Outlaw Pass (9781101544785) (3 page)

“Good luck to you,” Rob returned. “Hope you find your brother.” Jim saluted with a finger to the brim of his hat, and the two continued along the ridge while Adam turned the roan down the hill.

Unlike his younger brother, Adam was not comfortable in the noisy cauldron of a boomtown. As he guided Brownie through the clogged thoroughfare called Wallace Street, he was often forced to pull the roan up sharply to avoid running over a drunk staggering from one of the saloons, or a collision with a bull train. As unaccustomed to the turmoil and noise as his master, the roan was not able to adapt and soon became skittish and jumpy. Adam decided he had better stable the horse and canvass the town on foot. The best choice turned out to be a livery stable at the upper end of the street.

“Howdy, neighbor,” a wiry little man with a shiny bald head and a long flowing gray beard called out in greeting when Adam dismounted at the stable door. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to board my horse for a night or two,” Adam replied. “He ain't used to so much noise and confusion, and I think he'd be better off in a stall.”

“Well, I reckon my place is about as quiet as anywhere else in town,” the stable owner said. “Three dollars a night in advance.”

“Three dollars?” Adam exclaimed. “That's a little high, ain't it?”

“You
are
new in town, ain'tcha? Hell, I'm the cheapest around—three dollars a night—in advance,” he emphasized.

It was plain to Adam that his money would soon run out at that rate, so one night was all he was willing to splurge on the red roan; then he would camp outside town. “We'll go for one night,” he said, then hesitated before asking, “How much for a ration of oats?”

The bald man smiled. “Dollar extra.”

“Damn!” Adam exclaimed. “A dollar for a quarter's worth of oats.”

“I give a fair measure.”

Adam shook his head in disbelief. “I reckon there ain't no banks in town to rob, so an outlaw has to go into the livery stable business to get by.”

The owner was not amused. “Like I said, mister, you're sure as hell new in town.” He shrugged. “But them's the rates. Ain't gonna be any cheaper anywhere else. All the same to me if you leave your horse here or not.”

Adam stroked Brownie's neck and said, “Well, boy, you can go in style for one night, but don't go gettin' used to it.” He reached in his pocket and brought out his money. He had peeled off only a couple of bills when the stable owner stopped him.

“Whoa! I don't deal in no paper money. Dust is the currency hereabouts. Nobody deals for paper.”

Adam didn't respond at once, remembering then what his father had said when he gave him the double eagles. The old man was right on that call. After a few seconds' pause, he went to his saddlebags and retrieved the small pouch. Taking out one of the coins, he handed it to the bald man and said, “This is a twenty-dollar gold piece, so you damn sure better have sixteen dollars' worth of gold dust for change.”

The owner took the coin, turned it over two or three times inspecting it before placing it in his teeth to test it. “I reckon it's genuine,” he conceded. “I can give you dust for it.”

Adam followed him into a storeroom where a set of scales sat on a shelf. The man pulled a pouch from inside his trousers and weighed out a small pile of dust. “There you go,” he said, “sixteen dollars.”

Adam could not be certain the man had used the proper weight to measure the gold dust, but he looked at it closely as if he did know. “How do I know that's pure gold dust?”

“It's as pure as you'll fine. Don't matter how pure it is as long as it's worth sixteen dollars—and that's what it's worth.”

“I'll be using it to buy some supplies, so if it ain't sixteen dollars' worth, I'm comin' back to shoot your ass,” Adam stated.

There was something in the broad-shouldered young man's eyes that convinced the stable owner that he didn't waste words in idle boasting. “Listen, young feller,” he hastened to reply, his tone much less indifferent than before, “ever'thin's high in this town. You ask around, anybody'll tell you Jack Samson's an honest man. I'll tell you what I'll do. Since you're new in town, I'll give your horse a double order of oats and no extra charge. How's that?”

“The horse will appreciate it,” Adam answered, although his deadpanned expression did not change. “You by any chance know a man named Jake Blaine?”

Samson shook his head. “I can't say as I do,” he replied.

Adam hardly expected him to remember Jake by name even if he had seen him, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. With Samson watching, he pulled the saddle off Brownie. Then Jack led the horse into an empty stall. Adam followed him in and threw his saddle in a corner of the stall. “My saddlebags be all right here?” he asked. When Samson said nobody would disturb them there, Adam put the pouch with the two remaining double eagles in his pocket, drew his rifle from the saddle sling, and left the stable to begin his search of the saloons.

It took very little time to verify the difficulty he had anticipated in looking for Jake. In every saloon he entered, the response was a variation of a similar reply. “Hell, mister, I ain't got the time or the inclination to know every prospector and drunk that comes in here. I just sell 'em whiskey and beer. I don't
wanna
know their names.” When he had canvassed all the saloons in Virginia City, he tried his luck in the stores with the same lack of success. As a last result, he inquired at the hotels on the possibility that, if Jake had actually struck it rich, he might have sprung for a room. That was not the case, however. There was no Jake Blaine on any hotel registries. At the end of the evening, he stopped back at an establishment called O'Grady's, the first saloon he had visited, to have a glass of beer while he thought about what he should do next.

The bartender recognized him as having been in earlier that evening asking about someone. “You find that feller you were lookin' for?” he asked when he set the glass of beer on the bar before Adam. “What was his name?”

“Jake Blaine,” Adam replied. “No, I ain't found him yet.” He took a step to the side when a man pushed into the bar beside him. Adam took another step to the side to give him more room, but was stopped when a second man moved in to box him in. Not sure if it was intentional or not, he stepped back away from the bar, still holding the glass of beer in his hand. A quick look right and left told him there was plenty of space on either side, and no reason to crowd him, so he took a moment for a closer look at the two. Nothing unusual, he decided, two men who looked pretty much like most of the men in the saloon, so he moved down the bar a few paces to drink his beer.

“What's the matter, big'un,” one of the men slurred, “was we crampin' your style too much?”

Why, he couldn't imagine, but it was obvious now that the crowding by the two was intentional. “As a matter of fact, you were,” Adam answered, “but there's plenty of room at the bar, so I'll move out of your way.” He could see that he wasn't going to be allowed to avoid a confrontation, judging by the malicious grins in place on each face. What he couldn't understand was why they had picked him out to hassle.

The one who had spoken to him, a man of average height, wearing a fancy hand-tooled leather vest and two revolvers with their handles forward, gave his partner a sideways glance and said, “You hear that, Rafe? He said we was crampin' his style.” Turning a contemptuous gaze toward Adam, he said, “I hear you been askin' a lot of questions around town about somebody you're lookin' for.”

“I reckon that's right,” Adam replied. “I'm lookin' for somebody. Does that bother you for some reason?” He took a sip of his beer and let his free hand casually drop down next to the barrel of his rifle, propped against the bar beside him.

Leather Vest's sneer widened as he continued to lock his eyes on Adam's. “He wants to know if it bothers us, Rafe.” Rafe nodded with a cruel grin still in place. “I'll tell you what bothers me,” Leather Vest continued. “You smell like a lawman to me—come in town askin' ever'body if they've seen some feller around. We got a sheriff in this town, and we ain't got no use for no federal marshal to come nosin' around where they got no business. So why don't you tell me if you're a damn marshal and who the hell you're lookin' for?”

Adam glanced at the bartender, who had stopped polishing a shot glass, and now stood watching his reactions. He was also aware that the entire barroom had suddenly become silent as every eye was upon him, waiting for his reaction. Hoping to quickly defuse a tense situation, Adam smiled and replied. “I ain't a marshal. The man I'm lookin' for is my brother. He's been missin' for a while and I came to find him, so I reckon there's nothin' to worry you.”

“Is that so?” Leather Vest said, not willing to let the matter drop, and encouraged by Adam's apparent reluctance to cause trouble. “Just lookin' for your brother, huh?” He winked at his companion and continued his obvious intent to intimidate the stranger. “So you're sayin' that if I was to pull your coat aside, I wouldn't find no marshal's badge pinned on your shirt. Is that right?” He took a step closer, and his partner moved to position himself at Adam's left.

Having reached the limit of his patience with the two troublemakers, Adam resigned himself to what appeared to be inevitable. With another glance at the bartender, he decided the altercation would be confined to the two men and himself, with the bartender merely an interested spectator. With his hand still loosely grasping the glass of beer as it rested on the bar, he gazed into Leather Vest's eyes and replied, “What I'm sayin' is, if you stick your hand on my coat, you might not get it back.”

“Whoa!” Leather Vest mocked, and threw his hands up, pretending to be terrified. “I believe we've got us a rattlesnake here, Rafe. Better jump back before he bites ya.” He took an exaggerated step back then to Rafe's amusement before the smile of contempt returned to his face, and he focused his gaze upon Adam as he issued his warning. “Now I'm gonna teach you a little respect, and show you what happens to jokers who threaten me.” He reached for one of his pistols.

Before he could pull it, Adam threw the glass of beer in his eyes, at the same time grasping his rifle by the barrel. Swinging it like a club, he cracked Rafe beside his head before the startled bully could pull his revolver halfway out of his holster. In almost one continuous move, he spun around to face Leather Vest, who was sputtering and spitting, trying to wipe the beer out of his eyes. One quick thrust with the butt of his rifle smashed Leather Vest's nose and dropped him to the floor on top of Rafe. Checking to make sure the two were temporarily incapable of further action, he pulled their weapons from their holsters and threw them over in a corner behind the bar. With a quick glance in the bartender's direction, he said, “I'd appreciate it if you just let those pistols lie where they are for a few minutes.” The bartender nodded. There was the hint of a grin on his face. Adam cast a precautionary glance around the crowded barroom, then walked deliberately toward the door.

As he disappeared out the doorway, a slight, graying man moved up to the bar across from the bartender. He looked down at Rafe and his partner as they both struggled to clear their heads enough to sit up. Then, looking back at the bartender, he grinned and commented, “He moves pretty damn quick for a big man, don't he?”

Outside the saloon, Adam turned in the direction of the stable. He had not taken five steps before he heard someone come out the door behind him. Thinking the two he had just fought with must have recovered, he whirled around with his rifle in position to fire, only to discover the frail, gray-haired man, his hands raised in surrender. “Hold on, mister!” the little man gasped. Seeing immediately that the man meant him no harm, Adam dropped the rifle to his side. “I didn't mean to startle you. My name's Earl Foster. I own the dry goods store two doors down.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Adam said. “I reckon I'm still a little jumpy.”

“I don't wonder,” Earl said. “Mind if I walk with you a piece?”

“Why, I reckon not,” Adam said, unable to think of a reason to tell him no, and somewhat curious as to why the man wanted to.

Earl fell in step beside Adam as he walked along the short length of board walkway in front of a couple of stores. “This is my place,” he said when they were passing the second door, “dry goods, most anything you want in the line of clothes, sheets, towels, household items of all kinds.” Still puzzled, Adam was about to ask him what he wanted when Earl continued. “First of all, let me tell you how much I enjoyed watching you put Frank Fancher and Rafe Tolbert in their proper place. Somebody's been needing to do that for a long time. But I want to warn you to be damn careful if you're planning to be in town long.”

“I can't see any good reason why they came after me in the first place,” Adam said. “Is that the way strangers are treated in this town? If it is, it seems to me it'd be a full-time job for those two, with as many folks as there are pourin' into this gulch every day.”

“No,” Earl responded. “That's just it. There's a lot of fine folks in Virginia City, honest, hardworking folks. You being a stranger, you wouldn't know it by running into that pair in the saloon. You see, the reason they started hassling you is that you've been looking all over town for somebody, and they thought you might be a U.S. marshal.”

“I told them I wasn't a lawman. I'm lookin' for my brother,” Adam protested.