The Road to Ratchet Creek Read online

  “Hey, Johnny,” Cultus called. “How about toting Calamity and the marshal’s gear inside for us?”

  For a moment the boy felt like telling him to throw Calamity’s gear into the lake. Then he realized the kind of strain she must be under and relented. Going to the side of the coach, he caught his carpetbag and Calamity’s bedroll as the guard dropped them down. Next he collected the two Winchesters from inside and gathered Cole’s bag from the boot. Well loaded, he entered the building and set his burden down on the table.

  At which point John remembered about Calamity’s carbine being broken. There was a way to impress her with his ability and knowledge. If he mended it, she would see him in a far better light and regard him as something more than a village kid who needed watching over. With that thought in mind, he opened his bag and took out the bulky leather wallet.

  Bringing the other passengers’ baggage in, Cultus saw John with the open bag and remembered what it held. “Why not put that money in the safe until morning, Johnny?” he asked.

  Normally John was a sensible and level-headed youngster—he later proved to be a much shrewder businessman than his over-generous father—but at that moment he suffered from the pangs of his first love, a condition noted for making one act foolishly. Born and raised in a small Mormon community made him a touch naive in such matters, but he felt sure that Calamity would have no respect for a man who needed someone else to safeguard his property. So he shook his head firmly.

  “No, it’ll be safe enough.”

  “Have it your own way,” Cultus said and went to attend to his business.

  A pretty girl of John’s age entered the room from the kitchen, carrying a tray with steaming coffeepot, milk jug, sugar basin, cups and biscuits on it. Telling the passengers that supper would be ready in half an hour, she darted an interested glance in the youngster’s direction. He ignored her, being more concerned with his plans to win Calamity’s approbation.

  Clearing the top of the table, he laid the carbine on it and opened the wallet. Inside lay several tools and a selection of the spare parts a gunsmith found himself most likely to need: mainsprings—which propelled the hammer against the charge’s percussion cap—for Colt, Smith & Wesson or Remington revolvers, Winchester and Sharps rifles, firing pins for the Henry and other cartridge rifles and sets of toggle links. Made up for him by his father, the wallet offered John all he required to perform the repair and so earn Calamity’s gratitude and, he hoped, affection.

  While John might labor under a feeling of unrequited love, he did not allow it to override good sense where his work was concerned. If his diagnosis of the trouble was correct, and he did not doubt it would be, making the repair posed no great problem. First, however, he must take the basic precaution of unloading the carbine. Doing so the usual way meant operating the lever and ejecting the bullets in the manner of its empty cases. With the breechblock inoperative that would not be possible.

  After ensuring that the muzzle pointed at the outside wall, John selected a screwdriver and began to unfasten the side plate of the frame. With the mechanism exposed, he saw that he had guessed correctly as to the cause of the trouble. His first concern was to render the carbine harmless. Carefully easing back the breechblock, which he had closed before taking it into the stagecoach, he let the bullet slip out of the chamber. Then he held down the carrier block and tipped the remaining rounds from the magazine tube. Not until he was sure that he need not fear an accidental discharge did he start work.

  Such was the simplicity of the Winchester’s mechanism that John changed its most important operative parts with no difficulty and in a very short time. Then he sat back and looked down at the exposed interior of the carbine. While admitting that the toggle-link system worked well and had much to recommend it, John also acknowledged its limitations, chief of which was an inability to handle long, powerful and large caliber bullets. Every time he worked on a Henry or Winchester, the former a forerunner of the Model 1866, he gave thought to the problem, but came up with no answer. Yet he felt sure there must be a way that the lever action system could be made suitable for even the most powerful bullets available.

  Not until 1882 would John, or anybody else, come up with a satisfactory answer to the problem the Winchester Repeating Arms Company sought to solve in the matter of their rifles’ chief defect. And of all the methods tried, only John’s gave Winchester rifles a mechanism capable of handling the largest rounds.

  “Are you ready to eat yet?” asked the girl, coming to his table.

  “Huh?” John grunted, jolted from his reverie. “Oh sure, thanks. Let me put the side plate on first though.”

  In the bedroom Cole wiped sweat from his face and let out a long breath. With a sigh of relief Calamity let a hunk of lead clatter on to the top of the small dressing table. Blood ran from the open wound and she studied it for a moment then nodded in satisfaction.

  “Go fetch my bag, Solly,” she requested. “I’ll pack the hole with powdered witch-hazel leaves and stop it bleeding. We’ll have to do something about his fever though.”

  “I’ve some spicebush and hemlock tea made up,” Mrs. Janowska put in.

  “That’ll do fine,” Calamity replied. “Whooee! I’m pleased that’s over.”

  “And me,” Cole admitted. “You’ve done good, Calam.”

  John looked as Cole came to his table and picked up the girl’s bedroll. “Is Joe going to be all right, sir?”

  “I sure hope so. Calam dug the bullet out and now she wants to finish it off properly.”

  With that Cole turned and carried the bedroll into the sickroom. John watched the marshal go, then turned his attention to the food brought by the girl. Travelling all day with nothing more than sandwiches and the pemmican had left John with a sizeable appetite and he tucked into the heaped-up plate of food eagerly. Before he could finish, the sickroom’s door opened and Cole followed Calamity out. Together they walked across the main room, Calamity finished buckling on her gunbelt and the marshal carrying her coiled whip. As they drew near, John started to rise to his feet.

  “Thanks for bringing the gear in, Johnny,” the girl smiled.

  “Sure, thanks boy,” Cole went on and looked at Calamity. “I need some air after that.”

  “And me,” she admitted. “Let’s take a walk down and see that they’ve tended to the team, shall we? And you’d best finish your supper afore it goes cold, Johnny.”

  Before John could protest that he no longer felt hungry, or show her the good work performed on the carbine, Calamity walked from the room at Cole’s side. As they left the building, Cultus and the elder of the agent’s assistants came up.

  “Say, marshal,” the guard said in a low voice. “Neb here’s got a problem.”

  “What kind of a problem?” Cole inquired, knowing that only something important would make Cultus disclose his identity.

  “It’s this ways, marshal,” the assistant explained, looking embarrassed. “Maybe three month back a feller come through here. Smart-dresser, real pleasant spoken—.”

  “Go on,” Cole prompted.

  “He got talking to me after I toted his bags inside, bought me a drink. I reckon he could afford it, being one of the owners of a gold mine out Nevada way—.”

  “The Golden Eagle Mine?”

  “You’ve heard about it then?” Cultus asked and Neb looked worried.

  “I’ve heard,” Cole growled.

  “Is it any good?” Neb inquired anxiously.

  “Not when, as near as we can figure from the description on the stock, it’s plumb in the middle of Lake Tahoe,” Cole replied. “How much did he sting you for, Neb?”

  “Fifty ten dollar shares and threw in a couple more for good measure,” Neb groaned. “You sure it’s the same mine, marshal?”

  “I only wish I could say I wasn’t,” Cole answered. “He’s spread stock for that mine plumb across the Territory. I’ve passed word out East and West to try and have him arrested.”

  “A
ll my savings!” Neb moaned. “He took every lousy, stinking red cent I’ve managed to save—.”

  “You and plenty more, brother,” Cole said quietly. “I only wish there was something I could do to help.”

  “Twarn’t your fault, marshal,” Neb replied. “You’d not took office here then.”

  “If he’s caught and the money’s recovered, it’ll be shared out,” Cole stated, giving all the consolation he could.

  “Sure, marshal,” Neb answered bitterly. “Come on, Cultus, let’s look what damage them blasted Injuns did to Joe’s coach.”

  “How is he, Calam?” Cultus asked.

  “He’ll likely get by,” she replied. “We got the bullet out and he’s tough as whang-leather.”

  “Damn it to hell!” Cole growled as the two men walked away, Neb dragging himself along dejectedly. “I’ve more respect for an owlhoot who comes to town open and robs with a gun than for any stinking swindler.”

  “And me,” Calamity admitted. “Come on, you look like you need that walk.”

  “Hell’s fire, gal, I feel—.”

  “Then don’t. Like Neb said, you warn’t even in the Territory when that jasper sold the fake stock.”

  “Yeah, but—.”

  “And you’ve done all you can to nail his hide to the wall,” Calamity interrupted firmly. She took his arm and started his feet moving. “Anyways, you never finished telling me why you go around acting like a preacher.”

  “Looking like one,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

  “I’d bet money on that,” Calamity grinned. “How’d you start?”

  “Like I said, Belle Boyd got evidence against the Deacon for forging and I went after him. He run, killed a feller to steal a hoss and lit out. I caught him seven days’ ride from the nearest town and brought him back alive. Then I spent maybe a month ’round him until they’d tried him and stretched his neck. Well, the Deacon was a friendly sort of cuss, he killed spooked not for meanness, and I got to like him. Started to pick up his way of talking. That gave Belle an idea. She reckoned I should pretend to be him, us being much of the same build. So I started dressing like this, spouting bits of the bible. By the time we’d rounded up the whole forging ring, it’d come to be a habit. Made my work easier, too, folks tended to talk more with me dressed like this. So I kept right on doing it, even after I was fetched in here as U.S. marshal.”

  “I’ve heard plenty about the Rebel Spy. Is she as tough as you rebs claim?”

  “She’s smart and a real lady, but she’s tough enough when there’s need.”

  “I’d like to meet her,” Calamity remarked casually.

  Not that her casual tone fooled Cole. He had heard would-be hard-cases use a similar way of speaking when they heard the name of a prominent member of the gun-fighting fraternity and itched to see if he lived up to his reputation of fast drawing.

  “Happen you do and you start a fuss with her,” grinned Cole, “watch her feet. She fights à la savate. That’s French kick-fighting like they do in Louisiana.”

  “I’ll mind it,” Calamity promised.

  Although she did eventually meet the Rebel Spy, circumstances prevented Calamity from testing the other girl’s ability in the fighting line.* However Calamity did manage to gain first-hand experience of savate, when settling a difference of opinion with a Creole girl, during the trip to New Orleans which wound up with her acting as a decoy for and capturing the murderer who had strangled eight women in the city’s parks.†

  “I sure hate nosey women who ask questions,” the girl went on as they approached the empty hay barn. “So I’m not going to ask why you’re on the stage.”

  “Then I won’t tell you there’s been some hold-ups out Ratchet Creek way.”

  “Stages?”

  “Nope. Ranchers, local businessmen and the like coming or going from town, nothing big yet.”

  “Then can’t the local sheriff handle it?”

  “Maybe,” admitted Cole. “But I reckon there’s more to it than just a few two-bit stick-ups. I reckon somebody’s trying out for the—a big one.”

  “A big one, or the big one?” asked Calamity.

  “A real big, big one, Calam girl. Just how big I can’t tell you. So I figured to ride up and be on hand. Only now this Injun business has come up.”

  “We licked ’em good, why should they bother you?” Calamity said. “I’ll bet they’re high-tailing it back to their reservation as fast as the hosses’ll run.”

  “Only the feller who sold them the whiskey’s not,” Cole reminded her. “And it’s him I want. Like the good book says, wine’s a mocker and strong drink sure makes them red varmints paint for war.”

  “That’s in the Bible?”

  “Maybe not them exact words,” Cole replied cautiously.

  “You reckon you can find whoever sold the whiskey to ’em?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Through that jug?” she went on. “Hell, I’ve seen hundreds just like it all over the West.”

  “Peddling whiskey to the Injuns was one of the things I was told to stop when the Governor appointed me,” Cole told her. “So I did some nosing around and learned who made most of the stuff that comes here. Saw the bosses of the distilling companies and got their help. We marked the bottom of their kegs secret-like and they sent me a list of where each lot went.”

  “Helpful,” Calamity remarked.

  “That and scared they’d lose their licenses to brew the stuff,” Cole answered. “Trouble being I left the list at my office in Promontory. So I’ve had to send a telegraph message to my deputy and ask him to check who bought the jug. When I learn that, I’ll see how to play the hand.”

  By that time they had reached the barn’s door and halted. “Wonder if there’s a golden horseshoe nail inside,” Calamity said, gently squeezing Cole’s arm. “Mark promised to show me one and never got round to it, so I figured your family owes me.”

  “We could always take a look,” Cole replied and they walked through the door into the darkness. “Say, you know what you was saying about the pieces sticking out in different places?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is that the living truth?”

  “Don’t you know either?” asked Calamity. “Maybe we ought to find out.”

  “I never could stand living in doubt,” Cole agreed.

  A quarter of an hour later Calamity sighed contentedly and whispered, “You Counters are sure some family—I’m pleased to say.”

  Chapter 8

  IT’S SO EASY YOU CAN’T LOSE

  ONCE AGAIN CALAMITY HAD INADVERTENTLY TRAMPLED over John’s feelings. Bitter pangs of jealousy twisted at him and added to his sense of loneliness as he watched the girl walk from the room with Cole. Leader by age of a family group of six children, he never lacked company in Ogden and so felt unhappy at being alone. So he wanted companionship and considered that Calamity had rebuffed him. Annoyance at, and disillusionment with, women in general and Calamity in particular filled him by the time he ended his solitary meal.

  Across the room Thorbold nudged Conway, nodded in John’s direction and said, “He’s getting ready.”

  “Now?” asked Thorbold.

  “Let’s just leave him for a spell. If that gal don’t come back, he’ll be the more willing to come in with us.”

  “You reckon we ought to go through with it, Wally?” Thorbold said worriedly.

  “Why not?” Conway spat back. “If the gal and that damned preacher’ve gone out for what I figure they have, they won’t be around for a spell. There’s nobody else here we need worry about.”

  “Maybe he’ll tell them about us.”

  “And let her know he’s been took for a sucker? He’d sooner die.”

  “How about Monique?”

  “She’s gone to red up and I don’t reckon she’ll bill in if we offer her a cut of the take,” Conway answered, paused for a moment eyeing his companion sardonically and went on, “Of course if you don’t want in——.”


  Greed and worry warred on Thorbold’s face, the former winning. “All right, I’m in. Only let’s make a start now.”

  Shrugging, Conway led the way across to John’s table. “Hey there, Johnny,” he greeted. “You on your own?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mind if we sit along with you?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s hell just sitting ’round with nothing to do, ain’t it,” Thorbold remarked, drawing out a chair. “Now if we had a deck of cards——.”

  “Maybe there’s one behind the bar,” Conway suggested. “I’ll go ask.”

  Although John watched the drummer walk across the room, he did not have a chance to see what went on at the bar. Thorbold nodded to Calamity’s carbine and asked if John had mended it. Watching his chance, after ordering drinks from the bartender, Conway slipped the deck of cards which had caught Calamity’s eye from his pocket. When he picked up the tray loaded with two schooners of beer and a glass of sarsparilla, he held the cards under its edge. Having been distracted, John failed to see this and accepted that the cards came from behind the bar when Conway dropped them on the table.

  “You figure it’s any fun playing two-handed, Wally?” Thorbold asked.

  “Not much. Maybe you’d like to sit in, Johnny?”

  “I haven’t played cards much,” John replied.

  “Let’s play banker-and-broker then,” Conway suggested.

  “I’ve never played it,” John admitted, feeling rather ashamed of his inexperience.

  “Hell, it’s so easy you can’t lose,” grinned Thorbold. “I thought everybody knew how to play it.”

  “I can learn, I reckon,” John stated.

  “Trouble is,” Conway told him. “It’s no fun without playing for money.”

  John might be naive in some matters, but he had heard many times about dishonest gamblers. Yet everything seemed perfectly all right. Neither of the drummers looked like the professional gamblers who passed through Ogden; and the deck of cards retained their sealed wrapper in addition to having, as he believed, come from behind the bar.