Shooting his Way to Payback – Extended Epilogue

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Chad Drake headed down the road that would bring him to the Oak Tree Ranch.  The name had been changed since the death of the first owner, Elliot Evans. He had been complicit in the infamous Wells Fargo robbery ten years ago that left three men dead. Drake had been one of the men who finally broke the case after ten years. He had been promoted since the last time he was in Danville. He couldn’t stay long on this trip, but he wanted to see his old friend, Jack Caldwell, and his wife, Samantha. They had a child he wanted to meet too; a two-year-old boy named Elliott.

As he rode, he thought it had not changed much in three years, but there was better scenery. The ranch had expanded and both beef and horses wandered through the land. It looked like a prosperous ranch. He also rode past a small cemetery that was about a half mile from the house.  The most prominent grave was the one for Mr. Evans. He was one of the men who participated in the famous robbery. Although his daughter knew of the deed, she put fresh flowers on his grave every week.

As he rode up to the house, it looked bigger than the last time he saw it. Perhaps they had built a nursery. Caldwell opened the door and yelled a welcome to him.  Samantha was by his side.

“Chad!  It’s good to see you again! I was beginning to think you were not going to get up here again. You’re head of a bureau downstate now so I figured that would take up most of your time,” Caldwell said.

He walked out to shake his former partner’s hand. Samantha followed him.

“You’re looking good, partner. How does it feel to be a wealthy landowner instead of a Wells Fargo agent?” Drake asked.

Caldwell laughed. “To be truthful, I like both jobs, but as a ranch owner you get to dictate your own schedule. If you don’t want to work one day, you can take the day off.  That’s the great thing about being a boss. It’s really a fine job.”

Samantha showed a skeptical smile. “Despite what my husband says, he doesn’t take many days off. And on more than one occasion, he has put in a long day. If he tried to do nothing, I don’t think he could stand it. Work is built into his character.  I can’t ever see my husband with his feet up on a footrest, doing nothing. I’ve known a few men who would be very happy doing nothing. Jack is not one of them.”

“Come on in, Chad. I’ll pour you a drink,” Caldwell said.

He walked his former partner through the house until they walked in a large outside sun porch. Several chairs were outside so everyone had a scenic view of the ranch.  Drake eased down in a cushioned chair while Samantha brought him a drink.

“So glad to see you again, Chad. We’ve been missing you,” she said.

“Thank you. I kinda missed my old partner too. We had some good times together and brought some bad guys to justice.”

“I’ve heard you are still doing a good job at that. Wells Fargo promoted you and should have.”

Chad sipped the drink and laughed. “Well, I’m in a profession where business will never dry up. There will always be bad guys out there. You put one in prison and another one pops up. ”

“Yes, I’m sure that is very true,” Caldwell said.

Caldwell looked around. “This was always a good-sized ranch, but it looks like you’ve expanded. Have you bought some additional property? You seem to be branching out.”

Both Caldwell and Samantha nodded. “We are,” she said. “Jack wants to be the owner of the biggest ranch in Colorado.”

“That’s an ambition. If you go into a field, be the best at it,” Chad said.

“I don’t necessarily need to have the biggest in the state, but I would like to expand the place. After all, we should leave something to our children. We have one son, and Samantha is pregnant again.”

“Really? Congratulations!” Drake said. “That is wonderful. Have a limit on how many children you plan to have.”

“I have always wanted a large family,” Samantha said. “I did not come from a big family, and I always wanted a brother and a sister and often wished for two brothers and two sisters. So our goal is five children. I don’t have any objection to more. I want a full house.

“With five children, you will have one,” Drake said. “I hope the pregnancy has gone well.”

“There’s been no problems,” she said. “And, I don’t expect any. My first pregnancy went without a hitch. No problems whatsoever, and I expect my second to be the same way. My doctor said I am in fine shape, and he expects everything to go fine too. He’s a man I trust; a very fine doctor. 

You’re not married yet, Chad. You need a wife.”

“That’s true, partner,” Caldwell said. “I will tell you married life is wonderful. It’s a joy.  I heartily endorse it.”

“Well, as soon as I find the right woman, I’ll walk down the aisle. I haven’t been as lucky as you have in finding that elusive right woman. Then again, who could compare with Samantha here.”

“Stop it, Chad. You’re just gun shy, and there is no reason you should be. It’s good for a man to be married. It settles him down a little and gets him thinking about stability and progress.”

Chad sipped more of his drink. “I understand what you are saying and, I assure you, as soon as the right woman comes along, I will invite you to the wedding.”

“You better,” Samantha said. “We want to be there. We want to hear you say ‘I do.”

He sipped his drink again. “Let’s change the subject. I’ve been in the south part of the state, but I understand Mr. Catlow is finally doing time for his role in the crime.”

Caldwell nodded.

“He was a wily man in more ways than one. Not many outlaws behave like introverts. With his money from the robbery, he bought a good-sized ranch in Wyoming and tried to disappear.  We found him and wanted to arrest him right then, but we had to get the ok from Wyoming authorities first. That was a little difficult to do. We suspected a few people had been bribed, but for a long time we were unable to get Catlow back to Colorado. There was always another objection filed and another judge that agreed to a hearing. Catlow was a murderer, but he was also a clever man. From the moment he set foot in Wyoming, he began cultivating law enforcement personnel and powerful, influential people. He figured if he ever was caught, he would lay the groundwork to make an arrest and extradition as difficult as possible. And he did.”

Caldwell sipped his drink. “This case was unique in many ways. One of the oddities of it is I never saw one of the masterminds of the job. You did. You got up to Wyoming and saw him, but I didn’t. I just saw examples of his work.”

“Yes, it took years to get him back to Colorado and finally hang him. I saw him when I went to Wyoming. To be honest, he wasn’t that impressive in person. He was of average height and average weight. He wasn’t as flamboyant as outlaw leaders tend to be. He was a quiet man; didn’t say much. I tried to engage in conversation because I was curious about him, but he wasn’t interested in Talking to me.” He shook his head. “That’s about all I can say about him. He was something of a mystery…even as he walked to the gallows.”

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Caldwell said. “I’m not missing him. I doubt anyone is.”

“Wells Fargo sued to get some of his estate. He was married, but had no children.  The company claimed most of the money stolen from Wells Fargo and some of his estate should go to the survivors of his crimes. After it was litigated, their families did get some of the money. I don’t think this case was truly over until the final checks were paid to the survivors. It’s been almost three years since the initial arrests in the case.”

“So this case actually lasted about thirteen years. The longest case I have ever known,” Caldwell said. “At least it has a successful conclusion.”

“It just shows you can never give up.”

Samantha nodded. “Chad, you do plan to have dinner with us tonight, right? We will have the cook make your favorite meal, just tell us what your favorite is. Meat, vegetables, and dessert. I can have the cook make a chocolate cake if you like, or an apple pie, or both. Our cook is wonderful!”

Drake held up his empty glass. “Right now I will just take another drink.”

Samantha laughed, stood up and grabbed the glass.  “As your hostess, I’ll take care of this request.

She refilled the glass and handed it back to him.

“As for the dinner, I’m a basic meat and potatoes man. Just a good steak with mashed potatoes, and maybe some sweet, buttered corn.”

“We have that,” Samantha said. What about dessert?”

“Well, to be honest, I haven’t had chocolate cake for a long time. It is my favorite.”

“Then we’ll have it,” she said.  “Anything for our guest and best friend.  Excuse me, while I go tell the cook about our dinner menu.”

She excused herself and walked into the house. Drake sipped the second drink. He raised the glass as if toasting his friend.

“You do have good whiskey, Jack. One of the advantages of being rich.”

“We’ll give you a bottle before you leave, my friend.”

“Jack, I don’t mean to pry into private events, but I am a little curious. Was there any friction between you and Samantha because…well…”

“Because I killed her father?”

“Yes.”

“Fortunately, not really. Samantha has made her peace with it, although we don’t really talk about it. She was shocked when she discovered what he did, and it hurt her. But, I think she realized that once he was caught he was not going to turn himself in. He didn’t want to go to prison for the rest of his life. He preferred a plot of land on his ranch. She loved him, and for all I can tell he was  a very good father, but she knew he was not going down without a fight. There’s been no resentment or friction in our marriage because I did my duty, but, then again, we don’t really speak about it. It belongs in the past, and that’s where it will stay.

Drake nodded.

“That’s how it should be. By the way, did the company, our company that is, negotiate with you and Samantha? Did they want money? Did they make claims that some of this ranch had been built with stolen funds? They were initiating those suits after the arrests and convictions in the case.”

“Yes, after we married, the agency did claim that a great deal of Evans’ fortune and ranch was due to stolen money. We could not honestly dispute that. We hired an attorney to negotiate with Wells Fargo, but told them we didn’t want any of the stolen money. We would give back any funds that came from the robbery and the deaths of three men. Of course, that was ten years after the robbery. It was not easy to figure out. Evans made some legitimate purchases before the robbery.  While he paid for them before the robbery, he was on thin ice because he had overextended himself. But, our lawyers got together with a team of experts and did their best to unravel the situation, and we made payments to Wells Fargo until the debt was cleared. We swore to the Lord that we would pay back every cent her father stole. It took some time, but we did it. Neither of us could look to the future until we took care of the past. We both felt the same way.”

“Not the best way to begin a marriage, but I’m glad everything turned out alright.”

“The past, as we found out, is never really past. It’s always ready to make an appearance in the present and shape the future.”

Drake swallowed his drink. He held up the empty. “And you say I’ll get a gift of a whisky bottle when I leave?”

“Two whisky bottles, old friend,” Caldwell said.

“Oh, I wanted to ask you if you are now on the county commission. You said in your last letter that you were being urged to run. Did you? And if so, did you win?”

Caldwell nodded. “I did run, and I did win. I had never ventured into politics before but thought I needed to now. This is a wide-open state and we are growing by the day, but we have to grow properly and orderly. Growth can certainly help a community, but it can also destroy a city or county. It has to be the right kind of growth, with progressive-minded men and women. The county is for all people, not just for a few. We have a chance to build a great county and a great city. I didn’t want us to blow it. So I entered politics.”

“I’m sure you will do a good job, my friend. I don’t think the people of this county could be better than you.”

“Thank you, partner.”

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Grab my new series, "Guns and Justice in the West", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!

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