Luke's Gold (6 page)

Becker looked at the two for a long moment before deciding. “Ah, hell, just go ahead and pick one. I expect the soldiers will take whatever's left, and they always pay more than the horses are worth.”

“Much obliged, Mr. Becker,” Cade said. “And thanks again for offerin' me that job.”

Becker nodded again. “Good luck to you, boys.” With that he wheeled his horse, preparing to ride off toward the river where the rest of his crew were in the throes of early-morning hangovers. “If you don't find what you're lookin' for, come see me in Texas,” he called back over his shoulder.

“I declare, Mr. Thompson,” Belle exclaimed while pretending to have lost her breath, “you are quite the lover.” She rose from the bed and slipped into her robe. “I almost feel guilty for charging you.” Then she laughed and said, “Almost.” She brushed her hair back while she waited for him to get his pants and shoes on. “How long are you gonna be in town?”

“Just till morning,” Thompson replied, “then I'll be on my way to Bozeman.” This was not the first time he had paid for the services of a prostitute, so he was not so naive as to believe he had actually caused her to lose her breath. He had arrived that morning on the packet boat
Josephine
with his supply of samples and merchandise. It didn't take but a day to complete his business in Coulson.

“I'm sorry to hear you're leaving right away,” Belle said. “I'd kinda hoped you'd come back to see me.” When he only smiled in reply, while busily tying his shoelaces, she asked, “Are you staying in the hotel?”

“That's right.”

“It's early yet,” Belle suggested. “Maybe you might wanna drop back later for a little nightcap.”

He looked up at her with a tired smile. “I'm afraid I'm done for the night. I've got to get started early in the morning. It's a long ride to Bozeman.”

“Oh, well,” she said, “too bad—maybe next time you're through Coulson.” She picked up his coat and held it till he was ready for it. “It must be exciting being a liquor salesman.”

“It's like anything else, I guess—good times and bad times,” he said as he hastily took his coat and grabbed the doorknob. On a sudden impulse of generosity, he paused at the door, pulled out his wallet, and peeled off a few more dollars. “This was one of the good times,” he said.

 

Standing in the shadows of the cottonwood trees, Lem Snider watched the man emerge from Belle's tent and walk hurriedly toward town and the hotel. Judging from the man's clothes, Lem speculated that he was a lawyer or salesman. At any rate, he had enough interest in him to find out. He left the trees and headed toward the tent.

Entering the front portion of the tent, which was partitioned off from the rooms in the rear, Lem found Belle, having a drink with her partners, Lucille and Violet. He paused at the entrance to endow them with a sarcastic grin. “Well, ain't this a bouquet of faded flowers.”

“You go to hell, Snider,” Violet replied.

“Hell wouldn't have him,” Belle said. “Are you coming to buy something?”

“I'm comin' for some information, but we might as well do some business while we're at it.” He looked at Belle directly. “Who serviced the gent that just left?” When she answered that she did, Lem grabbed her by the arm and said, “Let's go in the back.”

After they had completed the business that Belle specialized in, Snider asked her about the man she had pleasured before him. If Thompson had planned to be in town longer than one night, she would have been reluctant to share information with Snider. Since she saw no further opportunity for her, she was willing to sell what she knew about him.

“He's a whiskey salesman,” she volunteered. “And he's leaving early in the morning on his way to Bozeman.”

Snider's interest was sparked immediately. “A whiskey salesman, eh? Ain't that somethin'?”

“He's pretty well-heeled, too,” Belle said. “His wallet was so thick, I thought it was a gun in his coat till he pulled it out to pay me.”

Lem smiled as he pictured it. “Maybe me and the boys oughta make sure he gets started in the right direction in the mornin'.”

“I figure that information is worth a little something extra,” Belle reminded him.

“You'll get it,” Snider said as he left the tent still buttoning up his trousers, “but first, we'll see how much it's worth.”

“Don't you short me,” she warned. “If something happens to Mr. Thompson, I might have to talk to the law.”

He halted abruptly and turned to face her. “Now, Belle, you wouldn't ever wanna do somethin' that damn foolish. That's the kinda talk that gets whores' throats cut.”

“That was quick,” Lucille scoffed when Snider walked through the front room.

“It ain't how long,” Snider said, “it's how good, and Belle ain't never had no better.”

“Hah!” Violet snorted contemptuously. “I'll ask Belle about that.” As he went out the front entrance, she called after him. “And tell that big dummy Curly it's gonna cost him more next time. I'd as soon mate with a bull elk.”

 

Claude Thompson was at the stable behind the hotel before sunup the next morning, saddled and with his merchandise packed on a mule. His intention was to leave for Bozeman before daylight so as not to attract any attention. He had been warned by John Alderson, the owner of the hotel, that there had been some recent reports of road agents operating between Coulson and Bozeman. Thompson was not a timid man. He wore a .44 pistol and he was not averse to using it should the necessity occur. He was gratified to make his way out of town without seeing a sign of anyone out and about at that early hour.

Following the trail along the banks of the Yellowstone, he was well along his way by the time the sun made a showing behind him. As he guided his horse around a barren section of high bluffs, he spotted a lone rider on the trail ahead coming toward him. Always careful when encountering strangers, Thompson reached down and eased his .44 in the holster. He kept his eye on the approaching rider as the yards between them decreased to the point where he was able to make out the man's features. All he could really tell at that distance, however, was that the man had bushy whiskers that appeared to be a beard gone wild.

A sense of caution suddenly caused Thompson to look behind him. Caution turned to concern when he discovered two riders on the trail behind him, moving along at his pace. Concern now replaced by alarm, he looked around him, seeking some avenue of escape. There was none, for that stretch of river was treeless and slashed with narrow gullies that ran down to the water.
Maybe just coincidence,
he thought.
Might not be what it looks like
. He was not convinced. There was nothing he could do but keep riding and hope he was wrong.

“Mornin' to you, sir,” Lem Snider called out as he drew up even with Thompson.

“Morning,” Thompson replied curtly, and continued to ride past.

Snider wheeled his horse and trotted up beside Thompson again. “I just thought I'd better tell you there's a lot of road agents along this way. Maybe you oughta be on the lookout.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Thompson replied guardedly.

In the next instant, a rifle shot rang out. Thompson sat straight up for a second before keeling over to the side and dropping to the ground with a bullet in his back.

“Damn you, Dawson,” Snider railed, “you coulda missed and hit me!”

Bob Dawson smirked as he and Curly caught up to them. Looking down at the body, he said, “Hell, I couldn'ta missed from that distance. I didn't see no reason to pussyfoot around with him.”

“Yeah, well, next time wait till I give a signal before you go blastin' away.” Eager to examine Thompson's wallet, Snider dismounted and rifled through the dead man's coat pockets until he found it. “Hot damn!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “It's just as fat as Belle said it was.”

“Fellers, we've done hit the mother lode,” Curly sang out as he searched through the packs on the mule. “Whiskey! Enough to drown in!”

The three outlaws rummaged through Thompson's possessions, scattering clothes and camping gear about in an effort to see everything the man carried. “We'll take the horse and the mule,” Snider said. “Throw the saddle over the bank there.”

“That's a fine-lookin' saddle,” Dawson said. “I might wanna trade.”

“Hell,” Curly immediately responded, “what makes you think you get the saddle?”

“Shut up, both of you,” Snider said. “We don't keep things somebody might recognize, like saddles and boots. Throw it over the bank.”

“What about the damn horse?” Dawson countered. “Somebody might recognize his horse, and we're keepin' that.”

“It ain't got no brand on it. Who's to say we didn't find it runnin' wild? Look at the saddle. It's got his damn initials on it.”
One of these days I'm gonna throw the both of you over the damn bank and be done with you,
he thought.

 

Following the Yellowstone River, it took Cade and Luke two and a half days to reach its confluence with the Big Horn. They camped at the site of Fort Pease, about seven miles below the Big Horn. There was nothing left of the fort but charred timbers. The army had abandoned it two years before, and the Indians had promptly set fire to it. To this point, there had been no sighting of Indians, nor did they expect any—at least not in any great numbers. Sitting Bull and about three hundred Sioux had reportedly fled to Canada in early May the year before, and Crazy Horse's band had supposedly surrendered. Still Cade and Luke kept a wary eye open for scattered groups of Sioux and Cheyenne. Their concern was not great, however, for they were fairly confident that, with two Winchester repeating rifles, they could hold their own against a sizable war party.

“At the pace we're goin',” Luke speculated, “we oughta make Fort Ellis in six or more days.”

Cade, busily building a fire at that moment, only nodded in reply. This was new country to him, so whatever Luke said, he had no choice but to accept. He was not inclined to be concerned with it at any rate. He was happy to be riding west toward the high mountains, free of bawling cattle and the dusty trail they left behind them. He gave very little thought to the prospect of finding the lost packs of gold dust Luke had hidden. He had never owned anything of value that did not come from hard work, so it was difficult to believe there would be riches waiting for him to simply come and fish them from the river. That's the way things had been for him since childhood.

Even as a small boy, he had always been good with horses, a trait passed down from his father. Cade had worshiped his father, and strove to walk in his footsteps from the time he stood on his own two feet. There was not a better man in Pueblo, Colorado Territory, than John Hunter, but that was not enough to save him from stopping a bank robber's bullet in an unsuccessful robbery of Pueblo's only bank. John Hunter had just withdrawn money from the bank to buy some supplies. It was not a large sum of money, but John refused to part with it when accosted by one of the robbers as they burst into the bank with guns drawn. Infuriated by the man's lack of fear, the outlaw shot him down with his revolver. The bank robbery was foiled when the sheriff and his deputy ambushed the pair of gunmen as they fled from the bank.

Lodged in the jail, the two outlaws awaited trial. That event was never to occur, however, for both men were shot through the bars of the one window in their second-floor cell by an unknown assailant. Due to the fact that the back wall of the jail was built adjacent to the rear wall of the sheriff's house, with barely two feet of space between the two, there was much speculation as to the possibility of a grown man being able to climb up in such a cramped space. Some argued that it would require a smaller person, maybe like Hunter's ten-year-old son to accomplish it. Others countered that it was hardly likely that Ada Hunter's grieving son had the nerve to do such a thing, even if he was capable of shinnying up between the two buildings, pulling up Hunter's nine-and-a-half-pound Henry rifle. At any rate, it was never determined for sure who the killer was. The boy never volunteered any information on the matter, and as far as his mother knew, he was asleep in his room that fateful night. Most folks, including the sheriff, figured the executions were deserved, and considered it a closed book.

Two years after his father's death, Cade's mother married again, this time to an attorney named Samuel Whitsel, and moved to his house in town. Young Cade never cared for the union. Samuel Whitsel was certainly taken by the widow Hunter, but he was not keen on the acquisition of a twelve-year-old son, especially one who many citizens of the town suspected of cold-blooded murder. Repulsed by the sight of his mother's doting upon the slick, nattily dressed lawyer, Cade avoided contact with his stepfather, spending the majority of his time out at the ranch with the horses. He stuck it out for two more years until Whitsel decided to sell the Hunter ranch and all the stock. When the horses left, so did Cade. The only possession left to him was old Billy and his saddle. The farewell to his mother was brief with little emotion, it being apparent to the fourteen-year-old boy that the parting made things easier for her new marriage. Nothing came easily to him after that, so it was just natural for him to expect that nothing ever would.

 

They started out again early the next morning, following the Yellowstone west. Luke commented that it seemed especially strange to him for the two of them to ride peacefully through country that used to be prime hunting grounds for the Sioux when he was last here. At that time, the only safety was in a cavalry patrol. They came upon more than a few cabins that had been built by settlers since the treaties with the Sioux had opened up the land along the river for settlement. By the time they reached the little town of Coulson, Luke was ready to stay over for an extra day—to rest, so he said. But Cade suspected that it was the saloon next to the general store that held the real attraction for his friend.