HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (7 page)

Apparently the old man wanted to tell his tale to more than Reid, making Reid doubt the authenticity of it. But the monotony of life in prison made him lean a little closer to hear as the man shared the story with anyone in reach of his stage whisper. Reid glanced down the hall between their cells and made eye contact with the guard. The young man looked away, probably as bored as they were, eager to hear any tale anyone wished to tell, even if it was against the rules at this hour.

“My granddaddy, he was runnin’ for his life, the Ute tracking him all the way.”

“I’d heard tell it was the Apache and Cheyenne a man had to look out for in those days,” protested a man in the cell beside him. “Not the Ute. They were peaceful folk.”

“They were, unless a man refused to take a chief’s daughter as his bride, like my granddaddy did.”

The men let out a collective laugh and roar of approval and then settled, waiting for the rest of the man’s story.

“Fortunately for my granddaddy, he knew his way about the Sangres and beyond. He moved high and fast, even through the night. He was stumbling forward, aware that a few strong braves still trailed him, but it was the third day, late, you see. And he was plumb wore out. He tripped, and fell down a ravine, rolling and rolling until he came to rest inside the mouth of a cave.”

“Did they find ’im then? In that cave?” asked a man.

“No, he holed up in that cave, his gun across his arms, waitin’ on the braves to arrive. But after three days, he knew they’d lost his trail, and thirst drove him out.” He looked around, as if to see if he still had their attention. “He stood up to go, wobbling on his feet. And that was when he saw it.”

“Saw what?” asked a young man, biting at the bait.

“A genu-wine conquistador breastplate. Like what they wore for armor and such? Almost missed it, it was so covered by three hundred years of dust. He blew it off—” the old man pretended to pick up an object and slowly blew on it, and Reid sighed wearily—“and a great cloud of dust set him to coughing. He collapsed and thought he’d take his death right then and there, but in time, he regained himself.”

“And?” said yet another man.

“When he stood again, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. Peeking out, behind a pile of rocks, was a stack of gold bars.”

The men erupted into a mixed cacophony of disbelief and wonder. Roused, the deputy at the end of the hall came toward them, striking the end of his gun on each bar. Every prisoner scuttled back to his cot, unwilling to pay the price of a lost meal for the story. But when the deputy reached the old man’s cell, he paused. “Did he haul the gold out?” he whispered. “Your granddaddy? Did he become rich?”

“Nah,” said the old man, leaning back on one arm. “He lost it. Buried them bars again behind the rocks, thought he had the cave marked, and came back months later with men and burros to help get it out—gold bars weigh a bloomin’ ton—but he could never find the right canyon again, let alone the right cave.”

The men all groaned and turned on their cots, disappointed by the sorry end to the old man’s story.

But it took everything in Reid not to sit up straight.

Could it be? Could it be that the treasure old Sam O’Toole had found—and left for the McAllans—was not a fantastic hidden silver mine, but rather an ancient Spanish treasure of gold? One bar,
one bar
, would’ve been enough to make the man rich. And if this man’s story were true, there had been a stack of them.

The McAllans hadn’t found them yet. Had they done so, they would not have kept it a secret. It would’ve made international headlines. So it was still there.
If
it was there, Reid reminded himself sternly.

And possibly, just possibly, he could beat the McAllans to it.

Chapter 5

Bryce forced himself not to wince every time the men shouldered a gun and put down another of the stranger’s horses. He looked over the quarantined Circle M horses in the corral anxiously, studying the tilt of their ears, the way they breathed, any oddities along their mandibles. He entered the corral three times a day to lift their lips, peer into their nostrils, run his hands down the long bones of their jaws, searching for the telltale nodules that swelled with disease, fat bumps that indicated impending doom.

Despondent, he turned and walked out of the series of corrals and up the hill, away from the stables and the house. He could not face Odessa this way. The horses showed no signs of the strangles—yet. But he knew how contagious the dreaded disease was. It would be a miracle if any of them were spared. And he sensed no miracle on the wind. Bryce trudged through mud that coated his boots, ignoring the cold as it seeped in toward his toes. He kept moving until he reached the fence that bordered the first fields, the field where so many had died during that hateful storm.

Bryce grabbed hold of the post and sliced his hand on a hidden nail. He groaned and sucked on the blood that soon dripped down into his palm, but then he took hold of the post again and rocked it back and forth in fury, as if he intended to rip it from the ground.

“The horses do enough of that without you helping them,” said a voice behind him.

Bryce groaned and shook his head, not turning. “Go away, Tabito,” he said. “I need to be alone.”

“You will be alone for a long time to come. Have you told the missus yet? What you are considering?”

“Not yet.”

“It isn’t wise, keeping secrets from your wife.”

“She won’t understand,” Bryce said, looking up the slope of the field, then higher up, into the mountains that bordered the ranch.

“No, she won’t,” Tabito said quietly, moving to stand beside Bryce. “Send some of your men instead, to Spain. You should not go, Bryce. You should not risk it.”

“It is I who should go,” Bryce gritted out. “I’ve made some foolish decisions, Tabito. I didn’t build the snowbreaks. I put too much money into getting us more water. Now … we’re cash strapped. Banks won’t be lending, not after all that everyone has lost through this storm. They’ll be skittish, and it won’t change before fall’s harvest.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know. If I don’t have more horses, I can’t make my payments to the bank. If I can’t make my payments, they’ll come collecting parcels of land. I can’t let that happen, Tabito.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

Bryce stared at him. Tabito looked back to the mountains and was silent for a time. “Think like the river, Bryce. Seek wisdom, the right route, rather than an end to the journey.”

Bryce let out a breath of exasperation. “Don’t all journeys come to an end?”

“Sometimes. Most times, the river only becomes the sea.”

Forgetting the cut, Bryce ran his hand through his hair in agitation, winced and then stared at the slice on his palm. He leaned forward on the post and watched the blood drip down and then onto the fresh, white snow below. Tabito watched it too, saying nothing more.

“This ranch has demanded sacrifice after sacrifice,” Bryce said slowly. “I will not be the man who loses it. Not after everything my family has put into it.”

“Your family would not wish to sacrifice you for it.”

Bryce looked at him and then smiled, without humor. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He shook his head and began making his way down the hill, toward the house.

“Bryce,” Tabito called.

He turned and looked up at his foreman, his old friend.

“Sometimes the river disappears on one side of the mountain and appears on the other. Sometimes the river goes deep.”

29 March 1887

My patient cries upon hearing each shot, each one signifying a partial death to a dream. Harold Rollins is a Texan. He was driving his herd north to his new spread near Fort Collins. A young wife and three children anxiously await his return. He swears he had no idea that the herd carried the strangles, and by the time he noted the yearling was ailing, he was terribly ill with pneumonia himself. God saw fit to save him by bringing him here; one more night of exposure would have likely killed him. But will his arrival be a death knell for us?

Odessa heard several horses pull up outside the front door, and she scurried downstairs to open it. “Sheriff Olsbo,” she greeted warmly.

“Mrs. McAllan,” he said with a smile, then dismounted and tied his horse to the front post. Two other men beside him did the same. “Bryce around?”

“I expect him momentarily for noon dinner. Care to join us?”

“I don’t know about you boys,” said the burly sheriff, looking at his men, “but I could use a bite or two. Sure you have enough, ma’am?”

“Enough for you three. Please, come in.”

“These here are my deputies, Lance Rudell and Ernest Newland,” the sheriff said, pausing at her door. “Deputies, this is Mrs. McAllan.”

One younger deputy mumbled a shy greeting, and the other one smiled. “We’ve met before …” she said, suddenly remembering the tall, lean man.

“Yes’m,” he said, clearly reliving that day at Sam’s cabin in memory along with her. “You’re looking well. Much better than last I saw you.”

“Thank you. Life has been good for me, here on the ranch.” She took their coats, remembering that fateful day in full, that day when she thought they were soon to die at the hands of Reid Bannock and Doctor Morton. Sheriff Olsbo and his men had narrowly saved them.

“What do you hear about Mr. Bannock?” she asked, trying not to tense up. Harold was resting in the other room, where it was warmer, and Samuel was napping. She gestured toward the chairs in the formal parlor and the men took their seats.

“Got off way too easy, if you ask me,” said Lance. “Fancy lawyer from Denver did none of us any good, helping him off that murder charge.”

“He’ll still be in prison for a few more years,” Odessa said, taking a seat too.

The men were silent. The sheriff coughed as the deputies shifted in their seats uncomfortably.

“Sheriff?” she asked, glancing from one face to the next.

Sheriff Olsbo tucked his head to the side and fiddled with his hat in his lap. “I, um … Odessa, you see …” He paused, seeming as if he was making an effort to choose his words. “The prison’s getting a bit crowded. They’re building another one, but they can’t keep up with the pace. All the newcomers Colorado has seen … it was bound to push the prison population too.”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

“Now, Mrs. McAllan,” he said, leaning forward and reaching out a bouncing hand as if to settle her. “I don’t want you to fret at all about Reid Bannock. I saw to it when he was released that it was a part of the orders: If the man dares to set foot in my county, I’ll string him up myself.”

“When he was
released?”
Odessa repeated, considering his words for a moment.
Reid Bannock. Free
. “It’s a big county, Sheriff.”
And Reid thought they knew the way in to Sam’s old mine—

“Yes, but there’s little that goes on in these parts that I don’t know about. Take, for instance, your visitor.”

“Mr. Rollins?” Odessa asked distractedly. Who cared that Harold was here? Reid Bannock might soon be upon them! She lifted a hand to her forehead, suddenly feeling woozy.

He nodded. “That’s the rancher driving horses north?”

“Yes.”

“There are some rumors, Mrs. McAllan. Rumors of strangles in the herd.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Wish you had heard those rumors several days ago, Sheriff, and come to tell us
before
he arrived.”

“I should’ve known better,” Bryce said, from over her shoulder. “You’d think I was green in the saddle.”

Sheriff Olsbo looked up in surprise, and all three men rose to greet her husband. He had entered the house quietly, as was his way. Now she heard the ranch hands, stomping off mud on the back porch, removing their boots before coming inside to eat. And she had nothing quite ready to serve … “Pardon me, I’m late in getting the food out,” she mumbled toward her guests, and then turned to her husband. “Sorry, love,” she said lowly, “I was embroiled in this conversation.”

“No worries,” he said, holding her hand and gazing meaningfully into her eyes. He knew. Knew about Reid. From the expression on his face he had for some time.