The Road to Laramie Read online

  Sam was listening with interest. He nodded his head slowly. “An’ they don’t like that, I reckon.”

  Stranch smiled thinly. “Emphatically not. They’ve put all sorts of pressure on the board of directors, but to no avail. The most direct route is through Laramie, and that’s where it’s going.”

  “Sorta tough on them Cheyenne fellers,” Sam muttered.

  “Exactly.” Jim Stranch nodded vigorous approval of Sam Sloan’s immediate and intelligent understanding of the situation. “The citizens of Cheyenne are aroused and have made various threats against the company. There are some who openly declare we’ll never be successful in putting the route directly through Laramie. They prophesy all sorts of disaster, even going so far as to threaten bodily violence to our employees. You can see why we need a man up there with tact and dependability. One who is slow to anger and who will meet threats of violence with stubborn determination. In short, such a man as I believe you to be, Mr. Sloan.”

  Sam didn’t look at his wife this time. He was afraid he’d bust right out laughing in Stranch’s face if he did. Instead, he said:

  “Looks tuh me like a funny way tuh do bizness. I’d think you’d want a tough two-gun hombre tuh put the line through. Somebody like, well, mebby Pat Stevens here in Powder Valley. I reckon you’ve heard about Pat?”

  “I know of Pat Stevens by reputation,” Stranch admitted, “and he’s exactly the sort of man we don’t want. We don’t wish to arouse antagonism, Sloan. We need the good will of every faction. We don’t want a man who will fight back, but one who will go ahead in a businesslike manner and see the route through.”

  “So you picked on me?” muttered Sam angrily. He started to shake his head, but caught a glimpse of Kitty and didn’t. Her face was glowing with pride. She seemed to think it was the most wonderful thing in the world that her husband had been selected for an important job because of his meekness and the fact that he could be trusted not to fight back.

  “Exactly,” said Jim Stranch. “We need a man who knows the details of riding the Pony Express, and we like to reward our men for good work on their past record. Frankly, I made this trip down from Denver because I wanted to observe you in your own home before I made the final decision to offer you the position as Assistant Division Superintendent for the route north of Denver. And I want to tell you I’m mighty pleased with what I’ve observed here. Any man with a fine wife and a beautiful baby like yours will go mighty slow about mixing into trouble he can possibly avoid.”

  “Then,” said Sam in a troubled voice, “yo’re offerin’ me thuh job?”

  “Exactly. If you can arrange to catch the night train out of Hopewell Junction you can be on the job day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s mighty sudden,” mused Sam. “Who’ll take over my leg tuh Dutch Springs?”

  “I’ll arrange for a relief rider as soon as I get back to Dutch Springs.”

  “Well, I shore dunno.” Sam looked at Kitty helplessly. “How ’bout it, honey? What do you think?”

  “I think you should accept,” Kitty told him calmly. “It’s been wonderful living here with no worries, but I don’t want to hold you back from going on in the world.”

  “Now that’s a wonderful wife for you,” Stranch approved heartily. “She’s a real helpmate, Sloan.”

  “What’ll you do?” Sam asked her helplessly. “Lef’ all alone here with Sammy. I shore don’t like the idee …”

  “Nonsense,” said Kitty vigorously. “I won’t have to stay here indefinitely. I could go to visit Pat and Sally for a time until you make some arrangements for me up there. Ezra will help me pack up and get moved.”

  “Of course you’ll want your wife to join you,” boomed Stranch. “I’m counting on the steadying influence of a woman to help keep things in line on that new route. Your new superior is a married man also. A rancher by the name of Henry Hughes on a small ranch north of Denver.”

  “My new … supeeror?” Sam repeated with a puzzled frown.

  “Your new boss,” Stranch explained. “The man we’ve selected as Division Superintendent. A fine man with five beautiful daughters. With you and Mr. Hughes working together closely, I’m sure the project will be in safe hands.”

  “Five little gals?” Sam echoed dismally.

  “He sounds like a wonderful man to work for,” Kitty put in enthusiastically. “Oh, I just know you and Mr. Hughes will run the line so there won’t be any trouble, Sam.”

  “That’s jest what I’m afeered of,” he muttered.

  Stranch luckily didn’t hear him. He emptied his coffee cup and got up. “This is a load off my mind,” he declared. “I’ll meet you at Hopewell Junction tonight in time to catch the night train, Sloan. And I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Mrs. Sloan,” he went on warmly to Kitty. “The influence of a good woman means a great deal these days.”

  Kitty thanked him with twinkling eyes. She carried the baby in to its crib while Sam went to the door to see their guest off.

  Kitty ran forward and flung her arms about his neck, laughing helplessly at the disgusted look on Sam’s face when he came back inside.

  “It’s wonderful,” she gurgled. “I could hardly keep a straight face while he was talking, Sam. Picking you out for that job because they want a man who’ll run from trouble. Oh Sam darling, it’s the funniest thing that ever happened.”

  There was a baffled expression on Sam Sloan’s dark face. “It does beat all,” he muttered. “But how’re they gonna feel when they find out how I really am? Fust gun-fight, I’ll get fired shore.”

  Kitty drew back from him and sobered instantly. “There aren’t going to be any gun-fights, Sam. Don’t you see? You’ll have to live up to your new reputation. No one up there knows you.”

  “Mebby it’ll work,” Sam agreed darkly, “if I don’t get pushed too fur. But I ain’t promisin’ nothin’, Kitty. I ain’t never learned tuh run away from trouble.”

  3.

  Northwest of Denver, Colorado, the road to Laramie follows a winding course around the base of the foothills of the Rockies. The Hughes ranch lay on this road about twenty miles from Denver. The frame house was drab and weatherbeaten, and the corrals and outbuildings showed a similar state of neglect. For years, bad luck had dogged every effort of Henry Hughes to wrest a decent living from his small ranch.

  He was a conscientious, hard-working man, but everything that Henry put his hand to just naturally seemed to go wrong. He and his wife Vera had homesteaded the ranch fifteen years before, soon after they were married and while both were young and strong and ambitious.

  The birth of five daughters during those years had taken their toll of Vera Hughes’ youth and her strength. Her face still showed traces of girlish beauty, but it was thin and careworn, lined with anxiety and the slowly increasing fear that the little family was doomed to live in poverty for the rest of their lives.

  Henry Hughes was a gaunt man with prematurely stooped shoulders, as though he had carried too heavy a burden too long. His hands were calloused and work-worn, and his gaunt features were deeply etched with lines of weariness and defeat. He was a kindly and God-fearing man, respected and pitied by his neighbors who unaccountably prospered while all manner of calamity ceaselessly fell upon the Hughes ranch.

  Tonight, the happy sound of lilting music poured out of the open windows of the Hughes’ ranch house. Vera Hughes had been a music teacher in Kansas City before she married the young rancher and came to the foothills of the Rockies with him to homestead the small ranch. As each of her daughters grew old enough to handle a musical instrument, the mother had scrimped and saved and managed somehow to provide each of them with an instrument on which they were taught to play; and in one corner of the living room was Mrs. Hughes’ most prized possession, the melodeon she had brought across the plains in a covered wagon on her honeymoon.

  And tonight the children were playing as they hadn’t played for years, while Henry and Vera Hughes sat very close together on the shabby sofa and secretly held hands and smiled happily at each other.

  In addition to the dismal tones of the long cherished melodeon, there was a violin, viola, violoncello and bass viol, played by Miranda, Jennifer, Agatha, Samantha and Eunice Hughes; stairstepped down from Miranda who was the oldest of the five sisters at the age of fourteen.

  When the final strains of “Sweet and Low” wobbled out of the instruments, Henry Hughes smiled fondly at his five daughters and gave his wife’s hand an extra hard squeeze.

  “Mighty purty,” he commended them proudly. “Jest mighty purty, seems like to me. They shore are improvin’ Vera. Why, little Eunice han’les that thar melodeon ’most as good as the woman we saw in the church at Denver that time.”

  Vera Hughes nodded happily. Her leathery cheeks were tinged with a touch of happy color and her eyes glowed excitedly. “But the old melodeon does need fixing awfully bad. And some of their instruments are getting …”

  “I know, Vera.” Henry cleared his throat apologetically. “Seems like there ain’t never been no extra money handy for fixin’ ’em up. But now it’s different. His voice became strong and proud. “With this new job, I tell you things’ll be different.”

  Miranda carefully laid her violin in its worn case and came to crouch down ecstatically on the bare floor at the knees of her parents. Her blue eyes were too large for her thin face framed by two thick braids of cornsilk hair and her cotton dress was so faded by innumerable washings that it had lost all trace of its original gay colors.

  “Papa,” she demanded with shining eyes, “is it sure enough truly true that we can go to Denver to buy us some new dresses?”

  “Can we, Papa?” Jennifer hurried over and dropped down beside her sister. Jennifer was inclined to be stout,
but the meager diet of the family for the past few years had kept her from getting too plump.

  Henry Hughes grinned happily and put his calloused hand on Miranda’s head.

  “You shore can, daughters. Tomorry mornin’ early. That is, if that feller Sam Sloan gets here in time so’s I can drive you in. The Denver office said he’d be up to see me tonight or early in thuh mornin’ at thuh latest.”

  The three other little girls came trooping over excitedly to discuss the wondrous news again. None of the three youngest had ever been to the city of Denver, and it was like a fairy story coming true to realize that they were actually going shopping in the big city stores the next day.

  They were full of eager questions and excited speculations, and Vera and Mr. Hughes fondly answered them as best they could. For they were excited, too, and humbly grateful for the good fortune that had come to them at last with this good job that would provide all the things they had done without for so many years.

  Mr. Hughes sat back and smiled at them as they crowded about their mother’s knee, and for the first time since his marriage he was completely rid of all fears of what the future might hold. It was a mighty contented feeling to realize there would be a steady monthly check coming in to provide all the things he had never been able to give his family before, and he just couldn’t get over wondering how he had come to be selected for the coveted position.

  Not that he questioned his ability to see the route through. That never entered his mind. Through all the bad luck that had dogged him in the past, Henry Hughes had always considered it just that—bad luck—not lack of ability on his part.

  Now, when Mrs. Hughes gently told the little girls it was bedtime, he nodded to them and carefully consulted his watch. “That’s right. It’s nigh onto nine o’clock awready.”

  Henry and his wife regarded the five little girls fondly as they reluctantly trooped off to bed, then Henry settled himself back on the sofa and slowly loaded his pipe.

  Vera sat down in the broken-backed rocker near him and picked up her mending. She sighed happily and said, “The job is certainly a Godsend, isn’t it? I’ve never seen the children so excited.”

  “I’ve bin a mighty pore father to ’em,” Henry reproached himself. “But now I’ll make it up to them, and to you too. I swear I will.”

  “You haven’t, Henry. Don’t ever say that. You’re a wonderful father.” Vera wiped away a tear and looked at him indignantly. “But it will be nice to have a little money again to buy things with.”

  “It shore will.” Henry Hughes cleared his throat. “I shore hope that Sloan feller gets here tuhnight.”

  “But you’ll be in charge, won’t you, Henry?”

  “That’s right. Sam Sloan’ll be what they call my ’sistant. I’m gonna be Deevision Sup’rintendent like I tol’ you.” Henry Hughes pronounced the title solemnly. He had been secretly repeating it to himself for days and hadn’t got over the thrill of hearing the words spoken out loud.

  “You’ve made some of the arrangements already, haven’t you?” Vera’s needle was busy taking up the hem of a dress for Miranda to wear into the city and she spoke absently.

  “I’ve did a lot awready.” Mr. Hughes couldn’t keep a note of pride out of his voice. “Got a bunch of fast hawses lined up that I got tuh see to in Denver, an’ I’m linin’ out where the relay-stations will be at. An’ I got to see Hank an’ Wack ’bout ridin’ the route from here to Daniel’s Gulch. They’re a pair of tough hombres that had ought to be able tuh take keer of any trouble that might pop up.”

  Mrs. Hughes put down her sewing in alarm. “You don’t expect trouble, do you?”

  “I reckon not,” Henry told her stolidly. “Them Cheyenne fellers will get over their mad when they see the route’s goin’ to Laramie, whether they like it or not.”

  “Do you think they’ll use force to prevent the mail from being ridden?”

  “I reckon not.” Henry’s voice remained mild and unconcerned. He arose and straightened his stooped shoulders, yawning widely. “Reckon I’ll step out an’ take a last look tuh see if I hear Sam Sloan comin’ tuhnight. Then I’ll be ready to turn in.”

  He went out the door into the silent night, and she sat with her mending in her lap. Her heart swelled with pride and gratitude for Henry being chosen for the important job of putting the disputed route through to Laramie.

  She heard the sound of a galloping horse pounding toward the little ranch house, and at first she thought that would be Sam Sloan coming in from Denver. Then she realized the rider was coming from the north, and at a breakneck speed that indicated more than ordinary haste.

  She listened curiously, and when the hoofbeats came to a sudden stop, she heard her heart pounding madly in her breast. She leaned forward and strained her ears to hear Henry’s hail of greeting, but there was only heavy silence from the night outside.

  Then there was a curious, half-stifled cry that sounded like nothing Vera Hughes had ever heard before. It was followed by a dull thud and a sound of thrashing about as though two men were wrestling together on the ground.

  She jumped up and spilled her mending to the floor. The horse began to pound away in the same mad gallop that had brought it to the ranch, and above the driving hoofbeats Vera heard three loud, distinctly spaced popping sounds from the darkness. They were sharp and clear, as though someone were firing a toy pistol, or like the cracking of a whiplash.

  She ran to the door and stared out, and terror gripped her heart when she could see nothing, and could hear only the receding pound of galloping hooves.

  She stepped out and started toward the corral, crying out in a troubled voice, “Henry! Is anything the matter, Henry?” though keeping her voice low so the children wouldn’t hear and be alarmed.

  Her husband didn’t answer her. It was as though the night had swallowed him up; as though the speeding rider had swooped him up in his arms and carried her husband away.

  A terrible fright drove her on toward the corral. She kept calling her husband’s name, louder and more despairingly as she got farther from the house, but the unnatural silence persisted and her cries were echoed back mockingly from the silent hills.

  Her flying feet encountered a yielding object on the ground, and as she tripped she knew instinctively it was the body of her husband.

  She gathered herself up and crept forward on her knees, crouched beside him, moaning softly.

  Before she found he had no pulse, Vera knew that Henry Hughes was dead. Somehow, she had known it before she ran out of the house searching for him. It was another and final blow of the evil Fate that had been dogging them all their lives.

  She fell forward across her husband’s body in a dead faint.

  4.

  Sam Sloan found them like that half an hour later when he rode up from Denver. He recognized the little ranch house by the description Stranch had given him, and as he reined up in front, he noted that the front door was standing wide open with lamplight streaming out from the living room.

  He went to the door and knocked, and then peered in through the open door curiously, surprised and a little alarmed when no one came out immediately.

  He knocked louder, wondering what the hell had happened at the isolated ranch house late at night to cause the inhabitants to all go away leaving the door wide open and lights burning.

  He was just about to step inside to look around for himself when he heard the cautious scuff of bare feet from a back room, and an instant later he saw the solemn face of Miranda shyly peering out at him from an inside doorway.

  Her hair was unbraided and hung down loosely about her face, and she wore a nightgown made out of flour sacks from which most of the red printing had been washed out. Her eyes were big and round, and they grew bigger and rounder as she stared at Sam Sloan’s dark, ugly face, his rough, travel-stained clothes and the big gun at his hip.