Brings the Lightning (The Ames Archives Book 1) (17 page)

Samson’s face split in a broad, beaming grin. “T’ank you, suh!”

“I won’t give you the holsters they were in, because I want to learn more about them. They’re different from anything I’ve seen before. You can have a left-hand holster made for them, if you want one. Don’t forget to clean them as soon as Rose can boil some water. They look to be in good condition, so keep them that way. You’ve already got Spencers, so you don’t need any of their long guns. The leader had a Sharps like mine, except it’s a cheaper model with a single trigger. There’s also a Henry rifle, a Colt revolving rifle and two shotguns.

“Next, I took a total of a hundred and forty dollars in greenbacks from those outlaws.” He didn’t mention the gold coins; those he’d add to his and Rose’s funds. “I figure it’s only fair that you two divide that between yourselves. That’s seventy dollars each, over and above your wages, of course.” He handed over the notes. Samson and Elijah pocketed them with broad smiles and an an air of satisfaction.

“I’m sure if I ask the engineer, he’ll give me a bucket of hot water from the ship’s boiler.,” Rose offered.

“Good idea. Use your womanly charm on him.” They all grinned. “Let’s clean our guns on the deck between the wagons.”

They passed the time waiting for the ferry to fill the rest of its deck, and the slow, clanking passage across the river, by pulling the charges from their guns, cleaning, drying and lubricating them, and reloading them with fresh charges. Walt took the opportunity to drive home another lesson. He noticed that Samson and Elijah were about to clean both of their revolvers at the same time, and stopped them. “Always keep one of your guns loaded and ready. If anything goes wrong, you need to be able to defend yourself. Finish cleaning and reloading the first before you start on the second.”

The two nodded soberly. “After yestiddy, I c’n see why, suh,” Elijah agreed.

Walt grimaced. “Now, I made a bad mistake back in St. Louis. I forgot to tell all of you about something very important.” He explained the problem of spent percussion caps falling into the mechanism and jamming the gun. “All cap-and-ball revolvers suffer from it to some extent, ’specially if you’re aiming upwards—for instance, up the side of a bluff.” He suppressed a shiver as he remembered the woman he’d had to kill in Kentucky.

“To lessen the chance of it happening, when you cock the hammer after firing, tilt the gun a little to the side in the same direction that its cylinder turns, and flick it a little outward as you cock it.” He demonstrated with his shortened revolver. “If pieces of the just-fired cap come off the nipple, the angle and the flick will help them fall clear of the gun instead of into the action. If you do that every time, it’ll soon become second nature and won’t slow you down. I don’t say you’ll never have a jam like Elijah’s, but it’ll be less likely.”

Elijah’s eyes lit up. “So dat’s what happened! I t’ought I done somet’ing wrong.”

“No, you didn’t. I should have warned you about that right at the start, when I was teaching you to shoot. You, too, Rose. Your little gun may have the same problem. That’s another good reason to have a second revolver, in case the first one gets locked up like that.”

Walt showed them all how to remove the percussion cap from the innards of Elijah’s revolver, then they settled down to clean their guns. Rose wheedled another bucket of boiling water from the ship’s engineer so they could clean the weapons captured from the outlaws as well. As Walt pointed out, “They’ll be more stock for my gun store, so we’d better look after them.” They finished as the ferry was approaching the opposite bank, just in time for Samson and Elijah to mount their wagons and follow Walt and Rose up the ramp.

The part of Kansas City that was actually on Kansas soil, rather than the larger part on the Missouri bank of the river, was unprepossessing. The streets were muddy and churned up by the constant passage of freight wagons. There was a raw, unfinished feel to the town. Walt decided almost at once that while there might be a lot of potential customers passing through, this would not be a comfortable place to spend the winter. He said as much to Rose, and she nodded in vehement agreement.

They stopped in front of a big general store while she went inside with Elijah to replenish their supplies. Walt was astonished to receive three offers to purchase his wagons and mule teams in the short time they were gone.

“Why the big demand for wagons?” he asked one teamster.

“Part of it’s settlers headin’ west. They’re buyin’ up everythin’ on four wheels. It’s also the army. Injuns have been raidin’ all along the Smoky Hill an’ Santa Fe Trails, so they’re buildin’ forts all the way across Kansas to defend travelers an’ protect the railroad as they build out towards Colorado Territory. They don’t have enough wagons of their own, since most o’ theirs are still back east. They’ll be sendin’ more out here now the war’s over, but they ain’t got here yet. That means they gotta hire civilian outfits to do a lot of the fetchin’ an’ carryin’. Up Fort Leavenworth way—that’s the army’s supply depot for Kansas—the prices for wagons and teams are crazy high right now. Only the freight companies can afford them.”

“I was thinking about Leavenworth City as a place to spend the winter.”

“It’s grown into a fine town. They say there’s twenty thousand people livin’ there now. One thing, though. If you’re headin’ that way, be sure to take some feed with you for your teams. All these wagon trains, an’ the cattle they’re drivin’ to Leavenworth City to feed everyone, have grazed the prairie almost bare between here and there.”

“Thanks. I’ll buy hay and oats before we leave.”

The price of animal feed shocked Walt. It was several times more than he’d expected to pay. That night around the camp fire he told the others about it. “If it’s going to cost us so much to keep our freight wagons and mules over the winter, I might sell them once we’ve found a place, ’specially because they’ll bring good prices right now. By the end of the year the railhead will have reached Topeka, so prices for wagons and teams should be lower here and higher there. We can replace them in the spring before we head out for Colorado Territory.”

“Does that include our ambulance?” Rose asked. “I’ve grown to like it.”

“No, I doubt there’ll be much demand for a light wagon that can’t carry a heavy load.”

“Oh, good! Can we keep its team as well? I’ve grown to like them, too.”

“I don’t see why not. Two or three horses will cost a lot less to stable over the winter than twelve mules, and it’ll be easier to keep them exercised.”

“What about us, suh?” Samson asked, sounding worried. “If dere be no wagons no mo’, what we gwine t’ do?”

“I’ll find work for you, don’t worry,” Walt reassured him. “Of course, if you want to carry on working with wagons, there are bound to be jobs with the freight companies. They must need drivers. You can always rejoin us next spring, if you want.”

Samson cheered up at once. “Dat sound good to me, suh. I likes dis life, at leas’ when folks ain’t shootin’ at me.”

“You won’t like it in the middle of a winter snowstorm out on the prairie. It can be real bitter out there, or so I’ve read.”

He shrugged, grinning. “I s’pose I better be back in town afore den.” Everyone laughed.

As they drove into Leavenworth City, Walt was astonished to see how developed it was. He’d expected a mere frontier town, but it was more like St. Louis. He couldn’t find anywhere convenient, affordable or secure to park their wagons and teams within the city. They ended up camping near the fort, next to an enclosure containing the tents of army units transiting through Fort Leavenworth on their way to frontier posts further west, where Indian troubles showed no signs of abating.

Walt and Rose left Samson and Elijah to guard the wagons while they spent two days looking around Leavenworth City, trying to decide whether to winter there or go further north to look at Atchison. The factor that decided them was the number of schools that needed teachers. At every one, as soon as Rose made inquiries and produced her certificates from Tennessee, she received immediate offers of employment. “I don’t know, darling,” she said to Walt after the fourth offer, “but with the salaries they’re offering, I think I’d be silly to take my chances anywhere else.”

“That makes sense,” he agreed. “Besides, there are enough travelers and railroad workers passing through here that I think I can sell my guns by the time we’re ready to leave.”

“There seem to be a number of other gun shops in town, so there must be a fair amount of business to be done.”

Walt grimaced. “Yes, but have you seen the rents charged for a store? They’re outrageous! We might do better to buy a store with an apartment over it, live there through the winter, then sell it before we leave.”

“Why not? That would also save time traveling between work and home, particularly if we can find one close to a school where I can teach. Let’s see what’s available.”

They soon found a wood building under construction at the outer edge of the business district, near the camping grounds where settler and freight wagon trains assembled. It was ideally situated for Walt to sell them the guns and ammunition they’d need, and near a school that had offered Rose a job. It held four stores, each with an apartment above, but they were expensive. The builder told them flatly, “A thousand for a store, cash on the barrelhead. If you don’t take it, someone else will. I’ve already sold two, and the building’s not even finished yet.”

Walt didn’t want to use all their cash for that, so his next stop was the area of town where freight companies kept their wagons and stables. He asked around about selling the two army wagons and their mule teams.

“I won’t lie to you, mister,” a harried haulier by the name of Tom Jones told him. “Right now the Injun raids out west are costing me dear. The army’s doin’ it’s best to keep ’em down, but it’s not good enough. Every train I send out comes back with fewer wagons than it started with. They get damaged on the trail or set afire by Injuns. I’ve lost a couple o’ dozen so far this year. If your wagons are in as good condition as you say, an’ your teams are too, I’ll pay you top price. Hundred and fifty per mule, and three hundred for each wagon with its harness and spares. That’s greenbacks, o’ course.”

“There’s just one problem,” Walt pointed out. “I need a place to store my goods before I can offload them from the wagons, but I can’t afford to buy one of those new shops without what you’ll pay me.”

“Tell you what, mister. I’ll send one of my wagonmasters with you to look over your wagons and teams. If he tells me they’re as good as you say, I’ll buy your store from the builder. I’ll hold the title until you offload your wagons into it; then you’ll bring them here, and I’ll make over the title to you and give you the rest of the money.”

“That sounds fair. Do you need drivers? I’ve got two, both black freedmen I hired in St. Louis. They’ve each handled a wagon from there to here. They’re reliable, and they can shoot, too; they helped me see off some outlaws across the river. They work hard and they’re honest. I’ll vouch for them.”

“That so? I’ll hire ’em both. People who know how to handle a six-mule team ain’t exactly thick on the ground out here, and if they can help defend my trains against Injuns that’s a bonus. I’ll pay ’em thirty-five dollars a month, plus food an’ ammunition while they’re on the wagons. They’ll have to find their own place to stay in town, but they won’t be here often. They got their own guns?”

“Two Colt revolvers and a Spencer carbine apiece.”

“That’s good. I’ll up the offer to forty a month, then, since I won’t have to outfit them.”

“That’s more than I’ve been paying them, so I think they’ll take it. All right, send your man with me to look at the wagons and teams.”

The deal was soon done. For an additional fifty dollars, the builder agreed to finish Walt’s store before the others. Within three days it was ready, a shop about thirty feet square with a storeroom and work area of the same size behind it, and a kitchen and washroom at the rear. The apartment above had four rooms, with a balcony out front running over the sidewalk. An outhouse stood by the rear door, its bucket emptied daily by a honey wagon. The store shared a long, narrow paddock running the length of the building at the rear, where they would park the ambulance beneath a tarpaulin. Walt rented three stalls for his horse and Rose’s team in a nearby livery stable.

Walt had the builder double-wall the storeroom with a second layer of planks, laid crossways over the first. The layers were screwed together rather than nailed, for greater security. Samson and Elijah, excited at the prospect of earning good money working for the transport company, helped Walt offload everything into it. They took the empty wagons and mule teams to the haulier to complete the deal. Walt watched as he signed over the deed to the store, then counted out thirteen hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks, the balance of the purchase price. Jones paid another hundred and fifty dollars for Walt’s spare saddle horse, including its tack.

“You two take care of yourselves, you hear me?” Rose urged Samson and Elijah. “We expect to see both of you in the spring, unless you change your minds and decide to stay here in Leavenworth City.”

“We’ll be dere, Miz Rose,” Samson assured her. “I wants to see dem mountains dey talk about in Colorado Territ’ry.”

Walt smiled and shook their hands. “You’ve worked real hard, and I’m grateful to you. By spring you’ll have learned even more. You’ll be teaching us about the plains.”

“Mebbe de Injuns, too,” Elijah said in a worried voice.

Samson shook his head, smiled confidently and patted the holstered revolver on his hip. “Dey bettah look out for us!”

That night Rose tacked blankets over the windows of the washroom and main bedroom of their new apartment, while Walt lit their lanterns and set up the mattresses and bedrolls from the ambulance on the floor. “First thing tomorrow, you go furniture shopping,” he told her. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars, and there’ll be more if you need it. You know better than I what we’ll need, but don’t get too much, because we can’t take it all on the trail next year. If it’s something we’re likely to take with us, make sure it’s sturdy enough to stand up to the journey. If it can be taken apart for transport, that would be even better. I’ll look into having some shop counters and rifle racks made, as well as iron bars for the windows.”