The Last Muster

By John Daniel Strong

“Ain’t he the one killed Lee and Frank Lewis over some Mormon . . . a girl?” Joey was careful not to say what he was thinking. It was Judge that said all women were whores, and a lot of Mormon women were real pretty whores, especially Clara Williams, even if she was Jeremiah Beck’s! Joey certainly wasn’t afraid of Jeremiah Beck, even if his Uncle Jim had said Jeremiah Beck was dangerous! Nonetheless, unsure if Nate and Patrick would back him, Joey didn’t move.
“If I know Frank and Lee . . . they asked for it. Leave him to Clay . . . or Windel after Windel grows up . . .” Jim Davis turned to face Jeremiah. “That right . . . old friend . . . I mean about Frank and Lee asking for it?”
“You know me. I’d never kill a man ain’t tried me . . .” Jeremiah’s feet were set, and his open coat revealed his two pistols.
“Apart from Mexico . . . when we all had to kill without giving a man a chance . . . but even then you never liked it none . . .”
“Not like Judge. He always said killing’s . . . killing!”
“If he was here . . . you know he wouldn’t agree with me stopin’ the boys. He and Frank was real close . . . don’t matter none that Frank asked for what he got . . .”

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467060899

John Daniel Strong

John Daniel Strong was born in San Diego. He has a Bachelor of Science in History and Political Science from Weber State University and a Master of Education from the University of Houston. He has lived in Texas for more than thirty six years. He has three children and eight grandchildren. He is a Veteran and a member of VFW Post 12058 in Kyle, Texas. John has previously published--The Last Muster--a novel that cinemas the Mormons as they escape Missouri during the Extermination Order , and the love of an escort girl for a down on his luck cowboy caught in the crossfire when Butch Cassidy robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank. John has also published--Never Die Today—a novel where love emerges triumphant in a war —when the final curtain call is seen from a wounded Iroquois leaving the American embassy during the fall of Saigon.

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© 2011 John Daniel Strong. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/11/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6089-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6090-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6091-2 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011918546

Printed in the United States of America

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

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

PROLOGUE*

1890-1892*CHAPTER ONE

1890-1892*CHAPTER TWO

1890-1892*CHAPTER THREE

1829*CHAPTER ONE

1830*CHAPTER ONE

1830*CHAPTER TWO

1830*CHAPTER THREE

1830*CHAPTER FOUR

1831*CHAPTER ONE

1831*CHAPTER TWO

1831*CHAPTER THREE

1831*CHAPTER FOUR

1831*CHAPTER FIVE

1831*CHAPTER SIX

1831*CHAPTER SEVEN

1832*CHAPTER ONE

1832*CHAPTER TWO

1832*CHAPTER THREE

1832*CHAPTER FOUR

1832*CHAPTER FIVE

1832*CHAPTER SIX

1832*CHAPTER SEVEN

1833*CHAPTER ONE

1833*CHAPTER TWO

1833*CHAPTER THREE

1833*CHAPTER FOUR

1833*CHAPTER FIVE

1833*CHAPTER SIX

1833*CHAPTER SEVEN

1834*CHAPTER ONE

1834*CHAPTER TWO

1834*CHAPTER THREE

1834*CHAPTER FOUR

1834*CHAPTER FIVE

1834*CHAPTER SIX

1834*CHAPTER SEVEN

1834*CHAPTER EIGHT

1834*CHAPTER NINE

1834*CHAPTER TEN

1834*CHAPTER ELEVEN

1834*CHAPTER TWELVE

1835*CHAPTER ONE

1835*CHAPTER TWO

1835*CHAPTER THREE

1835*CHAPTER FOUR

1835*CHAPTER FIVE

1836*CHAPTER ONE

1836*CHAPTER TWO

1836*CHAPTER THREE

1836*CHAPTER FOUR

1836*CHAPTER FIVE

1836*CHAPTER SIX

1836*CHAPTER SEVEN

1837*CHAPTER ONE

1837*CHAPTER TWO

1837*CHAPTER THREE

1837*CHAPTER FOUR

1837*CHAPTER FIVE

1838*CHAPTER ONE

1838*CHAPTER TWO

1838*CHAPTER THREE

1838*CHAPTER FOUR

1838*CHAPTER FIVE

1838*CHAPTER SIX

1838*CHAPTER SEVEN

1838*CHAPTER EIGHT

1839*CHAPTER ONE

1839*CHAPTER TWO

1839*CHAPTER THREE

1839*CHAPTER FOUR

1840*CHAPTER ONE

1840*CHAPTER TWO

1840*CHAPTER THREE

1840*CHAPTER FOUR

1841*CHAPTER ONE

1841*CHAPTER TWO

1842*CHAPTER ONE

1842*CHAPTER TWO

1843*CHAPTER ONE

1843*CHAPTER TWO

1844*CHAPTER ONE

1844*CHAPTER TWO

1844*CHAPTER THREE

1844*CHAPTER FOUR

1844*CHAPTER FIVE

1845*CHAPTER ONE

1851*CHAPTER ONE

1856*CHAPTER ONE

1862*CHAPTER ONE

1863*CHAPTER ONE

1863*CHAPTER TWO

1863*CHAPTER THREE

1863* CHAPTER FOUR

1863* CHAPTER FIVE

1863* CHAPTER SIX

1863*CHAPTER SEVEN

1863*CHAPTER EIGHT

1863*CHAPTER NINE

1863*CHAPTER TEN

1860*

1861*

1863*CHAPTER ELEVEN

1863*CHAPTER TWELVE

1863*CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1892*CHAPTER FOUR

1892* CHAPTER FIVE

1892*CHAPTER SIX

1892*CHAPTER SEVEN

1892* CHAPTER EIGHT

Epilog*

For my children

John, Kimberleigh, and Scott

PROLOGUE*

Randy Ingram was six when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Lane Ingram, Randy’s father, a captain in the Union Army, had lost an arm at Antietam Creek. He had come home to Lawrence, Kansas, only to be murdered by William Quantrill. When Randy was eighteen his mother, Lisa Cathrin, a victim of a broken heart more than the consumption that racked her body, died only a few days after she returned to Salt Lake City from Lawrence.

The re-union with her father, Allen Williams, had been long overdue. It was the first time Lisa Cathrin had seen her father since she had left with Lane Ingram, long before Randy was born.

Though they both had shared regrets, in particular, her father for not understanding earlier how much Lane had been his daughter’s life, much like it was from the start with her mother and father as long ago as Colesville, New York, in 1830, even before Randy’s grandmother, Virginia Cale, had risked everything even her new God to marry Allen, and though Allen Williams knew his daughter was dying from tuberculosis, it was clear to him Lisa Cathrin had given up and just didn’t care to go on anymore without Lane.

She had fought the consumption only until the Mormon temple in St. George was dedicated. Then in 1877, in June, she had come home to be sealed to Lane, merging their marriage into eternity, the way she had always known it should be.

Then after a tearful goodbye, she had asked Billy Houston to take her on his horse up to Ensign Peak, where she and Lane and Billy had played as kids when Brigham Young first brought the Mormons to the Great Basin, where she died in Billy’s arms.

1890-1892*CHAPTER ONE

Even the road was misplaced in the ink black night, and to anyone not expecting an intrusion, the wind, now blowing from the northeast, masked the two riders stalking the single rig buggy approaching the Sweetwater Bridge on the road from Wamego.

His horse pawed the ground, then stomped her right hoof, sensing mischief. Randy Ingram levered a round in the Winchester 66 that had been resting across his legs. The Yellow Boy was a gift from his Great Uncle Jeremiah Beck. He had given the rifle to Randy on his twelfth birthday. Aiming it in the dark ahead of him, Randy let the Appaloosa mare take the lead, hoping good sense was telling her where the road should be.

Lorie Stewart had never meant to be on the road to Louisville after the sun went down, but she had lost track of time while helping her father with his newspaper. And now, with the cloud cover cloaking even a full moon, like a closed door on a root cellar, there was suddenly no light at all. Lorie slowed the horse as she crossed over the bridge.

The wind had stopped howling, and it was silent except for the unmistakable heavy breathing of horses resting after being ridden too hard. Suddenly alert to the threat, Lorie jerked the reins too late just as Nathan Wayne jumped his horse into her path. Losing her balance as the buggy stalled, thrown forward almost out of the buggy, she grabbed the right bow with her hand, sitting hard on the seat.

Well… look here, Chad. Now ain’t we about to have some fun! Nathan Wayne had grabbed Lorie’s harness.

Pa, ain’t she that newspaper man’s daughter what runs the Wamego Valley… lives in Louisville? Now what’s she doin’ way out here all by herself?

Maybe she’s meetin’ someone… pretty enough?

Ain’t likely anyone even knows she’s here…

Then there won’t be anyone stoppin’ us from doin’ whatever we want with her!

Nathan’s words knotted Lorie’s stomach. She was shaking, chilled by a cold sweat.

I saw her first, Pa! Chad Wayne jumped from his horse. As he came at Lorie, he was fumbling with his belt.

At the edge of the seat, Lorie tried to jump, but her legs refused. With her eyes open, she pleaded with God. Had He kept her in the buggy? On foot she would have had no chance. They both had been drinking. There still might be a way to escape if she stayed in the buggy?

Get her out of the buggy before you take down your pants, stupid! Then we’ll both have a turn with her…

The old man’s laugh cut into Lorie like the screech of a nail scraped across a slate blackboard. However, though he still blocked Lorie’s path, Nathan Wayne had let go of the harness, and she still held the reins, and she had stayed in the buggy. Wasn’t that what God had whispered?

Lorie tore away the wool scarf covering her face. Then franticly she forced the frigid air like a knife into her lungs until she stopped shaking. Now holding up his pants, when Chad Wayne did try to grab her, it was only with one hand.

Suddenly, Lorie turned and kicked him in the face with both feet. As he sprawled on his back in the snow, she snapped the reins—hard—slamming her horse into Nathan Wayne’s gelding. Rearing on its hind legs, the frightened animal dumped its rider. Again Lorie whipped the reins, pushing the animal into a desperate run. Was it possible? Could she stay ahead of them until she reached Louisville? How long would it take them to remount and start after her?

Look, Pa… my face… it’s all bloody. That bitch! She done broke my nose!

Shut up! Get on your damn horse! She’s already half a mile ahead of us. It’s only three miles into Louisville from the bridge.

For a desperate moment as the clouds suddenly opened, in the searching moon light over her shoulder Lorie could just see the dark silhouettes of both men and horses as they made the first turn at a full gallop—gaining on her.

Nathan Wayne whipped his horse. If we cut across the dry creek bed we’ll catch her behind these boulders… there where the road turns. Then we’ll have her! She won’t get away again! Like a hungry wolf Nathan Wayne howled, a shriek that would summon even a reluctant demon, unseen, hiding in a dark corner of the night, while Chad Wayne, trying to mimic his father, only brayed at the moon.

Reaching the turn where the road narrowed between the boulders, suddenly Lorie’s horse panicked. Standing on her hind legs, kicking the frozen night air, she screamed. In the middle of the road was Randy Ingram sitting deathly still on the Appaloosa, the Yellow Boy Winchester again across his lap.

Seeing the two riders stealthily approach the buggy before the moon again disappeared, he had waited, watching. He knew Nathan and Chad Wayne would be up to no good. Then as the buggy abruptly raced away with those two after it, suddenly it was more than a chance coincidence that chased through Randy’s mind, remembering that night in 1832 his grandmother had told him about, the same night Jeremiah Beck had met his Great Aunt Clara Williams, years before Randy was even born, even before his mother or father were born, and if an analogous reenactment were unfolding in front of him, Randy Ingram expected those two would be dead before much more of the night was over.

Lorie shuddered, and then started to cry. If he were with them she would never get away. The moon was gone, and it was dark again—but this time not too dark to where Randy wouldn’t be able to see who to kill when it came to that.

Chad Wayne didn’t see Randy when he first walked his horse alongside the stalled buggy. The tired animal was breathing hard, steam rising from his lathered neck. Leaning down where Lorie sat, again drawn up on the seat, Chad cautiously reached to grab her arm, keeping away from her feet.

You won’t get away again… missy! There was a lot of blood smeared where Lorie had broken his nose.

I think you’ve scared the lady quite enough… Randy walked the Appaloosa around the buggy to the edge of the road, keeping Nathan and Chad Wayne in front of him. And it’s best you both be on your way…

Nathan Wayne edged his hand slowly toward the belly gun hidden under his coat, but cautiously stopped, recognizing Randy when the moon peeked again through the tussling clouds. Still, he was not easily denied. I’ll see you in hell, Randy Ingram! This ain’t none of your concern…

Lorie slid away from Chad Wayne as far as the buggy seat would let her. She still held the reins in her hands, but she was shaking again, even more than before.

Well… I’m afraid I just made it my concern! Randy’s eyes never left Nathan Wayne. He was more unpredictable and the most dangerous. Chad would just follow the old man—at least while he had it in his mind to let his father continue to tell him what to do.

I’ll be damned if you will! I’ll be taking what I come for. You want her, Randy Ingram… I ain’t greedy… but you can just wait til we’re done with her!

Though his tongue was thick, and he slurred the words, and it would have been easy to presume that whiskey had drugged the instincts cultivated while raiding along the Kansas and Missouri border, even so, Randy was well aware that Nathan Wayne had been drinking red-eye since he was fourteen.

At that, Randy figured it more probable Nathan Wayne was more piqued than drunk. Furthermore, Nathan Wayne would be playing it in his mind he could draw and shoot before Randy squeezed the trigger, if Randy thought him drunk, thus less a worry, and he aimed the Winchester at his son instead. Except, Randy knew all too well if he gave Nathan Wayne even that much edge, it would not be Nathan Wayne that would be dead!

That said, even though Randy did look at the younger man out of the corner of his eye, he never moved the rifle. And even if Nathan Wayne was fast, he knew he was not near fast enough to draw and shoot against the Winchester. Even so, suddenly, Nathan Wayne grabbed for the Colt Army Revolver stuck in his belt as he jerked the reins, pulling the animal’s head up, trying to block Randy’s aim—a trick that had worked too many times before.

Nonetheless, Nathan Wayne was dead even before Randy squeezed the trigger a second time and was out of his saddle on his feet, running behind the wagon, the Winchester searching a second kill, a not so easy target.

You bastard! You killed my pa! But you aim to get me… you’ll have to shoot the girl first… Chad Wayne had pulled Lorie out of the wagon, and he was keeping her in front of him, his arm around her neck.

You better let her go, Chad!

I don’t think that would be very smart. Not the way I see it. At best… it’s a stand-off…

You know I can’t leave it at that…

You ain’t got no choice!

Now I hear you killed a man up near Netawaka… folks say was as fast as me…

Some say he was faster.

You have a woman then to hide behind… or did you just back shoot him?

The way you done shot my pa… you’re one to talk. Already in your sights… he never had a chance against that Winchester when he drew down on you!

Your pa, Chad… he might still be alive had you backed him instead of grabbing the girl when he tried that trick with his horse. But I don’t think you cared that much. Figure you were just tired of him…

That ain’t your concern. And the girl… you’d have the same chance at me I didn’t have her…

You let her go… I’ll put the Winchester in the buggy. Then we’ll see if you’re just talk! I figure it just won’t do if it got around you hid behind a woman while the man that killed your pa faced you down… especially with the men he rode with… knowing as how you’ve been bragging about how fast you are with that gun… no matter you don’t care I killed him…

It was no surprise that Chad let go of Lorie when Randy put the Winchester in the buggy. Nor was it unsuspected Chad Wayne was not all brag at how fast he was. Like a blur his Buntline Special was suddenly aimed at Randy’s stomach—just the same—Randy had already drawn and fired the .44 Russian, holstered under his coat.

Then in the fresh snow that had been falling since Randy stopped Lorie’s buggy, Chad Wayne fell face down in the middle of the road, dead next to his father, blood from where the bullet had severed the big vein in his neck, infusing the snow a dark red.

While Randy walked to where he left the Appaloosa, Lorie never moved from where she fell when Chad Wayne let go of her. Nonetheless, when he looked up through the evanescent light as the clouds closed in again after tying the horse to the back of the buggy, she was seated on the seat waiting for him.

Then, though somewhat to his surprise, she slid next to him, unafraid, when he sat down and took the reins.

That old man, he knew you didn’t he… though you’re certainly not their kind!

Chad Wayne never knew but his father’s shadow… never had a chance to do right. But Nathan Wayne… his dying was long overdue! He rode with William Quantrill when they murdered those men for no good reason in Lawrence, Kansas, during the Civil War. My dad was killed in that raid… though I never let on I wanted Nathan Wayne dead cause my mother made me promise not to hunt him down when I got old enough and learned who he was. She said it was the war. Except my mother never knew the likes of Nathan Wayne… or any of the men that rode with Quantrill…

With his hat pulled down against the wind, Randy’s face was hidden, keeping Lorie from seeing what he looked like. Yet there was no denying the insistent sense that had already drawn her to him, and with that she knew she couldn’t just let him ride away—not now—not after what he had just done.

And the Colt, the one that belonged to Chad Wayne, hidden under her coat—well—it was no longer pointed at Randy. As for Randy, sitting next to Lorie he wasn’t feeling the cold. He just didn’t want to leave, though he had known about the Buntline Special from when she picked it up where Chad Wayne had dropped it after he died trying to use it.

Then Randy wondered. Was this the way it was that night so long ago when Jeremiah Beck, the hardened veteran of the Mexican War, killed Lee and Frank Lewis? They had been up to no good just like Nathan and Chad Wayne. Was there a chance something more serious was to come of his meeting Lorie? Jeremiah Beck did marry Randy’s Great Aunt Clara.

You are coming in… It was a statement more than a question. Yet when Randy hesitated, it wasn’t the cold that made Lorie uneasy. Should she be more audacious? Then what would he think of her? But then when he followed her into the house after he helped her put up the horses, when she closed the door behind him she was noticeably delighted. Yet how provocative could it be when all along she had known her mother was there?

1890-1892*CHAPTER TWO

Randy took out the pocket watch that had belonged to his father. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he opened the cover. Inside there was a picture of Lorie. It was all he had now. Almost as quick as she had come into his life, she had gone out of it. They were married on Christmas day, and then just two days before the 4th of July, while he held her in his arms, begging her not to leave him, she had died of Cholera.

How like his Great Aunt Clara Lorie had been. Just as there were evident similarities in the way Randy had met Lorie that dark night on the road between Wamego and Louisville and how Jeremiah Beck had met Clara outside Kaw Township in Missouri, though they had died without knowing each other, both Lorie and Clara had succumbed to the same dreaded plague, the same relentless unselective pestilence that had cut through the Mormon Zion’s Camp, laying it to waste, even threatening Joseph Smith.

Randy closed the watch and put it back in his pocket. Though there were scattered patches of snow that still clung stubbornly to life, the sun was warm—almost hot. Randy took off his coat. On the south side of the Arkansas River away from the swift current, where the water pooled and appeared almost still, he reined the Appaloosa. The spirited animal jerked her head, snorting, and then stuck her nose in the cold water.

Like a pillow of smoke in the otherwise empty sky a silk cloud floated, then settled over Shavano Peak, hugging the lofty rock where not even a single pine survived, while rumbling deep inside, its layered stone pressed against itself, erupting ever slowly upward, cracking and crumbling as time smoothed its jagged edges and gusting winds brushed away the snow where the temperature, plunging below zero, kept only ice clinging to thin ledges etched in slated rock that reached to touch the sky.

Sure-footed and steady, the Appaloosa climbed until they reached where the narrow trail leaped over the top of the mountain. It was cold at eleven thousand feet, and Randy had put his coat back on, grateful he hadn’t lost it as well the day before in Cripple Creek, in a card game that went bad—at least for Randy and everyone else at the table except James Davis.

Betting three Kings against a full house, Randy had lost everything except what he was wearing, his saddle, his guns, and the Appaloosa mare, and though there were clues that Randy had been cheated, James Davis was just too quick with a deck of cards for anyone to catch him dealing from the bottom of the deck—and Randy was not the only one sitting at that table that had wondered about James Davis.

Still, he should have known better than to have sat in that card game. From his grandmother, Randy had known James Davis, though not as a gambler. James’s father, Clinton Davis, had been with the mob in Missouri when Randy’s grandmother along with all the other Mormons in Missouri were forced to flee for their lives in the cold of winter with nothing but what they could carry in a wagon, if they had a wagon?

Just west of Gunnison before he turned south at Montrose, Randy found a place well off the road to sleep for the night. There he would be able to see anyone approach up the road without being seen. His Uncle Jeremiah had taught him to be sentient, and always keep a gun handy even when you sleep as if at all times you had one eye open.

In the beginning, everything Randy knew about a handgun or a Winchester, he had also learned from his Uncle Jeremiah during the summer of 1871 when he and Randy’s Aunt Cherie came to Lawrence for Randy’s twelfth birthday. The Winchester had been his birthday present.

And though his Uncle Jeremiah had never been a Mormon, when his grandfather and grandmother were first married, even so, he had been in the thick of it when Lilburn W. Boggs had signed the Extermination Order, making it legal to kill Mormons in Missouri, a law that was still official in that state twenty-seven years after Appomattox and the end of the Civil War—though it was as irrational then as it was now in 1892!

An hour after the sun came up Randy turned south, then west. Even in Kansas there were stories about the gold in the San Juan Mountains—that a man could become wealthy if he had a mind to. On the other hand, Randy never catered much to such get rich schemes, though he still had to find work if he wanted to eat, now that he had lost all his money—and they were paying three dollars a day in Telluride at the Tomboy.

Yet from the first day, it was obvious Randy would not last in the mines. It was more than a hundred degrees in the Tomboy at nine hundred feet, and the air was so foul it kept Randy wading through ankle deep water to the breathing tubes whenever the foreman could not see him.

Still, Randy was determined to stay at least until the end of the month. Yet by Thursday of the second week, after two men were carried out, their lungs full of dust, Randy drew what pay he had coming, paid his feed bill for the Appaloosa, and rode out of Telluride—not there even long enough for anyone to remember.

Yet in spite of everything, there was still the need to eat and feed his horse, and though the pay was less, the one thing Randy knew how to do more to his liking than crawling around in a dark hole was punching cows and breaking horses, and right off, from the first day, the cowboys at the Dry Creek Ranch west of Telluride were a whole lot friendlier than the foreign born miners in the Tomboy—that is—everyone except Tom Kennedy.

He was six foot six, and though Randy was taller by an inch, at three hundred and thirty-five pounds, the big Irishman outweighed Randy more than a hundred and fifteen pounds. All the same, though it was obvious to all the cowboys at the Dry Creek Ranch from the start that Tom Kennedy took no liking to Randy Ingram—he had a distaste for anyone that looked like they could stand up to him—until the last Saturday in May, Tom Kennedy kept his distance.

The cowhands had been paid, and though it was late in the afternoon, there was still just enough light left to ride into Telluride. Turning away from the other cowboys to put the sun behind him, where he could see better before he lost the light, more to look at Lorie’s picture than to learn the time, Randy took out his watch, and then as the sun reflected from the gold cross dancing at the end of the watch chain, it caught Tom Kennedy’s eye.

Even if Randy had been baptized a Mormon when he was fifteen, with his father dead, it had been more to please his mother than to belong to any religion. It was Lorie that was Catholic. Her mother had given the cross to Randy when she died. And Tom Kennedy was from Belfast. He hated Catholics and anything or anyone that had anything to do with them!

Randy Ingram, I knew there was something about you I didn’t like. It’s the smell. All Ca… tho… lics have the same stink!

Tom slurred the words. He had been drinking red-eye, and they all knew he got mean when he drank. He was known to have broken a man’s back, snapped it like a twig in the street outside the Senate in Telluride. If Big Billy—the owner—had not pulled a scattergun from under the bar and made him take the fight outside, he would have broken up the saloon.

From where Randy stood, the cook fire was between him and Tom Kennedy, and with the sun going behind the mountain behind him, it would be dark in ten minutes. Time enough for a man to die, though, but not the way Tom Kennedy had in mind.

Tom, that’s no good reason for you to go and pick a fight with me. You know I smell the same as you until I take a bath. Besides… if I was to take up any religion, I’d likely be a Mormon like my mother… like she baptized me to be… not a Catholic… Randy knew about the miner in Telluride with the broken back, and he had no intention of letting Tom Kennedy get that close.

But though Randy had never seen him draw, Tom Kennedy was also known to be fast with a Colt. Even so, Randy figured he stood a better chance against Tom Kennedy’s Army Revolver than if the big Irishman got his arms around Randy’s back.

You sayin’ I smell like one of you? It’s no never mind what you are. A Mormon’s just as bad as a Catholic!

I ain’t saying you smell like either a Catholic or a Mormon. You smell like a horse!

Both men could hear the other cowboys snicker, but neither took his eyes off the other. Then Tom Kennedy started toward Randy.

Tom, I think you better stop right there. What you did to that miner from the Tomboy… you are not going to do to me! But if you got to do this… then you’ll just have to use that gun you got tied to your leg…

The big Irishman stopped when Randy dropped his hand. Yet he hesitated only a second. Grabbing his gun, he drew first, faster than Randy had figured, but still no match—

Before Randy had married Lorie, he had practiced at least two hours a day. Then after she died, in the weeks before he sold their place outside Louisville, before coming to Colorado, he had practiced three, sometimes four hours every afternoon until it was too dark to see what he was aiming at.

Despite that, fortunately for Tom Kennedy, Randy had no reason to kill the big Irishman. Nonetheless, Randy never missed what he aimed at, and the pain from where the bullet splintered Tom Kennedy’s elbow knocked him to his knees—and then both men knew he would lose his arm.

Clutching his elbow, blood running down his arm, unable to hold onto his gun, Tom Kennedy dropped it in the dirt. Then he glared, hate in his eyes. I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do… Randy Ingram!

Randy was not worried about Tom Kennedy’s threat. Whatever he was, he was not a back shooter, and that meant he would have to face Randy if ever they met again, and now with only one good arm he was even less a threat than he had been before he started this. All the same, it was again time for Randy to move on.

Below the ragged skyline of the San Juan Mountains west of the infamous Smuggler mine, like smoke from a green wood fire, bellowing clouds encircled the hundred foot pines that hid Randy and the Appaloosa from the town below, and the grass was now tall enough for the mare to feed without uprooting every mouthful she ate. What’s more, even at nine thousand feet the last of the snow had finally lost its battle for survival against the summer sun.

During the three weeks since Randy had left the Dry Creek Ranch, he had camped without a fire, avoiding any smoke that might draw unwanted attention, but tonight would be his last night here alone. Tomorrow was Monday, June 24th, and the mine payroll would be in the San Miguel Valley Bank. At nine-thirty he would saddle the Appaloosa and ride down the mountain into Telluride.

Randy ate the last of the jerky he had brought with him from the Dry Creek Ranch. His head against his saddle, he slept some. Then about midnight he woke up. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up, moved his Winchester next to his saddle, and then went back to sleep, his hidden mind again remembering Kirtland, Ohio, his grandmother Virginia Cale Williams, and the Mormons in Missouri.

Randy had been awake for several hours before he rode into Telluride, and for the moment he no longer thought about his grandmother or the others in his family. They could wait. Now he must give all his concentration to what was coming, though he knew it was in direct conflict with everything his mother had taught him.

Leaving the mare on Oak Street, he walked down Colorado Avenue past Fir Street into the San Miguel Valley Bank—robbing a bank had to be less a risk than stopping a drunken Irishman bent on breaking your back, or shoveling rock in a nine hundred foot hole in the ground where the air fouled from the breath of three hundred miners and the decay of rotting timbers was so thick you struggled just to breathe—

1890-1892*CHAPTER THREE

Though it was after five and time to lock up the Parisian, Jodie Fillmont was in no hurry. There was no one waiting for her, anyway. What decent man would after what her father had done—though she had fought him off until he had knocked her unconscious?

Calhoun McQueen stopped the carriage in front of the dress shop. It was not the first time he had been to the Parisian, though earlier in June he had not come alone. Christine had begged her father until Thomas Wade had reluctantly let her come along. Even so, in spite of Christine, when she was in the dressing room, it was then Jodie had teased Calhoun with a disguised but provocative invitation.

Nonetheless, just as he was about to pursue the veiled incitement, Christine had come out of the dressing room, waltzing around Calhoun in a new dress—one of the few times in recent months she had actually begged his attention—then stepping away from Jodie while lighting a cigar, he had quickly fled any worrisome discovery.

As it was, Thomas Wade had little use for Calhoun, except as an errand boy—tolerating him only as long as Christine wanted it that way. And though they still shared the east wing of her father’s mansion above Oak Street in Telluride, for the better part of the last year of their marriage there had been little more than pretense between them, each caring little about the other’s indiscretions.

Still, if she had caught him showing even the slightest interest in Jodie there would have been hell to pay. Jodie was just too pretty for Christine to ignore and chance the imperious laughter of the women that lived on the north side above Columbia Street back in Telluride, should they find out Calhoun had someone better than one of the whores on Pacific Avenue, even as far away as Denver.

However, this time Christine had not come with him. Though Calhoun had no clue as to who she was spending her nights with, he knew there was someone. Her blasé consent to stay behind in Telluride was just too unlike her for there not to be.

Hearing the carriage outside, Jodie pulled aside the curtain just enough to look out without letting who it was see her. Then quickly she walked back into the store and stood in front of the mirror. The blue dress she was wearing hugged her breasts, raising them just enough to make any man stare—if she was not good enough to marry—then maybe Calhoun McQueen had come back to the dress shop without his wife for some other reason than to buy another dress?

The bells chimed one after another as Calhoun pushed open the door.

Why, Calhoun McQueen… what a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you again… not after you ignored me the last time you were here… Jodie did not come out from behind the manikin and the dress she was pretending to pin until after the bells had stopped ringing, and then she stood behind the counter.

Calhoun grinned boyishly. I knew it was late… but I hoped you would still be here.

She leaned forward over the counter just enough to make Calhoun stare. Does that mean your wife didn’t come with you?

Christine stayed in Telluride.

Oh, how unfortunate. Then you must have dinner with me. I hate to eat alone…

I don’t suppose there’s any harm in that.

Now what do you care about what harm there is in being with me. If you did you wouldn’t have come back here… not without your wife.

The sun had gone down, and the moon was just coming up, though it was hidden behind a large black cloud when they left the restaurant. In the pitch black they had walked across the meadow behind the gristmill and then back to Calhoun’s carriage, holding hands until the moon came out. Then Calhoun had abruptly let go of Jodie’s hand.

I have to go. Someone will see us…

And tell Thomas Wade?

Yes.

Why didn’t you care about that in the restaurant?

I’ve got to leave for Telluride in the morning…

You didn’t answer my question?

That’s different. We were having dinner.

And what are we doing now? Jodie stepped near enough for Calhoun to feel her breathe.

Not even when he was with one of the girls from the cribs, in Telluride, on Pacific Avenue, had he felt the way Jodie made him feel at that moment, that is, not since he and Christine were first married—whenever Thomas Wade was not in the house—before she had found someone else to occupy her time.

Nonetheless, when the moon, moving in and out of the clouds, again silhouetted them, Calhoun resisted, though it was already too late. Jodie was not about to leave anything up to him, not that night, anyway.

Jodie kicked off her shoes. Calhoun, you’re not afraid of me… are you?

You’re not like the other girls I’ve known…

Do you want me to be like them? I can pretend if you want me to. But I’m not afraid to tell you what I want…

Jodie reached up and pulled the pins out of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. Then when she unfastened her dress and let it fall around her feet, Calhoun no longer cared about the consequence that might result if Thomas Wade were to find out. Jodie’s arms slipped around his neck as he picked her up and carried her to the carriage.

Though there was snow already above the tree line, and fall had brought bright color to the aspen, at eight thousand feet the sun was still warm, even in October. Yet how quickly the dying leaves were stripped, leaving lifeless naked branches as gusts of wind swirled up from the valley floor. Only the pines that mixed dark green through the sea of orange and yellow and then climbed to the timberline remained unchanged, though the first snow clung to the tops of their needled branches a hundred feet above the brown grass as the sun sneaked back through the clouds and blasted the roof tops of the bustling boom town below.

Jodie took a deep breath. She was accustomed to being above five thousand feet. Still, the air was thinner in Telluride than it was in Denver. The stage had been full coming up from Montrose, but now it was empty, and she was alone.

She knew coming here was not a good idea. Even if she did have both hands around Calhoun’s neck, a poisonous snake was still lethal! Yet, until now, Jodie had felt she had nothing to lose, and Calhoun was more a weasel than a rattlesnake. Even so, her involvement with Calhoun had already gone further than she had intended—and then there was still Christine and the ladies above Columbia Street.

Calhoun had stayed in Denver until the end of the week, and after he did board the train, though Jodie knew following him was never his idea, when she stepped off the afternoon stage, she was certain about one thing—once Calhoun knew she was in Telluride he would find a way to see her in spite of Christine McQueen, or Thomas Wade for that matter.

As for finding work and a place to stay, knowing there would be nothing from Calhoun except what would make her feel like a whore, when she walked into the hotel, wearing the same blue dress she had worn that afternoon in Denver at the Parisian when Calhoun had come back without his wife, it didn’t take long for Jodie to get Wayne Jacobs to hire her as a hostess in the hotel restaurant, and it was not too surprising, in addition to her meals and salary, he also included a room at the hotel, as well.

What’s more, by the end of the week, just as Jodie had known he would, Calhoun knocked on her door, and then—as expected—Christine McQueen also knew Jodie was in Telluride.

Yet to Jodie’s disbelief and uneasy comfort, in spite of the wagging tongues north of Columbia Street, Christine appeared not to care—at least for the present—as long as Jodie was just another whore that would keep Calhoun occupied, leaving Christine to share her bed with whomever she wanted.

In spite of that, the inevitable still occurred. Despite her own perfidy, a week before Christmas, once Christine decided Jodie was just too stunning to let the snickering continue, it was not enough just to have Calhoun stay away from Jodie. After Christine lied to Latisha Jacobs, telling her a girl from the cribs was staying in her husband’s hotel and more than one man had paid for what should have been sold only on Pacific Avenue, reluctantly, Wayne Jacobs told Jodie she had to leave.

With snow choking the roads and drifts piling as high as the second windows of the buildings that stood in rows on both sides of Colorado Avenue and it only fifteen degrees outside at night, now that Wayne Jacobs had squirmed at the end of his wife’s leash and Calhoun had conveniently gone back to Denver after Christine had threatened to tell her father about his involvement with Jodie, if Jodie, now feeling even more discarded than she had before she became involved with Calhoun McQueen, didn’t want to be found frozen in the street, the only place left was the Senate and the cribs on Pacific Avenue, at the bottom of the nocuous twist her father had started, worth only what her looks could barter from any drunken miner or cowboy that would pay her price.

Even so, after that first night, while drinking almost half a bottle of whiskey one of the cowboys had left in her room, she cried all the next day. She was sitting at a table in the Senate, her eyes swollen, wearing the same blue dress she had worn for Calhoun McQueen and Wayne Jacobs, the one she had brought from Denver, when Big Billy found her.

Jodie Fillmont, even as pretty as you are, you sit here all day and drink cheap whiskey… if you’re not dead in a month you’ll be selling yourself for the price of a bottle. Then you’ll never get out of here! Then again… if you let me help you… and you don’t spend your money on slick men or fancy cloths… I’ll see to it you entertain only my best clients. They treat you better than the miners or the Dry Creek cowboys… and they pay more! You’ll be out of here no later than the beginning of summer with enough money to go where you want… where no man will touch you… not unless you want him to!

Jodie stopped crying. I got myself into this. Why would you help me? Even if Calhoun McQueen is a weasel… he was married when I met him. I knew he’d never leave his wife… not while her father’s money keeps him on a leash! But I thought I was in love with him…

And now you don’t?

If I do… even a little… there’s no doubt I don’t want to!

And your father…

What about my father?

You dropped this… Big Billy held out a tear stained worn piece of paper. It was a letter from Jodie’s mother. She had sent it to Jodie from Wichita when Jodie was still in Denver.

I’m sorry, Jodie!

Your father was a good man before he started being a doctor for these outlaws and taking their money. After that he started drinking. He told me when he was dying what he had done to you. I know now why you left and why you would never come home. For that I’m glad he’s dead! If he had not been sick, I would have left him.

I love you, Mom.

The bastard! He didn’t need to tell my mother what he did to me. She’s been hurt enough. But what he did doesn’t matter, not anymore. The only thing that does matter is that I don’t let it keep me here!

Men like your father and Calhoun McQueen make us all whores… one way or another. But you’ll see, Jodie. Calhoun will get his. And when he does… I aim to be there to help it happen!

Not until the end of February did Calhoun show himself on Pacific Avenue, and then he walked into the Senate looking for Jodie as if nothing had happened.

Well, look who the black spirits drug in… the weasel, Mister Calhoun McQueen. Guess your wife no longer cares if you come crawling after me now I’m here in the Senate… whoring in the cribs on Pacific Avenue!

Hello, Jodie. You must know I wanted to see you!

Jodie walked around the table and stood very close to Calhoun, near enough to make him nervous. But what makes you think I want to see you after you let your double-dealing wife make me more a whore than I was when you were the only man I was sleeping with? I’ve always known you were a coward, Calhoun McQueen… especially when it came to Thomas Wade… but I’ll never forgive you for not caring enough to say something to Wayne Jacobs when your dear Christine lied to Latisha!

Now you know Wayne Jacobs would never have listened to me… especially when it was his wife Christine used to turn him against you…

Miss Billy, if it’s alright with you… I don’t think Mister McQueen’s money will buy anything here, anymore!

Big Billy was pouring whiskey for two cowboys from the Dry Creek Ranch, and a miner from the Tomboy, and there were several other cowboys sitting at one of the tables playing cards, not really paying attention until Big Billy came from behind the bar and stood by the door with the same scatter-gun she had backed down Tom Kennedy with.

Not here… or anywhere else on Spruce Street… or Pacific Avenue for that matter… not as long as I own the Senate! And if you ever want a woman again this side of Denver, Calhoun McQueen… it will have to be a Ute squaw in Ouray! Big Billy held the door open wide, her exaggerated bow mocking Calhoun as he walked out.

All the men in the Senate were now laughing, their clamor following Calhoun McQueen down Spruce Street past the Silver Bell around the corner to Pacific Avenue and the girls that were standing on the boardwalk in front of the cribs waving, teasing Calhoun with their pretended proffer until his carriage disappeared up Pine Street.

Jodie locked the door to the crib where she had lived since Christine McQueen had her put out on the street. It was June 24th, and just as Big Billy had promised, Jodie now had enough money in the San Miguel Valley Bank to walk away from the cribs. Today was her last day in Telluride—yet even at that—it had been hard to say good-bye to Big Billy.

As Jodie walked up Pine Street to Colorado Avenue, preoccupied with the thought of leaving, climbing above the San Juan Mountains the summer sun would have been uncomfortable without a hat or umbrella, if it had not been for the cool breeze blowing down Colorado Avenue from the Sheridan mine.

By choice Jodie had no hat or umbrella—both seemed to identify with the whore she had been—and once she withdrew all her money from the bank, there would be more than enough for the stage to Montrose and then the train through Salt Lake City to San Francisco, where no man would ever use her again—not for money nor love—not unless she wanted him to! And for a very long time, if ever, she was determined love in particular would not be trusted again!

Hello, Miss Fillmont. James Davis had just tied his single rig buggy to the horse rail outside his office. Along with the San Miguel Valley Bank, he was the owner of the stage line that would take her out of Telluride. And though it was unknown to Christine McQueen that he had paid his way into Jodie’s bed more than once since Jodie had moved to Pacific Avenue, Jodie knew he was Christine’s other interest—a weasel just like her husband Calhoun.

Hello, James. Most of the men Jodie had known in the months since January were already blurring in her memory. James Davis, however, like Calhoun McQueen, was one man she would try extra hard to forget!

What brings you out here this early? Thought you working girls never got up before noon?

James, if I cared… I’d tell you it was none of your damn business! But seeing as it does concern you, somewhat… I’m taking my money out of the San Miguel Valley Bank and I intend to give it to Big Billy. As part owner in the Senate, I won’t have to sleep with the likes of you, anymore. None of my girls will either!

As Jodie walked on down Colorado Avenue, she knew James would find out soon enough, when she came back from the bank to buy a ticket to Montrose, that she had lied to him about the money she was taking out of the San Miguel Valley Bank. Even so, it gave her a certain satisfaction, telling him he was not welcome in her bed anymore.

Like her father and then Calhoun McQueen, he took whatever he wanted whenever it fancied him, not caring who or what he ruined. As for the other girls, at least in the Senate, except Missy Gardet, they didn’t like him, anyway.

Just before eleven, when Jodie walked back outside after withdrawing her money, in front of the bank there were two cowboys leaning against the hitching rail, holding the reins to four horses. They had not been there when she went in. Tom McCarty she knew, but the younger man was a stranger—yet he looked surprisingly enough like Bob Parker to be his younger brother.

Tom McCarty, Bob Parker, and Matt Warner had been in Telluride since Saturday, when they rode in from the Carlisle Ranch northwest of Monticello just across the Colorado border in Utah Territory. Until now they had stabled their horses at Searle’s livery, while Matt Warner and Tom McCarty had spent a lot of money gambling and drinking with the girls in the saloons.

And though Jodie never saw Bob Parker drink much—he usually just watched the others play cards—she did remember him drinking with James Davis in the Senate, and it was Bob Parker that had just entered the bank with Matt Warner as she was leaving.

But the other man, the one already in the bank when she went in, who was he? He had kept his face turned away so she could not see what he looked like, though right away she had noticed him—he was hard to miss—standing what seemed almost four inches above Bob Parker, and Bob Parker wasn’t a little man.

Jodie looked up the street, wondering where he had left his horse. It was certainly not out here in front of the bank, and that could only mean he was not with Bob Parker, whatever his reason for being there.

Jodie nodded at the boy she thought was Dan Parker, and then smiled at Tom McCarty. It was easy to see she made them nervous. Yet, in the way they were acting, it was obvious it was not her charm that disturbed them—nor was it being seen with a whore from Pacific Avenue in broad daylight on Colorado Avenue that concerned them, either.

Quickly turning around, Jodie looked through the bank window just as Randy stepped in front of the teller and reached for his gun. Then to her surprise at her sudden out of character concern for someone she had just seen only minutes before and had not even met, realizing she wanted to yell out, Jodie could only silently watch, helpless, as Matt Warner in one quick motion yanked his pistol out of its holster and shot the tall cowboy in the back before his .44 cleared the holster tied low on his leg.

Then when Matt Warner shoved his gun barrel under the bank cashier’s nose and pulled the hapless teller down to the floor by his neck without any further attempt to see if the man he had just shot was still alive, while Bob Parker, who now seemed in no great hurry, began stuffing stacks of greenbacks and gold from the bank vault into the buckskin bags they had brought in with them, with no thought of what she was about to do, ignoring the risk, her only thought she had to help this man—if he was even still alive—Jodie hastily reached for the bank door.

Even before he sat on the floor, Randy knew he was hurt bad—blood already soaked the front of his shirt where the bullet had come out! While he still had the strength to move, he had to get to his horse—it would not be good for him to be found inside the bank when those two rode out.

Then somehow he made his way to the door without either Matt Warner or Bob Parker paying him anymore notice, though he didn’t think about that until after he stumbled outside. All the same, it was his guess he was not worth the risk the noise would have made if Matt Warner had shot him again as even the miner that had been shooting up Colorado Avenue just minutes before had gone, and all was quiet in the street.

Nonetheless, when he shoved open the door, forcing Jodie to step out of the way, unsure if he could make it any further, Randy just leaned against the bank wall, letting the door close. Inside as he stood in front of the bank cashier he had only noticed Jodie out of the corner of his eye, but now she stood between him and the two cowboys that were waiting in the street. Was she with them? Then right away he thought different. She had left the bank with a lot of her own money, and two of the horses those two were holding had to belong to the two men inside the bank, Bob Parker and the other one that had shot him.

Jodie brushed the loose strands of red hair out of her eyes. Even in his failing condition, with the smell of death hanging ominously in the air, Randy was stunned by how pretty she was. And though the Appaloosa seemed a thousand miles away, he could not help but stare, surprised he was not thinking about Lorie—and right then that was reason enough to stay alive!

He stood back from the bank. Then with one hand still holding the wall, he made his way to Oak Street. All the same, when Jodie found him, though he was still on his feet, his arms around the Appaloosa’s neck, he was not moving. There was no strength left in him even to put his foot in the stirrup.

Knowing she would have to hide him in the crib where she had sworn she would never go back again, even as she was deciding to go after him, unable to explain why—as if he had been lost and she had finally found him after searching for such a long time—she knew there was no turning back!

Yet, thanks to Big Billy, that erosive sense of irrelevance that had haunted her when she first came to Pacific Avenue was no longer there. Even so, after bolting the door and putting Randy on the bed in her old crib, while pulling the blood soaked shirt over his head, she found herself praying—something she had not done since her father’s drunken outrage—then suddenly remembering things more important than forgetting if it would keep Randy from bleeding to death, knowing there had been in the middle of a dark night more than once when as a young girl living on the Kansas frontier she had gone with her father where she had learned how to keep a wounded outlaw from dying.

It was her turn to go now. Randy was already gone, though it was hard to tell how long as time was not measured in any specific way. Yet they had promised as they had reluctantly said good-bye, more than once, while holding each other, before he left—even if it took a lifetime—that they would find each other!

They had grown up together in that other world, and love had come easy as if they had always belonged to each other—and they always would! With him in her arms or sleeping next to her, there had never been the thought that someday she would have to go on without him, lost until she found him—but the risk? Would she really find him—there was no guarantee. There would be so many distractions—they might never even know each other—and there would always be others that might take his love—

Feeling the sun on her face through the half open window, Jodie sat up with a start. Though she was still haunted by her dream she was wide-awake. She had been up most of the night. Still, when she sat in the chair near the window to rest for a minute and get some air, she had not meant to fall asleep.

Quickly she washed her face and pinned up her hair. She had done all she could alone. She needed more bandages, but there was no one except Big Billy she dared trust.

Once she was certain Randy was not bleeding again and there was no fever, Jodie closed and locked the door behind her. Though it was early, there was piano music coming from the Silver Bell. She hurried, running as she turned the corner at Spruce Street. The money she had withdrawn from the San Miguel Valley Bank to buy her way out of Telluride was still in her handbag. How much of it would she need to take care of Randy, and would there still be enough left to buy a ticket to San Francisco—or did that really matter, anymore?

In the Senate there was a cowboy sitting alone at one of the tables with his back to the bar playing solitaire. Big Billy would be in the back—she always came down early. Jodie knocked on her door, waiting what seemed like an eternity until it finally opened.

Jodie… Big Billy stood looking at her for only a second, and then stepped back, letting Jodie come in before quickly closing the door. I thought you left on the stage yesterday before the San Miguel Valley Bank was robbed—why are you still here?

Last night, I stayed in my old room. No one knew I was leaving except you. So the other girls would not have thought it unusual I was there—tell me about the robbery.

Though Jodie had not told her why she was still in Telluride, Big Billy knew when not to pry. Jodie would tell her soon enough, whenever she was ready. They got the mine payroll… twenty-one thousand dollars! Everyone you ask has a different story. Some say three men robbed the bank… some say four… two inside… the others outside with the horses… though one man said he saw five men and maybe a woman leave the bank. It would have been about the time you were supposed to be there. Sheriff Beattie’s been here asking a lot of questions. Said they knew about the mine payroll being in the bank. They got away so clean he thinks someone in town helped them. There was only the cashier inside.

I was there. There were five men… two outside with the horses… three inside… though one of them was on his own until Matt Warner shot him in the back before the teller would have seen his gun. No one heard the gunshot because a drunken miner was outside shooting up the street. I had just left the bank. I was outside near the window. I saw everything! After Matt Warner shot Randy… Matt stuck a gun under the teller’s nose and dragged him to the floor while Bob Parker leaped over the railing and dumped the mine payroll and all the gold and silver he could see in a homemade buckskin sack.

They said no one came by the bank during the robbery?

"Not even when they left. That’s when I heard Bob Parker say the job was well done… they had plenty of time… but to keep cool. After that when