Pearlie looked through a gap in the canyon ahead, and as he did so, he saw two men who seemed to have an intense interest in the progress of the coach. It also appeared that they did not want to be seen, as they would peek around the edge of a large boulder, then jerked back quickly, then peek again, repeating the process. The amount of time they were exposed to view was so brief that, to any but the most experienced eye, they would have gone unnoticed.
“Ben, I just saw them,” Pearlie said.
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because they are watching us and they don’t want to be seen watching us. They are waiting up at the bend.”
“Damn, you are probably right. I’ve been thinkin’ all along that if they was going to hit us, more than likely they would do it here. We’re goin’ to be easy targets when we go through the pass.”
“Or they will be,” Pearlie said.
“What do you mean?”
Pearlie reached down into the boot for the rifle. “I’m goin’ to hop down here,” he said. “You go on through as if you don’t suspect a thing. I plan to cut across the top here while you keep goin’. Slow down just a little bit to give me time to get into position. If I’m lucky, they’ll be so busy keepin’ an eye out for the stage that they won’t see me comin’.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Ben said.
“I’ll climb up on that rock just ahead,” Pearlie offered.
“You keep your head down, young feller,” Ben said with genuine concern.
“Don’t worry, I will. And if everything goes all right, I’ll see you on the other side.”
“Right,” Ben answered.
Pearlie climbed up onto the top of the stage. Then as they passed particularly close to the canyon wall, he stepped off the stage onto a rock. From the rock, he climbed on up to the top, then crouched low as he ran across the top of the canyon wall. A moment later, he saw the two men exactly where he thought they would be. Both had their guns drawn, and both were looking toward the opening in the canyon where the stagecoach would appear.
“You two boys mind tellin’ me what you’re doin’ here?” Pearlie called out to them.
“What the hell? Who are you?” one of them yelled. When the two men turned around, Pearlie recognized one of them as the shotgun guard whose firing had led to Pearlie taking this job.
“Drop your guns, both of you,” Pearlie ordered.
It looked for a moment as if the two men considered shooting it out with Pearlie, but he had a bead on them and they knew that, at the very best, at least one of them would be killed. After a quick glance at each other, they dropped their pistols, then put their hands up.
“Get on down there on the road,” Pearlie ordered, motioning with the rifle.
As the two men climbed down onto the road, Pearlie went down behind them, all the while keeping them covered. In the distance, Pearlie could hear the whistles and shouts as Ben worked his team through the narrow pass and around the curve.
When Ben saw Pearlie standing in the road in front of him, with his rifle covering two men who held their hands in the air, he pulled the coach to a stop.
“I’ll be damn,” Ben said, as he saw the two men. “Dempster, is that you?”
“Hi, Ben,” the former shotgun guard said quietly.
“Pearlie, I reckon you remember Bob Dempster, don’t you?”
“I remember him,” Pearlie answered.
“Dempster, I can’t believe you would have robbed me.”
“I know you was responsible for me a-losin’ my job,” Dempster said. “I was just takin’ what I figure is owed me, that’s all.”
“You’re the one that caused you to lose your job,” Ben said. “You was drunk more times than you wasn’t. I kept warnin’ you. If I’m goin’ to have someone lookin’ after me, they damn well better be sober.”
Ben reached under the seat and threw down two pair of hand shackles. “Get these on ’em, Pearlie, then get ’em up on top of the coach. I’ve had these things for nigh on to five years, and I ain’t never had to use them before.”
“Here!” one of the passengers in the coach called out. “You don’t intend to take those men on this stage with decent folk, do you?”
“We got no choice, mister. We can’t leave ’em out here,” Ben called back. “They’ll be ridin’ up on top of the coach. You’ll never see them.”
“I want you to know that I intend to make my protest known about this,” the passenger said.
Ben leaned over and spit out a quid in the general direction of the irate passenger. The passenger had to jerk his head in quickly to keep from being hit.
“You do that,” Ben said.
Working quickly, Pearlie put the shackles on the two would be road agents, then ordered them up onto the top of the coach. Once they were on top, he loosened their shackles just long enough to pass the chain through one of the luggage guards. Then he reconnected them before joining Ben on the driver’s seat.
“You ready?” Ben asked.
“I’m ready,” Pearlie replied.
Ben nodded, then whistled at the team, and the coach continued on its way.
It was late afternoon when the coach pulled into town. Because the coach was the town’s major physical connection with the outside world, it always garnered attention. That was partly because Ben made his arrivals, just as he made his departures, with the horses pulling the coach along at a rapid trot.
Today, though, the coach attracted even more attention as it was very obvious that there were two men shackled to the roof of the coach. And one of them the townspeople recognized right away.
“Hey! That’s Dempster!” someone shouted.
“Dempster, what are you doin’ up there?”
“You remember Dempster, don’t you? He used to be a guard for the stage. Now they got him shackled up there on top.”
Chapter Seven
Colorado Springs
Although the train ran through the night, it had neither Pullman cars nor pull-down berths; therefore, Smoke and Sally had to sleep as well as they could on the seats. Smoke, who could sleep almost anywhere, had a much easier time of it than Sally, who sat by the window, staring out into the darkness for most of the trip. After leaving Big Rock, they had to change trains in Como, then again in Denver, both changes made in the middle of the night. It was harder in Como, because they had to wait for one hour in the small depot with only hard, wooden, and backless benches to accommodate them.
The depot in Denver was much larger, and would have been considerably more accommodating if they had had to wait, but the train for Colorado Springs was on an adjacent track, already taking on passengers, even as they were arriving.
Sally finally fell asleep on this, the last leg of their trip, but it was more because of exhaustion than anything else. She woke up just as they were coming into Colorado Springs, and was surprised to see that it was now light outside.
“Ahh, good, you are awake, I see,” Smoke said.
“Barely,” Sally mumbled.
“If you want, I can just leave you on the train. Whenever you finally wake up, you can take the next train back,” Smoke teased.
“Ohh,” Sally groaned. “I don’t want to see another train, ever.”
“That’s interesting. You plan for us to walk back, do you?”
The couplings began rattling and the brakes squealing as the train slowed on its approach to the station.
“What do we do first?” Sally said. “And I truly hope it is find a hotel.”
“That’s what I plan to do, then I’ll look up Tom Murchison,” Smoke said.
“Who is Tom Murchison?”
“He is a lawyer here. Jim Robison recommended him to me. In fact, I would be surprised if Jim hadn’t contacted him already.”