Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave (45 page)

Everyone knew Charley had been talking about building a toll bridge downstream, some day at least. That would not sit well with Speck since the ferry was his livelihood, so it made sense that there might have been a fight. Of course, Bill knew John Jarvie actually
owned
the ferry…but Speck ran it. Still, Charley was a little off and might have gutted him over a dispute.

Mary Crouse was good friends with the Jarvies and got along with them fine. She told him to forget about the toll bridge but Charley would not let it go.

“He didn't gut the Speckled Nigger?” Bill asked again, just to make sure he heard right.

“Nope.”

“Nobody did?”

“Nope. Why would he? Why would anyone? Speck's the nicest fella in the Park.”

“But Charley's been riding the outlaw trail with me since spring! Why would he do that then?”

Mary sighed and shook her rolling pin at Bill.

“Sometimes Charley gets to feelin' all cloistered up. Especially after a slow winter. When he gets to feelin' that way, I tell him to ride out or by Jove I may end up whackin' the man with this here pin and splat his brains.”

Bill nodded.

“Charley
can
be a bear.”
 

 

Chapter 19

 

Charley Crouse was pleased with himself and kept plucking at Mary's waist when she walked past the supper table.

“C'mon, Mary! Tell them what a great racer I am. Twenty-one new cows to add to the ranch. That Rash boy can sit a saddle but he ain't no match for me!”

“Hush, I'm busy makin' a meal for three extry folks I wasn't plannin' for.”

The table was fuller than usual with the unexpected company. Charley was there and Mary had been expecting him. But Bill was unexpected, as well as Mexican Joe and his lawyer and ranch partner Mr. Conway, who had ridden home with Charley and the twenty-one cows.

“Poor sucker,” Charley went on. “Tells me the Middlesex is done for. The Great Die-Up done it in.”

“Kid's job is spent, winter's comin' on, and you took his twenty-one cows in a horse race?” Mary asked, but not in a really interested way. None of the locals liked it when the Middlesex company came into the valley. But the young trail boss seemed like a good egg to Mary. He had merely tied to the wrong wagon.

“He didn't have to bet all twenty-one!”

“If he needs work, he can sign on here for the winter,” Mary told him firmly.

“Fine…he can work his own cows, what I just won!”

Bill watched Charley with interest. Out on the trail, Charley was stone cold, moody even. Here at home, Charley seemed cowed down by this sweet whipper snapper. Bill was privately amused, but at the same time wasn't sure what was what.

“So Speck ain't dead?” Bill said to Charley.

Charley sat back in his chair and pulled out a pipe. He tamped in some tobacco and lit it.

“Everyone thought you killed him.”

“Everyone?”

“Well, that's the word,” Bill said.

“Haven't seen you since we parted ways in Lefthand Canyon,” Bill added after a moment. “Thought the posse got you.”

“Hell, no. I went after them waddies Lem was shootin' at. But one of ‘em put a hole in Poqito, so I lit out.”

Bill watched him re-light his pipe. Charley had only ridden with him since Kinsey City. The papers had called them the Grand Lake Gang since Vincent shot that sheriff barely three days later. But they weren't so much a gang, as acquaintances who threw in together for a short spell.

“Yeah, that was a bad day,” Bill admitted. “I rode out with Granger and Vincent and we headed on down the Front Range. Until them boys got plugged.”

Charley smiled at that and gave him an odd look. Bill thought it was a little unsettling.

“I
know
they got plugged. Hell, I plugged that gap-tooth myself.”

“
You
shot Granger?”
 

If that was true, Bill thought, Charley may very well have killed Vincent, too. Bill had been digging a grave for the man when he heard the shots. Why on earth would Charley shoot them? Bill started feeling uneasy about Charley's unpredictable nature. Add to that, Mexican Joe brought several jars of whiskey, one of which Charley had mostly imbibed by himself.

“How did it happen?” Bill inquired, trying his best to act disinterested.

Charley snorted and waved his hand.

“Aw, them fools stole horses from a feller I was riding with. But they didn't make it far.”

Since Bill was not sure about the full truth of the matter, he decided to keep mum about his own whereabouts at the time. How would Charley react if he discovered Bill had been right there the whole time? It had been Bill's call to steal the horses that night, too.

Suddenly Bill wondered about the one hundred thousand dollars he had stolen from the Denver PO box. Charley must have it! Bill's stomach fluttered at the thought. He glanced around the room. It was likely the money was right here in the house somewhere. Probably in a closet, or under a mattress. In a cabinet, maybe.

“Joe, how many hombres have you shot for horse stealing?” Charley asked.

“I don't know,” Joe replied.

Of far more interest to Mexican Joe was the big platter of beef which Mary put on the table. They had been sitting there for over an hour, smelling the meat and the stew cooking on the stove and all the good kitchen smells.

Mexican Joe was in the mood to eat, not talk about how many men he killed. He was mainly into rustling these days anyhow. Joe liked the Robin Hood ethic of Brown's Park. And he hated the big white ranch outfits that passed through — or the ones that tried to stay. Those big operations made Joe's blood boil. He hated the Middlesex company and didn't care that young Matt Rash lost his cows in a horse race to Charley Crouse. He hated the 2-Bar up on Cold Spring Mountain. His own people, the Hispanics living in the West, were getting driven out by the white outfits.  Often, they just pushed right in and took over the good grazing areas. Joe aimed to do something about it. Maybe he would get back to killing again, after all.

Conway was a lawyer from Wyoming and a glassy-eyed drunk. But he was always that way, and Joe didn't think twice about his state. He never saw him without a shot, nip, or flask in his hand.

“Conway, pass the gravy bowl,” Mexican Joe said, speaking slowly to get his request into the man's foggy head.

The gravy bowl seemed to move when he reached for it, but Conway managed to grasp onto the ceramic dish. Seeing a gravy dish that seemed to move by itself was no odd thing to Conway. It would be odd if it
didn't
move. That would mean he wasn't drunk enough.

 

Chapter 20

 

Red Creek waited for the sun to drop down behind the western hills. Then he could be sure his field-specs would not reflect and give away his position on the ridge.

Through the binoculars, Red could see right down into Brown's Park. The Green River wound through the valley. The bottoms were lush with late summer grass and cattle were everywhere. Red surveyed several log homes. He was close enough he could smell the woodsmoke from their hearth fires.

A couple days prior, he rode into John Jarvie's store, which sat right on the river. The man had a rich Scottish accent, white hair and a big white beard — even though he didn't look old enough to have white hair. But he was helpful. And Red Creek was coy. He spun a tale about being a cowhand looking for work.

Jarvie gave him the rundown of the valley. Who was who, what was what. The bigger family operations were probably the ones to start with, Jarvie suggested: the Hoys and the Bassetts. There were a couple bigger outfits, the Middlesex and the 2-Bar…but the Middlesex was shutting down, and people didn't care much for the 2-Bar.

“Most other folks in the Park run small herds,” Jarvie said. “No need for hired hands, and too poor on cash money even if they had the need.”

There were shelves of dry goods and various supplies and sundries. There was also a row of whiskey barrels, all of which were tapped. Red walked over and took a closer look.

“I sure wouldn't mind some good rye,” Red told him. “Been horseback for too long.”

John Jarvie produced a couple glasses and poured two. There was no one else in the store, and Jarvie was in no hurry to lose his company too soon. Some days were busy. Other days were slow. This was one of the slow days. And John Jarvie liked people. He liked to chat and the summer days were hard to sit through sometimes.

“What's your name?” Jarvie asked him.

“Blue,” Red said. “Blue Sedgwick.”

That was Red's private joke. It was a reference to the fact that he shot General Sedgwick in the face back in the War — he blew a hole in the man's face.

“You might know a buckaroo pard of mine,” Red explained. “Rode up here recent…not sure where he's staked out. Name's John Frederick Hughes, but he goes by different names now and again, if you get me. I call him Bill.”

John Jarvie grinned. Of course he understood that. Most of the men who lived in the Park were living with new names, old names, or different names.

“He's a white fellow, clean-shaved, dark hair,” Red explained — as if describing a friend. “Last I seen him, he was wearing a green plaid shirt. And he carries a nice pocketwatch with some poetry etched on it.”

Red took a sip of his whiskey and smiled approvingly. He wanted John Jarvie to lower his guard as much as possible…and to think Blue Sedgwick was just another rustler or horse thief rolling through.

“Bill's riding a big bay quarter horse with a white sock, last I saw him. White nip on its nose.”

Details were important to Red. That's why he wrote everything down in his notebook.

“Your man is up on Pot Creek staying at Charley Crouse's place. Yeah, that's old Jesse Ewing's son Bill. Came through last week, methinks.”

Red adjusted the focus on his binoculars. He used them back in the War and kept them ever since — just like his British Whitworth rifle. Red could make out the entrance to Hoy Draw, winding up through Diamond Mountain. The mountain was covered with cedar trees. The quickest and easiest way was also the least suspicious, should he catch any attention.

That was because the night before, Red noticed a couple different campfires burning up on Diamond. Given the reputation of the Park, he figured they were just common outlaws hiding from the law. But that meant a discrete crossing over Diamond off-trail was out of the question.

Through the course of the day, Red Creek watched the Hoy crew ride in and out of the draw. Their cattle were grazing down in the river bend. According to Jarvie, the Hoy ranch was up that draw. And just past that was Pot Creek. Later tonight, after it got dark and the Hoy punchers were sacked out in their bunkhouse, Red would walk his horse right up the draw. He would ride by the Hoy Ranch in the cover of nightfall and head on up to Pot Creek. There had to be a good perch up on a ridge where he could spend some time watching Charley Crouse's front door.

 

Chapter 21

 

Little Minnie Crouse ran around the kitchen table screaming. Only Bill seemed to be bothered by it. Both Charley and Mary were finishing their breakfast as if it were quiet as a church. It was clear the girl was only acting her age and was ready to start the day her way. Every morning Bill spent at the Crouse's home, Minnie ran around the table and screamed the whole time.

The early sky was pale and clear. Bill was feeling good. It felt good to be off the trail. He knew he was in the right place now. It was time to go straight, start over clean. Except to maybe rustle a few cows from the 2-Bar, to get a herd started.

Bill's father used to have a mining claim in the western end of Brown's Park, but it never amounted to much. Old Jesse Ewing was not an easy man to be around, anyway, which was half the reason Bill left the valley so many years ago. In fact, his father used to take advantage of so many people that no one in the Park wanted anything to do with him. Bill hoped people around here nowadays wouldn't hold his family name against him.

Jesse went through so many mining “partners” over the years that Bill eventually just walked away, having deciding he had witnessed enough abuse. One poor black kid signed on — back when Bill was still a teenager himself. He remembered it well. His father worked that poor kid to the bone but never paid him a cent. Cheated him out of his earnings, quarreled him off the claim. The old man spent everything that came out of the mine on liquor and fancy restaurants. Of course, no one got to enjoy any of that except old Jesse Ewing.

But that wasn't the end of it.

The poor black kid got thrown in the Green River Jail soon after that — only to find his cell mate was his former mining partner Jesse Ewing. He made him kneel down in the cell so he could balance his supper tray on the kid's back. Then late that night, Jesse took one of the kid's boots and beat him senseless.

Bill was glad the old man was dead and gone. He was a violent man and downright mean. As a result of his family reputation, Bill decided to avoid the Utah end of Brown's Park. That's where his father's claim was. The Colorado end offered a fresher start.

Charley Crouse had meanness in him, too. Bill had seen some of that on the trail. It was not as thorough or unmasked as Bill's father, but Charley had a volatile nature nonetheless…if the mood was upon him. Seeing Charley now, in his home, with a small girl running around the table screaming — it put Charley in a better light. Not to mention, it seemed Mary Crouse held an influence over him. Perhaps family was Charley's saving grace. Bill hoped so. He hoped little Minnie Crouse would grow up without the meanness that Bill grew up with. Bill sighed. This was certainly the right time to give up being an outlaw. He was getting downright sentimental.