Starbuck rode north toward Fort Laramie. He used the stars for a compass and he rode straight through the night. He left behind nothing of Edward Farnum.
Earlier, in his hotel room, Starbuck had laid the reporter to rest. The glasses and eastern clothing, along with the specially built shoes, were stowed in his valise. His new disguise was less elaborate, but no less effective. From the valise, he took a masterwork of dental handicraft. On the order of a false tooth, it was actually an enameled sleeve, colored a dark nut brown. Custom-fitted, it slipped over his left front tooth and was secured much like a partial bridge. To all appearances a dead tooth, it was yet another exercise in misdirection, and an immediate eye-stopper. People saw the blackened tooth and were distracted from the man.
The balance of his disguise relied on clothing and whiskery stubble. His beard, which grew rapidly, would alter the set of his features. By the time he arrived at Hole-in-the-Wall, he would have sprouted a mustache and a full growth along his chin and jawline. The conchas belt, added to the range clothes and vest, would complete the transformation. A dead tooth, nestled in a coppery beard, would erase any vestige of Luke Starbuck. What emerged would be a
whiskery, rough-garbed hardcase. An outlaw who called himself Arapahoe Smith.
Starbuck’s departure from Cheyenne had gone smoothly. Shortly after dark, he left money on the washstand for his hotel bill. Then he knotted bedsheets into a rope and went out the window of his second-floor room. The valise, which contained the remnants of Edward Farnum, was dumped in an alley trash heap. Sticking to back streets, he then made his way to the livery stable. The blood bay gelding was saddled without awakening the night hostler. All his gear was crammed into saddlebags; then the rifle scabbard and bedroll were lashed down securely. Once outside, he mounted and circled west of town. There, he fixed on the North Star and booted the horse into a steady lope. No trace of him or the direction he rode remained behind. He vanished, unseen, into the night.
By sundown of the second day Starbuck sighted Fort Laramie. The army post was situated at the juncture of the Laramie and North Platte rivers. Originally built by fur traders, it was taken over by the military when emigrant trains began the westward migration. Thereafter it served as a shakedown point for those traveling the Oregon Trail. The Bozeman Trail, mapped out when gold was discovered in Montana, also passed through Fort Laramie. Stretching north and west, a chain of forts was then constructed to combat the Sioux and other hostile tribes. Yet, for all their number, these forts were merely outposts in the wilderness. Fort Laramie remained the crossroads of the western plains.
Avoiding the fort, Starbuck rode on a few miles and pitched camp. The next morning he struck out
along the Oregon Trail, which followed the North Platte in a westerly direction. He would have made better time overland, for the trail twisted and turned in concert with the winding river. But he was on unfamiliar ground, and dared not overshoot a vital landmark, known generally as the Upper Crossing. There, on a dogleg in the river, the Oregon Trail intersected the old Bridger Trail. Little traveled, the trail had been blazed many years before by the mountain man and scout Jim Bridger. Angling northwest from the river, it meandered through the Big Horn Basin and ultimately linked up with the Bozeman Trail. Along the way, it also skirted the only known entrance to Hole-in-the-Wall.
Three days out of Fort Laramie, Starbuck turned onto the Bridger Trail. Ahead lay the foothills of the Big Horn Range and an ocean of grassland. The basin, with distant mountains on either side, stretched endlessly to the horizon. The landscape evoked a sense of something lost forever. Nothing moved as far as the eye could see, and hardly a bush or a tree was visible in the vast emptiness sweeping northward. Earth and sky were mixed with deafening silence, almost as though, in some ancient age, the plains had frozen motionless for all time. A gentle breeze, like the wispy breath of a ghost, rippled over the tall grass, disturbing nothing. It was a land of sun and solitude, a lonesome land. A land where man somehow seemed the intruder.
Only a few years ago it had been the land of the Sioux. From the North Platte in Wyoming to the Rosebud in Montana, a swath of grassland over a hundred miles long teemed with buffalo. The vast seas of bluestem and needlegrass were the natural rangeland
of a herd numbering in the millions. Then, in quick succession, gold and the lure of free land brought a flood tide of emigrants. Not far behind were the hide hunters, openly encouraged by the army, whose leaders sanctioned the slaughter. Within a decade, the great buffalo herds—the Indians’ commissary—were no more. Nor were the Sioux themselves any longer in evidence. Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn proved a pyrrhic victory for the red man. By early 1877 the Sioux and Cheyenne had been removed to reservations. Not quite a year past, Sitting Bull and his band had returned from their exile in Canada and surrendered to the army. The last of the hostiles were pacified, and the land itself opened to settlement. Most homesteaders, however, continued to pass through on their way to Oregon. The solitude and distance of the High Plains were somehow ominous. A place where few cared to try their luck.
Late the next afternoon, Starbuck topped a rise overlooking the South Fork of the Powder River. The earth shimmered under the brassy dome of the sky, and the sun seemed fixed forever on the horizon. Off in the distance the Big Horns thrust awesomely from the basin floor. A day’s ride due north, deep in the foothills, lay Buffalo Creek. And somewhere beyond that, his destination. Hole-in-the-Wall.
Starbuck reined to a halt. He sat for a moment studying on the last leg of his journey. According to Nat Boswell, the ranch of Ed Houk was south of Buffalo Creek Canyon. He had no idea whether Houk was an honest man or in league with the outlaws. Either way, the rancher most certainly possessed knowledge about Hole-in-the-Wall. Any man who lived that close to the stronghold—and survived—was a man worth knowing. A man who might be persuaded to talk. The approach would require discretion and craft; otherwise Starbuck would risk tipping his hand before he got started. Yet the odds dictated he try, for one likelihood stood out above all else. The secrets of Hole-in-the-Wall were no secret to Ed Houk.
The bay gelding suddenly alerted. He stood, nostrils flared, like an ebony statue bronzed by the sun. His hide rippled, and he nervously stamped the ground as he tested the wind. His eyes were fixed on a stand of trees bordering the river.
A visceral instinct told Starbuck to move. He never questioned such instincts; he obeyed. Too many times before some intermittent sixth sense had warned him of danger, and thereby allowed him to live awhile longer. All thought suspended, he jerked his rifle and swung down out of the saddle. A shot cracked, and in the same instant a slug fried the air around his ears. He saw a puff of smoke billow from a thicket on the riverbank.
A second slug kicked dirt at his feet as he dropped to one knee. The rifle butt slammed into his shoulder and he centered the sights on the thicket. Working the slide-action, he chambered a round and fired. Then, with no more than a pulsebeat between shots, he pumped five quick rounds into the dense undergrowth. The last report still rang in his ears when a man stumbled out of the thicket and wobbled drunkenly along the riverbank. Starbuck took careful aim and squeezed off a shot. The man’s head exploded in a gory mist of brains and bone matter. He went down as though struck by a thunderbolt.
Starbuck waited several moments, scanning the
treeline. At last, satisfied the man was alone, he rose and walked down the slope. Off to one side, screened by the undergrowth, he saw a horse tied to a tree. The rifle cocked and ready, he drifted closer, approaching slowly. On the riverbank, he stopped, watchful a moment longer. He spotted a Winchester carbine on the ground behind the thicket, and grunted softly to himself. Then his gaze shifted to the body.
The man lay head down in the shallows. He was dressed in grungy range clothes and smelled of death. One of the fifty-caliber slugs had drilled him clean through, just below the breastbone. The back of his shirt, where the slug had exited, was soaked with blood. His features were no longer recognizable. The last shot had blown out his skull directly above the browline.
Starbuck searched the dead man and found no identification. Then, for a long time, he stood staring down at the body. He felt no emotion, neither anger nor remorse. He was, instead, in a state of quandary. He thought it possible that the man was a robber. One of a murderous breed who would bushwhack any stranger unfortunate enough to happen along. Yet he was no great believer in coincidence. And being jumped by two unknown men within the space of a week qualified on all counts. Which led him to the worst of all conclusions.
He’d been set up—and ambushed.
The thought jolted him into bleak awareness. Still, however deeply felt, it was tempered by uncertainty. Aside from the lawyer William Dexter, no one knew his actual destination. Nat Boswell, who was familiar with undercover work, might very well have seen through his disguise as a reporter. All the more
so in light of the detailed questions he’d asked about Hole-in-the-Wall. But that presupposed a motive on the part of one or both of the men. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t think of a reason why either Dexter or Boswell would have him ambushed. One thing, nonetheless, was absolutely clear. The ambush today, added to the gunfight in Cheyenne, still beggared coincidence. There was a smell about it of something planned. Or worse, something arranged.
He decided to sleep light, and watch his backtrail.
Starbuck rode into Houk’s ranch late the following day. The washed blue of the plains sky grew smoky along about dusk, and lamps were already lighted in the main house. He’d timed his arrival perfectly, for there was an unwritten law on cattle spreads. A stranger was always asked to spend the night.
Ed Houk was a bony man, with shrunken skin and knobby joints. His features were seared by years of wind and sun, and his eyes were lusterless as stones. Somewhere in his early thirties, he looked older, and gave the impression of a man burned out by hard times and hard work. His outfit consisted of three hired hands and a herd of some five hundred longhorns. Whether he was a widower or simply unmarried was unclear. He volunteered little information about himself.
By the same token, he exhibited no curiosity about Starbuck. He accepted the name he was given—Arapahoe Smith—and asked no questions of a personal nature. After supper in the cook shack, he invited Starbuck up to the main house for a drink. The accommodations were sparse, and the whiskey he served was genuine popskull. Seated in cowhide
chairs they sipped quietly, their talk general. Starbuck rolled himself a smoke and Houk methodically filled his pipe. After tamping down the tobacco, he struck a match and sucked the pipe to life. Then he leaned back in his chair and studied Starbuck with a look of deliberation.
“You’re about to burst your britches, so go ahead and ask.”
Starbuck gave him an odd smile. “Ask what?”
“About Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“What gave you that idea?”
Houk took the pipe from his mouth. “There’s men on the scout driftin’ through here all the time.”
“Who said I’m on the scout?”
“Nobody,” Houk said solemnly. “Course, it don’t make no nevermind to me one way or the other. I tend to my own knittin’.”
Starbuck paused, looked him straight in the eye. “Suppose I was on the run?”
“Then you’ve got questions,” Houk replied. “Everybody does, the first time they come to Hole-in-the-Wall. I just try to steer ’em in the right direction.”
“Why so hospitable?”
Houk briefly explained. A code prevailed between himself and the men who haunted Hole-in-the-Wall. He watched the front door, and never gave the time of day to anyone with the look of a lawman. In return, the outlaws allowed him to live in peace and never raided his stock. The arrangement worked to the benefit of everyone involved.
“You must have a trusting nature.” Starbuck casually flicked an ash off his cigarette. “How do you know I’m not a lawman?”
“Well—” Houk hesitated, took a couple of puffs
on his pipe. “First off, I ain’t that bad a judge of character. You got the look about you, and I ought to know it by now. Then, there’s your horse.”
“What about him?”
“Boys on the dodge don’t ride nothin’ but the best. I never seen one yet that was a cheapskate when it come to horses. So I pegged you the minute I saw that bay gelding.”
“By jingo!” Starbuck grinned, flashing his dead tooth. “Guess you got my number.”
“I generally size a feller up pretty quick.”
“No argument there!” Starbuck frowned, suddenly thoughtful. “A minute ago you said something about a front door?”
“Yeah?”
“I always heard there was only one door into Hole-in-the-Wall.”
Houk chuckled, puffing a cloud of smoke. “You’re talking about Buffalo Creek Canyon?” When Starbuck nodded, he went on. “That’s whiffiedust the boys spread around for lawmen. Works like a charm, too! Everybody in the whole goldang country thinks it’s gospel truth.”
“You mean there’s more than one entrance?”
“Four altogether.” Houk ticked them off on his fingers. “There’s Buffalo Creek. Then there’s an old Sioux trail over the Big Horns. Then there’s Hole-in-the-Wall and Little Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“Jeezus!” Starbuck was genuinely astounded. “I thought Buffalo Creek—the canyon—was Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“Everybody does.” Houk chortled slyly. “That’s ’cause outsiders think the Big Horns are the ‘Wall.’ Ain’t so, and never was.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Lemme draw you a map. Otherwise, I’m liable to confuse you more’n you already are.”
Houk got a stub pencil and a scrap piece of paper. He began sketching with quick, bold strokes. As the map took shape, it revealed there was more to Hole-in-the-Wall than commonly thought. The hidden valley was some thirty miles in length, north to south, and roughly two miles in width. On the west, it was bounded by the Big Horns. On the east, it was bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, labeled the Red Wall. Some thirty-five miles in length, the Red Wall merged with the Big Horns in the north and the foothills in the south. The true Hole-in-the-Wall was a gap through which the Middle Fork of the Powder River flowed westward into the valley. The Little Hole-in-the-Wall was simply an ancient game trail leading eastward over the sandstone cliffs. The old Sioux trail, westward through the mountains, was nearly impassable. Buffalo Creek Canyon, the southern entrance to the valley, was by far the easiest approach. Houk penciled a number of Xs where the mouth of the canyon opened onto the valley.
“These here”—he tapped the Xs—“are the boys’ cabins. Course, them are the ones that headquarter here regular. There’s lots more that comes and goes as the mood suits ’em. They generally pitch camp somewheres, or hole up in a cave. All sorts of caves over here on the slope of the Big Horns.”
Starbuck pondered the map a moment. “What’s on the other side of the Red Wall?”
“Powder River country,” Houk commented. “Whole slew of big cattle outfits over that way.”
“Have they got an ‘arrangement’ with the boys?”
“Nope!” Houk laughed and slapped his knee. “They’re fair game, all year round!”
“So they don’t know about all these ways in and out of the valley?”
“Besides me, there’s only one other outfit that knows.”
“Oh?” Starbuck inquired evenly. “Who’s that?”
“Now I’m gonna throw you for a real loop!”
Houk pointed with his pencil. He traced the path of Buffalo Creek, which flowed the length of the valley. His pencil stopped where the creek intersected the Middle Fork of the Powder. He made an X southwest of the juncture.
“That there’s the Bar C spread.”
“A ranch!” Starbuck stared at him, dumbfounded. “Are you saying there’s an outfit in the valley itself?”
“Shore am!” Houk cackled. “Started up last summer, and they’ve turned it into a real nice operation. Foreman’s a prince of a feller—name’s Hank Devoe.”
“I take it they do have an arrangement with the boys?”
“Live and let live,” Houk said philosophically. “When you stop and think about it, the Bar C’s way ahead of the game. Ain’t nobody gonna come into that valley and try rustlin’ their beeves!”
“Or yours either,” Starbuck said, stringing him along. “Not while you’re the boys’ watchdog on the front door.”
“I reckon one good turn deserves another.”
Starbuck took him a step further. “Now that you mention it—you said you’d steer me in the right direction.”
“Try my best,” Houk said affably. “What’ve you got in mind?”
“You know a fellow by the name of Mike Cassidy?”
Houk slowly knocked the dottle from his pipe. “What if I do?”
“He’s a friend of a friend,” Starbuck lied heartily. “I was told to look him up when I got here.”
“Who by … just exactly?”
“Somebody he’d know”—Starbuck paused for emphasis—“down at Robbers Roost.”
“Tell you what—” Houk stopped, head cocked to one side. “Have a talk with Hank Devoe. If Cassidy’s in the valley, Hank’ll know where he’s at.”
Starbuck agreed, and let it drop there. With no great effort, he turned the conversation back to the valley. One question led to another, and before long he and the rancher were hunched over the map. The outcome was all he’d hoped for, and more.
Ed Houk told him all there was to know about Hole-in-the-Wall.