Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave (39 page)

Benj the conductor, who had run up and over the nearest grassy slope, slowly made his way back.

“Is she dead?” he asked, still concerned that he was the intended target.

“Chubb, I hate to be untimely,” Frank Stevens asked. “But can I collect my mail?”

Chubb shrugged. He walked back inside his store with Frank Stevens right behind him. Til glanced at Mr. Arthur, his closest neighbor in the valley. The older Englishman seemed unfazed. Mr. Arthur nodded thoughtfully.

“Bloody crazy.”

“Both,” Til replied.

 
 

Chapter 6

Hay Ranch

 

Rufe and Steve were quite interested to hear that Mrs. Dittmore shot herself dead on the Garo Station platform. After a quiet summer of bunkhouse construction, windmill building, digging fence post holes and cutting hay — any news caught their attention.

“She did
what?
” Rufe asked.
 

“Done herself in.”

“What kind of gun did she use?” Steve asked Til.

“Just a Colt, I think.”

Caring housewife and mother that she was, Laura immediately shooed young Walker out the front door. He was not interested in hearing about Mrs. Dittmore's demise once Til produced the cherry candies. On a normal day, Laura would have confiscated the cherry candies and placed them in a jar for measured dispersal. But today was not a normal day. She just handed the small brown paper sack to Walker and pointed him out the door.

“Jewels for the court of King Arthur!” Walker shouted with ostentation. He marched outside, leaving the door wide open. But no one moved to close it.

“Til, why in the world would Mrs. Dittmore do such a thing?” Laura asked.

She was horrified to hear what happened.

“We done fed already, Til,” Steve said in a hopeful tone. “Mind if we cut out? Just down to Steven's saloon, catch up on the latest news about all this.”

“We done fed,” Rufe reminded him.

Til waved his hand at them. The McGonkin brothers flew outside and made straight for the corrals.

“I can't believe she just
shot
herself,” Laura said quietly and placed her hand over her mouth.

“It was just one of them things,” Til explained. “Happens. Now and then.”

“Not in Muscatine, Iowa!”

Laura looked at Til with fresh eyes.

“Is this what the frontier is like? Women shooting themselves in public with Colt six-guns? In broad daylight? On a train platform full of people waiting for their mail?”

Til shrugged.

“Now that I think about it — it wasn't a Colt. It was a Smith & Wesson.”

Laura began pacing the room, clearly upset and getting more so. Til watched her with growing apprehension.

“Surprised that old thing went off at all.”

His quiet morning ride was over. Part of him considered following the boys down to Steven's. But he knew as soon it crossed his mind that riding off would not sit well with Laura. He decided not to mention it.

“Why aren't you more upset about this?” she asked incredulously. “I hope I never get to the point where I want to point a gun at myself!”

“You won't, honey.”

“Things can get pretty lonely out here Til. It's just me and Walker most of the day. You go out to work with the hands, and I don't see you until dinner. Emmanuel spends half his day chopping firewood and the other half drying antelope meat. And beyond that, I haven't seen another lady since I unpacked. It's too quiet sometimes.”

“I know. I know it is.”

To the contrary, Til did not actually think it was too quiet. In fact, in his opinion, it was a fairly boisterous ranch. Between the jabbery McGonkins and Emmanuel's trail songs and Walker's kid habits — it was a plumb full house.

Laura put her hand on her hips and gave her husband a firm look. Til waited, not sure what was coming.

“I need something, Til. To keep my mind busy.”

He sat down at the kitchen table. The sky was still blue outside. It wasn't even dinner time yet.

“Alright, then,” Til said.

Laura stared at him darkly, her thoughts racing about. Til knew she had made a nice jar of fresh lemonade. The sugar he bought in Garo was sitting on the table right in front of him. He had gotten that far with his purchases — before the conversation derailed. He glanced past her towards the kitchen. What if he just ducked in there for a moment and brought the lemonade jar out here? He could stir in the sugar while she talked.

“The school house,” she mentioned. “Maybe they need a new teacher there.”

Til almost said it, but he didn't: Garo needed a new station agent.

“That may be. We can ask on it.”

Laura was still wrestling over why. She didn't know Mrs. Dittmore. In fact, she'd never even met the woman before. Laura had only been to Garo once since moving to Hay Ranch. And that was a grocery run. Perhaps she had seen Mrs. Dittmore that day, but Laura did not remember if she had. She couldn't put a face with the name.

It would be nice to have other women to talk to. Being around all these males was a little tiresome for her. The conversations tended to repeat themselves and revolve around the same topics: horses, weather and hay prices.

Being a school teacher would be a good fit. She could continue to watch over Walker, and have something to fill her time, as well. She was not sure how well the boy would do, cooped up in a schoolhouse for lessons. He was an active boy. He had trouble sitting still through a meal.

Laura decided that yes, she
would
look into the Garo schoolhouse. Even if they only needed an assistant, it would be a welcome distraction. It would give her a chance to meet the other children's mothers, too. It would be wonderful to make some friends of her own. The ranch life had become rather lonesome. Perhaps that was Mrs. Dittmore's problem — being lonesome. Living alone, working out of a train depot, taking telegrams and watching for cinder fires as the trains went by…Laura could guess that had
not
been a good job for a bereaved widower.
 

She looked at Til, who sat there staring at the bag of sugar.

“Go get the lemonade, Til.”

Til slid from his chair and went into the kitchen.

 

Chapter 7

Garo

 

Being that his clothes were in such a state of disarray, Bill circled the small town of Garo hoping it was someone's laundry day. He was in luck. Several clotheslines were strung about. A new shirt was the main thing that interested him — given the fact he had just been shot. He found one and tried it on. Green plaid was not a color he would normally wear but it would do.

Bill's feet were still sore from walking out of the Arkansas River valley on foot, but his main problem was a new hole below his left clavicle. Stealing a horse in Guffey could not have been easier. However, riding away from Guffey proved to be more difficult. If the shooter had been a bit more spritely in his response time, Bill might have taken a worse hit.

In addition to this, the horse he stole was not the best pick for an effective getaway. It was an old gelding with a swayback and lost its wind after less than a mile. It was the only horse he saw in Guffey, so he took it. Bill continued to ride the poor beast for the better part of a day before getting off.

He had been worried the shooter might chase him down, but no one ever appeared on his backtrail. Maybe the old gelding was not worth the recovery effort. The old horse had such an unpleasant trot — if it was Bill's horse that was stolen, he would have thanked the man who did it.

If there had been a saddle, Bill might have been happier with the situation. He had looked but didn't find one…not even in the run-down barn by the corral. In fact, he did not find any tack whatsoever. Bill had to fashion a halter from a length of rope he found where the corral gate should have been. Bill started thinking about it. Perhaps the swayback's owner was not giving chase because he couldn't. Perhaps he was too poor to own a second horse — or even a saddle. Obviously, the man was too poor to afford a proper corral gate.

Bill began to worry about him. Maybe the fellow was too old, or maybe a cripple, which would explain the slow response time and poor aim. Maybe the swayback was the only livestock the man owned. Bill decided he would let the horse wander home on its own, once he reached the next town. So he did. He let it go once he reached Garo. It was strange…Bill never had much of a conscience before. He wasn't sure where these thoughts were coming from.

Bill's newfound conscience did not hold him back from peering in through windows. He checked all twelve homes in town. It did not take long to find an unlatched door and a flour tin with coins buried in the flour. People always tended to choose the same hiding places for their valuables. It was enough to buy a train ticket, head back to Grand Lake, dig out the saddle bags buried on the Divide, and move on.

Bill could barely believe the hundred thousand in cash was gone. Some angry rancher was a rich man now.

The fear of being shot down like Granger and Vincent was gone. And the shot he took in Guffey had passed all the way through his shoulder, so he wasn't too worried about dying. The first creek he came to, Bill packed it with mud. It would work until he could get some proper doctoring. Distance was the most important thing at this point.

The sun was starting to arc down to the west. The hottest part of the day was over and he hoped it would cool off soon.

Bill stepped over the train rails and climbed the platform stairs, but discovered the little depot shack was empty. He looked around. There was a general store — perhaps the station agent was in there. The door was open and Bill walked right in.

“It was unexpected, that's all I can really say,” Chubb Newitt was saying to Steve and Rufe McGonkin, who stood at the counter.

Rufe was eyeing the candy jars.

“It was
not
unexpected,” Frank Stevens told them. “Tumbleweeds are best left to themselves. And she was a-tumblin'.”
 

“How much are them cherry ones?” Rufe asked Chubb. Ever since Til gave Walker that brown paper sack full of cherry hard candies, Rufe had been anxious to purchase some for himself. The ride down had been a long hour of contemplating those cherry candies.

“Your station agent here?” Bill asked, from the doorway. “I need to buy a ticket.”

“Nope, she's dead as a doornail,” Chubb replied. “Talk to the conductor. Train be through in half an hour.”

“In hard times some folks grin and bear it,” Frank continued, turning to Steve. “Others shoot themself's. Mrs. Dittmore was the shoot themself type. Stuff like that tends to well up over quite a spell, I'd say. And that's what happened. Got the habit of dwelling on unhappy thoughts. The straw that broke the camel's back…was vegetables.”

“Fudge, Frank,” Chubb cautioned. “I been out to see old missus Dittmore every now and again, especially in the snows. I don't think it's wise to speculate about her mental disposition.”

“Naw, it's purty clear she husked her brains out over vegetables.”

Bill turned and headed back outside. His nerves were jumping. He recognized those two cowpunchers! Lem had shot one of them in the shoulder. When was that? Just a few months ago? Bill didn't have a gun. He didn't have much of anything at the moment. And he was wounded. In fact, he was wounded in the same place: the shoulder.

He didn't think the punchers recognized him. They were too busy chatting. He hoped. Either way, it was best to stay out of sight until that train rolled in.

Bill hustled back down the platform steps and out into the grass. There wasn't much to Garo. Not many places to wait for half an hour. Bill swallowed nervously. If those cowpunchers were here, what about the rest of their crew? They could all be in Garo! What if he bumped into another one? Or what if the shirt he was wearing belonged to them? Or any of the locals loafing around the platform? He didn't want to run into the man who owned it.

There was a saloon down the way, Steven's Saloon, but Bill decided against going inside. Since it was the only saloon in town, it would be the one place everyone would go to congregate. Bill saw that the schoolhouse was empty. He walked around back and sat in the shade, leaning against the wall. He checked his watch. A half hour wasn't too long to sit in the grass and wait.

Bill hoped he could get on the train without any hassle.

The minutes dragged by, but no one came around. When the train finally chugged into the station at four o'clock, Bill waited until it was fully parked before he went over. He glanced at the general store as he crested the stairs. The door was propped open and he could hear the cowpunchers were still inside, talking.

“Ticket, please,” the conductor asked him, stepping off the train.

“I need to purchase one.”

Then Chubb Newitt and Frank Stevens came out of the store and walked over.

“Well, Monroe. Got to do your own ticket work now,” Frank told the conductor.

“Heard about that,” Monroe replied, and not unhappily. “Benj wired the rail office from Fairplay, ever'body knows.”

“Scared Benj so bad,” Frank recounted, “he ran all the way to Guffey before he got around to stopping.”

“Benj has a big pot belly,” Monroe said thoughtfully. “I'm sure the exercise did him some good.”

Chubb noticed Bill and bobbed his head proudly.

“Told you…half an hour. Trains roll in here on time.”

Bill took out his pocketwatch and opened it.

“You are right. It has been a half hour on the nose.”

Frank looked down at the watch in Bill's hand.

“That is one fine timepiece. I been needing to order one myself, Chubb. That one there looks like a special-order timepiece. Montgomery Ward?”