ELLIOT JOHANSON STORY CHAPTER 13

Our computer problems are hopefully fixed - 
I will take up where I left off with my Continiued Story!!

El burned the Girls Wagon for Virus Protection

The next day El went over to Sid’s place to check on the woman.  Lucy said the doctor said she just needs some food and rest and should be alright in a couple of weeks.

 

Lucy said, “There is something you might ought to know about this girl.  I say girl although she is about fifteen, she has been with a man probably many times.”

 

El said, “How do you know that?”

 

“The doctor made a through examination to make sure she wasn’t pregnant. It would be best if she moved on when she recovers for there is some unpleasant history here that we don’t need to know and get involved in.”

 

El said, “Okay I’ll take your word on that.  I’m going to be tied up for a couple of days but I’ll check back on her as soon as I can.”

 

It had been a week since El found the young girl and she was up on her feet and helping Lucy some.  El visited her again and he gave her the things he took from the wagon.  He related why he burned the wagon and how he buried the body that was in the cabin.

She said, “If there anything you want to know then just ask me.  You are the only I will talk to for you are the one who saved me and have the right to know.”

 El thought of Lucy’s warning and said, “No I don’t want to know anything for it doesn’t concern me.”

 

“Good,” she said, “That ends it.  Did you find my music box?”

 

“It is in your bag with the pictures.”

Once again she said, “Good.”

 Later when El was at the Mayfield’s Clara said, ‘Now let me get this straight; she is just getting up on her feet and leaving and going to town?”

“That’s what I understand,” El said.  “In any case I’m done with it or at least I hope I am.”

After the girl arrived in town she sold her two horses and the next day she left for the west by train.  The day after she left there were two men found stabbed to death in the hotel and they had been robbed.

 

As El was getting ready to leave town the doctor ran into him and asked how the young woman was.  El said, “She got well and left town.”

 

The doctor said, “I didn’t know if she was going to make it for a while.  The arsenic she had been taking almost done her in.”

 

El said, “Why on earth would she be taking arsenic?”

 

Doctor said he didn’t know, and the only cases he treated for arsenic poisoning was when someone other than the person being poisoned was doing the poisoning.

 

“That makes you think don’t it?” the doctor said as he went to his office.

 

As El rode one of the Bobs home he wondered if the girl knew the two men who were stabbed and robbed.  He wondered if Lucy knew more than she was telling for she warned El not to get involved with the girl.

 

As the ranch came into view he mused, some things are better not known.

When the two ponies both named Bob saw the barn they started acting up for they knew they were going to be fed.  Sid’s oldest baby who was six years old had claimed one of the Bobs as her own.  She said she could tell them apart but El couldn’t.  The one she claimed, she would give him an apple each day.

El could see slowly the horse was beginning to take up with her.  He told Sid she might be too young to ride a high spirited horse like Bob.

Sid said, His name has been changed to Babe and he answers to that now.”

El said, “Well I’m turning him over to you and you do as you see fit.”

This young sprout of Sid is about six years old now, and she has progressed from her first enterprise which was herding the chickens, then running the calf ranch where the hands would bring any orphaned calves to the barn.

 

Then Lessee would feed them until they were old enough to eat on their own in the pasture land set aside for them.  She would climb upon the corral fence and call babe (as she called him) over to her and she would grab his mane was on his back.

When it got this far Sid began to be worried and said she would need to have a hackamore on him so she could have some control over him.  Lessee argued that she already had control over him for he responded to her feet.

Sid made a light weight hackamore from cotton cords and put that on the horse.  She complained that it interfered with her grasping his mane and was going to cause her to fall off.  He finally gave in and tied it around Babe’s neck. Riding in the corral didn’t satisfy Lessee and she finally talked Sid into going riding with her out on the range.

Sid put a rope around Babe’s neck and they rode together every chance they got.  

Sid told El, “It won’t be long before she will be riding all over the ranch and helping move the cattle around.  I never saw a horse take to a child like that Babe has taken to Leslie.  Her little arms have gotten stronger and she sticks to his back like glue.”

El went to town and was approached by the sheriff.  He said come by the office before you leave town.  Some time later El went into the sheriff’s office and the sheriff said for El to sit down for he had some information that might interest him.

He said, “You remember that girl you had doc to treat for arsenic poisoning?”

El said, “Yes, have you heard from her?”
 

The sheriff said, “Yes… err not exactly.”  He continued, “A month ago a couple deputies came by here and wanted to talk to me about the two men that were stabbed.

The sheriff said there was one of them picture takers for a western story book here and he wanted to take the pictures of the dead men so I said go ahead but I wanted a copy of the pictures.  

To go on with the story I showed the pictures to the deputies and they looked at each other and one of them said; that’s them.  The one deputy said these men talked a bunch of people into selling their property and they were going to lead them to some lush green land that was for free, just for filing on it.

They got a dozen families together and they headed out.  One by one the families died out and the men would sell their outfits and keep the money.  It seems they were supplying the food and it was laced with arsenic.  

The people thought they had the flue and that was what was killing them.  The men brought a man out to check on them and that was his diagnosis.  The only thing was, he wasn’t a doctor just a man pretending to be one.

They said we tracked the men to this town and now that they are dead there is only one issue unsolved.  There is one wagon unaccounted for and all the money is missing.”  

The sheriff said, “I told them about the girl and how her parents were dead.  I told them how you found her and brought her to the doctor and he cured her.”  

We spent a few hours going over the whole situation and came to the conclusion the girl must have killed the men and left with the money.  

The deputies left and went on the same train she went on and sent me a letter saying; we found where she stayed for a couple of days but couldn’t find out where she went to.

Some say she went south, some say north and some are sure she took a ship to the East Indies.  The trail has gone cold and we are heading home.”

 

After thinking about it for awhile El said, “Sid is a good tracker but I don’t think even he can track her.”

 

He thanked the sheriff for the update.  It left a lot of unanswered questions but at least he buried the mother and saved the daughter and that was all he could do under the circumstances.

It had been two years since El has had to draw down on anyone and he hoped it would continue to be this way.

To be Continued