Dead Line Page 4

  The station’s interior was simple. Three small plank tables with ladder-backed chairs nearly filled the front room. A potbellied stove and a cook stove stood in opposite corners. A doorway in the rear wall led into what had to be the station master’s private quarters. Another doorway, in the sidewall, opened into a lean-to add-on. Sage saw plank bunk beds inside, no doubt for travelers’ use. The main room’s sole light came from the veranda-shaded windows on either side of the door and a small one over the kitchen’s enamel basin. Sage didn’t mind the gloom. It was a relief to be away from the sun’s glare. Besides, it was marginally cooler inside.

  Dexter said something to the station master who hurried up with a full whiskey bottle and a tray of glasses. He set three glasses on a nearby table and poured a small amount in each glass.

  The two women took seats together at that table. The older one spoke firmly to the younger in words that carried a slight German accent. “Now, grab hold of your nerves, young lady. Think of it as a great story. You rode in a runaway stagecoach and you’re alive to tell about it. That’s a ‘hello’ from this country you’ll never forget. Years from now, you’ll be telling your kids the story. Wipe away those tears, now. Swallow this whiskey.”

  The young woman snuffled, wiped her face but shook her head mutely. “I don’t believe in spirits. My folks were against them,” she mumbled.

  The older woman was having none of it. “Oh! Such nonsense,” she said. “You’ve had a shock and this will help. It’s medicine, girl. Can’t go missish in this land. It won’t do. Homesteading, you’ll see worse things. It’s a tough land. No place for the chicken-hearted.”

  That argument seemed to work. The younger woman straightened, grabbed the glass and threw its contents back in one smooth move. She immediately began coughing and her eyes again watered.

  The older one chuckled affectionately and said, “All right! I can see you’ve got some grit. You’ll do,” she said. The girl’s response was a weak smile but she straightened in her chair.

  The station master brought the rest of the glasses and the bottle to Sage’s table just as the two cowboys clumped into the small building. Sage stood and offered his hand. “Here’s the fellows who saved the day,” he said to Dexter. “If they hadn’t ridden up and turned the horses, we’d have hit a huge boulder square-on.”

  Sage gestured to the cowboys and said “Have a seat. We’re all having a little whiskey to calm our nerves and I’d sure like to buy you both a shot or two.”

  The cowboys removed their hats and made slight bows toward the ladies, “Howdy Missus Fromm and Miss,” said the older one. The younger one merely grinned, but his dancing blue eyes stayed on the young woman so long she blushed.

  “Why, it’s nice to see you fellows again. It’s been awhile. I’m thinking it must have been at the jack rabbit shoot last summer,” said Mrs. Fromm.

  “Boy howdy,” said the talking cowboy, “That was some fun.

  And so was the schoolhouse dance afterward.”

  That little exchange over, the two cowboys introduced themselves as Jim Brown and Randy Taylor. The older cowboy, Brown, was the talker of the two. “We were riding in and fixing to dismount, when we heard all that racket coming down the canyon. When the wind is low, you can hear a pine cone drop around here. Not that there are any. Old Perry Cram, there, he come running out the station hollering ‘runaway’ and waving his hands in the air like a demented holy roller. So we just kicked our horses and headed up canyon.”

  “If you hadn’t, we would have hit that boulder square on for sure,” Sage said.

  The station master, a short, anxious-seeming man, spoke for the first time. “That boulder rolled loose yesterday. I tried moving it myself this morning but it’s too heavy. What in tarnation set the horses off?”

  Here Dexter jumped in, “Rabid coyote. Same one that set Heck’s team off, I’m betting. Don’t worry, that varmint won’t be charging anyone else. Mr. Miner here, nailed him with a single shot of double-ought. Suspect you can find his carcass. Just look for those circling vultures. Those dadgum birds knew something was going to happen ‘cause they stayed above us all down the canyon.”

  Cram nodded. “I’ll head up real soon and bury him deep. Cow Canyon doesn’t need rabid critters running around. You boys and your horses be willing to help me by moving that boulder?” he asked Brown and Taylor.

  The men exchanged looks and Brown said, “Sure, our boss ain’t expecting us anytime real soon.”

  “What outfit are you fellas with?” asked Dexter. For the first time, Sage detected a hint of reservation in the older cowboy’s answer. “Hay Creek,” he said. “The boss runs a small cattle herd, just to keep his hand in,” he added.

  Sage looked toward Dexter, one eyebrow raised. Dexter obliged by explaining, “Hay Creek’s a sheep ranch in the area. It raises the biggest breed. ‘Rambouillet’ is what they call the critters,” he said the name with a French-sounding flourish. “Not everybody hereabouts likes the sheep business,” he added.

  Ah hah, Sage thought to himself. My first opportunity to hear from folks about the cattle and sheep problem. “Why, what’s wrong with sheep, besides their smell?”

  The two cowboys seemed to relax. After a small sip of his whiskey, the older man answered. “Well, you sure ain’t from Central Oregon,” he began, his tone still friendly. “These days, some of the cattlemen hereabouts hate sheep ranchers, even ones as rich and settled as John Edwards, our boss.” This confirmed what Siringo had told him. Sage kept his face interested and ignorant.

  The cowboy began to drawl a further explanation. “Hay Creek’s been running sheep since the 1870’s. It’s a damn big spread, over 50,000 acres right in the midst of government range. Plenty big enough to keep the flock moving so’s not to over-graze the land.” The cowboy sighed and took another sip. The women had fallen silent.

  “Recent years, though, lots of folks have jumped into the wool business,” the cowboy continued, “And that’s sent heaps more sheep trailing up to the shearing sheds at Shaniko. Now that Shaniko’s a railhead, there’s a straight shot to river shipping at The Dalles. Fact is, they say that The Dalles is the third biggest wool port in the country.”

  Sage leaned forward to add more whiskey to the man’s glass. The cowboy nodded his thanks. “Problem is, not all the wool is raised local. Instead, the sheep flocks are coming from as far south as Klamath Falls and as far east as Boise. Every spring, they herd those sheep to Shaniko. Along the way, they graze the open range down to dirt,” he said.

  The cowboy tilted his glass up and drained it. Without saying a word, Sage grabbed the bottle and refilled the glass. Brown continued his explanation. “Sheep ain’t like cattle. Cattle spread out, chomp off the grass tops and move on. The grass grows back in two or three years.

  “It’s different with sheep. They herd tight together. For safety, I suspect. All that competition means they crop close to the ground. Sometimes they even yank the grass out by its roots. And not just grass. Every darn green thing they see. After a thousand head of sheep move through, it takes too long for the grass to grow back. Sagebrush and weeds take hold instead. Once that happens, the grass is gone forever.”

  The cowboy shook his head. “Folks think those huge herds of woolies ruin the range for cattle. As a cow man, I can’t disagree. Local sheepmen, like our boss, understand the problem. Outsiders, though, don’t plan on staying and don’t care what happens, long as they can get their flocks to and from Shaniko.” Taylor, the younger cowboy piped up, his voice higher than

  Sage expected, “Our boss says it’s the traveling sheep that’s the problem. And, once the traveling sheep get sheared at Shaniko, they turn around and head back to their summer pastures, eating everything they missed when they was a’comin.”

  Silence fell on the group. Sage contemplated plains of sweet grass transformed into a wasteland of prickly clumps of inedible sage. “I guess I haven’t seen much grass so far, come to think of it,” he said.


  The older cowboy nodded. “Yup, that’d be the sheep mostly. And, to be honest, the cattle ruin some of it too. Old timers say that, before us whites came, the bunch grass grew so thick and high that it snagged a man’s stirrups. That’s all gone now.”

  He sighed and returned his to explanation of more recent history, “Afore the Shaniko railhead, homesteaders and the Forest Reserve Act, things were kinda balanced between the local sheep and cattlemen,” here he paused and addressed Mrs. Fromm, who’d shifted at his words as if to speak. “No offense to you, ma’am. Homesteaders like you are fine folk and we are glad to have you as neighbors. But, to prove up his claim, a homesteader has to plant crops and once he gets crops in the ground he has to fence them off to keep animals from eating or trampling them.”

  Turning his attention to the men at his table, he continued, “So, the homesteaders fence off the flat range land. At the same time, that damn Forest Reserve Act closed the slopes of the Cascade Mountains to grazing. Now, we hear they’re planning to do the same in the Ochocos. With the Shaniko railroad drawing thousands of woolies in, there’s way less grazing land for all the animals.”

  The younger cowboy spoke again, his voice subdued and less lively than his flashing smile had been.“The cattlemen had a real hard, double winter not so long ago. They lost most of their herds to hunger, thirst and cold. They’ve been working to build them back up. Losing government range land to the sheep and homesteaders makes it hard to keep the cattle fed and able to survive the winter.”

  Brown interrupted to agree, “Yup, just about the time the cattlemen started to recover from that winter, they started losing grazing land to the sheep. They’re plenty mad. There’s been a bunch of threats thrown around about driving out the local sheep ranchers if they let their sheep graze on government range. Every time you turn around another one of those dead lines is thrown up. It’s got so bad that we need to carry weapons for more than shooting rattlers and four-legged varmints. Matter of fact, we’re on our way to Shaniko. We have to escort our shepherds and the sheep back from the shearing sheds. Five years ago, we could have stayed home and let them wander home on their own.”

  “Are all the cattlemen making threats?” Sage asked, hoping for some names.

  “Enough of them. And something worrisome has made it worse. An old shepherd and his dog disappeared awhile ago down south in the Ochoco Mountains,” the cowboy said glumly. Siringo had mentioned the Kepler brothers’ missing shepherd. “What’s a dead line?” Sage asked, remembering Siringo also mentioning something about the practice.

  The young cowboy jumped in to offer the explanation. “It’s a line they make across the open range. They nail little signs showing a skull and cross bones to trees. And sometimes they just carve a big X in the tree bark. It means if they find you or your sheep on the other side of that tree, they’re going to shoot to kill.”

  Before any more was said, the sales drummer crossed the threshold. His first words, as he settled into a chair at the women’s table, drove all thoughts of dead lines, sheep and cattle from Sage’s mind.

  “They still got that smallpox epidemic going on in Prineville?” the salesman asked, then continued, “Because I’m thinking I might just go up to Charlie Clarno’s place instead. He’s steam boating on the John Day River. There’ll be a lot of travelers heading into and out of the prospecting area. There was a whole bunch of miners in The Dalles planning on heading over to the Sumpter gold fields, near Baker City. They’ll travel on that steamboat too. Maybe, they’ll purchase some of my notions and such.”

  The remainder of the man’s comments passed into Sage’s ears but sounded muffled, as if submerged in a bucket of water, while the words, “smallpox epidemic going on in Prineville,” kept echoing sharp and clear.

  Lucinda was in Prineville. That is what Siringo had said. For the first time, Sage understood why the Dickensen man wouldn’t say Lucinda was alright. His hand suddenly ached. Looking down, Sage noticed his knuckles had gone bone-white from squeezing his glass. Slowly he eased his grip and glanced around. Apparently no one had noticed his reaction.

  FIVE

  “How come no one In Shaniko talked about there being smallpox in Prineville?” Sage asked Dexter once they were again underway. He couldn’t recollect the group’s discussion after the sales drummer shared his news. All he could think of was Lucinda. Did she carry the telltale pits of smallpox on her body? He couldn’t remember. A sudden stab of fear hollowed his stomach.

  “I figured you’d heard about it. Everybody hereabouts knows about the pox. It was in all the newspapers. Anyway, it’s been a few months now. The scare has pretty much died down. Only Prineville still has a case or two. They got themselves a pest house going in the local bordello. Far’s I know, no new cases have sprung up. A doctor came down from Portland and vaccinated lots of folks.”

  “Local bordello,” Sage echoed, his fear increasing. Sure, Lucinda operated a high class, elegant bordello in Portland. But, if she was in a Prineville bordello, how the heck did that happen? His mind flailed to find an explanation. The last he’d known, she’d left for Chicago in the company of a wealthy man. Her leaving had been Sage’s fault. He’d pushed her away.

  Dexter talked on, oblivious to Sage’s mental churnings. “Yup, the madam moved her ladies out and turned the whole place into a hospital while the town fathers ran back and forth like chickens running from the axe. She’s got herself a couple of helpers. They been nursing the sick night and day.”

  After again hawking brown spittle into the road, Dexter said, “‘Course, now that the danger’s nearly over, the mayor and councilmen are throwing their shoulders out of joint patting themselves on the back. You watch. Once the smallpox is gone, everybody in town will lickety-split forget what Miz Xenobia Brown did for them. But, I tell you,” here Dexter’s weathered face turned fierce, “Me and some other fellows sure won’t forget any time soon.”

  The stagecoach rolled out of Cow Canyon and into a small valley where leafy trees bordered a meandering creek. The Willowdale Station sat at the creek’s edge in the shade of tall oaks. Both women deboarded. Mrs. Fromm stepped into the arms of a weathered man who had two half-grown children standing by his side. He hugged her so hard she squealed like a little girl. The new school marm shyly stood to one side. Mrs. Fromm finally struggled loose, grabbed the young woman’s hand and pulled her close.

  “Good,” Sage thought, “she won’t be left on her own.” But that was just a passing thought. Mostly he was impatient, eager to get going. Dexter must have felt the same because he didn’t tarry. The coach rolled south as soon as the horses drank their fill. Sage kept his seat atop the stagecoach, although the compartment below was empty of all but the sales drummer. Dexter’s friendly chatter failed to override worrisome thoughts. Where was Lucinda? Was she okay? Those two questions became a chant in his head. He tried to ignore the horrific image of her lively, bright face turned scarred and waxen.

  Relief came when Fong’s voice sounded in his head. “Worry with no chance to find solution, is like trying to catch handful of air. Walk on. Time will provide answer.” So, Sage tried to mentally walk on by re-visiting the promise he’d made to Charlie Siringo. The Dickensen agent exited Mozart’s echoing Lucinda’s written concern: “There’s mighty fine folks in Central Oregon who will suffer if the two of us don’t put a stop to the shenanigans.”

  Now that Sage had a met a few of those good folks, he felt that familiar claw of obligation and loyalty grab hold. He liked the cowboys who’d saved them. Plain speaking, humble, the kind of no-frills hardworking people he himself came from. And, he’d admired Mrs. Fromm and her kindness to the teacher. And there was that young woman, determinately heading into a life as foreign to her as the moon’s backside. His mother, Mae Clemens, would feel right at home with these tough-spirited folk. His mother. He wished she were here. Her pithy little sayings always bucked him up.

  “What do you hear about placer gold on Scissors Creek?” he asked Dexter, hopin
g to distract himself. He might as well start practicing his role of would-be gold prospector. No way he could pretend to be a cowboy. He couldn’t ride worth a darn. And, he knew nothing about sheep. Gold panning, however, was something he knew inside and out. After a year in the Klondike, sluicing in the chill waters of Rabbit Creek, he’d become both expert and rich.

  “You’d do better heading east over to the Sumpter gold fields with that sales drummer,” Dexter said. “Folks have found some color in the Scissors but it’s so piddling small, it’s hardly worth the bother.”

  Of course, Sage wouldn’t pan long. He couldn’t investigate a range war while standing in a remote creek. Tiny nuggets from his Klondike strike were stashed deep inside his pack. He planned to spend a few days up in the mountains, maybe get seen up there by someone and then hit his “strike.” No one would think it odd to see a prospector, gold burning a hole in his pocket, hanging around town.

  The stage stopped briefly at the prosperous Hay Creek Ranch with its gigantic barn. Barbed wire fences ran away across rolling hills. A burnt-orange ridge marked its northern boundary. The road they’d been traveling continued due east. It was the second route to Ashwood. The sales drummer, deciding he wanted no part of smallpox-infested Prineville, left the stage at Hay Creek. He planned to travel east through Ashwood and then north to Clarno.

  Puzzled by the fact Dexter hadn’t even gotten down off the seat, Sage asked why they weren’t stopping over, if for no other reason than to stretch their legs.

  “Well, Perry Cram back in Cow Canyon told me that there’d been a case or two of smallpox here at Hay Creek. After a couple of stagecoach drivers caught it and died, I got myself vaccinated but since I don’t know about you, I figured we best not linger,” said Dexter as he clucked the horses into action.

  Their road trailed south up a fairly steep grade and past a distant water tank before settling down into a level route carved from the side of a gently rolling hill. Sheep grazed high in a pasture on the right side. Two gray mule deer bounded away downhill on the left. Bird song filled the air, the calls and chirps louder than coach rattles and horse clops. They rumbled onward, the stagecoach’s high wheels trapped in deep parallel ruts. In the wet or the winter, this would be a treacherous road. Sage said as much to Dexter.