A Rocky Mountain Christmas Read online

  The engineer leaned out the window of the cab and looked down toward the station manager. “What are you doing out here in the cold, Phil?”

  “The Special will be coming through the pass about five in the morning. What do you think? Will they have any trouble?”

  “We didn’t have any trouble,” Joe said. “The track and the pass are clear.”

  “There’s a lot of snow higher up, though,” the fireman added. “If it don’t come down, I don’t see no trouble.”

  “What do you mean if it doesn’t come down? Is that likely?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joe answered. “I saw it too, and it looks like it’s pretty solidly packed.”

  “All right, thanks,” Phil said. “I’ll send the word on back.”

  The fireman finished filling the tank, then swung the spout back. “Merry Christmas, Phil,” he called out.

  Phil smiled back at him. “Merry Christmas to you, Tony. And you, too, Joe.” He started back toward the warmth of the depot, even as Joe opened the throttle and Freight Number 7, with ten cars of lumber, continued on its journey.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  On board the Red Cliff Special

  Matt awakened a second time when the train stopped. It was about two o’clock in the morning, which meant they had been under way for five hours. Looking through the window, he saw a small wooden building, painted red. A sign hung from the end of the building, but he couldn’t see enough to read it.

  “Folks,” the conductor said when he stepped into the car. “This is Buena Vista and we’ll more ’n likely be here for about half an hour. If any of you want to, you can get off the train and have a cup of coffee or maybe a bite to eat.”

  The porter went through the car, turning the lamps up brighter, and the other passengers started moving about, collecting coats, mittens, scarves, and caps.

  “I don’t want to go outside, Mama,” Becky said. “I want to stay here and sleep.”

  “That’s all right, darlin’. You won’t have to go outside if you don’t want to. You and I will stay here in the car, but we’ll have to give the lady her coat back so she won’t freeze when she goes outside.”

  “Your daughter can use this as a blanket,” Matt said, handing his sheepskin coat to the girl’s mother.

  “Why, thank you, sir.”

  “And I thank you as well, Mr. Jensen.” Jenny smiled as she retrieved her own coat.

  “I was right,” Matt said with a smile. “I knew that I had seen you before. I just can’t remember where.”

  “It was a few years ago, on board a riverboat on the Mississippi. The boat was the Delta Mist.”

  “Of course! You were the hostess for the Grand Salon. But, McCoy wasn’t your name then. It was”—Matt hesitated for a moment, then he recalled the name—“Lee, wasn’t it? Jenny Lee.”

  “Yes, I’m flattered you remember. I was married soon after that. Now I’m widowed.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Matt said automatically. Then, as they approached the door of the car he added, “I sure hope they have a warm fire going in the depot.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  They stepped down from the train, and Matt figured the temperature was at least ten below zero. The wind was blowing so hard it cut through him, right to the marrow of his bones. By the time he crossed the platform and got inside, he felt half frozen to death. Moving immediately to the stove, he stood for a long moment with his arms out, circling the stove, as if embracing the fire. Finally, when the feeling gradually began to return to his extremities, he left the stove and stepped up to the counter to buy a cup of coffee, nodding to the man he’d seen board the train just before the train pulled out of the station. The man was leaning against the counter warming his hands around a cup of steaming coffee. Matt paid for his coffee and stepped aside. As he stood there drinking it, he looked around the room and saw that Deputy Proxmire had come into the depot with his two prisoners. The shackles had been removed from the prisoners’ legs. Evidently, they were no longer a threat to run away, once on the train.

  Santelli looked directly at him, the expression on his face registering surprise, as if seeing him for the first time. Evidently he had not noticed Matt back at the Pueblo Depot.

  “Well if it isn’t Matt Jensen. What are you doing here, Jensen?” Santelli called over to him. “Have you come to watch me hang? ’Cause if you have, you may have to wait around a while.”

  “I just happened to be on the same train with you, Santelli, that’s all. You can damn well hang without me.”

  “Ha! Well, I got news for you, Jensen. I ain’t goin’ to hang. So what do you think about that?”

  “I don’t think anything about it one way or the other,” Matt replied. “This may come as a surprise to you, Santelli, but you aren’t important enough to even be on my mind.”

  “I told you one day that me ’n you would meet again, didn’t I? Do you remember that?”

  “I do remember that.” Matt smiled. “And here we are, met again. I’m on my way to have Christmas with friends, and you are on your way to, what is it? Oh yes, to get your neck stretched.”

  “Yeah? Well don’t you be counting on me gettin’ hung, Jensen. No, sir, don’t you be countin’ on it, ’cause that ain’t goin’ to happen. And this here meetin’ ain’t the one I was talkin’ about neither. There will be another time for the two of us to, let’s just say, work out our differences.”

  “Santelli, why don’t you shut up now?” Proxmire complained. “You’ve blabbered enough.”

  Santelli glared but said nothing more.

  The man standing beside Matt at the counter had witnessed the exchange between the two men. Turning toward Matt, he stuck his hand out. “How do you do, sir? The name is Purvis, Abner Purvis.”

  “Matt Jensen.” He shook Purvis’s offered hand.

  “I saw you talking with Santelli. Do you know him?”

  “Not exactly, but I did run across him when he was arrested. Tell me, Mr. Purvis, do you know the other prisoner? Who is that with him?”

  “I can’t say that I actually know him, but I know who he is. His name is Luke Shardeen and I understand he used to be a sailor and has been all over the world. He’s seen places the rest of us have just read about or heard about. Hawaii, China, India, Australia, but he gave all that up when he inherited some land from his uncle. He calls the ranch Two Crowns and he’s been working it ever since, quite successfully, I’m told.”

  “Why is he a prisoner?”

  “He killed the deputy sheriff from Bent County.”

  “He killed a deputy sheriff? That’s pretty serious.”

  “I guess it would be if it was the way it sounds. But he claimed that the deputy and Sheriff Ferrell were trying to rob him. Of course, the sheriff said they were only stopping him to ask him a few questions.”

  “Evidently, the jury believed the sheriff,” Matt said.

  “Not entirely. It seems Shardeen had just sold a bunch of cows and had quite a bit of money with him. Naturally, he’d be worried if a couple armed men suddenly come up on him, wouldn’t you think?”

  “I could see that.”

  “You also have to wonder what a sheriff and a deputy sheriff from Bent County were doing stopping someone in Pueblo County. Why didn’t they just go to Deputy Proxmire? Or to Sheriff McKenzie?”

  “That’s a good question. Evidently, though, it was answered to the satisfaction of the jury.”

  “The thing is, the jury pretty much had their hands tied.”

  “What do you mean, they had their hands tied?”

  “If you ask me, Amon Briggs—he’s the judge—sort of forced them into finding Shardeen guilty. Briggs is as crooked as they come, for all that he is a judge. He likes to do things his own way, and I’m not the only one that thinks this. Most of the folks think he browbeat the jury into finding Shardeen guilty.” Purvis chuckled. “He didn’t entirely get it his own way, though. He wanted Shardeen found guilty of first-degree
murder, but the most he got was involuntary manslaughter and four years.”

  “Four years isn’t all that bad.”

  “Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but I’m afraid in Shardeen’s case it is. He won’t have a ranch left when he gets out. He won’t have anything left at all, so I don’t have any idea what is going to happen to him.”

  Matt looked over toward Luke Shardeen and saw him sitting calmly beside the deputy sheriff and talking quietly to the girl.

  “What about Miss Lee?”

  “Who?”

  “I mean Mrs. McCoy.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s another example of the judge sticking his nose into everyone’s business. Jenny McCoy worked for Adele Summers at the Colorado Social Club.”

  “Colorado Social Club? I take it the women there are . . . just real sociable?” Matt asked with a chuckle.

  “Yes, they are. I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Jensen, the Social Club is a whorehouse, pure and simple. But Jenny McCoy, now, she wasn’t actually a whore. She was a hostess. I never heard of her going to bed with anyone, for all that they tried. But even if she wouldn’t go to bed with anyone, she was very popular. Well, you can see how pretty she is. She’s also very smart, and they she has a way of making people feel like they are someone important, no matter who they are. They also say that you could tell her anything you wanted, and know it wasn’t going to get spread all over town. And if anyone was having troubles, why, she had a way about her of making them feel good. You know, making them think that everything was going to come out all right. But from all I’ve heard, she didn’t whore with anybody.”

  Matt was glad to hear that. He remembered her from the Delta Mist, as well as her supportive testimony at his hearing in Memphis.

  “I saw the sign back in the Pueblo depot. Someone thought she was a whore.”

  “Yes, well I guess she hasn’t made friends with many of the women in town, that’s true. But that isn’t what got her run out of town. The thing that got her run out of town was having her picture taken when she was naked and sitting on the sofa with Governor Crounse.”

  “Naked?”

  “She claims, and so does the governor, that some men broke in to the sitting room and forced her, at gunpoint, to take off her clothes so they could get a picture of them together like that. The governor thinks some of his political enemies were behind it. Nobody has said so, but I’d be willing to bet Judge Briggs was in on it from the beginning. Briggs is the kind of crooked no-good that can be bought off. Everyone knows that.”

  “If everyone knows that, why is Briggs still the judge? Isn’t that an elective position?”

  “Elections can be bought, and there’s no doubt in my mind but that Briggs bought the election that got him there in the first place, and now just keeps on buying them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Briggs doesn’t find some way to take over Shardeen’s ranch while he’s gone.”

  Matt smiled. “You seem to have your fingers on the pulse of the town. Are you a newspaper reporter? Or are you just well connected?”

  Purvis laughed. “Well connected? I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But I do hear things.”

  “What do you do in Pueblo?” Matt asked. “Not that it’s any of my business,” he added quickly. “I’m just making conversation, here.”

  Purvis paused for a moment before he answered. “I suppose I’m what you might call a jack of all trades. I’ve done a bit of everything since I’ve been here, but I’ve seen the elephant now, and I’m going back to the ranch my family owns just outside Red Cliff.”

  One of the other passengers called out to Purvis, and he excused himself, leaving Matt standing alone. Matt continued to observe Luke Shardeen and Jenny McCoy, finding the study more interesting, now that he knew a little something about each of them.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  At the far end of the depot, Matt saw the conductor and a man he assumed was the locomotive engineer talking to the depot agent. Their conversation was quite animated, so Matt moved closer to see if he could hear them. He gave a quick smile, thinking about using the trick Smoke had taught him, a trick Smoke had learned from Preacher, who had learned it from the Indians.

  “In order to better hear what you want to hear, you have to systematically eliminate every other sound, so that nothing competes with what you want to hear,” Smoke told him.

  “How do you eliminate all the other sound?”

  “You just sort of think about each sound for a moment, then, one sound at a time, put it out of your mind.”

  Outside the depot, the fireman was still on board the locomotive, still keeping the steam pressure up. As a result the water in the boiler was gurgling and hissing. But the real noise was coming from the pulsating relief tube, opening and closing rhythmically, making loud rushing noises as as if the train itself was breathing.

  Matt quickly eliminated that sound and concentrated on the loudest remaining sound, which was the buzz and chatter of those conversationalists congregated in the waiting room. Their noise was punctuated by periodic outbreaks of laughter and the sound of small shoes on the floor as a couple young boys ran about in play.

  After eliminating the many conversations and the children at play, Matt heard only the sound of the clacking telegraph and the ticking of the large clock on the wall nearby. He pushed those sounds aside as well, and could finally concentrate on the conversation between the engineer, the conductor, and the station agent.

  “Look,” the station agent was saying. “Last night a track inspector went up to the pass and checked it out. He said it was all right then, and a freight train went through after that, so the latest word we have, by telegraph, is that the pass is open.”

  “What if we get up there and we are blocked? What if we can’t go ahead and we can’t come back?” the engineer asked.

  “I don’t think that is likely to happen, at least not in the next twelve hours,” the station agent said. “On the other hand, if you don’t go now, and it does get blocked, you could be here for a month.”

  “I can tell you right now, Don, if that happens, we are going to have a lot of very upset people,” the conductor said to the engineer. “Nearly everyone on this train wants to get somewhere for Christmas, and we don’t have that much time left before Christmas is here.”

  “You’re the conductor, Mr. Bailey,” Don said. “So the decision as to whether to go on or stay here is up to you.”

  Bailey looked at the station agent. “Mr. Deckert, what is the latest time you received a report on the condition of the pass?”

  “Well, like I said, a freight train went through no more ’n two hours ago, and the pass was open then. Do you want to hear the telegram?”

  “Yes, read it to me,” Bailey said.

  Deckert pulled the telegram from his pocket. “Midnight. Trout Creek Pass open. No difficulty.” He handed the telegram to the conductor who read it again.

  “Hmm, ‘no difficulty.’ I find it interesting he says that specifically,” Bailey commented. “That’s a good sign, I would think.”

  “There has been no new snow since I received this telegram so my guess would be that the pass is still open.”

  “Your guess,” Don quipped.

  “It’s not just a wild guess,” Deckert reasoned. “It’s based upon that telegram and the fact that there has been no new snow.”

  Bailey nodded, then stuck the telegram in his pocket. “All right, Don, I say we go.”

  “Like I said, you’re the boss. How much longer before we leave?”

  Bailey pulled out his pocket watch and examined it, even though he was standing right under the clock. “We shouldn’t stay here too long. I would think the sooner we get to the pass, the better off we will be. I’ll give ’em about fifteen more minutes, then I’ll get them back aboard.”

  “All right, I’d better go tell my fireman.” The engineer went outside to return to the locomotive and the station agent went back to his position behind the counter. Having heard what he wanted
to hear, Matt let the other sounds start drifting back in, and turning toward the waiting room, he saw that Jenny and Luke were engaged in quiet conversation.

  Their conversation looked to be private, so he made no effort to overhear them. Instead, he concentrated on the cup of coffee he was drinking.

  Don Stevenson hurried across the brick platform and through the cold to the big 4-6-2 engine sitting on the track, wreathed in its own steam. Reaching up to grab the ladder, he climbed up and into the cabin.

  His fireman, Beans Evans, reached down to give him a hand in. “So what’s the story? Are we goin’ on?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then the pass is open?”

  “They think so.”

  “They think so? You mean they don’t know?”

  “Nobody knows for sure,” Don said. “But the last report they got was a telegram from Big Rock. Freight Number Seven passed through at midnight, and said that it was open.”

  “That was two hours ago, and it’ll be another three hours before we get there,” Beans pointed out.

  “Yes. Well, if the pass isn’t open, we can always back down the hill.”

  “Yeah, that is if there ain’t another train comin’ up behind us.”

  “Well, you know what they say, Beans. Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die.”

  “Yeah? Well, who says that? Not the people who have to do or die, that’s for damn sure,” Beans replied.

  “You’ve done a good job keeping the steam up.”

  Beans smiled. “I wasn’t keeping the steam up, I was keeping myself warm.”

  Inside the depot, Jenny and Luke were still engaged in conversation.

  “Nobody in town thinks you are guilty,” Jenny said. “I’ve heard them talking.”

  Luke smiled. “Unfortunately, none of the people who thought I was innocent were on the jury. The men on the jury thought I was guilty.”