted $175,000 in Union greenbacks that were on the way to General Sheridan.” “Now I see.” “The hell you do. I asked him if he still knew any of the other rebels. Dunbar was one of those men with the Forty-Third Cavalry Battalion.” “The what?” “Mosby’s Rangers.” “More than $175,000 here, Johnny.” “Damned right, George. Damned right.” Johnny nodded as he studied the forested ridges leading toward Bancor . Soon he would reach the spur line, and Wiehl would bring the small train to Maguire and his men in the valley. “Let’s just hope Dooley killed McBride and the Indian like he was supposed to.” “Yes, sir.” Men wandered about the mules stopped like statues on the trail. “Mules have done well.” “You know the old saying.” “What’s that?” asked Johnny. “God made mules fur a purpose.” “I like this purpose.” “They’re used ta hauling borax at ten cents a pound. The son of a bitch at the Calico Station changed the agreement. Four-fifty a mule. We made the deal fur three-fifty at Furnace Creek.”

“It doesn’t matter. The value of this silver sures anything we lost, George,” said Johnny. “Come on.” “He gave ya the proper mules. Mules shouldn’t do heavy freightin’ until they’re five years old.” Glidden pushed his lips together, his salty mustache ing his beard. “You gonna be a rich man, John.” “Maybe. I take nothing for granted.” He counted the mules again. “Tell Rody to get the mules going. Sure as hell, word’s gotten out in Brinson. The army, the railroad, and everyone in Nevada and California is going to be on our ass real soon. We need to get that silver to the spur line. No more stopping.” “Yes, sir,” said Glidden. “You know what yur doin’. You always have.” “Nothing will get in my way. This will make all those stagecoach jobs penny ante, my friend.” Glidden smiled. “You have a devious mind, John.” “When I heard about the train hauling silver, I thought about Mosby. I began asking myself why I was wasting my time with card games and Wells Fargo boxes on stage lines. I was sick of gunfights and killing. And being blamed for killing I never did. This was one hell of an opportunity to have people like McBride or Dunbar ruin it.” Johnny stroked his chin, and a smile climbed up his face when he thought about how close he was to getting the silver to Maguire and out to the bay. He first met Maguire in the Piñata camp where Maguire worked melting the silver into pure bars. Maguire had cheated him so well at stud poker that Johnny bought him drinks all night. He had s on the San Francisco waterfront. Maguire could easily get the silver smelted in San Francisco and then loaded on a vessel out of the country. Just four months ago, he sat on his horse on a hill overlooking the Silver Hill Mine in Arizona. The men trucked the rock out of the mines with horse-drawn carts. He watched the mules move the raw ore to the smelting houses to the north. The railroad spur line was set to bring bars up to the main Overland line. A few more card games with railroad men in the saloons around the smelters gave him the information he needed. When he forgave their debts, they told him about The Overland train with eighteen army men from Fort Hutacwabaee

would leave the spur line junction on June 11. Johnny had traveled the stage to his family in San Jose a few times. A few years back, he stopped at all the small towns along the way through Nevada. He had spent a day and a half in Brinson when they had to repair busted-up wheels on the coach. Brinson’s hotel was clean with good meals. The saloon had interesting card games and free-flowing whiskey, but the town was wedged between the Sierras, the prairie, and a canyon that bordered Death Valley to the south. A derailed train and snipped telegraph wires would leave the silver vulnerable. He needed killers in the lurch—men he could trust to gun down the army men and then hide the silver bars in the canyon. Sam Turner, according to Maguire, wanted to be governor of Nevada but lacked the resources. Sam had land and the cattle, but not enough money. Johnny easily brought Sam and his boys into his plan. He was not sure whether he would need to kill the local marshal, Tuckerman. One of the Turner boys killed the marshal too early, allowing time for McBride to come down from Elko. With his plan set, Johnny needed to lure McBride out of town. He elaborated on a story about the Mexican bandito, Estrada, stealing the silver. With the soldiers and Overland people dead, no one would question the story of banditos bringing the silver south in wagons. Scott Dooley and George Glidden would convince McBride the Mexicans had fled with silver. Later, Wiehl and McAlister would corroborate the tale. Johnny had known most of them since Texas and trusted them. Especially with payment in silver. Quickness was essential. Dooley’s outlaws would load the silver bars in wagons, bring the silver into Sorroyo Canyon, and store the bars briefly in the side caves. He would procure mules from Death Valley. Once packed, the mules would exit Sorroyo up a little-used trail and head for the Sierra. Having Dunbar dynamite the tracks at the designated time on the open prairie cinched it. Turner’s men would cut the telegraph wires to the remote town long enough to haul the silver north. The trick was getting the silver into the Sierra and to the railroad trestle Maguire told him about. The long trestle, not too far ahead up the trail, extended from the depleted Danforth Lode at Bancor Ridge. Once on that train, he would be—as Sam Turner kept repeating—set for life. Johnny, still convinced they would reach the spur-line train ahead of any Pinkerton detectives or the army, lit a stogie. As he moved into the mountain

shadows behind the mule train, he wondered if McBride had found the sandbagged wagons Rody Turner had suggested sending south. Or was McBride even alive? Rody yelled at the mule drivers as if he were on a cattle drive, shouting into the mountain air. “Gee! Gee!” Johnny shook his head and focused on the mule train. As he brought his horse slowly on level ground, he pictured walking the docks along San Francisco Bay with Maguire back in March. The masts of a thousand sailing vessels packed the bay. When he left Arizona after Deputy Hagen Kern was gunned down outside of Rhyolite City, he convinced himself to a certainty that his plan would work. He told every participant that if they talked, he would personally gun them down —just like Hagen. Several men had gathered around a mule off the trail back on the mountain. They checked the mule’s leg as Rody Turner raced up the trail on his horse and yelled as he leaped onto the ground. “What’s the matter, Rody?” “This mule’s gonna have trouble gettin’ up Bancor.” “I ain’t gut time ta slow down. We gutta move and move now.” Rody took out a long-handled Smith and Wesson. Johnny cupped his hands. “Hey, Rody, hold it!” Rody turned. He had the annoying habit of chewing the inside of his mouth. “We gut a useless mule here, Johnny.” Johnny dismounted and immediately scanned the packs containing the silver. One man had two of the shiny silver bars in his hands. “I want you men to know you’re being watched, and every bar has been ed for, and there will be a count once we reach the spur line.” “That’s irrelevant,” said Rody, cocking the trigger. “We gut a useless mule here.” “You can’t just shoot the animal,” said Johnny. “Move the silver to another mule.

Spread it out.” “That’s what I intend ta do.” Rody aimed the gun, and a single shot reverberated down the wooded slope as Rody grabbed his arm. Johnny moved behind his Colt’s smoking barrel. “You want to challenge me, Rody?” Rody stared at the Colt. “You one fast bastard.” “You best not shoot any more innocent animals, Rody, or I’ll kill ya.” “But that mule—” “This is my operation, and you work for me.” Johnny carefully watched Rody’s hand on the gun handle.

Up the trail, men whistled, and catcalls echoed through the woods. He turned in the saddle and slowed the horse. Midway up a rock escarpment, Pam Grayson rode swiftly between the trees. Johnny turned his horse. Men clapped and called out vulgarities as she galloped to the front of the mule train. “Johnny, we gut trouble.” “I told you to meet me in San Francisco, Pam!” “Hansen from Brinson and two other men. They’re followin’ the trail.” “That didn’t take long,” said Johnny. “Do you know what this means?” “It means they’re on to us. I cut the wires three more times, but they’ll get them re-paired.” “Damn right they will. Where’s Sam?” He peered down the line of mules. Sam rode forward along the rocks with his boys. Pam held her gun. “I want my cut now. Two bars. You promised me two silver bars.” “You keep your damned mouth shut, or you get nothing. Who else is out there?”

“I didn’t see nothin’. Only the three men. I didn’t recognize the other two. Levi, he knows these hills.” Pam tightened her tanned brow. Johnny had never seen her scared. “There’s gutta be more after us.” Johnny lit a stogie and threw the wooden match down the slope. He rode over to Sam and his boys. Sam’s icy blue eyes reflected the same pervasive fear spreading through the mule train. “What the hell is wrong?” he asked. “Pam tells me we’re being trailed.” “Well, ain’t that just sweet?” said Rody, looking at his brothers. “You want us to take care of them, Pa?” asked Mike Turner. “How many men?” asked Sam. Johnny spoke quickly. “Three men. A man from Brinson… Levi Hansen and—” “Old Levi,” said Rody, grinning as if he had a fish on the line. “Levi’s McBride’s man. Now… he’s a dead man. I’ll take care of him fur you.” “Do what you have to do, Rody,” said Johnny. “I have to get to the trestle or we’ll never get that silver to San Francisco.” Sam pursed his lips and nodded. “Get ’em, boys!” “Hee-haw!” Rody lifted his hat off his matted hair. He spun his Smith and Wesson in his hand and then held it out like an offering toward Johnny. “I’ll show you shootin’.” Johnny said nothing and brought his horse around to Pam. As Rody headed back to the front of the mule train, Johnny looked into her glowing green eyes. “You ride up with me.” “You ain’t as confident now, are ya, Johnny?” asked Pam. “It’s all real simple when ya sittin’ in the Oriental Saloon plannin’ the perfect way ta be set fur life.” “Plans go awry.” He puffed on the stogie, clenched in his teeth. “I’m giving you

another silver bar.” “You are?” “Yes… if… you keep your hand on that gun of yours and your eyes on Rody and the rest of these other bastards. He makes any move, or any of his brothers make any move toward me…” “What about this old man?” Johnny squinted and nodded. “I may kill the lot of them myself.” “Then you git me more bars… a small price ta pay.” She had flawless skin and symmetrical eyes, a small nose, and her lips were aligned perfectly. “For someone so beautiful… you are so deadly.” Her eyes were luminescent in the sunshine. “Nature makes flowers in her own way.” “I’ll tell you again. If Rody makes a move, kill him. We’ll kill them all if we have to.” He crunched his teeth hard enough to cut the stogie. “Nothing’s going to stop me from getting this silver down to the bay. Nothing.” “Nothin’?” “Nothing.”

“I ain’t killin’ ’em. We should just take ’em in,” said Junior. “We ain’t takin’ no one in,” said Rody. Hansen’s dark hair flowed out from the brim of his wide hat. “I’ll take the back one too.” “I hear you,” answered Mike. Rody aimed at Hansen’s head. He looked at Mike and nodded. Then he fired, knocking Hansen off the horse. Mike fired quickly, getting the man in the rear. Rody squeezed the trigger again before the last man could react. Junior was on his horse when Rody turned. “Where the hell are you goin’?”

Junior rode away quickly across the summit and disappeared in the pines down the other side. “He’s yella. I knew he was yella. What now, Rody?” Rody eyed the slope and the horses off to the side. He turned to his brother. “One more bullet in the head, fur in-surance. One more for each of them.”

16

Bancor June 22, 1882 5:06 AM

Jake sat upright before dawn and held his rifle near the ledge. “I know I heard shots… a few miles up the ridge.” Soaring Bird tilted his head as he listened. “Too many shots.” “Trouble, brother.” Jake raised his canteen, filled that afternoon with stream water, and swished the cool liquid inside his mouth. He sensed death in the air as he ed through the moonlight shadows under the pines. The shifted stars and the moon away from the ridge told him most of the night had ed. Sunrise was only minutes away. They continued silently under the dark ridge with the milky valley spread below them. “We might have to wait for the sun, McBride.” Jake stroked his thick beard and checked the hills for movement. “You may be right. We could end up goin’ in circles.” He stared at the sky until the bird melodies filled the slope near sunrise. Two jays darted through the blue above him and perched on the pine branches. He heard a coyote bark to the east. Jake folded the bedroll neatly and placed it squarely on Menewa. The horse gnawed on scattered grass along the slope. Jake removed his canteen and poured water into his cupped hands. He positioned his hands under the horse’s mouth, repeating the procedure several times as his horse took in the water. Along the bottom of the foothills, the yellow glow between the needled branches heightened, and a few rays broke through. He turned back to camp. Soaring Bird sat up and listened. Both men quickly

finished packing the horses. Jake dismissed his stomach pangs, and he chewed on the last of the smoked meat as they moved out. As they negotiated the narrow trail in the warming sunshine, the gunshots from the night bothered him. His instincts, garnered from war battles, steered him toward the vicinity of the shots. The sun shined through the trees as both men circled the next granite overhang. Down the far side, three bodies blocked the well-trodden trail. Jake leaped off Menewa and headed down the path on foot. Levi Hansen’s dark felt hat had fallen a few feet on the rocks, his mass of black hair spread over the dirt. Several bullet holes had punctured his leather vest, and blood had pooled in the rock crevice. Jake turned the kid over. Someone had fired into his forehead. “Deyaipe . . . These men are from Brinson, McBride.” Jake, kneeling over Levi’s motionless body, looked up at his Shoshoni friend. His voice tightened, and he held his gun. “Levi Hansen. Somebody gut him and then came back and gut him again. Goddamned cowards.” “These other men were also shot in the head,” said Soaring Bird. Jake surveyed the slope. Boot marks dented the pine needles and led back along the main trail. He walked away with his gun drawn. About fifty yards away, he found fresh horseshoe prints in the soil. The trampled pine needles left no doubt someone had camped here last night. Jake remained squatting and looked up at his friend’s silhouette. “Levi, Pete Crimmins, and Hank Nevins. Someone stalked ’em.” “Rheingold?” “Don’t know,” he said, rising. “It wuz a cowardly act. Weren’t no shoot-out. They waited fur Levi and them other boys and then ambushed ’em.” “Maybe the town sent him up here after the silver.” Soaring Bird pointed to more tracks in the dirt. “McBride, mules have moved up this trail. Maybe yesterday. He crushed the dirt in his fingers. These tracks are no more than a day old.” Jake nodded. More mule hoofmarks dug into the needles and darker soil. “I ain’t sparin’ nobody. And I ain’t waitin’ for Judge Mackenzie or anyone else.

Rheingold is a dead man.”

* * *

Coltraine dipped his hands into the frigid stream and splashed water over his beard stubble. He still was not sure whether he heard shots last night in the mountains to the west. Bowers had given specific instructions for Levi to shadow the mule train. As he pushed the stream water back through his hair, he wondered what had happened. “Coltraine,” called Bowers from the camp. The stocky Pinkerton adjusted his suspenders and strutted across the clearing. He put his hands on his hips as he faced Coltraine. “I’m not asking the others, but I can tell things by the look on a man’s face.” “What are you saying, Mr. Bowers?” “You hear anything last night?” Coltraine moved a cloth across his face and nodded his head. “As a matter of fact, I did.” “The judge heard it too. He placed gunfire maybe three or four miles up the .” Coltraine folded the cloth. “What do you suggest we do?” “If it was gunfire, they’ll be back, or maybe Rheingold and his people are looking for us right now. I’ve been hoping Hansen got the better of them.” “I have a bad feeling about this.” “We don’t know anything yet.” Bowers looked back to the men in camp, preparing for the day’s journey. He leaned toward Coltraine. “I’m posting additional men up front. I want them fully armed and ready for the fight. I have no doubts there will be a fight now.”

Coltraine twisted his lips and looked into Bowers’s dark eyes. “I thought it was as simple as surrounding Rheingold and getting the silver.” “That isn’t going to happen. It’s important that every man here knows that. That means handling things tactfully and making sure everyone is fully armed. I know we have the ammunition.” As he spoke, Alby Conner’s loud cackle spread through camp. Both men turned. Alby waved his hands and gestured wildly toward two of Coltraine’s people from the hotel. “What the hell is he doing now? That man is a liability.” Bowers stomped by the spent campfire, and Coltraine followed him. “Bowers! Bowers, you tell him! Tell him!” “Tell him what?” “Shots.” “Then it’s definite. Right?” asked Bowers. “Well, I—” Bowers gripped Alby’s shirt with both hands. “Did you or did you not hear shots?” “I could of… The judge heard shots. The judge hears like a fox. When he says —” “Then you never heard shots, you dumbass.” Bowers rolled his eyes and clenched his fists. Coltraine thought he might smack Alby on the spot. As the other men gathered around, Bowers raised his hands in the air. “We’re moving out.” “Shots!” shouted Alby. “Shut up,” said Bowers, and several other men echoed his thoughts. “Then they must be dead!” cried Alby, pulling out his gun. “Maybe they’re dead, maybe not. It should tell us that Rheingold’s aware we’re

trailing him—or at least Hansen was.” “See! See! Wuz, you said wuz! He must be dead.” “I told you to shut up! Or they’ll be more shots right now,” said Bowers, clutching his pistol handle. Then he faced the others. “Now listen, I want three men—three men who can shoot—up front. You’ll be given extra ammunition.” “Sawtooth. He’s a crack shot!” said Alby. Bowers gave Alby a sickening look as the grizzly Sawtooth stepped through the group. He curled his upper lip and exposed his teeth toward Alby. Alby held his hat and backed toward the rocks. “He bit a man ta death once!” “Then you best stay away from him then,” said Bowers, grinning. “What about the rear, Bart?” asked the judge. Bowers nodded. “He’s right. Sawtooth, you check the trail behind us. I don’t want to be ambushed. Find out what happened. They fire at you: you kill ’em.” Sawtooth’s wild blue eyes ignited as he placed new shells in his six-shooter. With his sharp crooked teeth still exposed, he crossed the camp to his horse. “The rest of you. You ride with your weapons drawn. Have ample ammunition supplies at the ready.” “What are we getting into, Mr. Bowers?” asked the red-eyed Doc Talmadge. “It should be quite obvious. We’re going to fight for that silver. They’ve probably already reached the spur line. I don’t know. We can’t stop now. We have to move quickly and reach them.” “People gonna be killed,” said Talmadge as if he were proclaiming a new bit of information. “Yes, that’s why I’m telling you—all of you. If you want to go back to Brinson, go back now! I don’t need stragglers.” Coltraine saw their frightened faces. No man was going to back down in the face of his peers. Alby kept nodding his head and was about to yell something.

Coltraine raised his index finger over his mustache and mouth. Alby rolled his eyes and went to the saddlebag. A few seconds later, he took several swigs from a small silver flask. “How far are we from the spur?” asked Coltraine. “A few miles,” shouted Alby. “It crosses above the Maremonte River, and that runs ta Stockton.” Bowers, his hands on his hips, looked westward toward the taller peaks. “Then we can’t stop. It will take time for them to load that silver, providing they actually get a train up there.” “We’re gonna git killed,” whispered Alby. Bowers winced as Coltraine stepped back from Alby’s whiskey breath and took in the clear mountain air. He gazed along the rock ledge and then checked his Winchester. Any glory-filled ambition he had when he left Brinson was rapidly fading to fear as he studied the westward ridges.

17


Through the trees, Jake caught sight of Alby and Jim Coltraine leading men down the trail. Alby pointed at him and then babbled as he rushed up the rocks. “Jumpin’ Jerusalem! Yur alive, Jake!” “Levi Hansen is dead, Alby. Along with Crimmins and Nevins.” Alby turned back to the group. “See! See! Levi’s dead! They’re all dead!” Jim Coltraine and a stocky bald man in a chequered blue shirt and dark suspenders brought their horses up the rocks. Coltraine looked into Jake’s eyes. “Is it true, Jake? Is Levi dead?” “Twenty-three years old. Cowardly murdered.” The bald man donned a brown hat and extended his hand. “Hobart Bowers. I work for the Pinkertons. I came in with the judge from Carson City.” “Judge here?” “You bet yur ass I’m here,” said the white-haired Mackenzie, moving behind the others. Jake could not bring himself to a full smile with Levi being dead. “You trackin’ the silver?” “Exactly what we’re doing,” said Bowers. “But how did you and the Indian know to come up to Bancor? Last I heard, you were checking wagon tracks to the south.” “Dooley, the cavalry lieutenant, tried to kill me. I shot him dead. He had a hand-

drawn map in his uniform pocket.” Bowers nodded as Alby prattled on about Jake killing Dooley. “So the thing about Estrada—” “Wuz a lie,” said Jake. Soaring Bird leaned forward. “They loaded the wagons with sandbags from Sorroyo Canyon. They split the wagons to Badwater and Ubehebe Crater.” “You’re a Shoshoni?” “I am.” “He gut more education than all of us here, Mr. Bowers.” “Bart.” Bowers nodded, seeming to accept Soaring Bird. “What did that map say?” “I’ll show ya.” Jake reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the map, and handed it to Bowers. Bowers nodded as he unfolded the map and studied the layout. “We figured right. There’s a damn railroad spur line set up from the Danforth Lode to Stockton. Somehow Rheingold knew about it very well.” “He’s not John Rheingold.” “Then who the hell is he?” “I don’t know. Dooley wouldn’t tell me who the son of a bitch is. But he ain’t Rheingold.” Bowers’s forehead tightened as he lit a cigar. “He’s going to spend the rest of his life in jail no matter who the hell he is.” “You don’t understand, Bart. Rheingold is a dead man. And I’m doin’ the killin’.” Mackenzie stepped forward. “Jake, you have to uphold the law.”

“Judge, that man is responsible for the deaths of the men that Soaring Bird and me just buried. Levi has a girl back in Brinson. Hank and Pete have wives and kids.” “Jake, the law will take care of it.” “I ain’t so sure, Judge, but I know I will.” Bowers folded the map. “My main concern is stopping them from getting that silver onto the spur line.” Jake spoke to the group. “You know Rheingold ain’t gonna just sit back while we politely ask him fur the silver.” “You’re right. They have to know we mean business,” growled Bowers. Coltraine looked at Jake. “Levi didn’t deserve what happened to him.” Jake stared down at his dusty boots. “Is there any other way to Bancor ?” asked Bowers. “Nope, nope,” said Alby. “We’re up shit’s creek.” “You’ve spend yur life on shit’s creek, Alby,” said Jake. “My guess is someone will be headin’ round the ta the spur line.” Alby remained on his horse. “The trail ain’t the only way ta Bancor . You can’t git by them mountains by horse. Once yur up Bancor, you kin cross through the forest above the tracks.” “Then we need ta git men up the ridge then… ta see what’s goin’ by the spur line,” said Jake. “Let them men cover the rest of us.” Bowers checked the bullets in his six-shooter and spun the chamber. “We’re going to have to fight it out. Clever bastard, Rheingold. I can’t believe he really pulled it off. I tell you, I’m very worried they are going to get that silver down the spur line. Then we’ll never catch them.” Jake gazed back at the men. “We don’t rest. We keep going. No stoppin’. I’ll kill

that son of a bitch.” Soaring Bird brought his pinto closer to Jake. His dark eyes tightened. “This is as far as I go, McBride.” “There’s gonna be trouble, no doubt about that.” He reached up and gripped his friend’s hand. “Thanks.” “I wish you good fortune, McBride.” Jake shook his hand. Then Soaring Bird led his horse past the other men. He climbed on the horse and descended the slope before he disappeared between a row of pines on a smaller knoll to the east. “Damn savage don’t want ta fight,” said Talmadge. “They’ll attack us, but when it comes ta—” “Ain’t they seen enough killin’, Doc? Now they’re herded like cattle up in Duck Valley. Ain’t ’cause he don’t wanna fight…” Up ahead, Bowers waved his gun forward, and the group started between the gray rock mountains toward Bancor .

18


As he rode under Bancor Ridge’s heavy jutting rocks, Johnny grew tired of the smart-mouthed, rusty-bearded Rody Turner. Rody had lost his usefulness after he killed the kid from Brinson. All of the Turners concerned him. He feared the old man’s capacity for revenge if he was not paid. Someday, he could use Sam Turner once he was placed in Carson City. The spur line and the trestle rose upward only a few miles west of the massive ledges. Pam would return soon and tell him whether Wiehl and McAlister had fired the train up from Stockton. Loading the silver would take hours. Rody conferred with his brothers and Sam next to a clump of trees stuck between the rocks along the . Johnny creased his brow and brought his horse toward the Turners. “What do you hear?” Rody looked away as he spoke. “I don’t hear nothin’ ’bout the train bein’ up there.” Johnny gritted his teeth. “I paid those men well, and more cash is coming.” “I tell ya, that train ain’t up there,” shouted Rody. “Shut up, Turner.” “I think we’re early, John,” said Sam Turner, tamping his handkerchief over his matted gray hair and tanned skin. “We’ve moved up here too damned quick.” “What if he don’t come?” asked Rody. “You ain’t thought of that, Mr. Rheingold?” “You let me worry about that.”

“Oh, I’ll let you worry ’bout it,” said Rody, walking toward Johnny’s horse. He looked up at Johnny. “You think yur so smart and the rest of us is some kind of in-grates.” Johnny moved his right hand near his Colt handle. “You look that word up in a dictionary, Rody?” “You’d better watch him, Pa. Wonder if we’ll get what’s comin’ to us.” Johnny drew his Colt slowly and swung the barrel toward Rody. “You’ll all get what I promised. This isn’t some backroom card game, Turner. We have silver slated for the U.S. Mint packed on the mules. The whole country will know about this soon. We need that train at Bancor .” He pulled out his silver pocket watch with his left hand and checked the roman-numeral face. “Quarter past eleven.” “This is bullshit,” said Rody, shaking his head. “We need to be in the valley in five hours,” said Johnny. “We waste any more time and the government will have agents, the army… everyone will be all over us! Why don’t you all go down in the valley and find Wiehl, McAlister, and Maguire… and the train.” Sam nodded and turned to his sons. “All of you boys. You get your asses back to Stockton if you have to. Find Wiehl and the other men. You heard Mr. Rheingold. We have five hours.” “What do you want us to tell him?” asked Junior. “Get on yur horse, Junior!” shouted the old man. “Come on, boys,” quipped Rody. “Let’s obey Mr. Rheingold’s orders.” The Turner boys brought their horses into the deep shadows under the Bancor Peak. Johnny stared at the peak as he spoke to Sam Turner. “I don’t like this.” “My boys will find that train,” said Sam, but Johnny was not listening. The silver bars bulged in the leather packs on the mules halted along the ridge. Johnny would count every bar once they were inside the freight car, and he

would shoot any man seen with silver. He removed his watch again, and his stomach tightened. For most his whole life, he was in control. He had never gambled on dreams or hopes, but on the sure thing. Stealing the silver was part dream and part hope. He smiled at the way he perfectly plotted it in Arizona. He would not lose it all at the last minute because of someone else’s incompetence.

* * *

Rody caught sight of Pam on her black horse, heading along the ridge track. He trotted left ahead of his brothers and met her on the tracks just above the massive interlocked wood trestle. “What did you find out?” “The train is comin’. ’Bout a mile down tracks,” she said, pointing to the billowing black smoke in the distance. “Wiehl had trouble with the boiler.” “Isn’t gonna mean shit once he’s at the top of the trestle.” Rody laughed. “We’ll just roll inta the valley!” “Maybe. There’s work ahead, gittin’ them bars on the train,” said Pam. Rody leaned toward her. “Hey, Pam, whaddaya say you and me, we spend a little time up in the woods while we’re waitin’.” Pam pulled a long .44 from her saddle and pointed it at Rody’s hawk nose. “You never learn, do ya?” “I like a wild woman.” “Good, then you hire one when ya git yur cut on that silver.” “You only sleep with marshals, that it?” She cocked the trigger. “What I do is my business. You say that again, and I’ll kill ya.”

“That what you told Dunbar?” “I had a job, and I did it,” she said, still keeping the gun on him. “Just like the marshal?” asked Rody, raising his brows. “Shut up.” She fired once. Rody grabbed the top of his shoulder. A small blood circle formed on his blue shirt. His brothers all drew their guns, but Pam trained her gun. “Put ’em down! Or next time I won’t just graze your shoulder.” “Yur crazy!” yelled Rody. “If I wanted ta kill ya, I wouldda.” Rody brushed his shoulder. “I’m wonderin’ if you ain’t right ’bout that.” He turned to his brothers. Junior smiled. “You stop yur grinnin’.” “Been bested by a woman?” asked Mike. “She ain’t just a woman. I don’t know what she is!” He started down the rock bed below grade. Junior looked over his shoulder along the ridge. “I wouldn’t mess with her.” “She’d wear you out,” said Mike. “Hee-haw.” “She’s poison. Damn poison. Poison, I tell ya.” Rody moved along slowly in the sun. To his right, the vast valley was jacketed between continuous granite rises. His horse shuffled through the gravel, but he felt noise on the ground. “Listen, boys. The salvation train’s a-comin’. I hear it.” “Gonna put Pa in Carson City,” said Mike. “What if the army gits here? They ain’t stupid,” said Junior. Rody held his shoulder and leaned to the right. Dark smoke twisted above the ridge pines. “Here they come. And yur right. The army ain’t stupid. None of them are stupid. They just ain’t quick enough. We took ’em all by surprise.”

The train’s thunder grew louder as the thick smoke formed a tapering trail back through the pines. Wiehl waved through the open window as McAlister stuck his head out the other side. Rody motioned his brothers back up the ridge. The engine, spewing and hissing, chugged in reverse up the trestle rails. Rody counted two faded-green enger cars and a weathered wood freight car. He grinned at Wiehl as he ed, and McAlister waved a gray rebel cap into the air. “Whaddaya think now, Rody?” asked Mike. Rody looked ahead. “I think we’re all set. Rheingold gits that silver up here, and we can go ta Abilene and git ready for Pa ta go to Carson City.”

19

Bancor June 22, 1882 4:25 PM

Jake stared into the late afternoon sun highlighting the upper rocks and pines. Years had ed since he wrapped his fingers so tightly around his rifle. The tension gripped his stomach like a tightening knot. Bowers had sent Sawtooth along the ridge to scout for trouble. Jake had a sense for trouble, and trouble might be over the next granite ridge. He turned in the saddle as Alby’s voice erupted off trail. “Dead mule! Dead mule!” Jake dismounted and hurtled through the bushes. Alby hovered over a mule carcass. Harness marks were still imprinted on the mule’s short gray coat. Jake looked up at Bowers. “Sure as hell confirms my suspicions, Bart.” Coltraine, rifle in hand, glared down at the mule. “We can thank Sam Turner and Rheingold for all this.” Bowers climbed back on his horse. The crack of a gun made Jake swing his rifle upward as he sidestepped behind a massive bolder. A second and then a third discharge sent Bowers’s horse scrambling under the trees. “What the hell is that?” yelled Bowers. “Sawtooth!” shouted Alby. Coltraine followed Jake up the trail. “He’s gutta be dead! Now he’s dead!” “You don’t know that, Alby,” said Jake, mounting Menewa. “Shut yur trap.” Sawtooth galloped in a dust swirl up the wooded trail. He slapped his hat against his horse and leaned forward in the saddle as he jumped the rocks. The horse slid forward into the grove. He held his hat over his head and pointed his six-shooter

into the sky. “I shot the sons of bitches.” Jake brought Menewa ahead of Bowers. “What happened, Sawtooth?” “Dead! I tell ya, two of them taking up the rear.” “Only two taking up the rear?” asked Bowers, glancing up the trail. “I gut ’em both. Nobody else there. Bancor swings up past this last ridge.” Coltraine had his rifle in both hands. “Do you think the rest of them heard the gunfire?” “Course they did,” said Jake. “He’s right,” said Bowers, looking up. The rest of the posse converged around the three men. “My guess is that trestle is just ahead.” The rest of the group talked among themselves. Jake counted twelve men left. “Let’s get ’em. Bart.” “How?” asked Coltraine. Jake squinted as Bowers lit a cigar. “I need a volunteer to head around the for Stockton. Meet up with the army.” Alby leaped off his horse and ran across the scrub brush. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I kin tell the army!” “Forget it,” snapped Bowers, puffing on the cigar. “You want the job done right, don’t ya?” asked Alby. “That why he wants you back here, Alby,” said Jake, and the group laughed. “We need you to shoot.” “Now ya talkin’.” He removed his gun and pointed it skyward. Jake grabbed his wrist and steered the gun back into the holster. “I’ll go,” said Mike Griffin. He had a huge smile, narrow shoulders, and blond hair. “My horse can make it to Stockton if he has to.”

“Good,” said Bowers, putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “But I want you to head for San Batista first. The army needs to head in both directions. If you are able to use a telegraph.” “I understand.” “You will ask for Major Kendall in San Batista.” “Yes, sir.” Bowers advised Griffin to stay clear of the trail and the trestle. His chestnut pony began a wide loop into the woods around Bancor . Bowers climbed off his horse. He snapped a long brittle stick off one of the trees, cleared back pine needles, and dragged the point in the soil. His crude map showed Bancor Peak as a long triangular groove in the darker dirt. He deepened the line where he thought the spur swung up from Stockton across the valley. Below the trestle line, he drew the Maremonte River in the soil. “What do you think, Jake? Sawtooth and three men fully armed with rifles up the top of that peak.” He raised the stick toward the pointed rock ledges and wispy clouds. “Yup. We need cover, Bart,” said Jake. “Exactly. That leaves the rest of us to move up the .” He kept the cigar between his teeth and placed his foot on a stump. Slowly he raised his bushy brows and spoke in a constrained voice. “We have to kill them all… No exceptions.” “I thought we were just supposed to recover the silver. Sounds brutal,” said Doc Talmadge. “It is brutal,” said Bowers. “That’s the whole point. You wanna live, you’ll kill them all. You think Rheingold is just gonna let us walk in and start off-loading the bars?” “He might,” said Alby. “If we scare the hell out of him!” “Just do as I say, you cockeyed bastard,” yelled Bowers, and Alby hid behind Willie.

“We have to do this, and do it fast,” said Jake. “When do Sawtooth and his boys start firing from the ridge?” asked Mackenzie. Bowers’s dark eyes slowly swung toward the judge. “You men watch me. When I signal you, you fire and you shoot.” “We don’t even know how many men they gut!” said Alby. Coltraine grinned at Bowers. “We only have nine men. I hate to say it, but he’s right.” “See, I wuz right,” said Alby, stroking his beard and gazing at the group for approval. “It damn well doesn’t matter,” said Jake. “How about we just wait fur the army,” said Doc Talmadge. Bowers stepped forward and spread his arms. “Look, they’ll get the damned silver into the valley if we wait. Then they can transport it to the bay. I can’t let them do that. Anyone who wants to stay behind—stay behind. We’re heading up the . Sawtooth, get your men up that peak… we’re moving out!”

20


The engine’s driving steel wheels and main rods locked, and the massive locomotive slid to a stop on the rails. The pug-nosed Wiehl peered out the open cab window. “I told ya I’d be here, Johnny. I told ya, you bastard!” Johnny grinned and slipped across the gravel bed. He placed his shiny boot on the crossties below the cab. He lit a stogie and checked the old black locomotive. “I would have bet money this train wouldn’t have made it two feet up the trestle —and backwards! Good job, Horseman.” “The boiler’s havin’ trouble keepin’ the heat. I told Maguire this wuz junk. He says he wuz lucky ta get it. Wish I had the 924.” “The 924 is outside Brinson. Is Maguire in the valley?” “He is. They have wagons ready. All we gutta do is chug this old wreck down the trestle and meet up with them. We can be at the bay by tomorrow night.” Johnny tilted his head back and laughed. “Well, damn!” “We did it, John. We did it. Even in Mason County, I always knew you wuz too smart fur them government and railroad boys.” Johnny continued to smile and inhaled the tobacco smoke. The mules slowly converged down the ridge trail toward the train in the clearing. Past the engine, the track curved between the blasted granite boulders and the pines along the mountain slope. Once they loaded the silver, Wiehl would stoke the boiler and bring the train around the bend to the trestle less than a mile away. “Congratulations, Johnny,” said Wiehl.

Johnny tightened his brow in the late afternoon sun above the hills. The first mules ed by him toward the train. “We haven’t done it yet.” “Ah, yur just too damned nervous,” said Wiehl. “Come on. An old poker man like you gettin’ nervous.” Sam Turner spun his horse up the embankment as more mules trucked the silver along the train bed. “We have men from Brinson trailing us!” “What?” Johnny threw down the stogie onto the gravel rocks. His face tightened. “How do you know this?” “Shots up in the ,” said Sam. “Get Rody and your boys.” “Rody wuz shot by that cowgirl.” “Pam?” “Rody wuz pesterin’ her. It’s his own damned fault,” said Sam. “He’ll be all right. Just washin’ out the wound.” “The hell with Rody! Get men up the trail!” ordered Johnny. “The men have rifles. Use them! You and your boys… have them load the silver into the stock car now! Now!” “I’ll get my boys.” Johnny grimaced in the sunlight. Wiehl stared at him from the cab. “We’ll hold off the Brinson boys. Don’t worry, Johnny.” “I’m worried about a lot of things, Horseman.” Rody, shoulder bandaged, led his horse along the mules. “Rody, get that silver into the stock car.” “Then what?” His eyes were wet, and his voice shook with emotion. “You owe my father a substantial amount of money and land. We did our job. We gut the mules. We gut Dunbar to blow up the tracks. If yur thinkin’ of not payin’ up…”

Johnny held his gun handle. “I never said that.” “Shut up, Rody. I’m making this deal,” growled Sam. “You just do as I say.” Sam yanked on the reins and pulled Rody back with the mules along the train. They argued even as Rody got off his horse near a faded-red slatted car. Sam directed his son and the other men to unload the mule packs. He pointed to the stock car, and several more men dragged long planks across the rocks to the open door. Sam rounded up two men who almost immediately mounted their horses and trotted up the wooded trail. Johnny openly displayed his pearl-handled Colt from atop his own horse. He lingered along the train where he could keep watch on all the men, but he kept looking up the trail.

* * *

Junior Turner lifted the first shiny silver bar from an open leather mule pack and waddled to the gravel embankment. He handed it to another man who walked it up the plank. Rody had positioned himself inside the door and ed the bar to another man inside. Sam, off his horse, stepped over to Johnny. “The men are headin’ back along the ridge. Don’t worry, John. Them boys is good shots. They’ll hold off anybody trailin’ us.” “We’re so damned close.” “Yur gonna be set for life, and I’m gonna be governor of Nevada. I’m gonna push my way ta the top just like old Abe Curry. And it ain’t the end. There’s no tellin’ where the hell we could go. Them bars will get us anything we want. You know that.” “Time will tell.”

As Sam started back to the stock car, Pam Grayson galloped along the human chain loading the bars up the planks. She spotted Johnny and slowed. She continued silently along the gravel bed with her hand on her gun handle. Johnny did not trust her. “This is getting very risky. I heard ’bout them Brinson boys.” “Pam, I promised you two bars. You’ll get them before the train leaves.” “I wanna go ta San Francisco with you, John.” He stared at her legs mounted over the saddle. Her hair was tucked under her dark hat. As alluring as she appeared, Johnny did not want her around after Maguire smelted the silver. “I promised you two bars for killing Dunbar. That should keep you going for quite some time. I have my own agenda, and I won’t be in San Francisco very long, if at all. I haven’t decided.” “What about my other bars?” “Forget it.” Her icy stare made him think she might draw her gun. She was still gawking as she rode back to the mules. He owed her nothing. But she must have sensed his pending wealth and power enough to sweeten up to him. Johnny felt the same power now. With the proper planning, he would wield that power in ways that he could not even imagine. His stomach wrenched, and he breathed quickly as the bars moved down the human chain. He had never felt pressure like this and would trust no one until the silver was in Maguire’s care. Sam Turner, his gray hair scattered in clumps, held his hat as he walked briskly along the mule train. He shielded his eyes as he approached and then placed his Stetson back on his head. “Lookin’ good, John.” “How much silver is left, Sam?” “I’d say we’re halfway. They’re movin’ real fast.” “What about down the trail? What about those Brinson men?” “Men haven’t reported in. I can’t tell ya about the valley until—”

“I’m more worried about the army and the Pinkertons.” Sam nodded and trailed Johnny as he paraded along the train with his rifle in his lap. Men looked up at him as he neared the stock car. They had created a fivefoot pyramid of silver bars, glistening through the wood slats. He would count every bar before the train started toward the trestle. His confidence returned for the first time that day as he gazed across the ascending silver pyramid. He pulled out his silver pocket watch and wanted to the exact time when the rest of his life began. In a matter of hours, he would be on his way to San Francisco. “Keep that pile lower!” he shouted. Rody’s smirk inside the stock car upset Johnny. He stood with his hands on his hips in the opening. “Sure, Mr. Rheingold.” For the next fifteen minutes, Johnny alternated glances at Rody’s bearded profile at the stock car. He watched as they removed the last silver bars from the packs and sent them down the chain to the stock car. Sam Turner edged his horse along the railroad bed. He untied one of his saddlebags, searched inside, pulled out two long brown cigars and handed one to Johnny. “Cuban. Enjoy it as the boys finish up, John. We outwitted every one of them bastards.” “I take nothing for granted.” Sam struck a match and lit the cigar. The next silver bar was stacked on the pyramid. “But it is sure as hell is looking good, isn’t it?” “Damn right. I’d say we’ll be fully loaded any time now.” “Sam, I’ll wire you once I’m settled.” He puffed the cigar red. “Whatever help you need politically. I want to be available in the future after this thing blows over. The one thing this silver will do is net us power. We may not see it now, but we will. Just make sure your ass and your boys’ asses are covered after I leave on the train.” “We’ll head east, do our trading, and go home. The cattle will be on trains to Brinson, and no one will be the wiser. Just a little business trip fur the Turners.” Sam held the cigar between his fingers and looked at Pam Grayson atop her horse, hands on the saddle horn and watching the whole operation near the end of the train. “Pam made this easier.”

“She’ll be compensated for Dunbar and the telegraph lines. I told her that.” Johnny looked away from Pam and back to the stock car. “I’m counting every bar.” “No one’s gonna challenge you, John.” “I trust no one.” He slipped his foot into the stirrup and dismounted. He hitched the horse to the stock car and walked up the plank. Rody leaned against the sideboards but was silent as Johnny stepped inside the car. His boots clicked across the floorboards. He leaned over and slowly—as if he were seeing the face of God—touched his fingers to the top bar’s cold surface. Again, he sensed the accumulating power he had only dreamed about back in the Galeyville poker game a few months back. “I gutta give ya credit,” said Rody from the door as a burly man carried another bar inside, crossed the car, and placed the silver on the pyramid. “You ain’t as dumb as I thought ya were.” Johnny removed his Colt and kept it aimed at Rody. “Count ’em, Turner.” “You count ’em. I ain’t yur slave.” Rody’s hands moved upward to his throat as his face contorted. The crisp sound of a rifle volley reverberated around the . A thick blood mass now soaked Rody’s blue shirt. He keeled over, still holding his neck, and fell out of the car and onto the gravel bed. Johnny gripped his Colt and leaned around the car opening. More shots erupted like a full battlefield attack disrupting the silent mountain air. Now on his stomach, he hurled the cigar aside and crawled to the sidewall. He peered through the slats. Men and mules scattered. He needed to get to the engine cab and have Wiehl start the train moving toward the trestle. Someone bounced like a monkey atop the train. He aimed his gun upward and sat in front of the silver. Pam Grayson’s voice seeped through the slats. “I’m comin’ in.” “Pam…” In the midst of the gunfire, she swung her body through the open door. Holding

her rifle, she tucked and rolled below the bullet-riddled wood slats. “We gut Brinson men on the peak firin’ at us. Our men ur bein’ picked off, Johnny.” Johnny ground his teeth. “Wiehl has to get this train moving!” “Wiehl and the other man is dead.” “What?” “Half yur men are dead,” she said, standing and pointing her rifle through the slats. “There’s men comin’ round Bancor. They gutta be Brinson men.” “We need to start this train moving ourselves!” “They gutta stop shootin’ fur that,” she said, still looking outside. “Damn, I see Jake McBride out there!” Johnny crawled forward. Through the slits, he saw McBride and a stocky man fire at the train from behind the rough-edged rocks along the . More men unloaded rifle shots from the ridge pines. He did not see the Indian. “Damn him!” “We can punch out boards back here and get up ta the engine. I thought Dooley was supposed to kill McBride, Johnny.” “He was…” McBride aimed his rifle at the train. More bullets hit the car. “We have to get this goddamn train moving! Now!” Pam crashed her rifle butt into the slats. “Come on, Johnny. Help me loosen these boards!” Johnny wanted to kill McBride as much as he wanted to get the silver to Maguire. Pam kicked the loosened slats with a wild ferocity, exposing rusted nails as the boards dropped to the gravel bed. For a moment, Johnny thought about escaping down the tree-lined slope into the valley, but he had come too far. She was right. He merely needed to get the train to the trestle incline. Pam wiggled through the slat opening. Johnny sank his fingernails into the slats and squeezed through. He leaped onto the gravel and sprinted along the backside of the train. A few bullets whizzed over his head.

He ed Pam as he reached the metal-framed engine and grabbed the ladder rungs. Pam followed as he crawled through the cab window. Wiehl’s arms hung lifeless over the outside window, and McAlister’s bloodied body lay dead across the floor. “We need to release the damned brake,” cried Johnny. A bullet pinged around the metal walls. “I thought you’d save yourself, Pam.” “Save myself?” She moved along the wall gauges and levers. “Don’t kid yurself, John. I’m a wanted woman. Jake McBride will have me tried fur Dunbar’s murder. I’ll be hanged back in Brinson. Somebody will kill me.” Johnny looked around the opening. A group of other men on horses fired rifles and raced down the trail. “Here they come!” “Release this train, and we can bring the silver to the valley.” “It’s ninety-two miles to Stockton. I’ll kill McBride,” said Johnny, looking out the cab window. He fired his Colt and knocked a man next to McBride off his horse. “Furgit ’bout McBride.” “I missed him.” She pushed another lever, but nothing happened. Johnny leaned over her britches. Sam Turner and his boys were gone. So were the mules. Bodies from the gun battle covered the gravel bed up the trail. McBride trotted on his horse with the bald guy between the pines and the rocks. Pam pointed her rifle out the cab and fired several times. “They’re closing in.” Johnny shook his head. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.” Pam backed to the boiler and moved levers along the wall. “This is it!” “What?” he asked. “The brake! Come on, help me!”

She pulled the long metal stick, but could not release it. Johnny grasped the handle. They both yanked it back. Very slowly, the rigid lock produced a thud under the train, and the engine’s steel wheels squealed against the railroad tracks as gravity pulled them forward. Johnny returned to the window as they rolled toward the trestle. He yelled in a booming voice out the window. “There you go, you son of a bitch, McBride.” McBride’s horse reached the ledge above the gravel bed as the train rounded the incline. Pam pointed up at him and put her arms around his waist. “All we gutta do is make it around this ledge and cross down that trestle. Once we reach the bottom of the grade, we get this engine goin’, Johnny. And all the silver is here!” Johnny shoved his Colt in her stomach. “I’m going to give you the chance to live.” “What the hell are you doin’? Afta all I done fur you?” “You’re expendable. The Turners were expendable. All of you,” he said as the train sped away from the . More bullets hit the engine. “Now, get off.” “Rody wuz right, yur a lyin’ bastard!” She turned, and he twisted his gun. “I jump out there, they’ll shoot me!” “You stay and I’ll shoot you.” She gazed over his shoulder toward the open cab window. “Then let me out the other side.” Johnny pulled the gun back and pointed it at the ing pines and bushes. “Get out, goddamn it!” She sidestepped over Wiehl’s body. When she was at the edge, she backed her long legs out the opening. “I couldda made you happy, John.” A smile returned to his face. “The only thing that will make me happy is stacked in the stock car.” “What about my two bars?”

“Tough luck, green eyes.”

21


Jake and the posse fired at the slow-moving train as it approached the bend. Pam Grayson emerged from the pines along the tracks. She scooped a rifle off the ground and mounted a horse. Jake had an easy shot, but he let her horse hurdle the tracks. She galloped between the tall trees down the mountain trail away from the trestle. From the safety of the cab, Rheingold shot a revolver back at the posse. Jake pumped the trigger on his Remington. Bowers peered through field glasses. “The train is sustaining speed, but once he gets to the trestle, it will be impossible to catch it.” “This train has to round Bancor fur it hits the trestle. I’m goin’ through the woods!” yelled Jake as he turned. “Jim Coltraine!” Bowers squinted and pressed his lips. “It’s possible.” “Where the hell is Coltraine?” Doc Talmadge, one knee to the ground, looked up from Coltraine’s fallen body on the gravel bed. Blood flowed across his white shirt and long coat. Jake leaped off Menewa. He quickly reached his friend. Coltraine formed a crooked smile and pushed out his words in a whisper. “It’s a damned good day to die, Jake.” His eyes rolled, and his head fell to the side. Jake looked over his shoulder as the engine rolled toward the bend as more gunfire erupted from the woods. “The Turner boys comin’ up through the woods!” yelled Sawtooth. “Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

“Jake, you cross the ridge. Try and reach that train.” “You need my help here, Bart.” “No, we’re all right. Get the hell out of here now! Stop that train!” As he stepped up, the sun flickered in his eyes. Sporadic gunfire continued behind him as he clawed his way over the rocks. He gripped the tree roots and pulled himself up over the ridge. Then he sprinted between the straight pines on level upper ground. He breathed heavily as the sky brightened. At the western slope, spreading oaks and the Maremonte River cut the canyon west toward Stockton. The train advanced slowly but was not yet at the trestle. He sent the dried pine needles flying as he reached the massive rocks hovering over tracks below. The steel wheels screeched against the rails as the train approached. A few dozen feet below, the ledge broke into smaller boulders. Jake slid on his denim pants and gripped the crevices as he edged toward the rail bed. To his right, bathed in the sunlight, the trestle formed a bolted myriad of neatly woven timbers, descending in sections from the rock-scraped cliffs. A solid flat upper platform swung outward from the rocks before the rails dipped gradually into the river valley. He inched along blasted rocks twenty feet above the crossties. The locomotive’s steel wheels ground against the rails at the curve. Above the ridgeline, the smokeless stack progressed silently through the woods. The train gained speed as the wide cowcatcher appeared past the pines. Jake thought about Jim Coltraine shot dead and Levi buried up in the hills. When you’re dead, you’re dead. He bent his knees as the engine cab ed below. He leaned forward and leaped into the air, landing in a car full of split wood. For a few seconds, he lay stunned in the wood pile. He breathed rapidly as he stared up at the thin clouds. The back of his head ached as he grabbed his hat off the split logs and drew his Colt. He imperceptibly climbed the pile toward the engine. Rheingold leaned out the side window as the train approached the trestle edge. Jake aimed his Colt but had trouble standing in the wood pile. As the train rocketed, he fired but missed his target. Rheingold reacted quickly and disappeared below the metal lip. Jake rolled across the chopped wood and scrambled over the side of the moving car.

“You can’t stop me, McBride!” Rheingold shouted from the engine. Jake gripped the metal side s as the tracks and gravel bed ed below him. He grasped the vertical pins where the car coupled to the stock car. As Rheingold called out again, Jake hoisted his body up the side ladder. “Your time has run out, McBride.” Jake crawled onto the roof. He waddled on his belly across the swaying car. A bullet ed just over his back as the shot echoed off the rocks. He swung his body over the edge and climbed down the opposite side of the car. The angle sharpened, and the trestle timbers below cracked as the train gained speed. Jake held the metal rungs of the side ladder and peered down the length of a stock car. Rheingold leaned out and fired. Jake ducked back as another bullet flew into the air. He hung on the ladder above the canyon and fast-flowing river far below. Jake positioned himself on the sliding metal coupler between the cars and gripped the lower s. Then he crawled under the moving train. Only a few feet above the blurred crossties, he clawed his way under the stock car. His heart thumped and his ribs throbbed from the desert flood as he held onto the s below the car. The crossties ed only a yard below his back. Rheingold’s dusty black boots and pant legs were visible at the next coupler. Like a trapeze artist, Jake brought his body diagonally to the outside of the car, but his muscles ached. He pulled himself up through the car opening. Across the bloodied floorboards, light flashed between the slats and the strewn silver. He stepped over the scattered bars and crouched along the slats. From above, Rheingold swung through the opening and kicked Jake. Jake yanked his coat and slammed Rheingold’s chin, sending him back into the silver, but his gun spun across the floorboard. “You son of a bitch!” Rheingold focused on Jake as his gun hand drooped. “Don’t ruin this, McBride. There’s enough silver here to set us for life.” “You’re responsible for killin’ friends of mine. You sent me like a fool to Ubehebe.” Rheingold’s blue eyes opened wide. “Don’t be a fool. I’ll share the silver with

you.” Jake lifted his gun upward. “This is the end of the line fur you, Rheingold.” “We’ll see.” Jake steadied himself as the train rumbled out of control down the trestle. The rushing wind pushed through the car, and the sunlight between through the slats. “The government will deal with you.” “You think you’re so smart, McBride.” Jake held the slats, but he kept the gun pointed at Rheingold as they moved faster. “You almost did it, Rheingold. Only justice got in the way.” “I’m for cowboy justice. You know what that is, McBride?” Jake shouted over the wind whipping into the car. “Go to hell, Rheingold. Or whoever you are.” Rheingold produced a crisp smile. “Who do you think I am, Marshal?” “I know you ain’t no railroad man. I know you come in on the stage from San Jose to Eureka and then to Brinson.” Rheingold tilted his head back and laughed. The car shook as they raced down the trestle. “That the extent of your investigation, Marshal?” “Shut up!” “Or what? You won’t shoot me unless I come at you. Because Marshal Jake McBride follows the rules.” Jake slowly smiled. “I’m the one with the gun and the ticket to the noose, you murderin’ son of bitch.” Rheingold stared at the silver pile. “Let me tell you something, McBride. If I’ve shot anyone, it’s because my friends were killed. Because the law isn’t always the law.” The light and shadows alternated through the slats. “That what you did in

Texas?” “What makes you think I’m from Texas?” “You shot up the town square down there in Mason County. I know ’cause I wuz there. I saw it.” Rheingold smiled and shook his head. “You’ve got an excellent memory, Marshal, but you don’t know who I am.” “Nope, I don’t.” “What a shame,” he said, and then he fully smiled. “Come on, Marshal. We’ll split this pile. Before my men meet the train. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.” “I don’t care ’bout no silver.” “Jesus Christ. What the hell is wrong with you?” “I don’t need to be discussin’ nothin’ with you.” “Right,” said Rheingold, frustrated for the first time as he turned away. “The law in Nevada… is the law.”

* * *

Bancor June 22, 1882 5:17PM

The train normally would have braked instead of reaching this ungodly speed. As the car pitched from side to side, Jake wondered if the jostling would send the locomotive completely over the trestle’s edge. He steadied his left hand on the floorboards as the motion spun Rheingold off the silver pile and more bars tumbled onto the floor. The car slats and s creaked as the wind blew off Jake’s hat. He stuck his gun out as Rheingold struggled and slid against the far wall. “Damned train needs to slow.” “What’s the matter?” yelled Rheingold through the clatter. “Getting scared, Marshal?” Jake leaned toward the opening. The magnificent gray rock formations extended to the few cloud puffs in the western sky. The river moved through the rocky canyon and into the forest. As he turned toward Rheingold, his head exploded in pain. He fanned the gun at the blurry outline of Rheingold and the slats ahead. Jake waved his gun as blood flowed into his left eye, and he fired three times at the shadows near the opening. The blood meandered into his mouth, and in the gyrating train car, the light faded away.

22

San Batista, California June 24, 1882 8:22 PM

Jake first saw a wavy yellow flame. Then the glass globe came into focus. Brightly colored blankets were draped across rough-honed wood logs inside the cabin. A dark-haired young woman in a light cotton dress carried a white linen rag toward him. “Can you hear me, Marshal?” “I hear you just fine.” Someone had wrapped the right side of his head with a bandage. “Where am I?” “You’re in my home in San Batista.” She had a soothing voice and huge black eyes. “My name is Clara… Clara Nettles. Can I get you some water, Marshal?” Jake nodded his head. She scooped water from a tall wooden bucket and carried the ladle across the room. “Where’s the train?” asked Jake. She lifted the metal ladle to his lips, and the cold water descended his dry throat. Jake took another swig. “The train that came down the trestle.” “Let me get Major Kendall.” She scurried out the open front door. A short time later, a thin army major in a clean blue uniform rushed through the front door. He had blond hair and a rusty mustache. “Marshal, I’m Major Kendall. We thought you might not wake up. You took a blow to the head. How are you doing?” “I just had a little snooze.” Jake gazed into his brown eyes. “Where’s

Rheingold?” “I was going to ask you that. Wasn’t he on the train?” “Sure he wuz. He was my prisoner inside the car with the silver. That damned train was wild down the trestle. He mustta threw one of them silver bars at my head.” Kendall sat in the little wooden chair. “We took over the train once it came to a stop in the valley. We found you holding your gun on the floor.” Jake opened his eyes. His left eye was swollen. “The silver.” “It’s all there. But no Rheingold.” “I don’t see how he got out of that train. He couldn’t have waited till the train stopped or he wouldda taken my gun.” “I’m sure we’ll find the body.” Jake closed his eyes for a moment. “What happened at Bancor?” Kendall pressed his lips. “The old man Turner is unconscious. Shot in the head. The judge and the men from Brinson are in my headquarters with Bart Bowers in town. Three of them. Talmadge, Conner, and the one called Sawtooth…” “Turner could tell us Rheingold’s real identity. Rheingold is responsible for killing my friend Jim Coltraine.” “I’m aware of that.” “And now he’s free.” “Marshal, I tell you Rheingold is dead. You said it yourself. No way he could have jumped off that train. That trestle spans Bancor Canyon.” “Unless he climbed down.” “Off a runaway train? No. We’ll find the body in the morning, and that will end it.”

Jake sat up for the first time. “No, Major. It won’t be over until I see Rheingold certifiably dead.”

* * *

San Batista, California June 24, 1882 9:11 PM

Major Kendall opened the heavy chipped door, and Jake followed him inside. Doc Talmadge turned from the brass bed. Another clear oil lamp cast an orange hue over Sam Turner’s pasty skin and flat eyes. Bowers sat at a small wood table with a single milk glass lamp. “Is he dead, Doc?” asked Jake as he removed his hat. “He might as well be. He was babbling earlier this afternoon, but nothing about Rheingold. How are you, Jake? You shouldn’t be up.” “Don’t you be worryin’ ’bout me.” “I questioned him,” said Bowers, now standing. “He was calling for his wife and boys.” Jake nodded and glanced at Sam’s disheveled gray hair on the black-striped pillow. “I have some information that may be of assistance to you,” said Bowers from the desk. “About the 924.” Jake furrowed his brow. “What about the 924?” “Jake, my office ed a Mrs. Matilda Parsons who rode with Rheingold from Carson City to Brinson. She was in Fresno City. We received a response to our telegram.” Jake moved back toward Doc Talmadge. “Yeah, I her. She stayed at The Coltraine.”

“Big mouth. Big behind,” said Alby from the back. The liquor was strong on his breath. Jake pointed at Alby. “Get the horses set for the night, Alby.” “She was on her way home,” said Bowers, glaring at Alby. “Horses are in stalls at the Richmond Livery, Jake.” “Then go feed ’em again, Alby,” barked Jake. “Rheingold spoke extensively about Rhyolite City, Arizona. All the saloons, the gunfights. There was a shootout there last fall. So I telegraphed my office in San Francisco about the 924. I wondered if it came out of Arizona and not San Bernardino.” “I reckoned he wuz lyin’.”

“He was. The 924 was contracted out by the U.S. Treasury in November 1881. Arrangements were made from the silver smelting areas in Piñata, Arizona, to bring the silver bars up to the Tucson station and the 924. Soldiers were commandeered from Fort Huachuca in Arizona Territory. I believe there were thirteen soldiers.” “They’re all dead,” said Jake. “And their bodies buried together. What can we expect for help now, Bart?” Bowers now paced across the floor as he spoke. “Secret service and treasury agents who should be out here in the next week or so. And soldiers from Fort Churchill will be heading to Brinson.” “Don’t help us here right now. Let me ask you, Bart. Do you think Rheingold is dead?” “Until we find a body, I say no.” “Suppose his body was taken downstream,” said Kendall.

“That river, the Maremonte, is not that wide,” said Bowers. “We should be able to locate a body in the morning. If we don’t, I will assume Rheingold a.k.a. Gordon is still alive. And we can follow him up in the hills from both the Stockton end and this end.” “Not with horses you won’t,” said Kendall. Jake stroked his mustache as he watched Sam Turner fading from life on the bed, but he visualized Arizona Territory. “So he must have learned about this deal down there in Arizona Territory. I shouldda talked to Mrs. Parsons at The Coltraine.” “Don’t blame yourself, Jake.” “The only man I blame is Rheingold.” “Maybe he was in the mining camps,” said Bowers. “Everybody down there must have known that shipment was smelted to go to the government.” Jake nodded. “That’s my feelin’. Them mining camps—or maybe even them saloons and whorehouses down there.” “And even the army would know,” said Kendall. “But this man thought he could actually steal the silver,” said Jake. Bowers held up wrinkled sheets of paper. “I have the names of the other engers who were on that stage when Rheingold pulled into Brinson.” Bowers returned to the desk and pinched a piece of lined yellow paper off the stack. “Ed Farley you know. Rheingold is not on the original manifest out of San Jose, but a man named Josh Gordon is. Even though Gordon signed on the stage from Eureka to Brinson as Rheingold.” Jake slowly turned. “Stupid mistake. He never thought someone would know he came in from San Jose to Eureka.” “Even the clever make fatal mistakes.” Back at the bed, Sam Turner’s convulsions drew his attention. The old man rocked back and forth across the bed and was calling for Johnny. Jake and

Bowers both rushed up toward the bed. “Johnny who, Sam?” asked Bowers from the other side of the bed. “The mules. Get the damn mules, Rody, before you upset Johnny!” Sam’s gray eyes were stuck open as he exposed his yellowed teeth. Jake held his shoulders. “Tell us Johnny’s last name, Sam.” Jake backed off, and the old man fell back on the pillow. This time, he didn’t move. “Damn it!” shouted Bowers. “He was going to be governor!” said Alby. “Governor!” Jake caught Alby in the corner of his eye and sneered. “Doc, you and Sawtooth take the stage back to Brinson and let everybody know what happened. Alby and I are headin’ out to the trestle at daybreak.” “What about Turner?” asked Bowers. Jake pressed his lips and again thought about the bloodied Jim Coltraine on the ground. “Bury him with the rest of the killers.”

23

San Batista, California June 24, 1882 5:55 AM

The weathered wood trestle stretched high above the small army contingent led by Kendall, Alby, and Jake. The railroad engineers had constructed a myriad of crisscrossed weathered wood s in an ascending maze attached to the steep granite ledges on Bancor Mountain. The wood cracked in the breeze and hot sun. Kendall, upright in the saddle, rode with his soldiers between the rocks ahead of Jake. They checked for Rheingold’s body on the uplifted rock stretches and dirt near the fast-flowing river. In the trestle shadows, Jake looked south and followed the cascading river between the canyon’s granite walls. Doc Talmadge had reduced his head bandage to the size of two fingers over his left eye. Alby, on Willie, bounced up to him. Without Alby’s insistence, Menewa would have been left on the Bancor trail. “Sawtooth stood right up, Jake, like some crazy grizzly. Don’t know how the Turners didn’t git him.” “Some people are lucky, Alby. Specially in battle.” “Looks like Sam Turner didn’t have that luck. We were talkin’ about that during breakfast.” “You’d still be there eatin’ in the army mess if I didn’t drag you out of there.” “Good food in the army. We didn’t have that during the war.” “Amen to that, brother.” “Rheingold musta told other people who he was,” said Alby.

“Dunno.” Alby held his green hat on his head. “I say he’s a Mississippi riverboat gambler, Jake. One of them snake-oil salesmen.” “All I do know, Alby, is he’s responsible for Levi and Jim and every other Brinson man at Bancor bein’ under six feet of dirt.” In the distance, Kendall climbed off his well-groomed steed at the edge of the clear quick-flowing river. He checked the river rocks with three soldiers as Jake approached. They walked the riverbank and under the trestle. “I say Rheingold escaped, Jake,” said Alby in a low voice. “Escaped downriver into the valley.” “For once, I agree with you, Alby.” “What about Pam Grayson, Jake? She’s a killer!” Jake squinted until his skin tightened around his eyes. “I told the whole story to Kendall.” “The whole story, Jake?” “Not that story… I told him about Tom Dunbar and her workin’ fur Rheingold. Kendall said they would post a re-ward for her. She’s not important now. Rheingold is the one we want to track.” “I’ll bring Pam in,” said Alby, taking out his guns. “She’d fill yur ass full of lead.” Alby turned in the saddle. “She ain’t that tough.” “Oh yes, she is.” Another soldier galloped under the trestle past Jake. He approached Kendall and saluted. Then he handed the major an envelope. Kendall opened it quickly and pulled out a piece of paper. Then he ed the paperwork to his aide. He said something to the horse rider and pointed. The rider saluted and started back

toward San Batista. “What is it, Jake?” “Let’s go find out.” Jake brought Menewa slowly to the water’s edge. The horse drank from the stream before he moved toward Kendall. “Major.” “Jake, I just received a communiqué from Bart Bowers. The Overland will have a man, Oates, out here tomorrow morning.” “That railroad is as slow as cold molasses.” Jake leaned forward in the saddle. “And where are the Fort Churchill soldiers?” “Things stopped once word was out that we had the silver. And we have Albert Wharton on the way from San Francisco.” “Name sounds familiar.” “Wharton did sketches during the war. I want you both to describe Rheingold. If we can come up with a likeness, it will go on the Overland’s wanted posters for a reward.” “How much? How much?” asked Alby, wiping his mouth. “That is up to the railroad, Mr. Conner.” “Sign me up. Sign me up.” Jake winced in Alby’s direction and then faced Kendall. “Major, have your men check the north side of this trestle?” “That is my next order. We’ll do that before we go as far as we can downstream.” Jake nodded, and they followed Kendall back to the trestle edge. He looked several hundred feet straight up. He had allowed Rheingold to escape the car, but anyone leaping off that trestle would be killed.

* * *

“Jake! Jake!” shouted Alby, standing knee deep in advancing water. Jake dismounted. “What now, Alby?” Jake stepped away from the trestle toward the water. He rubbed Menawa’s snout near the river’s edge. “Jake, shiny and all!” Alby threw off his hat and holster. Then he dived into the current. “Alby, whaddya doin’?” He swam about twenty yards and then disappeared under the water. About half a minute later, he emerged into the air like a whale and splashed the water. “I gut somethin’. I gut somethin’.” “I ain’t gut time fur your antics. I kin send you back to Brinson with Doc Talmadge and Sawtooth.” Alby held a glistening silver watch and chain in the air as he stumbled onto the stones. Then he looked down. “Jumpin’ Jerusalem! J. G.” “What?” asked Jake, stepping forward. “J. G. I tell ya!” Alby turned back to the river. “I don’t see no body! Nothin’!” “Let me see that.” Alby placed a wet silver pocket watch in his hand. Jake studied the fancy engraved letters. “Where’s the body, Jake? It’s a long way down from the top of the trestle.”

Jake peered up top again. The linear wood traced a dark line across the blue sky. “Hell, I still don’t think he fell. I think he climbed down them s. He may have jumped the last ten or fifteen feet, and that’s when the watch fell out of his pocket.” “That what you would have done, Jake?” “Well, Alby, if you jump in that river from a few feet, you kin swim a few yards and then climb onto the rocks. If you jump onto the rocks in the valley, you kin get yourself hurt.” “You goin’ back ta town?” “No. We’re going’ downstream and see if I’m right.”

* * *

The Bancor railroad trestle disappeared over the first ridge about midafternoon. Jake finally led Menewa between the rocks and over the wider granite area where the valley continued below the evergreen forest beyond the upper ledges. The river bent south near a cluster of trees. Alby was a few hundred feet behind him. He spotted tracks and scuffling as if someone had run in the smooth moist dirt beyond the rocks. Then he stopped. The scraping soon materialized into full boot prints. A man with the large boot had traced the river south. “Alby, get up here, and stay away from the water and them tracks.” “Whaddya see, Jake? Whaddya see?” Jake stared at the watch, still grasped in his hand. It was as if he had part of Rheingold in the palm of his hand. He waited until Alby brought Willie closer. “I’ve got boot tracks here.” “You wuz right. You gut him, Jake.”

Jake looked at the tapering prints in the sand. He popped open the watch. He studied the dry roman-numeral face. Then he looked up at Alby. “Problem, Alby, is them tracks aren’t real fresh. Edge of the print is dry. He ain’t anywhere near this place. We’ve gut maybe an hour before sunset. If we follow them tracks, I guarantee we’d never find him. He could be anywhere.” “But, Jake… Rheingold, he survived.” “He did. He climbed down that trestle is what he did.”

* * *

Jake looked up from the soil around the loose rocks. The river roared through the forest and rock overhangs. “Son of a bitch followed the river, Alby. We’ve been out here two hours in these rocks, and his tracks still go forward.” “The Maremonte winds toward Stockton, Jake.” “Near hundred miles.” Jake held Menewa and looked down the rocks and cascading water. “He must know that too. That ain’t good. Damn rocks are goin’ to bruise the horses if we follow him.” “You should have killed him on the train, Jake.” “Don’t you think I know that, Alby? I was hell-bent to bring him to justice before the law. I ain’t thinkin’ that way now. I see him, and I shoot him. That goes for you too. This man is quick and clever. And I want him dead.”

* * *

Less than fifteen minutes later, the green brush formed a trodden trail into the dirt and rocks. From that point, the boot prints paralleled the river westward. “You ain’t said nothin’, Jake.” He twisted his lips under his mustache. The river leveled out in the hills ahead. “No, but I been thinkin’. He had to have set up a meeting with people in the valley. And if he did, they’re probably armed.” “Orville said Rheingold was the fastest gun he ever saw.” Jake winced and squinted ahead. “And accurate. He did this thing with bottles—” “I know the story, Alby, and I rightly don’t care how fast he is.” He popped open the watch. “One o’clock.” “It’s still keepin’ time?” “That’s what I said. One o’clock.” He lifted his field glasses. The huge rocks ahead would block the horses easily. Jake shook his head and lowered the glasses. “We’re goin’ back.” “You lettin’ him go?” “What am I going to do, Alby?” Jake clenched his fist. “We ain’t gettin’ horses through them rocks.” “He’ll get away, Jake!” “I know that. He’s got the better part of a hundred miles… on foot. With no food. He’ll be supper for some bear or wolf. Damn him!” The water gushed over the mountain rocks. Jake shook his head. “This man is far too smurt. He’ll make it out, Alby. And I know where he’s goin’.” “I’m goin’ with you.”

“You’re goin’ back to Brinson while I hunt him down.” “You mean Gordon.” “Gordon… Rheingold. Whoever the hell he is.” “Let’s get back to town, Jake.” “You go back ta town, Alby,” he said, taking out his Colt. He checked the chambers and then put it back in his holster. “I’m headin’ out right now.” “Headin’ where?” “South… ta Arizona Territory.”

24

Piñata Mining Camps San Pedro River Valley July 8, 1882 1:16 PM

The dusty stagecoach rumbled along the undulating gritty trail into the river valley. Six towns in the area had established silver ore stamping and processing centers. The river allowed them the power to run the machinery. A wave of sand and haze, heated by the glaring July sun, partially hid the parched land and the more distant rock-chunk hills. Jake’s Remington and saddlebags lay across his lap. By now, Alby would have brought Menewa back to Brinson. A mustached man in a blue shirt and flattened brown hat sat next to him up top. He did not say much other than he was hired to secure the Wells Fargo box. Jake extended his hand, and they moved forward. “By the way, I’m Jake McBride.” “Where are you from, Marshal?” “Brinson… Nevada. I came down here by stage.” “Rufus Johnson. What brings you down here, Marshal?” Smelting smokestacks and mule trains dotted the dirt hills just before the mountains. “I’m lookin’ fur a man who’s a murderer and a thief.” Johnson’s wrinkled face deepened as he slowly smiled. “Could be anyone down here.” “I wuz told Arizona Territory is a dangerous place.”

“You wuz told right. Got a name for your wanted man?” Jake panned the jagged hills again. “John Rheingold.” Johnson shook his head. “No Rheingold down here, McBride.” “How ’bout Josh Gordon.” Jake felt the cold silver of the watch in his pocket. “Nope. What did he do?” “I gut one of my oldest friends buried at Bancor . Three other of my other men dead. And everyone that wuz on his side.” “There a re-ward out on this man?” “Should be by now, and maybe a sketch. He tried to steal silver bars that originated down here.” “Doesn’t mean he’s from here, does it?” He lit a stogie and handed one to Jake. Jake lit the stogie. “What he look like?” Jake cleared his throat in the dust. “Tall. Light brown hair. Mustache. Blue eyes. He wuz a gambler.” Johnson said nothing again and kept the stogie in the corner of his mouth. He squinted in the early afternoon sun. A few minutes later, they neared the buildings and smokestacks ahead. “Like I said, he may not be from here. If he’s a gambler, there’s plenty of gamblin’ in Rhyolite City.” Jake stared into his eyes. “You know him, Johnson?” “Don’t know no Gordon, or don’t know no Rheingold.” Grand Central Mill, Millville, Emery City, Fairbank, Charleston, and Contention were all on the San Pedro River. Looking for Rheingold in those towns could take time. He thought Johnson might be holding something back. “You know him by another name?” “No, sir. I don’t. But take off that badge. The cowboys here don’t like lawmen. They shoot ’em dead.”

“He had other men working for him. Dooley and a man named McAlister. Another one named Glidden.” “Sometimes you need to let sleepin’ dogs lie.” “Then you know these men?” “Heard the names, but—” “Part of your cowboys?” “I ain’t a part of the cowboys round here. I gut a job to do, Marshal, and that’s ta guard the Wells Fargo box.” Jake nodded and held his rifle as they rolled forward over the bouncy trail. The stifling air irritated his throat and lungs. High-pitched white tents led up the hill to a series of buildings near the mountains. Mules and horses moved continuously along with scruffy-looking miners on the trail below. “Is that where they make the silver bars?” “They smelt it and… right. Then the bars are loaded on the stage. Picked up by a train near Tucson.” “That is my understanding.” “Where’d all this with Rheingold happen?” asked Johnson as the stage driver slowed the horses. “Outside Brinson. We chased him and the silver north. The silver was recovered, but he got away. You have any robberies round here?” “March we did. Two men shot dead. The Bristol Stage.” “How much they get?” “Nothin’. But two men were killed. Paul Roberts was right up top. He shot his way out of the holdup.” “They catch the bandits?”

“Nope. Were part of the cowboys. Sure of that.” “You keep talkin’ ’bout cowboys,” said Jake. Johnson had a glimmer in his blue eyes. “Hell, the wild ones, McBride. The desperadoes. That’s where you’re gonna find your man. Trust me. But they’re a tight bunch, they are. Sheriff Belfry couldn’t catch ’em.” “Where are these cowboys? In the saloons?” “Sometimes, and sometimes in Rowley, New Mexico. They’re a tough bunch, Marshal. Make sure you don’t get yourself killed.” “This man killed my friends. When yur out for justice, you don’t worry ’bout dyin’.” Johnson extended his calloused hand. “Well, good luck, Marshal. Check around the camp here. But be careful what you say about the cowboys. If your man was down here, maybe somebody heard him. I’ll talk to Mayor Blum and Deputy Sheriff Kern when I get back to Rhyolite City. See if they recognize your description.” “Obliged.” Jake climbed off the stage and, with his saddlebags over his shoulder, carried his rifle by his side. He walked through the grit near the mule trains. Nothing had been loaded for shipment. These mules were transporting the raw ore. Jake did not expect to see Rheingold lingering about, but as he looked at the dirty faces of these hardworking men, he realized that someone here must have seen him or— better yet—someone might have talked with him.

* * *

“Ever mined anything?” asked the smudge-faced little guy fifty feet down the mine shaft.

Jake could not figure why the cooler air inside the shaft reeked of some foul smell. “I ain’t never mined nothin’.” “Gut to worry ’bout cave-ins, mista. Whaddya do when the air runs out? We the ones who bring out the rocks.” Jake looked down the carved shaft and cars filled with rough rock connected to half-fed mules. “I ain’t here ta mine. I’m lookin’ for a man named John Rheingold.” “Nope. Don’t know him.” “Also goes by Josh Gordon.” “Why you lookin’ for him?” Jake stepped around one of the carts. “’Cause he killed a lotta people.” The man laughed, showing his missing teeth. “Come on, mista. You know how many men have been gunned down round here? Even in Rhyolite City where they gut marshals all around. Even marshals get gunned down, mista.” A tall guy with a hawk nose had a sidearm pointed at Jake. He had a thick Irish brogue. “You don’t work here.” “No, sir. I’m a marshal lookin’ for a murderer.” “What’s this man look like?” asked the miner as he studied Jake. “Tall,” said Jake. “Light brown hair. Mustache and blue eyes.” “I don’t need you in here,” said the tall guy. “Out.” Jake started forward, but he turned. “Where kin I git somethin’ ta eat?” “Down the hill. You’ll smell it.” As Jake nodded, bullets tore into the rock. Maybe someone had seen his badge before he removed it. Four or five short pops sounded outside as they dived behind the mining cart. Jake drew his gun and peered over the top of the cart. The tall guy fired shots toward the entrance. Several of the miners scurried back

into the shaft. “Them are rifle shots,” said Jake, holding back his fire until he saw someone. “Somebody wants you dead.” Jake pushed the cart forward toward the entrance. “What are you doing?” “Tryin’ to git out of here and not be target practice for someone outside.” Jake reached the entrance. Outside, men had scattered, but the shooting had stopped. “Maybe it’s your man shootin’ at you.” “Not likely. He wouldn’t have missed.”

* * *

The tall guy did not seem to mind the food. He ate continuously since they sat down on the bench. Jake scooped the strange-tasting potatoes off a metal plate on the long table. His Remington leaned against the bench. “This food is filled with spices.” “Work in the mines, that’s what you eat. Don’t ask me why.” “I won’t,” said Jake. The tall man laughed and extended his hand. “Mike O’Laughlin.” “Jake McBride.” “Where you from, Jake?”

“Ohio—but Brinson, Nevada, is where I’m a marshal.” He removed the silver watch from his side pocket and opened it. “Owned by the man I’m afta. Josh Gordon.” “What did your guy do?” “I think he wuz down here and figured out that the smelted ore, once it’s bars, wuz brought by stage to Tucson. See, he gut somebody to blow up the tracks and wreck the train, the 924, outside of Brinson. Then they got off with the silver.” “Hell, the railroad must be involved if there’s missing silver, and he wrecked a train.” “They are. We gut the silver back, Mike.” “So you’re down here for a reward.” “Don’t care ’bout no re-ward, brother. Josh Gordon—or whoever he is—killed my friends.” O’Laughlin put his hand on his gun. “Somebody don’t want you down here, Jake.” “Looks that way.” “I’m headin’ into Rhyolite City tonight. Gonna drink and gamble. Why don’t you come along with me? See if we can locate this Gordon.” “That’s where I wuz headed next.” “You have to check your gun outside of town.” “Probably a good idea.” “Not if somebody’s shootin’ at you. Or that son of a bitch Hiram Kern tries to buffalo you.” “He the marshal?” “Deputy marshal. What you do is when he holds his gun with the blunt end out, you need to get his forearm. Don’t let him pistol whip you. Kick him if you can.

Do it before he gets the advantage. That’s Hiram’s specialty. He’s knocked more men on their asses.” “Sometimes that’s not a bad thing if you need to do it.” Jake grimaced as he swallowed the heavily spiced food. “I sure hope there’s better food in Rhyolite City.” Bullets tore through the tent, and faint shots sounded outside. Jake grabbed his rifle and leaped under the table. He looked toward the hills. Men fired rifles from the camp as bullets shredded the tent. Someone moved behind the rock up the hill. “Up on that hill he is. I’m gonna get that son of a bitch!” “Out the back of the tent, Jake!” shouted O’Laughlin. Jake scrambled on his belly under the adjacent table. O’Laughlin lifted the tent flap, and Jake stuck the Remington barrel outside. The miners exchanged shots with the shooter behind the rocks up the hill. Jake leaned around the tent but kept the gun pointed at the rocks. “God damn him!” “This way, Jake. With my men.” Jake crouched down and circled down the hill. The miners were behind loose boulders and gravel. “Mike! There’s some fool up there tryin’ to kill us!” “I know that, Eddie. I know that.” More shots skipped down the valley, but this time, bullets splintered the rocks near O’Laughlin and Jake. Jake aimed the Remington where he saw the last smoke puff. He fired three quick shots and then ducked behind the larger red boulder. The dark hat of an indefinite figure ed along the rocks. “Up there. Halfway on the outer ledge where the rocks jut out. Shoot the bastard!” “He’s got damned good cover,” said O’Laughlin. “Then we just go up there and kill him dead!” said Jake. He fired his rifle again. The miners started shooting again.

“We can circle round the upper trail over the mine. Where they let the air out,” said O’Laughlin. Another bullet hit the rock near Jake’s right ear. “Let’s do it.” O’Laughlin waved his men in back of the smooth boulders. “You men down by the smelting house. Let’s get this sniping son of a bitch!” In the afternoon haze, a party of a dozen men climbed the back of the hill, off trail, along the extended ridge toward the mine. The rifle shots had stopped a few minutes back. Jake had his finger on the Remington’s trigger as he led the others over the top. Now they had a view of additional smelting houses, smokestacks, and the valley north to Rhyolite City. He raised his rifle at the empty ridge. “The coward is gone.” “Over there!” shouted one of the miners. A shadowy form galloped over the rolling hills to the east. The miners let loose a barrage of bullets toward the rider. Jake aimed, but he knew the rider was too far away. “Hold yur damned fire.” “Tough luck, Marshal,” said O’Laughlin. Jake set his Remington against the rocks and lit a stogie. The rider disappeared in the haze that had settled over the dry plains to the north. He stared and exhaled the stogie smoke. “This ain’t over yet, brother. It ain’t over.”

25

Oriental Saloon Rhyolite City, Arizona Territory July 8, 1882 9:45 PM

O’Laughlin carried two mugs full of beer to the table. Jake had gambled more than he drank at the noisy Oriental Saloon. He checked his gun before he entered town. In his hand, he held three eights as the cold steely eyes of the man called Mac Soledad followed his hand movements. Soledad had already intimated Jake had asked too many questions about John Rheingold. He kept clearing his lungs. Then he accused Jake of being an out-of-towner, and if he really was a marshal, he was out of his area of jurisdiction. And he repeatedly called Jake “stranger.” “I’m gonna raise another fifty,” said Jake, moving the coins to the center of the green felt table. He constantly checked the saloon for any sign of Rheingold. “You acquired those cards neatly, stranger.” “Just like any other hand, brother.” Soledad spread his hand on the red tablecloth. Then he coughed long enough to stop the game. “We don’t take kindly to cheating here in town.” Jake pushed his teeth together. “I ain’t never cheated in my life.” “You callin’ me a liar, stranger?” “He’s not calling you a liar, Mac,” said O’Laughlin. “You stay out of this and mind your own business, Mike.” Soledad stood, revealing a coach gun leaning securely against the side . “I’m back here from Colorado. And do you know why?”

“I’m not askin’ for any trouble, Mac,” said Jake. “We’ve had lawmen shot and others killed. The marshal’s brother was shot dead in March. How do I know you aren’t here to kill Hiram Kern?” Jake stood and walked around the table. He squared his boot in front of Soledad. “You don’t know that. I gut friends in the ground too, Mac. Friends killed by John Rheingold and his pals Dooley, Glidden, and McAlister.” Jake looked into his dark eyes. Mac never made a move for the coach gun and seemed to have a certain respect for Jake’s movements. “Sit down, friend. Let’s finish our game,” said Soledad as he began another protracted period of coughing. The game went on for another hour with not much said. Soledad disappeared with his gun after a few drinks at the bar. O’Laughlin brought Jake to a table in the corner. “Soledad is a killer, Jake. A damned killer.” “I’ve faced killers before. But I’ll tell ya, Mike. Soledad knows something ’bout Rheingold.” “I wouldn’t push Mac Soledad. Man has no conscience. He’d kill a man and then finish his supper without batting an eye.” “Not my problem, brother. I’m here for Rheingold.”

* * *

Jake settled into his wallpapered room at the Grande Pueblo after midnight. O’Laughlin followed him upstairs for one more game of poker and drink. Jake leaned back in the wooden chair and threw down his cards. “Two threes. You cheatin’, Mike?”

“Three queenies, Jake. Three queenies!” “Don’t let Mac Soledad know ya cheatin’, Mike,” he said as he stood. He removed another stogie from his saddlebag and went over to the window. A few lights blazed near the Oriental Saloon down the street. “I think Rheingold is in this town. Sometimes a man just knows things. I’m thinkin’ somebody’s tipping him off. Lettin’ him know I’m here.” Jake turned when he heard someone on the back stairs. O’Laughlin approached the door. A sharp knock echoed around the room. At the second knock, he waved O’Laughlin away from the door. “Ya.” “Marshal McBride?” asked a man on the other side. “Who’s askin’?” “Message from Marshal Kern.” Jake glanced at O’Laughlin. “What’s the message?” “The message is for you to pick up your gun and get out of town.” Jake walked across the room and looked at O’Laughlin. “You tell him I gut his message.” “Somethin’ ain’t right. They don’t want you down here.” Jake returned to the window. “Till I hear from the marshal himself, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Jake returned to the table and sat down. He leaned forward to gather the cards. A bullet whizzed by his head and into the plaster wall. He pushed the table over, and O’Laughlin careened to the floor. More bullets punctured the wall. A couple of the upper window’s panes shattered. He blew out the oil-wick flame and reached for his gun. “Has to be Soledad,” said O’Laughlin. “You shouldn’t have stood up to him.”

Jake crawled to the window and leaned to the edge. “I don’t have my guns.” “Maybe you should leave town, Jake.” The stogie smoke rose in the dim blue light. “No, not yet. We walk outta this room, they’ll gun us down.” A small crowd had gathered in front of the Oriental several hundred feet away. Men ran toward the three-story building across the street. More men cleared the crowd and entered the building. Then the stair wall shook. Someone moved quickly up the stairs. Jake motioned toward the window. He grabbed his saddlebag and crawled with O’Laughlin onto the overhang. Both men leaped about six feet onto the dirt. Jake backed away from the Grande Pueblo. “Stop right there. Hands in the air!” shouted someone from the behind. “I’m a U.S. marshal. Jake McBride.” A man in a white shirt and marshal’s badge held a foot-long Colt. The beadyeyed man had dark hair, a cascading mustache, and no smile on his face. “I’m Hiram Kern, and I’m the deputy marshal here.” He was just a few feet from Jake when he began moving the blunt end of his revolver into position. Jake instantly thrust his foot into Kern’s forearm. The marshal, thrown off guard, was also unprepared for Jake’s fist slamming into his jaw. He flew backward onto the ground, stunned and unmoving. From the dirt, Kern focused on Jake standing above him. Jake picked up the revolver and handed it, blunt end first, to him. “I never had that happen to me,” said Kern, taking the gun. From the rear, several men pushed someone into the street. Jake took a few steps forward as three men shoved Pam Grayson forward. “You should have stayed out of this Jake!” she screeched. “Where’s Rheingold?”

“Nowhere you’ll find him.” “She was shooting at the Grande,” said one of the men to Kern. “What the hell are you doin’ back in Rhyolite City, Pam?” asked Kern. Then he looked back at Jake. “You’re looking for one of the cowboys, McBride. I heard your story.” “Killed my friends and tried to steal silver of The Overland 924. And she wuz in on it.” “Are Glidden, Dooley and McAlister, and Horseman Wiehl in Rhyolite City?” “They’re all dead, Kern. I’m here for Rheingold.” The marshal turned to Pam. “Who’s Rheingold, Pam?” “I don’t know nothin’.” “And let me be the first to tell you that you’ll be up for attempted murder if you don’t fess up.” “He’s left town. He left when McBride came into the mining camps.” “Who is he?” shouted Kern. When she did not answer, Kern walked up to her with his Colt drawn. “Won’t go well for a woman in jail, Pam.” She looked at Jake and then back to Kern. “He’s… he’s… Johnny Gunz.” “Johnny?” asked Kern, his voice strained. “Johnny Gunz killed McBride’s people and robbed the train? Jesus Christ.” “Yes, sir.” “Who is Johnny Gunz?” asked Jake. Kern’s eyes tightened, and his voice was low and gravelly. “It is my opinion, and Mac Soledad shares the opinion, that Johnny Gunz was responsible for the death of my brother Hagen. I heard he was skunk drunk somewhere in the territory. I would have killed him myself if I couldda found him.”

Mac Soledad appeared in a long black coat. He opened the coat, revealing the coach gun. “I told Johnny that all I wanted from him was ten paces in the street. Johnny never took me up on it—did he, Hiram?” “No, sir.” “He’s a murderin’,’thievin’ bastard, and we all want him dead, McBride.” “Where did he go?” asked Mac, and he placed the barrel of the coach gun to Pam’s stomach. “Tell me!” “North… toward Antelope Springs,” she answered. Mac pulled the trigger, and she was thrown back dead on the dirt. Jake looked away, and the night at The Coltraine flashed into his head. A cold sweat covered his brow. “She was no good,” said Mac, and he started back to the Oriental. Kern moved toward the men. “Get McBride a fresh horse. Get his weapons, and get him some food.” “What about the girl?” asked one of the men. “Bury her outside of town.” Kern slowly faced Jake in the cooler night air. “I ain’t never seen a man faster than Johnny Gunz. You bring him in dead or alive, Marshal, and I’ll make sure you have a hefty reward.” “I don’t care ’bout no re-ward, Marshal. I just want justice.”

25

July 13, 1882 Turkey Creek Canyon Arizona Territory 2:45 PM

The heat was strong enough to fry his boots. He tucked the canteen in his saddlebag and pulled out the Rhyolite City Epitaph article that Hiram Kern had given him. Johnny’s attorney, Goodrich, said that although Johnny had been in the middle of the Arizona feuds, he had enough. Johnny had a message for the marshal concerning the death of his brother.

John wanted me to say to you, that if any fighting came up between you all, he wanted you to understand that he would have nothing to do with it.

“Now that he’s done what he’s done,” said Jake out loud. He stuffed the newspaper back in his saddlebag. Jake also learned from a man outside of Rhyolite City that Johnny, like Pam had said, was indeed heading to Galeyville. The man said that in Antelope Springs, Johnny was so drunk he had trouble staying in his saddle. Johnny handed the man a bottle of whiskey too hot to drink. The man wanted Johnny to go with him to a local ranch, but Johnny continued toward Sulphur Springs on his way to Galeyville.

* * *

The plum-hued Chiricahua Mountains merged into parched grassy lowlands. The black steed Kern gave him slurped up the lake water as Jake filled his canteen. He led the horse away from the lake and circled back where he had left the trail. Another horse had trampled the yellowed grass. Apparently, the rider had no regard about being trailed. Why would Johnny worry about Jake way up here in the mountains? The lake’s blue surface reflected the clouds through the oak tree cluster. Someone bent over by the water. Johnny Gunz—wearing a light hat, blue shirt, and vest—turned and walked around a large rock near an overhanging oak tree. Cartridge belts were looped over his belly; he had tied ripped cloth around his feet. His rifle leaned against the oak. Jake slowly dragged his Remington from the straps and slid down to the grass. He crawled away from the horse. With the rifle drawn, he crouched over and sidestepped across the field. Then he lowered himself onto his stomach. Johnny Gunz, after all the killing at Bancor , was only fifty yards away near the wide oak tree. As he rocked himself forward and kept the rifle pointed in Johnny’s direction, he knew the law required him to take Johnny back to Brinson. The Overland had reward money, and so did Kern. But Jake did not care about the law right now. Johnny spotted a bloody gash, possibly from a fight, that traced an area between the brim of his hat and brow. Jake wondered about the odd cloth wrappings covering his feet. Johnny turned his back but remained under the tree. Like a lion hunting its prey, Jake moved closer. Then he slowly stood and called out in a booming voice, “Drop yur gun real slow and don’t turn, or I’ll fill your back full of lead.” Johnny slowly faced him, anyway. “McBride.” Jake kept the Remington trained on him. “Yur comin’ back to Brinson with me.” “I’ve gut good lawyers, Marshal.” He laughed. “I won’t go to jail. I never do. You just as soon let me go if you value your own life.” “And let you kill me like you killed the deputy marshal in Rhyolite City?” “I didn’t do it. Who told you that? Kern?”

“Don’t matter.” “Kern is a lying bastard, and I’m glad his brother is dead. Now you’re the one that’s gonna die.” “Not this time, Johnny. Might work in Rhyolite City with them throwin’ out yur charges, but not with me. Drop yur gun, or I’ll kill ya now.” “I knew you wuz yella, McBride. If you were a man, you would have killed me on that train.” “You nearly got all that silver, and you murdered my friends. Now, justice will be served.” Johnny now stood directly in front of the rock and the spreading oak. “Don’t tell me about friends being killed. The graves of my friends are all over Mason County, Texas! And what about Dooley? Word was that you shot him in the back in Death Valley.” Jake cocked the Remington. “I ain’t never shot no man in the back like you did Hagen Kern in Rhyolite City. That’s yur specialty, Johnny.” The breeze picked up for a second as Jake stepped forward. He walked until he was only twenty feet from Johnny. Johnny’s blue eyes reflected neither fear nor arrogance. He never smiled. “What do you know about Rhyolite City? Kern and those bastards killed Curly Bill at a spring in the Whetstone Mountains.” “I don’t care ’bout yur shit.” “Shut up, McBride. If they find out you killed me… I’ve got friends here and in Texas who will track you down because you were the son of a bitch that murdered Johnny Gunz. If you were a man… you’d shoot it out with me right here. Right now.” “Were you bein’ a man when you shot that man three years ago in the Safford Saloon ’cause he wouldn’t drink whiskey with you? Yur a killer, and yur gonna die, brother. You want justice?” Jake yelled. The blood surged to his face and

neck. “Levi Hansen wanted justice! And so did Tom Dunbar and Jim Coltraine, you bastard!” Jake threw the Remington aside, and it flipped across the grass. Johnny positioned himself in front of the rock and lifted his hand behind his gun belt, upside down around his waist. Jake placed his hand near his own gun. His hand and wrist were tight and tense, and sweat rolled down his temples in the July sun. Johnny’s azure eyes locked with Jake’s eyes. He never flinched, and Jake did not want to risk looking at his gun hand. Johnny breathed steadily, the gash above his eye visible in Jake’s side vision. Johnny’s dark mustache twitched. Jake reached for his gun and had fired before he realized it. The force of the bullet threw Johnny against the tree, and he slipped down to the rock. But he never moved. For over a minute, Jake stared at Johnny, his finger still on the trigger and smoke drifting up from the barrel. A stiff breeze rippled across the grass. Jake grabbed his own shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers. He kept his hand on the wound as he sidestepped toward Johnny. Maybe the gash in Johnny’s forehead had dulled his vision. Why was his gun holster upside down? He grabbed his Remington off the ground, but when he heard a horse behind him, he ed what Johnny said about his friends avenging his death. He looked back to Johnny, strangely cockeyed on the rock against the tree. Then he raced across the grass toward his horse. In the sizzling sun, Jake leaped into the saddle. He held the Remington under his armpit. The horse approached from the lake as he galloped north, away from the oak tree and the fallen Johnny Gunz.

26

San Francisco, California July 13, 2012 8:55 PM

Jake straddled his Kawasaki Z1000 and accelerated down Van Ness Avenue. He shook his head several times. The police sirens back at the convention center grew louder. Killing Gunz was something he had to do. Now he was able. He shot Gunz in the park with no witnesses, yet everyone knew he was personally going to shoot Johnny Gunz dead. As he crested the hill, three police cruisers—red and blue lights flashing—approached chaotically as they blocked Touraine Street. He veered into a dim narrow alley and navigated between the stockade fence and apartment buildings. The sirens and lights emerged over the top of the hill. As he braked, the motorcycle tires skidded on the grit. The bike flipped back and forth, and he tumbled over the asphalt. More lights appeared down the end of the alley near the parallel boulevard. He lay in the cold alley as the headlights advanced. His hands and face were scraped, and his shoulder was swollen. The ground rumbled. He crab-walked into the darkness of an empty lot that angled upward with the hill. The brightness and the flashing police lights now enveloped the lot. Several police cars rolled off the alley and started behind him across the dirt. The megaphone sounded as if it were behind his ear. “Stop where you are, McBride. There are cruisers surrounding you.” The outlines of the adjacent buildings ahead were silhouetted by more headlights. Then the SWAT team men rounded the corner of the forward alley. An armored vehicle, as if in a battle, crashed over the hill. Jake pivoted left but was stymied by the row of apartments bordering Van Ness Avenue. “Get him!” shouted somebody from the SWAT team.

Jake slipped on the grass as a chopper positioned itself above the lot. A bright light blinded him when he stood. Then he sprinted toward the rear of the apartments. He knew they had him in the crosshairs of their weapons, and he could almost feel the assault rifles on his back. The men shook the ground as they closed in on him. He heard music ahead, but the tenement was dark. “Put down your weapon!” “I don’t have a weapon!” To his left, a hazy light glowed in the clapboards. The piano music grew louder. Ahead were the two swinging doors of The Arroyo. Alby danced some kind of jig near the stage. Bart Bowers sat with Judge Mackenzie at a small table near the bar. The SWAT team was only a few dozen feet behind him. He sprinted forward as the automatic weapons popped and bullets ripped the clapboards. His spurs jingled and his boots creaked as he stepped inside the smoky saloon. O’Malley pounded the keys and nodded his head at Alby’s antics. Jake shuffled forward a few feet. He tightened his brow and then walked briskly through the café doors. Orville caught sight of him and quickly placed a new clear whiskey bottle and glass on the bar. “Jake, you’re back in town.” Jake nodded and said nothing as he carried the whiskey over to the table shared by Bowers and Mackenzie. Both men stood. “Well, goddamn. What happened, Jake? Did you find Rheingold?” asked the judge. “Johnny’s dead. That’s all I’m sayin’, Judge.” “You kill him?” asked Bowers. Jake squinted and stared for a few seconds. “You okay, Jake?” asked Judge Mackenzie.

Jake slowly swung his eyes around the saloon. “It’s good to be home, brother. Good to be home.”

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