James Declan was a rounded oak tree of a man. Medium height and close to three hundred pounds: solid. His hands were the size of frying pans and his face was round and puffy, his bright white hair sitting on his head like a small bush. He had a thick mustache planted in the middle of his face, which always looked as if it were ready to explode in a display of his volcanic temper. He sat at a table near the window in the main dining room of the Oriental Hotel, waiting for Jonas Hollister to arrive and growing angrier with each passing moment.
Declan was self-made in every way. Most of his money had come from cattle. He’d started as a drover on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, bringing beeves up from Texas and into Denver. He wasn’t like most cowhands, who collected wages at the end of a drive and blew them all on whores and gambling. He was smart and took his money to the bank. After a few years of drives he had a small stake, and one thing about Declan, he saw the future. Denver was going to grow, no question. Colorado would become a state and once it did and the railroads came, Denver would be the next big boomtown of the many boomtowns on the American move westward.
He started buying land far outside of Denver, where it was still cheap. He found good water and grazing land and then he stopped driving cattle and started buying them. He’d ride out to meet the herds before they got to the city railheads and offer the trail boss a few dollars for a few of the scrawniest, mangiest cows in the herd. Knowing they wouldn’t get top dollar for their scrubs in Denver, the bosses usually complied and when Declan led the cattle onto his well-watered grassland, they prospered. Nature took its course, and in a few years, for very little money, he was able to grow his herd to several hundred, then thousand head. He sold off his mature beef, used the money to buy more land and before long he was one of the wealthiest landowners in the territory.
Then had come the silver strike. It had been pure luck. Found on the land of a small rancher he’d run off years ago, it was at the time the second richest strike in history. Combined with his land and cattle, the silver made Declan one of the wealthiest men in America.
Declan though, was dishonest by nature. There wasn’t a moment or defining event in his life that turned him that way, it’s just how he was. He had come out of the womb a cheat. He pressured smaller ranchers, keeping them from their water rights, even burning them out if necessary. He had brought many a smaller rancher to the brink of ruin, then swooped in with a cash offer of ten percent, or less, of the full value of his land or herd.
When he’d found Slater, he’d managed to remove himself from the dirtier, rougher stuff and clean up his image somewhat. He was loathed in the ranching community, but as the years went by, found his money more than welcome in political circles. When he helped get the governor elected, he was appointed Colorado’s first senator when Colorado entered the Union in 1876.
Now he sat cooling his heels, waiting for some goddamn army reject named Hollister to show up at a meeting where Hollister had set the time, place, and agenda. Declan didn’t like that, he didn’t like it at all. Senator James Declan established the parameters and made the rules, and by God, heads would roll over this when he got back to Washington.
Slater was sequestered in the coat-check room, just to the left of the entrance to the dining room. Just in case this Hollister needed to be taught a lesson, although the senator had to admit he didn’t like what he’d heard from Slater; how the man had gotten a clean jump on him in the street the other night. With Slater that never had happened, and the thought that it had was nibbling away at a corner of Declan’s thoughts. Just one more thing to make him uneasy.
He had intended for his hired thug to drag the man to his Denver mansion if it was necessary, but Slater said it was like Hollister had eyes in the back of his head. They didn’t have a chance to even get close before he skinned his smoke wagon, and from then on, he was in charge. Declan knew Pinkerton by reputation, and when all this trouble started at Torson City, he used his contacts and found out what Pinkerton was up to. There were no secrets in Washington, and he’d found out when the great detective (nothing more than a highly paid thug, in Declan’s opinion) had gotten Hollister out of Leavenworth.
The tiny white hairs were standing up in the back of Declan’s neck and he didn’t know why, though he blamed his goddamn son James Junior and his wild stories. The boy had been nothing but a disappointment to him practically since the day he was born. Then he had come back from his latest venture, running a mining claim in Torson City, with a ridiculous fable about creatures who had killed everyone and drunk their blood. Declan had been angry beyond anything he had ever experienced, and thought for certain he would kill the boy. If it weren’t for his wife and Slater’s intervention, he might have.
A posse had been sent to the camp immediately after young James had staggered back into Denver, delirious and half mad with thirst. He’d told the local sheriff his story before Declan or Slater could get hold of him and word started to spread. When the posse returned from the camp, they reported some blood and signs of a struggle, but no bodies, and nothing that would corroborate James’s story.
It was a wild tale, and Declan had immediately discounted it when he’d first heard about it. He tried shaking young James out of it. It had to be Indians, probably Utes, or else a group of rogue bandits who preyed on mining camps. But when Slater came back and reported to him what he’d seen, Declan began to worry.
Now all the boy did was stay in his room at the mansion. The servants brought him food and emptied his chamber pot and he spent most of his time curled on his bed blathering on and on about blood-drinking savages. James never changed his version of events. The sheriff or one of his deputies had no doubt repeated it, the news spread further, and people began to talk and worry. If Declan didn’t get a lid on this fast, it would be a full-fledged panic.
Through it all, Declan had refused to believe any of it. But now this Hollister was in town, brought here by Pinkerton on a fancy train the likes of which no one had ever seen. And Jonas Hollister had told a similar story to what young James had reported and it had gotten him court-martialed and sent to prison four years ago. Things were starting to add up in a way Declan didn’t like. And then there were the little hairs on the back of his neck, still standing on end. Why was that? He felt like he was no longer the one in charge of things. Ridiculous. Senator James Declan was always in charge.
Restless and out of sorts, he checked his pocket watch. It was ten minutes past nine and Hollister still wasn’t here. He pounded his fist on the table and the china coffee cup jumped in its saucer and splashed a dark stain on the tablecloth. He was about to stand and leave, when Hollister strode into the dining room. Declan had requested a seat near the window and asked the maitre de to keep the tables around them clear so they could talk in private. The room was nearly empty, with only a few tables occupied, as most diners had finished their breakfasts long ago.
Hollister approached the table and sat down in a chair across from the senator, ignoring his outstretched hand. The lack of the handshake further rattled Declan, and he felt an overwhelming urge to throttle Hollister, but he noticed the two nickel-plated, pearl-handled Colts at his waist and the look on his face, which said an attempted thrashing would be a truly bad idea.
“You must be Hollister.”
“I am.”
“You’re late.”
Hollister shrugged.
“Are you always late?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether I happen to be running late or not.”
“Is that some kind of joke? You think you’re a jokester?”
“No joke, just a fact.”
“Hmm. Well you might want to be a little more punctual when a United States senator requests a meeting.”
“And you might want to refrain from sending gun hands to invite me to talk. First, I don’t usually eat breakfast so you’re lucky I even agreed to meet, and second, you want to meet with me, you ask me yourself or send a wire. Next time one of your men sneaks up on me in an alley, I’ll put ’em down. We understand each other, Senator?”
The senator’s face went red, in embarrassment, not anger, and try as he might he could not will it away. He started to speak, but Hollister interrupted.
“One other thing, your gun hand-told me last night his name is Slater-is waiting in the cloakroom over there. I don’t like that. You tell him to come out real slow-like, with his hands clear.”
Declan was now nearly crazed with anger, but trying every trick he knew not to show it. How the hell had Hollister figured everything out?
“Slater. You heard the man. Come on out. Slowly, if I were you.”
Hollister watched as Slater stepped out of the cloakroom across the dining room. He’d smelled the man’s cologne again as he’d passed it by. After last night, he figured Declan, if he were the type to use a man like Slater, wasn’t going to leave the horse in the barn. He’d be close by, in case he was needed.
Slater had a better poker face than his boss. He kept the emotion out of it. He came out with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. Nice and easy so Hollister didn’t get jumpy and shoot him, but not out to his sides or up in the air, which is what Hollister had asked for. He took note of this moment and filed it in the back of his mind. Slater now knew he was good. He would still kill him, whenever the senator gave the word. But it wouldn’t be as easy as it usually was.
“Now look out the window, Senator,” Hollister said.
“What?”
“The window.”
Declan looked out the window and saw Chee standing on the sidewalk, leaning slightly against a pillar in front of the hotel. Chee had his eyes on Slater, ignoring the senator altogether.
“Who is that?”
“Master Sergeant Chee. He works for me. He is here to watch Mr. Slater and make sure he doesn’t make any sudden moves. If he does, Sergeant Chee will shoot him in the head no less than four times before he hits the ground. Believe me, I’ve seen him shoot. And if you’re thinking about sending your thugs after Chee, maybe to take him out so you can focus on me, you’re going to need a lot more men. The sergeant likes to kick people in the face. Hard. He also has a very large dog. I’ve only just met the dog, but I’m fairly certain it likes to eat people. We left the dog at our offices this morning as it really shouldn’t be out during the day where it might scare small children. I say these things not by way of confrontation or hyperbole, merely statements of fact,” Hollister said.
“Hyperbole?” Declan snorted.
“What can I say? I went to West Point. Officer and a gentleman and all that. I simply want you to understand me.”
There was a silver pot of coffee on the table and Hollister took the handle and filled his own cup, without asking permission. The senator took several deep breaths. Finally getting his color back to normal.
“Are you working for Allan Pinkerton?” Declan demanded, trying to get some measure of control back.
“Why would that matter?”
“Yes or no?”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened in the mining camp, Senator? That’s what this meeting is all about, right?”
“It’s nothing really, just some savages raided the camp and killed everyone. My son survived. He’s… not a strong boy… never been well really… has a weak constitution, but somehow he managed to get away. But he mis… he got things wrong, told some wild tale to cover up his cowardice and now everyone in the territory is spreading rumors and panic.”
“I heard though, you were willing to raise an army of volunteers to go after these ‘savages.’ You were putting pressure on the president to do something.”
“Where did you hear that? Pinkerton?”
“I hear things.”
“I… yes. I suggested to the president the army be sent out to scout and find the Indians responsible for this horrible crime. I would imagine it’s Utes. They’ve been restless lately… but I never said anything about any… creatures… I…”
“Wasn’t Utes.”
“And you know this how, exactly?”
“First, I’ve fought Utes before. This ain’t their style. Second, your boy says he saw what happened?”
“Yes.”
“He say anything about a big fella, close to seven feet tall, maybe taller, with white hair, talks with kind of a lisp and an accent, makes him sound sort of like a snake trying to speak?”
Declan thought his heart would stop. Young James had mentioned just such a man, several times in fact. It was real. Dear God. What would happen now? He saw his only son and worse, the Declan name dragged through the mud in what would undoubtedly become a feeding frenzy for the papers once word got out.
He could not be associated with this. If Hollister discovered the truth, that there was some type of sinister creatures roaming the mountainsides of Colorado, and the papers got wind of it, Declan would lose everything. The damn Indians were bad enough when they went on the warpath, keeping the settlers away, but this. If word about this got out, not only would new settlers stay away, but people would pack up and flee the state. With no one to deposit money in his bank, buy up his cattle, and lease his farmlands, he faced utter ruin. He had to contain this now. And something else no one knew, not even Slater, was the silver was nearly mined out. He’d lost a lot of the silver money in the financial panic a few years back. He was still wealthy. But not if people started fleeing the territory.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Hollister?” Declan asked.
“Senator, I have been sent to investigate.”
“I don’t like your damn casual attitude.”
“And I don’t give a damn what you like. Two days ago I was stuck in Leavenworth Military Prison digging wells, with six more years on my sentence left to go. What happened to your boy also happened to me. But you already knew that. Finding these things and killing them is going to keep me from going back to Leavenworth. And that is what I will do. I will kill them or they will kill me. But I ain’t going back to prison. Now. You want to tell me where I can find your son?”
Declan tried hard to stare Hollister down, but it didn’t work. He had learned a long time ago, even when he was cheating honest ranchers out of their land, cattle, and money, to leave them with a little something. Men who had nothing to lose couldn’t be controlled. Hollister had nothing to lose.
The senator pulled a white calling card from his vest pocket, setting it on the table in front of Hollister.
“My son is resting at our home. This is the address. My butler’s name is Silas. He will let you in to see James.”
Hollister put the card in his shirt pocket without looking at it. He stood and ignored the senator but gave a small salute to Slater before he stalked out of the dining room.
Both men were quiet for a moment.
“Slater?” the senator said quietly.
“Yes, sir?”
“When this is over, I want him dead.”
“Yes, sir,” Slater said. Thinking again that killing Hollister would not be easy.