Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2) Read online

  THUNDER WAGON

  James Reasoner

  and L.J. Washburn

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and arc not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1994 by James M. Reasoner and L. J. Washburn All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address The Book Place. P.O. Box 931, Azle, TX 76020-0931, [email protected] .

  First printing HarperPaperbacks: August 1994

  Second printing The Book Place: August 2011.

  For Link Hullar

  Chapter 1

  The only thing certain about a peaceful night in the settlement of Wind River, Wyoming Territory, was that it wouldn't stay that way.

  As marshal of the recently established town, Cole Tyler knew that as well as anyone. Which was why he was lounging in the doorway of his office with a frown on his face as he peered up and down Grenville Avenue, the main street. The sun had set a couple of hours earlier, and so far tonight Cole hadn't heard even a single gunshot from any of the town's many saloons. No screams, no angry shouts, no cries of murder or robbery.

  "I don't like it," Cole announced.

  There was a snort behind him. "Next thing, you'll be sayin' it's too quiet," commented Billy Casebolt, Cole's deputy. "You just ain't got a trustin' nature, Cole. Enjoy things while you can, stead of worryin' yourself sick over somethin' that ain't even goin' to happen."

  Cole swung around. He was a medium-sized man, but there was nothing ordinary in the easy grace with which he moved, the strength in his broad shoulders, or the alert intelligence in his gray-green eyes. His clean-shaven features bore the deep tan of a man who has spent most of his life outdoors. Thick brown hair that had been hacked off squarely with the Green River knife sheathed on his left hip hung to his shoulders. A five-pointed star, his badge of office, was pinned to his buckskin shirt.

  Only a few months earlier, he had been a buffalo hunter working for the Union Pacific Railroad, providing meat for the hundreds of men in the UP's work crews who were laying tracks westward. It had been a rugged existence, to be sure, but there were times when he missed it. Back then, he had been responsible mainly for himself—not for a whole blasted town.

  "You know how edgy the town's been since those rumors started about the Chinese," Cole said. "I'd sure as hell like to know who's been spreading them around."

  Casebolt shrugged his bony shoulders. "Ain't no way of tellin' how things like that get started. But I don't believe it for a second. No, sir."

  The deputy was sitting in the chair behind the marshal's desk. He had one run-down boot propped against the desk and was rocking the chair back and forth slightly. Considerably older than Cole, around fifty, Casebolt had been out here on the frontier for a long time and showed it. He was lean, almost gaunt, and his face was brown and seamed like old saddle leather. His thinning hair was iron gray. He wore a woolen work shirt and denim pants over a set of faded red long underwear. A former scout for the army—a job that Cole Tyler had also held at one time—Casebolt claimed to have been just about everywhere west of the Mississippi . . . and he had a story for every place he had visited.

  He was just getting warmed up now. "I recollect one time I was down in Santa Fe, and there was a rumor that a whole bunch of Mex troops were on their way up the Rio Grande to take over the town. This was back when the United States and Mexico was still squabblin' over things mighty regular like. Well, you never seen such. Folks runnin' around all over the place like chickens with their heads cut off. Nobody knew whether to fort up and try to fight off the invasion or cut and run and leave Santa Fe for the Mexes. 'Course, there wasn't no invasion a'tall. The army ever'body claimed to've seen comin' turned out to be nothin' but a bunch of Mex pilgrims on their way up to the Sangre de Cristos for some sort o' religious ceremony. Talk about a bunch of folks who turned out to look mighty foolish when it was all said and done—"

  The sudden crash of gunfire down the street interrupted Casebolt before he could wrap up his story. Startled by the sound, the deputy reared back in the leaning chair, and it almost fell. He had to windmill his arms frantically in order to keep his balance and bring the front legs of the chair back down on the plank floor with a crash.

  "What in blazes!" he exclaimed.

  Cole didn't bother answering. He was already strapping on the cartridge belt that had been hanging on a nail beside the doorway. The holster attached to the belt held a Colt .44 conversion model. As Cole buckled on the gunbelt he said, "Let's go. That sounded like it might've come from Parker's place."

  Casebolt was on his feet. He was already wearing his handgun, a Griswold and Gunnison revolver like the ones carried by some members of the Confederate army during the war that had ended three and a half years earlier. Cole had never asked Casebolt if he'd fought in the Late Unpleasantness; that was behind them now, and the frontier had little patience for old grudges.

  Both lawmen hurried out of the marshal's office, which was located in the front room of the Wind River Land Development Company. They turned east and broke into a trot on the boardwalk that bordered Grenville Avenue. The east end of town was where most of the saloons were concentrated, although it was possible to get a drink of whiskey in almost any quarter of the settlement.

  The railhead of the Union Pacific had arrived in Wind River a few months earlier to find a settlement already waiting for the railroad. The town was the brainchild of a pair of land developers named Andrew McKay and William Durand; the probable construction of the railroad across this rugged section of southern Wyoming Territory was the very reason for the town's existence. McKay and Durand had intended Wind River to become a center of commerce for the entire Territory, serving not only the railroad but the vast cattle ranches that were being established.

  That dream might still come true. Andrew McKay and William Durand were both dead, but McKay’s widow, Simone, was carrying on in their place. She had inherited ownership of most of the settlement's real estate, and so far she had demonstrated a canny business sense.

  When the first passenger train had pulled into the spanking-new Wind River station, it had brought with it the "hell on wheels," the portable collection of tent saloons, brothels, and gambling dens that moved from railhead to railhead with the progress of the railroad.

  Since then, more rails had been laid to the west of the settlement, but another railhead had yet to be established. It would be several more months before the Union Pacific's center of operations was transferred. Until then Wind River would continue to be clogged with railroad workers eager for entertainment after their long days of work. The saloons, both the temporary and the permanent, could be counted on to do a booming business.

  And with that came trouble, Cole Tyler knew. A few hours of seeming peace didn't change things.

  After that initial volley, there had not been any more shots. Angry shouts filled the night air, however, making it easy to locate the source of the disturbance. Just as Cole had thought, the commotion was coming from Hank Parker's big tent saloon.

  Parker had decided to remain in Wind River, and the framework of a permanent building was going up on the lot next to his tent. Until the building was finished, however, he would continue doing business in the canvas tent. As Cole and Casebolt approached the entrance flaps two more shots rang out.

  Cole palmed out his revolver as he slapped one of the canvas f
laps aside and stepped into the saloon. The customers seemed to be divided into two roughly equal groups yelling at each other across the open space between them. Rolling around on the hard-packed ground in that clearing were three men while a fourth man danced around them with a gun in his hand, obviously looking for an opportunity to shoot.

  The three men on the ground were struggling fiercely, two of them trying to pin down the third. Cole didn't know whose side the man with the gun was on, and he didn't care. He just didn't want any more gunplay.

  He stepped up behind the man waving the revolver in the air and brought down a chopping blow with his own gun. The barrel of the Colt crumpled the man's hat and thudded against his skull. He stumbled forward, tripped over the men already on the ground, and went sprawling himself. The gun slipped out of his fingers.

  Cole started to fire a couple of shots into the air in hopes of breaking up the fight, but then he remembered how the last time he had done that, Hank Parker had pitched a fit and demanded payment for the bullet holes in his tent.

  Instead of firing, Cole jammed the gun back in its holster and reached down to grab the collars of two of the men. Muscles bunched in his arms and shoulders under the buckskin shirt as he hauled the startled men to their feet and shoved them in opposite directions. They both tripped and fell again.

  That left the other man on the ground; he reached for a knife at his belt, whipping it out with a snarl. Cole's booted foot lashed out, the toe connecting against the man's wrist with a crack. He let go of the knife, clutched his wrist, and howled in pain. Cole stepped back and slid his Colt out of leather again.

  "That's it!" he shouted. "This fight is over!" Behind him, Casebolt also had his gun out and was covering the crowd.

  Hank Parker came out from behind the bar and shouldered his way through the press of men to confront Cole. "Damn well about time you got here," he snapped. "What were you waiting for, Marshal? Do you have to see this whole place torn down before you'll do anything?"

  Cole kept his features carefully expressionless in the face of Parker's glowering accusations. There was bad blood between them, although circumstances had sometimes forced them to cooperate in the past. "Deputy Casebolt and I got here as fast as we could once we heard the shooting," Cole said coolly. "Doesn't look like there was too much damage."

  "Well, there could have been," Parker replied sullenly. "One of these days, this tent's going to get pulled down around my ears while I'm waiting for you two to show up."

  Despite his protests, Hank Parker looked capable of handling most kinds of trouble himself. He was tall and burly, with a bald, bullet-shaped head and an impressive spread of shoulders. He had only one arm, the left having been taken off in a blood-swamped field hospital near Shiloh meetinghouse during the war. The pinned-up sleeve did little to detract from the air of power surrounding the big saloonkeeper.

  "All right, what started this ruckus?" Cole asked, adding wearily, "And why is it that so many of the fights in this town seem to start here, Parker?"

  "That's not my fault, damn it," Parker said. "You don't think I want these bastards tearing up my place, do you?" He gestured curtly at the men sprawled around on the floor. "How do I know what started it? Somebody bumped somebody else and spilled a drink, or somebody said something and somebody else took offense. Bound to have been something like that. Hell, the whole town's so edgy I'm surprised they're not all trying to kill each other!"

  Cole had already noticed that all four of the combatants looked like railroad workers. It wasn't unusual for members of the predominantly Irish section gangs to clash with cowboys from the ranches in the area; railroad workers and cowhands seemed to have a natural antipathy toward each other.

  Lately, though, there had been more fights than usual among the Irish themselves, and this was another example of that trend.

  One of the men sitting on the ground pointed a finger at another man and said hotly, "This no-good ape said one Chinaman could do the work of four o' me!"

  "Well, 'tis true!" shot back the second man. "If the UP brings in a bunch of the yellow heathens, I'll not have to worry about me job. But layabouts like you will, O'Shea!"

  Cole exchanged a quick glance with Casebolt. The Chinese rumors again, Cole thought. Ever since they had started, things had gotten more and more tense in Wind River.

  Several years earlier, the Union Pacific and its chief rival, the Central Pacific, had begun construction on the proposed transcontinental railroad. The Union Pacific started in Omaha and built westward, their workers recruited primarily from the hordes of Irish immigrants that had come to the United States in the past fifteen years. The Central Pacific originated in Sacramento and came eastward with its rails, most of them laid and spiked into place by gangs of Chinese coolies who, despite their small stature, seemed to have an endless capacity for grueling physical labor. News of the successes the Chinese had accomplished in crossing the rugged Sierra Nevadas had spread throughout the country.

  And now, word in Wind River had it that the Union Pacific was considering hiring Chinese to replace the Irish workers. The resulting tension and hard feelings were to be expected, Cole thought, but that didn't mean he had to like the situation.

  "Shut up, all of you," he told the four men who had been fighting. They had continued their argument with words instead of fists and guns and knives, even with Cole and Casebolt standing there. "You're fighting about nothing, just because you're worried about your jobs. Hell, if I was General Dodge, I might fire you just for being so knotheaded!"

  General Grenville Dodge—after whom the town's main street was named—was in charge of the Union Pacific's construction, ably assisted by his second-in-command. Jack Casement. Cole had met both men several times and knew them to be honest. The backers of both railroads might be pulling financial shenanigans back east and in California, but out here where the real work was going on, things were pretty straightforward most of the time. That knowledge led Cole to continue, "If you're so worried about your jobs, why don't you just ask your bosses if you're going to be replaced by Chinese?"

  "They'd just lie to us!" a man called from the crowd. "They don't know how to tell the truth! All they care about is gettin' the railroad built as quickly and as cheaply as possible!"

  Cole didn't see anything wrong with that, but he didn't aggravate the situation by getting into the argument himself. Anyway, the Union Pacific wasn't paying his wages anymore. The dealings of the railroad were no longer any of his concern, except as they concerned the town.

  "What the railroad does is none of my business," he said loudly, "but what goes on in Wind River is, and there's not going to be any brawling here in town!" He looked at the men on the ground, one of whom was still groggy from the blow with the pistol. "I don't want to have to lock you boys up, but I will if I have to. We may not have a jail here in town yet, but we've got a mighty fine smokehouse that'll do for a hoosegow."

  One of the men looked down and muttered, "You don't have to lock us up, Marshal."

  Cole turned to Parker and asked, "How much will you need for the damages?"

  Parker glanced around, and Cole could tell he was calculating just how much he could get away with demanding. If it was too exorbitant, he would make enemies of most of the men in here tonight. Finally, he decided to tell the truth. "They didn't really bust up anything except one bottle of whiskey. Six bits'll cover it."

  "Pass the hat and ante up, boys," Cole told the brawlers. "It'll be a lot cheaper and easier than getting locked up."

  Evidently they agreed with him, because a minute later one of the men was on his feet again, dropping coins from his own pocket and those of the others into Parker's outstretched palm. The man said, "We're sorry, Hank. Won't happen again."

  "See that it doesn't," Parker growled.

  Men were going back to their drinking and talking, and Cole sensed that this crisis—minor though it had been—was over. He holstered his gun and jerked his head at Casebolt, indicating that they should
leave.

  Casebolt followed Cole outside, and when they had left the smoke-thick air of the tent saloon, the deputy said, "Well, that didn't amount to much."

  "It could've been a lot worse if those section hands weren't such piss-poor shots with a short gun," Cole said. "As crowded as Parker's place is, it was just pure luck somebody didn't get hit by one of those stray bullets."

  "All I know is I'll be glad when all this business about Chinamen blows over."

  "You and me both, Billy."

  Cole looked around the street. There were wagons rolling along Grenville Avenue, as well as a few men on horseback, and the boardwalks still carried quite a bit of pedestrian traffic despite the late hour. Wind River was a busy, crowded town, and it never really shut down each night until well after midnight. Some of the saloons even stayed open twenty-four hours a day, Parker's among them.

  "As long as we're out and about, we might as well make the rounds," Cole suggested. "I'll take this side of the street."

  Casebolt nodded and moved across to stroll down the opposite boardwalk, testing the doorknobs of businesses that had already closed for the night. Cole performed the same duty on his side of the street. As he neared the solid-looking, three-story edifice known as the Territorial House, Wind River's best hotel, another wagon passed him. Cole barely glanced at the vehicle, paying just enough attention to it to note that a man and a woman sat on the driver's seat while several other figures huddled in the back of the wagon. He stopped short, though, and looked again when he realized there had been something unusual about the people on that wagon.

  As it pulled up in front of the Territorial House, light from the hotel's lobby spilled out through the big front windows, falling over the newly arrived wagon and its occupants. The driver hopped down lithely from the seat and turned to help the woman get down.

  In the light from the hotel, Cole could plainly see the black, pajama-like garb the stranger wore, as well as the little cap on his head and the black hair braided into a pigtail that hung down over the back of his neck. The men who had been riding in the back of the wagon were getting out, too, and Cole could see that they were dressed like the driver and wore their hair the same way.