First Prospects

Few people know that Reese Adams and Jacob ‘Buck’ Buckmaster are principal owners of an international mining corporation with producing properties in northern Mexico and South America. The Yankee Girl Mines Corp. is their privately held enterprise with annual returns after expenses and taxes averaging more than $400 million, with a gross worth in the billions. Only Reese, Buck, their local accountant, and a chosen few executives in their Mexico City headquarters with its central marketing and accounting offices know or are on a names-acquaintance speaking basis with the two owners.

Reese and Buck prefer it that way. Anonymity suits them.

It all began in 1869 when two young men, partners in a prospecting venture, struggled over Galena Summit from the Wood River valley in the central region of the future State of Idaho to find themselves in a wonderland of high mountains and jagged peaks, home to a wild-running river filled with salmon during annual migrations from the sea. Abner Adams and Woodrow Buckmaster had grown up together in the rough Pennsylvania oil field country, sons of failed farmers who’d turned to wildcat oil drilling for a chance at a lucky strike. The two families succeeded well enough to prosper, to raise sons and daughters, and eventually to retire and live a comfortable life as Pennsylvania gentry.

Abner and Woodrow were restless young men, single and anxious for adventure. They were eager to be away from the Civil War battlefields that had claimed an older brother, had widowed an older sister, and claimed many of their kin in related families. Too young to be conscripted, the boys were sickened by the losses they’d seen. So, at first opportunity upon graduating from what passed as secondary education in their district in 1867, they vowed a solemn pledge to stick together, to share a great adventure ‘out West,’ and—with luck—to perhaps find their fortune.

Their fathers could afford to outfit the boys with good horses, a pack mule apiece, new Winchester Model 1866 “Yellow Boy” .44 caliber saddle guns, Remington .44 caliber ‘New Model’ Army revolvers, and a grubstake of gold and silver coin to purchase food and trail gear during their lengthy venture.

Eventually the boys found themselves far west in the Oregon territory, still on the eastern side of the great Cascade mountain range that divides the dry sagebrush and pine interior from the lush coastal forests. They’d either been too late or too distant from the news of gold strikes in California and Nevada, but had eventually heard word of possible gold north in a little-explored mountain region of deep canyons and whitewater rivers, with tales of one river so wild and impassable that the natives called it ‘the river of no return.’

So north they went and camped along a broad, high valley in that amazing bowl of mountains. They were alone. They’d seen no other white men, finally clear of the treacherous Snake River plains. They’d entered the Wood River valley. They following it north, feeling lucky for finding this unexplored gentle, southward flowing stream. They trekked on and came to its headwaters and a high pass that dropped into another wild, rich valley and a new river flowing eastward, away from a western arc of high snowy peaks.

“What d’ya think, Woody? That river winds down out of those high peaks. There’s been no sign of color in our pans yet. Do we keep on? Maybe we should follow this new river down that far canyon a ways?” Abner asked his partner.

“I think so,” Woody answered, sipping from his enamel coffee cup. “We’re sure to find tributary creeks, and maybe another, smaller river flowing down to join this one. I was told this was the Salmon River when we restocked in that town other side of the pass. The feller said it flows and grows considerably. The Indians told him it circles around in a big loop to the north and flows back west. There, he said, it becomes the ‘river of no return,’ pouring down an impassable canyon. The trail ends there unless we’d want to leave it and climb out over the north pass to the Montana country. Anyway, that part about it ‘grows considerable’ means lots of tributaries coming in from the side, and the streams that drain them side canyons have gotta bring eroded mineral down with ‘em, and that could be gold.”

“Okay. It’s still early season so we got time and fresh supplies, so down the river we go. I got a feelin’ about this. We’re the only ones in here that I can tell. We’ve seen no tracks over the pass and no sign of anybody in this high valley. We might see some Native parties comin’ in for spring camps to hunt fresh meat, but we’re told they’re peaceable and we’re willin’ to parlay and trade. So, yeah, that’s a plan.”

The two young men worked their way slowly down the deepening canyon and wherever they found a creek pouring in from the north side, they camped and prospected. From time to time they found traces of gold dust, ‘color,’ but it was too fine and too sparse to warrant a claim. Eventually they came to a smaller river winding down a north valley lush with meadows and scattered forest breaks, rich with game and fish. Their pans yielded increasing ‘shows’ of placer gold the further they worked upstream, until they came to a tributary creek, pouring into the north side.

They followed their pans, excitement growing, until two days later in an upstream bend they found nuggets in a gold pocket under a stream-cut bank burdened with the precious metal. In other shallow stretches they saw gold deposits sparkling in the gravel riffles, washed by the clear-flowing water.

“Gosh darn! Here we are in the middle of the wilderness and I swear the only humans who’ve seen this place are the Natives, and they’ve had no use for this stuff!” Woodrow exclaimed.

“We need to start stakin’ this proper-like, Woody. We need to pan further up the creek and stake each of us as much as we’re allowed. Then one of us has got to ride back and over the pass to the Wood River, and register our find. And we need to be damn quiet about it. No word a’tall. Just that we got scattered prospects we’re studyin’ on the bet it’ll pan out. No strike yet. Just some ‘maybe’ hopes, right?”

And that’s exactly what they did. Abner stayed behind and began cutting trees to build a cabin on a broad slope overlooking their claims. Knowing that spring floods would come, he needed them to be above the high water. He continued to explore and pan both upstream and down and made careful notes of everything he found.

Woodrow on his horse leading their pack mules made the southward trek over the summit and finally emerged onto the Snake River plain to find a town large enough to have a government registry office. He put on sort of an act as a naïve young Easterner who seemed to have more foolish enthusiasm than prospecting sense, so nobody took him seriously. He registered four mining claims, two for each of them. On an impulse, he named their claims the Yankee Girl Numbers 1 through 4 in honor of his widowed sister and the memory of her lost husband.

The following year, 1870, gold-seeking prospectors invaded the region and swarmed all up and down the main Salmon, including the tributary river they dubbed the “Yankee Fork.” It was a shock when they discovered the Yankee Girl claims, now increased to six, up the unnamed creek already developed and being worked with a stout cabin, a placer flume, and a small stockade for defense.

They found the two young men friendly but tight-mouthed. Both were armed with repeating rifles and while not belligerent or aggressive, the young men made it clear that while the outsiders were free to explore further up the creek, or down below their claims to the tributary river, they were not to camp or intrude on their claims. As for gold? “We’re still explorin’ possibles,” Woodrow said. “We got nothin’ to brag about, and no riches to point to. We’re just developin’ what we got, lookin’ for placer deposits, same as y’all are hopin’ to do.”

Most White miners had considerable contempt for the Chinese men who were imported as cheap railroad or construction labor wherever needed. Some Chinese, not being stupid, struck off on their own for better opportunities. Most met hostile rebuffs or violence. Abner and Woodrow gave the matter a long think.

“We need help we can trust, Abner. Men who’ll work with us and not try to rob us blind or kill us in our sleep. I was told by Pa that if a man hires good help, pays ‘em fair and treats ‘em decent, that it’ll more than pay off in the end. You agree with that?”

“Yep. My Pa said the same thing. So I guess you’re thinkin’ we can find some of those Chinese fellers from over the south pass, hire ‘em, put ‘em up here and we’ll have a steady crew?”

“Yep. And if we’re lucky, at least one can talk our language, and we’ll work from there. Flip a coin to see who goes to get ‘em?”

Woodrow pulled his ‘lucky’ coin from its permanent place in his watch pocket and flipped it, neatly snagging it out of the air in mid-flight.

“Call it!” he challenged Abner, while deftly dropping the coin back into its usual place just under his waistband.

“Heads!” Abner called.

“Sorry, you lose!” Woodrow laughed. “Enjoy the solitude! Try to get a little work done while I’m gone!”

He caught and saddled his horse and both pack mules. He’d bring back supplies and, hopefully, a few willing Chinese workers. He was hoping they could ride and he’d be able to buy horses for them. Otherwise it was going to be a long, slow hike back over the summit trail from the Wood River valley. Either way, it needed to be done. Early next morning he hit the trail.

Woodrow had been following the upper Wood River for the last hour as he descended the rough, steep trail down from Galena Summit, five miles behind his pack mule who angrily flung her tail in wide sweeps across her wide buttocks, swatting the horseflies that swarmed over all of them, taking bloody bites from exposed flesh, including the back of Woodrow’s neck. He used his broad-brimmed hat to wildly swat at the cloud of flies around his shoulders when he heard a distant cry from down the trail.

“Whoa up!” he softly ordered, gently tugging back on the reins, stopping his horse and the two mules following. He sat, listening, and there it was again: another cry, a human voice in pain. He eased his rifle from its scabbard slung near his right leg, levered a round into the chamber and, holding it upright in his right hand with the butt resting on his leg, he lifted the reins in his left and with a soft “tchk-tchk” he urged his horse forward into a slow walk. The cries, coming one every few seconds, grew louder and soon he was close enough to hear the crack of a whip preceding each cry.

“Lord Almighty! Sounds like somebody’s gettin’ beat near to death!” he mumbled aloud to himself.

The trail rounded a bend past the root mound of a fallen tree and there, in plain view, he saw an awful scene:

A big Chinese man, stripped to the waist, was lashed over a stump. His legs were bound tightly around it with wraps of rope. He lay face down across a stuffed burlap bag atop the stump that supported his upper body half upright, making his back an easy target. It was a mass of bleeding flesh.

Woodrow sat staring. A smallish bearded man in miner’s dungarees and a plaid shirt flung his long bullwhip into a high arc and shot another cutting stripe against his victim. It was too much for Woodrow He pointed his rifle and called out while urging his horse closer.

“Hold! You with the whip, stand down! You’re near to killing that man!”

Startled, the whip man yelled back, “It ain’t no man, and it ain’t yer place to call me on it, stranger! Move along or you’ll take his place!”

Woodrow reined his horse to a stop and more steadily sighted his raised rifle on the whip man’s chest. He also noted another miner a few steps to the side, holding a pistol on a clustered group of half a dozen angry Chinese men.

“Try it and I’ll see you in Hell, you murderous bastard!” Woodrow yelled back. “I said drop that whip and back away!”

Just then the second man swung his pistol from covering the Chinese and he hastily snapped off a shot at Woodrow. The slug whirred past his left ear; Woodrow swung his rifle, pointed, and fired. A red blossom erupted dead center on the shooter’s chest. Not hesitating, Woodrow swung his sights back to the first man, who immediately dropped his whip and raised both hands.

“Damn you! You shot my partner!” he screamed.

“And I’ll shoot you dead where you stand, if you give me just half a reason,” Woodrow called back. “Now take your knife and cut that man loose. Do it now!”

The small crowd of Chinese men broke into a babble of talk, none of it understood by Woodrow, but they kept their place, nervously eyeing the rifle in his grip, waiting to see what he would do next.

The surviving miner cut the ropes binding the whipped man who struggled to rise but couldn’t. He lay across the stuffed bag, bleeding in streaks from the wounds on his back.

“Can you talk to anyone in that bunch of Chinamen and be understood?” Woodrow yelled to the miner.

“Yeah, sorta. One of ‘em speaks pidgin English good enough.”

“Well tell ‘im they need to help this man, now! He needs his back tended to. Any of ‘em know anything about treating hurts like that?”

“Damned if I know, stranger. Who gives a tinker’s dam anyway? And why do you keep callin’ him a man? He ain’t no damn MAN! He’s a heathen Chinee! He ain’t one of us!”

“I might gut-shoot you where you stand, mister, if you open that foul hole you call a mouth again. Okay, so call ‘em over and tell ‘em I said to carry him to a bed and start tendin’ to his hurts!”

The Chinamen muttered nervously but moved over to their whipped fellow and lifting him under the shoulders, two carried him by his arms while a third supported his legs. They slowly moved toward the cluster of camp tents, glancing back at Woodrow who had his rifle aimed dead square at the miner’s chest.

“You and your dead partner got any horses?”

“Yeah. You gonna steal ‘em after you done killed my pard?”

“No, I’m not a low-life rat like you two. I’m takin’ your horses, but I’ll pay a fair price for ‘em. And you’ll write out a bill of sale for me. Yeah, I killed yer pard, but he shot first. If he hadn’t been a coward and snap-shot at me, I’d likely be layin’ in the dirt instead of him. ‘Scuse my long-winded speech, but speakin’ of yer dead pard, I’ll need you to load ‘im up on his horse and come with me to the miner’s hall in town. We’re gonna have ourselves a hearin’ to satisfy folks that I kilt ‘im in self defense. And I don’t fancy anybody takin’ a shot at my back when I’m leadin’ a pack string on the trail so this ain’t a matter fer discussion!”

So that’s precisely what happened. Ferguson, the miner’s name, brought out two horses and Woodrow counted out $40 in gold coin for horses and tack and got a bill of sale in return. He then helped Ferguson load the body across the man’s saddle.

Woodrow then ordered Ferguson to mount one of the pack mules, which he did after a few harsh words and a poke with the rifle barrel.

“It ain’t yer horse any more, Ferguson, and you sure as hell ain’t ridin’ free to gallop into town yellin’ that I shot yer pard! Once we’ve settled with the miners’ council and I’ve kicked you loose, afoot, and I get some supplies loaded up, you’re stayin’ in town until tomorrow and then you can walk back here to camp. Meanwhile, I’m takin’ all the grub you got stocked here to feed these Chinee men you don’t consider human, and I’m takin’ them back with me, too.”

So Woodrow tied Ferguson securely to the pack saddle, an uncomfortable seat for sure. And Ferguson cursed and swore while seated helpless, the pack mule’s nose tied to a tree, while Woodrow went to have a talk with the Chinamen.

He learned that the whipped man’s name was Lee Wong, and was the leader of the group of six. A small man, the camp cook actually, spoke passable English. He’d been a cook on a sailing schooner and learned English from kicks and cuffs from impatient sailors.

Woodrow learned that the two miners had ‘bought’ the group from another miner who’d struck gold, sold out, and left with his windfall. Held at pistol point with their personal papers and belongings locked up for ransom, the crew was forced to work for next to nothing.

“Until ya’ damned heathens have worked enough to pay us back fer what we paid fer yer stinkin’ selves!” the two miners had ordered, “ya get NO pay!”

When Lee Wong stood up and protested vehemently over the poor food given to the cook for their meals, and demanding an accounting of how their wages were levied against the ‘slave payment’ due, the men drew their guns and ordered Wong tied to the stump over a sack of dirty laundry for the whipping.

“To death, to make an example!”

Woodrow explained to the Chinese men that he was taking Ferguson to town to clear the killing. He would return with extra food and supplies and he wanted the men to wait for him. If they were willing, he’d lead them back to his mine where his partner waited, and they’d be given steady work at fair wages in gold, with no hold-backs for food or lodging.

“Fair pay for fair work,” he promised. “I don’t figure you want to hang around these parts any longer. It don’t appear to me that you’d get much of a fair shake from the folks around here.”

When Woodrow returned leading both pack mules loaded with food and tools, he found a willing crew waiting for him. Lee Wong had been well-tended by his friends. Woodrow instructed that he should ride one of the miners’ saddle horses. He explained to the others that they would travel by ‘shanks mare,’ on foot, but they could take turns riding the other horse, two at a time. It was up to them to decide who’d ride and for how long. Each man had bundled up their personal belongings after smashing the lock on the miners’ chest. They’d divided up the meager stash of coins and gold dust they’d found as ‘wages due.’ Woodrow and his new crew hit the trail back to Galena pass.

Skilled hands and strong backs built a snug, low-roofed bunkhouse to house six Chinese ‘partners’ on the Yankee Girl placer mines. They were delighted to receive pay in gold dust and nuggets at twice the rate they could get anywhere else, and they were treated respectfully by the two owners, a gross departure from what they’d received at the hands of other white men. As a bonus, the food was good, the labor was shared equally with the two young men working alongside them with smiles and friendly words. In time, they formed strong bonds of respect and acceptance.

A sad fact of life was that none of the Chinese were allowed under territorial or federal law to bring a wife over from China. It was forbidden. Abner and Woodrow could do nothing about that, but they did offer to help the men exchange their gold savings for bank certificates that could be sent home for their families and wives. From time to time a Chinese would accumulate what he deemed as sufficient to his future, and he’d cash in his savings and leave. But never before finding a trusted replacement to take his place at the Yankee Girl. Abner and Woodrow found themselves the overseers of an intensely loyal and devoted crew of workers.

It was not wise to accumulate a large amount of gold at the mine site, although a stout log keep was built to serve that need. From time to time, either Abner or Woodrow would ask three of their Chinese crew to accompany them on a gold shipment by packhorse over the south pass. It was illegal to arm the Chinese, so only Abner and Woodrow could carry firearms. The Chinese soon proved they had other skills that served the purpose.

It was on one gold trek when their ‘other skills’ saved everything.

Abner was leading a pack mule, its panniers loaded with small canvas sacks of nuggets and dust. Just behind, Lee Wong followed on his saddle horse, leading the second pack mule equally burdened. Another Chinese rode several yards ahead, on point, while the third Chinese, Hop Sing, volunteered to ride behind to guard their rear. Abner carried his repeating rifle. He also had a brace of pistols on his belt.

The party topped the pass and descended three miles down the south side when it came time to make camp before approaching night made the trail uncertain. They unsaddled their horses, unpacked the mules, brushed them down, and fed them grain from feed packs. They hobbled them to graze within sight of camp. Hop Sing made a small cooking fire and started a meal for all to share. After a time the tired riders laid out their bedrolls and settled in for the evening.

Abner woke with a pistol barrel pressed against his head. He raised up in alarm and was knocked back down with a hard blow.

“The gold or your life! Mess with us and I’ll blow your brains out on the dirt while my partners kill them stinkin’ Chinamen you got with you.”

“Alright! You win. The gold bags are in the panniers, laid against that stump just left of the fire. Take it and be gone,” Abner mumbled.

Just then the man flinched and he jerked his hand upward to his neck. At the same time that his body jerked, his pistol hand swung down and the gun fired into the dirt. Before Abner could raise up to see what was happening he heard grunts and stifled moans and the sound of bodies falling.

Lee Wong had stood guard over the camp, staying back from the fire in the shadow of a towering tree. He had heard the noise of three men muttering in low voices while they dismounted in the dark and tied their horses a few paces down the trail. Wong quietly woke the other two of his crew. When the strangers approached and the leader jammed his pistol barrel against Abner’s head, Lee Wong struck. Moving swiftly, silently, he pulled his knife and speared it into the man’s neck from the side, almost severing his head. It was him jerking savagely on the knife that caused the pistol to drop.

The other two men met similar fates. One was slammed face first into the dirt with his throat slashed open. The last bandit was dropped with Hop Sing’s cleaver between his shoulder blades, followed by a slashing swing that split his head. It was all over in less than a minute.

“They not take our gold or our lives!” Wong exclaimed to a flustered Abner who was able to stand and brush himself off. He had a nasty bump starting to swell on his forehead and he was shaking in self-disgust, fear, and anger.

“Damn fool, me!” he swore. Then he stepped over to Wong and the other men. He reached forward to grip Lee Wong’s hand.

“You saved my life! You saved all of us and the gold. If word of this had gotten out, then every bandit and no-account thief in the region would’ve come down on us at the mine for easy pickin’s. We owe you, all of you, and I promise we’ll make good on our debt to you!”

“No debt! No owe anything!” Wong insisted. The other men nodded their heads. “You make us all together with you and with other man. You honor us, make our life home possible, help us help families! I not save you, Mister Abner. I save us all! No debt, no owe us!”

Lee Wong stood tall in the firelight, his arms crossed, and he glanced at each of the others who straightened and stood, smiling back.

“We got problem,” Wong announced. “We got bodies to drag away and we got three more horses. Who leads extra horses?”

The rest of the ride was uneventful. The three horses, two tied behind the pack mules and one behind a saddle horse, led well and were no problem. Nothing was ever said by Abner, his men, or any curious bystander about the horses or the incident. But sharp eyes spotted the horses with empty saddles and word spread swift and far that their former owners were known thieves who were now obviously dead and horseless. Word got around and the Yankee Girl pack train shipments were seldom bothered again.

Acquiring “Beauty”

During the last summer while on another business trip, Abner met a small group of wagons waiting to ford the Snake River at Three Island Crossing. There he was approached by a woman who explained that she’d been widowed when her husband fell ill and died earlier on their journey to Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

She asked if Abner might like to buy her dead husband’s rifle. She was low on money to complete the trip because She’d had to hire a driver to replace her husband.

“My husband Evan was one of Berdan’s Sharpshooters in the war,” she explained. “He kept his rifle. He said he’d saved three month’s pay to buy it because he thought so little of the ill-suited cylinder rifle the Army was forcing them to use.”

She climbed into her wagon and reached down between the wagon box and her bed roll. She used both hands to unroll a blanket wrapped around a leather scabbard holding a slender rifle. She held it out for Abner to take.

“Evan took good care of it. It was his pride. He would never tell me what he did in the war and he never talked to anybody else about it except to say that he served with many fine men and he was so proud to be one of Colonel Berdan’s riflemen.”

Abner pulled the dark walnut stock free of its stiff leather scabbard to expose a machined receiver, a hinged curved hammer with thumb hook, a stretched trigger guard protecting two slender triggers, and a long, very long satin-finished barrel secured to a tapering walnut fore-grip. Nothing on that amazing rifle shined or glittered. It was hand-rubbed and finished to a deadly dull luster that would not reveal itself to an enemy.

“My stars above,” Abner whispered. “It’s a Sharps breech-loader, double-trigger, .52 caliber long barreled sharp-shooter’s rifle, well-used and much-loved from the look of it.”

“Ma’am, your husband, he used this rifle in the Union Army, part of Berdan’s bunch you say?”

“Yes, Sir, he did, but he’d never talk about it.”

“Ma’am, from what I’ve heard, your husband was one of an elite few, uncommonly brave men who were always in front; sharp-shooters and skirmishers, first to face the enemy. I expect he’d not want to talk about what he’d seen. I respect his choice. How much did you say he paid for this rifle?”

“It must have been all of $40. He said it was three months pay when they were forming and training his rifle company.”

A man standing near the woman nodded his head. “That’s a lot of money for a rifle, when the Union was payin’ but $10 for them muzzle-loaders they issued. Them Sharps rifles, they is something special. See that funny receiver piece there, the seams on the side? That’s the falling block. It slides down to open the breech for a reload. My cousin, he fought in the war. He said them Sharps was real special. A man with a Sharps rifle could lay himself down behind a rock or somethin’, and never have to rise up to reload. He’d just lay there, open that breech and slide in a reload and only pull up his rifle a little to shoot. The other shooters, they had to show themselves by raising up high enough to ram a load down the muzzle and that’s when a sharpshooter would git ‘em! That rifle she’s showin’ ya, that’s a shooter’s rifle. It’s a deadly piece!”

Abner knew right then that he wanted that rifle and the widow needed a fair hand to get to her new home, and more for a start.

“If you’re truly offerin’ to sell this fine rifle, Ma’am, I’m willin’ to buy. Are you sure you want to do this?”

She hung her head for a moment, then looked Abner square in the eyes. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears: “Yes, I do. You strike me as a fine young man and somehow it seems fittin’ that you should have it. I think Evan would agree. It’s better served in your hands than gettin’ rusty sittin’ on pegs over the fireplace.”

“Then I’m right proud, Ma’am.” Abner pulled a soft leather poke from his pocket and reaching inside, he asked her to hold out her hand. One after another he laid ten gleaming gold double-eagles in her palm.

“I expect that’s fair payment both for the rifle and for your needs. And this is for your husband’s service,” he whispered to her, softly so only she could hear. He slipped his fingers into his watch pocket and pulled out a Yankee Girl gold nugget the size of a pheasant egg and gently laid it in her hand. It would bring another $300.

The man standing near had peered closely when Abner laid the coins in her hand and his eyes grew wide until he stared in disbelief at the young man.

“That’s a lotta gold to be givin’ away,” he mumbled to himself as he spun on his heel and walked away, shaking his head.

She started to protest but Abner reached forward and took her hand, gently closing her fingers over the coins and the nugget. “No, ma’am, I won’t hear it. It’s a fair sale, done and over. Have a safe trip to Oregon! Now, did Evan leave anything else that goes with this beautiful rifle?”

“Oh, yes!” she stammered. “A leather belt case for reloads; a waxed carton of made-up loads, and a … a cleaning kit! And papers, special cartridge paper. There’s a mold, a ‘bullet mold’ he called it, for making lead slugs, and … and a small canister of powder. He was always so particular about the powder. He was the hunter when we needed fresh meat for the rest of the wagons. He’d ride out, and … “

She lost it then, tears trickled down her cheeks and she blushed and turned her head away. In a moment, she’d wiped her eyes and continued.

“I’ll get ‘em.” She hustled into the wagon and retrieved the rifle supplies. She returned with them, and after she handed them over she asked for a piece of paper and a pencil. In flowing script she wrote out a bill of sale, and signed it ‘Miranda Longworth, wife of Evan Longworth, deceased.’

Abner took her hand again and wished her and her companions a safe journey. Gathering up his new rifle, back in its scabbard, he took the rest and walked to his waiting saddle horse and pack mule. It took only a moment to stash the supplies in his saddle bags. It took a little longer to decide that he’d tie the rifle in its scabbard alongside the saddle on his left side, butt forward, nestled safely under his leg.

Measuring an inch shy of four feet long, it would never serve as a weapon to fire from horseback. That was what his Winchester .44 ‘Yellow Boy’ brass-receiver repeating carbine was for, snug in its vertical scabbard slung just ahead of his right knee, handy for instant use.

No, the long-barreled Sharps was a dismount weapon, extreme in reach, accuracy, and hitting power. There was little that would survive once in his sights, man or beast, out to 600 yards. It was perfect for long-distance elk harvest in the mountains and meadows of the Yankee Girl country. He’d always lamented the short range and meager power of the Winchester .44, great for close defense and short distance hunting out to a hundred yards or so, but it was a very poor excuse for an elk gun. Now he had a beauty.

“Beauty!” he mumbled as he rode away, the Sharps gently bumping under his left leg as the horse walked along. “Beauty, I feel the pride and respect your owner must have had for what a fine piece of the gunsmith’s art you are. He cared for you; I’ll do the same. You brought him home. I pray you’ll do the same for me.”

Flicking his reins, Abner “tchk-tchk’ed” to his horse and she broke into a rolling canter. Time to move along. Daylight’s a-burnin’!

A Bloody Meeting

Abner and Woodrow, having left the Yankee Girl mine in the trusted hands of mine supervisor Lee Wong and his crew of workmen, embarked on a trip to the territorial capital to establish banking and incorporation credentials. Upon their return, emerging from the Snake River plains and making their accustomed way to the Wood River trail and the route home, they happened upon a bandit attack on a wrecked coach.

It was an unusually fine late spring day in early June when Woodrow and Abner rode together up the start of the trail into the Wood River valley. The air was perfectly still, not a breath of wind stirred. The sun, only midway to its noon height, shone with sparkling intensity from a brilliant blue sky. Only a small string of fair-weather clouds low on the south horizon showed in the far distance. The rich scent of blooming wildflowers, the buzz of insects, the birds chattering in the surrounding stream-side growth of cottonwoods and willows added to the near-lazy mood of the morning.

And then they heard the shots. Not far ahead, a few hundred yards but muffled by the bend in the trail and the heavy undergrowth lining the Wood River as they followed it upstream.

“What in blazes …!” Woodrow muttered. Abner reached down and released the safety tie holding the shank of his Winchester carbine secure in the scabbard.

Another shot … then two more. First, the heavy report of a rifle; then two rapid pops of pistol shots. Another rifle shot echoed back and two more pistol shots followed in rapid succession, then a third.

“Hell of a fight, sounds like,” Abner said. Both men kneed their horses forward until they came to the turn of the bend and they froze, standing, watching in disbelief the scene just ahead and spread out on the slope below the trail, down at the edge of the river.

A passenger coach lay rolled down the slope and rested on its side against a fallen cottonwood log. Two women, dark-haired, tan faces staring up in fear and anger, dressed in unusual traveling clothes of white lace-trimmed blouses under snug-fitting brown jackets and wearing trousers! Form-fitting riding trousers with high-topped black leather boots. Wide brimmed hats lay nearby, discarded. The women huddled for cover between the fallen coach and the log it rested against. One held a long-barreled pistol, a dragoon’s revolver, held high in both hands while she aimed, staying low, her eyes seeking a target. A long bloody wound marred her face. She’d been hit with a grazing wound that stretched across her right cheek and clipped her ear. Blood was streaming down her face and dripping, spreading in a wide stain down her shirt.

The other woman squatted beside her, focused on reloading a second dragoon revolver with powder, patch, and ball. Finished, she held out the pistol for her companion to take.

All that was seen while Abner and Reese dismounted, dropped their reins, and tugged loose the slip knots on the pack mule leads to let them drop to the ground. The animals were ground-broke, meaning they would barely move as long as their reins and leads rested on the ground.

“I count maybe five, no, six of them, spread out in the brush and rocks just under the trail. They ain’t even a hundred feet from that coach, but that woman doin’ the shootin’ is holdin’ ‘em off and doin’ a good job of it. I see one man down, a little further down the slope. Seems he got foolish and tried to charge her,” Woodrow said.

“Yeah, but if they get to thinkin’ about it, them women are in big trouble. Those men could split and go out and down both sides to flank ‘em, and then that coach is no cover and they’re exposed to fire from both sides. I think we’d better do somethin’, Woody, and do it durn fast!”

“What’re you thinkin’ to do, Abner?” Woodrow knew that Abner rarely spoke before he had something in mind to do.

“See that rock ledge above the trail, maybe 50 feet? It’s got a perfect view right down on top of ‘em, all around. I’ll take ‘Beauty’ and some loads and scramble up there. You take the Winchesters and your pistols and when you hear my first shot, you sprint down the trail until you’re right above the middle of ‘em. Stay low, get down for cover, but start takin’ as many of ‘em as you can hit. I’ll keep an eye out for anybody slippin’ off to flank the women and I’ll drop ‘em. You good with that, partner?”

“Durn right. Go for it. I’ll cover you until you get up to the ledge, just in case.”

Abner grabbed the case of Sharps loads from his saddle bag and untied and slipped “Beauty” from her scabbard. Ducking low, he sprinted up the hillside while angling to the rock ledge. Woodrow pulled Abner’s Winchester carbine loose, stepped over and retrieved his own, and holding a rifle in each hand he waited.

Only one attacker, a man kneeling behind a low shrub some 20 feet down under the trail, was holding a rifle and squinting down the barrel. From time to time he’d fire a round into the bottom of the coach facing him as it lay rolled on its side. He seemed to be estimating where his quarry was huddled on the other side. In truth, he was playing with them, terrifying them. In response, a prone figure would briefly appear at one end of the coach or other to pop off one or two pistol shots in his direction, and another shot or two at other attackers she could briefly glimpse behind rocks or brush on the hillside above her. It was a losing cat and mouse game. Too soon their attackers would get serious and begin a deadly flanking move.

Abner dropped to his belly and elbows, cradling ‘Beauty’ in his arms, and he scuttled forward to shooting position overlooking the attackers. He lay the reload case within reach, wadded his pocket bandanna into a pad, and lay the end of Beauty’s barrel on it. Sighting down the barrel he raised the leaf sight and nudged the sight bar to the estimated distance, which was nearly point-blank for this rifle. He decided the rifleman below needed to go first. Abner touched the first trigger, felt it click ready and then with a gentle caress of the second trigger Beauty roared! A plume of white gunsmoke belched out and through the drifting cloud Abner saw his prey rise and pitch forward, a small black hole dead center between his shoulder blades in the middle of a fast-spreading flood of blood. The man pitched forward onto his face and slid a short distance down the slope to lay piled in a twisted heap against a large rock.

Woodrow raced to the edge of the trail, dropped to an overlooking position and, setting one Winchester to the side, he lay prone and began firing at the rest of the attackers. They panicked, raised up, and spun to face the deadly attack from the rear. He sighted on the first man, fired, dropped him, and swung to shoot the second.

“Ka-Boom!” Beauty roared again, the thunderous report of the blast echoing off the surrounding valley hills. Two men dropped, one from Woodrow’s shot, the other from the devastating impact of the Sharps rifle slug blowing his chest open.

Five men went down in less than a minute. It was too much. The sixth man threw down his pistol and ran wildly up the hillside away from them, angling for the trail and running to get to his horse. Abner rose to his knees, slipped a reload into Beauty’s breech, and waited. He could see an exposed section of the trail some distance ahead. He knew this trail well. He and Woodrow had traveled it many times.

Abner patiently waited while Woodrow paced nervously below the outcropping, glancing up.

“What’s ya waitin’ for, partner?

“Hush a moment. You’ll see,” Abner spoke, softly. “See to the women but don’t get yerself shot!” he called down.

Soon, as he expected, a rider came into view up the trail, whipping his horse and racing away to safety. Abner lay down again, placed his bandanna pad on a melon-size rock and laid Beauty’s muzzle on it for a rest. He estimated the range, slid the vertical leaf sight to the mark, and steadied his breathing. ‘Tic,’ cocked the first trigger. Caress the second trigger and Beauty roared her deadly fire. The far distant man raced away for a few seconds more but then he flung his arms wildly up and out, lost his seat and tumbled off the saddle. His boot twisted in the stirrup and hung tight. The man bounced and dragged, swinging under the galloping horse’s belly, catching blows from its hooves and throwing the beast into a screaming, froth-mouthed panic. The horse twisted wildly from side to side trying to evade the body dragging back and forth under its hooves.

“Gotcha, ya murderin’ bastard son of Satan!” Abner growled in satisfaction. He felt no pity for the men they’d just killed. They were predators of the lowest sort, killing others to take whatever they wanted.

“C’mon down! We can use ya down here!” Woodrow shouted from behind the coach. “And bring that shovel off of Rose’s pack. We’re gonna need it.”

“All right! I’ll grab the shovel,” Abner shouted back. “You ask them women what in blazes they think they’re doin’ with a durn passenger coach up here on a pack trail! Ain’t no way they’d ever git it up the trail much further! And where’s their horses? And … and how … how did that fool thing get rolled down the hill? Were they in it?”

Edited By TeNderLoin

A Time for Healing

Abner rushed down to his saddle horse, glanced to see that his Winchester repeating rifle was back in its saddle scabbard. He grabbed up the Sharps scabbard and tied it back in place; he took the Winchester, checked the load, and eased over to his pack mule, Rose, and unlashed the long-handled shovel. On a hunch he also took the iron rock prying bar with its chisel end, lashed along the top of the pack saddle. In the rocky soil of the alluvial beds found along the mountain streams, it was handy for digging a hole of any size.

He jogged down the hillside with the Winchester slung across his back and a tool in each hand. When he got close to the coach, he sang out before blindly charging around it.

“Ho, the coach. I’m here and it’s all clear up and down the trail. Nobody in sight.”

“Come around. Meet the ladies!” Woodrow sang out.

The woman with the wound on her face leaned back against the coach roof, her trousered legs tucked beneath her. The pair of revolvers rested with her companion who had one in her lap while she cleaned and wiped down the other. She noticed Abner watching her.

“My brother’s weapons,” she explained. “He bought them for this trip …”

Abner knelt down: “May I see one?”

She handed him the one she’d just wiped down, and picked up the other to do the same.

Abner never claimed to know much about all the makes of firearms, but he recognized these: 1858 Colt .44 caliber Dragoons; nice pistols. Typical black powder, cap and ball cylinders. His uncle had a similar pair back home in Pennsylvania.

“My name is Abner Adams. My partner is Woodrow Buckmaster. We’re from Pennsylvania, originally. Now we live over the north pass on a private mining property. Excuse my rude question, Ma’am, but just what in tarnation are you two doing out here on a pack-string trail with that coach, and where did you come from? Where in tarnation did you think you were going?”

“Easy, partner!” Woodrow glanced over and cautioned. “They’ve had a pretty rough time of it. If you’ll look over there a short ways to your left, you’ll see another body. That’s Raoul Obregon, Elena’s brother. The outlaw with the rifle shot him down in cold blood.

Abner immediately bowed his head and apologized for his rude and impatient manner.

“No, señor, the apology is mine. Thank you for saving us. We owe you our lives! My name is Elena Isabel Ximena Lucia Obregon; my brother, as your friend said, is … was Raoul. My companion, she who used his pistols to kill one of our attackers and hold them off, is Maria Catalina Aña Gloriana Ochoa. We are not from your country. Well, we are, but we are not. So I must ask, señor, now that you have saved us, what are your intentions?”

“Well, first I want all of us to get up on the trail, move our animals and gear to a safe clearing, and then we can begin to deal with the rest of this mess before we get unwelcome intruders.”

He glanced over at the woman Woodrow was comforting. “I think our very first concern is to tend to that ugly wound on Miss Maria’s face before it worsens. Woodrow, what do you think?”

“I suggest we let Miss Elena tend to her companion. It needs cleaning and a bandage. We need water and clean cloth, and then we need to get her on to Ketchum and let Soo Linn have a look at it. If you’ll take the tools and start diggin’ to make a fittin’ grave for her dead brother, I’ll climb up and move the animals back down the trail to that little meadow we passed, and I’ll hobble ‘em to graze. I think we’re gonna be here a while, sortin’ out bodies and givin’ her brother a decent burial.”

Two hours later, the bodies of the bandits were laid face down along the trail above the hillside where they’d died. Raoul had been buried, a small cross grave marker lashed together and planted, and the women had grieved and prayed over him. Abner figured they’d eventually find the runaway bandit he’d shot off his horse, wherever his horse decided to stop running while dragging the dead man underneath.

They were sitting a short ways down the trail at the side entrance to the small meadow where Woodrow had loosened the cinches and released their horses and mules to graze. Maria rested with a linen bandage torn from clothing taken from the coach tied around her face. Traces of blood were seeping through but she seemed otherwise alright. Her earlobe was gone, shot away by the bullet that scarred her face.

“Ladies, if I might be so bold, where are your horses? Why aren’t they still hitched to that coach? What in tarn … what happened? And how did you run into those trail robbers?”

Maria groaned and leaned back against the tree; she closed her eyes and said nothing. Elena’s face darkened in an angry scowl, her dark eyes flashing.

“Our swine of a driver! Raoul hired a guide who told us we needed a coach and a driver to make this trip! That the road to this place was wide and we would only be able to carry what we must if we had the coach and horses. We had talked to no one else of our plan. We had no way to know! That …” and she broke into a string of Spanish expletives that caused Maria’s eyes to pop open.

“Elena! Tu maldición!” she mumbled.

“Perdóname, Maria.”

“Señor, we must trust you. We are so inclined but still, we know little more than you are our rescuers, saviors even, but what I must tell you is a very great temptation, I think.” Elena swallowed nervously, glanced at Maria who nodded slightly, and she continued.

“We came here from California, fleeing from our home in Sonora, Mexico, to find a new place, a new investment for our family. We were told in California that this area, this Wood River valley. It is said to be a very good area for the ovejas … the sheep! We came to look. If it is as good as they say we will secure a land estate and buy many sheep to bring here.”

“Raoul and Papá, they seek a new area, not burdened … umm, not over-grazed, and with all the hungry miners it should be a very good market. So we came here with money for land and sheep, in a chest in the coach. It is heavy, the chest, and I think the guide and the driver, they suspected. When the guide disappeared three days ago and left us alone with the driver to make the long ride across the high prairie coming here, Raoul worried. He suspected the guide might be planning some evil, but what could we do except watch and be careful?”

“But that serpenté, that snake of a driver, he forced our horses to pull our coach up this impossible trail and then we were ambushed by the guide! He was the man with the rifle that you killed, and the banditos he hired. Our driver, when he saw them, he yelled at us to stay inside and he jumped down and pulled the pin, the hitch, and the horses they ran away in their harnesses, gone! But the driver, that swine, he jumped on one and rode away with them and he was gone, too!”

“How did the coach get rolled down the hill? Surely you weren’t in it?” Woodrow asked.

“No, we ran down the hillside to get away. We did not dare flee down the trail! They would run us down, so Raoul, he released the brake and swung the tongue and pushed, and the coach rolled and went over. He yelled at us to get behind the coach and we would fight them with his pistols. Brave, foolish Raoul!” Elena cried. “He was so brave, but only one man …! The guide, the bandit with the rifle, he shot Raoul down before we could do anything! And we had no choice! You saw us, señor. We fought!”

Abner hung his head to his chest and kept his peace. Woodrow swore softly under his breath and then he turned to Maria who’d so bravely picked up Raoul’s pistols and fought the bandits.

“Miss Maria, they’ll never harm anyone again. You stopped one and we finished the others. I’m plumb sorry for your loss, Miss Maria, truly I am. But I believe we’ve overstayed our time here. We’d best be packin’ up what we can and get ourselves up the trail to Ketchum. It’s a far piece yet but we can make it before dark. About that chest, how heavy is it?”

“Raoul could pick it up, but it was all he could lift. He could pick it up and move it as needed, but I could see he strained.”

“Okay then. Abner, what say we lighten the load on Rose and Trudy, and split the chest into the pack boxes to balance ‘em? How much stuff would we lose?”

“Very little. A lot of it is small but heavy, and we can cache it easily enough. It won’t spoil.”

“We’ll do it. Miss Elena, Miss Maria, if you trust us we’ll be glad to repack your valuables and bring ‘em along. There’s a good place for safekeeping in Ketchum; a bank opened up not long ago and they got a vault. We’re well known there and it won’t be a problem. Besides, we’ve gotta take the personal effects off these bandits and turn ‘em over to the Miners’ Council and the new town Marshal. They’ll want to make a proper accounting that we shot ‘em legal like! They might even be inclined to ride down here and bury whatever’s left of ‘em.”

They rode into Ketchum with Elena Obregon riding double behind Abner, and Maria Ochoa riding behind Woodrow. Both men were flushed and a bit uncomfortable by the unaccustomed closeness of the two young ladies with their arms holding tight around their waists.

“Woodrow, you two lead the pack boxes over to the bank. I’ll take Elena as witness to the Marshal’s office and we’ll report. I’ll meet you at Soo Linn’s shack so we can get Maria’s face tended. Good with you?”

“Yep. And I’ll have Soo Linn send a runner to get somebody started fixin’ some grub. I’m so hungry I’d eat my boots if I had a fire to roast ‘em. I’ll bet the gals are hungry, too.”

“Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid mans!” Soo Linn swore when she lifted the blood-crusted linen wrap from Maria’s swollen face. “She hurt bad! She get infections! She get big ugly scar! You stoopid mans!”

“Hey, easy there. We did what we could, Soo Linn! We’re not doctors, and we had no time, nowhere for help, nothing to do but come here straight-away. What did’ya expect us to do?” Abner protested.

“Okay! You be stoopid but you do what you can. This person, Mah-ree-ah, she need good fixing or she scar very bad, ruin pretty face. I give you good stuff. You take to your camp, take time to fix. She come out very good.”

“Soo Linn, you explain to them. Tell them what to do and let them make the choice. They’re welcome to come with us or stay here. But they get to choose.”

“Okay, you not so stoopid, I think!” Soo Linn grinned up at Abner through a gap-toothed smile in her ancient face. “Hey, talk of stoopid. How Lee Wong? Big man, big appetite. Say to him I have more good stuff, good potions from China, come to San Francisco. New train make it easy! Can get it easy now!” she cackled.

“Yeah, just a long ride down the trail and a stagecoach ride across the Snake River plains east and south to Utah, and down to Kelton and the railroad. If you call that easy?”

“Better than horse ride from here to San Francisco!” she cackled. “You go, go make worthless cook fix meals! Everybody hungry. I talk to Mah-ree-ah and Eh-lay-na, say they okay to go with you. You stoopid mans but good mans, good hearts. Is okay!”

A Jade Conspiracy

“Are you stupid girls?” Soo Linn said in perfect English with barely a trace of accent while she peered impatiently at the two young women seated on the small divan in her private quarters.

“Uhhh, no … no! Of course not!” Maria stammered; Elena stared hard at Soo Linn who, standing, was barely taller than the two young Spanish women when seated.

“We shall see!” Soo Linn growled, holding a small bowl of an aromatic mixture and stirring in a generous quantity of scented honey. That was followed with several small packets of powdered herbs and a small quantity of thin oil.

“I will show you how to put this on face, to cover the bullet wound. It will protect the flesh until new skin can grow. First week, you put this on then cover with clean cloth I give you. Tear a thin strip, put it over the ointment, then apply a poultice to draw out all infection. One week only! Every day, morning and again at night! You sleep with it. I give you herbs, show you how to make poultice. Then after first week, no poultice. Just the ointment, every morning with new clean cloth to cover, protect. Slowly your wound will heal, without scar! You understand? Do exactly as I say, there be no pus, no scar!”

Maria nodded carefully, her eyes wide in understanding. Elena watched, very quiet and watchful, her eyes focused and intent on Soo Linn’s movements.

The ointment, a fine linen strip of protective covering, and a thin layer of tightly squeezed damp-dry powdered herbs was laid over and wrapped in place, covering Maria’s face across the bridge of her nose, under her eyes.

“The ear, so sad,” Soo Linn shook her head. “The lobe is gone, but rest of ear okay. So, you can always share earring with your friend. Now you only need one!” she cackled, nudging Maria in humor. “Not important, Miss Maria. You have lovely face and all the rest of ear. Missing lobe not important. No need for cry over it!”

Soo Linn put her containers and apothecary tools back on a work table, and spun around to face Elena.

“Stand! Strip! All clothes off now!”

Elena’s face turned pale and then blushed red with anger and embarrassment. “What?”

“Strip! Take off clothes. Let me see you, check all over. Very important. Do it now!” Soo Linn insisted.

Reluctantly and with much hesitation, Elena stood and began peeling off her boots, followed by her jacket, blouse, and trousers until she stood with a binding wrap across her breasts and a high-hip pair of loosely-fit cotton undergarments.

“These too,” Soo Linn tugged at them. “Off!”

Elena stood nude, a slender young woman in her early twenties, small, high breasts, mildly-flared hips, lean and surprisingly muscular. She was an excellent horsewoman and could run like a deer across meadow and hillside when she chose, which she often did.

Soo Linn hissed through her teeth: “Ticks!” She strode back to her work table, snatched up a slender pair of bamboo pincers and a bottle of alcohol. Going to work she removed three ticks from Elena that had lodged themselves in her skin.

“Very bad! Cause bad disease, infection! You must every day remove clothing look for ticks. I give you each set of pincers. Alcohol you can find anywhere. All men have bottle hid somewhere! Now, you Maria. Stand and remove clothes.”

While removing the two ticks she found burrowed into Maria’s flesh, Soo Linn explained how to carefully remove them without tearing their sucking mouth parts away to remain embedded and cause infection.

After a moment, she motioned for both young women to dress. “No breast wrap! Both of you too small for tight wrapping. Let them breathe, move free. Only when you old like me, then they nuisance! Hang and swing, get in way … but mine so small, no matter!” she giggled.

She stood lost in thought for a moment while Maria and Elena dressed themselves. “Please, sit again. Rest. I make us some tea and I think maybe now is good time to tell you some things. Yes, a very good time!”

She poked her head out into the next room and called out in Chinese; a moment later another Chinese woman scurried in with a kettle of boiling water and a tray with cups and small covered containers. Soo Linn shoo’ed her away, closed the door, and proceeded to make three cups of tea, all the while starting a string of questions.

She quickly determined that both were single, not promised, and not sexually or otherwise inclined in mating affairs. “Is not so uncommon like many think!” she explained while the two women blushed with outrage.

“No shame! Just a thing that is fact and you should know it!” she admonished them.

“You like those two, Abner and Woodrow? Answer, please! No time for games! Do you like those two men who brought you here?”

“Yes! Of course we do! They fought, they risked their lives! And they’ve been so kind, generous!” Elena said.

“Good! You not stupid girls!” Soo Linn cackled.

She stepped over to another corner of the room, and a set of shelves. She reached up high to the upper shelf and took down a carved ivory box. Setting it on her work table she removed a pair of green jade carvings, temple figurines, and closed the larger box. They were intricately carved and sat large in the palms of her hands.

She handed one to each woman. “Remove the bottom of each, please.” She watched as they fingered the objects, finally finding that with a careful twist and a tug, the base came off to reveal a hollow chamber.

“Good. Put them back now. Keep them, one for each of you. Guard them well. They are your future, for you and your husbands. It is both your future and a very great reward! Very great, indeed! Now we drink tea, and I explain what your future will be.”

Soo Linn explained a great many things, going back in time to the days before Abner and Woodrow had come to the region and made their find. She told them how terrible conditions in China had forced a great wave of men to leave and seek better opportunity in other countries.

“America a great land of wealth and much freedom,” she explained. “But it suffers a terrible sickness of the soul! It came across the ocean from the conquering nations, the hatred, the bad treatment of anyone not like themselves. It is very bad here without law to stop it.

“First they brought the black slaves. I’ve heard many men here, fled from their big war, they still want to own the black slaves. They come here to this place, this territory, and they secretly wish to control everything, maybe some day own more slaves.

“The Indians, they rose up to defend themselves and were shot down, killed, made slaves, and shoved aside. Now we, Chinese, many of us were brought here to work. Greed and hate combine to pay us very little, cheat us, beat us down, rob what little we make and then force us out. Many bad men here and those in power all do this, all conspire together. Most men not really like that but they stand afraid, not say or do anything to stop it. So it is how it is.”

“You tell me you came from Mexico. I know from what others tell me, in San Francisco, that Mexico is also bad place. Native peoples there killed, made slaves, whipped and forced to work by Spanish people and their church. Maybe worse with church. Natives who not worship church, they whipped and made slaves.

“But fate has smiled on you! It favors you beyond belief, I think! It has brought you together with two men who make their own fate. They have … how to tell you this so you believe me … in my country it is known that when a man has a great soul, a kind and wise soul and a strong heart to match, then fate has found a match for the unkindness of the world. Such a soul will rise and achieve greatness that will shine for much time, all time. These two men are such souls, and they know it not. They just are what they are; they will always be that.

“But they need mates of a kind, a like kind. They need you!”

When Soo Linn had managed to calm Maria and Elena sufficiently to fill them with spiced tea and instructions to be followed without fail or question; when she had instructed them on the use of the jade carvings and their secret chambers, she presented them with a small satchel of ointment, herbs, wrappings and tools, and further words of instruction:

“Never reveal what you have learned. I see wisdom and strength in both of you. Use it wisely and generations of your descendants will bless your names in ages to come.”

Epilogue

It was a swift journey to the Yankee Girl for the four of them, each riding their own horse, each leading a pack mule heavily laden with supplies. The women’s mules held new clothing for a new life, and new chests holding the fortune they’d brought from California. And they carried, each newly-married young woman, a secret jade carving in their personal jewelry chest.

Elena sent a coded message to their fathers waiting in California for them to reinforce the main family positions still surviving in Sonora. She informed her father of new sons-in-law, one who claimed his daughter and another who claimed his best friend’s daughter. Thus the Obregon and Ochoa families were knit more tightly together.

She urged him to inspire confidence in their Sonora families that a new opportunity had opened for them all. He was to instruct the most capable members to hire skilled young men with mining knowledge, to fan out across northern Mexico to seek new mining properties and to invest in existing properties. They were to lay the foundation for a strong and secure future for them all based on mineral wealth from a beneficent earth. Most importantly, she added, the wealth must be shared for the good of all in the family, and for its workers and their families, and for their community, just as it was being done in the great and growing enterprise of the Yankee Girl Mine far to the north.

“Have confidence, father. We are sending all you’ll need and more to accomplish what we ask. I’m sending a map so that one day when you choose you can come and see. The trail is open, our holdings are secure, and we have warm beds and hot meals for all!”

The day Woodrow saved Lee Wong from the whip and the following year when Lee Wong saved Abner from the guns, they knew not what they’d set in motion.

Lee Wong’s scars never faded. Every night when he removed his tunic, soiled from a day’s hard labor, the mass of scars on his back reminded him of the world’s cruelty. Every morning when he pulled on a clean tunic and stepped from his cabin into the fresh morning air, he blessed the scars on his back for teaching him that not all men were cruel. There were good men, a rare few men on the earth who made life a blessing.

“Good morning, Mr. Abner! Mr. Woodrow!” he called out as he strode to his partners to begin the day. He’d been made a working partner in the Yankee Girl enterprise, and he led nearly two dozen fellow countrymen they’d recruited to share the labors and the bounty. Life was good!

Lee Wong knew Soo Linn’s ‘Jade secret’ and he was a co-conspirator. Each time he led a pack train carrying gold over the Galena summit to be freighted south to the Kelton, Utah rail junction for shipment to California, he carried two jade carvings in his saddlebag. Each carving contained precious gold, packed and sealed in their secret chambers by Elena and Maria. He would deliver them to Soo Linn. She would give replacement figurines to Lee Wong, and send the gold-filled statues to San Francisco hidden in parcels of medicinal herbs and dried roots, where her people distributed the wealth through the Chinese investment network whose tentacles reached throughout the West. The Chinese are an industrious people, much preferring to work and invest in themselves than labor for others. The best of them rose to wealth and influence. This led to terrible jealousy and resentment in America; hatred and fear led to violence and injustice against them. Thus, a secret network of support and resources grew and strengthened as a defense. Soo Linn had learned of the network during her earliest days in San Francisco when Chinese women were still allowed to enter, and she’d insinuated herself into it as an investor and a supporter.

The reputation of the Yankee Girl mine and its owners who respected their Chinese crew, who further protected and blessed their Chinese crew with shared wealth and connections to their families in China, that enabled transfers of money home to invest for their future return — all this grew to near-legendary stature for the Yankee Girl reputation among the Chinese in the American west.

Abner and Elena, and Woodrow and Maria, parents and partners and co-owners of an expanding enterprise, had no idea of their power base on two continents. Lee Wong and Soo Linn in grateful friendship and partnership had made known the Yankee Girl’s name and reputation to regional leaders in a powerful province in mainland China, words reaching up to an interested government ministry.

It was as Soo Linn said: ”Such souls will rise and achieve greatness that will shine for much time. These two men are such souls, though they know it not.

Edited By TeNderLoin

Love Betrayed

It was a near-ludicrous contrast: Reese Adams, the six-foot, two-inch dusky-skinned half-breed youth squared off across the conference table facing a gaunt sallow-faced lawyer, thin strands of black hair pasted across his pale skull. The lawyer’s eyes, dark and sinister like the weasel the boy shot in his family’s chicken coop last Saturday, twitched and glanced down to the papers spread between himself and the boy — his target and victim — then flicked upward and bored into the boy’s confused eyes.

“You heard me right, Adams. Never! Never again, in any way whatsoever! Her family has removed her and forbidden her to ever contact you. These papers here,” and the lawyer pushed a clipped sheaf of legal documents towards the boy, “are a restraining order forbidding you to attempt any contact now and in future with Katherine Brewster, for any reason. If you violate this order the family has instructed me to seek prosecution for stalking and harassment against you to the fullest extent. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“No!” Reese protested. “I want to know why? Why would they do this? We’re in love, since… since grade school. We’re going to be married later this spring. We’ve graduated. We’re going to college together. I’ve already paid this year’s fees for both of us! Just tell me, why?”

“Look at yourself in a mirror,” the lawyer snarled. “You’ll see well-enough why!”

Justice Betrayed

The blinding headlights of the black Escalade sprayed across their faces seconds before it slammed sideways into the side of their car. For a brief second they glimpsed the face of their killer, his eyes wild, unfocused, panicked. The heavier vehicle tore free and scraped past but it was too late. The Adams’ sedan, wrenched from its course, slammed into the guard cable and uprooted the support posts. It hung there for a brief instant, then plunged and rolled sixty feet down into the river.

The white-water torrent, pinched and raging through a boulder-choked narrows, shoved and tumbled their car downstream until it came to rest hidden under thick ice covering a dark, still pool. Hidden there, it would be weeks before rescue crews would find it and summon heavy equipment to winch it free and recover their bodies.

Donald “DJ” Brewster lifted his bleeding head from the steering wheel. He saw nothing in the darkness but his own dash lights. He hung at an awkward angle from his seat belt. The wrecked SUV rested at a sharp downward pitch, hanging from a tree stump halfway down the ditch bank. He choked on hot radiator fumes and his own blood. His head, face, and mouth hurt like hell. He tried to touch his face but he was trapped in the safety belt, hanging helpless.

“Oooh God!” he moaned. His high of the night was gone. That curve… he’d forgotten that curve, doing 80 into a 45 mph curve, jerking the steering wheel and breaking into a skid. He knew he would die, would drown in the river when he skidded off the curve. But then they were there. Their car. His SUV slammed sideways into them, glanced off them, caromed back across the highway into the opposite ditch. It saved his life. It cost them theirs.

Somehow he pulled his cell phone from its dash mount. Somehow he was twice-lucky. He wasn’t too far into the canyon. The number rang. It was Todd Jenkins, their ranch manager.

The ambulance crew secured DJ’s gurney to the floor clamps, checked the IV drip, and began their silent run down-river to the valley clinic. Todd waited by the wreck for the deputy sheriff. He’d take a few moments to instruct the deputy. Then he’d drive to the clinic and instruct the night crew there.

Chief deputy Colin Rogers gathered the evidence, the half-empty liquor bottle, the beer bottles, and bagged them. He considered for a fleeting moment whether he should retain the evidence for some future bargaining chip. Then he thought better of it. Too damn risky. I’d only be hanging myself, he decided. He tossed the bag into his cruiser. Later, on another stretch of river, he’d throw the bottles into the rapids and they’d sink and be swept away. No evidence, no crime.

Later that evening, Todd whispered to the valley clinic’s ambulance crew EMT who tucked a wad of large bills into his pocket: “No blood sample, no report, no crime!”

Service Betrayed

It was written up as a routine patrol. “Yeah, right! A routine patrol,” Captain Reese Adams snarled. “There’s no such thing as ‘routine’ and we damn sure weren’t on any patrol!”

He twisted his head, a reflex move too late to avoid the spray of sand kicked into his face. Bullets slammed into the berm beside his head and punched into Corporal Evans beside him, shattering the young soldier’s head. It sprayed Reese with blood and brain matter. Reese scurried sideways, raised slightly, and fired answering three-round bursts. Nothing to see out there. They’re so damned well sheltered, rooftops and firing holes and walls. We’re screwed. He pulled a rag from his vest and wiped his face. Smeared it, truth told.

“Anderson,” he yelled. “Where in hell’s that air cover?”

“Five minutes, Cap!” Sgt. Anderson shouted back.

“Fast movers or gun ships?”

“One Apache. That’s all.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Reese swore, choking it under his breath. “Okay. Hang tough. How’s Bailey?”

“Uhhh… hangin’ on, Cap. Hangin’ on.”

‘Yeah, hangin’ on. Can’t yell out that a man’s dying when he can still hear,’ Reese knew.

“Doc’s workin’ on ‘im?” Reese yelled.

“No. Doc’s down.”

Moments passed. Enemy fire harassed them. Reese answered with more three-round bursts, knowing it was futile.

A sudden thump-thump of heavy blades and the snarl of a chin-mounted chain gun shattered the air above them, roaring past and rising up in a high-reaching arc, sliding around to circle and spray the buildings with devastating fire raking from side to side. Mud brick walls shattered and collapsed. Men screamed. Sporadic rifle fire blinked and vanished under the hell-fire assault. A dark figure in tattered rags raced from between walls, jumped a fallen heap, and darted toward the doorway of a small side building. The hovering gunship swung its snout like a cat spying a mouse hole and loosed a side-mounted missile that streaked out to chase the man through the door. A billowing orange ball expanded and shattered the structure apart, up and out, the roof collapsing down between crazily tilted walls.

Even over the roar of the gunship Reese heard the sounds he’d prayed never to hear again: children screaming!

Ignoring the killing and the carnage Reese scrambled to his feet and ran to the building, forcing his way through a broken door, praying the wall wouldn’t fall on him. For the rest of his life his nightmares would replay the scene on the grief-stained screen of his mind: torn and shredded bodies, the stench of burned flesh and body parts and blood strewn everywhere. An old man, scorched, headless, his neck still weeping blood, sat sprawled back against the far wall. Scattered in the smoking rubble a circle of torn and lifeless children’s remains lay spread out before him. It had been a class. They’d thought themselves safe in their shelter until the fear-crazed fighter had dashed through their door chased by the missile streaking into their midst.

In the corner, crying, a small moving body drew his eye. Reese scrambled to kneel there and found a girl no more than eight years old. Her leg was gone at the knee, her out-reaching hand gashed and missing its fingers. Her tears streaked from sightless eyes down her burned and blistered cheeks. He pried open his aid kit and shoved a battle bandage against her spurting leg stump.

“MEDIC!” he screamed. “DOC! Here… in here… DOC!” he screamed again, forgetting that ‘Doc’ was down, dead, back in their battle line.

He held the trembling child in his arms, his hand trying to staunch the flow of blood weeping through the bandage. He looked down into her unblinking eyes, seeing them fade, go dull and lifeless. Her body twitched and shivered in death, and went still.

Reese jerked his head back and cried a wailing lament not sung since that boyhood summer tragedy, a grief song that poured out of him, an anguished death lament that he’d sung over his grandfather in the language of his mother’s people, the Nez Perce of the northern mountains.

Later, following mission debriefings, he was called into his commanding officer’s office.

“Captain Adams, there’ll sure as hell be NO REPORT forwarded from you, understand?” Colonel Johnston shouted. “It’s COLLATERAL DAMAGE and INSURGENTS KILLED! Nothing else! Dismissed!”

Family Betrayed

Thirty bundles of 100-dollar bills, $300,000, lay scattered on their bed where Shoo dumped it. Melody stood frozen in fear and anger; she dare not shout. The girls were supposedly asleep in their bunk beds in the bedroom just down the hall.

“If that’s what I think it is and if it came from the only place in this city where you could have gotten it, then you’ve just killed us all!” she hissed through her gritted teeth. “You stole that from Angelo, didn’t you? You stupid, stupid…“ She turned in frustration, fighting the urge to scream, to throw up, to run from their rented trailer in the slum section of Las Vegas. She wanted to bash her fists against the wall, against Shoo’s face, against her head in frustration and fear and helplessness.

“Big fuckin’ deal, bitch. He was called out into the street to settle a fight between Jimmy Rodd and two of his ho’s, screechin’ that they’d been hassled and slapped around by another pimp. The damn money was just layin’ there beside his desk, in that open bag. What the hell was I to do? If he didn’t want it stole he shouldn’t have left it open like that, there by itself. What the hell was I s’posed to do? Sit and watch it?”

“You stupid asshole! Do you think they’re just gonna let us go with their money?” she hissed, trying hard not to fall onto him screaming and biting and scratching the droopy, half-lidded eyes out of his face.

“Hell, no, bitch. He ain’t knowin’ where we live! You git the girls packed up and some clothes and stuff. I’m goin’ out to boost a van. Be ready when I git back. We gonna git from this place and they won’t be knowin’ where we be goin’. So shut your mouth and do as I said.

“Jeezus, jeezus, jeezus, we’re dead, fuckin’ dead. Oh God that stupid fuckin’ asshole,” Melody moaned while she ransacked the girls’ dressers and closet, grabbing clothes and stuffing them into two suitcases.

“What’s wrong, mommy?” little Bug, her youngest daughter, called from her lower bunk, half asleep and rubbing her eyes. Her oldest sister, Nita, the 13-year-old, stared wordlessly down from the bunk above.

“We gotta go, girl. We gotta run. All of you, get up and be quick. Go to the bathroom, all of you and grab your toothbrushes and combs and stuff and dump ‘em in this bag. Hurry! We gotta run…”

Melody set out bowls of cold cereal and poured the last of the milk that hadn’t soured yet and sat the girls around the table to eat. She sat brooding over a cup of black coffee, thick and bitter from sitting too long on the burner. She thought hard about what was coming.

She jumped to her feet and ran into the girls’ bedroom and there on the floor under Bug’s bed was the stuffed Tigger doll that Bug always carried around by its tail.

She ran with it into her bedroom where the pile of cash bundles lay heaped and scattered. She grabbed two of the half-inch thick packs and from atop the dresser she grabbed her sewing kit. With trembling fingers she snipped the threads in the stuffed toy’s belly seam, pulled out a double-wad of stuffing, and shoved the money packs inside, pressing them down. She packed some stuffing back in to cover them and then, rushing, praying she had time, she threaded a needle and sewed the center seam shut. She picked up the toy, kneaded and squeezed its body to ensure that the stuffing had disguised the feel of the money packs. It felt okay. She breathed a big sigh of relief.

They’d have to abandon her precious girls: Nita, thirteen, the eight-year-old twins, and Lucella Louise, her ‘snugglebug’ four-year-old. They’d leave them with her mother in central Nevada, else they’d be killed if the drug gang caught up with her and Shoo. The money, those hidden packs, would eventually be found inside the toy and would help make up for her sorry mistaken life. She hoped.

That was a preview of Accidental Family. To read the rest purchase the book.

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