Chapter 2: Trouble
"Name's Roger Dunn. A big fella," Roy explained over coffee. Ben and Hoss leaned across the table from him with grim expressions. "Took into Washoe County jail a week or so back on 'count of some bad trading he got into. He's one of Meyers's boys."
"And you spoke with him?"
"Some." The sheriff massaged his temples, took a gulp of coffee, and rubbed his eyes until the Cartwright men thought he'd said all he was going to. "Apparently Meyers is still stove up from being shot in the leg. But he ain't idle. He's building his gang back up to strength, and he intends to come back for Anna soon as he's able- and kill the lot of you for ruining him in the first place."
"Can you find him? Before he's well enough to come this way?"
"I've put out warrants. I've been in touch with other sheriffs and their deputies. The problem is not knowing where he's holed out. Dunn wouldn't give us anything else."
"You keep on looking then, Sheriff," Hoss said. "He won't find us unawares."
When Roy left, Ben wrote word for the neighbors and sent Hop Sing into town with a note for Joe. Hoss spoke to the men in the bunkhouse, the few that shared the afternoon off with Candy, and ordered all men out riding the herd or fences to be armed and watchful. Then saddling their horses, father and son rode off to spread word to the hands at work.
"Trouble's coming," muttered one of the hands in the bunkhouse. He threw down a losing hand of poker while his partner lit a cigarette.
"Trouble's always somewhere near with these Cartwrights."
The smoker shuffled the deck with a bit of a scowl, and dealt a little more aggressively than likely necessary.
He watched the awe cross her face, and it was like seeing the lake again for the first time himself. She stumbled when he helped her off the buggy. Her eyes never left the sun-speckled surface of the Tahoe. Candy watched her trip down to the water's edge, and stick her hand straight in it. Candy plopped himself on a stray driftwood log and grinned at her when she looked back at him.
"Is- is this the ocean?"
He tried not to snort, he really did, but the noise was out before he could check it. Anna's face went tomato red.
"You're serious?" She looked like she wanted to drown herself as Candy tried to quell his laughter.
"I've never seen it before," the woman muttered, pulling her pretty new cape tighter about her shoulders. Candy reached forward and straightened its silver clasp so that it hung neatly at her collarbone. His laughter died out to giggles. "I just.. It's so big."
Candy couldn't help but snort again. He found a pretty chunk of driftwood and wrapped her hands around it.
"You've really never seen it?"
Anna shook her head, turning the wood over in her hands and smudging away sand. She found the stump that he'd claimed and perched on its edge. Candy stood between her and the water.
"I was born in Tennessee, in '55." She was less than twenty, or just at it. "Daddy was a greyback. He came back from the war a little different. Yankees burned our barn and did something with his sister- I can imagine what it was now, but back then he never spoke of it."
She found another piece of wood, thin and twisted, and shared it with him.
"We moved to Indian Territory. Mama was called on Home. Daddy never recovered from the War. Here I am."
Candy used his piece of driftwood to draw swirls around her slippered feet. She showered his hair with sand. He met her eyes, and when the trickle of sand ceased he stood and dusted himself off.
"Let's break into that lunch before we wither away, eh?"
They feasted on cold cornbread and salted beef, with a bite of sweetcake apiece and half-stale coffee to wash it down.
"It's not much," Candy grinned. "Just what I could pinch from Hop Sing's larder."
Anna smiled anyways and glanced back at the lake.
"I'll take you there one day." She stiffened, without looking at him. "To the ocean."
She pinched her driftwood tight in her hand. He thought for a minute she was going to throw it.
"If you'll let me," he amended. There was another long silence. "I have a couple more places to show you, if you want."
There were tears standing in her eyes when she looked back at him. "Maybe another day, Candy. I think I'm ready for a rest."
Alex Gipson mopped sweat off his brow and tried not to look too keenly across the poker table. He had an appaloosa hand, but maybe he could bluff… his eyes fell on the buffalo hunter on the other side. There was a banker beside him, a lawman on the right, and a pretty barmaid camped right in the buffalo hunter's lap. The men here had more money in their pockets than Alex was worth. He lost out another hand, and twisted a stolen ring off his finger to pay out.
"C-Could I ask the pleasure of a drink from you men?"
His old man's throat hung in a little wattle that wobbled as he spoke- it was a stain on his pride, but it often stirred just enough pity to get him a whiskey. The barmaid looked sad and disgusted for him, and slid a glass his way. The lawman and the banker found themselves better company. The buffalo hunter continued to stare.
"Do I know you, sir?"
"We've met." Alex sipped a little at his whiskey and felt a twinge of heartburn. "Name's Leon Meyers."
Alex averted his eyes. "Surely not," he muttered, as if the simple denial could erase the man before him.
"Surely so."
"I heard your daddy's gang was shot up."
"And you're coming to see if you can steal your little girl back from him?"
Alex didn't have to nod. Leon shifted in his seat. He had his daddy's phantom gray eyes.
"Lonnie ain't dead, Alex." His voice had something of pity in it. "His gang's shot up, but there's a lot of men in this line of work that owe Lonnie Meyers their livelihood." Alex shrank under the cold stare, and said nothing. "About six of them's in this room right now."
They didn't notice the lawman's head shift from where he was eavesdropping at the bar.
"Alex I don't like to knock a man down lower than dirt, and you're already there. I suggest you go home. This is gonna get ugly."
"You're a decent man, Leon," Alex plead.
"Decent's got nothing to do with it, friend."
"They're coming for me, aren't they?"
She was sober on their walk tonight.
"Not yet, we don't think."
He'd been briefed on their return to the ranch. Joe'd got an urgent message from Coffee's deputy before leaving town- a Churchill County lawman had overheard an interesting conversation in a bar. The known number of Lonnie's forces jumped from two to eight with the word of one telegram. Candy itched to be riding, to be hunting them instead of being hunted. Anna's hand touched his.
"I can leave. I'm well enough to leave. I can take the stage-"
"It won't do any good, Anna." He squeezed his friend's hand idly. "He's coming for the Cartwrights. Whether you stay or go, Meyers wants revenge."
"I can draw him away." Her voice was small, and she wasn't looking at him but at the headstone of her boy in the shadows to their left.
"Anna if you leave, Meyers will still come. And you won't have us to protect you."
They stayed quiet a long while after. Candy lifted her hand and studied her fingertips in the moonlight. They were blunt. Her hands were broad and flat and scarred, not unlike his own. The pair strolled between the shadows of the house and the barn, and she must have been thinking that she'd been without their protection during the most trying months of her life. She'd been without anyone's protection.
"This is the first home I've ever had," Candy found himself telling her. "I was an army brat. We moved a lot, before the War."
"I was seventeen when it broke out, but I was a cavalry scout in up to my teeth fighting Indians and Mexicans and the odd outlaw. I'd been an orphan for nearly ten years already. My pa and the man that killed him had long turned to dust, and so had Mama and the little girl that killed her."
He roamed. He roamed a long time- some ten years, scouting for the army and chasing Indians, and at the odd time scouting for the Indians and chasing the army. And getting into trouble. Ben Cartwright offered him a new life- and new friends in these other wild boys who'd also lost their mothers but who'd had a home all their lives. It took time getting used to, the camaraderie they extended to him. He was thirty years old, and a semi-private corner of a loaded bunkhouse was the only home he'd ever known.
"Point is, I finally found a home. And a family. And I learned… that it's something special to have another man watching your back. To not be alone in the fight."
He was trying to tell her she didn't have to go back.
Lonnie Meyers was in a one-room physician's office in the town of Sheep Station, under the assumed alias of Bill Paxby. Paxby, to the physician's knowledge, had been ambushed in the night, robbed, and nearly murdered. It was only by the kindness of a passing stranger that he made it to Sheep Station at all.
"You're leg's not doing bad, Mr Paxby," the young surgeon commented, rubbing idly at a sore spot on his wrist. "Another week and you might could ride. You oughtta take it easy though. It'll still never be like it was before."
"Bless your hard work, son," Meyers grinned. "Wouldn't be here without ya."
"When the time comes, I can lease you a horse as far as Dutch Flat to the west. Or 'bout Virginia City to the East." Meyers perked up at the offer. "I know the boys in the livery out there, it'd be no trouble at all…"
Meyers thanked the boy for his troubles and stumped out between a set of yellow pine crutches. A young cowpoke waited for him in the shadow between the physician's office and the next building, visible only by the lit tip of a cigarette. Meyers beckoned him to follow.
"You familiar with Virginia City, Mr Moorehead?"
"Of course."
"Anywhere there that a man could lie low?"
"I can make sure of it."
"Good. As you go out, send a telegraph to my boy."
It was freezing rain in Reno. Leon Meyers and four other men sat their horses on a rise above the town, eyes on the jail and the pale glimmer of the Sheriff's reading light within. A pair of shadows crossed the window. A muffled crash, two shots, and within moments Leon was reining his horse around and leading them down the backslope, southward, away from the clatter.
"You're up late, Moory." Candy slung his vest over the short post of his cot, and watched the younger hand dutifully cleaning the breach of a sharps rifle.
"Just got in from town," the boy didn't look up from the weapon. "Sent a message home to Ma. It's her birthday next week."
Candy patted the boy's shoulder, but didn't feel the tension there in it.
Virginia City's streets were painted blue and black in cavalry uniforms the next week. Hop Sing was visiting family, and in his place Anna and Hoss were hard-pressed to find a place to park the buggy near the General Store. Cavaliers filled the stores, the hotel, the saloon and restaurants. A smartly dressed captain nearly flattened Anna coming 'round the corner.
"Begging pardon, Mis-" He stopped dead. Hoss, uneasy, inserted himself between the pair and greeted the stranger with a curt nod and a questioning stare.
"My dear Anna," the captain was muttering. "Oh you sweet child!"
"Captain Harlow?" He swooped past Hoss and wrapped her in a tight hug, patting her face and despairing over the freshly healed scar that marred her once pretty features.
"Thank God you've been saved from those men," Harlow rejoiced. He met Hoss's eyes and thrust out a hand to him. "Are you the man I hear saved her?"
"Well I suppose, in a way. Not exactly- what do you know about them anyway?" Hoss's iron grip didn't quite release the captain. "Why is half the cavalry here?"
Harlow straightened himself and tugged the brim of his slouch hat a little lower on his face.
"This is something better discussed in private. I've sent a runner to fetch the head of militia. After we have our discussion with him and the town sheriff, you can be better informed." He ran a thumb across the bridge of Anna's nose and pulled her to his chest again.
"My pa's the major in the militia, uh, Captain. I'll sit in with y'all and the sheriff."
Harlow frowned, but didn't argue. A runner trotted up with Ben and Joe in tow, and saluted his captain. Introductions were made. Anna was passed from captain to trooper to rancher and then to Joe, who gripped her shoulders gently and steered her in the direction of the jail.
"She may not be the face that launched a thousand ships, but our Anna Gipson has launched a minor cavalry operation," Captain Harlow began. He made no further attempt to dally. "I've been trying to get authorization to hunt Lonnie Meyers for six months- the US Army as a whole has wanted him far longer, but they've only recently identified him."
The office was cramped, and Anna felt small in her chair with the men standing around her.
"I'm sure you all have heard that Meyers's gang are all buffalo hunters. The man has a level of trust and authority over a large portion of the entire business for one reason: he keeps them outfitted with clean, new, army-issue carbines and sharps rifles. Once and a while he manages to wrestle a string of horses for them as well. Meyers has been in this business since the years just following the War, and only recently has the Army uprooted his supplier."
"As serious as this all is, Captain, what does this have to do with Virginia City?" Roy chanced to ask, scratching at this hairline. "Beyond the fact that Meyers's gang kidnapped this little girl, and this is where she happens to be."
Harlow gazed sadly at the woman sat between them.
"As far as Meyers's long-term operation is concerned, not a lot," he admitted. "But she's useful to him, and he's thrifty about things like that." Anna was flushing. trying not to look into the faces of the men.
"What is most important, is that Meyers has finally been caught in a scheme that will have him, and his men, executed by the US Army. His second, Roger Dunn, has been busted out of the Reno jail- two lawmen and a civilian were killed in the process. His son has raised a new posse to back him. Word has it he's got a vendetta on the Cartwright family and their foreman for their role in stealing away his possessions."
"And I'm here on personal matters," the captain finished. "Little Anna would have been my daughter-in-law, if my son hadn't been killed trying to rescue her."
They outlined a plan for defense of the town, for securing the ranch, and decided that Anna would be safest where she'd been staying all along: The Ponderosa. Intelligence was spotty, but it was known the gang was hiding out somewhere in a fifty mile radius- they could strike within hours, or they could strike within days.
The Cartwrights' return home was a quiet and tense ride. Anna stared hollow eyed at the ears of the wagon team as if hoping to read some message in their twitching. Roger Dunn had escaped. Meyers was coming to prove a point, but Roger Dunn was coming for her. She rubbed her nose, and Hoss must have thought she was crying for he laid a broad arm around her shoulders and squeezed. She didn't hear what he said to her.
"What did he mean, useful," Candy spat. Anna could hear him from the landing. "The man's been robbing the army for over a decade and he's going to risk it all for one girl who's useful, in whatever God-forsaken way?"
"The Captain didn't specify," but Ben's face was dark, and they were thinking of the same thing, and it made Anna sick to watch. "But it puts the militia and the cavalry in a position to catch him and bring him to justice."
"You're not going to use her as bait."
"Of course not, Candy, but Meyers already knows she's here. Whether we flaunt her presence or not, he's coming."
Candy paced before the hearth. Ben was standing from his chair, solid as an oak, waiting for his foreman to spit more fire.
"I'm going for a ride."
Ben, Hoss, and Joe shared a grim look. They muttered low between themselves so that Anna, eavesdropping as she was, couldn't hear them. When the sons made to mount the stairs, the girl tucked back in her room. She heard their doors click. An hour went by. Ben's footsteps- heavier than they ought to have been- passed her door.
Another hour into the night saw Anna creeping into the quiet barn. Her new red cloak was tied and stuffed with trail rations pinched from the larder. She was unarmed. The wagon team nickered at her when she passed their stall, and she haltered the taller one, a baldfaced mare with flecks of white dripping down her broad chest. It had to be the mare- the gelding was sore in the hip and needed a trim, but she'd studied the mare on their ride from the city. It was a watchful animal and was quiet, and allowed the girl to scramble up onto her bareback. Anna thanked the Lord that it was broke to ride.
As she made to slip out of the barn, there was a movement toward the bunkhouse.
"Miss Gipson?"
"Moory." The animal felt her tension. "I-I'm not stealing—I just need… Roger Dunn is going to…"
"Don't you know you'll be safer here?" The cowhand approached the wagon horse and patted its white cheek. There was something careful in his expression, but Anna was wound too tightly to scrutinize it.
"If he finds me here, he'll burn the house down." Her voice was small. The mare squirmed between her knees. "I-I have to lead him away. Captain Harlow, he-he can save me from there…"
Tommy Moorehead seemed to consider her a long moment, then held up a hand.
"Let me saddle up and come with you."
Moorehead rode just slightly behind her on the trail toward Virginia City. Anna was outlining her plan- someone, anyone in the town needed to see her riding away. She begged Tommy to spread the word- subtly please, subtly, I don't want you to get in trouble- that she was escaping north to Reno. North to Reno, north to Reno, she repeated it over and again. 'Cause maybe he'll think twice about going back there- but the captain will definitely think he wouldn't, and they'll think I'm safer, and it'll allow me more time—
The sound of hoofbeats behind her had stopped. The draft mare was tense and dancing and hard to keep in hand. Anna reined it around and saw Moory's gelding was frozen and the man was looking down the sights of a rifle at her.
"Moory?" The shadows beside her moved, and one broad hand tore the reins from her grip while another bruised her wrist and dragged her from the mare's tall back.
"Y'know doll, you're still something- even after I had to split open that pretty little face of yours."