“You heard the man,” McKendrick told the other Mounties. “I’d like to see what this … gentleman … thinks is going to change my mind.”
Reb slid his free hand inside his buckskin shirt. He brought out a small leather folder. “I’ll toss it to you, Frank,” he said. “You can show it to the sergeant.”
Frank nodded. “All right.”
Carefully, Reb lofted the folder through the air to Frank, who caught it and flipped it open before handing it to McKendrick. A badge and an identification card were pinned inside the folder.
“So you’re really Captain Russell,” Frank said.
Reb nodded. “That’s right. Attached to the U.S. Secret Service right now. I was sent up here to try to get on the trail of those Gatlin’ guns. Once I did, I was supposed to contact your folks, Sergeant, and let you know where they were so the Mounties could recover ‘em. If we were somewhere you could send a wire to Ottawa, you could confirm that pretty quick-like.”
“But we’re not, are we?” McKendrick snapped. “So I’m left with the decision of whether or not to accept this preposterous story.”
“It’s not preposterous,” Reb said. “You’ve got my badge and bona fides right there.”
McKendrick shook his head. “Anyone can have a badge and an identification card made.”
“You don’t give up easy, do you?”
McKendrick gave him a flinty look. “I’m a sergeant in the North West Mounted Police. Of course I don’t give up easily.”
Frank said, “For what it’s worth, Sergeant, I believe him. Ever since I met him, my gut’s been telling me there was something I didn’t know about Reb, and I reckon this is it.”
Salty squinted at the young man. “Was you really at the ro-day-o down in Pecos?”
“Yeah,” Reb replied with a grin. “I’ve been travelin’ around competin’ in rodeos for a while. Gives me a good excuse for bein’ where I need to be when the Army and the Secret Service send me on a job.” He looked at McKendrick again. “How about it, Sergeant? Are we gonna work together, the way your government and my government intended, or does there have to be a ruckus?”
“You’re heavily outnumbered, you know,” McKendrick reminded him. “You can’t hope to prevail.”
“I’ll take my chances. And
Frank finally lost his temper. “Blast it, while we’re standing around here jawing, the varmints we’re after are getting farther away. All the signs indicate that they’re headed for Calgary, Sergeant, so that’s the way we all want to go. There’s no need for a bunch of argument.”
McKendrick drew in a deep breath, held it for a second, and then said, “I suppose you’re right, Mr. Morgan. There’s no need to press the issue. Would you like your weapons returned to you?”
“I sure as hell would,” Salty said.
McKendrick handed the revolvers back to Frank and the old-timer. “Consider yourselves no longer under arrest.”
“I never really did,” Salty said as he pouched his iron.
“We’ll call this a truce,” McKendrick went on.
Frank said, “That works for me. We don’t have our saddles anymore, but we can rig blankets on our horses and use rope for hackamores.”
Getting ready to ride didn’t take long. Frank helped Salty onto one of the horses. The old-timer was still pretty stiff and sore from his wound.
Reb had holstered his gun, but he kept a wary eye on McKendrick and the other Mounties as the party moved out, heading east. The three Americans rode at the head of the group with McKendrick.
“How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Calgary?” Frank asked.
“If we’re not delayed, we should reach there late this afternoon or early this evening.”
Frank nodded slowly. “The Metis have enough of a lead that we can’t catch them. They’re going to get to the settlement before we do. That’s going to make it harder to find them.”
“There are several thousand people in Calgary,” McKendrick said. “It’s going to be a difficult task.”
Reb said, “It’s worse than that. They’re havin’ their annual livestock exhibition, with that rodeo comin’ up any day now. Folks from all over this part of the country will be in town for that, so the population’ll be two or three times what it usually is.”
McKendrick looked over at him. Even the sergeant’s usual self-control was shaken. “My God,” he muttered. “And you say these so-called revolutionaries have Gatling guns?”
“Four of them,” Frank said, “and from the sound of it, a perfect opportunity to raise plenty of hell with them.”
Calgary was both frontier cowtown and bustling industrial city these days. The downtown area had numerous brick buildings rising several stories high, but around Victoria Park, on the Elbow River where the stream curved up from the south to join with the Bow River, Calgary still looked like the cow country settlement it had been more than fifteen years earlier when it first grew up around the North West Mounted Police post established there.
There was even a hotel called the Drover’s Rest. That was where Joseph and Charlotte Marat found themselves this evening, along with Anton Mirabeau.
Joseph had tried all day to talk Mirabeau out of his plan, but the man would not be budged. Attacking the Mountie post was one thing. The Mounties had killed Metis in the past.
