Country of the Saints, and President Taylor is King over Israel on the Earth, and just about every municipal, county, territorial, and federal officer is also one of Taylor’s faithful… Now, I’m not sayin’ they have divided loyalties, but there is just a bit of bad feelin’s between the Feds and the Church right now.”
“Very bad?” I asked.
“Just a tad,” he admitted. “What with Washington trying to make them give up their plural wives and their church property and all… So we’ll have to tread easy.”
“But you will help us apprehend Dennis?” Holmes asked.
“Oh, my pleasure,” Ames assured him, downing what looked like a double whisky. “Apparently, your boy is engaged in movin’ some kind of contraband between here and Wyoming.”
I must have looked a little dubious.
“Oh, it ain’t far,” he said. “It’s just over them mountains to the northeast-you must’ve noticed ’em. There’s an easy trail for a good horseman-I used to ride it myself when I was in the Pony Express with Cody and Hickock.”
This caught my attention. “Good Lord!” I cried. “You mean those chaps in the little soft-covered novels I’ve been buying in the train stations all along our route? I never dreamed they were real people.”
“Oh, they’re realer than most,” he chuckled. “Leastwise, Bill Hickock used to be-damn fool fergot to sit with his back to the wall in Deadwood, a few years back. But I guess those dime novels keep him alive, and they’re good publicity for Bill Cody-you might try ’em yourself, in your line of work, Mr. Holmes, bein’ a sort of freelancer as you are.”
Holmes made an expression of distaste. “I hope, Watson,” he told me, “that you shall never contemplate such yellow puffery in my behalf, despite your tendency to take notes. But Marshal, do I understand you to suggest that this ‘collar’ will best be fastened somewhere outside the city, along this route you mention?”
“It’d sartainly keep the paperwork simpler,” Ames chuckled. “I’d like to do ’er in one of the mountain passes better than in the middle of the desert, too… Don’t want to give ’im a long view of our approach, y’understand. What kind of riders are you gents?”
“I’m afraid the Holmeses had left off being country gentlefolk by my time,” deprecated my companion, “but I fancy I can sit a horse adequately to our purposes.”
“And horsemanship was one thing I acquired in Afghanistan besides a Jezail bullet,” I added modestly. “It was no jest riding in those mountains, either.”
“Especially when slung bottom-foremost in the saddle by your orderly!” laughed Holmes. “At least your acquaintance with our four-legged friends is not limited to the wrong end of a bookmaker’s tally-sheet!”
“Really, Holmes!” I replied. “I wouldn’t have thought that a pint of beer would make you so merry! It must be the thin air at this elevation. I’m surprised the Mormons allow this much alcohol to be served here, too.”
“Actually, they don’t,” admitted Ames, glancing about somewhat furtively as he drained another glass of his own. “It may well be that this is the sort of contraband that no-good Dennis is runnin’. Natcherly, I’m prepared to do my duty and put a stop to it, even if the rascal
So that, reader, is how I found myself encamped under the stars with Ames and Holmes.
“Don’t move,” hissed the motionless Holmes to the Marshal. “Watson! Have you got your service revolver?”
But I was too late. Even as I was shifting for my weapon, the snake-a spotted Massasauga rattler, we later confirmed-struck Ames’s heel, and my shot an instant later tore off its evil head, but was out of time.
The three of us knew well enough how to deal with poisonous snake bites, and I had not outgrown the habit of carrying my medical bag everywhere, so we were easily able to save his life. But there was no question now of the Marshal riding the mountain trail in pursuit of Dennis.
“It’ll be about all I can do to get back to town to the hospital, I reckon,” he lamented. “Your boy will be over the border in Wyoming by the time I can get an officer detailed to you. Damn sorry! But no doubt Dennis’ll make another contraband run sometime soon, he ’ppears to have gotten latched onto a going operation.”
Holmes did not relish a delay, and I doubted our financial benefactress would approve it, either. “Could you not describe the route to us, Marshal,” asked Holmes, “so Dr. Watson and I could secure Dennis on our own?”
Ames chewed his moustache and grimaced, either from the tourniquet we’d applied or the quandary we’d presented. “Well, the way is easy enough to see-bein’ an old Pony Express trail,” he mused. “And I s’pose I could deputize you; you ain’t Americans, but that’s never made much never-mind in this territory. But I still don’t care for it much.”
“Why not?” cried Holmes.
“You have to understand, we were cuttin’ things mighty fine to begin with. We had to wait for the dawn because this trail is so durn precipitous some places that it would be risky even for an experienced rider in the dark. And shoot! Now that the sun’s up, we’ve wasted so much time with this snake folderol that you’d have to do a Pony Express race just to catch up with Dennis before he crosses the border! And frankly, I’m fearful you gents might come to harm tryin’ to go full-out ’round these mountains, unescorted-like.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” Holmes waved his hand dismissively, and to my dismay said, “Dr. Watson is an old Afghan hand who can ride country like this in his sleep. But why does the territorial border matter if we have federal commissions?”
Ames squinted his eyes dubiously at me, as if his suspicions of my prowess as a horseman were much the same as my own. “Well, the federal writ runs both sides of the border, all right,” he acknowledged. “But Jack Taylor has a rough set of Mormon guards up there, and you’re far better off to snag your man before you have to two-step with the Temple brethren.”
Holmes was thoughtful for a moment, and then turned to me. “That settles it,” he said with an air of resolve. “Watson, since I am hardly in your league as a mountain rider, I must follow in your wake as best I can. You must start at once, at full speed, to overtake Dennis before he reaches the border.”
“My dear Holmes,” I assured him fervently, “I’m sure I cannot.”
“Do so all the same,” he replied.
Reader, I did.
Looking at the fire in those keen eyes, I had a prevision of the partnership that would outlast the shadows eternally shifting through those foothills. And though I confess that I heaved a sigh, my pulse racing a little, it did not take me long to saddle my horse, a fine mustang paint called Nestor, which Ames had broken himself, and climb into the stirrups. A few last minute instructions from both my superiors, and I set out at a brisk gallop.
Before long, though, the steepness of the climb and the sharpness of the turns forced me to slow Nestor to a walk. It seemed the pathway skirted one dizzying precipice after another the entire way! But we continued to make the best time we could, and when I looked down at the chasms below us, I blessed my beast’s sure feet.
Sooner than expected, I heard the sound of voices drifting down from above and wondered at first if this might be some trick of the acoustics of the mountains. But not wanting to give our approach away, I stopped and tethered Nestor to some rugged bushes sprouting out of the side of the mountain wall.
Holding my pistol ready, I crept as softly as I could along the path until, rounding a corner, I suddenly found myself staring at a considerable flat expanse in which there was an encampment of several tents. A few young women were busying themselves at some activity, which I had no time to scrutinize because I hastily moved back out of sight. But I was too late. One of the women had seen me, shrieked, and pointed in my direction, and a moment later, a gunshot ricocheted off the rocks, spraying fragments inches from my face just as I leapt back.
This was a fine predicament! I could only reflect back on my Afghan experience for guidance, so I decided that since I knew nothing of the other party’s strength, but knew all too well my own, I should gain little by delay, but might gain something by boldness.
Having a notion of the shooter’s position, to make an impression, I darted out from behind my rocks and hazarded a quick couple of shots, one of which found its mark-for as I ducked for cover again, I was glad to hear a cry of surprise mingled with pain, followed by the sound of a body evidently fallen from some height. This was followed by an unmelodious chorus of feminine wails, and sounds of scurrying feet.
Hard-pressed to know what to do next, I was startled to hear a bold female voice close at hand, beckoning me: “You might as well come out, now, whoever you be-there’s nobody left to shoot back, and I reckon you won’t shoot women, will you?”
