Free Along The Fortune Trail by Harvey Goodman Page B

out, there was a fourth man too … a shave-tail kid really. He's sittin’ in the Stratford jail now … and he's the one that was with Ballantine at the Frontier.”
    The sheriff paused and took a long pull off his canteen then capped it, hung it on the side of the wagon, and started rooting in the wicker basket on the floorboard. “I'll take you up on one of those biscuits.”
    Sammy kept reading the information papers while Lundy was content to sit quiet for a moment, sure that the sheriff would resume the story any second. Sheriff Ritter pulled out a biscuit and stood still, looking at the biscuit, which he was shaking slightly as if it contained the rest of the story.
    He took a bite and continued as he chewed. “This kid … Royals … Cody Royals, I believe it was. Well, he got put afoot by some Navajos over near Flathead Butte after he left town. Not real sure what happened there, but he lost his horse and he's still breathin’ … so he got lucky somehow. Two young hands off the Handy J. happened by this Royals fella … good thing too. He'd been wanderin’ around for a couple days. Those boys saved his bacon. Got him fed and watered and to town … but not before they drank some whiskey together. Royals was so happy he thought he'd brag about who he'd been keepin’ company with and how big a life he'd been livin’ … from the train robbery right down to Sammy's killin’ of this Lonny Ballantine. Those boys off the J. were even younger than Royals. Guess he figured they wouldn't say nothin’ to nobody. He figured wrong. Sheriff Hardy ended up getting all the pieces … first my deputy's inquiries, then the wanted poster on Ballantine, then this Royals idiot shootin’ off his mouth. Sheriff Hardy showed up in my office this mornin’ about an hour after you boys left town. Knew you'd be anxious to know the whole story on that curly wolf … not to mention the reward.”
    Sammy looked up from the papers he'd been intently studying and smiled at the sheriff like a man who'd had a heavy burden lifted off his shoulders. “I don't know how this day could get any better. Much obliged, Sheriff, for bringing this news.”
    Sammy's expression turned thoughtful. “This letter says I've got six months to claim the money, and that I'll need some sort of identification or letters from the proper authorities to prove I'm the man that killed Lonny Ballantine. Do they already know who I am?”
    “They know that Ballantine is dead and that a man named Sammy Winds killed him,” Sheriff Ritter replied. “Sheriff Hardy will get word off as soon as he gets back to Stratford lettin’ ‘em know of your current condition and that you'll get word out when you can figure your plans a little better. I'll fix up some sort of official letter for you. By the time you get there, they'll have had a heap of advance notice about Sammy Winds,” he said with a chuckle.
    Lundy pulled his hat brim up. “It's gonna be a spell before you'll be ready for a trip like that. It's near five hundred miles to Denver, and by the time you'll be ready to travel, it'll be winter. I'm guessin’ you'd have to travel most of it by horse just to get to where a train or stage was part of a Denver route.”
    Sheriff Ritter began speculating out loud about where one would have to travel to catch a train or stage bound for Denver or the possible connection points. But Sammy didn't catch much of it. His mind had slipped back to the ten thousand dollars and was paralyzed with rapture as he considered the possibilities of what he could do with such a sum. He lay there in the back of the wagon, leaning against the bean sacks, his mind clicking through all the enterprises that he knew, or had heard of, and had been interested by. The possibilities seemed endless. Sammy knew his life had been transformed at that moment, much like when he'd been rescued from the plains and brought to the Twin T. thirteen years earlier.
    Lundy and the Sheriff jawboned about the