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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Big Jack Tuppence, Coin of the Realm
Tom Sheehan
”What’s your name, friend?” said Sheriff Jacob Newberry of Bourbon Falls, Colorado, who also owned the saloon and who had been eyeing the newest stranger in town, a tall good looking gent who just plain looked dangerous standing at the bar. “I like to know names of visitors.” He flipped his badge with one finger. “Part of the job. Some days are easier than others. Some ain’t.”
“Big Jack Tuppence,“ the man said, “Coin of the Realm.” His smile was liquid on a face with a rock-hard jaw, a pair of eyes catching dark skies, skin tone firm as a good leather lightened with tan, and a single dimple carved on the chin as if some deity had worked it for women of the world. He was just over 30 years old, some leather in him, some quickness, an edge of charm without recital.
“Great line,” the sheriff said. “Work with the ladies?” He knew better before he asked.
“Has.”
“You lookin’ for work?”
“Could be.”
“What do you do?”
Tuppence loosed the easy smile, shifted his weight to the other foot, and said, “Work the cows. Run horses. Ride a stage or a freighter wagon. Deal cards. Dig gold out of creeks, but not rock. Tend bar when I’m real dry and trying not to be.” And he wasn’t the least bit out of breath, only nodding his head as if he had finished reading off his résumé.
The sheriff smiled at the staccato answers. “I like your style, Big Jack. You shoot fast just like that, you got a job.”
“What do I do?”
“All of it, one way or ‘nother.”
“I think we’ll get along.” Tuppence pushed the bottle down the bar to Sheriff Newberry.
“Where you from?” Newberry was highly interested in the stranger who put up a near mirror for him, like looking in the big one behind the bar. It was more than novel.
“Cornwall.”
“Is that in Colorado?”
“No, in England. A small town called Penzance, near the tip of things, and the sea. I never liked salt water, but I had to come here.”
“Why?”
“The new frontier. Face the Indians without having to go to India and halfway up the continent with the Colonial Army with those stupid helmets. I didn’t like the swagger and I didn’t like the uniforms. I came this way to see some of the world.”
“See anythin’ here you like? Anythin’ in the Colorado Territory.”
“Yup. Piece of land north of here, maybe 40 miles, for sale,”
“How much?”
“Eleven hundred.”
“Which you don’t have,”
“I have two-fifty. Man says he’ll hold it for a year for me, same price. I managed a few favors for him, to completion,”
“That sounds like one decent dude. He come with a name?”
“Yup. Doctor Jimmy Stirring, bloke of blokes as we used to say where I used to be.”
Newberry laughed again, the true bonhomie discovered, his interest further piqued. He said, “Tell you what, Mr. Coin of the Realm, you work for me for a year and you can buy that place. That sound like a good deal?”
“Nothing crooked?”
“Straight as a die. Nothin’ bad unless you’re gettin’ shot at or someone’s tryin’ to steal somethin’ that belongs to me and you know it.”
The two shook hands, finished off their drinks and went off on a comradeship for almost one whole year.
Almost for a whole year.
But not quite, Tuppence in the meantime working every type of detail, no squawks coming from him, no slacking of efforts, all his pay put aside by Newberry, highly pleased with the man’s work.
The troubles, though, started when a violent prisoner of Newberry’s was broken out of jail by members of his gang, seriously wounding a deputy who wouldn’t be riding any time soon. They had proceeded directly to Newberry’s house and kidnapped his daughter. The parade of them took off for the hills, presumably a hide-out in the high range.
The alarm reached the sheriff and Newberry gathered a posse and set off on the chase.
Tuppence, meanwhile, had been riding fence and working out of a line camp and had been out there for three days. His company was a large dog of indeterminate breed, black and gray as old fire ashes, and who answered Tuppence’s call for “Hoyt.”
The cabin was in the foothills, tucked in a grove of trees and erupted rock formations. From that vantage point late one afternoon, he had seen the parade of riders, one female among them, heading up into the hills at a steady pace. Their pace told him they were trying to stay ahead of somebody; and the female brought him a sense of caution few women would be headed into the mountains with such a crew. He figured they had come from Bourbon Falls, the nearest civilized location. Newberry, of course, would be interested where such a group went, or holed up, if that was their intent, and if they truly had left Bourbon Falls. It was his reading of the situation that such reasoning was accurate.
He’d get that information for Newberry … one way or the other, he and Hoyt. The dog was a veritable alarm for him, always advising him, by a low growl or snarl, that someone was near or approaching, whether friendly or not. “You’re an ideal companion, Hoyt,” he’d said on many occasions, and he’d not be surprised that he’d say it again with this new situation. At the moment he had no idea the female he had seen was Newberry’s daughter Alice whom he had met many times.
But his resolve was in place, as he kept at a discreet distance behind the now-single file of riders climbing a trail along the edge of one canyon, rising up to an apparent pass to some further canyon or to a lower elevation. Once, at a break in the trail where the passage was split, Hoyt corrected his way by lingering when Tuppence selected one way. “You got it, Hoyt. Thank you, boy,” he said as he corrected his route. Two hours later he was looking down on a small but fertile valley that sat like a pocket in the range of cliffs and peaks. A cabin sat at one end of the valley.
As it was nearing darkness, he found a spot where he could watch the night settle in on the cabin and saw the usual activities of meal preparation, horses being tended, a guard being posted at one point by the obvious leader of the group, a husky man who managed to speak with the emphasis on curses to explain his ways on things. Sounds carried well in the mountain air, as clear as he had felt all day, with a draft of air freshets coming at him in small currents. Tuppence felt a serious dislike beginning for the man. And when he saw him slap the female, who was emptying a container of fluid near the cabin, the dislike leaped up in him, coming livid and pure. Even Hoyt growled when the cry of pain reached them at their vantage point, a weak cry, a forlorn cry of loss and deprivation also riding in the sound.
The scene said she was a prisoner. It meant she had been taken, kidnapped, stolen from where she belonged, from those who must love her.
He still had no idea of who she was. But possibilities began to creep into his imagination; she was young, she did not belong, she did not know how to use any experience or wiles to protect herself, to gain an edge on male companions, good, bad or indifferent. Now, in his mind, he found only the middle choice of companion types.
Tuppence was determined to find out, if he could, who she was, what was she doing here, how he could help. “Blimey, Hoyt, if this isn’t a barrel of pickles for us. But we’ll make our choice.”
A few hours later, midnight in its place, a clear sky overhead with hundreds of stars present from one peak to the next, Tuppence and Hoyt were mere yards away from the sleeping sentry, leaning his back against a dwarf pine tree, his snores bleating like goat’s calls, his rifle probably sitting idly across his lap.
The sentry was immobilized in a matter of one blow carefully placed behind his ear. The rifle fell off his lap as Tuppence dragged him behind a boulder and tied him up with a rope and stuffed a torn piece of the man’s shirt into his mouth. He hid the man’s side arms behind another slab of rock.
Hoyt moved ahead of Tuppence as they approached the silent cabin, one small window lit up by an interior lamp. At approach there was mere nickering from the horses tied up at a lean-to on one side of the cabin. Tuppence was able to look in the window and saw the girl. He was amazed to see it was Newberry’s daughter, just past her 15th birthday by a few weeks. Elation and worry hit him with a double fist, glad he had followed his hunches, sad she was part of the barrel of pickles he found himself looking into.
Sure that the sentry would not be able to give out an alarm, he thought about the situation, finally realizing that all of them, the gang, the girl, and he too would be at the greatest loss without their mounts, he decided to make that projection come true.
Hoyt, coming close to him when he whispered softly, thrust his snout into Tuppence’s hand and felt the softness of the other hand stroke the underside of his neck. As he stroked, Tuppence said softly but urgently, “Wolf, boy, wolf, wolf.” He kept stroking and saying the words, “Wolf, boy, wolf, wolf,” until he felt the dog had accepted his command. Tuppence placed his hand alongside Hoyt’s snout and pointed at the horses tied at the rack in the lean-to. “Wolf, boy.” He said it again as the dog moved toward the lean-to.
Tuppence leaned back into deep shade as he waited.
Hoyt, as bid, let loose a wolf’s howl like the leader of any pack would let go. It came into the night silence like a gunshot or a bolt of lightning out of a black sky. He did it again and again, each howl more frightening than the previous one, like a deadly curse in the night. The horses leaped and struggled at ropes and issued sounds of terror. The howls continued, the terror reactions followed from all the animals, the strain coming at the ropes and at the hitch rail increasing with each second. Then screams and guttural cries came from the cabin as men rumbled out of sleep, with orders yelled out in a jumble of words adding to the total confusion.
The horses dashed away as the ropes and rail broke, with two horses running off still tied to the rail, dragging it along before it shattered from the thrust and pull.
“Get them damned horses,” yelled the voice now familiar to Tuppence as he stayed back in the shadows. “Shoot that damned wolf if you see him, but don’t shoot any damned horses.” Then, realizing that the sentry had not made a sound, had not appeared, he yelled, “Where the hell is Gus? I put him over there at that tree. Someone see where the hell he is.”
He must have re-assed the situation as he yelled, “Some of you come with me. We’ll go up this side of the valley, and the rest of you go that side. Get them horses before they find their way out of here or they get their damned legs broken in the night. Anybody see that damned wolf, shoot him if you see him.”
The gang was spread over the valley, in two waves Tuppence figured, going up the sides of the valley trying to circle the horses back into control. Cautiously he approached the window from a dark side, peered inside and saw Alice Newberry sitting with her face in her hands sobbing uncontrollably. He tapped on the window, showed his face so that she would recognize him, and motioned her to the window.
It was easy pickings to get her out of the window. They headed off, her hand in his hand, as he whispered, “Be quiet, Alice, your father’s coming and Hoyt’s going to do some more work. Again he placed his arm beside Hoyt’s snout and pointed to the middle of the valley. “Wolf, boy, wolf, wolf.”
Hoyt, at a run into the darkness, disappeared. Moments later the howl of a dominant wolf was heard as it slammed through the still-noisy valley, and the gang leader, yelled out, from somewhere off to the left, “He’s in the middle of the valley. Go get him. Go get him.”
Seconds later the howls of a dominant wolf now came to them from another part the valley.
New commotion began, even as horses made their own sounds of terror, curses from all over rose like a crescendo as men let their dislikes and discomforts and anxieties be expressed. Shots came from darkness and shadows, and went into darkness and shadows.
Tuppence, still holding Alice Newberry’s hand, led her off the way he had come down to the cabin, intending to go right past the immobilized sentry. They were on a ledge and moving slowly away from the ruckus, and were making their way with trepidation.
A few minutes later Tuppence heard the low growls of Hoyt coming from ahead of them on the trail.
Hoyt, after his circuitous travel in the valley, his wolfish howls working much of the way, had come on the now-conscious sentry who had managed to loosen his binds and was about to extract the piece of shirt stuffed in his mouth. That’s when the terrifying shadow of Hoyt, like a black wolf, came astride of him and froze him in place. The growls were steady, and fearsome, and though his hands were free of the binds, he dared not move them to pull the torn shirt from his mouth. He managed to cough through the gag, a sad and defeated sound that Tuppence recognized.
He placed his hand on Hoyt’s back, and said lightly, “Easy, Hoyt, easy, boy. It’s almost over now. You did a great job, Hoyt old dog, a great job.” He took Alice’s hand and placed it near Hoyt. “He’ll know you forever now,” he said. “He’s the one who’ll get us out of here and back to your father.”
“Oh, Jack,” she said, nearly the first words she dared say, “If anyone was going to come and get me it was either my father or you. They were so cruel, and they kept saying, at least the fat one who swears all the time, that he’d kill my father the first chance he gets if I did anything foolish.”
Tuppence said, “I’m fairly sure that someone was on their tail when I first saw all of you out on the grass. I guessed you were coming from Bourbon Falls or thereabouts and thought I’d best follow the lead.”
“I’m so glad you did, jack.” She squeezed his hand and let Hoyt sniff at her fingers.
The sentry tried to struggle to make his move at that moment, but Tuppence stepped on one hand as Hoyt assumed his previous threatening position. The sentry stayed still, the fangs of the dog hanging over his face.
Dawn, by this time, was making its inroads with a false glow and stars still shining in the heavens, a new moon beginning its sweep across the sky, and the sound of horses moving in the valley.
Tuppence took Alice’s hand again and said, “We can’t make it out of here without them catching up to us. My horse is hidden, and we’ll have to go higher up. That’ll make them dismount and start climbing. I know they’re not made for that, none of them. We’ll climb and when the time comes, if they see us and get too close, we’ll shoot and cause another ruckus all around them. That’ll give your father an alert where we are. He’ll take care of things from there.”
He handed the sentry’s rifle to her and the man’s side arms. “I assume you can use these,” he said, and Alice replied, “You’re damned tooting I can, and pretty good with them too.”
They started up an incline off the trail, the dawn coming around them as shadows began to lift up the sides of the mountain like a shade being lifted. Tuppence felt the touch of the warm sun rays on the back of his neck.
From the valley came a shout, “There’s someone up there. The girl’s with him. Let’s get ‘em. Kirby, you keep the horses on a good line. I don’t want any more noise here. Someone’s bound to be chasin’ after us. If you see that rat Gus, you can shoot him if you want. He ain’t workin’ for me no more.”
The gang was still in the shadows of the mountain, the darkness flying off in minutes of travel, when Jack Tuppence fired his first shot somewhere in the midst of them.
“That’s what we call firing for effect, Alice. Tell me what you hear.”
“Maybe you hit someone, Jack, ‘cause they’re yelling like they were in a rodeo and riding a horrid bull.”
He fired three rounds in quick succession. Shots came from below, from various areas against the foot of the cliff. Tuppence and Alice hid behind a slab of rock before both of them fired a few more rounds downward.
Tuppence said, “It’s like shooting pickles in a barrel, Alice, if we could only see them.”
From another level, down below, a series of gunshots came from another source. And Newberry’s command came across the valley and climbed the sides of the cliff faces.
“Pa.Pa. We’re up here,” Alice yelled, “and the gang is down there. Jack Tuppence is with me. He got me out of there.”
With a heavy fusillade of concentrated firepower, it was over for the gang in a matter of minutes, and all members taken into custody.
Newberry was elated to find his daughter unhurt, and hugged Jack Tuppence until both men were embarrassed by the act.
In a mad battle with another gang several months later, Sheriff Newberry was killed, well short of the promised year’s employment with Newberry. When they buried him, his widow put the deed to the ranch up north into the hand of Jack Tuppence, “Coin of the Realm.”
She said, “He bought it for you months ago, Jack. Said it was the best investment he ever made, outside of me, of course.”
She and her daughter hugged him in the middle of their sadness, “The Man from Penzance” as Alice began to call him, a new name for him, a new light in her eyes.
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