High and Wild by Peter Brandvold Page A

Haskell said, nodding.
    He knew central Colorado Territory well, having worked as a stage driver and shotgun rider in the Colorado Rockies just after he’d come west after the war, before Pinkerton had run him down and given him a job. Pinkerton had sent Bear on several assignments in that neck of the high, rugged mountains. As mines had been sprouting all over up there for the past fifteen years, it was, as one could easily imagine, one nest of bloody trouble after another.
    â€œDo tell us about Malcolm Briar,” said Miss York, leaning back in her chair, resting her slender elbows on the chair arms, and lacing her gloved hands together.
    â€œA precocious if singular and somewhat mercurial man roughly Bear’s age, in his early thirties,” Pinkerton said. “Grew up in a wealthy family with a prosperous shipping business on the Great Lakes. However, young Malcolm was not a mariner. He preferred the adventures of us landlubber sorts. Fought in the war on the side of the Union, was wounded twice, attained the rank of captain.
    â€œAfter the war and after he’d healed from his wounds, young Malcolm came west to make his mark. For several years, he drifted, working as a general roustabout for a circus and a couple of construction companies that built opera houses, as a deckhand in San Francisco—that sort of thing. He’d always shunned his family’s wealth, preferring to earn his own way. A couple of years ago, he took what money he’d saved into the mining country of this very territory. Went up into the Ute District to start his own freighting company.”
    Pinkerton glanced at Haskell. “As you know, Bear, there are around eight or nine mines up in the Sawatch. There are no narrow-gauge rails. The geology won’t support them. Each company must haul its ore down to the processing mills outside of the town of Wendigo. The mines and everything associated with mining, including freighting, are big business up there. Highly competitive. Several different freight companies are always competing for freighting contracts. They are, indeed, very lucrative contracts. A good freight outfit can bring in almost as much money as the mines themselves.”
    â€œAnd this is what Malcolm Briar was doing up in the Sawatch, huh, Boss? Running his own freighting company?”
    Pinkerton nodded. “He called it Briar Federated Freight, and according to the letters he wrote to his sister, he was doing rather well. He did allude to some troubles, allowing to his own mulish temperament and how business was highly competitive up around Wendigo, but he mentioned the trouble in only the most oblique of ways.
    â€œA little more than a year ago, Malcolm’s letters stopped suddenly. The Briars found that odd, since he’d been writing his sister at least once a month. Apparently, he was somewhat the black sheep of the Briar family, and he was closest to Emily, a spinster and several years Malcolm’s junior, so she’s primarily who he corresponded with. Anyway, when Miss Briar stopped receiving letters from her brother, the family hired a private investigator to ride up to Wendigo and see if he could locate him.”
    â€œHe didn’t, I take it?” Bear asked.
    Pinkerton shook his head. “The Briars never found out if he did or he didn’t. He never returned. There were no messages from him. No communication whatsoever. That’s when I was paid a visit at my Chicago headquarters by Malcolm’s father, Matthew Briar, and Malcolm’s sister, Emily. They have contracted us to find their son and brother—whether he is living or dead. They’re very worried, as you can imagine. They want very badly to find out what happened to him. And if Malcolm has been the victim of foul play, they, of course, want the culprits brought to justice.”
    â€œWhy send the two of us?” Bear asked, gesturing at the lovely Miss York. “You know I always prefer to