it. That way, nobody will be the wiser.”
On board the coach, Silas Cambridge took out a twist of tobacco and took a bite of it. He offered some to his shotgun guard, Jake Nugent.
“Thank you, no. I never took up the habit.” Nugent broke down his double-barrel shotgun, checked the loads, then snapped it closed.
“You see somethin’?” Cambridge asked.
“Nothin’ in particular. But the horses will be winded when we get to the top of this climb, and if someone is plannin’ on hittin’ us, that’s more ’n likely where it’ll be.” Nugent set the shotgun down by his feet and pulled out his revolver to check it, too.
Dr. Grant, his wife, and three children were inside the coach, wrapped up in buffalo robes against the bitter cold of the Colorado winter season. They were going to Yorkville, in Fremont County, to spend Christmas with Mrs. Grant’s parents.
“Mama, will Grandma and Grandpa have Christmas presents for us?” Joey asked.
“I expect they will,” Mrs. Grant said. “But don’t you be asking for anything when we get there.”
“I won’t. But I wonder what it will be.”
“Whatever it is, you will thank them for it.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will.”
The coach reached the top of the long grade, then it stopped. “Folks,” Cambridge called down. “We’re goin’ to spend a few minutes here so the horses can rest up a bit. If you’d like, you can get out and walk around a bit.”
“Mama, I want to go to the bathroom,” Joey said.
“All right, as soon as we get out, you can go find a rock or a tree.”
The entire family got out of the coach and the driver hopped down to check the harness on his team. Only Nugent stayed where he was, sitting up on the driver’s box.
Joey hurried into the trees, then he saw two men tying off their horses. Forgetting the reason he was there, he started toward them to say hello.
“What about the passengers?” one of the men said. “Are we going to rob them, too?”
The other man chuckled. “Why not? As long as we are robbin’ the stage, we may as well get the whole hog.”
Turning, Joey ran back to the coach, straight to his father. “Papa! Papa!” he said breathlessly. “There’s two men in the woods, and they are going to rob us!”
“Whoa now, Joey,” Dr. Grant caught him. “You aren’t letting your imagination get away from you, are you?”
“No, Papa! I heard them. They said they were going to rob the stage and the passengers.”
Nugent heard Joey and looked down toward the doctor and the others. “Dr. Grant, are you armed?”
“No, sir, I am not.”
Nugent pulled his pistol, handed it down, and pointed to an outcropping of stones away from the trees. “Take your family over there behind those rocks and stay down. If anything goes wrong, use the gun.”
“I’m not skilled with firearms,” Dr. Grant advised.
“You don’t have to be skilled. Just point it and pull the trigger. But let’s hope you don’t have to do that. Now, get over there fast before the robbers come up.”
Dr. Grant nodded and shepherded his wife, whose face reflected her fear, and the three children to the relative safety of the rocks.
“Silas,” Nugent called quietly from the box.
Cambridge looked up from the harness.
“Get over here on this side. Keep the team between you and the trees.”
Cambridge, reading the seriousness in Nugent’s voice, didn’t waste time asking for clarification. He moved to the other side of the team as two men on horseback stepped out of the trees, their faces covered with hoods, their guns drawn.
“All right!” one called out as they approached the coach. “You know what this is. Put your hands up. Which one of you is the driver?”
“I am,” Nugent answered before Cambridge could speak. Both men had their hands raised.
“Ha! Got your shotgun guard tending to your team, huh? Well, I reckon you’re the boss and you can do that.”
“I reckon so,” Nugent replied.
“Call your passengers out.”
“We ain’t carryin’ any passengers.”
“What do you mean you aren’t carrying any passengers? What kind of stagecoach makes a trip with no passengers?”
“A coach that carries only money and mail,” Nugent disclosed.
“Good enough answer. All right. I want you to reach down and bring up the strongbox, then throw it down to us.”
“I’ll have to put my hands down to get to the box.”
“Go ahead.”
Nugent lowered his hands, then reached down toward his feet where the double-barrel shotgun lay. “Silas, where’d you put that box?”
“Don’t you be giving them that box! Don’t you dare give them that box!” Cambridge kept on shouting at the top of his voice, drawing the attention of both armed robbers.
That was exactly what Nugent wanted. The noise covered the cock of the shotgun and when he came up from the floor he fired off one barrel, then the other, and both would-be robbers were blasted out of their saddles.
Nugent jumped down from the driver’s box and hurried over to them. “Doc! You’d better come take a look at these two.”
“I want to see, too!” Joey shouted, running from behind the rocks.
“Joey! You get back here!” Mrs. Grant called.
The boy skidded to a stop and turned around. “Oh, Mama, why can’t I see them? I’ve never seen anyone who was killed before.”
“You just stay here,” Mrs. Grant ordered.
Dr. Grant hurried over to the men and bent down to put his fingers on their necks to find the carotid pulse, though he could tell by looking at the massive wounds in their chests it wasn’t necessary. When he didn’t find a pulse in either, his suspicion was confirmed. “They’re both dead.”
Cambridge squatted down beside the two men and pulled their hoods off.
“I’ll be damned! This is Sheriff Farrell from Bent County!”
“The sheriff? The sheriff was robbin’ us?” Nugent sputtered in disbelief.
“Yes. That’s sure some surprise, ain’t it?”
“Maybe not as big a surprise as you might think,” Dr. Grant replied.
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Back in Pueblo, a rancher there by the name of Luke Shardeen shot one of Ferrell’s deputies. He made the claim the sheriff and his deputy had tried to rob him. Looks like he was telling the truth.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As the sun got lower that evening, the temperature in the car dropped again. Matt shivered, wondering how
