Epilogue

Telluride, Colorado
June 24, 1889

 

“How many were in the gang?”

“Seven or eight.” The express messenger sounded doubtful. “I didn’t exactly have time to count noses.”

Starbuck nodded. “Your report to the main office said the holdup took place outside Placerville?”

“You familiar with the valley?”

“Not all that much.”

“Well, there’s a bridge that crosses the San Miguel. I’d put it maybe five miles this side of Placerville. That’s where they hit us.”

“How’d they stop the train?”

“It was in my report,” the messenger said testily. “They dropped a rock slide across the tracks.”

“Just checking,” Starbuck replied casually. “How about a description? Anything special you remember?”

“I damn sure remember the one that gave the orders! He kept a gun in my ear the whole god-blessed time!”

“What’d he look like?”

“Your size, maybe a little taller. Had black hair and a mustache, and chewed tobacco. Sonovabitch spit like a grasshopper!”

“Hear any names?”

“Not that I recollect.”

The train whistle tooted three sharp blasts. Starbuck hastily concluded the interrogation. He had all the information he needed, and he saw no reason to delay departure. After shaking hands, the messenger hoisted himself into the express car. The engine chuffed a cloud of steam and the driving wheels spun, slowly took purchase on the tracks. A few moments later the train pulled away from the platform.

Starbuck turned and walked past the stationhouse. On his way uptown, he mentally reviewed all he’d learned. The description fitted a known train robber, Charlie Stroud. Operating out of Robbers Roost, Stroud led a gang whose numbers varied according to the job. His territory extended south into New Mexico and Arizona, and he had pulled a string of holdups over the last year. He was elusive and a good tactician; running him to ground would be no easy task. Robbers Roost was as inhospitable as ever, still a hazardous undertaking for any lawman. Which made it even more so for a detective.

By now the trail was cold. The train had been robbed almost a week ago, and the gang had made off with some thirty thousand dollars in loot. Hired to run them down, Starbuck had arrived in Telluride only last night. The town was located in southern Colorado, on the western slope of the Rockies. Overlooking the San Miguel Valley, it was one of the newer mining camps, with a railroad spur and a thriving business community. To the northwest, some two hundred miles distant, lay Robbers Roost.

Starbuck judged it to be a four- or five-day ride. Adding another week or so to make contact with the outlaws, that would allow time for him to sprout a scruffy beard. From his valise, which he’d left in the hotel, he would select whatever else was needed to complete his disguise. All that remained was to buy a horse and pick up a used saddle. He turned onto Main Street and went looking for a stable. A block ahead he spotted Searle’s Livery.

As he approached the stable, he saw three men push through the bat-wing doors of a nearby saloon. They stopped, huddling on the boardwalk in conversation. He automatically checked out the two men facing him, but neither of them was familiar. The third man, whose back was to him, appeared to be doing most of the talking. He dismissed them from mind and angled off toward the livery. Then the third man turned sideways, gesturing obliquely across the street. His features were distinct in the bright morning sun.

Thunderstruck, Starbuck halted dead in his tracks. Almost seven years had passed since they’d last met. The lithe frame was taller now, heavier and padded with muscle. The face was older, somewhere in the early twenties, visibly toughened by time. Yet there was no mistaking the broad brow and the square jaw, and the quick youthful look of a jester. The man doing the talking was Butch Cassidy.

Abruptly, the conversation ended. Butch dismissed the other men with a gesture, and they hurried down the boardwalk. Starbuck got himself untracked, walking toward them at a leisurely pace. He passed them as they turned into the dim interior of the stable. Proceeding upstreet, he stepped onto the boardwalk and strolled toward the saloon. Butch was still turned away, lost in thought. Starbuck followed the direction of his gaze and grunted softly to himself. Across the street, catty-corner to the saloon, was the San Miguel Valley Bank.

“Hello, Butch.” He stopped a pace away. “How’s tricks?”

Butch jumped, then whirled around. His jaw dropped open and his features corkscrewed in a look of doglike amazement. His eyes were veined with disbelief.

“I’ll be go to hell!” he croaked. “Luke Starbuck!”

“In the flesh.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“The depot.” Starbuck jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Passed your friends, and saw you standing here big as life.”

“Couple of my drinkin’ buddies,” Butch said with an uneasy smile. “What brings you to Telluride?”

“Train robbers,” Starbuck remarked. “Somebody pulled a holdup down around Placerville last week.”

“No kiddin’?” Butch inquired innocently. “You still in the detective business, are you?”

“Only trade I know,” Starbuck commented. “How about you? You’re a long way from Hole-in-the-Wall.”

“Yeah, I called it quits up there almost four years back.”

“Where do you call home these days?”

“I drift around … nowhere special.”

Starbuck’s look betrayed nothing. “Whatever happened to Mike Cassidy?”

“You won’t believe it!” Butch laughed, and for a moment there was a vestige of the clownish youngster in his features. “That old scutter done up and quit the owlhoot! Last I heard, he’d settled down somewheres south of the border. Got himself a señorita and a whole passel of kids!”

“Good for him,” Starbuck said warmly. “How long ago was it he quit?”

“Summer of ’85.” Butch’s expression turned sober. “That’s when I packed it in at Hole-in-the-Wall. Wouldn’t never’ve been the same, not without Mike.”

“So you’ve been drifting around ever since?”

“More or less.”

Starbuck sensed a sudden tension. Butch’s gaze went past him, and he turned his head slightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other two men cross the street, leading three saddled horses. They glanced toward the saloon, and Butch nodded with an almost imperceptible movement. Then they continued on to the hitch rack outside the bank. After the horses were tied, one of the men stooped down and pretended to check the cinch on his mount. The other man took up a post near the bank entrance.

“Mike had the right idea,” Starbuck said evenly. “You ought to try it yourself.”

“Well, like I told you once, life’s too goddang daily. A fellow stands still and before you know it, he takes root.”

“Is that why you aim to rob the bank?”

Butch gave him a lightning frown. “Stay out of it, Luke! It’s none of your concern!”

“Wish it weren’t,” Starbuck said in a low voice. “But here in Colorado, I’m sworn to uphold the law. I’d have to stop you.”

“You’ll die tryin’!” Butch ducked his chin toward the bank. “Those boys are meaner’n bitch wolves. You stick your nose where it don’t belong and they’ll kill you dead!”

“I’d still be obliged to try.”

“Christ on a crutch!” Butch grimaced, darted a quick look around. “Awright, lemme level with you, Luke. We’ve got the town marshal in our hip pocket! Bought him for a share of the pie and a promise he’d make himself scarce while we pulled the job. Now, you just stop and think about it! If the local lawdog don’t care—why the hell should you?”

Starbuck regarded him with a cool look of appraisal. “Even if it’s true, it doesn’t change things. I’m here and I’d be bound to stop you.”

“Goddamnit, you owe me!” Butch muttered fiercely. “I could’ve shot you that time at Hole-in-the-Wall! I had you dead to rights and all I did was crack your skull. You know you owe me, Luke!”

Starbuck looked him straight in the eye. “You’re sure you want to call the marker that way?”

“You damn betcha I’m sure!”

“Then you’ve got yourself a deal, Butch.”

“Well, now, I always knew you was a man that paid your debts!”

“One last condition,” Starbuck said tightly. “You kill anyone and I’ll drop you the minute you walk out of that bank.”

“Fair enough!” Butch crowed. “I ain’t never killed nobody in my life. I don’t aim to start now!”

“We’re even, then.” Starbuck’s voice was edged. “Next time all bets are off.”

“What makes you think there’ll be a next time?”

“Sooner or later somebody will want your ticket punched.”

“And they’ll call on you to do the job … that it?”

Starbuck’s mouth set in a hard line. “Let’s just say I’m the chief ticket-puncher hereabouts.”

Butch began a question, then appeared to change his mind. He shrugged and turned away, mumbling as he walked off. “See you, Luke.”

“Hope you don’t and wish you’re right.”

There was no reply. Butch crossed the street without looking back. He nodded to the man at the hitch rack, whose assignment was to guard the horses and warn passersby away. Then he mounted the boardwalk and joined the man at the door. Together, they entered the bank. A moment later the door closed and the blind was drawn.

Starbuck moved back into the shade. He leaned against the wall of the saloon and took his time lighting a cigarette. Over the years, he’d wondered about Butch, recalling their train ride from Pueblo. The youngster had turned him down then—refusing a chance to go straight—and things clearly hadn’t changed. The only difference was that Butch had now raised his sights. He had himself a gang and he felt cocky enough to tackle a bank. Still, for all his bravado, it was apparently his first try at the big time. Starbuck had heard nothing of him on the grapevine, and there were no wanted posters bearing his name. For seven years, he’d been a cipher among western outlaws. Today, all that went by the boards.

Old memories flooded back in a rush. Starbuck tried to remember the last time he’d thought of Hole-in-the-Wall and Deadwood. And James Horn. As near as he could recall, it was sometime the spring of ’84. He’d received a letter from Seth Bullock, advising him a grand jury had finally returned an indictment against Governor Nehemiah Ordway. That it had taken Bullock two years to secure an indictment merely underscored Ordway’s political power in Dakota Territory. The outcome of the trial, held that summer, bordered on travesty. Ordway’s lawyer entered a motion to quash the indictment; the brief contended that a territorial governor, appointed by the president, was not subject to the jurisdiction of a territorial court. The judge granted the motion, and all charges were dismissed. No effort was made to secure an indictment by a federal grand jury.

Starbuck was scarcely surprised by subsequent events. Less than two weeks after the trial, President Chester Arthur removed Ordway from office. While hardly a whitewash, the president’s action nonetheless ended any hope of criminal prosecution. Ordway, with no fear for the future, devoted himself to a business empire founded on the graft and bribes he’d accepted while governor. Nor was he tarred and feathered in the political arena; his reputation was still intact, and his influence on the Potomac suffered none at all. The Northern Pacific Railroad hired him as a lobbyist, and a good part of his time thereafter was spent in Washington. He emerged a man of wealth and prominence, and in the process he disproved the old axiom about crime. He’d made it pay.

Once more, Starbuck’s cynicism regarding politicians had withstood the test. There was no justice for those who held membership in the Order of Strange Bedfellows. His investigation, all the evidence of graft and corruption, had proved little more than an exercise in futility. His time in Deadwood had produced only one tangible result. He’d killed a man who deserved to die. In retrospect, he saw that summary justice was the only lasting justice. He thought it a sad commentary on life, and yet it was enough for him. He still lived, and James Horn was dead.

His reverie into the past abruptly ended. The bank door opened and Butch stepped outside. He was trailed by his cohort, who carried a gunnysack stuffed with cash. Their guns were drawn and they walked directly to the hitch rack. Along the street, several townspeople gawked a moment in disbelief, then quickly scattered for cover. Butch and the other men stepped into the saddle and reined their horses away from the bank. No cry of alarm was raised and no one attempted to stop them. All of Telluride seemed to hold its breath.

Starbuck moved from the shade into the sunlight. He took a final drag on his cigarette and ground it underfoot as the robbers neared the corner. Butch glanced in his direction, and for an instant their eyes locked. An unspoken message passed between them, and in that fragmented moment the youngster’s face looked somehow like a sad clown. Then he laughed and gigged his horse.

With Butch in the lead, the robbers rounded the corner. They spurred their mounts into a gallop and rode north out of town. Yipping and howling, they aimed their sixguns skyward and blasted off several rounds. The getaway was loud and noisy, somehow amateurish, and almost comic to watch. They were like exuberant schoolboys, filled with their own devilment, tossing lighted strings of firecrackers into the air. Their horses abreast, they pounded out of Telluride in a cloud of dust. A short stretch down the road they vanished from sight.

Starbuck took the pragmatic view. The kid had called the marker and their account was now settled. Yet he saw today as a beginning, not an end.

Butch Cassidy was wild as the wind, bound and determined to live unfettered by rules. The Telluride bank robbery truly branded him an outlaw, and he possessed all the attributes of the breed. One day his picture would appear on wanted posters and a price would be put on his head. Then an angry banker or a railroad baron would issue a summary death warrant. From that moment onward, the youngster would be living on borrowed time.

Starbuck turned and walked toward the livery stable. He had a train robber to catch, and the first order of business was to get himself aboard a horse. Still, for all that, there was no escaping his own vision of the future. When the time finally rolled around, he somehow knew he was the one who would be summoned. It was in the cards, ordained by the caprice that governed such things. He would be assigned the job of killing Butch Cassidy.

He promised himself to do it swiftly.