High Country Rescue Read online

  “Good night, see you later.”

  Turning, Dan went down the hall to the kitchen, where Bob was washing dishes.

  “Bob, do you need some help?”

  Looking up from the dishpan Bob said, “No thanks, I am just finishing.”

  “I just finished talking to Tom. I am sorry that this such a short notice, but I am going to have to leave later tonight and go to help a friend of mine. I will be gone a couple of months. I am leaving Tom in charge; in fact, I made him the ranch manager. If you need anything, see him.”

  “That’s fine. Do you want me to close the house up while you are gone?”

  “No, that will not be necessary, but you can make some changes for me while I am gone.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Consolidate the best of the furniture in the back two bedrooms and put it into one. Store any extra furniture in the barn, and move Dad’s furniture into the other back bedroom and leave the front bedroom empty.”

  “I can take care of that.”

  “Thanks, and goodnight Bob.”

  “Goodnight and good luck on your trip.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dan went to the back bedroom and reviewed his packed gear and made a few additions. He returned to his bedroom, undressed and went to bed about nine o’clock. It took a few minutes, but he went to sleep.

  He felt like he had just closed his eyes, when he woke up as the clock chimed one-thirty. He dressed quickly and started carrying his gear out to the front porch, which required several trips.

  A little before two o’clock Tom led the bay and a packhorse up from the barn.

  As Tom tied Dan’s gear on the packhorse, he asked, “Is this trip going to be dangerous?”

  “It is possible that it could turn out that way.”

  “Take care of yourself. I have buried all the O’Neil’s I need to.”

  With a nod of his head, Dan said, “I understand, and I will do my very best to come back.”

  “You do that.”

  Turning to Tom, Dan said, “The cash box in the parlor desk should cover expenses until the fall sale but get more from the bank if you need it. I told Bob

  I was leaving and that you were now the ranch manager.”

  After a lingering handshake, Dan mounted the bay, and with the packhorse, in hand, he went east to the other side of the barn and headed out on the ranch road toward the front gate on the north side of the ranch.

  chapter 3

  The Journey

  After closing the gate behind him, Dan mounted the bay and moved out on the main road. With the light from the last quarter moon, he made good time. The road was traveled enough to have two tracks from the wagon wheels with grass and small rocks in the middle. He chose the right-hand track for himself, and the packhorse drifted into the left track to avoid any dirt or rocks kicked up by his bay. In areas where trees shaded the road from the moonlight, he would slow to a walk, which also gave the horses some relief and where the moonlight clearly showed the track of the road he would urge them into a trot. As he expected by this late in the summer, he crossed the Brazos River with ease at a low water crossing just north of the ranch. Soon after crossing the river, he joined the road from Abilene to Fort Worth. Now on the well-traveled road, he was able to maintain his speed. In the moonlight, he could see cattle in the pastures on either side of the road and the still dark ranch houses in the distance. The road crossed several small creeks which allowed the horses to slow and get some water. Dan traveled at a trout most of the time only slowing to a walk when the horses needed an easier pace. The miles passed quickly, and it was well before six a.m. when Fort Worth came into view.

  Upon entering the town, he slowed the horses to a walk and moved quickly through the streets, not yet alive with commerce, toward the hardware store. As usual, Dan was early, and he decided to stop at a small cafe on Main Street for some coffee and biscuits. After leaving the cafe, he continued north on Main Street to Belknap Street and turned east. He rode past the front of Walker’s and turned down the large alleyway to the rear wagon yard. The yard was filled with miscellaneous farm and ranch equipment.

  He tied his horses to a hitch rail and went up the side stairs of the wooden freight dock at the rear of the store. He knocked on the freight door at Walker’s at seven o’clock on the morning of the seventh. A few seconds later, he heard the sound of the latch bar being lifted and then the door was slid open.

  “Howdy Dan, good to see you again,” said Bill with a big smile. “Tim stopped by the house last night and told me you would be by this morning. Come on inside, and I will get you some coffee.”

  They went through the storeroom area into Bill’s office.

  He handed Dan a cup of coffee and asked, “Do you know what this all about?”

  Handing the Colonel’s letter to Bill, Dan said, “Not yet, here is the letter you delivered to me. What were your instructions from the Colonel?”

  “The Colonel sent me a special delivery package with your letter inside and instructions to get that letter to you immediately, ship anything you needed by express freight to him in crates marked ‘tools’ and give you two hundred dollars expense money. He also instructed me to send him a bill, and he would settle up with me later.”

  After reading Dan’s letter, Bill said, “I don’t understand why didn’t he just send you a telegraph, and why not take the train all the way to Durango?”

  Dan took his letter back from Bill, and said, “There is a lot unsaid in the letter, that is for sure, but the implications are clear. He doesn’t trust the telegraph operator in Durango or somewhere along the line. He doesn’t want someone to know he has sent for help. If I take the train all the way from Fort Worth to Durango, I will have to travel through Alamosa, Colorado. He wants me to arrive with as little attention as possible. He wants me to be prepared to go into the high country. But most importantly, he has a problem; he cannot take care of himself and time must be critical.”

  “What is significant about Alamosa?”

  “Alamosa is where you change trains. Passengers traveling to Chama or Durango must change from the Denver and Rio Grande to the narrow-gauge Denver and Rio Grande Western in Alamosa. The Colonel must think there is someone in Alamosa who would recognize me, and he does not want them to have the chance to do so.”

  “What kind of trouble could the Colonel have that he could not handle?” Bill asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, of course, but it must be something he can’t leave to take care of without being missed or there is something preventing him from acting.”

  Motioning toward the storeroom Bill said, “I have some empty crates in the back we can use, and you are welcome to anything in the store you think you might need. You have known the Colonel longer than me, but you know I will do anything I can to help.”

  “Thanks, I know how much the Colonel means to you too, but he must think that this is a one-man job. I brought my gear for the high country and my 45 autos, but that may not be enough.”

  “Let’s go up front and see what we can find.”

  They walked out of the office and into the retail portion of the store. They passed through the aisles of the store to the front right-hand corner of the hardware store. Bill had a well-stocked gun department: hunting rifles, pistols, small arms, and ammunition.

  “For starters, let me have another 45 autos and two extra clips,” Dan said as they walked up to the gun chase.

  Bill said, “I am sure glad that the War Department let Colt put those in production for public sales while the army continues their testing. Do you want another holster? How do you want to carry it?”

  “Do you have a shoulder holster for a 45 auto?”

  “Yes, I do! Do you want a right hand or a left-hand holster?”

  “I need both and three boxes of cartridges.”

  “It sounds like you really do plan on being a one-man army,” said Bill with a smile.

  As Dan inspected the new 45 automati
c pistols, he said, “I may be the only army I have, but seriously, I don’t know what to expect; but I do expect to be on my own.”

  “What else do you need?”

  “Do you still have your High Wall that I carried to Wyoming two years ago?”

  “I sure do. Nobody around here wants to buy a single-shot Winchester when they can get a repeater. That’s a lot of weight and do you need anything as big as a 45-90?”

  “It is lighter than the Colonel’s Sharps, and it will let me reach targets out to 800 yards. I may not need it when I get there and get the full story about what is going on, but if I need it, I will have it. Besides, if you are shipping it, the weight will not be a problem.”

  “I only have twenty cartridges.”

  Rubbing his shoulder, Dan said, “That will be more than my shoulder can take anyway.”

  “Is there anything else you can think of?” Bill asked.

  After giving some thought, Dan asked, “Do you have any leather?”

  “What are you going to make?”

  “If I am going to be on my own, then stealth may be required. High-top lace-up boots maybe what you need to cover lots of rough ground quickly, but they can be pretty loud too. I thought I could make a pair of moccasins.”

  Rising and walking to the other side of the store Bill said, “I might have what you need.”

  On the other side of the store was the area where horse tack was sold.

  Bill pulled out a couple of pieces of oil tanned leather and said, “I keep a few pieces here for patches and repairs. This shoulder leather should work for the bottoms, and this leather from low on the side could be used for the tops.”

  Feeling the leather, Dan said, “This should work. Now all I need is four or five yards of thick lacing, a small leather punch and to remember how I made these when I was a kid.”

  “I am sure it will come back to you. What else can I do?”

  “That should be it. I will take the leather goods and the two spare clips with me in the carpetbag with my 45 and let you ship the other 45, the shoulder holsters, the High Wall and everything else in a packing crate.”

  “I have a long rectangular crate marked ‘Cyclone Windmill’ that I can ship everything else in.”

  “That will be fine. Let me get my gear off the pack horse and inside.”

  Bill said, “I’ll give you a hand.”

  With both of them, working they only needed three trips to get the packhorse unloaded and the gear staked next to the packing crate.

  Dan said, “I need to stop by the livery stable and the bank, before heading for the depot. By the way, I made Tom Swanson the ranch manager and told him he could contact me through you.”

  “That will be fine.”

  “Until I contact you, forward anything for me in an envelope addressed to the Colonel.”

  “Of course.”

  Walking to the freight door with Dan, Bill said, “I will have the crate to the express office by nine o’clock am, your train leaves at Noon. Good luck and contact me when it is safe for you too.”

  With a firm handshake, Dan said, “Thanks, Bill.”

  He turned and went down the dock stairs. Taking the lead for the pack horse, he mounted the bay. He left the alleyway and headed east to Jackson’s Livery, Dan made arrangements to board the horses and store the saddle and tack until Tom could pick them up. Since the bank didn’t open until nine o’clock, Dan decided to go to the Santa Fe Station and purchase his ticket. He walked eight blocks south to the Santa Fe Station. The station still seemed new to him even though it was nine years old because he had used the old station so much.

  Once inside, he approached the ticket window where he asked the ticket agent for a coach ticket to Santa Fe.

  As the ticket agent gave him his ticket and change, Dan asked, “Do you have an envelope and some paper?”

  With a “Yes,” the ticket agent reached under the counter and gave Dan an envelope and stationary with the railroad letterhead on them.

  Thanking the ticket agent, he went over to a writing table, where he labored over the sheets before folding them and placing them in the envelope. On the outside of the envelope he wrote, ‘Open in Case of my Death, Dan O’Neil.’ Placing the envelope in his shirt pocket he checked the station clock and saw that it almost 9 o’clock, so he picked up the carpetbag and headed out toward the bank.

  Arriving at the bank a couple of minutes past nine o’clock, Dan entered and asked to see James Fox, the bank president.

  He only waited a minute before James came out of his office and said, “Howdy Dan, it is nice to see you again.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fox.”

  “Come on in and have a seat.”

  He followed James into his office and took a seat and set the carpetbag on the floor.

  “Dan, you don’t have to call me Mr. Fox, you can call me James.”

  “Thank you, James, but old habits die hard.”

  “How have you been Dan, I haven’t seen you since your father’s funeral?”

  “Fine, just busy with the ranch.”

  “As much as I would like to think this is just a social visit, I can tell from the bag you are carrying that you are here on a business matter.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I have to leave the ranch for a while to take care of some business, and I have made Tom Swanson the Ranch Manager, so he can run things while I am gone.”

  “I know Tom, he is a good man.”

  “Yes, he is. I left him with funds for a few months’ worths of operations, that should take care of things until the fall cattle sale. I want to open an account for ranch operations that Tom can draw against and deposit into, as he needs.”

  “That is sound planning. How much do you want to open the account with and what name do you want on the account?”

  “I thought we would open the account by transferring one thousand dollars from the main ranch account and call the account ‘Circle N Operations.’”

  “That is fine. Is there anything else I can do while I have the paperwork prepared?” James said as he handed his notes to the clerk outside his door.

  As he returned to his desk, Dan handed him the envelope and said, “Yes, can you keep this for me?”

  James looked at the envelope and then at Dan and said, “Is this, what I think it is?”

  “Yes, that is instructions in case something happens to me.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No, but if anything happens to me, I have no one who can claim the ranch and do not want the state or somebody else I don’t know to get the place.”

  “I see, do you have time to have a will made?”

  “No, but I think this letter will take care of things.”

  “I am trusting you not to put me in that position, but I will not let you down.”

  The clerk knocked on the door and handed the papers to James. “Sign these forms, and I will send a statement to Tom showing the balance.”

  “Thank you, James, I appreciate your help, and I plan on returning in a couple of months and reclaiming that letter.”

  “Be careful, and I look forward to seeing you then.”

  Dan left the bank and returned to the train station to wait for the train. The time passed slowly as he sat in the waiting room. He just watched the people passing by for a while, then he started looking at the architectural details of the building. As he looked up at the ornate decorations on the ceiling, he wondered what he was getting into.

  It was eleven forty-four a.m. when Dan checked his watch as he boarded the train. He walked back through the chair car and found a seat near the rear of the car on the right. The car was clean but well used. The heavy fabric on the seats was well worn, and the door handles were polished bright with use. He placed his carpetbag on the luggage rack above his seat. The car filled to about two-thirds capacity with an assortment of travelers, but he was glad he didn’t have to share his seat with someone
else, as it would be more comfortable sleeping having the whole seat to oneself. The train left Fort Worth at noon as scheduled, but headed south instead of west. This was still the fastest route to Santa Fe, but it could be shorter. He was sure this routing had something to do with the service agreements between the six major railroads that serviced Fort Worth, but all he knew for sure was that they would travel south to Belton before they turned west.

  The train stopped south of Fort Worth at Cleburne, a Division Point for the Santa Fe, to change the crew and take on fuel and water. After leaving Cleburne, the train continued south passing through fields of cotton almost ready for harvest and rolling pastures brown in the late summer heat. The train stopped at the smaller towns that had a passenger scheduled to get off or where the train was flagged down to allow a passenger to get on. The train stopped for twenty minutes in Waco before continuing south. At Belton, the locomotive was changed along with the crew, and the train finally headed west. The country slowly changed to all pastureland, with the only cultivated areas near the ranch houses for feed crops and kitchen gardens. The train continued to stop at small towns occasionally, but the stops were further apart.

  At six o’clock he had dinner in the dining car.

  He was seated, and the waiter gave him a menu and asked, “Would you like to have a cup of coffee while you look at the menu.”

  “Can I have a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, Sir” The waiter answered.

  When the waiter returned with the tea, Dan handed him the menu and said, “I will have the pork chops.”

  The waiter took the menu and said, “Thank You.”

  A few minutes later the waiter brought his dinner: pork chops, boiled red potatoes, and green beans. On the ranch, they ate a lot of beef, so he was glad to have a chance for something different. After completing dinner with a piece of apple pie, he returned to his seat in the chair car.