Chapter 52
Two days later, Conn rode into the wild, logging boomtown of Stump Run, Colorado.
It was larger than he had expected and even wilder than anticipated, with dozens of saloons, gambling houses, and bordellos on full display, like a miniature Leadville that wasn’t even trying to pretend to be a respectable community.
Such places had drawn him once. The noise, the excitement. They seemed to promise everything he wanted then: whiskey, women, diversion, and probably a fight.
But places such as Stump Run lied. Sure, they delivered on the promise of wild times, but those experiences never satisfied, not for long, and only led to deeper emptiness.
Of course, Conn wanted nothing to do with those things now. Besides, he was not here for pleasure of any type. He was here to honor a promise sealed by the death of a good man.
He tethered the gelding and walked the muddy streets of Stump Run, which were filled with lumberjacks.
They were a rough and rugged lot, these woodcutters and river pigs, and no one knew that better than Conn, who’d lived and worked among them for a tumultuous time years earlier.
He recognized none of the men roving these streets in packs but recognized their thick builds and bearded faces, their confident swaggers and loud voices.
These were the high climbers, the tree fellers, the log riders, men who faced death every day and tried to drink themselves to death every night.
The fights among them were legendary.
But that was all behind him now, that hard, rollicking life among the timbermen, and he ignored the lumberjacks and went straight to a crew of young men talking outside a saloon and asked if they knew where he could find Junior Sheffield.
“You the law?” one of the young men asked dubiously.
“He ain’t the law,” one of the other guys said. “Look at him.”
“I’m a friend of his father’s,” Conn said.
This seemed to satisfy them, and they directed him to a saloon called The Stump House.
He walked down the street and entered The Stump House, which smelled of sawdust and sweat and stale whiskey. The place was quiet at this hour, at least as quiet a saloon serving river pigs ever got.
The lumbermen sat in packs here and there across the open room, talking and drinking and laughing and telling loud stories, but most of the tables were empty.
Conn took one look around and immediately spotted Junior, who leaned against the bar, talking with the bartender.
He looked like his father, only younger with a full head of black hair. He was tall and lean with big hands and the same bony face only instead of a big, drooping mustache like Bill Sheffield had worn, Junior’s was neatly trimmed like a gambler’s.
His clothes, however, sure didn’t look like a gambler’s. They were shabby and needed laundering. He stood there with one boot jacked up on a stool, displaying the big hole in his sole.
Conn walked over and said his name. He made it a question even though he had no doubt.
Junior stood a little straighter and narrowed one eye. “Who’s asking?”
“My name’s Sullivan,” Conn said and held out his hand. “Conn Sullivan.”
Junior hesitated but shook his hand. “All right, Sullivan. What do you want? You don’t look like a lumberjack.”
“I’m not. I was once. But that was a long time ago.”
“If you’re looking for a job, head out to the camp. They’re always hiring.”
Conn shook his head. “I’m not here for a job. I’m here to talk to you.”
Junior leaned back a little, looking leery but also looking like he didn’t want to show it. He lowered a hand casually to his belt close to his gun. “All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“Might be better to talk in private.”
Taking his cue, the bartender drifted away.
“This is private enough,” Junior said.
Conn sensed fear in Junior. It was a thing he noticed in men, a thing you had to notice if you wanted to survive in places like this. Contrary to popular belief, fear made men dangerous, especially when they loathed their own dread and tried to hide it, as Junior clearly did.
“All right. Have it your way.”
“I always do,” Junior said, and Conn glimpsed something else in the boy, something hard and unpleasant, a bit of surly grit that might be part of why he and his father had quarreled. “Now, why don’t you quit beating around the mesquite and tell me what you got to tell me.”
“Your father is dead,” Conn said.
The boy gave a little twitch, and his lips parted, but he recovered quickly, returning to his tough guy routine. He sipped his beer, pretending not to care. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Conn left it at that for a second, giving the kid a moment to think.
Junior took another sip of beer and looked away from Conn, staring at the back of the bar. “How?”
“Some men killed him. Tried to kill me, too. Your father was helping me hunt men who killed my brother. We went into a mine looking for them, but they were waiting on us and threw in some dynamite. Your father was killed in the blast. I doubt he ever knew what hit him.”
Conn didn’t know if that was true, but he hoped it was, and he thought maybe it would make the kid feel better.
But if Junior was struggling with the news, he did a good job hiding it. He merely nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Your father was a good man, Junior. He helped me when no one else would. He had sand.”
Junior stared into the mirror at the back of the bar and sipped his beer.
“Your father was a good man,” Conn said again. For some reason, the boy’s muted acceptance of his father’s death rankled Conn. He knew Sheffield and his son had parted on bad terms, but he wanted Junior to understand that his father had been a good man, a man worth mourning. “He cared about you.”
A bitter smile curled one corner of Junior’s mouth. “My father was many things. Caring wasn’t one of them. Him and me didn’t see eye to eye. He said some pretty hard things, and then he left. I hadn’t seen him in two years.”
“He was coming back. That was his plan. He was gonna come back and check on you.”
“But then he died.”
“Yes.”
Junior went back to staring into the mirror and sipping his beer.
Conn said, “But I wanted you to know he died trying to help me and that he meant to come back.”
“So you say.”
“You calling me a liar?”
Junior turned toward Conn and must have seen something in his eyes that gave him pause. “I don’t know you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I rode a long way to tell you this.”
“Much obliged. Message received. Now you can ride off again.”
Conn didn’t like Junior Sheffield, but he felt indebted to him. Not because of Junior but because of his father, who had, despite what Junior thought, cared for him and who had given his life helping Conn.
If Conn didn’t owe Bill Sheffield, he guessed he’d never owed anybody anything ever.
So he didn’t swat the kid across the chops and tell him to have a little respect. Instead, he kept his voice level and said, “You haven’t heard the whole message yet. Before I ride off, there was something else he wanted me to tell you.”
“Oh yeah?” Junior said with a smarmy smirk. “What’s that? That he wished he’d been a better father? Some nonsense like that?”
Conn ignored the boy’s attitude. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea what he meant. But he was very particular with the phrasing and made me memorize it word-for-word. Maybe you’ll know what he meant.”
Junior rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna tell me or not? I’m an important man in this town. I got business to attend to.”
“Your father said to tell you,” Conn said and paused, making sure he had the exact wording, which had seemed so important to Sheffield, even though it had sounded nonsensical to Conn. “He said to tell you that the yellow bird is on the gate.”
Junior Sheffield snapped his head around and gaped at Conn with obvious shock. “What?”
“That’s what he said. He said the yellow bird is on the gate.”
Something strange happened then.
This surly, disrespectful would-be tough guy burst into tears. He lifted his big hands and covered his face with shame and sobbed.
For a long time, the boy just sat there, racked with grief, howling into his hands.
Conn shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, feeling bad for Junior and his father and wondering why the phrase had had such a powerful effect on the boy.
He put a hand on Junior’s shoulder.
The boy kept crying.
Conn patted his shoulder.
Finally, Junior got control of himself and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face and blew his nose and put it back in his pocket and lifted his head, revealing a puffy-eyed face that looked both exhausted and distraught.
“He really said that?” he wanted to know. “He told you to tell me?”
Conn nodded. “I sure couldn’t have made it up.”
“I reckon that’s a fact,” Junior said. He shook his head and seemed to recover a little. He cast a surly glance at the saloon patrons, whom he didn’t seem to understand were ignoring him.
It’s tough being a young man and thinking the world is against you. No one knew that better than Conn.
“Let’s get out of here,” Junior said, clearly embarrassed and wanting to put this behind him.
“All right,” Conn said and followed the kid out of the saloon onto the street.
“Well, I should be going,” Junior said. “I’m a busy man. But… I should… thank you, Mr. Sullivan. My father…”
He trailed off and shook his head, and Conn had the sense that he’d stopped talking because he feared that if he kept going, he’d start crying again.
At least the kid was feeling something now, at least that strange phrase had penetrated his tough hide.
“Look,” Conn said, “before you go, I got one more thing to say to you.”
Junior just looked at him.
Conn took the envelope from his shirt pocket and handed it to Junior.
“What’s this?” the boy said.
“Money,” Conn said.
“Money?”
“I sold your father’s horse and other things,” Conn explained. “I wish I could have gotten his rifle for you and whatever he had in his pockets, but it’s all buried in that mine.
Junior blinked at the envelope. “Well, thank you, Mr. Sullivan.”
“There’s also a slip of paper in there. It has my name on it. And a couple places you might wire me if you need help.”
“I’ll be all right. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”
“All right,” Conn said, “but your daddy followed me right into the mouth of the earth and died trying to help me set things right, so if you ever need help, I’m your man. Whatever it is, whatever you need, if you call, I’ll come running.”