Colorado Sam (3 page)

 
   The monstrous animal charged without growling or barking. At first Nathan thought a huge bear was attacking him. As the onrushing mass of fur drew nearer, he realized it was the biggest dog he'd ever seen. He knew he must flee for his life, but for some crazy reason he couldn't fathom, his feet refused to move. 

The giant dog crouched and lunged at his throat. Its mouth sprung open, exposing white, glistening fangs as long as a man's thumb. Nathan managed to throw himself to one side and raise an arm in front of his face. 

   Snapping fangs clamped onto his forearm. Nathan screamed and shook with all his might to free his arm, but failed to dislodge those horrible fangs and the giant dog landed atop him, driving his shoulder into the ground.

   “Wake up, lad, wake up before you do yourself serious harm!”

   Nathan's eyes popped open. There were no fangs tearing at his forearm. No beast of a dog was to be seen anywhere. Freight Conductor Rueben Bean of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, not Sam Darling of the Missouri Pacific stood at Nathan's feet, genuine concern showing on his ruddy face. “Gosh, that must've been one hellacious nightmare.”

   Nathan grinned sheepishly. He lay on the floor, his arm caught between the end of the bench he'd been sleeping upon and the forward wall of the caboose. What had landed atop him was his own carpetbag. 

   “Lacey, if he's the nephew of Seth Tanner, I'll suck a rotten egg.” The speaker, a D&RG brakeman named Jake, hung upside down from the cupola. “Ain't no nightmare gonna scare a true blood relative of Seth Tanner.” 

   Lacey, lounging at the foot of the storage cabinets beneath the cupola giggled and pounded his knee. “Just wait till he and Heft Thomas meet up at Placer Tank. Old Heft hates wet-nursing young calves. He ain't gonna take kindly to tending one who falls out of bed easy as he slips off the teat.”  

Conductor Bean found that prediction particularly hilarious. He broke into a braying hee-haw, which in turn sparked a fit of prolonged laughter on the part of the two brakemen. 

   Nathan freed his arm and regained his seat on the bench. His cheeks and the nape of his neck were burning hot, and he was certain the trainmen could see his skin getting redder and redder. He could never remember being so embarrassed in front of adults, not even during his childhood.

   Lacey stopped laughing, wiped his streaming eyes, and said, “Wonder if old Heft will brand him or shake his hand?”

   This clever query produced another round of braying and giggling, which was enough laughter at his expense to last Nathan a month of Sundays. Though the train crew would later tell it differently about the roundhouse, the sight of the six-gun emerging from Nathan's carpetbag silenced the caboose. Eyes widened and bodies flinched as Nathan leveled the barrel of the six-gun and cocked it. 

   “Since everyone knows more about my travel arrangements than I do,” Nathan said, struggling to keep his voice from cracking, “I'd appreciate it if you gentlemen would answer a few questions. That is, if you don't mind?”

   “No, sir, we don't mind,” Conductor Bean stated. “We'll gladly answer your questions, won't we, men? Ask away, Mr. Tanner, ask away.”

   Nathan sat the six-gun on his knee to steady it. “Who's Heft Thomas?”

   A surprised look passed among the trainmen. Jake, down from the cupola and standing next to Lacey, asked in return, “What do you mean, who's Heft Thomas? He's the foreman of the Tanner Ranch, has been for years.”

   Nathan studied Lacey. “You said this Heft Thomas is to meet me at Placer Tank. How do you know that?” 

   The conductor's ruddy face darkened. “I told him,” Rueben Bean admitted. “I told Jake and Lacey who you are as well as who you're meeting so they wouldn't report me to the division super. The Denver and Rio Grande shows no mercy to employees that allow passengers aboard their freight trains.” 

Nathan wriggled the barrel of the six-gun and asked the conductor, “Why didn't you tell me?” 

   “Heft told me you wasn't to know. He wired me at Pueblo,” Rueben Bean said. ”He knew which Southern Pacific train from Denver you'd be riding. He asked me to meet you and sneak you aboard the 420. You were to believe that someone named Ira Westfall had ordered us to take you through to Alamosa. We're really to hand you over to Heft at Placer Tank.”

   Nathan relaxed a little, but made no move to lower the six-gun. “Where's Placer Tank?” 

   Rueben Bean checked his pocket watch. “It's dead ahead and we should be there in less than three minutes. I was coming to wake you when you slipped off the bench.”

   The timeliness of the conductor's calculation was apparent immediately. The caboose shuddered as the two giant Mogul engines pulling the freight began braking for the watering stop at Placer Tank. Rueben Bean smiled at Nathan. “We mean you no harm, Mr. Tanner, and if you don't mind, we must see after our duties.”

   At Nathan's “fine by me” the trainmen were on the move. Conductor Bean and Lacey snatched up lanterns and left by the rear door while Jake scampered up into the cupola. 

   Nathan settled back on the bench. He laid the six-gun in his lap and wiped his sweaty palm on a pants leg. He'd never pointed a gun at anyone before. He suspected that he'd wrung information from the rough-and-tumble trainmen not because they feared him, but because they were afraid he might accidentally shoot one of them if they spooked him or misspoke in any way. If any of the trainmen had taken offense, he hoped he didn't meet up with them again unless he had the upper hand. A pointed gun might get results, but it sure wasn't going to make a bosom friend of anybody. 

   The 420 slowed to a crawl. By the clock above Rueben Bean's desk, it was almost midnight. Nathan slid the six-gun into his carpetbag and donned his jacket and cap. He tried not to think about the dog nightmare, but that was impossible. He knew he would never forget falling from the bench in front of the train crew. The next best thing to forgetting such an embarrassment was to get away from the scene, and that, thank the Lord, was about to happen.            

   The 420 came to a full stop. Lacey and Conductor Bean dropped to the ground and went forward toward the watering tower up by the engine. Without so much as a glance at Nathan, Jake climbed down from the cupola, fisted a lantern, and stepped out onto the rear platform. Nathan gave Jake a head start, then grabbed his carpetbag and followed the brakeman outside. 

   The raw chill of the night made him shiver. The air of the San Luis Valley at 7,500 feet on a late September night was a far cry from the stifling heat of the St. Louis waterfront. If he were in for a ride of any distance by wagon or on horseback, it promised to be a finger-numbing journey. 

   Unsure exactly where he was to meet Heft Thomas, Nathan held firm at the rear of the caboose. He looked along each side of the train, but saw neither riding horses nor a wagon. He began to worry. The watering of the engine would require but a few more minutes. What would Conductor Bean and the brakemen do if Heft Thomas didn't show? After the incident with the six-gun, they might choose to leave him afoot here at Placer Tank, and Nathan had no idea how far it was to Alamosa, his original destination. 

   The red ball of a lantern approached the caboose from back down the tracks, the direction Jake had taken. Nathan's ears caught the ring of shod hoofs on crushed stone and he heaved a sigh of relief. A muscled-up riding horse, black hair shining in the light of the full moon, answered a tug of the reins and halted before Nathan. The lead rope clutched by the black horse's rider was fastened to the bridle of a bay with a star on its forehead.  

   The awed tone of the train crew had Nathan believing Heft Thomas was a whopping giant who breathed fire with every breath. But given the shortness of his stirrup leathers, Heft Thomas in person was no taller than five-feet-two or so, a far cry from Nathan's six feet. In his yellow oilskin slicker and peaked Stetson hat, he appeared a growing boy who would never get any bigger. Nathan almost laughed aloud, but thought better of it when Heft Thomas shifted in the saddle and he saw the butt of a revolver sticking from the flap of the foreman's slicker.

   “You the nephew?” the foreman asked, voice so deep it reminded Nathan of a croaking bullfrog. “You the nephew?” Heft Thomas repeated impatiently.

If no niceties were to be exchanged, that was fine with Nathan. He straightened to his full height and said, “I'm the nephew.” 

   “You unarmed?”

   “No, Sir,” Nathan responded.

   “If you've got a pistol, wear it,” Heft Thomas ordered.

   Nathan opened his carpetbag and pulled forth the six-gun and shell belt. He positioned the cross draw holster on his left hip and buckled the belt around his waist. 

   “Well, at least you know how to wear a cross draw holster,” Heft Thomas quipped. “Can you ride?”

   The foreman's blunt manner was beginning to irritate Nathan. Maybe Heft Thomas found it distasteful that he was dressed like a green-grass pilgrim in overalls, canvas jacket, square billed cap, and flat-heeled boots, but what a person wore didn't reveal whether he could shoot or ride a horse.

   “I can ride,” Nathan said.

   Heft Thomas leaned from the saddle. “I brung a lady- broke nag anyways. I don't want Mrs. Tanner chewin' on me was somethin' to happen to you twixt here and the yard. Get aboard, Nephew. We've got us a long ride, a night and most all of a day I reckon.”

   The engine whistle blew twice and the 420, all crewmembers in their proper places, chuffed into motion and quickly disappeared into the darkness. Nathan hooked the handles of his empty carpetbag over the saddle horn of the bay, hopped lightly from one foot to the other, and came up across leather in a single fluid movement. The graceful mount was ample evidence Nathan had considerable experience with horses, but if he noticed, Heft Thomas said nothing to that effect.

   The salty foreman unsnapped the bay's lead rope. “You give Monty his head, he won't stray from behind my Blackie. Let's raise some dust, Nephew. Your aunt will be expecting us by late afternoon, and let me tell you, it's best if you don't never disappoint Alana Birdsong Tanner.” 

   Nathan couldn't help but wonder what new surprises awaited him at the Tanner Ranch. After meeting the real Heft Thomas, maybe his aunt's giant dog was no bigger than a regular old hound and no threat to visitors whatsoever. 

   And what kind of name was Alana Birdsong? 

 
   The headquarters of the Tanner Cattle Company, the ST Ranch, occupied a fifty-acre stretch of flat ground one mile from the bank of Rock Creek, ten miles from Alamosa, Colorado. Nathan knew this because of the persistent inquiries he'd made of Heft Thomas until the foreman deigned to answer. Lacking the option of shooting his employer's nephew to obtain the silence he preferred during tiring horseback rides, Heft had finally responded. 

   Locating the ST was easy after they circled Alamosa to the north, as a line of telephone poles bordered the rutted road bearing westward. The normally reticent Heft Thomas bragged that Seth Tanner had strung the line from Alamosa to his ranch headquarters. It seemed his uncle had taken great pleasure in cranking the handle on the bull-horned wall box and shouting to the person on the other end of the line in Alamosa.

   Even in the gloom of dusk, Nathan could tell the ST exceeded the other ranches they'd passed both in number of buildings as well as their size. A windmill and stone trough anchored the yard. The large barn north of the windmill was capable of holding forty to fifty tons of hay. Attached to it on opposite ends were a smaller barn for milk stock and a chicken house. The rectangular structure with low-pitched roof, two chimneys, and a stovepipe east of the windmill had to be the bunkhouse. A high-roofed stable with yawning entryways stood to the south. Tight board corrals eight feet high occupied the ground behind the stable. Blacksmith and carpentry shops squatted between the stable and the bunkhouse.

   The two-story Tanner ranch house sat west of the windmill. The covered veranda extending around the entire house and the stained-glass panels bracketing the front door gave the dwelling a touch of elegance seldom seen on the ranches of southern Colorado. 

   Though he didn't expect to locate Alana Birdsong Tanner's guard dog before he spied the woman herself, Nathan began watching for him a full hundred yards from the ranch house. Regardless of how hard he tried, he couldn't get the glistening fangs of his nightmare out of his head.

    Heft Thomas dismounted, tied his horse to the hitching post next to the steps of the veranda, and motioned for Nathan to do likewise. Lamplight flickered behind the stained glass panels flanking the doorway. Someone or some thing had passed in front of a lamp. Excited over the prospect of meeting his legendary aunt, but still fearful of her dog, Nathan stared at the glass panels while dismounting in a vain attempt to determine how many legs the moving shadow possessed. 

   Feeling weak in the knees, he held tight to his carpetbag and stepped onto the veranda along with Heft Thomas. The handle on the solid wood door in front of them turned from the inside and Nathan couldn't help himself. His free hand flew of its own accord to the butt of his six-gun. 

   “Let go of that pistol and wrap your paw around your cap,” Heft Thomas snapped. “This ain't a woman who takes insult lightly.” 

   The door swung open and Nathan gasped. His aunt's desire to make her own mark amongst the males about her had suggested a female of formidable physique and strength, perhaps not offensive to the eye, but certainly not beautiful. What other kind of woman would dare insist that men treat her as an equal? 

   But the lady in the doorway wasn't stout of body or wide of hip. She was tall and willowy and shapely. Lamplight haloed her auburn hair and rounded cheekbones called attention to eyes of deepest blue. Though he guessed her age to be forty or more, if this woman was his aunt, Nathan found nothing unattractive about her. She captured the complete attention of men the same as his mother had.  

   Heft Thomas wrung the brim of his Stetson. “Good evening, Mrs. Tanner. I fetched him like you ordered.”

   Her long skirt brushing the pine floor, Alana Birdsong Tanner stepped aside, smiled, and said, “Welcome to the ST, Nathan. Please come in. You too, Heft.” 

   While the beauty of his dead uncle's wife was indeed stunning, it didn't dispel Nathan's concern for the whereabouts of her guard dog. He followed Heft through the doorway, glancing anxiously left and right.

    His concern proved legitimate. A stone fireplace dominated the far wall of the Tanner great room and a black dog that Nathan swore was large enough to saddle and ride lifted from an Injun rug in front of the hearth. The precise breed of the massive dog was hard to determine. His lengthy hair, long legs, and lean hindquarters were those of the wolfhounds his father had bred for hunting on the upper Mississippi. The broad chest, oversized skull, and wide jaw, on the other hand, belonged to the mastiffs that guarded warehouses on the St. Louis waterfront. Nathan finally decided he was witnessing the results of crossing the wolfhound and the mastiff. You obtained a downright ugly animal, but one capable of speed afoot and powerful enough to tear the arm off a giant.

   The eyes of the dog fixed on Nathan. He was sure the brute could smell his fear. It didn't help his jittery nerves when the dog advanced a few paces and bared his teeth. The beast's fangs were most assuredly the size of a man's thumb. Had he been alone Nathan would have fled, for he was certain his worst nightmare was about to come true. 

   Alana Birdsong noticed Nathan's stiffened posture and calmly said, “Sam won't harm you once he understands you're no threat to me. He only attacks on command or if he thinks I'm in danger. He's never attacked otherwise, and I should know, I raised him from a pup. Sit, Sam!”

   The huge dog closed his mouth and sat like an obedient child. Nathan took some comfort in how much control Alana Birdsong seemed to exercise over the dog. But he doubted he could ever fully trust the beast. The mastiff guarding the warehouse next to his father's had always been docile, if not friendly, until he'd attacked Nathan without provocation. It was Nathan's good fortune Jesse Wiggins' ancient Dragoon colt still fired or he would've been chewed to death. As it was, he'd suffered numerous bites on his left arm and leg that required a hundred stitches to close and months to heal. 

   Alana Birdsong patted Nathan's shoulder. “Well, now that Sam knows not to bother you, we best tend to your needs,” she said, turning to Heft. “Has he been fed today?” 

   The foreman blushed and jumped from one foot to the other. “Yes'm. We had us a campfire breakfast at daybreak. He ate right good, too.” 

   “Well, he's surely hungry again, and he needs to bathe before dinner. Mr. Ming!”

   A reed-thin Chinese male came scurrying from an adjoining room. He bowed to one and all, and then paused, awaiting the wishes of his mistress. “Nathan, you look about the size of your uncle,” Alana Birdsong judged. “Mr. Ming, please draw Nathan a bath. Then you may take him to Seth's dressing room and provide him with pants, shirt, socks, and any boots that might fit him. Run along now the both of you.”

   Mr. Ming bowed to Nathan and said, “After me, please.” 

   Nathan thanked Alana Birdsong profusely, and carpetbag in tow, trailed after the Chinese servant. 

   The door by which Mr. Ming had entered the Tanner great room gave access to a hallway running the length of the house. Straight ahead, stairs led upward to the second floor. To his right Nathan saw a dining room through an arched doorway. Twelve cane-backed chairs surrounded the room's mahogany table. Place settings of clay-fired dinnerware bearing the ST brand, complemented by silverware, glass goblets, and folded napkins, sat before four of the chairs at the far end of the table. Tall candles burned in the five branches of the brass candelabra in the center of the table. Ascending the stairs behind Mr. Ming, who bore a coal oil lamp, Nathan realized such fineries spoke to Alana Birdsong, not his cowman uncle.

   Four rooms composed the second story of the ranch house. Mr. Ming led Nathan into the second room on the left. The coal oil ceiling lamp hung above a copper-bathing tub. Water steamed in a bucket on the lid of the coal stove, and additional buckets of water flanked the copper tub. The shelf beneath the wall mirror held a straight razor.

   Nathan undressed and shaved while Mr. Ming emptied the piping hot water from the stove into the tub, added water from the buckets on the floor, inserted a testing finger, and then pronounced all was ready. Nathan stepped into the tub and Mr. Ming seized the opportunity to steal off with his belted six-gun and dirty clothing, leaving his leather purse with its remaining double eagles on a handy chair. 

   The soap was harsh; the scrubbing cloth coarse, and the accommodations crude compared to the marble bathing tubs and indoor plumbing of the Tanner Mansion, but Nathan thought it the most glorious bath of his life. Mr. Ming returned to rinse a standing Nathan with cold water and hand him a heavy robe. Nathan donned the robe and the Chinese servant said, “Master's closet do fine by you.” 

   Mr. Ming shooed Nathan into the adjoining room where a clothes press and chest of drawers took up two of the walls. An assortment of pistols and rifles, mounted on wooden pegs, covered a third wall. Seating consisted of two plain wooden benches. Mr. Ming's coal oil lamp rested atop the chest of drawers. 

   The Chinese servant opened the clothes press. “If you please, I dress you like uncle.”

   Nathan thought that a fine idea. Nothing would suit him better than to be shed of his pilgrim clothes. At his confirming nod, Mr. Ming proceeded. Moving quickly, the Chinese servant selected white underwear of Egyptian cotton with French collaret and pearl buttons, a blue, double-breasted shield shirt, brand new copper-riveted Levis, a leather vest, cotton socks, and calfskin boots with two-inch heels. 

   Nathan dressed. The boots required some pulling and tugging, but the other items fit as though they'd been purchased just for him. It was vastly different garb from the tailored trousers, white linen shirts, four-in-hand ties, and highly polished shoes his father had insisted he wear except when assigned to the unloading crew at the Tanner warehouse. Western garb was designed for outdoor work, as were his pilgrim overalls and flat-heeled boots, but his uncle's duds were more comfortable, and Nathan knew they'd be less likely to invite demeaning barbs from the employees of the ST.

   Mr. Ming smiled his approval and passed Nathan his holstered six-gun. Nathan's brows knitted together. “To the dinner table?” he asked.

   “Boss man never without gun. He wear all time last year,” Mr. Ming said. “Mrs. Tanner, she no mind.”

   No, a woman who carried a rifle with her no matter where she went wouldn't. Nathan couldn't help wondering about his uncle. The date today was September 30, 1891, and according to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, the days of the cattle rustler and the outlaw had virtually faded into history. Why, then, did his uncle apparently pack a revolver day and night, even to the dinner table? Maybe Colorado wasn't as safe a haven as Ira Westfall supposed. 

   “We go now,” Mr. Ming said. “Mrs. Tanner no like keep pretty lady from town waiting.”

   “The lady a friend of Mrs. Tanner's?” a curious Nathan inquired, belting the six-gun about his waist.

   “Yes, she guest for dinner,” Mr. Ming said as they descended the stairs. 

   Nathan's somber mood lightened. Just how old was this lady from town? And was she really pretty, or was the kindly Mr. Ming exaggerating?