Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.
They spent the next two days packing, and sorting out how they were to fit everyone on the train. It was decided that Ellie would be sharing with Chuck and Sarah, and Carina would share with Adele. Carina opened her mouth to make one of her typically saucy comments, but Sarah shook her head, just enough for her to pick up on it.
The thing was, in the time since Carina had joined them, she and Tom had been growing quite close, and there was an obvious attraction between the two of them, but Carina had been living a wild and wanton life for so long now in the Secret Service that she could scarcely remember how to behave. She nodded with a thankful look to Sarah, and kissed her on the cheek before hurrying out with tears in her eyes.
On the third day, they settled up at the hotel and the stable and had the luggage and the mules taken to the railroad station when their train arrived. Sarah and Ellie wouldn't board their car until their mules had been loaded, and Carina stood with them on that (mainly because it irritated the men), but even so, everything was loaded and secured in time for the train's departure.
Once they were under way, the ladies changed into the more practical clothes that they preferred (comfortable blouses and trousers), and they all settled down for the trip to Washington.
They spent much of the trip when they weren't looking after the mules playing cards, though many of them still spent a fair bit of time sitting up on the roofs of the horse cars, admiring the scenery.
They stopped in Kansas City to pick up the side saddles for Adele and Carina's that Mr Landis had sent down (they had wired Adele's measurements to him the first time they returned to Denver, and Carina's when they returned from Four Corners). Carina's expression when she saw them said that she knew something about side saddles and wasn't happy about this, but when Sarah tried to talk to her about what the issue was she just waved it away as something from her past. Adele was just intrigued, as she'd only ever seen the grand ladies (like Miss Sarah and Miss Ellie) riding side saddle.
When they pulled into Washington, there were steam carriages waiting to carry the team, and Tom and Andy, straight to the President's House. They quickly arranged for the Troopers to take the mules to the livery stable and their luggage to the hotel (Adele going along with them, to await their arrival at the hotel), handing the saddle scabbards that held their rifles, carbines and large blades over to take with them.
Entering the President's house, they attracted a fair degree of attention as they exuded a certain dangerous air after six months in the West, not to mention the sixguns that the four men were showing (never mind that they had even more weapons that weren't showing, and the ladies were carrying just as many).
As was usual, when they arrived in the President's antechamber, they were waved straight in ahead of those waiting, and Chuck scanned the people in the room on the way through, discovering two more with Culper Ring associations. The worrying thing about that was that one of them was one of the President's aides. He stayed near the peep hole and waved Uncle Sam over to point them out to him.
Uncle Sam looked concerned when he pointed out the aide, and as soon as the peep hole was sealed he asked "Are you sure, Charles?" Chuck nodded and gave him a brief summary of the man's dealings with the Ring, which made Uncle Sam sigh in dismay. When he'd composed himself, Uncle Sam went to the door and called one of his proven and trusted aides over, telling him to get the marshals and take the two men into custody.
With the door closed again, Chuck tried to apologise, but Uncle Sam patted him on the shoulder, saying. "No, it's better to know, son, I need you to tell me these things."
He stopped to take in Chuck's appearance then and smiled. "I approve of the new look, son, but Julia won't."
Chuck smiled back. "I know Uncle Sam, Sarah's already warned me about that."
Uncle Sam waved them to seats, indicating the cigars and liquor for anyone who was so inclined before turning to Chuck, "So tell me Chuck, where is your team off to next?"
Chuck looked down for a moment and Sarah reached out to squeeze his hand. He lifted her hand to his lips and then looked back at Uncle Sam.
"After spending nearly three months trying to find my answer in Colorado, and realising that the other sites that I wanted to visit are so much further away that it would take several times as long to reach them, I have had to concede that it could take years to find the answer, if I ever do. So, I have come to the decision that we should concentrate on dealing with this Culper Ring, and anything else that comes up here and now, and if any of those operations take us close enough to the places where I can seek my answers, then I will look into them then."
Uncle Sam looked at him for about a minute, and then said. "Thank you son, I know what a sacrifice it must be for you to give up your search. Are you sure you don't want more time to think on it?"
Chuck shook his head. Uncle Sam nodded at that. "So how do you want to proceed?"
"I think the best approach would be for us to go through all the information that's been collected on the Culper Ring's current plans and determine which is the most urgent, then the next most urgent, and so on, then we'll go after them in descending order."
Uncle Sam nodded again, and stood. "If you're going to be looking at all the records we've put together, you'd best do that in the records room then."
Chuck nodded and stood himself, reaching out to hand Sarah up. Once everyone was on their feet, they followed Uncle Sam from the office. Crossing the antechamber, though, the men who'd been waiting to see him rushed to try and speak with the President, only to pull up when the four rather formidable men and three lovely but imposing women, each of them brandishing a pair of large revolvers, suddenly formed a daunting barrier between them and the President.
The largest of the men growled. "One more step towards the President and we start shooting."
At that, the men in the front row started frantically pushing back against the ones behind them, and when this didn't work turned around to push their way through, desperate to get out of the room.
In little more than a minute, the seven people with the President and his three aides were the only ones left in the room.
Silenced reigned until the President chuckled. "Well that was effective! Perhaps I should keep you here to keep them away from me." Sarah and Carina snickered at that, and they all holstered their pistols.
After that, no-one disturbed them, and they reached the records room and entered without any futher interruptions. Uncle Sam told the officer in charge to give them access to all the files on Culper Ring, and to point them to where the most recent information was. With that he left them to it and went back to his office.
One thing that Uncle Sam did leave them with was that they had to come to dinner that night, or he'd be forced to sent enough men to drag them back, as Julia and Nellie would accept nothing less.
They brought in others from Tom's team, and over the next few days, they worked in the records room, going through the files state by state and building lists of probable Ring acquisitions. When it came to information about where the Ring would be hitting next though, Chuck found that the memories that he had obtained via the Old One were becoming of less use now, because the newest of those memories were nearly a year old.
This didn't reduce the memories' effectiveness in the fight against the Ring, as they provided the structure, connections and history of who were involved with the Culper Ring and their core plans, and none of that was likely to change in a hurry.
Even if the memories were of less help in predicting where to look for the Ring's expansion attempts though, natural intelligence and logic still worked just fine, and they had an abundance of that in their team. This was why the others were less worried than Chuck about the fact that the memories weren't giving as many answers, as they could see (almost certainly better than he did) that he was still coming up with more ideas that were moving them forward than anyone else was, because with his science and engineering background he knew where to look. The rest of them were all adding to what Chuck was putting together. Even Carina was proving valuable, because after three months working the social circuit in Denver, she knew many of the names and associations that they should be looking for out there, and she was no slouch in regard to smarts either.
While they were doing this, Carina disappeared several times to have meetings with Uncle Sam without telling the others what she was doing. This had been perplexing and a little worrying until Uncle Sam made an announcement when they went back to him to advise what direction they would follow in their operations.
After three days of solid work, they had put together a ream of papers and a plan to move forward, and they went back to Uncle Sam. They all spent a few hours going over what they'd put together, and it was agreed that they'd start in Nevada, and then head on to California after that. With the decision made, they sent a telegram to their law office to make the usual arrangements for two Pullman Hotel cars and five horse cars.
Once that was done, Uncle Sam made the announcement about Carina. What she had been seeing him about was getting things pushed through to formally change her name back to her real name, Harriet Quinlan (Hattie to her friends).
While dealing with this group, and one person in particular, she'd realised that she didn't want to continue to be known as who she had been since she'd joined the Secret Service any more, she wanted to be free to show herself as she truly was.
It turned out that Hattie Quinlan hadn't been the submissive, dutiful daughter that her family, or at least her father, had expected her to be. That was why, when she'd been informed by him in her late teens that she was to marry the son of one his business associates to merge their empires, she'd rebelled and run away to the only safe haven that she knew, her Aunt Carina in Boston, the black sheep of her mother's family.
Hattie's Aunt Carina had inherited a fortune from a maiden aunt (who'd seen herself when she was younger in Carina), which was sufficiently large to ensure that she wouldn't be constrained by others' expectations. From that point on she'd taken great delight in flaunting this in the face of her family and anyone else who'd expected her to conform to the mores of society.
Young Hattie had at first enjoyed the freedom from the shackles that her family (or more to the point, her father) had placed on her, but she soon found that she wanted more than the permissive lifestyle of her Aunt's house, so she had prevailed on her Aunt Carina to help her get into law school.
Harvard Law School would not accept female students of course so she'd had to become a boy, Harold Quinn, in order to enrol, just as Sarah had had to become Samuel Walton to get into Columbia Law School. Hattie (or rather Harry) had done well in law school, graduating Cum Laude, but after getting her qualifications and being admitted to the bar, she'd found that that life didn't satisfy her the way that she'd hoped it would.
Soon after that she'd gotten into a discussion with one of her Aunt's lovers, Roan Montgomery, and that discussion had ultimately resulted in her joining the Treasury's Secret Service Division as Carina Miller (her Aunt's name).
Carina Miller had achieved considerable notoriety and success in the Secret Service, and she'd found it quite the release to behave more like Aunt Carina than Hattie Quinlan, but now she wanted more than that, she wanted to be herself. That was why she'd requested Uncle Sam's help to get her name changed back to Harriet Quinlan (Roan would have helped but he didn't have the influence to drive it through himself), and before they left Washington, it was done.
None of them were naive enough to believe that the change from Carina Miller to Hattie Quinlan would be an easy or quick matter, because they were all used to Carina, especially Sarah and John who had known her for years, but they understood why she wanted this change, and did their best to comply with her wishes.
After the announcement, Hattie had taken Sarah aside to explain to her what the issue about the side saddle had been. Like Sarah, she'd been expected to acquire that skills to demonstrate that she was an accomplished young lady. Hattie hadn't had the type of teachers that Sarah had though, as to her father she was nothing more than a pawn to be used in his plans to build his business empire. Therefore, he refused to pay for anything better than a second rate hack. This man had also turned out to be a letch who took every opportunity to touch her, on the bottom, chest, anywhere he believed he could get away with it. That was why she'd hardly learned anything about riding side saddle, because her efforts had mostly been focussed on trying to stay away from him.
Sarah held her as she cried after that, then whispered in her ear.
"Well you know that I'd never try and touch your bottom or chest, because mine are so much better!"
That was enough to turn Hattie from breaking down crying, to collapsing with laughter. When she could speak again, she hugged Sarah and kissed her on the cheek, whispering "Thank you Sarah!"
Uncle Sam made sure that the team were coming to dinner as often as possible before they left, as in all probability they'd be away longer this time than they had been in Colorado, so he was trying to give Julia and Nellie all the time he could with Sarah and the others.
Their primary area for operations in Nevada was to be around Virginia City, so they'd sent a few telegrams to secure lodgings at the International Hotel for them and the livery stable for their mules (as they were keeping to the cover of well heeled speculators buying up what they could in the mining districts). The International Hotel had been surprised by the size of the booking they were making, but assured them that they would be accommodated.
They were also doing a side trip to Eureka, but that would be a much shorter trip than the one to Virginia City. They'd tried to organise lodgings ahead of time there as well, but with no telegraph to Eureka, they had no way of knowing whether their request had arrived, let alone if it could be filled.
The dress standards for the mining districts had relieved Sarah's ire a little though, as she, Ellie, Hattie, and Adele could maintain the expected standards with their riding skirts, this was a great relief to Chuck too as he didn't like to see his wife aggravated, and especially not with him.
Truth be told, Sarah, Ellie and Hattie actually didn't mind wearing the riding skirts, as they allowed them to carry their .46 revolvers without them showing most of the time, which was fortuitous. (They'd sent Adele and Hattie's measurements to their dodgy seamstress in New York, along with the money and colour requirements, from Denver to have her make up all the requisite outfits for the two women, and these had arrived while they were in Washington.)
The reduced standards of the mining districts also simplified their horseback travel arrangements, given that the group's spare mounts, as pack mules, could easily carry any requirements beyond what each rider could carry in saddlebags on their mount for the trip to Eureka. These extra requirements were mainly food, water, feed for the mules etc, plus the cash box (to buy into claims or concerns), additional .46 ammunition, and clothes and other requirements for the main party (the team plus Tom and Andy).
When they boarded the Pullman car, they were greeted by Otis, the porter who they tried to get when they were travelling, who was very happy to see them again so soon. He was rather confused by Carina's change of name at first, but he'd just given her a big smile and said "That's a right pretty name Miss Hattie", which earned him a smile such as few had seen from her. Once aboard, they quickly settled into the same bunk arrangements and routines as they'd had before on the train.
On this trip, there was of course a greater degree of discussion on how they would be operating when they arrived than they'd had on the trip to Washington. It was still far less than they'd had their first trip to Colorado though, as they had by now established their operating methods, so these discussions were more clarifying details than significant planning sessions.
This meant that they once again spent a good deal of time playing cards, though perching on the roofs of the horse cars to watch the scenery go by was still a popular pastime, as well, until it got too cold and they had to come back in anyway.
Sarah, Ellie, Hattie and Adele were wearing their riding skirts most of the time on the train, because Hattie and Adele were trying to get used to them, or more to the point, get accustomed to how they must to stand, sit and walk in order to keep the skirts draped so that their revolvers would remain hidden. Sarah and Ellie were demonstrating to the other women how to achieve this. The leather harnesses that had been sewn into the skirts to support the holsters for the .46 revolvers did the job quite well, but the weight of the pistols still tended to pull the skirts in such a way that the pistols would be exposed if they weren't careful. This was why practice was needed for them to get used to what they must do to prevent that.
One thing they were thankful for, after they'd passed through Colorado, was that they weren't stopping for more than fuel and water for the train until they had passed into Nevada. The attitudes towards outsiders in general in the region that they were going through were still hostile enough, but their attitudes towards women were something that Chuck most definitely didn't want to subject Sarah, Ellie, Hattie or Adele to, so until they were in Nevada, the ladies generally only left the train on isolated stops.
For the most part, the men unloaded their mules and exercised them whenever the train stopped for long enough, and the ladies made up for that by looking after the mules more when they were in the horse cars. Needless to say, they all breathed a sigh of relief when they'd passed into Nevada.
There was little in Nevada that was likely to attract the Culper Ring's attention at that time, other than the recent strikes in the Eureka area, and the mines and strikes around Virginia City, which was why their party had passed straight through Nevada until they reached Palisades.
In Palisades, they had their Pullman and horse cars moved off to the railroad siding and uncoupled from the train. They made quick work of unloading their 'luggage' from the baggage car and moving it all into the Pullman cars before the train left.
They left eight Troopers to guard the Pullman and horse cars and the extra mules for the week to a week and a half that they'd be away on the trip to Eureka, and loaded saddle panniers onto their designated pack mules to carry what they'd need for the trip. Bags of feed for the mules etc were strapped across the top of the panniers. Once everything was packed, they said their goodbyes to the troopers and the Pullman car staff and headed off for Eureka.
It actually only took them about a day to reach Eureka, which was a good time by any standards for over eighty miles, especially considering that all their mules arrived in good condition. When they arrived, it was a pleasant surprise to find that their message had, indeed, been received, and that there was no problem in organising lodgings for their party, or stables for their mules.
Given that their main operation was to be in Virginia City, and they did not wish to delay that, they immediately split up to engage the locals in discussions so that they could gather information, Chuck with Sarah, Ellie with Andy and John, and Hattie with Tom,and of course, all of them had Troopers following them and guarding them, while Adele stayed back at the hotel with the other Troopers.
After their time in Colorado, Ellie was becoming almost as accomplished as Sarah and Hattie at distracting the men they were talking to, to get them to let slip more information than they realised.
Of course, the tone of the discussions would quickly very change if the men they were talking to displayed any inappropriate attention to the ladies, or made any unwelcome comments or overtures to them. If that happened, those men would invariably run with their tails between their legs very quickly when they saw what awaited them.
It didn't take them more than two days to identify the best prospects in the area (the pick of them being, not surprisingly, around the strikes at Ruby Hill), and determine that there didn't appear to be any activity that would indicate that the Culper Ring had started to move into the area as yet.
Once they'd determined what the best prospects were, they proceeded as they had in Colorado, they assessed the options on each and make a fair offer, if the offer was accepted, they'd do the deal and move on to the next concern on their list, this was done in less than two days.
As they also had in Colorado, they left standing offers that, if concerns were being pressured and/or threatened to sell cheap, they could contact the Broken Circle, and if the deal was genuine, they would offer a fair price.
With their dealings done, they settled up with the hotels and stables and headed back to Palisades, arriving back at the cars less than a week after they'd headed out.
Their first task upon arrival back at Palisades was to telegraph the Central Pacific Railroad to make arrangements for their cars to be picked up by the first available train to take them on to Reno. After that they sent other telegrams to the Intercontinental in Virginia City and the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, to confirm when they would be arriving.
Their cars were picked up that afternoon, so they reached Reno late the next morning. When they arrived in Reno, they unloaded their 'luggage' from the baggage car and their belongings from the Pullman car while the five horse cars were being uncoupled from the train. Then they said goodbye to Otis for the now and watched as the train departed, to continue on its way towards San Francisco.
They hired a wagon for half an hour (well, actually it was for an hour as that was the shortest hire they could negotiate) so that some of the Troopers could take their 'luggage' over to the Riverside Hotel, and they unloaded all the mules from the cars to give them time to recover from being penned up in the horse cars while they waited for the cars to be coupled to the Virginia and Truckee train.
This was a special run down to the Steamboat Springs depot (the end of the line for this service at the moment) that they'd chartered V&T to make for them, so as to save them time and effort in getting to Virginia City.
They also saddled the mules while they waited. Given that the trip down the rail to the Steamboat Springs depot would take less than an hour, it wouldn't be any great hardship the mules to be saddled up for that much longer, but it would let the group get away more quickly once they reached the end of the line.
When the Troopers returned from Riverside with the wagon, the horse cars had been coupled up to the V&T train, so they loaded the mules and climbed aboard the single passenger car, and they were on their way.
At the Steamboat Springs depot, they merely had to tighten the cinches on the mules' saddles, strap on saddlebags and rifle and carbine scabbards or saddle panniers on the spare mules, then mount and head on into Virginia City. They reached Virginia city not much more than an hour after they'd left Steamboat Springs, and proceeded straight to the International Hotel.
Seeing such a large, heavily armed group striding into the entry hall of the Hotel had the people there quite worried, until Chuck went up to the desk with Sarah and said "I believe that you have a booking for us, the Barton Party?"
Upon hearing that, the manager stopped cowering out the back and came forward to greet him. Chuck cut off the man's rambling and asked whether their requirements for most, if not all, of their rooms to be together, with no other guests in their area had been complied with?
The manager nodded energetically. "Yes. Yes of course Mr Barton, may I show you the rooms so that you can confirm that you're happy with them?"
Chuck nodded, and looked at Tom to get some Troopers to come with them, Tom signalled four Troopers and they fell in behind the party as they headed up the stairs.
The rooms were actually quite good, and they took up most of the top floor, so Chuck booked out the rest of the rooms on the floor so that they had the floor to themselves, this also meant that some of them could have rooms to themselves. They'd have two Troopers on guard in the hallway whenever they were there, and another two guarding their mules at the livery stable. When the guards were questioned about this, they just answered.
"The boss wants us on guard, and what the boss wants, he gets."
Once they'd settled into their rooms, they headed out to began strolling about Virginia City, gathering information. They kept to the same pairings as they had used in Eureka, all of them with a handful of Troopers following them and guarding them. Their reputation had proceeded them though, and they were constantly being accosted by men trying to offer them claims and business opportunities.
After Colorado and Eureka, they had become adept at sifting the genuine opportunities and information from those just trying to fleece the new arrivals, and they quickly got rid of the ones who didn't have anything genuine to offer them. Once again, the ladies helped disarm the men they were talking to, which meant that they generally revealed more than they had planned to.
Over the space of the next week or so, they managed to put together quite a bit of information about the better prospects in the district (including Carson City, which they visited a few times), and had also collected a number of reports of activity which had all the signs of the Culper Ring.
The most interesting encounter, though, was when Casey was approached by a pretty and well dressed young prostitute, who told him. "Madam Gertie sent me sir, because she is desirous to speak with you."
Ellie's eyes danced with mirth as she said "If you wish to go and do your business, Uncle John, that is all right, I understand that men have their needs."
Andy was struggling to keep a straight face, as he was just as amused by this as Ellie was, but there was no way that he was about to say a word about it. Ellie may be able to get away with it, but he was quite sure that Marshal Casey would break him in two if he were to ever suggest anything of that nature.
The prostitute's response to Ellie's comment, though, was interesting. "Oh no Miss, when Madam Gertie says that she wishes to speak with the gentleman, that will be what she means. She ain't one of the working girls no more!"
Ellie and Casey looked at each other when she said that, Ellie raised her eyebrow and Casey nodded thoughtfully. "I should take you back to the Hotel..."
"Oh no, that isn't necessary Uncle John, you know quite well that Andy is a gentleman, and we do have the men to chaperone us." (Waving her hand over her shoulder at the Troopers standing guard nearby.)
Casey nodded again. "Very well. I will see you back at the Hotel then."
At Ellie's nod, he turned to the prostitute, offering her his arm and saying. "Lead on if you will, Miss."
The girl looked quite pleased by the courtesy as she curtsied and took his arm to lead him to the brothel.
Andy signalled two of the men to follow Casey and the girl.
Ellie and Andy watched them go, then Andy sent another man to find Chuck and Sarah and tell them about this development. With that he stood, offering his hand to Ellie to assist her in rising, and they strolled back to the Hotel arm in arm with the rest of the men following.
Chuck and Sarah returned to the hotel less than half an hour after Ellie and Andy, as this was more important than gathering general information. Soon after they arrived, one of the men who'd gone after Casey turned up to tell them where Casey had gone to, and at Chuck's suggestion Andy sent him back with four more of the men and their rifles so that Casey would have support available if anything went wrong.
Chuck and Sarah questioned Ellie and Andy, but there wasn't much more that they could tell them, the girl had appeared to be genuine enough as a young prostitute, and Casey had obviously believed that the situation bore further investigation, otherwise he wouldn't have gone with her. After that, there wasn't much that they could do until Casey returned.
When Casey arrived with the detail that Andy had sent for him two hours later, everyone was waiting anxiously in Chuck and Sarah's suite. Once she'd assured herself that he seemed fine, and apparently nothing untoward had happened to him, Sarah launched into a diatribe in a strong Southern accent.
"Oh Uncle John, how could you do this? How could you shame the family by visiting a house of ill repute so openly as that? Whatever am I to tell Mama? She will be mortified!"
Casey growled at her, but only a little, as he could see the relief that she was trying to cover up at his safe return. With no further ado, he launched into his explanation.
"Madam Gertie is apparently a Pinkerton Agent, Gertrude Verbanski. The Pinkertons have been hired by Wells Fargo to look into who is trying to move into the gold and silver market here, so they set her up as the madam of a small but fancy brothel to collect information from the men coming into town."
"When we turned up and started asking the sort of questions that people who were trying to buy up claims and the like do, we caught her attention. As I was apparently the only unattached man in the group with any authority, she decided to ply me with attention to find out what we were here for."
Hattie couldn't help letting Carina slip out for a moment as she smirked at him. "So, did you get anything good from her Johnny?"
He looked at her coolly for a moment before he responded. "She was quite accomplished, almost as good as some others I've had, but she slipped up and let me know what she was after, so I declared myself as a Marshal and that was when she told me she was a Pinkerton, she showed me her badge to prove it. She also gave me some leads on a number of newcomers around here that she's been keeping an eye on, and promised that she'll get word to us if she hears anything more."
Chuck asked. "Do you think she will?"
Casey shrugged. "It's in her interest to do so, if we deal with them, the Pinkertons can still tell Wells Fargo that the problem's been dealt with and get paid, and she doesn't have to risk trying to take them on with the handful of Pinkertons that she has here and over in Carson City, so yeah, I'm thinking that she will."
Chuck nodded at that. "So, where to from here?"
Sarah stepped in at that point (strictly speaking, Carina/Hattie was the senior Secret Service Agent as she had a few years in the Secret Service on her, but Sarah had always been the best, even from before she came across to the North, so Hattie was happy to defer to her).
"I think that you, Ellie, Andy and I should start looking into the prospects that we have for investments to head off the Ring, while Casey, Hattie and Tom follow up these leads from Madam Gertie on the suspected Ring people, along with the ones that we've put together ourselves so far."
Casey and Hattie nodded at that, and Chuck and the others agreed as well, so they got organised and headed out for their respective assignments. For the 'prospects' team, they couldn't really split up, as Chuck was the only one who had any in-depth knowledge of mining matters, or what was, or was not, viable processing technology from his acquired memories and engineering knowledge and experience, so evaluating the prospects and negotiating the deals when they looked worthwhile took rather longer than identifying them had.
In addition to that, Casey, Hattie and Tom, with their Trooper details, were watching the camps and/or activities of those who were on any of the lists that were regarded as acting suspiciously (theirs or 'Madam Gertie's), but if they decided that the person or group was indeed suspicious, they had to come and get Chuck to see whether he could identify them via the memories.
Over the course of the next three and a half weeks that they were doing this, Madam Gertie's prostitutes came to collect Casey a number of times, saying that Madam Gertie needed to speak with him. None of the team (including Tom and Andy) had any doubts about what was happening in these 'talks' and Sarah, Ellie and Hattie made no attempt to try to hide the fact that they were disappointed with him for it, but Casey just stared them down and challenged them to say anything about it.
Chuck did try to get Sarah to let the matter go, pointing out that Casey was a good man, but men had needs, and it wasn't as though he'd had any chance to have those needs met as he'd been with them pretty much constantly for nearly a year now.
Sarah challenged him on that. "What about you, you told me that you hadn't been with a woman before we met, but you didn't explode or anything of the kind."
Chuck took her hands. "No, I hadn't had anything to do with any woman since Jill when I met you, and I hadn't done that before you, but I was waiting for an angel, and low and behold you arrived."
"What I'm saying is that we can't damn Casey for not living by our standards, he IS a good man, and just look at the reason she contacted him in the first place, he's the only one of us who isn't attached to someone. It can't be easy for him, seeing all of us together when he's alone."
Sarah nodded, looking contrite. "Yes, you're right, I'm not being fair to him, it's just that he's been my shining light ever since I was twelve, so it's a shock to find that he has feet of clay, just as we do."
She paused before continuing. "Something changed him before the war Chuck, I am certain that the warm, caring man that we see flashes of now and then used to be the way that he was before, but he had something wrest from him, and he hasn't been the same man since. I've tried to ask him about it, but it is something that he just won't share."
Chuck held her, and as they drew comfort from one another, they both thought on the fact that Casey had no-one for this.
When Casey walked into the dining room for breakfast the next morning, Sarah went up to him to embrace him, going up on tip toe to kiss him on the cheek and say. "I'm sorry Uncle John, I have been being unfair to you and you didn't deserve it."
Casey looked at her with his eyebrow raised. "What brought this on?"
Sarah looked down, speaking quietly. "I'm ashamed to say that Chuck had to point out to me how unfair I was being, as I couldn't see it until he made me face it, please believe that I am truly sorry."
He embraced her, and Chuck couldn't help thinking that, grown woman that she was, she still looked like a little girl beside him. Casey caught Chuck's eye over Sarah's head and nodded his thanks, Chuck merely nodded back, it was nothing but his due.
After breakfast, they gathered in Chuck and Sarah's suite again to discuss the status of the operation. Chuck and Sarah reported that they'd done all the viable deals, and the majority of the investments had gone into the Crown Point, and to a lesser degree, Belcher mines.
The rest of the investments were spread across the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mine, a number of processing concerns, and mines capable of producing large quantities of lower grade ores. With the rail to cheaply transport the ore and mills and smelters capable of processing the ore effectively, the lower grade mines could now produce quite reasonable yields. That meant that the Ring would be going after them sooner or later, but they were effectively locked out now, with the investments that 'Broken Circle' had made.
This brought them back to the issue of the Culper Ring's local activities. Between Casey, Hattie and Chuck, they'd identified two camps that were definitely Culper Ring, because Chuck had identified Ring members there. Casey had been holding off moving against them until Chuck and Sarah had finished their deals (Chuck was the one who identified the viable prospects and their value, but Sarah was the one who actually negotiated the deals, because there was no-one better at that).
Now that those deals were completed, it was time to move in. Their initial plan had been to do it just as they had at the Alamosa river, eliminate the hired guns and then interrogate and eliminate the Culper Ring members, but it wasn't as simple as it had been at the Alamosa river, because there was the local law to consider here. Casey's status as a U.S. Marshal would cover them as far as arresting these people went, but executing and interrogating (torturing) them, that would be difficult to explain, no matter what they had done.
Chuck had another thought and went back to the Ring camps (with Sarah and a few Troopers, of course) to check into the hired guns in more detail. Previously he'd done no more than check whether they were part of the Ring or not, but now he was checking his acquired memories to try and confirm their real identities and determine whether they had any outstanding warrants against them.
This exercise paid off and he'd spent a few hours scribbling madly in his notebook as he watched the camps and recorded the real names of the hired guns and just what they were wanted for. Once they had enough information that they could use to convince the local law, they armed up and moved in on the camps.
Anyone who wouldn't surrender and tried to shoot it out was dealt with definitively (and it was surprising how many of them did that with nearly forty pistols and rifles pointing at them), but several of the hired guns surrendered because they believed that they were safe, hiding under the names that they were currently using.
The seven or eight actual Ring members (who had been identified to the Troopers, so they suffered no worse injuries than being shot in the arm or the leg) were spirited away to somewhere further out so Casey could interrogate them. Afterwards the bodies were dumped back in the camp, with the story that they'd tried to fight it out.
Casey had worked fast on the Ring members, and he was back in the camp with the bodies by the time the local law arrived from Carson City. When challenged, Casey showed them his Marshal's badge and gave them the story about the shoot out, and then they went through the lists of who each of the hired guns were and what they'd done.
They hired wagons in Virginia City to cart the prisoners and bodies up to Reno, and when they arrived in Reno, they handed them over to the law and booked themselves into the Riverside Hotel, putting the mules into a stable nearby.
They also sent off the telegrams to organise for the railroad cars they required to be put together to take them through to California, hoping that they'd have them by the time the trials were over.
They discovered that there actually was a benefit in dealing with the Culper Ring's hired guns legally (or as close to legal as they could manage under the circumstances). This was that the combined bounty that they received for those thirty odd wanted killers that they'd either dealt with or arrested had been over $50,000. This money them helped top up their cash box so that they could buy up claims etc at the next location without the bother of having to find banks holding enough cash to do so.
Surprisingly, the trials of the men that they'd arrested only took two days to get through and the train arrived with their Pullman and horse cars attached a day after they finished, so they paid their bills in Reno, loaded up their mules and luggage and settled into the Pullman cars for the slow grind over the Sierras on their way to California.
Chuck was quiet when they got on the train, because as much as he accepted that it was necessary to remove the men like those they'd killed, that much killing still bothered him. Seeing this, Sarah took him off to their drawing room so that they could just lay down together and try to put that behind them.
Some time later, there was a soft knock on the door and Ellie called to say that they were pulling into Truckee soon.
They grabbed their jackets and went to check on the mules when they pulled into Truckee, to ensure that they had feed and water and that the blankets that had been tied onto them were properly in place before they began the slow haul up to the summit tunnel, and the slow descent down to Cisco on the other side.
They also wanted to light lanterns in the Horse cars, to give some light and warmth in there, for the mules as well as them when they came back to check on the mules as the train went through the tunnels, as they expected to be doing. They were done and had the horse cars closed up again by the time the train was due to pull out of Truckee.
It took the train a couple of hours to climb to the Summit Tunnel, and they did go into the horse cars to quieten the mules when they were frightened by the smoke and fumes in the tunnels.
Some of the Troopers stayed with the mules in the last four horse cars until the train reached Cisco, as it wasn't safe to try climbing across the tops of the cars with the low roof in the tunnels, or in the driving snow that they encountered after the train had exited the tunnels on the coast side.
Chuck and Sarah stayed with their mules through the tunnels, as they found a peace with the mules that they needed after the discussions that they'd had, but they returned to their Pullman car once they'd exited the tunnels.
At Cisco, the Troopers from the horse cars returned to the Pullman cars, and they were told to stay in the warmth when they unloaded the mules to give them a break at the stop in Colfax, because they had been half frozen by the time they'd reached Cisco (they weren't made of as hardy stuff as the mules).
Late the next morning, they were pulling into San Francisco on the ferry, and Sarah couldn't help but be dragged along with Chuck's excitement for this new city. San Francisco was different from both the old cities of the East Coast like Boston or New York that they were used to, and the sprawling towns that were called cities in the West. It was new and vibrant, but it had a substance that those cities of the West had lacked. Even the memories in Chuck's head didn't have anything quite like it.
They had agreed back in Reno, after reading through the latest packets of information that Uncle Sam had had sent to them at the Riverside Hotel while they were in Virginia City, that their course of action upon reaching San Francisco should be to book passage straight down to San Diego, as there had been some significant gold strikes around Julian down near San Diego which were likely to have attracted the Culper Ring's attention.
Their original plan had been to look into such industries as coal, and oil, and railroads in California, as these were boom industries that they expected the Culper Ring would be trying to get a bite of to aid their expansion. They would still be investigating those areas, but this gold strike down in Julian was more urgent, as they would have to move quickly if they were to head off any moves by the Ring, or to get a foothold themselves, so it was decided that they'd take the steamer to San Diego, look into the situation in Julian, and then work their way back up to San Francisco from there.