breathing hard. The driver was putting the whip back in its holder when the four men stepped out from behind the rocks. Each of them was wearing a kerchief around the bottom half of his face, and holding a pistol, leveled at the coach.
“You folks inside, climb out here!” Dinkins shouted.
Three men climbed down, and as they did so, Calhoun produced a pistol and fired at the robbers, but missed. Dinkins and the others returned fire, riddling the coach with bullets. The rancher and the salesman went down. When the messenger made a move for his shotgun, he was killed. McVey jumped down from the driver’s seat, and ran off the road and into the rocks along with the doctor. Dinkins and the others pointed their guns at them and pulled the triggers, but all the firing pins fell on empty chambers. Not one of them had a charged cartridge remaining.
“Damnit!” Dinkins shouted angrily. Quickly, he and the others reloaded, but it was too late, the driver and passenger had already gotten away.
“Travis, look in the coach!” Dinkins ordered.
Cautiously, Travis approached the coach, then peered in through the window. He saw three women, drenched with blood.
“What’s in there?”
“Just women,” Travis called back. “And all three are dead.”
As Travis was checking inside the coach, Harley climbed up onto the driver’s seat. Looking underneath the seat he found a canvas bag, marked ESCALANTE BANK. With a whoop, he held it up.
“Look here boys, what I found!”
“What is it?”
Harley cut through the canvas, stuck his hand inside, and pulled out a handful of greenbacks. “Money, boys! Lots of money!” Harley shouted.
“Now what did I tell you? When Bill Dinkins plans a job, he does it right. Come on down, Wes. Let’s get out of here.”
Inside the coach, Mary Dawson lay uninjured, but pinned to the floor of the coach by the bodies of the other two women. She lay quietly until she was sure the outlaws had left. Only then did she start trying to work her way free. When she raised up and looked down at the two women whose bodies had held her down, she nearly gagged over what she saw. Both women had multiple gunshot wounds, and there was so much blood it was almost an inch thick on the floor of the coach.
Mary felt sick to her stomach at the grizzly sight, and knew she had to get out of the coach. By the time she climbed out, McVey and Dr. Potter were returning.
“Good Lord, Miss Dawson, how badly are you hurt?” Dr. Potter asked, seeing all the blood on her.
“I’m not hurt,” Mary replied. “But I think the other two ladies, Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Johnson, are dead.”
Dr. Potter checked on the two women, then nodded. “They’re dead.” He checked Evans and Calhoun. “They are, too.”
As Dr. Potter was checking on the passengers, McVey had climbed up to the box to check on Conway. “Doc, you want to come up here and take a look at Burt?”
Using the spokes of the front wheel, Dr. Potter climbed up to the box to stand beside McVey. Although there were no visible wounds on the shotgun guard’s body, he was very still, and his eyes were open and opaque. Dr. Potter put his hand on Conway’s neck, but could find no pulse. Then he saw the wound, a bullet hole over his heart, not immediately visible because of the way he was positioned. “There’s the wound.”
“How is he?” Mary called up to him.
“He’s dead,” Dr. Potter called back down.
“Doc, if you will help me, we’ll get the bodies laid out up here,” McVey said quietly. “I think it would be better for Miss Dawson, and for you, if you didn’t have to ride in the coach with them.”
“I’ll be glad to help you,” Dr. Potter said, climbing back down.
McVey looked down at Calhoun’s body. He was still clutching the pistol in his hand, the pistol from which only one shot had been fired.
“Here is the dumb son of a bitch who caused all this,” McVey said.
“That’s not fair, Mr. McVey,” Dr. Porter replied. “He didn’t cause it. The road agents caused it. He was just doing what he thought was right.”
“It was Bill Dinkins,” Mary said.
“What?” McVey asked. “Bill Dinkins? Are you sure?”
“Yes. I heard his name.”
“Then I take it back,” McVey said. “Dinkins is a cold-blooded murderer. Like as not he would have shot us all whether Mr. Calhoun took a shot at him or not.”
It took a good ten minutes to get the four bodies lifted up to the top of the coach to join with Conway’s body, which was already lying there.
“Are we going back to Escalante?” Dr. Potter asked.
“No,” McVey said. “We are going on. We are only two hours from Suttle, six hours back to Escalante. We’ll send a telegraph message back when we reach Suttle.”
One of the reasons this was the coach turnout was because of proximity of water, from Tomichi Creek. A pipe from the creek kept a watering trough filled for livestock that passed through. Dr. Potter wet his handkerchief in the trough, then used it to wash away the blood from Mary’s face, hands, and arms. “There’s nothing I can do about your dress, I’m afraid.”
