Dusty Books, Frontier Librarian

Chapter 11

Across the prairie on horseback with a pack mule... Civil War rumblings... Buffalo for 4 hours... A prairie showdown with some desperate hombres... The tale versus the true story... A reward collected... profit out of adversity...

I pondered whether to bring my vehicle, but decided against it. I had too much respect for my rig to abuse it, by hauling it across the country. I had sworn off any kind of water travel since my near brush with death. Also there was very little traffic going in that direction, boats that did get a crew in San Francisco were on their way to the Pacific, and I had no desire to travel in that leisurely a manner, though I did contemplate it.

I had made a few trips in the past, one to the great Yosemite Valley, using my Horse and Pack Mule combination effectively. I decided to navigate the Rockies, and follow the route of the settlers in reverse fashion as far as Chicago. I would travel light, camping in the manner I had become used to in the last 10 years.

I pondered the real possibility that my trip back would be slow, since Oxen seemed to be a good choice to haul as many books as I contemplated buying. I would purchase a stout wagon, which would be a very tradable commodity back here in Virginia City.

As it worked out plan did not follow event, exactly. But it was a trip with a few events to describe. I would have my share of good and bad, serendipitous and awkward, but it would overall end up being an enjoyable experience, at least in the telling now in the twilight of my years. I had no desire to go 'home', since there was no one there I knew. All I wanted to do was get there and get back. I resolved to not be a tourist since this was a serious trip. Well, that was my intention at any rate, and I suppose you've heard the one about what the road to Hades is paved with, to be sure.

Actually it was a very fortuitous trip, since the country was about to be at War with itself. This was the real reason for Alvin's departure, his beloved South. To make confession as unpatriotic as it might seem, I was not particularly disposed to either side, and felt fortunate to be so inclined. After all I was not from a 'state', at least not yet, but a territory. As it worked out I was back to my chosen home before the conflict started, and would remain apart from it. Finally a touch of age made me sympathetic to the Union cause, causing me to vote for Lincoln once we did become a state in 1864, but that was 5 years later and I needed a bit more time to come to my senses. Remaining neutral is a way to conflict with both sides and it would have been better to simply pick one, but I simply did not make a commitment. When word reached me that my Brother had perished for the Union side at Gettysburg, I was firm from then on. Since this is not a Civil War diary I will concentrate on my business at hand instead of bemoaning the situation. Blood is thicker than water, certainly, but I must let it pass.

My first horse and mule were long gone onto the trail up in the sky, one perishing of natural causes having to be destroyed when he fell down a gully and broke his leg, and the other bought from me from a starving group of miners to be used for food, after hauling their supplies back from a snowed in camp up on Emigrant gap. If the mule charmed them into keeping him alive, so much the better, but he was no charmer when I owned him. At worst he got his revenge on the miners from what would most likely be very tough meat, and stringy to boot.

I was on my third set of horse and mule combination by then, and was off on my trip to the East, over the Rockies and across the plains as planned. It was uneventful except for one curious incident. I was out on the great plains, just having seen a herd of buffalo, magnificent creatures, I'm sad to report were slaughtered wholesale a few years later. Individually and as a group they looked most impressive, and the thunder they produced with their combined hooves was awesome to behold. Their passing by me took almost four hours, there were so many. Where they were bound with such commitment is unknown, perhaps hurrying to an uncertain future. I don't know if I would have been in such a hurry.

I came up on two fellows, just over a little rise. One appeared to be wounded, as it would turn out mortally, and the other was most disturbed, almost balmy, but in possession of a gun which he waved around most carelessly. I had seen desperate men, even those about to hang, of a higher class than this. There is another thing I learned in the mining camps, that element called self protection. I carry a Derringer 2 shot pistol in my boot in a special pocket, and a Skinning knife in the other. I confess that previous to this incident I had used my talents as a talker to get out of the threat of injury, but there has to be a first time for everything. I took it that their condition was very weakened anyway. The one not on the ground said to me in an almost comically high voice 'Stand and Deliver'. I asked him quite nicely if he meant that this was to be a hold up. He said he was doing the talking and got a bit riled up, the veins on his neck popping out.

He demanded money and I told him I had none quite truthfully, all I had were my certificates of credit, non transferable. He ordered me off my horse and had me stand to one side. He searched my saddle bags, finding nothing that interested him, until he came to my quarto edition of Shakespeare. 'This a bible?' he inquired suspiciously. I told him no, it was a collection of plays that I sometimes read to people. He allowed as he had heard of Shakespeare, which was more of a shock to me than being held up at gunpoint.

He got very formal and in a puffed up way said 'I am Jack Dayton and this is Wild Bill Stout, we're both wanted men with a high bounty. We're desperate characters, so you better watch out.' I've read better writing on privy walls, but I decided to let this little drama play out.

What happened next you will think a tall tale, but I would not waste paper on it, if at least every third word had truth in it. What follows actually is gospel truth. He demanded that I read for his partner and himself! So I sat on a nearby hillhock (sic) and read to the supine man whose life's blood was draining out, and this loon who was as ready for an asylum as any I've seen. I would have preferred to see to the wounded man, but this fellow was in charge and so I didn't bring it up, and my conscience still does not bother me that I didn't.

So I read from Hamlet for about the next half hour, and he calmed down quite a bit, seeming to enjoy the thickening plot. I did test him a bit by adding a few random things from other selections and he accepted things whole cloth. I expect he didn't possibly know how to read, except for wanted posters. His partner came out of his coma for a little while, and I took the opportunity to skip to 'To be or not to be' in short order. He got this hazy look in his eyes as if actually contemplating 'shuffling off the mortal coil' which from his appearance I had not doubt was to happen soon. Just then his partner moaned and entered what was to become his final death rattle. He died with as great a passing as any I've ever seen before or since, either on stage or in real life.

His friend showed real emotion at this, covering his face with his hands, and dropping his pistol in the process. I didn't have to pull the Derringer, since I just reached over and pick up his cannon. Quietly I cracked it open, it was a modern enough gun space for 6 cartridges. There were no bullets in the gun, of course. This fellow was all madness and bluff. It was then that he attempted to wrestle with me, which was not a good move on his part. I so outweighed him that the contest would not have been fair, had he not had a death grip on my throat. I had no choice but to use one of my weapons to subdue him, and he did have a madman's strength as well as his grief to buck him up.

I eased the Derringer out of its hiding place and put the weapon to his ear. It clicked and I realized it had misfired! This was probably lucky for me as much as him, since the bullet may have gone through me as well. He seemed not even aware that I had attempted to kill him, he being beyond reason. I resolved to use my other messier weapon, which I was able to take out of my boot with a little bit of struggle. We struggled in what would be mortal combat for only one of us, for quite a bit of time. I had resolved that it would not be my mortality that would be at issue in this conflict.

I was finally able to draw my knife, rolling over as I did so, knocking this scrabbling mad dog figure off of me. I then with a grace I suppose born out of necessity, which probably surprised me as much as my assailant, rolled over on top of him. He then saw the knife, and with a wild eyed look realized his situation as hopeless, or so I thought. I told him that he had two choices, surrender or die.

This he seemed to ponder for some time. To hurry his decision I placed the point of my knife right square in front of his little black heart, to make my point; pun intended. He then reared up with that madman's strength and said 'Die!' impaling himself on the blade. He bled to death almost instantly, at least compared to his compadre. He did die quietly, for which I was thankful. After some reflection I think I simply ended up assisting in his suicide, since he would have dispatched himself in some other manner had I not been there. I simply by happenstance was the instrument of his fate.

Placing the bodies on their single horse, a most worn out creature, obviously stolen. With proper care it might recover fully. I retrieved Jack's cannon for evidence, I resolved to seek some civilization and redeem my reward. My map showed a town some 50 miles south and east. They ended up being truly wanted men, since the reward was substantial.

The previous tale I have told in many situations and what was presented is what folks heard from me on the subject for lo these many years. I feel the actual truth of it must be known, for there were a few details that I changed. The story veers awry from the truth just about the time of Bill Stout's demise. I actually did read from Hamlet and that is gospel. When Jack dropped the gun, that was all she wrote. The fight and his death was a glamorous figment of my imagination. It sounded good, though, didn't it? The Derringer I won in a poker game, and yes in a rare moment I will gamble, and the knife is something I do carry on the trail and is about as useful a tool as I can imagine. I have been known to stuff it in my boot once in a while, but have never used it to dispatch anything but gamem, and very little of that.

I put Bill Stout's body on their one run down mount, which was as described, and made Jack get in the saddle backwards, facing his friends' body, which overall seemed to generate a calming affect upon him. He was still raving, but now tied securely, and so I stopped listening to him. He became a part of the background, a muttering crazy prairie bird.

When I finally did get to the town on the map, they actually were large enough to have a sheriff, who took these characters, one dead and one not, off my hands. It was then I found out why a simple man of letters and books could take the upper hand with these self-described desperate characters. The reward on Bill Stout was $42.00, and on Jack Dayton was $48.00, very low by frontier standards. I cleared a not too fast $100.00 on the encounter, which was less the cost of feeding him and listening to his ravings for that time, and for the six-day detour. It might have been less complicated if I had shot him. At times I hoped a rattler would rear up and bite him and put him out of his misery, and once very early on, and only once, was I tempted to shoot him with dispatch. I thought the better of it, since we was easier and a might less odiferous to transport alive than his dead companion, and at times he was entertaining with vivid accounts of bank robberies. They must have been from someone else's life, however, according to the Sheriff. These two were petty robber's who only went after easy targets. I was not flattered by this, surely!

Another coincidence is that this was the town they had hailed from. The horse and the cannon were both stolen property belonging to the Sheriff. Through some desperation these two made their way out of the jail, Stout being wounded in the process. He had been accidentally shot by his partner when the heavy cannon went off. They were awaiting a circuit court judge on another charge involving a petty theft. He was glad to see his horse, missing her for the two weeks they were at large, but saddened at her condition. They had given up their posse to retrieve the animal about 30 miles out, and the crooks were found at about 50 miles out by me.

He did indicate that the local circuit court had convicted them both in absentia to death by hanging. The judge being a stickler, the sheriff said he would have to hang old dead Bill Stout, as well as the living 'desperado', and carry out the sentence in front of witnesses. I was not disposed to stay for the hanging anyway, but this clinched it, even though I was offered a front place to view the proceedings. I wanted to be long gone and part of the legend of Dusty Books Frontier Librarian as soon as possible.

Thought you deserved the truth, Dear Reader. Just hope you weren't related to either of these horse thief rascals.

Editor's Note: Dusty may have been clairvoyant at least in one respect: When I read this last small paragraph I felt a sudden chill up my spine. I am related to a Jack Dayton, my maternal Grandfather, not the Jack Dayton in the story, since I knew him as a child. This might have been my GREAT grandfather, however. What makes this even more a coincidence and nothing more, I trust is that a Bill Stout was my father's Supervisor for 22 years...pure coincidence...just an observation. (RTC)

I resolved to buy $100 worth of uplifting literature in memoriam to these two hapless individuals, desperate only for notoriety and to be wanted, more than in fact they were. I thought better of it later, modifying my purchase to $25 worth of bibles, which I rented out. This ended up being a profitable venture, this being especially attractive on Sundays! Thus providence leads us all!

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