The Railroad War (24 page)

“They will most certainly be followed, Miss Starbuck.”

“Without having to change my father's arrangement?”

“There's no reason to disturb it that I can see.”

“Very well,” Jessie said. “I have only one instruction. I want you to fire Oscar Breyer today and hire a new manager.”

Barston made no comment, but looked expectantly at Jessie. When she gave no indication of continuing, he asked, “What reason am I to give Mr. Breyer for discharging him, Miss Starbuck?”

“You don‘t—” Jessie began, then a flicker of a smile stole over her face. “Don't give him a reason, Mr. Barston. But some time after he's been fired, let him find out I own the bank.”

“If those are your instructions, we will follow them, Miss Starbuck. And the new manager?”

“Your people can select him,” Jessie shrugged. “But, Mr. Barston, do put a man in charge who's honest, and who understands that small farmers and ranchers have special problems. If you do that, I won't trouble you with any more odd requests.”

His voice puzzled, Barston asked, “You don't want to see the bank's financial statement? Its earning records? Its—”

“I'll leave those things to you, Mr. Barston.” Jessie stood up. “Thank you very much for the special service.”

Before the bewildered banker quite understood what was happening, Ki had ushered him out of the suite and closed the door. Jessie, Ki, and Jed exchanged wide smiles.

Jed said, “You know, Jessie, you've got a way of cutting right down to the bone when you set out to do something. I never saw anybody get a job finished so quick.”

“That's a nice thing to say, Jed, but our job's not finished yet,” Jessie reminded him. “Frank Jeffers must have given Prosser orders, and a very free hand in carrying them out.”

“But Jeffers is dead!” Jed exclaimed.

“Yes,” Ki replied. “But Prosser doesn't know that.”

Jessie said, “The cartel's like a snake, Jed. It lives a long time, even after its head's been cut off. We've got to get back to Hidden Valley as fast as we can, and stop Karl Prosser from carrying out Jeffers's orders.”

 

“Well, I got to admit the last part of that ride was real fine, but I sure wouldn't want to take the first part again soon,” Jed said.

He and Jessie and Ki stood by the railroad siding in the bright afternoon sun, watching the caboose of the Central Pacific freight train diminishing in the distance.

Because there'd been no need to return by way of Carson City, they'd saved a day in the saddle by taking the swaying, curve-beset Virginia & Truckee train from Virginia City, their horses riding in a stock car. At the junction east of Truckee, they'd switched to the CP, which had dropped them at the spur built by the South Sierra Railway Company to handle its shipments of material. A long ride still lay ahead of them, but traveling by train had cut in half the time required for their return trip.

“If we're going to get to Hidden Valley by midnight, we'd better start riding,” Jessie told her companions. Setting an example, she swung nimbly into the saddle and the trio started the last leg of their return trip.

Although they'd saved time on the train, the trip from the siding to the valley was a long one. They stopped only when it was necessary to rest the horses, and wasted no time cooking, but made a supper from crusty Basque bread and piquant sausage that they ate in the saddle. The ride would have been much longer had they not been able to keep the horses on the strip of level ground beside the railroad spur. Even so, they'd been riding in darkness for what seemed an interminable time before they reached the end of the tracks laid for the cartel's railroad.

“It's downhill all the rest of the way now,” Jed said encouragingly. “And we'll make good time, because I know every inch of the trail we'll be traveling over.”

A sliver of moon had shown up shortly before they passed the track end, and its faint rays provided enough light for Jed to keep on the trail. They reached the north pass, and though none of them sighed audibly, they felt a surge of relief when they saw the widely separated glowing pinpoints in the night that marked farm houses, and the miniature galaxy of brighter dots that twinkled from the town.

They'd ridden only a short distance toward the clustered lights when Jessie spoke. “Ki, Jed, it's just occurred to me. Doesn't it seem odd that so many people are up as late as this, in a farming town like Hidden Valley?”

Jed spoke quickly. “I haven't thought about it, Jessie, but it's sure not usual. My folks go to bed before nine, every night except church meeting nights.”

“Something has happened,” Ki said. “Perhaps we have gotten back just in time.”

There was no way to get more speed from the weary horses. They let the animals set the pace, and held back their impatience until they reached the town. Without discussion, they turned into the street leading to Captain Tinker's house. Even before they reached the house, they could see that it was ablaze with light. A buggy, a wagon, and several horses in front of the house kept them from riding to the door. They pulled up, dropped the reins over their horses' heads, and hurried inside.

Captain Tinker sat in the dining room behind a table covered with papers. Several men sat around the big table; Jessie recognized the faces of two of them, but could not remember their names. The Captain looked up when she and Ki and Jed stopped in the doorway, and slapped his hand on table.

“Jessie!” he exclaimed. “I'm real glad to see you, and maybe a mite gladder to see Ki and Jed! Not that you aren't welcome back, Jessie, but we need men, every one we can muster up!”

“When you say ‘muster,' Captain, you give me the idea you're getting ready to fight a war,” Jessie said, holding her curiosity in check and keeping her voice calm.

“You might say we are,” the Captain replied. “Prosser's come out in the open now, and there's hell to pay, Jessie. I know you're all tired, riding in from Carson City, but pull up a chair and I'll tell you what we're up against.”

“Let me tell you the good news first,” Jessie suggested. “The man who was the real boss of this railroad is dead. There won't be a South Sierra Railway Company within a few weeks. The governor is putting through a bill for a special election, so you'll be rid of your crooked county officials too.”

“That's the best thing I've heard since this mess started,” the Captain said. “But I don't see that it's going to help us much right now. Go on and sit down, because we're going to have to do some talking, Jessie, as well as some tall figuring, if we expect to stop this war the railroad's started.”

While they were getting settled, Jed asked anxiously, “You mean there's been open fighting, Captain?”

“Some. But there's certain to be more.”

“I hope nobody's been hurt,” Jed frowned. “Daddy's all right, isn't he? And Blaine, how about him?”

“Your folks are all right, Jed,” the Captain replied. “And Blaine's out keeping an eye on things right now. But Jethro Garvey's been killed, and I imagine we haven't seen the worst of it yet.”

“Suppose you explain what's happened, Captain,” Ki suggested. “We're all very curious.”

“It started the day after you left here,” the Captain said. “About sunset, men started drifting into town. Riders. All of them rough lookers, all of them wearing pistol belts and carrying rifles. We didn't pay much attention at first, but pretty soon somebody remarked that they all went to that rooming house next to the saloon, and it looked like they were settling in to stay.”

“How many?” Jessie asked tersely.

“We don't know for sure, Jessie. Thirty, maybe more.”

Jessie nodded, and Captain Tinker went on with his story. “We didn't think much of it, even then, until Karl Prosser rode out with five of the scoundrels to the Garvey place. There were a bunch of men from town there, a half-dozen or so, trying to get started building a new house for Jethro and Rose. Prosser made them another bid to buy, and Jethro kept saying no. Then Prosser told the rascals with him to get busy, and they held the Garveys and others at gunpoint and burned all the lumber that Jethro'd gotten together for his new house.”

“It wasn't such a much of lumber,” one of the men at the table put in when Tinker paused. “All that most of us could give them was what we had left around our own places, odds and ends of stuff. But it was all Jethro had to start building with.”

“Well,” the Captain resumed, “Jethro got mad and rushed the gang, and one of them shot him. Then they set fire to the lumber and rode off. And that was when we got our dander up.” He turned from Jessie to the man across the table from him. “You were with Blaine at the saloon, Stewart. Tell Jessie about it.”

“There's not a lot to tell,” Stewart said. “Blaine rounded up five of us and we went to the saloon. Only we didn't come close to getting there. That bunch has turned the saloon and the rooming house into a fort, Miss Jessie. They started shooting as soon as we got in rifle range. We didn't press our luck, so nobody got hurt. We didn't even fire a shot, because they were shooting from inside and we couldn't see anybody to shoot at.”

“It'll take an army to get them out of there, Jessie,” the Captain said. “The saloon's got its own well, and I'd bet a plug of tobacco to a double eagle they've got all the food they need.”

“You've got the authority to raise an army if you want to, Captain,” Jessie said. “Governor Kinkead's made you a colonel in the territorial militia.”

“That was a nice thing for John to do,” Tinker said. “But I don't see that it's going to help us much, except to make us legal.”

While they'd talked, the room had gradually grown brighter. The lamplight was paling as gray dawn light crept through the windows, heralding the sunrise.

Ki said, “Those buildings must have a vulnerable spot somewhere, Jessie. I've only seen them from inside, but I'd like to go scout around down there before the light gets better.”

“I don't know that it'll do any good,” the Captain said. “I guess if you're going, I'll go along. I'd like to talk to Blaine and see if anything's happened during the night.”

They saw Blaine Abel standing in front of the courthouse, and Captain Tinker pulled up the wagon. Abel came over to them, and Ki and Jed dismounted to join him at the buggy.

“It's been quiet,” Abel said, anticipating their questions. “A couple of the boys and I scouted up close to the buildings last night, but we didn't find out much. We saw gun muzzles poking out the windows all around the rooming house, and they've cut rifle ports in the fences between it and the saloon. There were so many men around the saloon, we couldn't get very close to it, but from the looks of things, they mean business.”

“There was never any doubt of that,” Jessie said. “Even if we told them that the man who's the real boss of this railroad scheme is dead now, and the railroad is too, they'd think we were just trying to trick them, and wouldn't believe us.”

“Is that right, Captain?” Abel asked.

“If Jessie says it is, you can take it for gospel, Blaine,” Tinker replied. “And I'll put in with what she just got through saying, too. Prosser doesn't know yet what's happened, and he won't believe anything we try to tell him. He'll think we're just spinning a tall yarn, trying to talk him into giving up.”

“I don't see how we can get him and that bunch of toughs out of that place without a lot of men getting hurt, then,” Abel said. “It would take a cannon to roust them out.”

Discouragement in his voice, the Captain said, “The only way we could get a cannon is to call in the army, and that'd take a month. There's not a fort left in the territory now.”

Jessie had been listening, her keen mind weighing possibilities, and discarding each one as it occurred to her. She shifted her position on the hard seat of the buggy and stretched, throwing back her head to ease the muscles that were aching after her long night in the saddle. The sun was rising now, its low golden rays bathing the courthouse square. She blinked, and turned to the two discouraged men.

“We don't have to ask the army for a cannon,” she told them quietly. “We've got one right here. All we have to do is figure out how to use it.”

All of them turned to follow Jessie's pointing finger. They saw the small brass Fremont cannon standing on it low pedestal in front of the courthouse, a pyramid of cannonballs embedded in mortar beside it. In the morning sun, the cannon's brass barrel showed a dark brown from lack of polishing.

“You mean that little thing?” Captain Tinker snorted. “It hasn't been fired since we quit having Fourth of July blow-outs when the War started, and all we shot in it then was wadding.”

“It would still shoot, wouldn't it?” Jessie asked. “Those cannonballs fit it, don't they? And there should be plenty of gunpowder at the stores.”

“Oh, it'll fire,” the Captain said. “There's nothing about that kind of cannon to go wrong. Ream out the touchhole and put in the powder and ball, and it'll shoot, all right.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” she asked.

 

Getting the cannon ready took most of the morning. There were a lot of small jobs to be done: cleaning the bore, reaming the touchhole, making a ramrod, putting powder in bags, tearing up old rags for wadding, scraping the cannonballs clean of the mortar in which they'd been embedded, improvising a carriage from scraps of timber. The individual jobs were small, though, and there was no lack of volunteers. News of Jethro Garvey's murder had spread, and the Hidden Valley men were boiling with anger.