The Last Wagon Train by Johnstone William W.; Johnstone J.A

Author:Johnstone, William W.; Johnstone, J.A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

“Pete Johansen’s my guess,” Cookie Mayfield said.

Callahan and Cookie rode side by side next to the chuckwagon. The ground had become hillier as the day progressed, and soon the wagon train would be in the mountains, where their daily progress would be significantly reduced.

This wasn’t the first time they’d discussed this. Somebody in the wagon train was committing sabotage, maybe even trying to murder Callahan. It was hard to believe, but the sawed wagon wheel spokes couldn’t be denied, and some gang had attacked the wagon train for no apparent reason. Poor Little Rock had been killed, but there could have been many more deaths with so much lead flying around.

Now, as they rode along, they discussed who might be the rat in their midst.

“How do you figure Pete?” Callahan asked.

“He’s cranky as all get out for one thing,” Cookie said.

Callahan shook his head. “Cranky don’t mean villain.”

“Well, you’re right about that, I guess,” Cookie admitted. “Some people’s just naturally unpleasant. But consider this. Most everyone in the wagon train had signed on before the wager with the railroad. Pete Johansen signed on late. Does that make him automatically guilty? Well, no, but if the railroad tried to sneak somebody in on us, then it just goes to figure it would be a latecomer. And he stays off to himself. Why’s that? So nobody can see what he’s up to sneaking around? I’m just saying the man bears watching.”

“You made your point,” Callahan said. “But that goes for anyone who signed up after the wager. We’ll need to keep our eyes and ears open.”

They traveled the rest of the day without incident and circled the wagons as usual that night. Callahan told Billy and Clancy to keep their eyes peeled as they made the rounds. He didn’t need to tell them why. They’d seen the sabotage to the wagon wheels with their own eyes.

“When we pass Fort Hall, I’ll tell the marshal.” Callahan considered riding ahead himself to inform the law about what had happened, but he didn’t want to leave the wagon train any more shorthanded than it already was. “We have to pass Fort Hall, anyway, to get to the Snake River ford, yes?”

“That’s right,” Cookie said. “Unless we want to avoid the mountain pass coming up . . . in which case we could go way south, take one of the alternate paths.”

“Why would we do that?”

“If the weather’s bad, or if it’s late in the season and we don’t want to risk getting snowed in,” Cookie said. “But there ain’t a cloud in the sky. There’s been freak blizzards before at high elevation, but I would have smelled it before now.”

“Then we’re not going to lose a lot of time going south,” Callahan decided. “Take us over the mountains, Cookie.”

The Henry’s Lake Mountains weren’t the biggest Callahan had ever seen, but they were plenty big enough to slow down a wagon train, and the column of Conestogas was reduced to crawl as they zigzagged up the narrow switchback trail to Jericho Pass.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.