Massacre at Powder River

Chapter Thirteen

“You’re sure he’ll be on the stagecoach coming from Medicine Bow?” Logan asked.

“I’m quite sure,” Teasdale said. “Mrs. Frewen told my wife that she was expecting her sister and nephew, so she convinced Frewen to send Jensen to Medicine Bow to meet them and take the coach back to Sussex with them.”

Logan nodded. “Good. We can not only get rid of him, we can make it look just like the coach was held up. Which it will be.”

“Remember, no harm is to come to Lady Churchill or her son,” Teasdale said.

“Why not? If they get kilt too, it would just make it seem even more like it wasn’t nothin’ but a stagecoach holdup.”

“No!” Teasdale said. “Nothing is to happen to the woman or her child. I must insist on that.”

“All right, nothing will happen to them. They’ll just have a little excitement they can talk about when they get back to England.”

“And, while I don’t want to tell you how to run your business, I would suggest that you don’t wear your yellow scarves for this.”

“Oh, don’t worry none about that,” Logan said. “We won’t be the ones doin’ it. I’ve got some friends that sort of specialize in holdin’ up stagecoaches.”

Back in Medicine Bow, Matt, Jennie and Winnie were taking their dinner at the dining room of the Railroad Hotel. “I’m quite sure I have never eaten buffalo,” Jennie said after they ordered their dinner. “What does it taste like?”

“It has a somewhat lighter and sweeter taste than beef,” Matt explained. “And it’s not as fat.”

“Have you ever shot your gun?” Winnie asked.

“I’ve shot it, yes.”

“Have you ever shot anyone with it?”

“Winnie!” Jennie scolded. “What an awful question to ask!”

“It’s all right,” Matt said. “I know that boys his age are interested in such things.”

“Well, have you?” Winnie asked.

“Yes,” Matt answered without elaborating.

“I have read of cowboys, and how they can draw their guns very quickly and shoot very accurately,” Winnie said. “Are you very fast, and can you shoot very accurately?”

“There is something much more important than being fast and accurate,” Matt said.

“What could possibly be more important than that?”

“The most important thing in any fight is who is right and who is wrong. You must always be on the side of right, and by that I don’t just mean what is legal, I mean what is morally and ethically right.”

“I will remember that, Mr. Jensen,” Winnie said.

Although there was a stagecoach depot, the Railroad Hotel had an arrangement with the stagecoach company to stop at the hotel to deliver or pick up passengers. Matt, Jennie and Winnie barely had time to finish their breakfast the next morning before the coach arrived out front to pick them up.

Winnie was most intrigued by the great Concord Coach. Considered the finest passenger vehicle of the time, the stagecoach could seat as many as nine people on the three inside benches. It was big, with the driver and another man sitting up over the front wheels. The team consisted of six horses, more horses than Winnie had ever seen in one team.

For this trip, there were only six passengers and Matt was glad, because the fewer passengers there were, the more comfortable was the coach.

Matt secured the backseat for them because he thought it would be more comfortable if they were looking forward. Also, the mounting of the coach on the leather through braces, plus the heavy load in the boot, meant that anyone sitting in the front seat would be leaning forward slightly, whereas those on the rear seat would have some support for their backs.

They started out with Winnie riding between them, but as the trip grew longer, he asked to be by the window so he could see outside. That rearrangement put Jennie in the middle of the seat, pressed up against Matt. Matt thought the closeness would make Jennie uncomfortable, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“How long before we get to Uncle Moreton’s ranch?” Winnie asked.

“We’ll be there by this time tomorrow,” Matt replied.

The coach averaged between five and seven miles per hour while underway, but every twelve miles the driver would blow his trumpet as a signal to the operators of the way stops. The stops were very brief, just long enough for the passengers to attend to whatever personal needs may be necessary, and to attach a new and fresh team which, because the hostler had been notified by the bleat of the trumpet, was already in harness waiting to be attached to the coach.

At their noon stop they had a meal of stewed dried apples, fried ham, biscuits, and coffee. For supper that evening they had eggs, potatoes, beans, steak, honey, and baked bread. Matt had taken many stagecoach trips and he knew that this was much better food than the normal fare. He was sure that the meals weren’t up to the standard that Jennie was used to, but he was pleased that she didn’t complain.

By late afternoon, the other three passengers had left the coach so that only Matt, Jennie and Winnie remained. Then it got dark, but the coach continued.

“I would have thought we would be stopped for the night by now,” Jennie said. Where will we stop?” Jennie asked.

“We won’t.”

“You mean we will be riding in this thing all night long?”

“Yes, but it won’t be so bad,” Matt said. “There are only three of us, so it shouldn’t be that hard for us to get some sleep.”

“Get some sleep where? How?”

“Here,” Matt said. “Let me show you.”

Reaching up to the middle and the front seat, Matt folded them down. The result was a flattened cushioned area that could be used as a bed.

“We’ve also got blankets,” Matt said, producing them from a compartment under the middle seat. “And believe me, the nights up here are cold, even at this time of year.”

Spreading one blanket out over the folded-down seats, Matt invited Jennie and her son to lay down. Then he lay down beside them and pulled the other blanket over them.

Jennie chuckled.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“I had almost forgotten how quaint America could be,” Jennie said with a chuckle. “I’ve known you only two days and already we are going to bed together.”

Matt cleared his throat in embarrassment. “If you would prefer, I can ride on top of the coach tonight.”

“Nonsense. Please forgive my joking. I meant nothing by it.”

The coach was well sprung and the road was smooth, and that, plus the normal exhaustion of travel, enabled all three to get to sleep rather quickly that night. When they went to sleep, Winnie was lying between Matt and Jennie. But when Matt woke up at one of the middle-of-the-night stops, Jennie had changed places with Winnie and was now lying with her head on Matt’s shoulder.

“Uhmm,” she said, sleepily. “Why have we stopped?” She kissed Matt just under his ear, and he sat up quickly.

“To change teams,” he said.

“Oh!” Jennie gasped. She put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my goodness what did I ... oh, please forgive me. I must have been dreaming!”

“It’s all right, no harm done,” Matt said. “I’ll, uh, step outside and see what is going on.”

They were at the Soda Lake way station, and here the driver and guard that had brought the stage from Medicine Bow were being relieved by a new driver and guard. Matt was standing outside the coach as the switch was made and he recognized Ed Mercier, the new driver, and Gary Conners, the new shotgun guard. Their regular route was between Sussex and the Soda Lake station, and Matt had met them on the way down. The driver and guard were both small men, the company believing that the smaller the drivers and shotgun guards were, the less they would weigh and the easier it would be on the horses.

“Hello, Mr. Jensen,” Ed said as he approached the coach. “Did you meet the passengers you went for?”

“Yes, they are asleep in the coach,” Matt said.

“Ah, then I’ll shut up so as not to wake them,” Ed said. He took a chew of tobacco, then walked forward to check on the horses. In the meantime, the driver who had brought them this far stretched and yawned, then headed for the way station and some much-needed sleep.

Ed came back from checking the team, spit out a wad of tobacco, then signaled to his shotgun guard. “Climb up there, Gary, and let’s get this thing on the road.”

By mid-morning the next day, they had picked up three more passengers: a grandmother, mother, and daughter. The young girl was about nine years old and she quickly developed an interest in Winnie.

“I’ve never heard anyone talk like you do,” the little girl said. “Where do you live?”

“Blenheim Palace near Oxford,” Churchill said.

The girl’s eyes grew big. “You live in a palace?” she asked. “Are you a prince?”

Winnie laughed. “No,” he said. “Your papa has to be a king or your mama a queen for you to be a prince. Papa isn’t a king. He is a lord, but it is an honorary title only, because he is the third son of the Duke of Marlborough.”

Matt was listening to the conversation with amusement as he was looking through the window. That was when saw the riders on the crest of a hill looking down toward the coach. They watched the coach with what seemed to Matt to be an intense degree of interest for a long moment, then all three disappeared on the other side of the hill.

It may have been nothing, but Matt got the feeling that they were up to no good. Without saying anything to anyone inside the coach, he opened the door then climbed up on top.

“My word!” one of the other women said. “Where is he going?”

When Matt got on top of the coach, he moved forward, then tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“Ed, I just saw three riders up on top of the ridge. Maybe it was nothing, but seemed to me like they were checking us over pretty close.”

“It’s good that you spotted them,” Ed said. “We’ll be doing a hairpin turn around the pinnacle up there. There’s a perfect spot for an ambush just around on the other side.”

“How hard would it be for me to go over the hill here, and get behind them?” Matt asked.

“Not all that hard, I don’t reckon. Don’t know if you could get there before I do, though.”

“I can if you slow the team down to a walk,” Matt said.

“All right,” Ed said. He pointed ahead. “Your best bet would probably be to just step off the top of the coach right there just this side of that big rock. That’s about as easy a way across as any.”

“Ha,” the shotgun guard said. “Like you’ve clumb over it before.”

“I didn’t say I’d ever clumb over it,” Ed said. “But I’ve been driving this route for three years, and I know it pretty well.”

“Have you been held up here before?” Matt asked.

“Four times,” Ed answered.

“There won’t be a fifth,” Matt said. “At least not today.”

As the coach approached the rock Ed had pointed out, Matt jumped easily from the top of the coach onto the side of the hill. “Remember, drive slow enough to give me a chance to get over.”

“You got it, Matt,” Ed called as he pulled back on the reins, slowing the team to a walk.

From inside the coach, Winnie saw Matt.

“Mama, Mr. Jensen is climbing over that hill and he has his gun in his hand.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want the gun to fall out of his holster,” Jennie suggested.

“But why is he climbing that hill?”

When Matt reached the top of the hill, he saw three men waiting behind a row of sagebrush, guns in hand, looking toward the end of the butte where the road would make its turn. He also saw three horses, ground-tethered. Untying the horses, he slapped them on their rumps and sent them running. Then he squatted behind a big rock.

“What the hell! Our horses is gettin’ away!” one of the men said. The three came running back toward their horses.

“You boys just stop right there,” Matt said, raising up from behind them.

When the three men whirled around, they saw Matt holding his pistol leveled on them.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Matt asked.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The man who asked was bald-headed, and had a full mustache.

“Funny you would ask that question, because I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“We wasn’t doing nothing,” the bald-headed man said.

“Really? Because it looked to me like you were waiting for the stagecoach to come around so you could rob it.”

“We wasn’t doin’ no such thing.”

“I don’t believe you. I’m a passenger on that stagecoach, and I wouldn’t want to get held up or anything, so here is what we are going to do. You,” he said, pointing to the only one of the three who was wearing a hat. “I want you to use your hat as a bag, and I want you to put your gun in there, then collect the guns from the other two, and bring all of them over here to me.”

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Because I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Matt said, easily.

“Do it, Carter,” the bald man said.

Carter put his own pistol in the hat, collected the other two pistols, then walked over to put them down where Matt told them to.

“There they are,” Carter said.

“Good man. Now the three of you just walk over there and have a seat for a while,” Matt said.

When the three responded, Matt picked up the hat with the pistols, then walked out into the road just as the coach came around the turn. He waved at the driver, and Ed started pulling back on the reins, bringing the stage to a halt.

“I’ll be damned,” Ed said, looking toward the three men who were sitting on the side of the road. “Hello there, Carter, Hodge, Decker. How are you boys doing?” He laughed.

“You know these men, Ed?” Matt asked.

“Oh, I should say that I do,” Ed replied. “They’ve done held me up twice. I guess it would have been three times if you hadn’t stopped them.”

“Hey, where you goin’ with our guns?” the bald-headed one asked. “Them guns cost money and you’re stealin’ ’em.”

“I’m not stealing them,” Matt said. “I tell you what. I’ll leave them with the marshal in Sussex.”

“There ain’t nothin’ right about you doin’ somethin’ like that,” one of the would-be robbers said.

“Ha,” Ed said. “Since when did you boys worry ’bout what’s right?”

“I hope you can find your horses,” Matt said as he stepped back into the coach. “If not, you are going to have a very long walk.”