Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Caleb hadn’t been through Pueblo for a couple of years, and as he and Duke and Bass rode in through two-foot deep snow from the west, he wondered if he would have even recognized the place.
Beneath a lowering sky that showed no break in the dark shades of gray, a manufactory along the river was belching smoke. Duke informed him it was a smelter. “And they’re building a dang steel works too.”
Orderly city blocks that were being laid out before, now were nearly filled with wood frame houses, and the main streets boasted large brick and wood homes, businesses, and even a school that rose two full stories to a high sloping roof and a bell tower.
Caleb decided this was a city that would surely make Judge Patterson shrivel with envy.
The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad had arrived in Pueblo six years ago, and they were itching to push farther south and west. Caleb read in a newspaper at Doc’s house a while back that when a rival railroad came to town, the two companies had hired gunfighters out of Dodge City to protect their turf.
A ‘Railroad War’, the newspaper called it.
In spite of the frontier tradition of fighting out disputes, the city was being crowed about as ‘beacon’ and a ‘triumph’. Somebody even said that Sharp’s rifles and revolvers had been replaced by plows and mowing machines. At least, this was the politicians’ and newspapermen’s version.
“The stockyards still south of the river?” he asked Ortiz, half in jest, and received an affirmative nod.
The men crossed the Arkansas on the wide bridge built by Charles Goodnight himself for his northbound cattle. Following the tracks to the stockyards, they quickly found out that no herds had arrived in the past week.
Caleb looked back toward the river and past the buildings of the growing city. “They had to take ’em north.”
Ortiz agreed as they started back toward the Arkansas. “I know of a place where we can find out. Just a hole in the wall, but a lot of cowpokes passing through Pueblo stop in there. And I know an old fella who always drinks there. Buck knows everything that goes on.”
“How far is it?”
“Right up yonder. The Silver Dollar.” He pointed at an alley up ahead.
A few minutes later, the three men entered the saloon.
The Silver Dollar was a smoke-filled brandy hole that made the lowest, filthiest deadfall in Elkhorn look like a palace.
Lit only by a few flickering lamps hanging from the ceiling, the dive boasted a bar that consisted of several scarred and warped boards across three barrels.
Behind it, two tough-looking barmen—one white and one with skin as dark as Bass—were pouring nose paint and brandy as fast as they could get the bottles open.
Milling around the bar and sitting at six full card tables, cowpunchers of every color barely glanced at the newcomers.
One of the barmen nodded in recognition at Ortiz and Bass. As the man poured drinks for them, Duke asked if he’d seen Buck Sanders lately.
“’Course. Every damn day. Should be in any time now.”
“Still working down at the stockyards?”
“Far as I know. Y’all know an old cow slick gets shaky if he can’t be around them beasts.”
They laughed and moved away from the bar to where they had a clear view of the door.
“Buck used to ride with us till he said his old bones couldn’t take the long days in the saddle no more,” Duke told Caleb. “He been living up here for a couple of years now. We see him when we come through.”
Bass snorted. “Last time, I don’t think any of us could see after drinking this rot gut all night.”
The barman was true to his word. Twenty minutes later, a cowboy who Caleb figured was about fifty years old shambled in.
Buck Sanders’s trail-worn face lit up as soon as he saw the two Texans. “Dang me, but I knowed you boys was in here. Saw that nag out there with your fancy saddle on it, and I knowed it was you, Duke, you ornery sidewinder.”
He had the bowed legs of a man who’d spent a lifetime in the saddle.
His blue eyes were clear, though, and the moustache that trailed down the side of his thin-lipped mouth was streaked with gray.
The brim of his sweat-stained hat was curled upward on both sides, and he was wearing a warm leather coat that he’d unbuttoned as soon as he entered.
He wasn’t wearing a gun but had a well-used knife sheathed at his belt.
Bass immediately appeared with a drink for the aging cowboy.
Sanders’s grin showed a mouth that was missing half his teeth. “Thankee, Bass. Can’t believe y’all are still riding for this skunk.” He spat in the general direction of a brass spittoon. “Come into my office, boys.”
After leading them to a corner where a small, smoke-covered window looked out onto the alley, he stared at Caleb for a moment, nodding slowly.
“It’s Marlowe, ain’t it? Don’t think we ever met, official like, but I recall seeing you down at this one’s ranch.” He flicked a gnarled thumb at Duke. “Heard plenty of stories about you, though. You used to ride with Old Jake Bell.”
Caleb nodded. “I was just hearing about you from these fellas.”
“Don’t believe nothing they tell you. You ain’t gonna find two lowlier varmints than these two this side of the Mississippi.”
“Not that you ever seen the other side of the Mississippi, you scraggly old cactus,” Duke replied with a laugh.
Buck drank down his brandy, smacking his lips with satisfaction, and laid the glass on the wide windowsill. “So what brings you boys to town?” He paused and frowned. “And where’s the rest of your outfit?”
“Dead,” Duke said grimly.
“All but Tex Washington,” Bass added.
The two men told the older man what had happened—the drive north, the ambush, the gunfight, and the ensuing journey to Elkhorn.
“Sons of bitches.” Buck shook his head. “Young Tex gonna make it?”
“Looks like it,” Ortiz said. “But not with his leg.”
“That’s a damn shame.”
The aging cowboy’s face grew somber. He stared out into the alley for a respectful moment. They all knew that Tex’s days riding the range and the trail were over.
Buck shook himself and turned his attention back to the others. “So what are y’all doing here?”
“We aim to get them longhorns back,” Bass said.
“We ran into a wagon train a few days west of here,” Caleb told him. “The scout told us he seen the herd coming toward Pueblo.”
“They didn’t come to the stockyards,” Buck said. He thought a moment. “But there was a fella who come down there some time back, looking to hire some hands for a job. Had a bunch of toughs with him.”
“You hear what the job was?” Duke asked.
“No, I didn’t,” the old cowboy said. “I happened to be going by when he stuck up a sign on a board they got outside the entrance. I wasn’t looking for nothing, so I didn’t even stop to ask.
Heard he was offering good money, though.
And looking for experienced men. Not just cowpunchers.
He wanted men good with guns. Sounded awful strange to me. But I didn’t think no more about it.”
The words all rang a bell in Caleb’s head. Not five months ago, he’d traveled to Bonedale, the center of operations for Eric Goulden’s railroad construction in the region. There he’d found a sign posted on a wall in a local saloon. Every word was fresh in his mind:
Many Positions Available: for EXPERIENCED MEN
Ex-Military. Ex-Pinkertons. Ex-Lawmen.
To aid in the PROTECTION of company property
and in the capture of TRAIN ROBBERS.
Inquire at Dry Bottom Saloon
Mr. Elijah Starr
This was exactly his father’s way. Hire experienced men to do the job he needed done.
“Did you catch the name of the fella doing the hiring?” he asked.
Buck shook his head. “Never got that close to him.”
“Anything else you can tell us,” Caleb pressed.
“Not more than I already told you.” The old cowhand started to shake his head and then hesitated. “You know, just the other day I heard a couple of fellas talking in here about something they was part of. Now that I think about it, that coulda been the same job.”
“What did they say?” Caleb asked.
“They was bragging about taking back a herd that some rustlers stole down near Trinidad. Said the scoundrels was driving the cattle west toward the mountains.”
Duke bristled. “We ain’t no rustlers. That was our herd. Whoever hired them clowns was a lying dog.”
“They say what happened?”
Buck nodded. “They drove the critters up to a rail siding north of here, near a patch of dirt called Little Buttes. Had cattle cars waiting, they said.”
Caleb thought about what he’d just heard. It all sounded exactly like something his father would do. Starr had his rail connections. He’d have the cars waiting.
Losing that herd wasn’t a coincidence.
The realization settled over him like a cold blanket of snow.
For weeks he’d been telling himself the theft was business. A raid. An opportunity seized upon by thieves.
But now the pieces were fitting together. This wasn’t about cattle. Not entirely.
It wasn’t just business. It was personal.
The herd represented everything he and Henry had been working for. The profits from the cattle would give him the chance to stop drifting on to the next horizon. The chance to build something lasting.
And, of course, in the middle of those thoughts appeared a flash of golden hair and a pair of blue eyes.
Sheila.
“This fella that was hiring. You saw him put up the job notice,” Caleb asked. “What did he look like?”
“Only saw him the once. But I’d know him at the bottom of a box canyon on a moonless night.”
Caleb knew what Buck was going to say next before the words even formed.
“He had one eye—wore a patch over the other—and had more scars on his face than a Comanche warrior.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
The crackle of the fire seemed unnaturally loud. Across the room, someone laughed at a card table. A bottle shattered behind the bar. Life went on.
But for Caleb, the world had just narrowed to a single name.
Elijah Starr.