Disturbing the Peace by Terrence McCauley

Author:Terrence McCauley [McCauley, Terrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2022-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The next morning, Halstead drank his coffee in the hotel’s dining room, watching the stagecoach driver loading up passengers and luggage in front of The Standard Hotel. It was the coach for Wellspring Station to meet the Helena train.

Halstead recognized the first two travelers who had climbed into the coach as being the same odd men he had watched enter The Hot Pepper Saloon the night before. The skinny, timid looking man and the shorter, dour man pulling on his shirt. They had not fit the crowd going into The Hot Pepper the night before, and they looked just as out of place here among the passengers to Helena. He had watched them board the coach and saw that there was only one small piece of luggage between them.

That struck Halstead as strange. The train trip to Helena was about four days this time of year, given track conditions and layovers and all. He knew men tended to pack lighter than women, but that case was awfully small even if it was only a one-way journey. And the weaselly looking man had kept a smaller bag with him. The same bag he had seen him carry into The Hot Pepper Saloon the previous night.

Strange. Very strange indeed.

From across the table, Sandborne was talking to him, but Halstead had something else on his mind. “Bring that coach driver in here. I want to talk to him.”

Sandborne set down his mug and did what Halstead had told him to do. When Sandborne delivered the message, Halstead watched the stocky coach driver pull out a watch from his vest and point to it, undoubtedly telling the deputy that the stage had a schedule to keep.

But Halstead was glad to see Sandborne would not be put off and corralled the bearded man into the hotel. The deputy had learned to not allow his youth to get in the way of his authority. “That boy has grit,” Halstead said to himself.

Sandborne brought the stage driver to the table in the hotel dining room where Halstead was enjoying his coffee. Now that he could get a better look at him, he could tell the man was much younger than he had looked at a distance. His brown beard had made him look older, but his anger over the delay of his journey showed a man in his mid-to-late twenties.

“What the hell do you want, mister?” the driver demanded. “I’ve got a coach full of people and gear sitting and animals setting out in the cold, ready to go. I don’t have time for conversation.”

Halstead gestured to the star on the lapel of Sandborne’s coat. “The deputy here tell you we’re Deputy U.S. Marshals?”

“I don’t care if you’re the president of the United States,” the coachman said. “I’ve got a schedule to keep and a boss who’ll take a chunk out of my hide if I’m late again. So state your case and state it plain or you boys are gonna have a hell of a time keeping me here.

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