The Ride (Part 4)

Something woke me but I wasn't sure what it was, so I lay quietly on my bunk listening, my hand around the butt of my pistol under the pillow. My bunk was in an alcove separated from the rest of the office by a large loosely woven blanket that had been made by skilled hands from somewhere South of the border. The office itself was divided into two parts, the front section held a desk, two wooden straight backed chairs and a small wood stove. the back section was partitioned into two cells side by side, the walls of which had been made from hand forged and welded iron bars. Each cell had a cot in it that was really just a wood box with a lip around the top that held straw and had been covered over with a blanket. There was also another blanket to cover the occupant and a straw stuffed pillow to lay your head on. I could hear the soft snoring of Jake, earlier I had locked the front door and told him not to open it for anyone before I fell asleep, and at some point he had turned the oil lamp down on low and dozed off in one of the two office chairs. I didn't really expect Jake to stay awake, there was no need in it since Flynn was out cold and locked in a cell, and the front door was bolted, it would have made a huge commotion if someone had tried to get inside.

Not hearing anything unusual, I got up and relieved myself in the night bucket, stepped into my pants and pulled my boots on. Peeking out I could see that Jake had pulled the other chair over to prop his feet up on and had his head laid back asleep. I glanced over at Flynn and he was all rolled up in the blanket we had put in there and he had rolled over on his side against the wall. It was early, probably around 3:30 or 4 AM, and it was a little cool so I went to start a fire in the little wood stove and get some coffee on. As I was messing with the fire Jake woke up and turned the spindle on the lamp to raise the wick and get a little more light in the room.

The sudden inhalation from Jake indicated something amiss, so I turned toward him and said, what is it? "That fellers knife is missing exclaimed Jake." I left it right here on the desk, did you pick it up?" I walked over to the desk and looked around, the knife just wasn't there. So I looked over at the door, and it was unbolted. JAKE! I told you not to go out unless you woke me first. Stammering Jake said, "bu but Pete, I didn't go out and I didn't unbolt the door! A closer look revealed that the cell we had put Flynn in was empty, the blankets had been rolled up around that cell's piss bucket to make it look like a body, and the pillow was carefully tucked under to make it appear to be both the pillow and the back of a small head. So Flynn was gone, well good riddance! Only where could he go? He had come in on the stage, he had no horse and no friends other that Burlington as far as I knew. I decided then that there was no hurry, if a Wilkinson rider was out waiting in the dark for him then so be it. I was going to have my coffee first and then I would take a look around town before I headed out. There was no reason to keep Flynn locked up anyway except for his own good, and after what I saw at the saloon I don't think that I would lose any sleep if he turned up dead in an alley. But the thought that he might try to steal a horse to get out of town bothered me, so best I take a look around before leaving town and then I would need to warn Gus to watch his stock.

After washing , shaving and slicking back my hair a little, I drank my coffee and ate some hastily cooked bacon and eggs that Jake had rustled up. I told Jake to hold tight and stick close around town while I was away, just watch things I said, don't try to do anything yourself. I told him that if Flynn showed up for protection from the Wilkinson outfit then let him back into a cell, but if he didn't come in on his own then to just stay away from the guy, let him fend for himself. I was going to owe Jake after this, the town would pay him a little of course, but Jake was feeling really bad about Flynn getting out and past him, even taking the knife right off the desk under his nose. It had not passed either of us by, though neither said it aloud, but that little vermin could have just as easily have slit our throats on his way out! As silent and fast as Flynn moved we might simply have awakened in the afterlife not even knowing how we got there. What I can't figure out is how Flynn got out of the cell without waking us, just opening that rusty creaking iron door is nearly enough to wake the dead. But the keys were there on the desk right where I left them, had he picked the lock? Not likely, that too would have made noise, then he still would have to open the door at least enough to get past it. I believe the little jasper squeezed through the bars I suddenly exclaimed to Jake, I would have never thought it possible but I see no other way. The thought came to my mind that I didn't ever want to see that feller again. He was just plumb spooky and I hoped that he had lit out and was gone for good. If he stole a horse I was just hoping that it wasn't mine, but if it was, even though I loved ole Jax and we had been together a long time. I was of a mind to let him go as long as I never had to deal with Flynn again.

As I left the office I headed down the street on the lookout for Klondike Joe, and for Flynn if it happened to be my misfortune that he was still in town. Joe was the town drunk and most folks around town ignored him or turned their nose up at him as they passed by. He slept most nights, when it was warm enough, on a bench or in a rocker or one of the many chairs that lined the boardwalk against the wall of the various businesses. On cooler nights like this one, he would snuggle in under the boardwalk, there was just enough room and it offered a little shelter from the night air. But when it rained or got really cold Joe would come to the jail and I would let him sleep in one of the cells. The city council frowned on the practice, they would just of soon that Joe hitched a ride to some other town, but it was those nights that I liked the best because Joe was a lot more than what everyone thought. It was on those long cold winter nights that I had gotten to really know Joe, the real Joe not the falling down town drunk. When he was sober, Joe dropped the dumb talk and act that he used to keep everyone else fooled. He was actually the most educated man in the entire town having graduated years ago from some private eastern high society school. His parents had been wealthy and he and his twin brother, Gerald, had toured Europe with them when they were just kids. The brothers had done everything together at one time. In school they took separate classes only because they wanted to be able to sit in for one another in case an opportunity for fun came up. Their instructors could not tell the two apart, even though there was an easy way to do it. Gerald had a slight sign of a dimple when he smiled and Joseph didn't have the slightest indication of dimpling. Also Joseph had a small mole high on his neck just under his left ear, which he kindly revealed to me and exclaimed that Gerald had none. But the instructors at the school had never figured it out, so Joe and Gerald could pretty much trade places at will on a whim.

The boys often received reprimands for their exploits when caught. Which according to Joe was not very often, but they had both avoided any serious trouble and both had received their degrees, Joe's in engineering and Gerald's in accounting. The boys had both fallen in love with the same girl named Kathryn Reynolds and had both vied for her hand. Gerald being the more steady of the two while Joe was the dreamer and smooth talker who liked to go out to parties and have a good time. In the end Kathryn, who was ready to have a home and start a family, had chosen Gerald over the much more flamboyant playboy Joe. After the wedding the brothers had parted ways, Gerald went to work for a large accounting firm and Joe went to work for a gunsmith named Christopher Spencer who was working on new designs for rifles. Even though their parents were affluent their father insisted that the boys find gainful employment and make their own way in life, "stand on your own two feet and become men" their father had told them.

One cold winter evening Joe took out some paper and with a marker he drew out the mechanism for a Spencer repeating carbine, he told me that Spencer had paid him a one hundred dollar bonus for the design, imagine he said, one hundred dollars for a revolutionary design that was at this very moment making his former boss a fortune. Joe had been making good money working for Spencer, but he was spending it as fast as it came in on women, whiskey and gambling. One night after having too much to drink he had lost a lot of money to club in the red light district, more money than Joe could come up with even if he went home and asked his dad for it. So Joe had come West to escape and to try his luck prospecting for gold. He had found it too, a rich seem of gold near San Francisquito, California. But soon after he filed on his claim and began work his past had caught up with him, he was forced to sign over his claim to pay off his debt.

That's the way that it had gone for Joe, bad luck, bad women and rot gut whiskey had stolen all of his potential and his self esteem. Now he had grown into a gray headed old man, he had nothing in the way of material possessions, he had no one who cared about him, and all that he wanted was his next drink to help him forget the past and what could have been. I found Joe under the boardwalk at the hotel, which was now littered with loose baggage and bits of twine and rope. When I called Joe he slowly worked his way out from under the walk and stood with his thin jacket pulled tight around his too thin and frail body. I asked if he had seen Flynn, and he had. "he came through about three hours ago" said Joe, "He took that knife of his to the ropes around all their baggage (it had been covered with tarps, tied up very tight, and left out on the boardwalk because there was not enough room to store it in the hotel) then he grabbed a carpetbag, the canvas and as much rope as he could carry and headed South out of town on foot. It was a relief to me that Flynn had not tried to steal a horse in town, but if he continued South he would end up either on the Yost or Warner ranches, like it or not it looked like I was going to have to try to pick up his trail and find out what became of him. "Darnd'est thing" said Joe," he was muttering, cussing or whistling just loud enough for me to hear the entire time he was on the walk above me working. Once I could have sworn that he saw me, he stopped cold and looked right down through the cracks at me, but then he went back to that funny jabbering talk and quick as that he was off and gone."

Next I went around back to the kitchen entrance to the hotel, there in a box Etta Sue had left me a slab of bacon, some hard tack, a couple of pounds of beef jerky, about the same amount of pemmican and some coffee for my ride. I had told her that I would be out for up to four days but that if all went well I would resupply at Fort Beulah. I was hoping to have a chance to talk to Major Esley while I was away from town. Major Ed Esley commanded the Thirty Seventh Calvary regiment at the fort, if there was anything newsworthy happening in the territory he would know about it. I was also hoping that he might know of Thomas Burlington, or if he had ever heard of Port Charles Milling & Supply Company. If the Burlington had any business connections or plans in the area the Major may have been informed about them. Also, since the Major was in some sense the nearest form of authority he wanted to inform him of the incident at the Saloon. I found it good policy to keep him informed of any major events in town, he was a lot easier to work with when he was not learning things about happenings in the area by the spread of gossip. He was in charge of securing thousands of square miles for the United States Government and he didn't like surprises or information being withheld from him. He said that It might make him seem like he didn't know what he was doing out here on the frontier. Which would have been far from the truth, the Major was a veteran of several successful engagements with hostile Indians, very straight forward and by the book on post, but a master of tactics in the field I had been told by a junior officer, and not afraid to do the unexpected or to use unorthodox methods of combat.

At the livery I found Jax, head up ready and waiting on me with an empty muzzle feed bag draped over his head. I removed the bag and led him to the water trough for a drink, then I retrieved my blanket, saddle, bags, bed roll and scabbard that Gus had left out and draped across a rail for me and I saddled up. As I worked, Gus walked in with a cup of hot coffee for me, as well as a telegram from Alabama that he had picked up in Cold Springs on his last supply run. Jax and I were both ready for the trail but that coffee smelled too good to turn down, the Telegram though, could wait until later. I doubted that he had, but I asked Gus if he had seen Flynn, he indicated in the negative and from the rest of the gestures and words that I could catch I don't think he wanted to see the man either.

We left out heading South, and just outside of town in the breaking daylight I tried to pick up Flynn's trail. It wasn't hard, a neat set of small prints heading due South were plain as day. Flynn wore an odd style of work boots that was not at all what any cowboy would ever wear, and they made a print that was unmistakable. I followed the prints along the Southern trail about a mile to Bear creek, he had not tried to conceal his path in any way. At the creek the trail ended in a clump of trees, at first I thought that there might have been a fight, maybe the Wilkinson boys had caught up with him first. But on closer inspection I could see that he had milled around and done some sort of work. He had gathered dead wood and limbs and it appeared that he had cut several green limbs about one inch in diameter and another larger one of maybe four inches. It looked as though he had fashioned some kind of boat or raft for himself, which meant that he was now somewhere downstream. The creek eventually emptied into the Green River and that into the Colorado, so theoretically Flynn could make it to the Southern rail line and then make his way anywhere in the Country. Provided of course that he could survive in the wilderness without supplies, and that he could make it through Apache territory unmolested. I rode downstream a couple of miles and found some high ground with a clear view of the area, there was no sign of Flynn at all and I had seen no tracks. I would double back and check the other side of the creek for tacks, but my guess was that we had seen the last of a man who had caused a lot of grief in such a short period of time.

Finding no place where Flynn might have left the creek I continued to ride West skirting the Warner ranch fence line on my left. Then cutting across Yost range I made good time in open country before crossing back over Bear creek and heading Northwest and up into the hills above the Wilkinson ranch. I wanted to be through Zimney's gap and well on my way to Fort Beulah before nightfall. Once I saw a couple of Wilkinson riders before entering the gap, but they kept their distance just rolling a smoke and sitting their cutting horses on a low knoll watching me as I passed by farther up. Once in the gap I started seeing a lot of tracks and other indications of recent activity. The gap was often used by people heading North and West beyond the great divide, but I had never seen this much traffic in a single season, and normally most of the travelers would have come through Gridiron Crossing on their route and we had seen few visitors lately. Apparently this activity had come from the other side of the gap and then they had turned around and returned through the gap. Unless it was soldiers from Fort Beulah it didn't make any sense, and this did not look like the type signs that a Calvary unit leaves. This was wagons and mules that came, stayed for awhile and then went back in the direction that they had came from. Perhaps the Major would have some answers for me. The odd thing was that as I rode through I saw several spots where there were little holes or indentions in the ground, if you had drawn a line between the holes it would have made a perfect triangle. A Tripod, it had to be something on a tripod, but they were all over the place and were spaced out ever so many yards apart. Whoever had been here had come for a specific reason, this was not some group of travelers who reaching this point had decided to turn back, they had come to this place on purpose and they were on a mission.

I made camp about five miles West of the gap. I gave Jax some oats then staked him out where there was some grass so that he could crop a little during the night if he had a mind to. After some coffee and a bite to eat from the poke that Etta Sue had provided, I lay back against a large oak tree to read the message that Gus had delivered. The Telegraph was just a short note "Ford family informed - Alabama agent in route for return of Government property - will also return and deliver personal effect to family. There was no signature but the telegraph had originated from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I had never been to Alabama nor did I know where either Muscle Shoals or Mudville were located there, but at least we were able to find the family and get some more clues about the gunman. The Government property could only be talking about the horse and saddle, nothing else would fit. So why would Ford have been riding a Government owned horse? Did he work for the State of Alabama, and if so why would someone from a place that I had never visited come gunning for me?

As the fire died down I took in the night sounds, a habit that I had picked up while riding through Indian country with a young prospector and miner named Chet, the only person that I have ever met from the State of Maine. He taught me to first get used to the normal sounds, the breeze in the trees, the babbling of a brook and so on, then to get to know the more subtle sounds of owls and other night creatures, that way if I heard anything out of the ordinary I could train myself to wake up ready for trouble. Chet was a good hearted man that wanted to make his fortune and then return home to his family and a girl that he had left behind. He was a jovial, good spirited fellow and a pleasure to ride with, and I dozed off wondering if he had made it back home yet and if not, where he might be and how he was doing on his quest.