Assault of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gothic, Colorado

It was four hours by buckboard from Sugarloaf to Gothic. When Sally and Cal left before dawn, there was quite a chill in the air. Their breathing, and the breathing of the horses, emitted little clouds of vapor, but the buffalo robes and sheepskin coats kept them comfortable. It had been Sally’s decision to go by buckboard instead of surrey. She was sure once they started setting up the restaurant they would need some means of hauling freight around.

During their drive over from Big Rock it had warmed up considerably so they shed their coats and put them in the back, alongside Sally’s suitcase and Cal’s duffel. They kept the conversation light as they traveled and the time passed quickly.

The little town of Gothic had grown up in the north part of Gunnison County. It was surrounded by mountains and supported by a productive silver mine, but inexplicably bypassed by the railroad. To Sally and Cal, approaching from the south, the collection of sun-bleached and weatherworn wooden buildings were so much a part of the land that it looked almost as if the town was the result of some natural phenomenon, rather than the work of man.

Crossing the outer edge of the town they encountered a sign, erected by the Gothic City Council.

GOTHIC

POPULATION 507

Silver Capital of Colorado

Sally gave Cal a twenty dollar bill.

“What’s this for, Miss Sally?”

“You’ll need a place to stay while you are here. This is for your hotel and food.”

“I don’t think it’ll cost that much.”

“Well, then you’ll have a little extra money left over for a beer, or perhaps a game of cards,” Sally suggested. “That is, if you don’t gamble too recklessly.”

“Gee, thanks!” Cal said. “Don’t worry none about the gamblin’ part, I don’t never get carried away too much.”

Sally had never been to Tamara’s house, but she had the address so she guided Cal to a very small structure that sat on the outskirts of town. Tamara had been watching for them, and came out front, smiling broadly as they drove up. Sally hopped down and the two women embraced, then Sally reached for her suitcase.

“I’ll get that for you, Miss Sally,” Cal offered.

“Don’t be silly. I’m not helpless. Go get yourself a hotel room, then find a place to park the buckboard and stable the horses.”

“Oh, the hotel has its own stable and wagon yard,” Tamara said. “You won’t have any trouble.”

“Thanks.” Cal snapped the reins as he urged the horses on.

“I knew you would be here about lunchtime, so I prepared lunch for us,” Tamara said as they went into her house, redolent with the most enticing aromas.

“Oh, we should have held Cal here,” Sally said.

“I’m sorry, we should have, shouldn’t we? But I have to confess I never even thought about that. I’m afraid I made just enough for the two of us.”

Although the house consisted of only one room, and was very small, the table had been covered with a white cloth, and was set with sparkling china, silver, and crystal. “Oh,” Sally said. “If you set a table like this in your restaurant, you’ll be drawing people from fifty miles in each direction! It is beautiful!”

“Thank you, but the presentation is only half of it. We’ll have to see how it tastes.”

“Let’s do that right now,” Sally suggested as she pulled the chair out to sit down.

Half an hour later, Sally dabbed at her lips with the napkin. She’d eaten crispy fried asparagus, French onion soup with a toasted baguette, and a bacon and tomato sandwich with peppercorn mayonnaise. “Oh, my. Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my. Once you get your restaurant going over here, you will have to open another one in Big Rock.”

“But wouldn’t that upset Mr. Longmont?” Tamara asked. “I know he prides himself on his restaurant.”

“And rightly so,” Sally agreed. “Because it is a fine restaurant. But Louis is a gentleman, and a connoisseur. Believe me, nobody will have a greater appreciation for another fine restaurant than Louis Longmont. In fact, I would not be in the least surprised if he turned out to be one of your best customers.”

“Would you like to see the building I’ve picked out for the restaurant?”

“I would love to.”

“Do I need a coat? Or has it warmed up enough?”

“The buffalo robes and the sheepskin coat felt good on the way over here,” Sally said. “But it has warmed considerably. However, I think it is still cool enough that you could use a light wrap.”

A few minutes later the two women were walking down the boardwalk toward the building where Tamara intended to put her restaurant. It fronted Gothic Road, which was the main street of the town, and was well centered in the business community. The building had already been painted white and was obviously of recent construction. The door was locked, but Tamara had the key.

“Mr. Cassidy gave me the key to the building,” she said as she unlocked the door. “He built it for his bakery, but decided to add on to his house and put his bakery there, instead. He has offered me a very good price on the building.”

Once inside, Tamara showed where she would put all the tables, and the cashier’s counter. “As you can see, the kitchen already has a built-in oven. Mr. Cassidy was going to bake bread there. I’ll use it for pies, and I’ll buy my bread from him. It was part of the agreement to sell the building to me.”

They spent half an hour in the building, making plans for curtains, what color to paint the walls, the type of tablecloths that should be used, what pictures Tamara would want to put on the wall.

“I’ve made some drawings of what I think it should be if you would like to see them,” she said. “They are back at the house.”

They returned to Tamara’s house and spent the rest of the day looking at drawings, and at swaths of material.

“I’m getting as excited about it as if I were the one doing it,” Sally said.

“Well, in a very real sense, you are the one doing it,” Tamara said. “You will be my full partner.”

“No, I’ll be a minor partner,” Sally insisted. “You are the one who will be doing all the work. Though I think I would love to come over here and help you decorate, and get everything started.”

“I’ve never had such a friend as you,” Tamara said.

“As soon as the bank opens tomorrow, we will go make all the financial arrangements,” Sally promised.

Early the next morning, Bill Dinkins, John Putnam, Cole Parnell, and Frank and Travis Slater were camped in the shadow of Castle Peak, having a breakfast of coffee and jerky. Though it was late spring, the sun had not yet peeked over the mountain. At that elevation at that time of year, it was still quite cool, if not cold, and the men were huddled around the fire, reluctant to give up its warmth.

“How much money you reckon is in the bank?” Parnell asked.

“A lot,” Dinkins said.

“How can there be all that much? I mean, bein’ as the town is so little and all?” Putnam asked.

“Gothic is a silver mining town,” Dinkins explained. “They keep a lot of money in their bank so’s they can handle the silver.”

“Hope it pays better ’n the last bank I hit,” Parnell said. “Last bank I robbed I come up with only seventy-six dollars, ’n five years in prison.”

The others laughed.

“What are you laughin’ at?” Parnell asked Putnam. “You was right there in prison with me.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t for no seventy-six dollars. I got more money ’n that.”

“How much did you get, Putnam?” Travis asked.

“I got me a hunnert ’n seven dollars,” Putnam replied, then wondered why the others laughed at him.

“I guarantee you there’s more ’n seventy-six, or even a hunnert ’n seven dollars in this bank,” Dinkins said. “And I don’t plan on goin’ to prison.”

None of them had asked Dinkins about the debacle in Buffalo, and he hadn’t told them. It was just as well they knew nothing about it.

In the town of Gothic, Sally, Tamara, and Cal were having breakfast in the dining room of the Silver Lode Hotel.

“Miz McKenzie, when you get your own restaurant started, why, we can eat with you whenever we come over,” Cal said.

“Yes, indeed,” Tamara replied. “And you can eat as my guest. There will be no charge.”

“You might want to rethink that, Tamara,” Sally said. “You don’t have any idea how much food Calvin Woods can pack away.”

“Oh, I think I will be able to manage it,” Tamara replied.

“Miss Sally, are you goin’ to teach Miz McKenzie how to make bear claws?”

“Tamara is quite a good cook. I’m sure she needs no instruction from me.”

“Maybe so,” Cal said. “But I don’t think anyone can make bear claws as good as you do.”

Sally laughed. “Cal, the way you and Pearlie eat bear claws, I don’t think it would make any difference to either one of you, who made them.”

“I don’t know. Yours is—are”—he corrected himself—“awfully good.”

“Very good,” Sally said.

“Very good,” Cal said.

“No, I was referring to the fact that you corrected yourself from is to are,” Sally said. “That was very good.”

“Thanks.” Cal beamed under the praise.

“Sally, what time is it?” Tamara asked.

Sally had a small watch pinned to the bodice of her dress, and she pulled it away on a little retracting chain to examine the face. “It lacks fifteen minutes of nine.”

“The bank opens at nine,” Tamara said. “If you don’t mind, I would like to get there just as soon as the bank is open.”

“That’s fine by me,” Sally said. “The quicker we can get the business done at the bank, the quicker we can get started on putting the restaurant together.”

“Good, I’m glad you see it that way too,” Tamara said.

“You goin’ to meet in the bank?” Cal asked.

“Yes.”

“If you don’t mind, I mean what with you ’n Miz McKenzie talkin’ business and all, I’ll probably just sort of wait around over at the mercantile store.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Sally said.

“Hey, do you reckon Pearlie would like one of them things you poke the ends of your bandanna through, so’s you can slide it up and hold the bandanna around your neck?”

Sally winced. She had long ago stopped trying to correct Cal’s grammar, and was pleased and surprised when, from time to time he corrected himself, as he had earlier.

“I think he would be very pleased with it,” she said.

Cal smiled broadly. “Then I aim to get him one.”

Travis Slater, the youngest of the five men, slipped his canteen off the saddle horn and took a drink, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then recorked it and hung it back on his saddle. He looked at his hand, and at the stub of his ring finger, healed now, from having been bitten off. He was still angry about that. He had killed the son of a bitch who did it, but wished he was alive so he could kill him again.

“Damn, we been two weeks without seein’ a town,” Travis said. “Don’t you think, maybe, we could stop at a saloon and get us a few beers afore we take care of our business?”

“Now, that would make a lot of sense, wouldn’t it, Travis?” Dinkins asked. “Yeah, why don’t we just go into the saloon, have us a few drinks and strike up a conversation with some of the locals? That way they are sure to have a good description of us. No, I got a better idea, why don’t we see if there is one of them picture parlors in town? We could have the photographer take our pictures, then there wouldn’t be no doubt as to what we looked like.”

“Hell, Bill, you don’t have to get so particular about it,” Travis said. “I was just sayin’ that a beer would be good, is all.”

“How we goin’ to keep from gettin’ recognized anyhow, once we rob the bank?” Johnny Putnam asked.

“They ain’t goin’ to recognize us if we do this job right,” Dinkins insisted. “If all of you do just like I tell you, we’ll be into that bank, have the money and be out again afore anyone in this town even knows what hit ’em.” He smiled at the others. “Then when we ride into the next town we’ll be able to come in like we own the place. All the beer we can drink, women, gamblin’ money. Hell, we’ll be king of the roost.”

“Have any of you ever know’d anyone to get hisself two whores at the same time?” Travis asked.

Parnell laughed. “Two whores? What the hell would you do with two whores at the same time? Hell, Travis, I’m not sure you’d even know what to do with one whore. You ain’t never even been with a whore yet, have you?”

“Why, sure I have, lots of times,” Travis insisted.

“Where did you have a whore?”

“I had me one oncet when I was in Denver.”

“Ha! One time in Denver. Yeah, that sounds like lots of times,” Parnell said

“That’s only ’cause I don’t never have enough money for whores,” Travis said.

“Well, you just do what I tell you to today, and you’ll have all the money you need ... even enough for two whores at the same time if you think you can handle that,” Dinkins promised. “Now, let’s get on with it. You boys, check your pistols.”

The men pulled their pistols and checked the cylinders to see that all the chambers were properly charged. Then they slipped their guns back into their holsters.

“Ready?” Dinkins asked.

“I’m ready,” Travis replied.

The others nodded.