Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“Know any arrieros ,” Virgil said. “Any muleteers operating in these parts?”

“Don’t,” Jimmy John said. “There were many of them years ago. All the mines had working mules when they were operating, but I’ve not seen any of them, not for a while.”

Jimmy John moved toward us and opened the book he got from his bag. He turned the pages until he found what he was looking for. He got down on one knee with the book opened up for us to see.

“Here are the mining camps,” Jimmy John said, pointing to a spot on the page of the book. “Or what used to be the camps. Here is the main telegraph line along the rail, and this here is the south pass switch you are talking about. The line runs through this valley and across the top through here, connecting to the mines here.”

“Did all the mines connect to the telegraph line?” I asked.

“They did when they were operational. They had just one operator that traveled between them with the relay, key, and sounder. I took care of the main line only. Each mine had a station, though. When one station was not operating, that station had a cutout that kept the telegraph loop closed.”

“Did they just close the cutout when they shut down operations?” Virgil asked.

“That’s right.”

“Is there any way to determine if one of these telegraph lines is still operable?”

“A man should be able to do that,” Jimmy John said. “Need to test the current, one by one, of each line that drops into the camps to determine who is connected and who is not.”

Jimmy John stood, turned back to his bay, and returned the book to the saddlebag.

“You being that man,” Virgil said.

Jimmy John looked back to Virgil as he tied the flap on his saddlebag.

“Nobody else,” Jimmy John said.

“We got the better part of the day to look for them,” Virgil said.

“How long a ride do you figure it is to the pass from here?”

Jimmy John turned back to face Virgil. “The road into the mines runs to Division City, not toward the tracks. Riding along the rail would take three and a half, four hours,” he said. “I have a short cut, get us there in two and a half. But it will take time to check each line.”

“You can do this?” Virgil asked.

Jimmy John looked at Berkeley, me, and back to Virgil. “I can.”

“Could get tricky,” Virgil said.

“It could,” he said, nodding his sombrero slightly, “or it will?”

“Most likely will.”

“Most things do.”

“They do,” Virgil said.

“Take a bad lot to hold women for money.”

“They are.”

“How many?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “A few, maybe a few more.” Virgil nodded to the bow and arrows packed on the side of Jimmy John’s bay. “You shot anything besides rabbits with that stick ’n string?”

“Man does what a man has to do,” Jimmy John said.

“You packing anything with a primer?”

Jimmy John pulled back the flap of his denim coat, revealing a shoulder-high holster with a pearl-handled pistol sticking out.

“Not afraid of using that?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Jimmy John said.

“So you will do it?”

“Sure,” Jimmy John said. “Can’t have somebody stealing wire service, it just wouldn’t be right.”

We lowered the ramp from the stock car and one by one got the horses out. We walked them around in slow figure eights across an open patch of grass covering the middle ground of the wye track before walking them to the river so they could drink. We gave them some hay. Then some feed. After they got comfortable and situated we got them saddled. Uncle Ted served us up some coffee he brewed over a patch of coals inside the firebox, and we took off.

Virgil figured we’d make a pass through the town of Crystal Creek on our way out. He wanted to be sure we didn’t see any sign of the getaway horses, or Gobble Greene’s dun that Lassiter absconded with. Or anything in general that might be out of the ordinary before we set out for the camps.

Virgil, Berkeley, Jimmy John, and I walked the horses through Crystal Creek as the town was waking up. I pulled the extra horse, which had the money packed on its back inside an oilcloth bedroll, tied behind the cantle. Crystal Creek was a sleepy little place, bigger than Standley Station but not by much. We saw only a few folks moving about as we walked down the short street. We passed through a bunch of chickens picking over dried grass. A big Cochin rooster with a bright red comb perched on a short gate watched as we passed by. When we got to the end of the street and it was obvious there was nothing that registered out of place, Virgil turned to Jimmy John.

“Let’s get.”

Without a word, and without the benefit of the stirrup, Jimmy John swung up on his horse and was on the move.

“That was an unnecessary display of” — Berkeley grunted as he climbed slowly into the saddle — “something, don’t you think?”

Virgil grinned a bit.

We mounted up and trailed Jimmy John north out of town toward a tall grass meadow surrounded by a wall of loblolly pines.

At the edge of the meadow Jimmy John entered the forest between two huge pines and we followed. The sun slanted through the trees making what was left of the morning dew on the pine-needle floor shine a little.

We followed a deer trail paralleling the river for close to an hour and crossed the river at a wide beaver ford and started up a steep grade on the other side. When we got to the top of the high ridge, Jimmy John stopped and turned back, looking at us. When we all were close to him, he pointed down. A hazy fog was slowly crawling up through the valley below.

“There is the rail,” Jimmy John said.

A quarter-mile away the rail cut through the valley along where the fog was coming in.

“The south pass switch is just down there,” Jimmy John said, pointing, “and Tall Water Falls is just around the other side of that mountain over there.”

He turned and pointed to the west.

“If it were clear you could see Division City over there. The mines are just ahead, beyond that next rise. It will take us an hour to get over there, and just on the other side is the telegraph line.”

“So we’ll be coming down on top of them?” I asked. “Behind the mining camps?”

“We will. The mines are all lined up side by side on a straight road about a quarter of a mile apart. The wire is above them on this side. The mining camps and the coal road are on the other side, below. That is how the mines shipped out what they’d harvested, on that road. The coal was loaded onto big wagons and shipped west to Division City.” Jimmy John pulled at some pine needles from a branch that lay just in reach. He looked up and back behind us. “It’s going to get bad.”

Jimmy John moved on, and we followed.

We rode down the rocky north face, and when we got to the bottom we crossed a stream lined with sumac. When we started back up the other side, the fog was starting to get heavier.

I rode just behind Jimmy John as we worked our way through a forest of cypress, elm, and cedar. Jimmy John looked back to me. We rode a ways.

“Little Jenny was my fiancée,” Jimmy John said.

Jimmy John offered a slight glance back to me.

“That right?” I said.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Well, she is a lovely young lady,” I said. “Smart, too.”

Jimmy John nudged the bay around a wide evergreen.

We rode in silence for a while longer. I looked back to Virgil and Berkeley, who were out of earshot. I could see their horses clearly but their top half was hazy with fog.

“At one time,” Jimmy John said. “Been a while now. Years. We had a future in front of us.”