They Rode A Crooked Mile

They Rode A Crooked Mile

By Darrell Egbert

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Publisher’s Place

Copyright 2011 Darrell Egbert

Cover Art by Wallace Brazzeal

This digital edition July 2011 © Publisher’s Place

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

Leading my paint by the bridle, I turned right at Oliver Lewis’s farm and continued walking in the shade of Lombardy Poplars, teeming with flocks of chirping wild canaries. The trees followed a narrow irrigation ditch brimming with cold, clear water; below the surface, thick strands of moss waved in the current like a woman’s hair blowing in the wind. There was a broad expanse of newly mown lawn between Oliver’s fence and the bank, while tufts of grass and dandelions curled downward, the grass touching the surface; the dandelions stretching away in the distance like a yellow ribbon, bending, as the road turned and headed east toward Bernard’s Mercantile.

Memories of the cool water, the grass, and the trees are those I most treasure and those that most often come flooding back as I seek escape from this small, stifling, over-crowded cell, smelling of unwashed bodies here in the New Mexico Territorial Prison.

I looked up, and in the near distance a rider approached the Holmgren farm with a packhorse in tow. As he drew closer, I could see his single Colt was tied down. His rifle scabbard was expensively hand-tooled with an ornate floral pattern and a Ringo border, cut away to accommodate a rapid loading, loop-levered Winchester riding high on the withers. Both of his geldings were quality horseflesh, bred for speed and endurance. The pack animal was lightly carrying a poncho, saddlebags, and a bedroll. The stranger’s leather chaps were laid flat across the horse’s hindquarters for easy retrieval. And a short halter rope in his gloved left hand kept it following, closed up and in tight. He had the look of a professional, one whose better side would be worth cultivating. I felt a tingle run up my spine.

As he drew alongside, I could see he was clean-shaven with a small mustache and goatee. He was wearing an expensive broad, flat brimmed hat with a scalloped silver band that was fashionable in parts of Mexico. His jaw was prominent and square set. He had a wide forehead and a generous nose. His lips were full, his eyes blue his hair was brown. I had never seen him before, but his features were almost as familiar to me as those of a close friend. He was the notorious gunfighter Elzy Lay.

Morning, young feller, he said, smiling, as he hoisted his right leg over the horn. Nice mount you have there. I particularly like your saddle. He had reference to the bare back of my pony. Lifting his Winchester from the holster and cradling it in his left arm, he bent forward, relaxing, stretching his back muscles.

What town is this, anyway? I think I might be lost.

It’s called Bear River City, I answered, waiting for the inevitable smile or laugh at the pretentious name given a wide spot in the road with a small mercantile, a small church, a couple of weathered pioneer log cabins kept around as museum pieces, a one-room school, and nothing else.

He didn’t disappoint me. He looked like a man who smiled easily.

I’m looking for Corinne. There’s supposed to be a town around here where a man can get a room and something to eat.

You’re almost looking at it, I nodded down the road in the direction he was traveling.

I don’t see anything. I was given to understand this place once was first cousin to Dodge City or Tombstone without the Earps. I don’t see anything but farms.

He looked confused, as strangers often did trying to understand why a wild, mostly godless mass of humanity was plunked smack-dab on the edge of a pious community of Mormons.

Look yonder, toward the end of Oliver’s place. The old town center is something less than a mile past the fence down there.

I’ll take your word for it, he said, sliding the rest of the way from the saddle, dropping the rope and reins so his horses could drink.

We have the same thing where I come from, he volunteered, giving the trees and the running water his closer attention. "Many small towns in Utah are the same way. Maybe your Brother Brigham had them laid out this way on purpose. If he did, he sure had a good idea.

Incidentally, you look at me as though you know who I am. Do you know me?

Yes. You’re Elza Lay.

What else do you know? By the way, you’re old enough to call me Elzy. But never call me Ellsworth.

Just about everything, I guess—except, I’m wondering how come you’re still this far north?

He turned full toward me now, his mild manner gone, drowned quickly in a display of short temper, common to most men who make their way with a gun—or so the dime novels had informed me.

You talk too much. He spit out the words, a menacing look in his eyes gone steely.

But on second thought, thanks to that idiot Bub Meeks, it’s common knowledge. You can read, and I suppose this town is not so far back in the sticks that you haven’t seen a paper.

He had reference to recent banner headlines running in newspapers across the west, and maybe the nation, telling how three of the Butch Cassidy gang had recently robbed the Montpelier, Idaho, bank of more than $7,000, a small fortune. The sheriff knew it was the Cassidys because a long-time member, the one who stayed outside with the horses, for some reason was not wearing his mask. A bank employee was looking out the window and later identified him as Bub Meeks. It seems Cassidy and Lay had been seen in the vicinity with Meeks two weeks before the actual robbery.

What’s your name? And how old are you, son? he asked me, his natural calm demeanor fast returning.

Lars Iverssen and I’m eighteen. I was in the habit of fudging on my age and it just popped out.

How would you like to make four bits, Lars?

You bet, I answered, jumping at the chance. Fifty cents was more than a day’s pay thinning sugar beets in the hot sun, some of the most backbreaking labor imaginable. Beets were new to the area, what with the opening of the new Utah Idaho sugar factory to the north. They would turn out to be a good cash crop, well suited to the local soil. But there was nothing easy about working sugar beets, and I hated them with a passion.

What do you want me to do?

He smiled again: Go into town and talk to the marshal, whoever he is. Tell him where I am. Tell him I want no trouble, and that I want his protection from any bounty hunters. Tell him I’ll be on the first train east in the morning. Tell him if he thinks I might look good in his jail, he’s in for one big surprise. Tell him Cassidy and his gang will come for me. And tell him I’ll see to it they burn his town down around his ears after we rob his bank. Can you handle that?

Elzy, I’m not allowed in town.

What are you talking about?

I’m Mormon, and all Mormons have been posted out.

He had the oddest expression on his face; I couldn’t blame him. Then he started to laugh: Wait till’ Cassidy hears about this. He’ll come back and hoorah the place. He’ll do it out of pure cussedness. Cassidy and Matt Warner were once members, don’t you know, although they often missed Sunday school because of business commitments. This last was said in a tone of mock seriousness, with another broad smile accompanied by a display of white teeth. Elzy Lay, like Cassidy himself, had a keen sense of humor; but then maybe it was more like a keen sense of the ridiculous.

Boy, are you telling me you’ve never been in that place before?

I have, of course, I replied, but never to socialize with the marshal. He’ll lock me up, immediately he sees me. And he’ll hold me until he gets five bucks from my father.

Not today, he won’t. Today, you’re working for me. When he hears my name, he might just faint dead away.

I doubted it, but held my tongue. With men like Lay there was a time for nonsense and a time for serious. He had just let me know by a change in his voice that he had switched back to serious.

He flipped me a coin and told me to get gone. He didn’t have all day, he said, although he looked to be in no hurry. He laid his Winchester across his lap as he sat down and leaned back against Oliver’s fence. Shaded by his trees, he listened for a few minutes to his canaries and his babbling ditch before he said, Make it snappy, now. These critters of mine will bloat on that green grass on the bank if I should take a nap.

And that’s how come I first took money from Elzy Lay. But it wouldn’t be the last.

******

When the two railroads, the Central and the Union Pacific met, they left behind a large tent city of unemployed men who were not particularly desirous of going back to where they came from. One, Mark Gilmore, interested the president of Central Pacific and a recently retired general army officer by the name of Conner in a venture that would convert the tents into a permanent town. They would name it Corinne, after the general’s young daughter. They would locate where the Union Pacific tracks cross the river, about six miles from Brigham City.

They wanted to attract Utah merchants, those with chips on their shoulders, the ones hating Mormons and all they stood for, and who might be interested in relocating if they had some financial support. They expected this new town to prosper as a railroad drop-off point for oxen trains. These trains would transport supplies to the new mining towns springing up in Montana. They also envisioned a steamboat building company, the boats to navigate the Bear River. And then, too, there would be a welcome source of revenue from the expected gambling and prostitution. It would be collected from the large numbers of leftover gandy dancers, and an infusion of drovers, saddle tramps and whatever other dregs of society might flock to this new wide-open town. They also envisioned a railroad repair depot. The needed shops and roundhouses would be built here and not in nearby Ogden to the south. Canadian money would be forthcoming, as trade blossomed with cities in the north.

And high-grade ore from the mines in Montana would be transported here and loaded on paddle wheelers for further shipment to the smelter at Garfield on the south shore of the lake.

They even envisioned Corinne as the state capitol. And they wasted no time in lobbying Congress in this direction. Conner, the way Gilmore saw things, would be the new governor. And then the whole economic picture, in a state controlled by Brigham Young, would rapidly tilt in their favor.

They declared a kind of open war on the church in general and its leaders in particular. But it would turn out to be a costly mistake that doomed Corinne from the start.

Brigham Young accepted their challenge; openly voicing his interest in having the tent city disperse without further delays, and the population therein vacate the state as rapidly as possible. Inevitably, he would win the uneven battle. But it would take more than twelve years before he could lay claim to any sort of victory. In the meantime, many of Corinne’s citizens would make life miserable for the more staid population of this small corner of the church’s vineyard. And they would also have a decidedly negative influence on a certain few of the young men in the area—one of whom was me, Lars Iverssen.

In addition to several houses of ill repute springing up during the heyday of this Godless Gomorrah, there were a dozen saloons and sixteen stores selling liquor and firearms—this in a small population that would eventually swell to over one thousand souls, none of whom were Mormon. Some of them were good people to be sure. But mostly they were roamers, roomers, and renters. They were people who lived outside the pale of respectability, as viewed by their new neighbors.

That the Mormons detested them meant nothing to Corinne’s founding fathers nor to most of the residents. One of the purposes in the first place was to remove any semblance of the church from their lives. As a final insult, they passed ordinances denying any practicing member entry. And if he was suspect, the burden was on him to prove he wasn’t a church attendee or even a sympathizer. The best way to get along with the citizenry of Corinne was to take an active role in denouncing Mormonism to all and sundry.

The farms bordering Corinne suffered the most. The large freight wagons passing through Bear River City, with their drovers calling out at all hours of the night, was a definite nuisance. Then, too, saddle tramps often-trod on cultivated land. Fences were frequently violated and gardens were looted. At times this was serious, made even more so since the locals refused to sell anything to the gentiles, a term of derision.

The Mormon people believed they were sheltered by the covenants God made with Abraham. And like the remnants of Judah, they also referred to non-covenanted peoples as gentiles.

Danes from Brigham City first settled in Bear River City. Later, homesteaders from Southern Utah, mostly from Sanpete County, occupied the remaining available property. Because we were all members of the church and accepted guidance from the same bishop, in spiritual as well as secular matters, we all lived in relative peace and harmony. We Danes didn’t hesitate to help those we comically referred to as Sandpeters, whose ancestors came from other parts of Europe. In fact, some became best neighbors, which meant they would trade with those of us who were Danish.

For example, in our case, Oliver Lewis would bring over a hindquarter at butchering time. We would butcher later in the season and reciprocate. If we raised potatoes in our large garden, he would raise tomatoes and corn, and so on. This way, we all kept busy bottling what we needed to survive the coming winter.

Our homes were all built with cellars under the kitchen floors, with a trapdoor opening up on stairs leading to an underground storeroom where put-up fruits and vegetables were kept from freezing. We also had a plentiful supply of potatoes, parsnips, and apples for much of the winter.

The church had a system of tithing that ensured all prospered, regardless of how little any one individual could produce. But this was not true of gentile Corinne. Many of those unfortunates appeared at our doorsteps or the bishop’s tithing storehouse in winter, asking for food. Mostly, no one was turned away. But this isn’t to infer there was any close association of the two diametrically opposed societies. On the contrary, the situation at times became quite volatile, with church leaders fearing possible violence. The ultimate solution to the problem, as Brigham Young saw it, was to close down Corinne. Gilmore had cast down the gauntlet with his continuing criticism of Young’s church on a national level. Now, he further escalated the conflict by lobbying Congress against Brigham Young personally.

Brigham quickly retaliated. He organized an effort to lengthen the long-delayed narrow gage Utah Northern Railroad from Ogden to Franklin, Idaho. It was eventually pushed farther north, cutting the Montana trail at Marsh Valley and negating any further need for oxen trains from Corinne. Next, the new wagon road north was routed around Corinne and through Bear River City, which further isolated Corinne. Then he encouraged local farmers to carry their produce to Brigham City and to continue selling it at a lower price rather than to deal with the merchants of Corinne.

Corinne didn’t die a quick death. As the merchants came to grips with the inevitable, they one-by-one closed down and moved, usually to Ogden. This city had a large gentile population, where former citizens of Corinne found support for their anti-Mormon views.

Within twelve years of its founding, the bloom was off the sage. But the gambling and prostitution still lingered on. As they became more and more dependent on the surrounding Mormon communities for survival, the town, of necessity, became more integrated.

I came back after having been away for several years to find Corinne with a large Mormon population. As the gentiles moved away, members of the expanding church bought up the property and moved in. In this way, the problem disappeared.

But the stigma of having been a notorious gentile city was never completely erased. For another generation, parents would counsel their offspring to avoid Corinne. It was always looked upon by their progenitors as a wicked place that should be avoided.

******

It took about an hour to get there, transact Elzy’s business, and ride back. He was waiting to hear my report. He mounted up and, with me riding alongside, galloped into Corinne. The marshal was in the street. He never greeted Lay. He was there only to see there was no gunplay. However, he didn’t really expect trouble; there were no brave gunslingers looking to enhance their reputations this day; no one was looking to collect the munificent bounty price of $500. They all knew who he was, and they had no desire to incur the wrath of Cassidy.

The fact of the matter was that Matt Warner had recently been jailed in another part of the state on a murder charge. He had been involved in a gunfight, and he was staring at a long prison term if convicted. The purpose of the Montpelier robbery, according to the newspapers, was to acquire funds to hire a good attorney. If they lost in the courts, Cassidy, with the help of the townspeople, intended to tear down the jail and take Warner out bodily. I wonder if that particular sheriff might have figured he had made the wrong decision when first he decided to become involved with one of Cassidy’s men.

We wheeled left at the hotel and tied our horses to the hitching rail. The marshal was standing about thirty yards away in the center of the street, a clear indicator he wanted Elzy to stop. He was not to have a free run of the town.

Lay slowly removed his Winchester with his left hand on the butt, stopping before he cleared the scabbard. The marshal nodded his permission. Elzy then drew it all the way; checking the safety from force of habit, he handed it to me. He then dismounted and handed me his saddle, saddlebags, and chaps, which left his gun hand free. Carrying his rifle in his left hand, he stepped up on the boardwalk and backed slowly into the hotel. I noticed a deputy and two local citizens in front of the bank watching him as I moved rapidly away from his gun hand. They, too, were carrying Winchesters—they were taking no chances on him being a scout for the Cassidy gang. He, in turn, was taking no chance on being bushwhacked by an overzealous citizen bent on getting rich, but more likely bent on his own self-destruction.

Elzy glanced up. Seeing them, he gave me a smile and a wink. He registered. Then I helped him carry his gear to the top of the stairs. He gave me another fifty-cent piece, with instructions to take his horses to the blacksmith shop. Their shoes were to be inspected. Then they were to be stabled at the livery after having been rubbed down and fed. After that I was free to go home to my sugar beets.

As I descended the stairs, I saw hanging, high on the wall, a large, rather garish mural masquerading as classical art. It featured a mounted Bengal Lancer, from south of the Khyber that was defending a nude Indian maiden being distressed by a wicked-looking tiger crouching on a boulder. The soldier and the tiger were concentrating on the nubile maiden, while his horse, raring back and pawing at the air, was concentrating on the tiger. She was wearing bangles, a necklace, and long black tresses, none of which was helping with her modesty problem.

I had heard about this painting as a youngster and questioned then how the soldier could be giving the tiger his full attention. It appeared I was right; the beast was being completely ignored. And like the soldier, it was only there as an excuse for painting the maiden.

I checked the train departure time east before I went home. I want to be on the loading dock to say good-bye to Elzy in the morning. However, I have something in mind other than to wish him well. I want his help someday—and that someday might not be too long in coming.

All my life I have wanted to live just as he does. I have as far back as I can remember, even several years ago when several of my friends and I would periodically slip into Corinne to watch the goings on when the town still had a few houses of ill repute left over from its heyday.

Alma Nielsen, Peter Jensen, Oscar Larsen, and I used to climb through our barbed-wire fence at night when we were supposed to be at a church function. We would run through our own fields and through several more to the back alleys