Trego. J. D. Oliver

Army’s wagon train was camped in their yard for the night. You were just a baby. Anyway a renegade bunch, twenty in all hit the wagon train while they slept. They took them completely by surprise. Your mother heard all of the shooting and yelling, she stood up to see out the window, your Father yelled at her to get down, but too late. She was shot and died instantly. They got away with all of the Army’s Payroll.” She stopped again, a tear ran down her cheek.

      “Your Father was inconsolable, he brought you to us, then he left. It was a year later when he came back and got you. We only seen you two times after that.” Then she fell silent.

      “Yes, but we heard later about how your Dad caught up with those renegades. He killed them all, they were all drunk and sleeping when he came upon them. He rode his horse right into their camp. He was a wild man, when his guns went empty, he started in with his knife. He took all of their guns and horses and everything else. But they say the payroll was never found. It consisted of greenbacks and gold double eagles, they say.” Uncle Lambert said, then picked up his cigar and drink. Then he looked at me, “We never seen you again, just heard about you.”

      I sipped my brandy, “Yes, so I suppose you want me to fill in the details? We moved around a lot, all of the big city’s, till I was ten. Then we went to the northwest part of the territory. Dad built up a homestead in the mountains. He trained me to take care.”

      “Take care? What do you mean?” Brie asked.

      “Of everything. Myself mostly. I learned to shoot, throw a knife, a tomahawk, an axe. Anything that would kill. He made me read all of the books that we brought with us. Then he quizzed me on them. I left and traveled a little in my twenties. I always came back in the winter, to make sure Dad was alright. He never got over the death of my mother.”

      Brie got up and sat in my lap, she leaned in and kissed me. Then got up, “Does anyone want some pie? I made mincemeat pie, it’s good?” We all did. She went in the kitchen. I asked my Uncle, “Just how much was in that payroll?”

      “They say, forty thousand dollars.”

      “Hmmm, it’s strange there was a lot more than that in the stash that I dug up. That bunch must have had some from previous robberies.”

      “I seen when you rode in, you couldn’t of carried all of that with you.”

      “I didn’t. I stashed it.” Then Brie came back with the pie. She was right, it was delicious. We sat and talked for the next hour about mundane things. As they were putting on their coats to leave, I said, “Let’s keep what we talked about tonight under our hat’s, huh?”

      Garnet said, “Of course, no one even knows that you are related to us. They just think that we’re friends. They know that Brie was a friend of mine.”

      “Yes, that is safer for you both. If they thought they could get to me through you, they wouldn’t hesitate.”

      “Well what about Brie, isn’t she in danger?” Uncle said.

      “Yes she is. That’s why Jake stays with her all of the time now, instead of with me. And I am not more than a few minutes away at any time.”

      “Your Dad was in the same room with your mother, when she got killed.” Garnet said.

      “Yes, I’m well aware of that, tonight. I wasn’t before. I’ll take that into account.” I seen them out the back kitchen door. I closed the door and locked it. I turned, and got an eye full. Brie was standing there naked.

      I said, “I like your outfit, is that new?”

      “Yes, of course. In biology we learned that we are always making new cells.”

      “Shall we go up to our room and wear out a few of those cells?” I said.

      “No, I want to do it down here, either here in the kitchen or the den.” Remember I told you she had a vivid imagination. As it turned out, we made use of both of those locations. The fact that we might get caught by some of the borders, just made it that much better for my lovely wife.

      The next morning, we came into the kitchen and Caitie and Brona looked at us and giggled. Margaret, our cook said. “What ails the two of you, get busy and take that food to the dinning room.”

      They picked up the platters and looking back over their shoulders, they were still giggling as they left the kitchen. Margaret looked at Brie, “What’s got into them?”

      “I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea.” Brie said.

      “I do,” I said, “they probably seen us making love on the kitchen table last night.”

      Margaret looked at us both and said, “Land Sakes, you two do take the cake. Go on now and quit your joshing.” Brie’s face was turning a bright red. She came over and kicked me in the shins.

      Jake was watching us both, I swear he was smiling. I had forgotten that he slept behind the kitchen range. Brie and I ate most of our meals in the kitchen. It seems that my presence at the dinning room table intimidated some of our boarders. Probably because I was never without my twin .44’s.

      Margaret had made up a platter for the two drunks that I had in Jail, I always fed them before they were released. I went and fed the livestock, then I came back and got the basket of food. I made sure I always had one hand free, I was ambidextrous.

      They scoffed that food down like there was no tomorrow. Couldn’t blame them, Margaret was a good cook. I gave them back their guns. They were a couple of Harold Specter’s hands. You remember they were having a little difficulty with Evan Blythe last fall. Blythe is trying to run them off of their ranch. With the cold winter, things had sort of been in limbo.

      Their names were Charles and Robert Ringer. This was the first night they had on the town all winter. Couldn’t blame them for blowing off steam. “I took your horses over to the livery, tell Henry I will be by and pay him for their keep.”

      “Thanks a lot Marshal, you’ve always treated us right, if you ever need anything, my brother and me will be there with bells on.” Charles said, he was the oldest of the brothers Ringer.

      “Well, one never knows, someday I might take you up on that.” I said, as I closed the Jail door behind them. I went back to my desk and started going through the mail, there was quite a bunch of it. It was over a month since we got the last mail.

      I looked out of the window, a Chinook wind was blowing. I hoped it wasn’t an ill wind. You see as soon as the ground thawed, there would be a lot of funerals. Everyone who had died or been killed all winter was stored in the ice house. And of course one of them was Blythe’s kid. I knew I hadn’t seen the last of Blythe on that score.

      In this batch of mail was a bunch of new wanted poster’s from the U. S. Marshal’s office in Helena. A few of the boys in them wanted poster’s I knew. Some of them were some pretty bad men.

      One of them in particular caught my eye: Sam Benbow. I seen him in action one time. He was pure mean, and when he got drunk, he was worse than mean. I sat there staring at his picture for awhile, his eyes seemed to follow my every move. Crap, I knew what that meant. I got these premonitions from time to time and they always fulfilled my worse fears. I would be seeing him in the future.

      I went through the rest of the mail, answering a few queries from other towns. Mostly if we had seen this guy or this woman. The time sort of got away from me, till Brie and Jake came in. Brie was wearing pants again. She sure liked them. I didn’t mind.

      “It’s lunch time, and I want to eat somewhere different.” Brie said.

      “Different? What? There’s only your place or the Chinese one, or the Mexican Café?” I said.

      “How about the saloon, I hear they have a pretty good lunch?”

      “The saloon, you sure? They don’t take kindly to good women going in saloons.” I said.

      She got a pouty look on her face and said, “Well that’s