Ironhorse

90

We lowered the ramp from the stock car and one by one got the horses out. We walked them around in slow figure eights across an open patch of grass covering the middle ground of the wye track before walking them to the river so they could drink. We gave them some hay. Then some feed. After they got comfortable and situated we got them saddled. Uncle Ted served us up some coffee he brewed over a patch of coals inside the firebox, and we took off.

Virgil figured we’d make a pass through the town of Crystal Creek on our way out. He wanted to be sure we didn’t see any sign of the getaway horses, or Gobble Greene’s dun that Lassiter absconded with. Or anything in general that might be out of the ordinary before we set out for the camps.

Virgil, Berkeley, Jimmy John, and I walked the horses through Crystal Creek as the town was waking up. I pulled the extra horse, which had the money packed on its back inside an oilcloth bedroll, tied behind the cantle. Crystal Creek was a sleepy little place, bigger than Standley Station but not by much. We saw only a few folks moving about as we walked down the short street. We passed through a bunch of chickens picking over dried grass. A big Cochin rooster with a bright red comb perched on a short gate watched as we passed by. When we got to the end of the street and it was obvious there was nothing that registered out of place, Virgil turned to Jimmy John.

“Let’s get.”

Without a word, and without the benefit of the stirrup, Jimmy John swung up on his horse and was on the move.

“That was an unnecessary display of” — Berkeley grunted as he climbed slowly into the saddle — “something, don’t you think?”

Virgil grinned a bit.

We mounted up and trailed Jimmy John north out of town toward a tall grass meadow surrounded by a wall of loblolly pines.

At the edge of the meadow Jimmy John entered the forest between two huge pines and we followed. The sun slanted through the trees making what was left of the morning dew on the pine-needle floor shine a little.

We followed a deer trail paralleling the river for close to an hour and crossed the river at a wide beaver ford and started up a steep grade on the other side. When we got to the top of the high ridge, Jimmy John stopped and turned back, looking at us. When we all were close to him, he pointed down. A hazy fog was slowly crawling up through the valley below.

“There is the rail,” Jimmy John said.

A quarter-mile away the rail cut through the valley along where the fog was coming in.

“The south pass switch is just down there,” Jimmy John said, pointing, “and Tall Water Falls is just around the other side of that mountain over there.”

He turned and pointed to the west.

“If it were clear you could see Division City over there. The mines are just ahead, beyond that next rise. It will take us an hour to get over there, and just on the other side is the telegraph line.”

“So we’ll be coming down on top of them?” I asked. “Behind the mining camps?”

“We will. The mines are all lined up side by side on a straight road about a quarter of a mile apart. The wire is above them on this side. The mining camps and the coal road are on the other side, below. That is how the mines shipped out what they’d harvested, on that road. The coal was loaded onto big wagons and shipped west to Division City.” Jimmy John pulled at some pine needles from a branch that lay just in reach. He looked up and back behind us. “It’s going to get bad.”

Jimmy John moved on, and we followed.

We rode down the rocky north face, and when we got to the bottom we crossed a stream lined with sumac. When we started back up the other side, the fog was starting to get heavier.

I rode just behind Jimmy John as we worked our way through a forest of cypress, elm, and cedar. Jimmy John looked back to me. We rode a ways.

“Little Jenny was my fiancée,” Jimmy John said.

Jimmy John offered a slight glance back to me.

“That right?” I said.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Well, she is a lovely young lady,” I said. “Smart, too.”

Jimmy John nudged the bay around a wide evergreen.

We rode in silence for a while longer. I looked back to Virgil and Berkeley, who were out of earshot. I could see their horses clearly but their top half was hazy with fog.

“At one time,” Jimmy John said. “Been a while now. Years. We had a future in front of us.”

Silence. We rode a bit farther.

“Things change,” he said.

“They do,” I said.

We skirted west around a watery rock bluff covered with wax myrtle and yellow pimpernel, and when we got to the other side, two whitetails, a buck and a doe, scooted out of some thickets to our right. They leaped once, twice, and with the third leap they were out of sight.

We rode for a while longer before Jimmy John stopped and looked back to Virgil and Berkeley. We waited, and as soon as they were close, he spoke.

“Just up here a ways,” Jimmy John said, pointing, “is the top of this rise, and just on the other side is the telegraph line. That way” — he pointed to the west — “is the farthest of the mines and the road out to Division City. Each operation has a pole above with a service line dropping down below to the mine offices. The only way to determine if the line is active or not is to check at the top of each pole that drops into each of the separate camps.”

“How far down is each camp from where you check the line?” Virgil asked.

“About a quarter of a mile,” Jimmy John said, “give or take. When we get to the top of this rise up ahead here, we’ll follow the line to the west. Start there and work our way back toward the track, toward the main line.”

“How much time is needed to get down to the pass switch from up here where the line runs?” Virgil said.

“Well, like I said, there is no road past the east end mine. It’s not a real long ride, but it’s rough and it takes longer than the way we rode in. There is a long rock bluff between the lines and the track we have to go around.”

I looked to Virgil.

Virgil nodded.

“Hence the mule,” I said.