Long Road to Cheyenne (7 page)

After a long moment, Cam stepped down beside Mary, placed his fingers on Raymond’s eyelids, and closed them. “He’s gone,” he told Mary. “He was tryin’ to make his peace.”

“He thought you were Warren,” she said, then looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

Understanding, he answered the unspoken question. “I reckon that’s the truth of it, what you’re thinkin’. It all adds up to it.”

She slowly nodded. He didn’t have to spell it out. Raymond had paid Rafer to kill her husband, his own brother. That explained why Warren’s killer was not interested in his watch or his money. It was a planned assassination. She got to her feet and stood over him, staring down at the lifeless body of her brother-in-law, the brother that Warren had so looked up to. Finally she spoke softly. “I hope you go to hell.” She turned away and started to climb up the front of the pit. “Help me out of this damn hole,” she said to Cam, completely dry-eyed now. When he took her arm and gave her a boost, she said, “Take that other sack of gold. I promised I’d pay you for coming with me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied politely, “but I don’t believe we agreed on as much as there is in that sack.” Being of a more practical nature, he looked around the hole under the tent for anything else that might be of use to them. There wasn’t much of anything that they didn’t already have, so he picked up the sack of dust and climbed out behind her.

While Mary tried to comfort her two daughters, Cam pulled up the tent pegs and moved the canvas away, leaving only a square hole in the ground with Raymond’s body lying at the bottom. Mary glanced at him, refrained from questioning his actions, but asked, “When are you going to get out of those wet clothes?”

“When I’m done with buryin’ ’em,” he answered.

“I guess we should dig a grave for his brother,” she said.

“Grave’s already dug,” he replied. “All I’ve gotta do is fill it in.” He walked over then and grabbed Rafer’s body by the heels of his Spanish boots and dragged it over to the pit. He parked it at the edge of the hole, then rolled it over to drop in beside Raymond. “I think it’ll be easier on the girls when these bodies are in the ground,” he remarked as he picked up a spade and started shoveling dirt into the hole from the large mound behind it. “I think what we’ll need is a big pot of coffee after I get this done, and maybe some of that venison.” He was trying to think of things for her to do in case she was going to let her mind dwell on the tragic incident just witnessed.

It took him over an hour to get to the bottom of the dirt pile, but he wanted to finish the job as quickly as possible. When it was almost level with the ground, there was still a small mound of dirt remaining. He hesitated, thinking it was good enough, but decided to go ahead and finish it off. So he thrust the shovel back into the mound, and when he did, it snagged on what he assumed was a pine root below the ground. When he raked the dirt from around it, however, it turned out to be a canvas sack.
Well, I’ll be damned,
he thought,
they hid some of their dust under the dirt.
“Mary,” he called, “come look at this.”

By the time he shoveled away the last of the mound, he had unearthed four additional sacks, all appearing to be the same size as the three Raymond had left in the tent. The discovery of such a quantity of gold at once triggered contrasting emotions in Mary’s mind, causing her to trouble over the source of the wealth. “I don’t know,” she said, and backed away from the sacks as if they held an evil power. “I don’t know if I want that blood money. It comes from greed and murder.”

Cam stood gazing at her for a moment while he thought about what she had just said. Then he calmly spoke his mind. “Well . . .” he drew out, “I reckon we could just empty all the sacks in the stream, and give the gold back to the mountain. On the other hand, you’ve got the rest of your life and the lives of your daughters to think about. Seems to me your husband woulda wanted you to have the gold he worked so hard for.” He picked up one of the sacks as if to examine it. “You know, there ain’t no evil in gold. It can’t help what kinda person gets a hold of it. So I’m sayin’ you need to thank Warren for takin’ care of you for the rest of your life. The gold didn’t come from evildoin’. It came from your husband’s hard work.”

“You’re right, of course,” Mary admitted. “I think I just had a little holy moment there.” She picked up one of the sacks. “Thank you, Warren,” she said softly. “Your girls love you and appreciate what you have sacrificed your life for.” She cocked an eyebrow at Cam and said, “It’s a lot, but I don’t think it’s enough to take care of us all our lives.”

“This ain’t all of it,” Cam replied confidently. “I’m bettin’ there’s more hid around here somewhere.” He slowly turned in a complete circle, looking at possible places. “The way I figure it, your husband and his brother musta hit right in the middle of a strong vein of gold. I think that’s the reason they decided they needed a fort to protect against claim jumpers. Figured they could just hunker down in that hole and hold anybody off. And if they had struck it that big, they most likely were hidin’ their gold somewhere before they decided to dig that hole.”

“You may be right,” Mary said, trying now to hide the excitement that the prospects promised. “Where do you think we should look?”

“Everywhere,” he replied. “First place is that boulder he was always settin’ on.” He went immediately to the boulder in the middle of the clearing and put his shoulder against it. It wouldn’t budge, but that did not discourage him. He brought his horse into the clearing, looped a rope around its neck, then took a couple of turns around the rock. Taking hold of the bridle, he led the buckskin until the slack was out of the rope. “Come on, boy,” he encouraged. The horse hesitated when it felt the resistance, but with Cam’s encouragement, he pulled against the rope until the boulder rolled over half a turn, enough for Cam to see where it had sat. He immediately looked to see evidence of a hole, but there was nothing but hard ground. “Damn,” he muttered. “I reckon that rock’s been there longer than I thought. It’s a wonder Toby could move it.” He patted the buckskin’s broad chest and removed the rope. He looked at Mary apologetically. “That’s where I woulda buried it. I reckon I’m gonna have to do a little more lookin’.”

“You’re not going to do much of anything if you catch pneumonia,” Mary scolded. “Get out of those wet clothes.”

“They are a little chilly,” he admitted. “But they dried a little bit since I filled in that grave.”

She walked over, picked up his blanket, and handed it to him. “Here, go over behind those bushes and get out of your clothes—
everything
,” she emphasized. “I’ll put them by the fire to dry. We can look for more gold dust tomorrow. I need you well, not lying around dying of pneumonia.” He did as she instructed and returned to surrender his clothes. “I’ll get you a bar of soap and a towel,” she said. “You might as well take a bath while you’re at it.” When he started to protest, she said, “It’s not gonna hurt you.”

He had to confess that it had been a while since he had stripped down and had a good bath. He wondered if he was starting to smell a little rank. He hadn’t noticed it himself. Maybe women have a sharper sense of smell.
What the hell?
he thought.
I’m already freezing. A little more won’t kill me.
He took the soap and towel and walked around the bend in the stream where it split to flow on either side of a large rock, tall enough to hide him from the camp.
Made to order,
he thought as he placed his blanket and towel on top of the rock and went to work with the bar of lye soap.

It occurred to him that naked and unarmed, he was now more vulnerable than he had been when Rafer rode into their camp. The thought encouraged him to hurry. He would have, anyway, because of the cold water he bathed in. Finished, he shivered as he stepped up on a small rock to reach for the towel and almost fell backward when the rock moved under his foot. “Damn,” he cursed, thinking that he could have been on his behind in the stream and his towel soaked with him. Hurrying to dry enough to put the blanket around him, he was suddenly struck by a thought from out of nowhere. He stepped back in the water and reached down to test the small rock he had stepped on before. It moved, but not easily. “What the hell?” he muttered, put his towel and blanket back on the large rock, and bent down to get a good grip on the smaller one. It resisted, but moved a little, so he put some muscle behind it and pulled it away to reveal a hollowed-out pocket in the large boulder. Inside the pocket lay Mary Bishop’s fortune, in a double row of canvas sacks. Anxious to give Mary the news, he splashed ashore and started to yell for her to come, before realizing he was completely nude. He stormed back into the chilly water and snatched his towel from the rock, then ran around the bend barefooted to tell her of his find.

Mary was in shock and close to fainting when informed that she was now a very rich woman. She stood on the bank of the stream, her eyes wide open and her mouth agape, as Cam waded back and forth from the rock to the bank, carrying two sacks at a time while clutching the towel around him and trying to walk carefully on the rocky streambed. Grace counted each pair of sacks as they came out of the water, while Emma seemed fascinated more by Cam’s struggles with the towel. “Well, that’s the last of ’em,” he finally confirmed, after squatting down in the cold water again to feel up under the rock. “How many is it, Grace?”

“Twenty-two,” Grace replied confidently.

“Well, I ain’t much good with figurin’ numbers,” Cam said to Mary. “But last I heard, gold was tradin’ at around twenty, twenty-one dollars an ounce, so that’s gotta add up to a good sum of money.”

She stared at him as if he had spoken a foreign language for a long moment before she brought her emotions under control. “Oh my God, my God,” she finally uttered, and pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming. In command of her senses again, she knelt on the ground and started scratching out numbers in the dirt, using a stick for a pencil. Her mind went blank for a moment, and she had to ask, “How many ounces in a pound?”

Cam hesitated. “Sixteen, I think.”

“Sixteen!” she exclaimed, remembering then. “Sixteen, that’s right.” She resumed her scratching in the dirt until she dropped the stick and sat back on her heel, hardly able to believe her figures. “I don’t know if that’s right, but even if it isn’t, there’s a lot more money there than I ever believed existed.”

“I’d say your husband took pretty good care of you,” Cam said, enjoying her good fortune almost as much as she. He could not resist the temptation to scan the trees on both sides of them to make sure no one else had observed the discovery. Then he got to his feet and wrapped his blanket around him, and tied two corners of it in a loose knot. With both hands free, he loaded his arms up with as many of the five-pound bags as he could manage and began moving the gold to the campsite. She came behind him with as many as she could carry, followed by Grace and Emma with one bag each.

When the gold sacks had all been moved to a spot where they could keep an eye on them, Mary helped Cam place some tree branches over the pile. There was no pretense that the gold was sufficiently hidden, but at least it didn’t stand out so obviously. When that was done, Cam at last had the chance to put his clothes on. They were still a little damp, but he had a change of dry underwear and socks, so he was not uncomfortable. With the excitement of finding the large cache of gold, damp britches claimed very little of his concern.

Settled down enough by then to make fresh coffee, Mary sat by the fire and tried to think about what her new financial status would mean for her and her daughters. It was hard not to feel some guilt for the means by which she had gained her wealth, but the enormousness of the treasure pushed thoughts of grief to the back of her mind. Besides, enough time had passed since Warren’s death that she felt he would understand.

Watching her intently as he sipped the hot coffee, Cam could see the deep expression of concentration in her eyes, and knew she was far away from there in her mind. “You figured out what you’re gonna do now?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” she answered, “but I’m thinking about it.”

“You still goin’ back to Fort Collins?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated, still thinking hard. “I guess I will. I don’t know of any place else I wanna go. There isn’t any other place that I know much about,” she added. “I’m thinking that I might want to build a rooming house. I could run a rooming house, and it would be something that should support me for the rest of my life.”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Cam said. He looked down at Emma, who had seated herself beside him. “Don’t you think so, Skeeter? You could help, couldn’t you?” He received a shy giggle in return. Back to her mother then, he remarked, “You might not have to worry about runnin’ a roomin’ house. A fine-lookin’ woman like yourself, a rich widow, why, you’ll have every man in town knockin’ on your door.”

“Is that a fact?” Mary said with a chuckle. “Well, a fat lot of good it will do them, because the last thing I’m looking for is a husband.”

More serious concerns came to mind then, when he glanced at the stack of gold dust sacks under the branches. “If you’re sure about Fort Collins, I reckon we’d best get started pretty soon before somebody else shows up here who mighta known they were pullin’ pay dirt outta this claim.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed. Another thought then came to her. “You know, of course, that you’ll have a share in the gold. Without you, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here drinking coffee.”

He smiled. “No, ma’am, I don’t figure I’ve got a share in your husband’s gold. That dust belongs to you. Besides, we already had a deal on what my pay was gonna be. I just wanna make sure you get where you’re goin’ safely.”

She smiled back at him, the appreciation clearly showing in her eyes. “I should have known you’d say that. I’m going to pay you for what you’ve done, and it’s going to be a lot more than forty dollars.” She paused when he shook his head, objecting. “You only agreed to bring me here, so you can just put me on the stage in Custer City, and the girls and I can manage from there.”

“No, ma’am,” he insisted. “I can’t rest my mind till I know you’re back home in Fort Collins. If anybody got wind of a woman carryin’ that much gold on the stage, there’d be a holdup for sure. I don’t think you oughta take the stage. There’re too many outlaws watching the road for stagecoaches coming out of the Black Hills as it is. I think you’d be better off goin’ horseback. It’d take longer, but I’d have a better chance of gettin’ you home safe.”

“You’d take us all the way back to Fort Collins?” she asked.

“I would,” he replied.

“I knew you would,” she said, nodding confidently. “At least, I hoped you would.”

“I reckon I’d better rig up a packsaddle for that gold,” he said, and got up to take a closer look at the gray gelding that Rafer had ridden. It was a sturdy-looking horse, dappled all over its body, with black stockings. The oddest thing about it was the dark half circle under one eye that gave the appearance that the horse was glaring at you. He took some extra time to consider the three-quarter, double-rigged saddle with silver inlaid on the oversized horn and along the back of the cantle. It was not a Mexican saddle, but it had been made to resemble one, and maybe to match Rafer’s Mexican boots. There was a special-made rifle scabbard attached to it, and when Cam drew the weapon, he realized it was a Sharps, the model commonly used to hunt buffalo. The comment that Bob Allen had made came back to him, the man that killed Mary’s husband had killed him with a Sharps rifle.

He had no desire to swap his saddle for Rafer’s, even though it probably cost the previous owner a pretty penny, but he was reluctant to discard it. He could most likely sell it, maybe at Fort Laramie, or Cheyenne. He could use the money, for he honestly felt no claim on Mary’s fortune. He decided to see if he could rig a pack for the gold dust, fashioning it around the saddle. It would have to be secure, for it would carry a little over a hundred pounds.

While he worked with the packs, Mary, with the girls’ help, wrapped the smoked venison in preparation to take it with them. Everyone worked with a sense of urgency, for no particular reason other than a feeling that it was important not to remain at the camp with that quantity of gold out of the ground. Already there were too many people who knew that Raymond and Warren Bishop had been sitting on a rich claim. Cam wanted Mary and the girls to be ready to ride out of there early the next morning.

•   •   •

“I’m tellin’ you, they’re fixin’ on movin’ outta there,” Everett Jones whispered to Cecil Painter.

“Most likely first thing in the mornin’,” Cecil replied. Both men pulled back from the bank of berry bushes from which they had watched the activities going on in the camp after hearing gunshots. It was the same spot from which they had kept an eye on Raymond Bishop before. “That’s one helluva big pile of gold dust they stacked up under that brush. I knew that son of a bitch was settin’ on a pile of gold. How much you reckon it’s worth?”

“I don’t know,” Everett answered, “but it’s a helluva lot, and we oughta have a share of it. Hell, them folks fixin’ to tote it off ain’t done a lick of work to earn it.”

“Whaddaya think we oughta do about it?” Cecil asked. “We could walk up and ask ’em to give us a share, and say ‘pretty please,’ but I don’t think that would do the trick. Me and you has been workin’ this claim for a year, and gettin’ nothin’ for our efforts, while they’ve been gettin’ rich. We’re gonna have to decide how bad we want that gold, and if we’re ready to do somethin’ about it.”

Everett knew full well what Cecil was thinking, and it was a tough decision to make. “I don’t know,” he said, after a few seconds’ hesitation. “I don’t like the idea of shootin’ those two little girls—or their mama, either.”

Cecil didn’t like the idea any better than his partner, but they had been following gold strikes all over the Rockies with no luck other than grub money. Sitting downstream from the Bishop brothers had been as close as they had ever come to a big strike. And now it appeared that it had played out and they had come up empty again. Otherwise, why would those folks leave it? “Dammit!” he blurted. “We got as much right to that gold as they do—more right, in fact.” He was reluctant to put it into words, but he finally spat it out. “If we do it, we got to kill ’em all. We can’t leave nobody to tell about it.”

“I ain’t never shot nobody,” Everett confessed.

“Well, I’ve got to know if you’re gonna do your part or not. I ain’t havin’ this whole thing on my shoulders. If we’re partners, then we gotta be partners all the way.” When Everett still hesitated, Cecil went on. “I ain’t never shot nobody, neither. But damn it, the years are runnin’ out for me and you. And it looks like we’ve been handed the only chance we’re ever gonna get to pay us for all the nameless gulches we’ve groveled in, sweatin’ out the summers and freezin’ our behinds off in the winter.” Still Everett hesitated. “Damn it! It ain’t right! Those people don’t have no right to any of that gold, especially that hired gun she brought with her. It’s the same as if they stole it from us. I don’t know why we oughta feel bad about killin’ them. Damn it, they killed ol’ Raymond, didn’t they?” He naturally assumed that the gunshots they had heard had come from the man riding with the woman and her children.

“I don’t know,” Everett muttered with a shake of his head. “I reckon you’re right. I just don’t like the idea of shootin’ women and children.”

“Ain’t nobody gonna know about it but us,” Cecil said. “We’d be doin’ the world a favor by gettin’ rid of that gunman, and that woman don’t deserve to live after what she done to her own brother-in-law. It’s a shame about the young’uns, but they’ll be better off dead, instead of bein’ left alone in these mountains.” He waited for Everett’s response. “There’s enough gold there for me and you to live out the rest of our lives as rich men.”

“Ah, damn,” Everett finally muttered, “I’m already goin’ to hell, anyway.”

•   •   •

Cam awoke to a light drizzle sometime before daylight. It was not totally unexpected, for a heavy shroud of dark clouds had settled upon the mountaintops the night before. As a precaution, he had fashioned a makeshift cover over Mary and the girls, using most of the canvas that had been Raymond’s tent. For his own protection, he had spread his rain slicker over him. It had given him adequate protection until rain began to form pockets in the folds so that they began to find avenues into the blanket underneath. When it became too bothersome, he got up and put the slicker on, figuring he might as well get the horses ready to travel. When he walked by the shelter he had built for the girls, they appeared to be snug and dry, so he decided to let them sleep. They were likely to have a long, hard day ahead of them, especially if the rain continued.

He saddled the horses, but waited to load the packhorses until Mary got up. She crawled out from under the canvas just as he finished pulling Toby’s girth strap up tight. “Ugh,” Mary muttered disdainfully, reached back under the canvas, pulled her hat out, and perched it upon her head. “Looks like you were right about the rain. I hope it isn’t like this all day.” She looked up at the dark clouds, then gazed around the campsite after a quick glance at the stack of gold dust under the branches. “It’s a little early, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “I don’t have a watch, so I don’t know exactly what time it is, but it’s a while before sunup. I figured we’d get an early start if you want to, and we’d eat some breakfast when we stop to rest the horses. You could make some coffee to get the sleep cobwebs outta your head, though, if you want to. I’ll build you a fire in that little hollow under the side of the hill yonder.” Having found ashes there, he figured the hollow had been used for fires in rainy weather before when they didn’t want to use the stove inside the tent.

“That sounds like a good idea,” she remarked. “I think I need it this morning. I can build the fire, though, and get the coffee on. You can go ahead and load the horses. I’ll get the girls up whenever we’re ready to go.”

He hesitated briefly before Mary’s fancy suitcases. “They’re going,” she informed him. “I’m not leaving them behind.” She started to turn away, but paused. “And put some of that canvas over them.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, shaking his head as if bewildered.

By the time he had loaded the sacks of gold dust on the gray gelding, and covered them with pieces of the tent in an attempt to disguise them, a thin gleam of morning light crept under the heavy clouds that still enshrouded the mountaintops. Mary roused the girls out and Cam folded the remaining piece of canvas over the load on the sorrel packhorse, taking care that Mary’s fancy luggage was protected from the rain. Seating Grace on the bay, and Emma up behind her, he looked around the camp to make sure he had left nothing behind. Mary, not waiting to be helped up, was in the saddle waiting for him to lead them back down the trail.