Like the miners, the clerks employed by Harney’s Hellhole were required to be on the job shortly after sunrise. But supervision was more lax, and less brutal, among the “paper collars,” as the laboring men called them with contempt. And perhaps a little envy, too. These weak but learned men were treated with some visible signs of respect from the company.
“Mr. Mumford,” called out the head clerk, and Joshua immediately became politely attentive.
“Yes, Mr. Baxter?”
Supervisor Stanley Baxter was assigning jobs for the morning work stint. He was small and slightly bowed, yet radiated an Episcopalian gravity that lent him authority.
“Mr. Mumford, the mailbag came in last night from Rapid City. Eventually, you are to answer any letters from our French or German partners.”
Baxter paused to push his bifocals up higher on his nose. He studied Josh intently across the big room. “But as usual, you must first submit English translations of these letters to Mr. Beckman’s office.”
“Yessir.”
“You will then be supplied with responses, in English, from Mr. Beckman. You will carefully translate those responses into French or German and send the replies overseas. Understood?”
“Yessir. Clearly.”
Josh had not yet translated any important or urgent letters. But he had studied copies of some on file. The overseas investors were naturally deeply concerned about profit losses from the recent robberies of ore wagons. What Josh knew, and even Deke Stratton did not, was that these same foreign investors had secretly employed Pinkerton’s Agency.
Baxter droned on, parceling out work for about a dozen clerks and copiers. They occupied one wing of the sprawling framework structure. A few of the clerks were discreetly eating bear-sign, the local name for doughnuts.
By claiming a slight nearsightedness, Josh had landed a desk near the inner wall with its bracket-mounted lamps. This was crucial because the adjoining room was Earl Beckman’s private office. And only a cheap flock board wall separated it from Josh.
For the next two hours Josh labored at translating a long letter from Berlin. He was forced to constantly consult a dictionary, and several times he could only guess at the proper verb tenses. However, it was only routine correspondence about financial and accounting matters.
Josh found his task difficult because his thoughts kept drifting to Cassie Saint John. Not just her spun-gold hair and ocean-green eyes. But also to the danger she now represented. She knew that Ben Lofley was really Wild Bill Hickok!
Bill, however, seemed to find that fact amusing. Almost as if it were a game between him and Cassie. And with that thought came another: That’s exactly what it was—a seduction game and both Cassie and Bill were willing players.
That’s just like Hickok, Josh realized. For him, sex and danger went hand-in-hand: the kill and the conquest. It was as if, for Hickok and a certain rare kind of woman, the normal rules of courtship were far too tame.
Josh’s thoughts were rudely interrupted by a boom-cracking explosion that rocked the entire building. But no one showed much reaction—it was only another of Keith Morgan’s powerful underground demolitions, opening up a new stope.
About an hour before the first break, Josh heard someone knock loudly on Beckman’s door. He was bid enter.
Moving inconspicuously, Josh leaned right as if merely shifting his position on the chair. But now his ear was pressed against the thin flock board wall.
~*~
“Come in, Merrill, come in,” Earl Beckman called out in his polished tones soft as southern magnolias. “How’d the blast go this morning?”
Labun closed the door with his heel. Then he eased his huge bulk into a chair.
“Deke’s got him a grin from ear to ear. Says it exposed a whole new lode of rich ore.”
Beckman, too, smiled to show his satisfaction. He steepled his fingers together and rested his chin on them. Despite his elation, however, a frown soon ousted the smile.
“I have a couple of reasons for calling you in,” he told Labun. “One is to remind you about this new crew chief, Ben Lofley.”
“You still worried he’s a Pinkerton, boss?”
Beckman’s fox-terrier face sharpened even more in concentration.
“If he is,” the security chief conceded, “he’s not the usual caliber of Pinkerton man. What do you think? You see more of him than I do.”
Labun considered the question, picking at his teeth with a match.
“He don’t size up like no Pinkerton to me neither,” he finally replied. “Still … there’s something about him that won’t tally.”
“My point precisely. Deke doesn’t see that so clearly as we do, and it worries me. Now, the second reason I called you in, Merrill, is that other matter we spoke of.”
“What other matter would that be, boss?”
“Do you remember our little discussion about the Indian lovers in Congress?” Beckman prompted his minion.
“You mean—how they’re starting to scream blue murder? Stuff about how ridiculous it is to claim Indians would steal gold ore?”
“Exactly.”
Merrill nodded. “When you want it done?”
“As soon as possible. In fact, tonight would be excellent.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“The Rapid City Express will be transporting some ... prominent folks from Boston.”
Labun nodded, then hove his weight out of the chair. “Then tonight it is, boss.”
~*~
The popular stagecoach route between Rapid City and Casper originated in the rugged Black Hills. But after a slow, often uncomfortable two-day start, the coach fairly flew across the flat, open terrain of Wyoming’s Thunder Basin.
There had been no serious Indian trouble along this route since the 1860s—and the crackdown by the U.S. Cavalry after Custer’s Seventh was massacred. Now only the Apaches under Geronimo still ran free, and they were way down south in the Dragoon Mountains.
During the quarter of the full moon, the Rapid City Express traveled day and night, stopping only at designated stage-relay stations to change teams and grease the axles.
“Cheyenne Crossing’s coming up soon,” Ned Pollard called over to his shotgun rider, a young newcomer named Andy Hanchon. “That’s our last stop in the hill country. Come dawn, we’ll be hauling ass across the flats. Haw there, you four-legged devils, haw!”
Ned reined in hard and pulled back mightily on the brake handle. The wildly rocking Concord coach slowed for a sharp elbow bend at the bottom of the mountain slope.
“Sir!” protested a sharp, cultured female voice from a window behind and below the two men. “Must you drive so recklessly? My husband has ... regurgitated his supper all over us!”
Ned Pollard slapped a fat thigh. His right elbow dug into Andy’s ribs.
“You hear that, Andy? That fat preacher from Boston regurgitated his supper all over his blue-nosed, horse-faced wife and them soft-mouthed missionaries. Re-goddamn-gurgitated? Well, that caps the climax, mister!”
“Sorry, ma’am!” he barely managed to shout. “Got to keep the schedule!”
Both men hooted in mirth under a placid, moonlit sky alive with glittering stars. Ned was stout, middle-aged, a bit hound-doggy in the jowls. Half his age, Andy was dark and lean. A Winchester repeater lay across his thighs.
The Concord, rocking on its leather braces, careened through the sharp turn. Someone thumped on the roof of the coach in protest. Ned laughed like a hyena as he cracked his whip over the team, urging them to go faster.
To hell with that soul saver! If they hurried, Ned knew they’d all be just in time for hot biscuits, bacon, and beans at Cheyenne Crossing.
“My God, sir, take pity!” groaned the high-pitched masculine voice of the preacher. “I shall surely die in this infernal contraption!”
“Go ahead and croak,” Ned joked, knowing only Andy could hear him. “Leaves more eats for me.”
Thwap!
The arrow point embedded deep in the box only inches from Ned’s hip. In that generous moonlight he could see the shaft quiver as it spent its deadly force.
A painful cry rose from Andy’s side of the box. Ned, fear hammering in his temples, glanced right and felt his gorge rise: Andy was still alive, but arrows protruded from him like quills! Two in his right thigh, two more in his upper right arm, one high on his back.
Even as Ned laid into the lash, an ear-piercing scream rose from the interior of the coach.
“Oh, good heart of God! Roger! Oh, Roger, Esther’s been hit with an arrow!” shouted a female voice, almost drowned out by the wounded woman’s repeated screams of terror and pain.
“My eye!” Esther cried out in a feral, hysterical voice. “Oh no, dear Lord no, not my eye!”
Indians? Ned asked himself, a puzzled numbness flowing through him as he drove the team to a reckless pace along the sloping trail. So all the crazy rumors weren’t so crazy, after all? The Copper Mountain Sioux had jumped the rez and greased their faces for war? Holy Hannah!
He could hear the unmistakable sound of their yipping war cries though Ned couldn’t actually see any of them. Injun trouble this late in the game …
At least the attack seemed to be over—no more flint-tipped arrows pelted them.
“You just hold on, Andy,” he told the pitifully groaning youth. “I know it hurts, son, but you know we dar’n’t stop. There’s a doctor in Buckhorn.”
Ned shouted this same news to the passengers, advising them they dare not stop yet. The only response from the coach was Esther’s horrible cries of pain, terrible and almost inhuman in their despair.
~*~
Wild Bill knew, damn good and well, there’d be trouble tonight if he visited the Number 10. But he figured he was in Deadwood to lance a tumor, not to treat it.
It was well after dark by the time he arrived, fresh off a good feed of corn pone and back ribs at Elsie’s. The place was lively as a bordertown bordello. Stratton, Morgan, and Beckman occupied their usual table in the back. But at least there was no sign yet of Merrill Labun or Danny Stone.
Those two, Bill reminded himself, tend to come and go at odd hours.
Bill found an open spot at the far end of the curving bar. The barkeep in the gray Stetson, Jim Bob Lavoy, kept his face averted when Hickok ordered. Lavoy banged a schooner of foaming beer down, scooped up Bill’s nickel, and moved on with a gruff, “’preciate it.”
Bill liked a cold beer now and then. But his usual habit was to nurse a bottle of Old Taylor. However, he dare not live beyond his means as Ben Lofley. Old Taylor ran almost six bits a bottle.
Even as he mulled all this, Hickok could feel Cassie Saint John watching him. His eyes found hers in the mirror.
She smiled and then openly waved, ignoring the ring of clamoring bettors surrounding the faro table.
Bill gave the slightest of nods to acknowledge her greeting. A moment later Lonnie Brubaker tugged at Bill’s sleeve.
“Mr. Lofley? I got a message for you from your friend Charlie Mumford.”
“Written or spoken?”
“Uhh, spoken, sir.”
“Say it low, Lonnie, just for me.”
“Yessir. The message is this: Labun met with his boss. Something will happen tonight.”
Bill nodded. “Thank you, son. Labun leave town tonight?”
“Yessir. About six o’clock.”
“He back yet?”
“Nuh-unh. Leastways, not so’s I know.”
“Good man. Here, get a sarsaparilla to take with you.”
“Thanks, Mister Lofley.”
The kid bought a soda pop and threaded his way toward the batwings. Bill flicked his eyes toward the mirror again to watch Cassie.
She and the case-tender were evidently on break. As usual, she rose to join Deke Stratton at his table. But before she did, Bill watched her snap open a little alligator jewel case.
Cassie removed a gold quarter-eagle and handed it to the case-tender. She said something to him. He nodded and relayed both message and money to Jim Bob Lavoy.
A moment later the barkeep thumped a pony glass and a signed bottle of Old Taylor onto the deal counter in front of Hickok.
“Compliments of the faro dealer,” Lavoy said in a surly tone, his face still averted. He was gone before a surprised Bill could even say thanks.
He stared at the bottle, realizing that Cassie Saint John had just upped the ante in their little seduction game. By now there could be no more doubt of it—she knew the quiet laborer was in fact legendary killer Wild Bill Hickok.
Bill turned away from the bar and bowed in her direction—a gesture not wasted on Deke Stratton. But Hickok was glad Stratton noticed. He wanted to stand out as a cut or two above the common man. Bill’s goal was to make Stratton decide he needed this new man.
But Hickok’s moment of glory appeared to be short-lived—even as Cassie settled between Stratton and Beckman, the batwings banged open. Merrill Labun and Danny Stone stood there side by side, their eyes seeking trouble.
Here comes the fandango, Bill told himself as he knocked back his first swallow of bourbon. I’m damned if I’ll break this bottle over their heads, Bill thought as he pushed his whiskey to a safer spot.
In the mirror, Hickok watched the two new arrivals approach him. Everyone at Stratton’s table watched, too. But nobody, Bill told himself, is watching closer than Jim Bob Lavoy.
“Lookit this son of a bitch,” Stone’s nasal voice carped beside him. “Swaggering it around like a big man, drinking top-shelf liquor. Ain’t you the big toff, Lofley?”
Bill flicked his cold gaze to the loudmouth, then to Labun. The latter was taking no sides in this confrontation. Stone’s bandage, Bill noticed, was smudged with dirt.
“Merrill, I thought you said this jasper doesn’t hold a grudge?” Bill remarked.
“Oh, ain’t he the funny bunny?” Stone jeered. “I say your mother’s a whore Lofley, know that?”
“My sister’s better,” Hickok replied calmly. Several men nearby laughed. This only further enraged Stone.
“It’s past talk, you white-livered bastard! I’m bracing you.”
“I’m not armed,” Bill said truthfully.
“That won’t work, jelly guts, on account I got you a gun right here.”
Besides the long-barreled Walker Colt in his tied-down holster, Stone had a .44 shoved into the waist of his trousers.
“Here, take this and—”
Stone never finished that sentence or any other. The very moment the .44 cleared his belt, a pistol spoke its piece. Merrill Labun swore in shock and disgust when Stone’s bloody brains sprayed one cheek.
The big man collapsed, a corpse even before he—it—hit the floor. The barroom went so silent the tinkle of the player piano seemed like a roar.
Lavoy stood behind the bar, his pistol still smoking.
“You goddamn fool!” Labun managed. “You just murdered a man in cold blood!”
“He’s the fool, you big-mouthed lout. From where I stand, that peckerwood just drew steel on an unarmed man. Any pea-brained idjit will tell you you never clear leather in a crowded bar room.”
“He’s right,” Earl Beckman affirmed. “By frontier tradition, recognized in court, the only justification for drawing a weapon in a saloon is self-defense. Jim Bob was in the right.”
“Good thing for you, Mr. Lofley,” Deke Stratton added, “that our bartender seems to like you.”
Deke paused and glanced at the bottle of Old Taylor, then at Cassie. “As do others,” he concluded.
By now Hickok had guessed the truth about who Jim Bob Lavoy really was. And he was damned if having a love struck Calamity Jane on his trail was a “good thing.” Sure, she had saved his bacon a few times in the past. But something about that man-hungry female made Bill prefer to face down a blazing six-gun.
Labun was still outraged. Stratton and Beckman had returned to their table, dismissing the incident. The saloon returned to its normal controlled chaos as two Chinese workers began dragging the body outside—more money for the undertaker.
“You ain’t heard the last of this,” Labun threatened the bar dog.
“Then you ain’t heard the last of this,” Jane assured him, as fearless as a rifle. She wagged the pistol at him before she dropped it back into its holster.
“Go ask a real marshal, you tin star,” she added. Her eyes finally met Bill’s directly. “Ask somebody like Tom Smith or Red Dog Malone or maybe even Wild Bill Hickok himself. They’ll all tell you I was in the right.”
“Wild Bill Hickok can kiss my ass,” Labun retorted.
Jane chuckled, for Wild Bill was in fact close enough to do just that.
“He sure could,” she agreed, still goading Bill with her eyes. “But I doubt he’ll ever do that, Merrill. More likely, he’ll just free your soul for you.”