Counterfeit

Chapter11

The Marshall watched carefully as they drove back to the house, he wanted to be able to find this place in the dark. He had a plan and in order for it to work he would have to carry it out that night. Time was short. He was aware that Colter had been keeping a watch on his movements, sometimes even to the extent of posting a man in the hallway so he could not leave the house without his host knowing about it. He had left and walked around outside some evenings – just to see what happened. He noticed that it wasn't long before Colter came out and joined him. Tonight had to be different.

There was an hour or so before dinner – there would only the three of them tonight, Colter, Jennifer and himself- so he left by the back door of the house and started walking around the gardens. It wasn't long before the young girl joined him. Matt casually looked around to make sure Colter wasn't in earshot.

"Jennifer I need your help tonight."

She looked at him quizzically.

"I am going to make an excuse not to sit around drinking with your uncle after dinner. I am going up to my room, then, in about half an hour, I will need a diversion out the front of the house. Maybe some screaming or any kind of commotion that will get everyone there."

"What are you going to do? Are you planning to leave tonight?"

"No. Maybe tomorrow."

"Please take me with you – William will be here and my uncle will make me entertain him. I can't spend another night with him Mr. Weeks he always hurts me. I promise I won't get in the way. Maybe I can even help. But please don't leave me behind, you are my only chance."

What could he say, he couldn't leave her to suffer at the hands of whoever William was. On the other hand what he was about to do could be dangerous, should he expose her to that? He decided.

"I'll take you, pack a small bag and be ready to leave at a moments notice."

-XX-

It was already dark by the time dinner was over. As usual Colter wanted to sit around and take a few glasses of whisky. Dillon sat for a while, then told him he had been away from home a long time and he needed to go write a letter to send to his family back in Colorado. Colter seemed to accept that.

Once in his room, Dillon pulled the jackknife he had managed to keep from Quartermaine, from the bottom of the locked brief case. He slid it into one of the pockets of his coat. He dropped the small gun in another pocket and then opened a small compartment from within the case and took out two flat pieces of metal each engraved with an image resembling the front and back of a fifty-dollar bill. He waited. Before long there was incessant screaming from the front of the house and shortly footsteps of men running in that direction. He grabbed the opportunity to move swiftly to the back of the house and leave through the back door. He had thought of going to the stable and borrowing a horse, but decided that might be noticed. Instead he set off on foot towards the small stone house.

The night was not too dark as the moon was at about half phase. He found the trail that the buggy had taken quite easily and followed it – staying to the side of the road so that he could hide in the bushes at the sound of any approaching horses. He was able to move quickly and in little over an hour came to the small building he was looking for. He listened and heard nothing. Surely there was a guard somewhere – but he could not see one out front of the house so quietly made his way to the back. Then he saw him, a young man with a colt pistol in his lap sitting half asleep by the back door.

Dillon thought for a moment. He couldn't risk the man waking up and finding him at work inside the house. Maybe he could get up close enough without waking him that he could hit him over the head just enough to keep him out for an hour while he did his work. With a little luck the man might think he fell off the chair and hit his own head and be too scared to report the incident.

He cautiously eased his way along the back wall of the building towards the sleeping guard. The man didn't move a muscle. Carefully he pulled the small gun he had been given from his pocket and raised it, one more step and he brought it down with a moderate amount of force on the back of the guard's head. Before the man could fall he caught him around the shoulders and gently lowered him to the ground. Carefully stepping over him he saw the reason for the man's sleep – an empty bottle of whisky lay by the door. Even more luck, the door was not locked. He went on in and lit one of the oil lamps on the table. Then he picked it up and made his way to the room where the printing press was located.

As he had seen earlier the press was very similar to the one at the treasury. He took the jack knife from his pocket and opening the press located the carefully engraved plates and set about removing them. Using his knife he managed to pry them out, but it was taking longer than he had hoped. Finally he had removed both and it was an easy task to drop the ones he had brought into place. Hopefully they wouldn't notice the difference until they began to make the next run, that was Quartermaine's plan anyway – he thought it would give the Marshal time to get away. But Matt wanted to find out who this William was, counterfeiters were bad enough, but a man who would abuse a young girl like Jennifer made him really angry. The whole task took him longer than expected and he still had to make it back to the house. He picked up the lamp and set it back on the table where he found it, carefully extinguishing its flame before exiting through the door. Fortunately the guard was still asleep.

TBC