A Rocky Mountain Christmas (11 page)
Read A Rocky Mountain Christmas Online
Authors: William W. Johnstone
C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
HAPTER
T
WELVE
Big Rock
Cephas Prouty had on woolen long johns under his clothes, and a wool-lined sheepskin over his clothes. He had a scarf around his neck, a stocking cap over his head, and heavy gloves on his hands. Thus attired, he set out in a handcar for the purpose of inspecting Trout Creek Pass. For the first eight miles the track was relatively flat and pushing the hand pump up and down was easy. But it got harder when he started up the long grade that would take him to the top of the pass.
Prouty was used to it, though, as he made the trip several times a week. And tonight, he didn’t even mind the pumping. The extra exertion helped keep him warm in the subzero temperatures.
It took him an hour and a half to reach the summit. He set the brake on the car, then stepped down to have a look around. He checked the track, then examined the cut on either side. If he found any reason why the train couldn’t make it through, he’d wire the station at Buena Vista, warn them the pass wasn’t safe, and have them hold the train there.
Prouty walked along the track from its most elevated point to where it started back down on the west side. He turned around and walked up to the summit, continuing on to where it started back down on the east approach. Occasionally he would stick a ruler into the snow to measure its depth. Nowhere did he find the snow over two inches deep, and even then it wasn’t accumulating on the rails. He didn’t see any reason why the trains couldn’t continue to come through the pass.
It wasn’t only during the snow season that he would come up to check. He made frequent trips during other seasons as well, to ensure the rails were whole and unobstructed. On a clear night in the summer. he could look one way and see the lights of Buena Vista or look the other way and see the lights of Big Rock.
Tonight, though, the night was so overcast that when he looked out to either side of the pass he saw nothing but darkness.
His inspection done, Prouty got on his handcar and started back toward Big Rock. His trip up the grade to the top of the pass had been difficult, requiring hard pumping. Going back down was easy. No pumping was required until he reached the flat. In fact, he had to apply the brake to keep from going too fast. He was certain that he was doing at least forty miles per hour on the way down. He began pumping when he hit the flats, making his total trip down the mountain in less than an hour. He coasted into the station at about nine-thirty, moving the cart onto a side track before going inside.
“Well, Cephas, I see you made it back,” the stationmaster said. “I figured you would be turned into an icicle by now.”
“I damn near am one,” Prouty replied as he stood shivering by the stove. “You got ’ny coffee, Phil?”
“Yes, stay there by the stove and warm yourself. I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.”
“What about the pass?” Phil asked as he handed Prouty the cup.
Prouty took a welcome sip before answering. “I think it’s all right.”
“You
think
?” Phil chuckled. “That’s not very reassuring. What do you mean you think? Don’t you know? You were just up there, weren’t you?”
think
?” Phil chuckled. “That’s not very reassuring. What do you mean you think? Don’t you know? You were just up there, weren’t you?”
“It’s open now, but the next train isn’t due through there until midnight. I believe that the pass will still be open, but I can’t guarantee it.”
“Should I stop the train at Buena Vista?”
“The next train through is a freight train, isn’t it, Phil?”
“Yes.”
“No, don’t stop it. I think we should let the freight come on through. The Red Cliff Special isn’t due through the pass until about five in the morning. When the freight pulls in here just after midnight, the engineer will have a more up-to-the-minute look at it, and a better idea as to the condition of the pass. We can get a report from him and make our decision about the passenger train then.”
“Good idea,” Phil agreed.
Prouty smiled. “You’re a good station manager, Phil, offering a track inspector a hot cup of coffee after he’s been out in the cold.”
“Oh, I can do better than that. How about a cruller to go with your coffee?”
“Phil, you are indeed a gentleman,” Prouty said gratefully.
On board the Red Cliff Special
On the other side of the Mosquito Range from where Phil and Prouty were having their discussion the Red Cliff Special was rumbling through the cold night. Matt kept repositioning himself, trying to get as comfortable as he could in the backseat. He had been on a train for over two days and was getting a little tired of the travel. The night before he had been in a Pullman car and had been able to sleep. But there were no Pullman cars on this run, so he had to make himself as comfortable as he could in the seat.
Fortunately, he had the seat to himself and was able to stretch out somewhat. He wadded up his coat and placed it against the cold window to use as a pillow. The kerosene lamps inside the car had been turned way down so that, while the car was illuminated just enough to allow someone to move about, it wasn’t too bright to keep anyone from sleeping.
Falling into a fitful sleep, Matt dreamed.
An early snow moved in just before nightfall of the sixth day and the single blanket Matt had brought with him did little to push away the cold. It was also tiring to hold the blanket around him while walking. He considered cutting a hole in the middle but decided against it because he thought it would be less warm at night, that way.
As the snow continued to fall it got more and more difficult to walk. At first, it was just slick, and he slipped and fell a couple times, once barking his shin on a rock so hard the pain stayed with him for quite a while.
The snow got deeper and he quit worrying about it being slick, concerning himself only with the work it took just to get through it. His breathing came in heaving gasps, sending out clouds of vapor before him. Once he saw a wolf tracking him and wished he had his father’s rifle.
He found a stout limb about as thick as three fingers and trimmed off the smaller branches with his knife. Using the limb as a cane helped him negotiate the deepening snowdrifts.
Just before dark he sensed, more than heard, something behind him. Turning quickly, he saw that the wolf, crouching low, had sneaked up right behind him. With a shout, and holding the club in both hands, he swung at the wolf and had the satisfaction of hearing a solid pop as he hit it in the head. The wolf yelped once, then turned and ran away, trailing little bits of blood behind it.
Matt felt a sense of power and elation over that little encounter. He was sure the wolf would give him no further trouble.
As the sun set he found an overhanging rock ledge and got under it, then wrapped up in the blanket. When night came, he looked up into the dark sky and watched huge, white flakes tumble down. If it weren’t for the fact that he was probably going to die in these mountains, he would think the snowfall was beautiful.
“Here, try some of this.”
Opening his eyes, Matt saw that he was no longer outside under a rock, but inside on a bed.
How did I get here?
he wondered. A man was sitting on the bed beside him, holding a cup. Matt took the cup and raised it to his mouth, but jerked it away when it burned his lips.
How did I get here?
he wondered. A man was sitting on the bed beside him, holding a cup. Matt took the cup and raised it to his mouth, but jerked it away when it burned his lips.
The man laughed. “Oh. Maybe I should have told you it was hot.”
Matt tried again, this time sipping it through extended lips. It was hot and bracing and good. “What is it?”
“Broth, made from beaver,” the man said.
“Don’t know that I’ve ever tasted beaver, before,” Matt said calmly.
The man laughed again.
“What’s so funny ?”
“I’ll say this for you, boy, you do have sand. I found you damn near dead out on the trail, and now you are telling me that you don’t think you’ve ever eaten beaver before.”
“I don’t think I have,” Matt answered as calmly as before. “Who are you?”
“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”
Matt was awakened when the train ran over a rough section of track. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, bringing himself back from dreaming about the first time he ever met Smoke, or, more accurately, about the time Smoke had saved his life. Not surprised by the dream, he was sure the cold and snow had triggered an old memory. In addition, Smoke had been on his mind as he thought about spending Christmas with his friend and mentor.
It was dark in the passenger car, and pleasantly warm. According to the schedule he had read at the Pueblo depot, they weren’t due into Buena Vista until two in the morning. That was a few hours away, so Matt repositioned himself in the seat and went back to sleep.
On board the Freight Number 7
Several miles ahead of the Red Cliff Special
,
a freight train was approaching the top of the pass.
,
a freight train was approaching the top of the pass.
“Better take it easy through here, Joe,” the fireman said. “That snow is comin’ down pretty good now.”
“Yeah,” the engineer said. “But it looks clear ahead. Look out your side. If you see anything, sing out.”
The engine, which was pulling a string of ten freight cars, slowed until it was barely moving. Finally it reached the crest, topped it, then started down the other side.
“All right!” Joe cried. “Let’s get out of here!” He opened the throttle, and aided by the fact that it was going downhill, the train reached fifty miles an hour. He started slowing it down three miles before they reached Big Rock, where they would have to take on water.
Big Rock station
Phil heard Freight Number 7 approaching, put on his heavy coat, and walked out to the water tank. He needed to talk to the engineer about the pass. He glanced up where a fire was kept burning in the large, cast-iron stove in the vertical shaft just below the tank to keep the water from freezing. When the train ground to a stop, the fireman climbed out to swing the huge water spout over to replenish the water in the tender.
The engineer leaned out the window of the cab and looked down toward the station manager. “What are you doing out here in the cold, Phil?”
“The Special will be coming through the pass about five in the morning. What do you think? Will they have any trouble?”
“We didn’t have any trouble,” Joe said. “The track and the pass are clear.”
“There’s a lot of snow higher up, though,” the fireman added. “If it don’t come down, I don’t see no trouble.”
“What do you mean if it doesn’t come down? Is that likely?”
“I don’t think so,” Joe answered. “I saw it too, and it looks like it’s pretty solidly packed.”
“All right, thanks,” Phil said. “I’ll send the word on back.”
The fireman finished filling the tank, then swung the spout back. “Merry Christmas, Phil,” he called out.
Phil smiled back at him. “Merry Christmas to you, Tony. And you, too, Joe.” He started back toward the warmth of the depot, even as Joe opened the throttle and Freight Number 7, with ten cars of lumber, continued on its journey.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
On board the Red Cliff Special
Matt awakened a second time when the train stopped. It was about two o’clock in the morning, which meant they had been under way for five hours. Looking through the window, he saw a small wooden building, painted red. A sign hung from the end of the building, but he couldn’t see enough to read it.
“Folks,” the conductor said when he stepped into the car. “This is Buena Vista and we’ll more ’n likely be here for about half an hour. If any of you want to, you can get off the train and have a cup of coffee or maybe a bite to eat.”
The porter went through the car, turning the lamps up brighter, and the other passengers started moving about, collecting coats, mittens, scarves, and caps.
“I don’t want to go outside, Mama,” Becky said. “I want to stay here and sleep.”
“That’s all right, darlin’. You won’t have to go outside if you don’t want to. You and I will stay here in the car, but we’ll have to give the lady her coat back so she won’t freeze when she goes outside.”
“Your daughter can use this as a blanket,” Matt said, handing his sheepskin coat to the girl’s mother.
“Why, thank you, sir.”
“And I thank you as well, Mr. Jensen.” Jenny smiled as she retrieved her own coat.
“I was right,” Matt said with a smile. “I knew that I had seen you before. I just can’t remember where.”
“It was a few years ago, on board a riverboat on the Mississippi. The boat was the
Delta Mist
.”
Delta Mist
.”
“Of course! You were the hostess for the Grand Salon. But, McCoy wasn’t your name then. It was”—Matt hesitated for a moment, then he recalled the name—“Lee, wasn’t it? Jenny Lee.”
“Yes, I’m flattered you remember. I was married soon after that. Now I’m widowed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Matt said automatically. Then, as they approached the door of the car he added, “I sure hope they have a warm fire going in the depot.”
“I’m sure they will.”
They stepped down from the train, and Matt figured the temperature was at least ten below zero. The wind was blowing so hard it cut through him, right to the marrow of his bones. By the time he crossed the platform and got inside, he felt half frozen to death. Moving immediately to the stove, he stood for a long moment with his arms out, circling the stove, as if embracing the fire. Finally, when the feeling gradually began to return to his extremities, he left the stove and stepped up to the counter to buy a cup of coffee, nodding to the man he’d seen board the train just before the train pulled out of the station. The man was leaning against the counter warming his hands around a cup of steaming coffee. Matt paid for his coffee and stepped aside. As he stood there drinking it, he looked around the room and saw that Deputy Proxmire had come into the depot with his two prisoners. The shackles had been removed from the prisoners’ legs. Evidently, they were no longer a threat to run away, once on the train.
Santelli looked directly at him, the expression on his face registering surprise, as if seeing him for the first time. Evidently he had not noticed Matt back at the Pueblo Depot.
“Well if it isn’t Matt Jensen. What are you doing here, Jensen?” Santelli called over to him. “Have you come to watch me hang? ’Cause if you have, you may have to wait around a while.”
“I just happened to be on the same train with you, Santelli, that’s all. You can damn well hang without me.”
“Ha! Well, I got news for you, Jensen. I ain’t goin’ to hang. So what do you think about that?”
“I don’t think anything about it one way or the other,” Matt replied. “This may come as a surprise to you, Santelli, but you aren’t important enough to even be on my mind.”
“I told you one day that me ’n you would meet again, didn’t I? Do you remember that?”
“I do remember that.” Matt smiled. “And here we are, met again. I’m on my way to have Christmas with friends, and you are on your way to, what is it? Oh yes, to get your neck stretched.”
“Yeah? Well don’t you be counting on me gettin’ hung, Jensen. No, sir, don’t you be countin’ on it, ’cause that ain’t goin’ to happen. And this here meetin’ ain’t the one I was talkin’ about neither. There will be another time for the two of us to, let’s just say, work out our differences.”
“Santelli, why don’t you shut up now?” Proxmire complained. “You’ve blabbered enough.”
Santelli glared but said nothing more.
The man standing beside Matt at the counter had witnessed the exchange between the two men. Turning toward Matt, he stuck his hand out. “How do you do, sir? The name is Purvis, Abner Purvis.”
“Matt Jensen.” He shook Purvis’s offered hand.
“I saw you talking with Santelli. Do you know him?”
“Not exactly, but I did run across him when he was arrested. Tell me, Mr. Purvis, do you know the other prisoner? Who is that with him?”
“I can’t say that I actually know him, but I know who he is. His name is Luke Shardeen and I understand he used to be a sailor and has been all over the world. He’s seen places the rest of us have just read about or heard about. Hawaii, China, India, Australia, but he gave all that up when he inherited some land from his uncle. He calls the ranch Two Crowns and he’s been working it ever since, quite successfully, I’m told.”
“Why is he a prisoner?”
“He killed the deputy sheriff from Bent County.”
“He killed a deputy sheriff? That’s pretty serious.”
“I guess it would be if it was the way it sounds. But he claimed that the deputy and Sheriff Ferrell were trying to rob him. Of course, the sheriff said they were only stopping him to ask him a few questions.”
“Evidently, the jury believed the sheriff,” Matt said.
“Not entirely. It seems Shardeen had just sold a bunch of cows and had quite a bit of money with him. Naturally, he’d be worried if a couple armed men suddenly come up on him, wouldn’t you think?”
“I could see that.”
“You also have to wonder what a sheriff and a deputy sheriff from Bent County were doing stopping someone in Pueblo County. Why didn’t they just go to Deputy Proxmire? Or to Sheriff McKenzie?”
“That’s a good question. Evidently, though, it was answered to the satisfaction of the jury.”
“The thing is, the jury pretty much had their hands tied.”
“What do you mean, they had their hands tied?”
“If you ask me, Amon Briggs—he’s the judge—sort of forced them into finding Shardeen guilty. Briggs is as crooked as they come, for all that he is a judge. He likes to do things his own way, and I’m not the only one that thinks this. Most of the folks think he browbeat the jury into finding Shardeen guilty.” Purvis chuckled. “He didn’t entirely get it his own way, though. He wanted Shardeen found guilty of first-degree murder, but the most he got was involuntary manslaughter and four years.”
“Four years isn’t all that bad.”
“Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but I’m afraid in Shardeen’s case it is. He won’t have a ranch left when he gets out. He won’t have anything left at all, so I don’t have any idea what is going to happen to him.”
Matt looked over toward Luke Shardeen and saw him sitting calmly beside the deputy sheriff and talking quietly to the girl.
“What about Miss Lee?”
“Who?”
“I mean Mrs. McCoy.”
“Oh, yes, that’s another example of the judge sticking his nose into everyone’s business. Jenny McCoy worked for Adele Summers at the Colorado Social Club.”
“Colorado Social Club? I take it the women there are . . . just real sociable?” Matt asked with a chuckle.
“Yes, they are. I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Jensen, the Social Club is a whorehouse, pure and simple. But Jenny McCoy, now, she wasn’t actually a whore. She was a hostess. I never heard of her going to bed with anyone, for all that they tried. But even if she wouldn’t go to bed with anyone, she was very popular. Well, you can see how pretty she is. She’s also very smart, and they she has a way of making people feel like they are someone important, no matter who they are. They also say that you could tell her anything you wanted, and know it wasn’t going to get spread all over town. And if anyone was having troubles, why, she had a way about her of making them feel good. You know, making them think that everything was going to come out all right. But from all I’ve heard, she didn’t whore with anybody.”
Matt was glad to hear that. He remembered her from the
Delta Mist,
as well as her supportive testimony at his hearing in Memphis.
Delta Mist,
as well as her supportive testimony at his hearing in Memphis.
“I saw the sign back in the Pueblo depot. Someone thought she was a whore.”
“Yes, well I guess she hasn’t made friends with many of the women in town, that’s true. But that isn’t what got her run out of town. The thing that got her run out of town was having her picture taken when she was naked and sitting on the sofa with Governor Crounse.”
“Naked?”
“She claims, and so does the governor, that some men broke in to the sitting room and forced her, at gunpoint, to take off her clothes so they could get a picture of them together like that. The governor thinks some of his political enemies were behind it. Nobody has said so, but I’d be willing to bet Judge Briggs was in on it from the beginning. Briggs is the kind of crooked no-good that can be bought off. Everyone knows that.”
“If everyone knows that, why is Briggs still the judge? Isn’t that an elective position?”
“Elections can be bought, and there’s no doubt in my mind but that Briggs bought the election that got him there in the first place, and now just keeps on buying them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Briggs doesn’t find some way to take over Shardeen’s ranch while he’s gone.”
Matt smiled. “You seem to have your fingers on the pulse of the town. Are you a newspaper reporter? Or are you just well connected?”
Purvis laughed. “Well connected? I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But I do hear things.”
“What do you do in Pueblo?” Matt asked. “Not that it’s any of my business,” he added quickly. “I’m just making conversation, here.”
Purvis paused for a moment before he answered. “I suppose I’m what you might call a jack of all trades. I’ve done a bit of everything since I’ve been here, but I’ve seen the elephant now, and I’m going back to the ranch my family owns just outside Red Cliff.”
One of the other passengers called out to Purvis, and he excused himself, leaving Matt standing alone. Matt continued to observe Luke Shardeen and Jenny McCoy, finding the study more interesting, now that he knew a little something about each of them.
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