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Short Stories & Tall Tales
It takes a Woman
By William S. Hubbartt
“Too rich for me blood,” said the miner, in a distinct Irish brogue, as he laid his cards face down on the table and scooped up his remaining two gold nuggets. “I’m tapped out.”
“Unfortunate, my dear man. It’s been a pleasure, as always.” The portly man in the dirty sweat stained white suit and red vest quickly pulled the nuggets and coins from the center of the table to the pile just inches from his round belly. “Perhaps your luck will be better tomorrow.”
The dejected miner stepped back from the table, his red hair and beard, both long and matted, reflected the rough dirty life of a gold prospector seeking his fortune in the California Sierras in 1850.
“Who’ll be next,…in the game of chance? Opportunities abound. Build your fortune here rather than digging in the muck and the mud.” His chair moaned as the 300 pound man leaned forward to bite into a roasted goose leg, dribbling grease onto his jowls, then splashing it down with a glass of whiskey and wiping his double chin with his sleeve. His eyes locked onto a man entering the bar. “How about you, sir? A game of chance? Leverett Laramore the Third, cousin to the Duke of Willowshire, at your service.”
“That fatso never worked a day in his life,” said observed the buckskin clad hunter known as Mountain Mike to the local fellow standing next to him at the Placer Place bar. Placer Place was a roadhouse saloon and general store catering to gold miners in the Auburn area, sitting along the road midway between Sutter’s Fort in the California central valley and the Sierras to the east. They watched as Laramore drew another unwitting sucker into the card game. When the cards were shuffled and bets were laid down, Laramore looked up around the room and gave a subtle nod. A crusty weathered old coot shuffled over to Laramore and placed a new glass of whisky on the table. Their eyes met in a conspiratorial glance, and a raised eyebrow.
“You cheatin’ me?” Laramore’s arm exploded across the table, with a pocket pistol appearing out of nowhere just inches from the face of the third player. The man’s arms and hands quickly went up and a “no no” was silently mouthed as his head shook left and right.
“Ain’t an honest bone in his body; he’s the one cheatin’, but he’s accusing the other,” said Mike, an astute observer of the human character. He asked, “Who’s the confederate,…the old coot? I trailed him up from Sutter’s Fort.”
The local looked over his shoulder, checking to see who was in hearing distance. Then he tipped his head back to down a swallow of whiskey before answering. “The old guy is Ebenezer,...hangs with another called Jackson. A pack o’ thieves,…claim jumpers, I hear tell.”
## ##
The next morning Mike was up at the crack of dawn, listening to the trill of a flock of chickadees high in the pines as he stoked the coals of his camp fire to heat some coffee. A morning mist shrouded the treetops, as the day slowly lightened. With a thick mop of silver hair, weathered skin and a sun creased countenance, Mike had spent most of his 60 plus years on the prairies and mountain slopes, living off the land as a trapper, hunter, trail guide and friend of the Indians. Drawing on charm, wit, and natural instinct that comes with living in the wild, this mountain man was as comfortable facing the day after a night in an Indian lodge or a bedroll under the stars. Reading people or reading sign, tracking an animal or trailing a man, it was all in a day’s work for Mountain Mike.
Mike reflected on the circumstances that had led him to this quest. Ebenezer and his partner Jackson, had tried to steal part of the family fortune of the prominent Trainer family of San Francisco. They had attempted to steal a gold shipment from a riverboat after its departure from Sutter’s Fort down river to the city. Guards had thwarted the theft, but in the confusion, Ebenezer had pushed daughter Anne Trainer off the boat where partner Jackson was waiting on shore, in hopes of demanding a ransom for her return. Weighed down by her long dress and petticoats, Anne began to sink. Jackson had pulled the struggling woman from the water and spirited her away. Before the guards discovered his role, Ebenezer had departed from the boat at the first ferry stop and then met up with Jackson and his hostage in the trek to the mountains. The Trainer family had retained Mountain Mike to find Anne because of his tracking and trailing skills.
James Trainer, Anne’s brother insisted on coming along on the search. Mike began his tracking along the shore of the Sacramento River in the area where the abduction occurred. He had found evidence of a camp ground, where two horses had been tethered, and a trail that lead eastward towards the mountains. The trail had turned cold at Auburn, but the sighting of Ebenezer in the roadhouse confirmed that he was on the right track.
“Oh, sore back,…is that coffee I smell,” groaned James, finally stirring as the aroma of coffee filled the air. “I miss my bed in the City. Why can’t we stay at Placer Place? At least they have beds there.”
“Those walls have ears, my friend,” replied Mike as he poured the steaming brew into two tin cups. “There’s a gambler in town, working the saloon, he’s behind this, likely has spies all over,…I need you to stay in camp right here, one more day.”
“Why? Anne’s my sister! I should be there with you, bustin’ noses, getting ’em to spill the beans.”
“’Fraid not, my friend,” said Mike his slow mountain drawl. “One look at you, in those city slicker duds there, you would raise their dander,… spook ‘em. I’m watching ‘em like a bobcat on the prowl, in the background, outta sight. ‘Nother day or two in the saloon, listening and watching. Soon, ole Ebenezer will lead us right to the girl. Then we’ll pounce when they’re not expecting it.”
## ##
The next day, Mike visited the Placer Place, and learned that Leverett Laramore had pulled his card game and left that morning. The corpulent gambler and the skinny Ebenezer had been seen together at the livery stable. Mike struck up a conversation to the stable owner seeking details of his morning customers, but upon learning the inquiry related to the gambler, the man suddenly clammed up and walked away. Mike persisted, and a pebble sized gold nugget refreshed the man’s memory.
The stable owner revealed, “that there gambler feller, mighty big man, he needed a heavy draft horse. Took a bay with white stockings.”
“And the other, the old coot?” Mike persisted.
“That old guy. He had had his own horse, a mare, kept her for a couple of nights, ah, it was a chestnut mustang. Broken rear shoe. Too cheap to pay me to fix it. He’ll pay in the end.”
Mike checked the stables, to examine the track of each horse. The broken shoe horse was one of those tethered down by the river where Miss Trainer had been captured. Mike now knew which tracks to follow.
He met up with James, and they headed to the eastern road out of town and into the mountains. A short while later they paused where a path broke away from the main trail. Mike stepped down from his horse to check the tracks. Just to his left, his Kentucky long rifle was propped up against the tree, and the Arkansas toothpick was hung handily in a leather sheath on the right hip. He turned to his traveling companion.
“ Readin’ sign,… they passed by here about four hours ago. See here, heavy imprints carrying fatso, and a broken shoe on the other. Easy to follow on this deer trail. They’re headin’ east o’re the Sierras making an escape to their camp just under the peak. Likely they’re camped over by that mountain lake, called Tahoe. Rough country, likely two-three days ride. We’ll catch’m at their campsite.”
Mike led the pair through the thick timber up into the mountains. The villains’ horses never deviated from the deer trail. About mid-afternoon, Mike jumped from his horse and pulled a piece of white material stuck to the side of a deadfall branch that lay halfway into the path.
“What’s that?” asked James. “How’d you even see that?”
“Looks to be a piece of Miss Trainer’s petticoat, likely snagged as her horse passed by, observed Mike, as his eyes surveyed the surrounding area and the trail ahead.
“Then she’s all right! Oh, I’m so thankful,” James gushed.
“I’m afraid that conclusion is, …uh, premature,” cautioned Mike, as he glanced their back trail. Mike swung his leg over the saddle and kicked his horse onward up the path. “But it does suggest that were on the right trail, that that Jackson feller brought Miss Trainer along this same path. We’re on the right track my friend.”
“I,…I just want to put my fist into their teeth,” exclaimed James, as his right arm swung towards a low hanging branch.
Mike just shook his head, in disbelief. “Quiet, now, …never know when we might come upon their camp.”
## ##
That night, Mike awoke when he heard one of the horses stamp and nicker. Mike grabbed his five shot Colt Walker revolver that he had picked up in trade from a former Texas Ranger, and moved stealthily down the trail. He continued cautiously, listening, progressing slowly, a hundred yards, two hundred yards, slowly following the sound of the walking horse up ahead in the darkness. After nearly a quarter mile up the steepening slope, he heard a rustling, a horse whinny and stumbling sound of hooves, then a thump and a groan, a hoarse whisper, and finally silence. Mike listened quietly, trying to distinguish the night time sounds of the forest, from the likely movement of the villains up ahead. Instincts suggested that James had foolishly ventured forth, on his own and was captured.
Soon, he came upon evidence that James, indeed, had been captured. In the partial moonlight, Mike could see bent and broken underbrush, and he felt the mix of horse shoe prints in the still damp soil. Then, there was a shiny reflection from the ground; James had dropped a pocket pistol in the tussle, that reflected in the dim moonlight. Mike picked up the weapon, and checked if for load and priming, and then slipped it into a small pocket on the upward inner side of his moccasin. Mike advanced cautiously, step by step, as the overhead sky lightened to a gray in the east just over the Sierra peaks.
“Hold it right there, stranger!” It was Ebenezer behind a tree, holding a flintlock rifle just three feet from Mike’s head. Mike cursed to himself, angry that he had been so careless to be caught by the man he trailed.
“I’ll take that mighty fine looking pistol off your hands, mister. Handle first, very slowly.”
In the background, Mike could now see James tied to a tree, with a gag in his mouth, shaking his head excitedly. Mike spun the Colt over and extended the handle towards the old coot, his finger still in the trigger guard. Ebenezer reached out for the pistol, and Mike was just then ready to flip his wrist to right the Colt, when he was smacked from the rear behind his left knee, causing him to fall instantly and the pistol to fall to the ground.
He heard footsteps in the brush on the forest floor and looked up to see a small pocket pistol in his face, and behind that a white sleeve and rotund figure of the gambler Leverett Laramore the Third.
“I only bet on sure things, mister trapper man, and when we caught that fool over there, I knew you’d be along shortly,” Laramore gloated with his thumb in his red vest, looking down his nose at Mike laying at his feet. “I do believe, gentlemen, that we’ve just about got this project wrapped up.”
“Boss!...Boss!” A third man appeared, running excitedly towards Laramore. “The woman…”
“Jackson! What the hell do you want” barked Laramore as he turned towards the approaching man. “You’re supposed to be watching the woman,…waddya want?”
“…the woman. She escaped!” Jackson stopped suddenly, his mouth agape.
“Freeze all of you. Don’t move, or you’re dead,” barked a stern sounding female voice. Laramore jerked his plump torso as a rifle barrel was jammed into his back. “I’ll take that Colt. Now anybody moves and he’s a dead man. Think a lady can’t shoot? Just try me!” It was Anne Trainer. Somehow in the ruckus of the men coming into the camp, she had escaped, and found a rifle and made it down the hill before Jackson realized she was gone.
By then, Mike had the pocket pistol pulled from his moccasin and pointed at Ebenezer. Soon, Mike had the three villains tied up, and ready to travel.
“Glad to see that you’re all right Miss Trainer,” said Mike. “By the way, my name’s Mountain Mike. Your family hired me to bring you back. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
Anne replied, “James, big brother, you’re a bumbling fool once again. And you, Mr. Mountain Mike, while I appreciate your efforts, I’ll have you know that I had things fully under control. Your little stumble as you entered camp did create a nice diversion, but I’ll have you know that I was already free of my binds and ready to make my escape.”
Then she smiled with a glint in her eye, “You men are all alike, thinking we women are so helpless. It seems to me, often as not, it takes a woman to do the job!”
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