falcon and wolf 15

 

Chapter 15

 

Wolf went back to consult with Richardson and Mortensen.

“We could support Luke better if we had some kind of heavy shipment that’s something we control,” he said.

“Careful, Injun, you forgot the Cherokee patois,” said Mortensen.

“Me big dumb Injun, no talk fancy, but heap damn good plotter,” said Wolf. “Luke’s been beating some of them for passing remarks about him being tricked out like a woman, so if we can take them while they are still sore…

“Gold found again in Ten Ghosts mine,” said Richardson. “And you two paid to protect it. That way no innocents in the caboose. Loaded in Lee’s Drift.”

“An old cache left by a miner,” said Wolf. “Secretly refined by him. It’ll attract them more than ore.”

“So we wait for Whitey to collect Luke’s clothes…” said Mortenson.

 

The trunk of clothes had been deposited in the Sheriff’s office; and Whitey had planned to use the blackmail held over Richardson to retrieve it. However, he came in through the back door of the jail house, unaware that Mrs. Richardson had been roped in again to help, by watching the back door and banging on the wall to her husband’s office when she saw Whitey make his furtive way within.

 

“HOW much?” Mortensen made his voice squawk in apparent shock.

Whitey froze, listening.

“Thirty thousand dollars,” said Richardson.  “It’s been refined; the old miner who was caching it had his own little smelter going, unbeknownst to anyone. He’s dead, so there’s no asking him about his motives, but it belongs to the owners of the old Ten Ghost mine, and they want it shipped to Portland.”

“And they’ll pay us to guard it,” said Wolf. “If they keep it secret, it travel safer.”

“Yes,” said Mortensen. “Put a label ‘geologic samples’ on it.”

“Too late, word has got out,” said Richardson. “If you ride over to Lee’s Drift, it’ll be in the down train arriving at midday tomorrow.”

“It better pay well,” growled Wolf.

 

Whitey Jacobs slipped out again, and lurked, to watch the two bounty hunters leave the office and set off on their horses to cross the ridge to Lee’s Drift, a ride of some two hours. He went back into the back of the jailhouse, and helped himself to Luke’s trunk as Baby-Face Bellamy. He would be in trouble if he did not get it to the hideout, especially with this news. 

He rode into the hideout, with the trunk almost falling off the mule he brought to carry it.

“Barney! Barney, there’s a shipment of thirty thousand dollars in gold!” he cried, shrilly.

This got the attention of all the bandits.

Whitey told his tale, and Luke hid jubilation. That overheard conversation was aimed at him.

“Did they seriously suggest sending it marked ‘geologic samples?’” he asked.

“Yes, what of it?” said Whitey.

“It gives me an idea,” said Luke. “A young graduate, very serious, wearing spectacles, with a box of geologic samples and wanting them cared for in the caboose.”

“Hell, you could likely even ride in the caboose, and take out the guards at your leisure,” said Barney. “Whitey, you go on the train, and pull the cord; same place as last time, just before the viaduct. And we’ll stick to the same drill, my lads there to deter anyone else. We can get creative once we’ve seen you learn to work with my men, Bellamy.”

“You’re the boss,” said Luke. “An eleventh share of thirty thousand beats a thousand for the raising of a Sunday School house. And that would be pushing it.”

“What is an eleventh share of thirty thousand?” asked Whitey.

“Two thousand  seven hundred and twenty five, or thereabouts,” said Luke.

“My, all that book-learnin’s good for sump’n,” said one Red Maguire. “He cal’ated that all in his head.”

“Unless he’s lying to make sure and confuse us,” said Carver.

“I made it the same,” said Magree. “Don’t start.”

Luke opened his trunk, and began to transform himself.  A neat suit, just a little shiny where it was worn, a string tie, and a pair of shoes with one built up sole.

“What’s that for?” asked Whitey.

“Gives me a slight limp and allows me to carry a cane,” said Luke. “And the cane is a swordstick. A nice, silent way to kill those bounty-killers.”

“You got to get both,” said Magree.

“I’ll have an asthma attack,” said Luke.  “One of them will likely come over, and he’s gone, and the other? Hold up your hat, Whitey.”

Whitey did so, and a small but deadly throwing knife hit it in the centre.

“Shite, I didn’t even see you get it out,” said Whitey.

“The swiftness of the hand deceives the eye,” said Luke.

“You sound like a snake oil salesman,” said Barney.

“Have you ever considered how a snake oil salesman attracts attention, and diverts it?” said Luke. “From, say, a jailhouse, to bust out someone?”

“And some of you ornery dogs wonder why I took this boy into the gang?” yelled Barney.

Luke smiled an austere and enigmatic smile. This was happening too fast, and he would not have time to confer with Wolf.

He picked up a shovel and set off towards a bush.

“Got the shits from fear?” Sneered Carver. It was less effective with a bandaged head.

“I want to be comfortable,” said Luke. He had noticed a ‘chimney’ in the side of the valley, and took himself within it, climbing with speed to the top.

Here he found Wolf and Mortensen.

“This is bloody awkward,” said Luke. “If you get on the train at Lee’s Drift, you’ll never get ahead of me to catch up, when they divide up gold to carry and find it’s all worthless.”

“Relax,” said Mortensen. “We’re going straight to the ambush site and we’ll sit it out there.  There’ll be a box on the train, and a couple of dummies looking like us. You can chuck them out, on the way. How many of them are there?”

“Ten,” said Luke. “Carver is mine given half a chance. Oh, and I killed one already, he’s buried there. Drew gun on me.”

“Don’t upset the count, boy,” said Mortensen.

Luke grinned.

 

 

 

oOoOo

 

The young scholar with a limp and a stutter begged the stationmaster to be careful with his heavy box. Gone were the long ringlets and his hair was almost neat.

“What you toting – gold?” asked the stationmaster.

“Oh! No… well, there may be a sample with a small amount of gold in it, but it’s not… I… I… don’t th-think it’s valuable to anyone else. J-just rock samples. I’m g-geologist,” said Luke. He took off the round glasses he wore to polish them on his handkerchief.

“Geologist? Them’s the people who assay gold.”

“An-and assess rail-road grades and things,” said Luke. “I… I’ll be riding in the caboose with it.”

“You want to talk to the sheriff about that,” said the stationmaster. “There’ll be guards riding with a shipment from further up the line.”

Jim Carstairs bustled up.

“I’ll see you into the caboose, young fellow,” he said. “There’s a couple of guards in there, looking out for a shipment, and they need to know you have a ticket.” 

 

 

The train came into the station with its usual bustle and noise, snorting like a bull in the ring to be ridden, puffing forth steam and smuts with the air of an irascible patriarch at his pipe, who is too feared and respected for anyone to protest.  It was a stop for miners; a hub of outlying claims and small concerns like the small mine being managed by old Joe.

A few got off; a few got on. Most people getting on were going to the city, for goods unavailable here.  A box was already in there, labelled for the mining company; it had been arranged further up the line, as had two shadowy and menacing figures.

Luke settled himself down to wait. The next move was Whitey’s, in pulling the communications cord in the right place.

Luke settled in a pile of mail bags, tipped his hat over his face, and proceeded to doze. He woke long enough to throw out the two dummies, and resumed his relaxed pose.

 

oOoOo

 

The horrible screeching noise of the brakes and the shaking of the train woke Luke and alerted him to the fact that the train was stopping. He put his hat on, and did not bother to resume the wearing of the round-rimmed spectacles which made him look so scholarly.

He grinned, and opened the caboose door.

Barney Magree’s grinning face met his gaze, along with the others. Whitey Jacobs slid through the door from the train.

“Right, let’s get this box of gold unloaded and go home,” said Luke. “As I understand it, there are one hundred bars weighing ten pounds each, and at eighteen dollars and ninety-four cents an ounce, I make that thirty-thousand three hundred and some dollars.”

“How are we going to carry that?” whined Carver. “That’s a thousand pounds weight. We’ll never do it.”

“Well, that’s why we have the crane to unload it,” said Luke, employing the crane which was a fixture in the caboose. The big crate was lowered to the ground beside the track.  “A man who can’t lift a hundredweight is no man; so we each take ten bars.” 

They waved the train to go on.

It started up with the ponderous inexorability of its steam-powered majesty.                                      

Barney himself plied a crowbar to open the crate.

The sole occupant of the crate, a rather annoyed rooster, did what roosters do best when exposed to the light, and crowed. Loudly. Repeatedly. Magree fell back.

“What the….?” He demanded.

“We’ve been double-crossed!” cried Luke, drawing his guns and shooting Whitey. “He must have planned it all with the law men to turn us in!”

“I say you planned it!” said Carver.

He tried to draw his gun, and fell to Luke’s shot before he could clear his holster.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the gang assimilated that firstly, there was no gold; secondly, there was a rooster; thirdly, Whitey was dead; and fourthly, that so was Carver. They hesitated over whose side to take. Luke’s second gun went in his waistband and he continued firing, fanning the six shooter until it was empty then taking up the other. Which hand he used made little difference to Luke. He dropped into a Cossack squat as one of the bandits managed to get a bead on him, and then, other shots were ringing out. Luke took great pleasure in dropping Barney Magree.

“I don’t call that sharing fairly at all,” said Wolf, sadly. “Three each and one spare we had, and what does he do? Obliterate more’n half of them.”

“Shocking,” said Mortensen.

“Well, I wouldn’t have considered it if I hadn’t known you two were there for me,” said Luke. “Only while it was going well…”

“So long as we share the bounty,” said Mortensen.

“Oh, hell yes,” said Luke. “I could do it on my own, but it would be a lot harder.”

“Head of the valley; Winchester,” said Wolf, laconically.

“Well, yes,” said Luke. “Please tell me you brought a handcar down the track?”

“Obviously,” said Mortensen. “I’ll let you two youngsters motivate it up the track again. My arm being wounded.”

They loaded up the bodies; they could get the one buried in the hidden valley another time.

“Good to work with you,” said Luke, to Mortensen.

“I’ll not disagree,” said the older man.

Once at Lee’s drift, they settled up with him, counting in the bandit Luke had killed previously, and Mortensen went on his way on the next train.

Luke and Wolf went to dig up a body, and Luke went through Magree’s tent.

“Uh?” said Wolf.

“There’s a pay-chest full of paper money unaccounted for,” said Luke. “And this looks like a map.”

He looked at the map, and laughed, softly.

“And if I’d known I was standing on fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks when I climbed up to meet you, I might have been much disturbed,” laughed Luke.  “Ten percent finder’s fee; that almost makes up for having our friendly spare wheel along in the person of Mr. Mortensen.”

 

 

 

falcon and wolf 14

 

Chapter 14

 

“He’s in,” said Wolf, laconically. “Whitey Jacobs took him.” The posse had returned without, of course, catching the fugitive. Wolf had dropped back and circled round, to guide Luke, if need be.

“Jacobs is part of the gang?” said Richardson.

“No bounty though,” said Mortensen.

“The odd bit of pro bono  work is acceptable,” said Wolf, tongue in cheek.

“You said what?” asked Mortensen.

“We do the odd free job for the government,” said Wolf. “You never learned Latin?”

“Hell, boy, where did you pick up Latin?”  demanded Mortensen. Wolf took no offence; Mortensen was sufficiently older than Wolf for ‘boy’ to be descriptive, not derogatory.

“From Luke. His ma is a schoolteacher,” said Wolf. “He talks like an Easterner, to my ears; he says he talks like an Englishman. It’s sweet to listen to, especially when he’s in the mood to lecture others on their deficiencies. The owlhoots sneer at him and think him unmanly for being educated which makes it easier for him to take them down.”

“It’s a fool belief a lot of those too lazy to get an education seem to hold,” said Mortensen.

 

 

Luke had been led down the bottleneck at the valley’s opening, and on to where it opened out onto a small meadow almost like a bowl within the mountains. At the far end, a waterfall trickled more than it cascaded into a pool of indeterminate depth, which did not overflow into a stream, but did provide fresh water. The horses were grazing the short grass alongside the water.

Magree rattled off the names of his followers; Luke knew them from ‘Wanted’ posters, and absently totted them up in his head.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Luke.

“What do we want a woman for?” growled one. “A dame can’t be guaranteed to kill the way Angel-Face could.”

“I’m in disguise,” said Luke. “I can do woman, schoolmaster, reverend gentleman, drummer, all of them quite harmless. I’m a con-artist.”

Things went downhill from there.

 

Luke sneered at Magree’s gang, as he was being careful to speak as his mother would like. He had received a few insults and pointed comments.

“Well, well,” he jeered. “All of you jerked by the tail because I’m educated and you’re no more than poor white trash. Because I can dress as a lady, but all of you feel a need to insult me tells me that all of you are not more than little girls. I despise you; and if it weren’t for the brains Magree has in putting together a good plan, I’d walk out of here, and back to my swindles, where I don’t have to rely on anyone else, let alone a bunch of scrofulous inadequates with delusions of manhood.”

One of them pulled a gun on him.

“I don’t take that from anyone!”

Luke’s gun barked once.

They had not even seen him pull it.

Luke absently mentally pocketed three thousand seven hundred dollars for Jack Zablonski.

He was one of the more valuable of the horde.

“Hey, Baby-Face! Don’t go killing my men!” snapped Magree.

“You tell them not to call me names just because I’m a better man than any of them could ever hope to be,” said Luke.

“You heard the man,” snapped Magree. “Talkin’ soft an’ lookin’ soft is how we makes the dough. Now bury Jack.”

“Are you gwine to let him get away with that?” whined another of the gang.

“Jack drew first,” said Magree. “Don’t you like the pickin’s we been getting’? Angel-Face was good, but look at him! Listen too him! He’ a bloody marvel! Now I cin plan another job.”

“I’ll want my trunk; I had to leave without it,” said Luke.  “If you want me to be anything but a rather soiled dove, in the broadest sense, since I’ve no change of clothes, you’ll have someone fetch it.”

“Jacobs can do that,” said Magree.

 

It is not to be supposed that the eight surviving members of Magree’s men were happy about being called little girls; nor about being made to swallow it. Five of them spoke together, and after dark, a blanket was dropped on Luke’s bedroll, which was trussed up and dragged well down the valley.

“We’re going to have a little talk about how you’re gwine to be respec’ful from now on, Bellamy,” said Carver Wilson. “I don’t have to use my knife, see? But we’re each gwine to treat you like you are a woman, an’ after that, you’ll know your place or it can happen again, see?”

The bedroll said nothing.

Carver took his lantern up to the face, and found nothing but a gunny-sack, roughly sewn into the neck of the gown Luke had been wearing, which was made heavier for being stuffed with rocks.

“Were you ne’er-do-wells looking for me?” said Luke’s voice, out of the darkness. He loomed out of a crevice in the rocks, a lighter figure against them in his union suit and boots.

Carver gawped.

“He’s alone, lads – take him!” he said.

Luke was alone, but he had cut himself a hickory stick helper. He was not about to show off his skill with whip to these bandits, in case they had heard of him. Two lengths of two foot of hickory, with a hole drilled through one end of each, and joined with plaited leather, however, made Luke easily equal to any five bandits, unless they drew firearms; and he had his six-shooters on him. And a wicked-looking Cherokee knife.

As the five advanced, Luke set his whirl-stick whirling.  Based on a flail, it was a Cossack weapon he had learned, along with the arapnik, or whip, from an early age. There were cries of pain as Luke beat the five assailants.

“What’s wrong with you little girls? I haven’t even got one in each hand,” jeered Luke. Effortlessly he dealt with Carver’s friends, and then he dropped his whirl-stick, as they lay groaning, and went for Carver.  “I heard you carve comments in the flesh of those you attack, Carver,” said Luke, conversationally. “Now, you had designs on my backside; I wonder if I might carve a message in yours? I won’t touch your face, it’d spoil your usefulness to Magree. But if you like violating men, maybe you’ve got something you can do without.”

Carver drew his knife.

“We’ll see who carves who,” he said.

“Whom,” said Luke. “Really, the rule isn’t hard. ‘He does something to him.’ Hence ‘Who  does something to whom.’ There are schools most places nowadays, you have no excuse to be so pig-ignorant.”

“I don’t need no eddication!” he lunged in a feint for Luke’s eyes and circled towards his belly. Luke knocked the knife away.

“Well, now, Carver, you just used a double negative,” said Luke. “If you don’t need no education, you must, by what you said, be sorely in need of some.  I’ll do my best, but mostly I want to hurt you, because I despise you. You’re like that cowardly bloke in the Bible who wanted to bugger the angel in Sodom, just because he was an incomer. Not that I have any respect for Lot in offering his daughters in exchange, but they had some rum laws of hospitality then.” His knife was weaving as if it was alive, countering Carver’s and probing for weaknesses.

“Wot?” said Carver.

“Plainly in need of scriptural guidance as well as grammar,” said Luke. “You don’t listen very well. I can see you have something you don’t need.”

Carver’s left ear went flying. He screamed.

“Are you going to beg my pardon, or are you going to lose the other?” asked Luke, conversationally.  Absently he booted in the shin one of Carver’s friends who had managed to get groggily to his feet. Luke had steel toecaps in his boots and the man went down again, groaning. He had steel-shod heels as well, but had not had to use them yet.

“You bastard!” Carver charged. Luke pivoted out of the way in a tricky little step dance to the left, and came back on himself for Carver’s right ear to go the way of the left.

“What the hell is going on?” Magree’s voice spoke up in the gloom.

“Five of your men invited me to a party where I was to be the bar-room whore,” said Luke. “I objected to this. I did not hurt them very badly. But Carver is a bad boy and wants to fight the dominie instead of just taking a caning for the good of his soul.  So I cut his ears off as he doesn’t seem to need them.”

“Fuck!” said Magree. “You fought Carver one-on-one in a knife fight and won?”

“He’s no great shakes,” said Luke, dismissively.

“He’ll leave you alone,” said Magree. “Or he’ll be… removed.”

“This one is trouble, Barney!” argued the copiously bleeding Carver.

“Of course he is! We all are!” snapped Magree. “What, d’you think I’d hire someone who can’t kill a man? You’re becoming expendable, Carver, if he can fight as well as you.” He looked both over, Carver, bloodied, sweating, and Luke, cool, calm and collected. “Better,” he amended. “Back to bed, both of you; and you’ll act like you’re friends, see?”

“Whatever you say, boss,” said Luke. Carver glowered, but nodded. Luke picked up the bed roll he had been loaned, and took himself back to lie down for the rest of the night.

He was undisturbed.

 

Wolf worked his way around to the walls of the hidden valley, and climbed up in the first grey of predawn. Once above the entrance, he could see the lie of the land, and might work out that there were ways in and out over the side of the blind valley running parallel to it; a dry valley.  A waterfall trickled into the hidden valley, into a deep pool, but no river left it now, so presumably the stream disappeared underground, and maybe emerged as the spring Wolf had found earlier. Wolf worked his way around, and came down by the waterfall.

Luke was already swimming in the icy water under it, and enjoying its stinging spray.

“You’re insane,” said Wolf.

“Well, I’m awake,” said Luke, pulling his naked body out of the lake and shaking like a dog, before using his blanket to towel off. He hung it up to dry, and resumed his long underwear. “I’m supposed to be getting real clothes back; Whitey is supposed to steal my trunk.  I am not wearing petticoats if I can avoid it.”

“I wanted to see if I could approach you to gain news,” said Wolf.

“And you can,” said Luke. “But I will establish a habit of climbing by the waterfall as exercise and will leave a marker if I’ve left a message. Safer that way.”

Wolf grunted, but nodded. He climbed the rocks by the waterfall and vanished.

Luke waited for someone to get up, and then went up the rocks himself.

“Are you crazy?” asked Magree, for it was he, when Luke descended.

“Not last time I looked,” said Luke.  “It’s a stimulating climb. And when in a dead end, I like to know if there’s another way out.”

“The law won’t find us here,” scoffed Magree.

“It may not be the law I feel a need to escape from,” said Luke. “They waited until they thought I slept and tied me up, five on one. I was pretty sure they’d try something, so I made up a bed bundle and waited for the fun and games to begin. I’m not sure I’m happy with having to rely on them.”

“I never picked ‘em on their brains,” said Magree. “I need ‘em to persuade any heroes on a train not to interfere with unloading of boxes.”

“Ah, I see,” said Luke. “I have to say, if I was in charge, I’d deal with guards as usual, have my confederate pull the communication cord, and them come quickly to tie up the poor little woman, having tossed out the boxes into thick vegetation, so you and another one or two could take them covertly without a need for heroes.”

“It has some merit,” said Magree. “But don’t take that as permission to go killing those of my men who try to cause you grief, not unless you don’t have any choice.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Luke. “Got any plans yet?”

“I’m waiting for the end of the month,” said Magree. “There should be a pay chest to the army going through. Angel-Face and Flinty used to travel to a stop near where it was put on, and see if they couldn’t find out a date, which they then wired to me, via Whitey. All in code, you know? Like telling him about a birthday of some relative coming up.”

“And easy enough to do,” said Luke. “Then ride the train with it on. Kill the guards, throw off the loot, and ride on through to the next station, weep a lot, and quietly disappear.”

“Yes, Angel-Face and Flinty used to get off with the goods. But I can see your way would work well, it’s bold.”

“I am bold,” said Luke.

“You certainly are,” agreed Magree.