Doubtful Canon (20 page)

“There’s more?” I blurted out, my eyes locked on the gold coin.

“All of it,” she said, and let out a giggle. “I reckon. I mean those saddlebags were full of sacks. One broke open.”

Miss Giddings scratched her head. “But….”

“I didn’t want those men to have it,” Jasmine said. “I mean, I found the bags as soon as I got down there, but Curly Bill and Ringo would have murdered us if they got their hands on that money. Maybe they would have killed us even if they didn’t. I….” Like a little girl, she shrugged.

“Down…?” Mr. Henry gulped. “Down there?”

The soldiers came over, staring at the glittering coin. Corporal Merchant whistled. My father remained silent, close to me, smiling.

“How…how much?” Mr. Shankin asked.

“Thirty thousand,” Miss Giddings replied.

Looking up, Ian Spencer Henry did a quick head count. “Ten of us. That’s three thousand dollars each. Easy to do in my head.”

“Oh….” Mr. Henry coughed. “No…I mean…that…well, the Overland Mail…that money would belong to….”

“John Butterfield’s dead,” Mrs. Allison said.

“And Wells, Fargo and Company isn’t missing that money,” her daughter added.

“More money than we’ll ever make soldierin’,” Trooper Muller said.

“But how do we get it?” asked Corporal Merchant.

“You got to go down in that hole,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “But it’s only big enough for one of us kids. That’s why Jasmine went down yesterday.” He grinned. “Can I go this time? I want to go. Please.” He paused as we gathered around the little hole, ignoring the burning bacon and the coffee boiling over. “There wasn’t no snakes down there, was there, Jasmine?”

Smiling, she shook her head. “No spiders, either.”

Mr. Shankin wet his lips. “Then let’s get it out. In a hurry. Get it out and get out of Doubtful Cañon!”

“Amen,” murmured Trooper Muller.

Mr. Shankin and Mr. Henry gathered the rope, and Ian Spencer Henry, beaming, bravely stepped forward. They slipped the rope over him, secured it beneath his armpits. “Be careful, Son,” Mr. Henry said.

“Hey!” My best friend suddenly found me. “You don’t mind if I go, do you, Jack? I mean…well….” His voice lowered. “Do you want to go?”

“You go,” I said.

“You sure it’s all right?” he asked, eyes excited once more.

I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “It’s fine,” I said, smiling. “Everything is just fine.”

Buried treasure stories are plentiful throughout the Southwest, and the legend of John James Giddings hiding the Overland Mail Company’s $30,000 before being overrun and killed by Apaches in Doubtful Cañon is one of them.

This much of my novel is based on fact. According to New Mexico historian Marc Simmons, Giddings and four men—three guards and the driver—came across the ruins of Stein’s Peak station and were later attacked by Apaches almost the moment they entered Doubtful Cañon. The driver and one of the guards were shot off the top, and the runaway team took off, overturning the stagecoach two miles into the cañon. What happened afterward is open to speculation.

Teamsters discovered the scene a few days later, the stagecoach riddled with bullet holes and arrows, and the remains of two men nearby. Wolves and vultures had reduced the bodies to nothing more than skeletons, one of which was believed to be that of John James Giddings. Both were buried in the cañon. The third man was never found, and thus he became my fictitious Whitey Grey, named by my then-four-year-old son.

In 1917—not in the 1880s as in this novel—Giddings’s daughter sought out the grave of her father. Two Texas ranchers helped her find the site, and eventually she put a stone marker over Giddings’s grave. Folks say it’s still there today.

John James Giddings, Born June 30, 1821. Killed by Indians April 28, 1861.

Shakespeare remains standing as a ghost town today—although a 1997 fire destroyed part of it—open to tourists on select days. Stein’s Ghost Town, right off the Southern Pacific rails, is also around for visitors along the Arizona-New Mexico border. Interstate 10 bypassed Doubtful Cañon, even more remote these days than it was in the 19th Century.

Johnny Ringo and Curly Bill Brocious did roam Shakespeare and the Doubtful Cañon area in the 1880s, so I thought they would serve well as my villains, although I don’t really think either went out looking for buried treasure in October of 1881. Their legend and infamy, of course, grew in Tombstone shortly after my story ends. The fates of both men are still debated by historians.

In addition to Simmons, I also should thank the Bureau of Land Management’s Las Cruces and Pecos districts, which oversee the Doubtful Cañon area; writers Fred Grove and Melody Groves, for sharing information about Doubtful and Stein’s Peak station; Emily Drabanski and Terry Tiedeman of
New Mexico Magazine,
for tracking down an old article about Doubtful; and the following books:
Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico
by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman (University of Oklahoma Press, 1975);
The Civil War in Apacheland: Sergeant George Hand’s Diary
edited by Neil B. Carmony (High-Lonesome Books, 1996); and
The Butterfield Trail in New Mexico
by George Hackler (Yucca Enterprises, 2005).

The $30,000 (or $28,000, according to some sources) Giddings allegedly buried has never been found. Maybe it’s still there in Doubtful Cañon.

Or maybe…just maybe….

Johnny D. Boggs

Santa Fé, New Mexico

Johnny D. Boggs has worked cattle, shot rapids in a canoe, hiked across mountains and deserts, traipsed around ghost towns, and spent hours poring over microfilm in library archives—all in the name of finding a good story. He’s also one of the few Western writers to have won two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America (for his novel,
Camp Ford,
in 2006, and his short story, “A Piano at Dead Man’s Crossing”, in 2002) and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (for his novel,
Spark on the Prairie: The Trial of the Kiowa Chiefs,
in 2004). A native of South Carolina, Boggs spent almost fifteen years in Texas as a journalist at the Dallas
Times Herald
and
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
before moving to New Mexico in 1998 to concentrate full time on his novels. Author of dozens of published short stories, he has also written for more than fifty newspapers and magazines, and is a frequent contributor to
Boys’ Life, New Mexico Magazine, Persimmon Hill,
and
True West.
His Western novels cover a wide range.
The Lonesome Chisholm Trail
is an authentic cattle-drive story, while
Lonely Trumpet
is an historical novel about the first black graduate of West Point.
The Despoilers
and
Ghost Legion
are set in the Carolina backcountry during the Revolutionary War.
The Big Fifty
chronicles the slaughter of buffalo on the southern plains in the 1870s, while
East of the Border
is a comedy about the theatrical offerings of Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro, and
Camp Ford
tells about a Civil War baseball game between Union prisoners of war and Confederate guards. “Boggs’s narrative voice captures the old-fashioned style of the past,”
Publishers Weekly
said, and
Booklist
called him “among the best Western writers at work today.” Boggs lives with his wife Lisa and son Jack in Santa Fé. His website is www.johnnydboggs.com.

“One of the best Western writers at work today!”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Boggs…writes with a finely honed sense of character and a keen eye for detail…”

—
Booklist

“Boggs is unparalleled at evoking the gritty reality of the Old West.”

—The Shootist

“A terrific writer.”

—
Roundup

“Johnny D. Boggs has a keen ability to interlace historically accurate information amid a cast of descriptive characters and circumstances.”

—
Cowboy Chronicle

“Boggs, one of the most dependable Western writers working today, delivers again with this charming and exciting over-the-hill adventure.”

—
Booklist

NORTHFIELD

THE HART BRAND

WALK PROUD, STAND TALL

CAMP FORD

EAST OF THE BORDER

DARK VOYAGE OF THE
MITTIE STEPHENS

PURGATOIRE

THE BIG FIFTY

LONELY TRUMPET

ONCE THEY WORE GRAY

THE LONESOME CHISHOLM TRAIL

A LEISURE BOOK
^®

July 2009

Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2007 by Johnny D. Boggs

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E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0705-0

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