The Bozeman Trail

Chapter Eighteen

Former cow camp outside Bannack, Dakota Territory,

Thursday, October 16, 1862:

Duke Faglier poured a little gold dust into his hand, examined it for a moment, then returned it to the sack. “Seventy-five hundred dollars,” he said. “I’ve never held so much money in my hand at one time in my life.” He chuckled. “In fact, I don’t think all the money I’ve ever handled would equal this.”

“What are you going to do with all that money, Duke?” John asked.

“I don’t know yet, but I figure I’ll find some way to spend it.”

“What about a saloon?”

Duke chuckled. “Well, I might buy a few drinks, but I don’t know as I want to spend it all in a saloon.”

“Not in a saloon, for a saloon,” John said. “Me an’ Luke are goin’ to spend the winter lookin’ for gold. But come next spring, we’re thinkin’ on buyin’ us a saloon. We figure, with all the gold money up here, a saloon would do real well. Maybe you’d like to come in as our partner.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Duke answered. “I don’t know, let me think about that.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Billy said. “Well, after I poke around in the hills a while, I guess I’ll take my uncle’s money back to Texas. Then I’m going out to California.”

“California,” Matthew said. “Now, there’s an idea. I’ve always had a hankering to see that place myself.”

“That leaves you, Bob. What are you going to do?” James asked.

“You won’t care much for what I have in mind,” Bob replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I aim to get into the war,” Bob said. “I thought about it a lot during the drive up here. I’m not sure I understand all the reasons why the war come about, but I know I won’t be able to hold my head up if I don’t get into it.”

“So, come next spring, you’ll be going back to Texas?”

Bob shook his head. “No, I’m going now. They say the boats will be running for about another month until river ice shuts them down. I’m going with the next boat.”

“You mean you ain’t goin’ to look for gold?” Luke asked. “I thought that was the whole reason you come up here.”

“It was,” Bob said. “But I’ve changed my mind. I feel like I have to go back.”

“Well, it’s your decision, Bob,” James said. “A man has to do what a man has to do. I wish you luck.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, I have a proposal,” James said.

“What’s that?” Billy asked.

“I propose that we all go into town and spend tonight in the hotel. It might be nice to have a roof over our heads for a change.”

“Yeah, and no cows bellowing,” Luke said.

“Or wandering off,” Bob suggested.

“Or stinking,” Billy added. The others laughed.

Bannack, two a.m. Friday, October 17, 1862:

Percy tripped as he stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the Last Chance Saloon, across the street from the Miner’s Hotel.

“Shhh!” Chance whispered. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”

“I didn’t see the step in the dark.”

“Well, hell, it ain’t like they just put it there,” Chance said. “It’s been right there as long as we’ve been here.”

“Will both of you shut up?” Angus ordered.

Percy and Chance stopped their arguing as the three men moved to the edge of the boardwalk. At this time of night, the town was absolutely quiet, the last customer from the last saloon having left nearly two hours earlier.

Except for the hotel, every building in town was dark. There, a lamp in the lobby downstairs, and another in the hallway upstairs provided the only sign of illumination in the entire town.

“Plummer isn’t going to like it when he finds out that we didn’t wait to kill Faglier,” Percy said.

Angus chuckled. “Yeah, well, he’s going to like it even less when he finds out that we took the money.”

“You really think we should take the money, Angus?” Chance asked. “What about Plummer and The Innocents?³

“To hell with Plummer and The Innocents. The way I figure it, this has been our deal from the start. We’re the ones that found out about the herd, and the whole reason we come up here was to take the money. Maybe you boys would like to give Plummer some of your share of the money, but I don’t intend to give him any of mine.”

“I ain’t goin’ to give them any of my money,” Percy said.

“Me, neither,” Chance added.

“All right, let’s do it, then.”

The three men moved out of the shadow of the saloon, were visible in the relative brightness of the moon-splashed street, then disappeared once more in the shadows of the buildings on the other side. Angus pulled his pistol and the others did the same.

“Check your loads,” he said.

All three men spun the cylinders, checking that all chambers were charged. Then, with guns drawn, and moving quietly, they stepped into the hotel.

The hotel clerk was snoring loudly, asleep on a small cot behind the desk. Angus walked over to the counter and turned the registration book around to look at it. In the light of the desk lamp, he found what he was looking for.

“Duke Faglier, room 107,” he whispered. “Get the key.”

Reaching behind the counter, Chance got the key for 107.

“We’ll take care of Faglier first,” Angus whispered, indicating that they should go up the stairs.

“What about the keys to the other rooms?” John asked.

“We won’t need them,” Angus answered. “When we open the ball with Faglier, the others are going to come running out of their rooms to see what’s going on. They’ll be confused and muddled. We can shoot them down like ducks in a pond.”

Quietly, the three men climbed the stairs. When they reached the top of the stairs they looked down the long hallway, which was dimly illuminated by one flickering lantern.

Tiptoeing quietly down the hallway, they came to room 107. Pausing at the door they listened, hearing the sound of snoring coming from inside. Angus slipped the key in the lock, then turned it slowly. Once the door was unlocked, he twisted the knob, then pushed the door open.

A wide bar of pale yellow light from the hall splashed into the room, dimly illuminating a sleeping figure on the bed. The three men raised their pistols, pointed at the sleeping figure, then, at a nod from Angus, began shooting.

James was startled from sleep by the sound of gunfire. Pulling his pistol from the holster that hung at the head of the bed, he rolled out of bed and onto the floor, then crawled to the door. Opening the door, he saw, in the light of the hall lamp, three men, backing out of Duke’s room, firing back into the room as they did so.

Another door opened between James and the three shooters, and James saw a muzzle flash as that person began firing.

“We’re sitting ducks!” one of the shooters shouted. “Get that lamp out!”

One of the other shooters began firing at the lamp.

“Not that way, you fool!”

The lamp exploded with a shower of glass and a spray of kerosene. The kerosene splashed onto the wall, then caught fire.

“Revelation!” James shouted. Standing up, he ran out into the hall, exchanging fire with the three shooters. Muzzle blasts, like flashes of lightning, lit up the hall.

“James!” Revelation shouted from behind one of the doors.

“I’m coming in,” James shouted. James smashed through the door with his shoulder. Revelation was kneeling behind the bed, with her rifle pointed toward the door.

James saw Revelation fire and he leaped to one side. “No, it’s me!” he shouted. Almost before he got the words out of his mouth, however, a body fell inside the room from behind him. One of the shooters had followed him into the room, only to be shot down by Revelation.

James went back to the open doorway and, looking down the hall, saw Duke come out of one of the rooms.

“Faglier!” one of the two remaining shooters shouted. “It can’t be! We killed you!”

James had never seen anything like what happened next. Without flinching, or ducking into any of the rooms, or even turning sideways to offer a smaller target, Duke faced the two men. Standing in the middle of the hall, he exchanged gunfire with the two shooters. The hallway was rapidly filling with smoke, both from the many pistol discharges as well from the fire that was rapidly investing the entire floor. The smoke was so thick now that the only thing that could be seen were the muzzle flashes from repeated firing.

Then the flashes stopped and the hallway fell silent, except for the snapping and popping of burning wood.

“I think they’re down,” Duke said. “Every one, out of your rooms. Get out of the hotel, fast! It’s on fire!”

Now all up and down the hallway, doors opened as guests who had been hiding from the gun battle appeared. In nightgowns and night-shirts, and coughing against the smoke, they found their way out into the hall.

“Hurry, hurry!” Duke shouted, as he directed the traffic. Billy, Bob, Luke, and John joined the guests as they all started toward the head of the stairs where, mercifully, the smoke wasn’t quite as thick. James and Revelation came out into the hall as well.

“Where’s Matthew?” Revelation shouted.

“He won’t be coming,” Duke said, waving toward the head of the stairs with his pistol. “Come on, hurry, we’ve got to get out of here or we’ll be smothered by the smoke!”

“Where is he?” Revelation asked again.

“He was the first one to get shot,” Duke said.

“Then he’s wounded, we’ve got to go to him. We’ve got to help him!”

“Revelation, listen to me!” Duke shouted, putting his hands on her shoulders. “He’s dead! There’s nothing we can do for him now. We’ve got to get out of here or we’re going to die, too!”

By now it was practically impossible to breathe, and all three were coughing at every breath.

“Get down on the floor!” James shouted. “It won’t be as thick down there!”

All three dropped to the floor, then crawled to the stairs. When they reached the top of the stairs they launched themselves down, rolling and sliding until they reached the bottom. By now, the lobby was filled with smoke as well and, just as they started toward the main door, part of the ceiling fell in, blocking, with flaming refuse, their only escape route.

“We’re trapped!” Revelation shouted.

In the wavering light of the fire that was consuming the hotel, James saw the lobby hall tree. Picking it up, he tossed it through the window, smashing out the glass.

“Get out through the window,” James shouted over the now roaring flames. “But be careful of the shards.”

James and Duke lifted Revelation through the window. Duke was next, followed by James. Outside the burning hotel, they regained their feet, then, coughing and wheezing, hurried across the street to join the crowd of hotel guests who were watching in horror as the building they had just exited was going up in flames.

By now several of the town’s citizens, awakened by all the noise, had joined the guests.

“Form a bucket brigade!” someone shouted. “We’ve got to save the buildings next door!”

Within minutes, dozens of buckets appeared. A line was formed from a nearby watering trough and, while two men pumped water into the trough to keep the level high, others dipped buckets of water out, passing the filled containers from hand to hand down the line of volunteers toward the fire. They wasted no water by throwing it onto the fire itself; it was already too late for that. Instead, they concentrated on the adjacent buildings in the hope they could prevent them from catching.

Bannack Cemetery Sunday, October 18, 1862:

They buried Matthew Scattergood and the three Butrum brothers in the same cemetery. The Butrums had been buried the day before with nobody but the gravedigger present as the three hastily built pine boxes were lowered into the ground.

Several of the citizens of the town turned out for Matthew’s burial, including Milton Poindexter, the broker who had bought the herd, and Ethan Ellis, the banker. Matthew even had a preacher read over him as the beautiful black and silver casket was lowered.

“Poor Matthew,” Duke said. “He wanted a room next to the street, so we changed rooms. If we hadn’t done that, he would be alive now.”

“And you would be dead,” James said.

“Maybe. But at least the Butrums had some call to want to kill me. They had no call at all to shoot Matthew.”

“Sure they did,” Bob said. “They had the same reason to shoot him that they had to shoot all of us. They wanted our money.”

“I’m convinced that Henry Plummer and his bunch wanted it as well,” James said. “So if you think about it, the Butrums probably did us a favor. They weren’t able to pull off the robbery by themselves. If they had waited, if Plummer and his entire gang had come after us, we might all be lying there.”

“Maybe so, but at least they wouldn’t have gotten the money,” Duke said. “It was smart of you to suggest that we leave it in the bank.”

“Yes,” Bob said. “And I, for one, intend to leave it there, every cent of it, until I head back to Texas.”

“You can’t leave every cent there. You’re going to have to take some of it out,” James said.

“Why is that?”

“You’ll need to buy a suit for the wedding.”