The Trail West (19 page)

Out at the Hoskins’ station it was coming noon, and all three kids, Julia included, were in the kitchen, sitting down at the big worktable. They weren’t complete, though. Somebody was still missing.

Buckshot Bob had been gone since the morning after Monahan and Sweeney had left. Mae hadn’t explained his absence in any detail, and seemed just as puzzled as the kids, although she tried to put up a good, solid front, saying he’d had to go into Phoenix to pick up a piece of harness.

But Julia had seen the lie right from the beginning. Why had he traveled clear into Phoenix when stages went there, then came back out, regular as clockwork? One of the drivers could have picked up a piece of harness as easily as he, and he wouldn’t have had to lose days and days of work time.

So where on earth had he gone?

Julia could buy the Phoenix part, because they had all seen him ride off in that direction. Of course, he could have changed his heading once he got clear of them, but Phoenix was as good as anyplace else. For a start.

But what had tempted him away? For all she’d seen of him, he was content to be out on the station with his family. He was proud of his livestock, his wife and kids, and the home they’d built on the Old Mormon Trail. He seemed content. He actually seemed happy!

She had a lot to think about as she ate her lunch.

 

 

Sweeney woke before Monahan. In fact, he had shaved, changed his underwear, and got clear ready for the new day before the old cowboy showed the first signs of rousing with a twitch of his stockinged foot.

“Well, good mornin’, sunshine,” Sweeney said.

Monahan growled softly, then cracked open one eye. “What the hell time is it? And who you callin’ sunshine?”

Sweeney snorted out a laugh. “It’s nine-thirty. And it don’t mean nothin’. It’s just somethin’ my mama used to say, bless her heart.”

Monahan sat up and began searching for his boots. He found them, and put the first one on. “Well, it wasn’t somethin’ she’d have called me.” He thumped his heel on the floor, seating the boot on his foot, then picked up the other. He let the second one swing between his fingers. “Nine-thirty, you say?”

“Yeah. Why? You got a pressin’ appointment or somethin’?”

Monahan chuckled. “Not so’s you’d notice. But I’ve gotta get to the bank, and then I’m meetin’ somebody for lunch.”

Sweeney felt his face screw up. “You’re meetin’ somebody for lunch?”

Monahan ceased dangling the boot, and stomped it onto his foot. “I can eat, can’t I?”

Sweeney shrugged. “Didn’t know you knew anybody in Phoenix to eat with. Wanna have some breakfast with me?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” said Monahan, taking to his feet. He headed toward the door. “It’s George Miller I’m havin’ lunch with. Used to work with him up in Wyoming.” When Sweeney raised a brow, he added, “Ran into him last night, down to the livery.”

Monahan stepped through the doorway and into the hall, with Blue trying to fit through at the same time. Sweeney followed, shaking his head at the dog. It seemed strange to him Monahan should remember Miller all on his own and right out of the blue. He’d never done that since Sweeney had been with him. Well, except for Buckshot Bob Hoskins and Vince George, anyway. Those two he’d remembered just fine.

Sweeney just didn’t know how the old cowboy kept things straight! It was a mystery to him.

He went on down to a nearest cantina, trailing in Monahan’s—well, actually the dog’s—wake and had himself a nice big breakfast of scrambled eggs and warm tortillas and cactus jelly.

Once Monahan had paid for the meal and they had wandered outside, he excused himself to go to the bank.

“You got your voucher on you?” Sweeney asked, hoping Monahan hadn’t misplaced the paper and then forgotten.

Dooley grinned. “Why you bein’ so worrisome, boy?”

Sweeney didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re actin’ funny! Because you’re a different person from one minute to the next!”

Monahan responded by laughing and digging into his pocket. He pulled out a wad of bills, which he placed in Sweeney’s reluctant hands. “That there’s ’bout half o’ what I took off them Baylor boys. That should ease your mind, son.”

The gesture was so unexpected that before Sweeney thought what to say, the old cowboy had disappeared down the sidewalk, headed for the bank.

He walked a good half mile before he came to the bank. It was the biggest he’d seen in a while and located in what he guessed was called the business district. Once again, he felt his pocket. The wallet was still there. He paused before he went through the door to check once again. The voucher was still there. He read it.

It was dated September 4, 1869, in Twin Pines, South Dakota, and signed by Marshal Tobin. Monahan remembered him. He could almost picture him . . . if he closed his eyes.

But the important thing was that he was at a good-sized bank, he had his voucher, and he was going to cash it, by God. He opened the door and walked inside.

The guard eyed him, but apparently didn’t see much of a threat. At least, after half a minute he went back to his newspaper. Monahan walked on up to a teller—there were four—and slid his voucher under the partition. “Like to cash this in,” he said casually.

The clerk, young and clean shaven, smiled and said, “Yes sir,” then looked at the paper. His brows rose up until Monahan could have sworn they were going to meet his hairline!

He said, “You all right there, boy?”

The teller gulped and said, “Y-yes. Did you know that this paper is three years old, sir?”

Monahan narrowed his brows. “I do. Why? Ain’t it no good anymore?”

“Oh! Yes, sir. It certainly is good!” The clerk was clearly flustered. “It’s just that, well, there were three Baylor brothers to begin with, right?”

Now, Dooley was the confused party. “Yeah . . ?”

“Well, I just had reason to check back through some old posters, and three years back, the reward was the same for all three Baylors. They were all the same amount, I mean.”

“Yeah?”

“This Marshal Tobin,” the clerk said. “He’s somewhere up in South Dakota. Is that a pretty small town? Somewhere that’s kinda outta the circle?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, you know. Someplace that isn’t exactly up to date on the news. A place that doesn’t have a telegraph or anything.”

“Well, I’d guess you’d say that Twin Pines is pretty outta the way,” Monahan allowed. As he recalled, it wasn’t even on the stage line.

The teller nodded as if he’d known it all long. “Just what I figured,” he said smugly. “Now, accordin’ to what I read, those boys were worth a different amount right after August the thirty-first.”

“What’s that mean to me?” Monahan was bored. He wanted his money, and was quickly running out of patience.

The teller smiled, wide and toothy, if not terribly white. “’Bout a thousand dollars, I’d say. Hang on a minute.”

Monahan waited while the clerk disappeared into the manager’s office, then came out and went into the vault. He came out carrying a sack, which was heavy by the way he handled it. Monahan knew what it was right off.

“Gold,” said the clerk with a look of satisfaction. He opened the sack and began to count it out, measuring a small portion on a little scale he brought up from under the desk for just that reason.

Monahan felt like jumping out in the middle of the big room, grabbing a pillar post, and dancing a jig right around it, just out of joy. But he kept his features calm and said, “What reason you say you had to be lookin’ through the old posters? Seems like a pretty strong coincidence to me.”

The clerk looked up from his scales. “Funny, ain’t it? Fact is, these skunky Baylors are all gone, officially, as of today. It’s not often I get to cross off a whole family of bank robbin’ killers in one day, and for so much money!” His eyes went back down to his scales. “Boy howdy! I’ll bet this sets a record for the most monies ever paid in one day! Bet it comes close, anyway.”

The corner of Monahan’s mouth ticked up. “Oh, I doubt that.”

The clerk stacked the gold—mostly in coins, with nuggets and a little bottle of dust—in front of Monahan. “There’s one thousand, six hundred and twenty-five dollars, sir.” He pushed a piece of paper through the opening at the bottom of the partition. “If you’d sign that receipt for me, please?”

Monahan took the proffered pen from his hand and signed. And then, he initialed another paper that said the reason for the bank having paid out the extra money over that for which the voucher was made. “Don’t know how you fellers keep all this straight. Can you gimme an envelope for the nuggets?”

“Certainly!”

While the boy was digging for an envelope, Monahan asked, “You say you cashed out all the Baylors this very day?”

“That I did.”

“Who cashed in the other ones?”

“A feller.” The clerk slid out an envelope. “There you are.”

“Did he have a young gal with him, ’bout thirteen?”

The clerk pursed his lips. “No. No, I believe he was all alone.”

“How long ago did he leave?”

“Ten minutes, maybe,” said the clerk, who was looking more and more suspicious. “Hey, why are you asking?”

“You’d best be worried about yourself, son. I figure you just paid the wrong person a whole lot of money.” Monahan snatched up his gold, stuffed his pockets, and hurried back to the main entrance, where he stopped by the security guard. “’Bout ten minutes ago, you see a feller leave here?”

The guard looked at him funny. “Folks leave here all the time, buddy. In fact, just as many as come in.”

“This one was carrying ’bout thirty-two hundred and fifty,” Monahan said.

“Oh,
that
one!” A look of realization crossed the guard’s face, and he smiled. “The feller hummin’ and dancin’. Sure, I recall him, all right. He was shakin’ hands with ever’body who crossed his path, celebratin’ his good fortune. Accidentally run himself into the Baylor boys, he said, and come out on top!”

There were a lot of things Monahan wanted to say right then, but he didn’t have time. He just asked, “Where’d he go?”

The clerk pointed up the street. “Said he was goin’ to Driscoll’s Bar, and that he was buyin’.”

 

 

Sweeney sat in Driscoll’s Bar, thinking over the past few days and what had happened to him—and the others—and what, if anything, it had done for him in a positive way. He couldn’t say any of it had adversely affected him. He’d survived it all, hadn’t he? Of course, he’d been shot at a lot—his shoulder was witness to that!—but nobody had drilled his ticker. He guessed he’d been pretty dadgum lucky, all things considered.

He guessed he couldn’t be mad at Dooley Monahan for carrying him—hadn’t he practically pleaded with the old cowboy to take him along?—or at Julia Cooperman. She was pretty much innocent, although part of him wanted to blame her. She was a handy scapegoat.

But what was she the scapegoat for?

Danged if he knew. He ordered another beer and settled back to stew in his own juices a little longer.

Monahan walked quietly into Driscoll’s, sidled up to the bar, and ordered a beer. Before the bartender slid it down in front of him, he saw Buckshot Bob at the other end, joking with two cowboys he took to be town dudes dressed up for the day.

Monahan took a sip of his beer and stared toward Bob, waiting to be recognized. It didn’t take long. Fear washed over the man’s face, answering Monahan’s question before it was asked. He quickly tamped it down and flashed a big, innocent smile.

Smiling back, Monahan raised his glass and made a mock toast in the air. Bob started over toward him, carrying his own beer. His pockets bulged with the gold coins he was carrying.

But they aren’t his,
Dooley thought.
They belong to Julia.
Buckshot Bob had no call to be in a saloon, even if it was a nice one, spending her money on men she didn’t know. He had given his word that he’d bring her along to claim her reward. That part of his promise he’d broken for certain, and it sure looked like he was going to break his word straight down the line.

But Monahan couldn’t prove Bob was planning on stealing all of Julia’s money, not unless he got a confession out of him. He seriously doubted Bob was stupid enough to just give him one.

Monahan was torn. Buckshot Bob was his memory. He had nearly ten years of Monahan’s life, condensed into bite-sized chunks he could reel out like so much fish line any time it was asked for, and the old cowboy surely did appreciate it. But he didn’t appreciate it so much from a fellow who was stealing Miss Julia’s money, stealing money from a thirteen-year-old kid when it was all she had in the world. Sure, he was giving her lodging, but to Monahan’s mind, that was just something you
did
, wasn’t it?

“Well, howdy, Dooley! What brings you to Driscoll’s?” Bob asked, his face as innocent as a baby’s.

Monahan wanted to slug him, but held himself in check. “Followed you in.” He took a drink of his beer. “I was just up at the bank.”

There was a slight tic in Bob’s smile, but not one anyone could have sworn meant anything. It might have been the effects of a bad bite of hardboiled egg. “The bank?” he said, just a little thinner than normal.

That, too, Monahan could chalk up to a bad choice in the culinary department. “Where you come by all that gold you was payin’ the bartender with, Bob?”

Casually, with his back to the bar, Bob leaned his elbow on the bar and hooked his boot heel on the rail. “Oh, I had ’er saved up for a rainy day. Don’t get myself into town much as I’d like. Ready for another beer?”

“I’m fine.” Monahan just asked Bob, right out, “You come in to cash Julia’s vouchers?”

Bob showed only a hint of hesitation, then said, “I surely did. Got it right here.” He slapped his pockets. “That’s a helluva lotta money, Dooley.” He lowered his tone. “They give it to me all in gold!”

Monahan nodded. He leaned back against the bar, too, casually aping Bob’s position. All he had to do at this juncture was figure out how to get word to Sweeney, three-quarters of a mile away through the confusing city, to get down there on the double and babysit Buckshot Bob.

Monahan needn’t have worried, for Sweeney was just up the street, wandering along with the dog lazily following in great loops and circles. He stopped in front of the milliner’s shop, staring through the window at the cockeyed things women put on their heads, moving on only when the saleswomen tried to sell him one through the glass.

He and the dog ambled on down the street, stopping to help a woman burdened with packages walk from one side of the street to the other and load them into her buggy. The dog wandered off during the loading to chase some goats in a weedy lot up the street, and that was when Monahan saw him. He’d just turned to look out the window, and there he was!

“Just a minute, Bob,” Monahan said, shoving his beer mug at him. “I’ll be jiggered if that ain’t my Blue! Hold on there a second.” He slipped through the swinging doors as quick as you please, and shouted the dog’s name. Before he knew it, the dog had crossed the street at a mad gallop and was jumping up and down beside him, his whole body doing a double-time wag.

That caught Sweeney’s attention, all right. He helped the lady up into her buggy, doffed his hat, and joined Monahan and Blue at a jog. He skidded to a stop in front of Driscoll’s.

Monahan said, “Boy howdy, Butch! What brings you out this way?”

Sweeney explained that he hadn’t had anything else to do, and he and Blue had just started window shopping. “And we ended up here,” he finished with a shrug.

“Well, we got us a little problem . . .”

Just then, the door swung open and Buckshot Bob stepped out onto the walk.

While Sweeney tried to wipe the surprised look off his face, Monahan explained that he’d just run into Bob, and Bob invited them both in to have a drink. Sweeney didn’t hesitate in his acceptance. Apparently, a free drink was a welcome offer any time of the day.

Monahan checked his pocket watch before he followed them inside. It read ten forty-seven, giving him less than an hour and a quarter to figure out Buckshot Bob and hike another half mile up the pike to meet George Miller—good old George Miller!—for lunch at the Addams Hotel.

By twelve-thirty, Sweeney was halfway through a roasted prairie hen, and wondering if Monahan had taken leave of what little remained of his senses. He wasn’t dining with them, preferring to take his lunch with his friend George over at the Addams, but he had filled him in on Buckshot Bob and his alleged thievery—alleged, because Sweeney hadn’t seen one thing that made him think Bob had suddenly come in to money. He’d ordered the next to cheapest thing on the menu, and currently sat across the table, fiddling listlessly with a drying tortilla.

“So, you stayin’ at a hotel?” Sweeney asked.

Bob shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. Reckon it’s too late in the day to start back now?”

“Might be. Why don’t you come on over an’ stay at the place where me and Dooley took us a room? Place is clean, anyway. Ol’ Dooley’s real keen on a clean place.” Actually, Monahan had never said one way or the other, but Sweeney figured it served to draw out the conversation.

Not by much, though. Bob shoved back from the table, which disturbed Blue, who had been napping beneath it. His head poked out from beneath the tablecloth and whimpered, eyeing the bird left on Sweeney’s plate.

The young cowboy stared the dog in the eye. “Ain’t much.”

Blue let out a note that started up high and traveled down someplace below the cellar before it stopped, and then he let out a long, needy sigh.

Sweeney made a resigned face and let out a sigh. “Right. Just let me take out the bones, first.”

While he struggled with the tiny carcass and Blue licked his chops, Buckshot Bob sat back in his chair and lit a smoke. “That’d be real good of you and Dooley to take me in tonight, but I think I oughta be hittin’ the road.”

Sweeney tossed the first meat down to Blue. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, his attention back on the carcass. He was pretty certain the wing bones were too puny to hurt Blue, so he just ripped the little wing off and tossed it to him. “You be careful with that, now.” He turned back to Bob. “It’s getting’ too late to think about startin’ back now. I think you’d best bide out to the Russell Hotel with us.”

Bob slowly shook his head. “Nope. Think I’d better be gettin’ on my way. It’s a long piece out to the ranch for a man ridin’ alone.”

Sweeney glanced out the window, and saw Monahan and another fellow tying a horse at the rail. “Well, I guess I’ll let you talk it out with Dooley.” He tipped his head toward the window. “He’s comin’ right now.”

 

 

Julia stood up from the kitchen table with a purpose in mind. She did her part with the cleaning-up chores from lunch, then excused herself and wandered outside. Everything was quiet at the stage stop—everything but her.

She scooped up her saddlebags—she’d put them out under the back stoop earlier in the day—and made her way to the barn where she found Parnell dozing in his stall. That was one good thing for Buckshot Bob—he’d let her take really good care of her horse since she’d been there.

But that didn’t make up for what she’d discovered when she’d looked in her hidey hole this morning. There was a place in the girls’ room, in the corner down by the floor, where part of the baseboard came up like a secret panel to expose a little nook where she imagined previous tenants had hidden their valuables from marauding Apache or bandits. It was the place where she had put her vouchers, along with the other papers she’d been given in Yuma. But the vouchers weren’t there anymore. She had taken every last paper out of the hidey hole along with every last broken piece of toy and each scrap of torn doll clothing, but they weren’t there.

She knew who had them, all right. As far as she was concerned, the missing vouchers had Buckshot Bob’s name written all over them, if you could write on something that had gone missing.

It was then that she had made up her mind. She didn’t know her way around, but she thought she’d learned enough about camping in the open to get her to Phoenix. At least, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Phoenix was east of there, and that only one road led that way.

And so she saddled up Parnell and tied her saddlebags on behind. She took water and a couple of measures of grain, led him clear of the barn, and set out with nobody seeing her except young Robbie.

“Where you goin’?” the boy called to her from the front yard.

“Gonna go find your daddy,” she called back. “Tell your mama not to worry, okay?”

Robbie nodded, she waved, and that was that.

The second she saw him go back inside the house, she urged Parnell into a quick canter that ate up the road, and soon left the station behind.

 

 

After lunch, Monahan, Sweeney, Buckshot Bob, and George Miller, who’d given Monahan a ride down from the Addams Hotel, all walked up to the bank where the old cowboy made certain Bob opened a savings account for Miss Julia, and then put her money—every single cent that he still had on him, anyway—in it. Miraculously, he was only about twenty dollars short. Monahan made up the difference out of his own pocket.

The clerk made up a passbook for Julia, and Monahan took possession of it, saying that he’d hold it for her. Bob tried to fight him on it, but when even George Miller agreed that Dooley should have possession, Bob gave up. It had finally become obvious to him that everybody was wise to what he had done—they were just too gracious to accuse him out loud—and that he’d best shut up about it.

Monahan had decided to set out west the first thing in the morning and take it to her himself. It hadn’t occurred to him what Sweeney was going to do, but George Miller had signed on for the ride, saying he was going to California anyway. George was good enough company for him.

After a good dinner downstairs in the hotel dining room, Monahan, Sweeney, and Bob retired early. Night fell, and Buckshot Bob wasn’t very happy about the situation. but Monahan figured there wasn’t too much Bob could do about it.

Morning was going to come all too soon.

 

 

Out on the trail, Julia had long since stopped for the day, led Parnell off the trail, and made camp. The sounds of the desert spooked her at first, and she pined for the comfort of Monahan’s company, and for that of Blue, who often curled up next to her for the night when they were out on the trail.

But she made supper and ate, despite her loneliness, and after a few hours, the sounds of the desert no longer bothered her. Well, most of them. She nearly jumped out of her skin when an owl hooted, and then punched herself in the shoulder for being so jumpy.

She hoped Mae wasn’t fussing over her. She knew Meggie probably was, but it couldn’t be helped. She needed to do this, needed to track down Bob and get her money back before he spent it all on himself. Or before he spent it on women besides Mae. Shame on him, anyway!

She fell asleep trying to figure out how in the world Buckshot Bob had found her hidey hole.