The Road to Laramie Read online

  She moistened her lips and gasped out imploringly, “Where’s Papa and Mama? What have you done to them? Are you a bad man?”

  “I’m Sam Sloan. Yore Paw’s expectin’ me, I reckon. What d’yuh mean, askin’ what I’ve done to ’em? I jest rode up from Denver. Where are they? What’s bin goin’ on here?”

  “I don’t know.” Two big tears welled out of Miranda’s eyes and ran down her thin cheeks. “We all went to bed and Mama and Papa went out in the yard. And we heard a horse come up and then go away fast, and I called and called but nobody answered. And I stayed back with the others so’s they wouldn’t be too scared. You look pretty tough to me,” she added dubiously.

  Sam said, “I cain’t help my looks, little gal, but you got no cause tuh be skeered of me. Run on back tuh bed an’ I’ll hunt yore Paw an’ Ma. Most likely they had some trouble down to the corral with the stock.”

  He turned and strode away toward the corral, and that was how he came upon Mrs. Vera Hughes lying in a faint across the corpse of her husband.

  Sam thought they were both dead when he saw them like that in the dim moonlight. He dropped to his knees with a startled grunt and struck a match, shielding the tiny flame between his two palms.

  Henry Hughes lay on his back staring up at Sam Sloan. His eyes bulged from their sockets with a glassy look, and his gaunt face was contorted in a horrible grimace. There were red marks about his neck that seemed burned into the dead flesh as though a rope had been twisted about it violently; and from the curious position in which he lay, Sam saw at once that his neck was cleanly broken.

  The match flickered out and Sam didn’t bother to strike another one. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he caught hold of Vera’s forearm and found the flesh still warm and a strong pulse beating.

  He gently lifted her up from her husband’s body and carried her into the house, feeling her stir in his arms and begin to revive as soon as the light struck her eyes.

  He laid her down on the old sofa, and she struggled up to a sitting position instantly, looking up at him with horrified eyes while a strangled cry of terror trembled in her throat.

  Sam shook his head and placed his finger over his lips warningly. He leaned over her and whispered, “I don’t reckon the little gals know about this.”

  Miranda’s voice came from the doorway behind them just then. “Mama! Are you all right? Where’s Papa? Is that a bad man?”

  “I’m Sam Sloan,” Sam muttered. “I jest rode in from Denver.”

  Mrs. Hughes controlled her trembling lips long enough to tell her eldest daughter, “I’m all right, Miranda. Your father is out at the corral. Go back to bed and all of you go to sleep.”

  Miranda said obediently, “All right, Mama,” and scampered back to the bedroom.

  Mrs. Hughes covered her face with her hands and began to weep silently as full memory came back to her. “Is Henry …? He’s … he’s …”

  Sam said in a low voice, “Yore husband’s dead, Ma’am.” He went across the room and quietly closed the door leading into the children’s bedroom. He pulled a chair up close in front of the widow and sat down. “You better tell me what happened.” He pulled out a clean bandanna and awkwardly offered it to her.

  Vera took it and wiped her eyes. She blew her nose and then looked at Sam Sloan hopelessly. “I knew it was too good to be true,” she told him sadly. “I’ve felt it in my bones ever since Mr. Stranch offered Henry the job. You see, it meant everything to us, Mr. Sloan. I knew something would happen. Something always does. Every time it seems like Henry is about to get ahead a little.”

  “Tell me what did happen,” muttered Sam. “What kinda accident …?”

  “It wasn’t any accident,” she told him fiercely. “It was murder. Some horrible kind of murder. I don’t know how nor who. Someone who rode up in the night and struck without warning and rode away to the north again.” She shuddered violently and then told him exactly what had happened.

  “It was all so sudden,” she ended. “He had no chance to defend himself. There was just that one cry and then a dull thud and then a sound as though a body was thrashing around on the ground. And then those three terrible pops as the murderer galloped away. And Henry was dead when I reached him.”

  Sam nodded soberly. “His neck is broke. There’s what looks like rope burns around his neck. Jest guessin’, I’d say the killer dropped a noose over his head an’ hit the other end of the rope hard with it looped around his saddle-horn. Them three pops you heard, I shore dunno.” He shook his head sadly. “You know anybody had it in for yore husband?”

  “Had it in for Henry?” She looked at him in surprise and shook her head. “No one. Everyone liked him a lot. He didn’t have an enemy in the world, Mr. Sloan. He was a thoroughly good man.”

  “Somebody had a reason tuh murder him,” Sam told her grimly. “I’d shore admire tuh know who ’twas so’s I could settle with him personal.”

  Vera Hughes looked at him again as though she was really seeing her husband’s assistant for the first time. Her gaze lingered long on the worn butt of his .45 carried in a businesslike open holster low on his hip, and she demanded suddenly:

  “How do I know you’re who you say? You don’t look like the man Mr. Stranch said he had picked out to help Henry. He said Sam Sloan was a settled, married man with a new baby, the kind who would avoid trouble and gunplay. You look like a gunman to me.” Her voice rose shrilly. “How do I know you weren’t here half an hour ago? Did you ride back to gloat over your victim? Were you hired by the people in Cheyenne to murder poor Henry to discourage the route from going through Laramie?”

  Sam reached in his pocket and pulled out an unsealed envelope. “Here’s a letter from the Denver office to yore husband tellin’ who I am. You better read it, then mebby we kin go on talkin’.”

  Vera Hughes took the letter in trembling fingers. She opened it and read the few lines introducing Henry Hughes’ new assistant to him. She refolded it and said dully, “I’m sorry. I guess you are Sam Sloan all right. I hope you’re not angry at me for being suspicious.”

  Sam shook his head. “I wouldn’t think much of you if you wasn’t, Ma’am. You said somethin’ a minute ago about me mebby bein’ hired by somebody from Cheyenne to kill Mr. Hughes to stop the route from goin’ this way. Has he had any threats like that?”

  “Nothing definite.” She shook her head wearily. “There have been hints that there might be trouble putting the route through. It was the only reason I could think of. I know he hasn’t any personal enemies who’d do a thing like that.”

  Sam moved uneasily in his chair. He got out the makings and glanced at Mrs. Hughes to see if she objected. She shook her head with a wan smile and said, “Go ahead and roll your cigarettes. I know most men think best while they’re smoking.”

  When his cigarette was rolled and lit, Sam said diffidently, “What’ll we do ’bout him? You want I should go out an’ fetch him inside?”

  “No! Oh, I don’t know. What can I tell the children, Mr. Sloan? They worshiped their father. And they were all so happy tonight for the first time in years. They’ve gone to bed all full of happy dreams about a trip to Denver tomorrow to buy some things from Henry’s first salary check. How can I tell them the truth?”

  “Mebby we better not. Not fer a little while, anyhow.” Sam was puffing on his cigarette furiously while he thought about the pinched and frightened face of the little girl that had peered out at him when he first arrived. He didn’t think he could stand looking at five little faces like that while he told them their father was dead. “They don’t know nothin’ ’bout it yet, huh?”

  “No. I’m sure they don’t. I think the others are all asleep except Miranda … she’s the oldest … and you heard what I told her a minute ago.”

  Sam nodded. He asked thoughtfully, “What sorta funeral you figger on to have? A preacher an’ all thuh trimmin’s?”

  Mrs. Hughes compressed her thin lips and shook her head. “We’ can’t afford anything like that. And I don’t think Henry would care anything about having a preacher. We always have had our own hymns and prayers here at home of a Sunday evening, and I don’t see why we need outside preaching now.”

  “In that case,” suggested Sam diffidently, “I reckon I kin fix things up if you want me to. You know. Bury ’im tuhnight while the little gals are still asleep.”

  “What will I tell them in the morning?” Mrs. Hughes began sobbing afresh. “They’re looking forward so to a trip to Denver to buy new dresses and things. It’ll break their hearts when I tell them … when I tell them …”

  “No need tuh tell ’em right now,” said Sam hastily. “Looky here. I kin fix everythin’ up an’ then ride on before they ever wake up. You kin tell ’em I come by an’ got Mr. Hughes an’ we had tuh ride to Laramie on Pony Express bizniss. Then you kin break thuh news to ’em gentle later on.”

  “But they’ll wonder about the trip to Denver and be so disappointed,” she sighed. “Seems like I can’t bear to disappoint them now they’ve got their hopes up so, any more than I can bear to tell them about Henry.”

  “Take ’em on in to Denver,” said Sam strongly. “Tell ’em their daddy wanted ’em to go shoppin’ anyhow, even if he was took away on bizniss.”

  Mrs. Hughes shook her head sadly. “There won’t be any money for that now. You don’t realize what a terribly hard time we’ve had, Mr. Sloan, just to keep seven mouths fed. Though, the good Lord knows, Henry did try his best.”

  “There’ll be his first month’s pay,” Sam argued stubbornly. “An’ I’m right shore there’ll be more’n that too, a little later mebby.”

  An idea was beginning to form in his mind. He wasn’t broke, by golly. He still had money in the Dutch Springs bank left from Ezra and his sale of the ES Ranch some years previously. He had even added some to it during the past year while he had been regularly employed as a Pony Express rider. He knew right well how Kitty’d feel if he put it up to her straight. He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do with some of that money than help out a widow and five fatherless girls.

  “What do you mean by that?” Mrs. Hughes asked hopefully. “What makes you think there’ll be more money than his first check coming to him?”

  “Insurance an’ stuff like that,” Sam told her vaguely. “When a man gets killed workin’ for a company like the Pony Express, they allus see that his family is took care of. I’ll see to it nex’ time I’m in the Denver office.”

  “Oh, if you will, Mr. Sloan! You’re so kind.” Tears filled Vera Hughes’ eyes. “But I won’t go shopping or anything until I know for sure. We don’t want charity. Henry would turn over in his grave if I ever took any money that wasn’t really coming to him.”

  “Yes’m,” Sam muttered. “I reckon I know how you feel.” He got up and started for the door. “If you’ll tell me where there’s a shovel … an’ where you’d like best, you know …”

  “There’s a shovel right outside the door.” Vera got up and went with him. “And I think … out there under the cottonwoods. Henry loved those trees. We planted them when we first homesteaded here, and we used to sit under them together in the evenings when the sun sank behind the mountains in the west …”

  Her voice trailed off into a choked sob as those memories surged through her mind.

  Sam said, “Yes’m,” and picked up the shovel and hurried away. It sure got him when he saw a woman cryin’. Times like this he found out he wasn’t as tough as he pretended to be.

  There was a clump of five cottonwoods on the bank of a little creek behind the house. He selected a smooth spot in the center where spreading branches would shade the grave of Henry Hughes from the blistering sun, and began to dig a grave there.

  He worked swiftly, and the ground was soft and yielding. When he had a good deep hole dug, deep enough so it would never be desecrated by coyotes or wolves, Sam laid down his shovel and went toward the corral to fetch Hughes’ body.

  He hoisted it on his shoulder with little difficulty, and as he strode back with his burden he heard the sweet and melancholy strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” drifting softly out of the open windows of the house from the old melodeon.

  A lone coyote lifted its wailing voice from a near-by ridge as Sam paused on the brink of the grave, and the dirge of the wild mingled with the sacred music in a sad requiem for the murdered man while Sam Sloan gently lowered him to his final resting place beneath the earth.

  It was an eerie experience, and one that Sam would never in his life forget. Furiously he shoveled dirt back into the grave and shaped it up in a neat mound on top, piling heavy stones on that until some more suitable grave marker could be placed there. It all seemed mighty tough on the widow and the girls, Sam reflected. But he’d do his best to help them.

  When he returned to the house, the melodeon was silent again and Mrs. Hughes had a fire going in the kitchen range with a coffee-pot beginning to boil.

  Her face, although still showing the lines of grief and care, had regained some of its wonted serenity and she was able to speak steadily again. “I thought you’d like a cup of hot coffee after your long ride, and then I suppose you’ll want to go over Henry’s plans for the route. He had things pretty well lined up, you know.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you, Ma’am. I reckon I’ll have tuh take over for thuh time bein’, anyhow, though most likely the Denver office will ’point another man later for my boss in place of Mr. Hughes.” Sam sat down gratefully at the bare kitchen table in front of a tin cup of steaming coffee. “Do you know much about his plans for thuh route?”

  “Not a great deal,” Mrs. Hughes confessed. “He has some papers in his desk. I know he had made arrangements to buy a whole bunch of fast horses in Denver from some commission house, and he’s been working on a map marking out where the stations would be located.”

  She went out of the kitchen and returned with a map and various documents which she placed before Sam.

  “And I know one of the first things he was going to see about was hiring Hank Slater and Wack Beadle for two of his riders. They live right up the road a piece, and Henry thought they’d be good men.”

  Sam nodded gravely. He riffled through the papers and made a pretense of studying the map, marked with X’s where Henry Hughes had planned to establish way-stations. He didn’t know much about business affairs, and he was suddenly appalled by having this heavy responsibility thrust upon him.

  Mrs. Hughes hesitated in the doorway, saying, “I think I’d better go back to bed with the children now. Stay as long as you like, Mr. Sloan, and just push the door shut when you go. And I’ll never get over being thankful to you for what you’ve done tonight.”

  While Sam was trying to think up the right words to say to the widow, she slipped away silently and he heard the bedroom door open and close softly. He took another big swig of hot coffee and then began studying the map again.

  5.

  Sam Sloan woke up with a start, realizing that his muscles were cramped and he was cold, but not realizing much else. He stared around the strange kitchen in consternation for a minute, then remembered where he was. He’d fallen asleep sitting at the kitchen table in the Hughes’ ranch house.

  The map was still spread out in front of him and dregs of cold coffee were standing in his cup. The lamp still burned steadily on the table, though it was already well past daylight.

  He remembered it all now. Mrs. Hughes had gone to bed and he had closed his eyes for just a little snooze. He cocked his head toward the door and listened guiltily for some sound from the sleeping widow or children, and he breathed in a deep sigh of relief when he heard nothing. Maybe it still wasn’t too late for him to slip away before the kids woke up and give the mother the chance to tell them that their father had ridden away with him the preceding night.

  He leaned forward and blew out the lamp, then carefully pushed back his chair and stood up. He hesitated, looking down at his boots with the big spurs buckled on them, then stood on one foot and then the other while he slipped them off. He gathered up the map and papers and tiptoed out to the front door.

  When it was safely closed behind him, he sat down and pulled on his boots, went to the horse he had left ground-tied in the yard last night when he arrived.

  He had forgotten about leaving his horse saddled all night. He was stricken with remorse, and he rubbed the soft nose gently and patted his neck while he whispered apologies into his ear. The horse seemed to understand and accept Sam’s explanation, for he tossed his head as though to say, “That’s all right for this time. Just see that you don’t let it happen again.”

  Sam swung into the saddle and reined him away from the ranch into the road leading northward. Mrs. Hughes had said that Hank Slater and Wack Beadle lived up this road a ways, and Sam thought he’d better see them while he was so close before he went back from Denver to report Hughes’ death.

  The first rays of the morning sun were striking the clump of cottonwoods behind the house as Sam rode away. They touched the mound of fresh earth beneath the trees with red fingers, and Sam turned his eyes away hastily after one look. Didn’t do any good thinking about things like that. He was sure glad he’d waked up in time to get away before the five little girls surrounded him with questioning eyes.

  Half an hour at an easy trot brought Sam to a little log shack built up against a rocky cliff about a hundred yards off the road. Smoke plumed up from a crooked stovepipe and there was a horse tied out in front, so Sam reined over with the intention of stopping and getting directions for finding the two men he wanted to see.

  His eyes narrowed with perplexity as he neared the shack and got a better look at the tied horse. He was saddled all right, but with the funniest little flat dingus Sam had ever seen on a horse’s back. Looked more like one of Kitty’s pancakes than anything else. But it was buckled on with a regular girth, and a couple of narrow leather straps hung down from the sides ending in small iron loops that might pass for stirrups if you had plenty of imagination.