Chapter 19

Saturday, July 4, 1891

The Jefe woke me. I’d turned in about one-thirty, in the security contingent’s crew car, after Doctor Rivera had amputated the Patron’s hand. The Patron had yet to regain consciousness.

The Jefe had sent wires to Dixie Yeats and Bill McCroskey at Wichita, and to Missus Malik at Waypoint. He asked Bill to send Moira Daley and one other Intelligence officer to Santa Fe. He also wired Fort Birney and advised the Division to cooperate in whatever travel plan Beatrice Malik decided upon, including a special train, which the Jefe encouraged them to offer. Any train the Maliks were on was to receive top priority.

He said to me, “It’s five-thirty.” The early summer sun was bathing everything in an orange glow.

I rolled up to sit on the side of the bunk. I could hear the other men coming awake.

The fireman said, “Steam’ll be up in twenty minutes,” as he went out the door.

The Jefe said, to everyone, “Danek has a pot of coffee and some biscuits in the depot.”

I asked, “How’s the Patron?”

“Much the same. Still unconscious.”

“Have you heard from Missus Malik?”

He showed a grim smile. “Someone broke some speed limits last night,” he said. “They got them to Fort Birney in time to catch the eastbound Santa Fe, which, fortunately, was running twenty minutes late. They should be here around ten-thirty or eleven.”

He and I climbed down from the caboose and walked over to the depot. Inside, I filled a mug with coffee, then dipped the edge of a biscuit in it, biting off that corner...

Danek Brazda, looking bedraggled, walked over and asked the Jefe, “Mister Castillo, do you know anything about a training session for a new type of rail tie-down?”

Looking puzzled, the Jefe replied, “We’ve been looking at the screw type, like they use in England, but we have not decided to change from the spike, and I know of no reason to train anyone. Why do you ask?”

“Chama sent an inquiry to Lamy. Seems the Echo Cliffs section crew was ordered up to Chama yesterday, for training in a new fastener today. But no one seems to know anything about it.”

The two sergeants and the corporal who had come up from Lamy last night had been listening close by. Sergeant Lee Ming said, “As Sir Geoff is fond of saying, ‘Be suspicious of coincidences.’”

There was a Division map on the wall behind the service counter and Lee walked over to it. He put his finger on a spot on the track midway between Abiquiu and Cebolla. “That’s Echo Cliffs, the only manned Kanzona location in that thirty-two mile stretch.”

I said, “We were all up and down that track when those bulls disappeared. What’s along there?”

Sergeant Martin Cortes said, “Used to be several working mine sites, but the veins played out and the wreckers came in and tore up the spurs. Nothin’ much up there, now, but for a few rancheros.”

I looked at the Jefe. “You said Moira and someone else from Intelligence is coming out?”

“They will not arrive before tomorrow morning.”

I sighed. “Well, unless we’ve come up with something else, have them research the history of that stretch, por favor.” (pore FAH-vore, “please”)

“Fine.”

I looked around and said, “Unless any of you fellas have a better idea, I reckon we ought to start with that stretch. We’ll debark at Abiquiu (AH-bih-cue) and work our way north to Cebolla (seh-BOY-ah).”

The three security officers glanced at one another, then Lee looked over to me and said, “Seems to make the most sense.”

I looked toward the Jefe, again. “We’ll tap the company wire every couple hours to check in ... where? Here or Lamy?”

The Jefe turned to Brazda. “Do you have good coverage today?”

“My wife’s coming in to help. She can work a key with the best of them. I’ll be bunking in the freight room, if they need me.”

I said, “Here, then. You’ll let Lamy know?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Then we’d best get a move on.”

Ninety minutes later, we were on a siding at Abiquiu, forty-eight miles northwest of Santa Fe. The train crew had spotted our stock car at a loading chute, and we were saddling our mounts.

I said, “These are nice horses.”

Lee said, “We have a larger than usual string, because of that relief pasture.”

“Well, yeah, makes sense.”

We mounted up and I turned to them. “Abiquiu says the rustler’s train, or what we believe was the rustler’s train, came through at ten forty-two last night. Cebolla saw no through trains since yesterday afternoon and can account for their switchers. Logic would tell us that the rustler’s train is somewhere between her and Cebolla. Can anyone shoot a hole in that?”

I received head shakes and murmurs of no.

“Last March, when we lost those bulls,” I said, “we searched along the right-of-way. This time, let’s ride out a ways. One man about thirty yards out on either side, another thirty yards beyond that. If you run up against an obstruction, come back toward the right-of-way. I’ll take the outside left. Sing out if you spot something. If it’s urgent, one shot draws attention, two shots means danger or I need help.”

A little past three, we were coming up on a creek and I was going to call for a rest break to water the horses, when Sergeant Cortes, on the right flank, started shouting and waving for us to come over.

We had just passed a switch, a cut out to the east, leading to a stubbed spur. What it amounted to was an old mine spur that had had the rails removed. The switch was locked closed, there was a warning sign, and the remaining thirty feet of stubbed rails had their ends been heated and bent upward in an obvious display of inaccessibility for rolling stock. The other men had gathered by those curled-up rails.

By the time I got there, they were dismounted and excitedly kicking sand off some buried tracks that extended beyond the presumed stub. I got down to look at the rail ends which curved up into the air about three feet. The rail leading to them was covered in sand. When I kicked it away, I found the twisted rail ends had been attached to the rails with bolts through a welded-on flange; they were entirely false.

By this time, the other officers had cleared the rails another few yards to the point where the track ran under a six-foot high jumble of tumbleweeds that was about thirty feet wide and maybe ten feet front-to-back.

Corporal Peterson said, “Why are these here? There’s nothing for them to fetch up against.” Tumbleweed, as a means of dispersing its seeds, were naturally constructed to be blown about by the wind. Eventually, the dried plant would encounter something to block its progress: trees, rocks, a gully, a fence, a barn, or the like. Often, dozens, or even hundreds of the round, dead bushes could be caught on the other tumbleweeds stopped by the obstruction. In this instance, even though there were trees nearby, the round shrubs were gathered on open ground and looked like they had come together of their own choice.

Sergeant Lee had been searching along the edge of mound. He said, “Look over here.” He was pointing at something on the ground amidst the tumbleweeds. He added, “Somebody’s staked them down. There’s a cord leads over the top toward the other side.”

I said, “Let’s just leave them and find out where these tracks go.”

We walked around the stacked tumbleweeds to find that, on the other side, the tracks were only lightly buried, and led off toward the narrow mouth of a nearby canyon, then immediately around a bend, and out of sight.

“Holy cow,” Peterson exclaimed. “This has got to be it.”

“It would certainly answer all the questions left unanswered from the March theft,” I said.

Lee added, “This is a pretty clever set-up. We might want to be cautious closing in on these yahoos.”

I asked, “Anybody know what’s up there?”

Cortes said, “Where are we, anyway? I’m a mite turned around. I’m not used to seeing this country from horseback.”

I said, “I figure we’re about nine miles from Cebolla.”

“So that would put us about mile marker eighty-eight,” he mused. “Ah, I’m pretty sure that would have been the Bohr Brothers mine. Pulled a right tidy sum from it, too, as I recall, enough to lose it all on that Dos Picos debacle.

Peterson said, “Sarge, would you please stick to either English or Spanish. None a’ that Greek.”

“Greek? What, you mean ‘debacle’? It does kind of bounce around in the mouth, but it’s not Greek, or at least I don’t think it is. Do you know, Inspector?”

“Nope. Word origins weren’t taught in Tucson, at least not in the first twelve years. I know it means something that’s been messed up in a big way.

“But hold on a minute, Sergeant. Are you talking about Albert Bohr, the man who owned the Dos Picos Mountain Railroad?”

“Yes, sir. Didn’t you put him in prison?”

“Well, I’m the one that caught him trying to make off with a bunch of rolling stock and about seventy miles of steel rail, all of which he’d already sold to us. He did go to prison for it.”

“I remember that,” Cortes said. “Well, as the mine’s name says, Albert had a brother, Arnold, and they were in business together. Albert was like the president, he made the decisions, the bad decisions, in his case. His brother was like a general superintendent. He ran things.”

“Including their railroad?”

“As far as I know.”

“And this was their mine spur?”

Cortes said, “I believe that’s where we are, sir.”

“And what does Sir Geoff say, Sergeant Lee?”

“Be suspicious of coincidences, Inspector.”

All four of us stood looking toward the mouth of the canyon.

“Any of you ever been up to the mine or know this canyon?” I asked.

After a moment, Lee said, “I don’t think so, sir. I do remember from the Division map it’s about nine miles up to the mine and its in canyons all the way.”

I said, “Then here are the choices that I see: One, we just ride up the canyon like we’re on our way to a picnic. Two, we ride up the canyon like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Three, we work our way up the canyon, on foot, using two-by-two advancement tactics. Or, four, we requisition a locomotive with a few empty stock cars to push in front of it and we ride up the canyon, behind a stack of cross ties and sand bags.”

“What are you concerned we might encounter, sir?” Lee asked.

“In fact, I don’t expect to encounter anything, except a cooling locomotive and some empty stock cars. I doubt anyone can shelter many cattle in this canyon country for long, so I expect they’ve driven them off to somewhere with more grass. They went to a lot of trouble and risk to acquire those bovines and I doubt they planned to abuse them.

“On the other hand, there could be some form of ambush, by firearms or even explosives. And I know that ‘safety first’ is more than just a slogan to the Pat ---- uh, to Mister Malik and Mister Castillo. So I propose we advance under cover and hope that everyone can poke fun at me for being overly cautious when we get there. Unless someone has another approach?”

Peterson said, “How about getting some more men, sir?”

“The Division has what? Two sergeants, two corporals and four privates? Eight of you, nine with Lieutenant Foster?”

Cortes said, “That’s right, Inspector.”

“Well, we can’t leave the rest of the Division unprotected. I was thinking of asking for two more men. But you sergeants know the needs better. What do you recommend?”

Lee and Cortes looked at one another and I heard muttered names, then Cortes said, “If it’s just for one day, leave the Lieutenant with Corporal Ma, and bring everyone else up here with rifles and shotguns and the ties and sandbags.”

“Okay,” I said. “You men set up camp over by the creek while I code a wire.”

We walked back around the tumbleweed wall only to find a mounted rider by our horses, which we’d left tied to the switch stand. None of us had brought our long guns from the horses, though we all carried revolvers. The men started unsnapping their holster flaps. Then I realized the rider somehow seemed familiar to me.

I said, “Hold on. I’m not sure, but I think I might know him.”

As the rider continued in a small circle, Peterson said, “Not a ‘him’, sir. That looks like a woman to me.”

I couldn’t believe it. It was Peng Yan. I said, “Forget the pistols, fellas, that’s Mister Malik’s bodyguard, Peng Yan. She’s been ill and must be better, now. Let’s see what she has to say.”

Peterson asked, “The Peng Yan? The one who taught some classes at Wichita?”

“That’s her, muchacho,” Cortes said. (Muchacho: boy, male youngster; a friendly term for an adult male underling or companion.)

“Miss Peng,” I called. “It’s Wayne DeWitt.” She rode over toward us.

“How is the Patron?” I asked, when she was near.

“Unchanged,” she said, remaining in the saddle.

I said, “Miss Peng, these are Sergeants Lee and Cortes, and Corporal Peterson. Gentlemen, Miss Peng Yan.”

She gave them a curt nod and asked, “What have you discovered?”

I said, “This spur was supposedly torn out years ago. However, it’s still functional and has been well hidden, including that wall of tumbleweed, which is an artificial stack. Formerly, the spur was built for a mine owned by the Bohr brothers. They subsequently owned the town of Dos Picos and the Dos Picos Mountain Railroad. My discovery of Albert Bohr’s attempt to steal a train load of materiel is how I first met the Patron. Albert went to prison, I wasn’t aware of the brother, Arnold, until today.”

Still on horseback, she looked around, then, peering down at me, asked, “What’s your plan?”

“To get a locomotive and some stock cars, and a few more men, and go up the canyon behind cover on the rolling stock tomorrow morning.”

“You realize there’s probably no one up there.”

“I do”

“But safety first, right?”

“I am an employee of the K and ASR. Besides, they’ll be trailing a herd of cattle. Even if they’ve left, they won’t have gone very far.”

“I’m not being critical, Inspector. In your position, it is the correct decision to make. However, I am no longer employed by the railroad.”

With that, she wheeled her horse and rode off toward the mouth of the canyon, passing from our sight in less than a minute.

“Sweet mother!” Peterson said, sotto vocé. “I’ve never met a scarier person in my life. She looked like she could breathe fire.”

“I’m pretty sure she can,” I said.

(Saturday, July 4, 1891)

Sunday, July 5, 1891

As expected, our reinforcements and preparations proved to be unnecessary. No one said anything, though. I think Miss Peng’s pronouncement the day before may have helped cement the company’s safety policy in the minds of the other officers. In any event, I hope so. Cattle aren’t worth dying for, even if we have a business setback. Men’s lives shouldn’t be the price of doing business.

The rustler’s train was found about five miles up the canyon spur, at a spot where another canyon joined it from the east.

After lunch, I sent everyone back on the reinforcements train, except for my original squad and Private Owens, who I added to our pursuit group. He brought a pack mule, along with his horse.

The cattle had been driven up to the head of the intersecting canyon, where a narrow defile opened onto a pass through a range of low mountains. The trail led northeast. Occasionally, I spotted what I thought might be Miss Peng’s horse’s tracks. It looked like she kept her horse at a steady canter. We traveled more at a trot. It was a bit rougher on us, but it was the best gait to preserve the horses for the long trail.

We passed the tiny settlement of Ojo Caliente (OH-ho cah-lee-EN-tay) midafternoon and found ourselves on the floor of the Rio Grande valley by sundown. The river, itself, was still some miles off, and in a deep gorge. We camped by a small creek, tended to the livestock, and had supper. I set a watch schedule, putting myself on at midnight. Then I turned in, exhausted. I think the rest of them sacked out early, too.

(Sunday, July 5, 1891)

Monday, July 6, 1891

We were up in the gray of dawn. I had just set a pot of coffee on the coals when a voice called from the dusky dark, “Hello, the camp.”

Recognizing the voice, I called, “Come on in, Miss Peng, and welcome.”

That caused a stir amongst the men, and their sluggish movements became more energetic.

Miss Peng came in with three plucked and gutted prairie hens. “For lunch,” she said, handing them to Private Owens, who had been stuck with the kitchen chores.

“Did you find them?” I asked.

She looked at me from under her brow, her expression conveying pity for someone who could ask such a stupid question.

“Your cattle are about fifteen miles due north of here, about a mile east of a town called Tres Piedras (trace pee-AY-drahs). I paid a couple boys to watch them.”

By this point, the others had gathered at the fire.

“The rest of your bulls, from back in March, are on a ranch on the east side of a small mountain called Wild Horse Mesa. That is up in Colorado, between the state line and the town of San Luis (sahn loo-EES), on the east side of the San Luis Valley.”

“What happened to the rustlers?” Cortes asked.

“Albert Bohr and Arnold Bohr?”

“If that’s who they were, yeah. Did you catch them?” Cortes persisted.

“They are both dead. They died resisting arrest. Arnold lived long enough to give me the details.”