No Less Than the Journey (16 page)

While he was talking, Kauffmann and his fellow miners were making for the door, at least some of their self-esteem restored. As they were about to leave, the sheriff called out to their leader.

‘By the way, Kauffmann, I wouldn’t count on there being any money around to give to your men while they’re on strike. The bank that was robbed last night was the Union Bank – your bank. The robbers went to the manager’s home first and took him and his keys along with them. There were so many men involved they were able to take away every cent the bank held. It’s the biggest robbery we’ve ever had in these parts, probably the biggest in the whole of Missouri … but don’t let me hold you up. As you told me, you and your miners have things to do….’

CHAPTER 27

‘Was there really a raid on the Union’s bank last night?’ Wes put the question to County Sheriff Howard Marlin as the three men made their way to the post office from the Eastern Promise.

‘There was a raid sure enough,’ Marlin replied. ‘They cleaned the bank right out.’

The sheriff had already told Wes that Old Charlie had been staying at his home in Potosi for some days and had told him of Wes’s intention to go to Harmony looking for his uncle.

Aware of the impending strike and knowing the German miners’ hatred of Cornishmen, Sheriff Marlin had telegraphed to the Harmony sheriff’s office, intending to ask him to warn Wes of the danger he faced. Unfortunately, the Harmony sheriff was out of town and the ageing deputy who took the message did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation.

‘Because of that, Charlie and I would have come to Harmony this morning anyway. The bank robbery meant that we started off earlier, that’s all.’

‘I’m glad you did,’ Wes said fervently, ‘You saved me from a bad beating, at the very least … but shouldn’t you be going
after whoever robbed the bank? If I can hire a horse I’ll be happy to come along with you.’

Sheriff Marlin shook his head, ‘I’m not too anxious to become involved in it – for a couple of reasons.’ Suddenly smiling, he added, ‘I’ve asked Kauffmann and his miners to provide me with a posse. If they’re not concerned about losing their money, I don’t think I should bother too much.’

‘You said there was more than one reason for not going after them,’ Wes prompted.

‘That’s right. The truth is, my term of office ends in a couple of month’s time. With the increased German influence in the county I’m not likely to be re-elected, so, if it’s an honest-to-God bank robbery I have no intention of risking my life for folk who don’t want me looking after the law for them anyway.’

‘What do you mean, “
If
it’s an honest-to-God bank robbery”?’ Wes was puzzled.

‘Well, I’ve heard that someone’s been hiring outlaws to come into Missouri from the Territories. Now, there’s no range war brewing here and I couldn’t think why anyone would want to hire such men. I think last night’s raid on the Union bank gave me the answer. The mine owners know as well as I do that the last strike failed when the miners had no money left to feed their families. Kauffmann knows it too, that’s why he had his union open their own bank to hold the money he’s been docking from the men to form a strike fund. Without it, a strike is doomed before it begins.’

‘You mean … the mine owners would actually hire outlaws to rob a bank in order to stop men from striking? That’s unbelievable!’ Wes was incredulous.

‘
You
may find it hard to believe, Wes, but this is America and it’s a young country. Men – especially powerful men – make or break laws as it suits them and some mine owners are
men with influence far beyond the State of Missouri. They wouldn’t allow small fry like Kauffman – or even a county sheriff to stand in their way.’

Giving Wes a wry smile, Sheriff Marlin added, ‘Besides, to be perfectly honest, Kauffmann has been a pain to me and the Federal Marshals ever since he took over the Miners’ Union. He uses the law when it suits him and flouts it when it doesn’t. Anything likely to put him out of office is all right with me – lawful or not. If I learn the names of any of the men involved in the bank robbery I’ll have “wanted” notices put out for them, but I have no intention of risking my skin at this stage of my career just to get Kauffmann out of a hole he’s dug for himself.’

Wes thought that Aaron might have taken a very different line had this been a case which involved him, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Sheriff Howard Marlin had rescued him from possible death. He would always be in his debt for that.

The senior clerk at the Harmony post office was German but, unlike Kauffmann, he treated Sheriff Marlin with a deference that bordered upon obsequiousness. He produced a large, leather-bound ledger in which was entered in alphabetical order the names of hundreds of miners who had moved on from Harmony in the last couple of years, together with their intended destinations.

It took him no more than a couple of minutes to find an entry for ‘Rowse, Peter’. Running a finger across the page, he said, ‘Ah yes, here we are! He left Harmony bound for Denver in Colorado, some four months ago. Unfortunately there is no forwarding address but …’ and here he looked at Wes, ‘… if you are Wesley Curnow, from Cornwall, there is a letter in the other office for you. I will go and fetch it right away.’

Disappearing into a back room, he appeared a few minutes later with an envelope upon which Wes’s name was written in bold letters.

Tearing open the envelope, Wes read the letter that was inside then turned to Howard Marlin and Old Charlie. ‘He’s gone to Denver, right enough – and so have a great many of the Cornish miners he was working with here. He says there’s gold to be found there and that men are making fortunes, some within days of arriving. How far away from Harmony is Denver?’

‘Far enough away for you to need to do a whole lot of thinking about it.’ The reply came from Old Charlie, ‘But if Howard knows where we can hire a horse for you we’ll go back to his place in Potosi and talk it over there. I’m on my way to Colorado too … but it might be that my way of travelling wouldn’t suit you.’

CHAPTER 28

Sheriff Howard Marlin had a very pleasant home on the outskirts of Potosi where he and his wife, Nancy, had brought up a family of two sons and a daughter. The children had now left home to make lives of their own, but it seemed they often returned to visit their parents and Wes gained an impression that it was a close and affectionate family.

Nancy came from pioneering stock and understood the ways of some older mountain-men but she would not hear of Old Charlie sleeping in the stable with his mule. Instead, she allocated him a spare room in which was a bed and a wardrobe, but very little else.

In spite of half-heartedly grumbling about ‘women always trying to change a man’s ways’, Old Charlie settled for this and actually appeared to enjoy being spoiled for a while. He even gave the sheriff’s wife a mountain-man’s ultimate accolade when he told Howard he was a lucky man and couldn’t be better looked after had Nancy been a squaw!

The day after Wes’s arrival at the house, when the three men were seated in the garden, Howard Marlin said to Wes, ‘Charlie tells me that one of Senator Schuster’s daughters gave
you a fancy six-shooter while you were in Kentucky. Perhaps you’d let me see it some time?’

‘I’ll go and fetch it now,’ Wes replied, ‘but it was a present from the whole Schuster family, not from a particular daughter.’

When Wes had gone to fetch the gun, Howard Marlin commented, ‘The boy’s a mite touchy on the subject of Schuster’s daughter, did something happen there?’

‘Nothing that shouldn’t have happened,’ Old Charlie replied, ‘One of the younger girls took quite a shine to him. Wanted Wes to stay on at the Schuster place.’

‘He could have done a whole lot worse,’ Howard replied, ‘There’s both money and influence in that family. More than he’s ever likely to make from mining.’

‘That’s what Aaron Berryman was always telling him – but Aaron had his own plans for the boy. Reckons he’d make a real good deputy. As for the Schuster girl … Wes hankers after a girl who deals cards on the riverboats. At least, she did. Now she’s on her way with Aaron and another girl to work in a gambling-house he hopes to set-up in Abilene. I’ll give the girl her due though, she seems to feel the same way about Wes, and she also has the reputation of running an honest game.’

‘Hmm! Honest or not, she’ll never be able to give him the sort of life the Schuster girl could.’

‘No doubt about it, but I don’t think he felt any more comfortable in the Schuster home than I did. It’s so big a man could get lost in there … but here’s Wes now, with his fancy six-shooter.’

When Wes arrived at the garden table where the two men were seated he was rather self-consciously wearing the leather gun-belt to which was attached the holstered Colt revolver.

When he handed it to the county sheriff, Howard weighed it in his hand and turned it this way and that before saying,
admiringly, ‘Now this really
is
a fine handgun, Wes. It’s got the right balance for a working six-shooter, plus one or two gewgaws that would appeal to a young man – but how well can you handle it?’

‘I’ve never used it,’ Wes admitted.

‘But you have fired a handgun?’

‘Yes … but I handle a rifle better.’

‘Aaron said Wes needs to get some practice in with a pistol,’ Old Charlie said, ‘and I’ve told him if he’s ever going to wear that fancy six-shooter he’ll need to be able to shoot better than the men he’s likely to meet up with, especially if he’s planning to join up with that kinsman of his at a mining camp in the Territories.’

‘No doubt about it!’ the sheriff agreed. ‘Some of these fancy gunmen would kill a man just to get hold of a gun like this.’

‘I don’t intend wearing it,’ Wes explained, ‘I never asked for it in the first place.’

‘Ask for it, or not, you’ve got it now,’ Howard Marlin said bluntly, ‘and going where you’re heading you’ll need to be like everyone else and carry a handgun, so it might as well be this one, but you’ll need to learn how to use it properly. I’ll set up a couple of cans on the fence at the bottom of the garden and we’ll see how well you can shoot. Do you have ammunition for it?’

When Wes admitted he did not, the sheriff said, ‘The gun’s the same calibre as mine and I have plenty of ammunition in the house. I’ll fetch some when I go in to find the cans.’

When he came from the house, Howard Marlin was wearing his own gun-belt and revolver and carrying a box of ammunition. Setting up three empty cans and a bottle on the garden fence, he returned to Wes and loaded his gun for him. Then, standing back, he said, ‘Okay, now let’s see you shoot ’em all off.’

Wes fired four shots before one of the cans tumbled to the ground. The fifth shot missed. Taking careful aim and steadying his hand, he succeeded in hitting another can with his last shot.

‘Hm! It’s the first time you’ve ever fired the gun, so I suppose it’s not too bad.’

It was evident to Wes that the sheriff was trying not to appear too critical. Old Charlie was less kind.

‘Trouble is, had he been shooting at men and not tin cans, they wouldn’t have stayed sitting on a fence waiting for him to take aim and try again.’

‘True, but how’s your aim these days, Charlie?’

Instead of replying, the old mountain man reached beneath his buckskin jacket and pulled out a percussion revolver. Raising his arm to shoulder height, he fired off two shots. The first sent the remaining can spinning from the fence, the second shattered the bottle.

Still holding the smoking pistol in his hand, he stroked his beard and looking at Sheriff Marlin, said, ‘There’s my answer, Howard. Now I’ll stick the cans back on the fence and we’ll see what you can do.’

Walking the length of the garden, he picked up the three cans and placed them back on the fence, with a gap of about a yard between them. He was still in the act of turning to return to the others when Howard Marlin drew his gun and, seeming hardly to take aim, fired off three rapid shots, each sending a can tumbling from its perch.

The first of the shots must have passed very, very close to Old Charlie but, grinning broadly, he said, ‘You always were something of a showman, Howard. Seeing as how you’re so close to retiring, perhaps you’d like me to put in a good word for you with Buffalo Bill. I reckon you’d get on real well with him.’

It was a good-humoured exchange and when the two men had returned to their seats and taken up their beers once more, Wes shook his head, ruefully. ‘I have a lot to learn about shooting with a revolver, but if you like to stand the cans up again I’d put up a better showing with a rifle.’

Old Charlie shook his head, ‘A rifle’s fine to earn a living with, as both Howard and I’ve done in the past – and to kill food too, but if you want to stay alive where you’re going then you need to be able to use a handgun – and use it well. I don’t know about you, but I won’t be staying here more than another couple of days. We’ll have to see just how much Howard and I can help you improve in that time.’