CHAPTER 1
The Pony Express Rider
The wind swept across the open plain and the clouds hung low in the east. Wiley Barnett was worried. The east bound rider's horn had sounded, and he was only minutes away, but where was Donny, the west bound rider? Generally they met at this swing station within minutes of each other, and there was no sign of him. The sign over the doorway to the line riders shack read "Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company" and the time was July 1860, four months after the forming of the Pony Express and nine months prior to the start of the Civil War in April 1861. The business had been founded by three men: William Russell, Alexander Majors and William Waddell, who had been in the freighting business since the late 1850s. With California's newfound prominence, it's rapidly growing population prompted by the gold rush in 1848, and it's statehood in 1850, had created a demand for faster communications to this western most of the states.
The proposal was to establish fast mail service between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California with a letter delivered within ten days at a price of five dollars a half ounce.
The undertaking involved 120 riders, 184 stations, 400 horses, and several hundred other personnel.
The east bound rider swept in through the corral, swiftly dismounted, and along with his mail pouch, called a "mochila", quickly leapt onto the awaiting horse. The mochila was draped over the saddle and held in place by the rider sitting on it. Each corner of the of the device had a "cantina" or pocket where the bundles of mail were stored in the padlocked pockets. The weight of this apparatus with the added equipment of a revolver, water sack, and horn for alerting the relay station master was limited to twenty pounds.
Wiley was worried. The west bound rider should have been here by now. It was unusual for a rider to be late unless something unexpected happened as it sometimes did out on the plains. He could not send a man to check on his missing rider. He had no one to send. The personnel at the station were there to care for the horses and prepare them to be ready to ride. Donny Wells would just have to take care of himself.
* * *
Well! There I was galloping west at full speed on the open plane heading to the next swing station. It would be many hours before I reached a home station where I could expect a decent meal, or at least something better than what I was accustomed to at the orphanage. I hated that place, no one wanted a young boy approaching eighteen unless it was to do manual labor. I had slipped out unseen one afternoon and headed into town and where I saw the sign:
Young skinny wiry fellows, not over eighteen.
Must be expert riders and willing risk death daily.
Orphans Preferred
Wanted
Young skinny wiry fellows, not over eighteen. Must be expert riders and willing risk death daily. Orphans Preferred
It seemed a perfect opportunity to escape from the drudgery I had endured since early childhood. I might have left earlier but the opportunity to be adopted arose occasionally, except something always seemed to spoil my chances to leave. Mostly because I was short and small and not too useful for heavy work. Three weeks ago I was out that door and I immediately signed up for the amazing wages of five dollars a week, when most other boys were lucky to get a dollar. No one asked any questions. They weighed all one hundred pounds of me and said come back in the morning ready to ride. I waited out the night and here I am.
The horse is small compared to the average, only fourteen and half hands high, a little under five feet, making them easy to mount and ride on the run. No one even asked if I knew how to ride, maybe no one even cared. The horse was fast and we went full out for the entire ten miles between each swing station. The home stations, some of which were military forts, were seventy-five miles apart and that was where the food was. My riding experience had come earlier in my life when for a brief period I had been part of a circus. That had been a wild time and the first time I had experienced a real woman. I was a boy and she was a real woman. You never forget your first time. It was there I also learned how to mount and dismount at a full gallop without hurting myself. At the swing stations you had to leap off one horse and catapult into the saddle of the waiting one, and if you did not do it right it could be very painful. Loading the mail pouch, or mochila, as it was called over the saddle horn also took skill. The first time I tried I threw it over the saddle onto the ground. The station master threw it back at me with a growl
At the last swing station the wrangler had yelled, "Watch out for those Paiute's, they are on the war path. They have killed some settlers and burned a station." I hardly had time to think let alone time to acknowledge the warning.
On the plains there was little place to hide. The terrain was open, sometimes grassy, sometimes sloping, sometimes full of prairie dog holes, and sometimes covered with loose sand, gravel and rocks. The horizon was clear except for a few clouds and something similar to smoke in the far reaches of my vision. I wondered what was causing the haze but dismissed it. The horse speed on. There was no time to speculate on phantoms beyond my immediate surroundings. You had to keep your mind on the horse and how he was responding to the land. One miss step and calamity was your fate. And then it happened!
I found myself going over the horses head, head first. It happened so fast I could hardly think. In an instant the ground rushed at me and I tried to roll and keep the mail pouch from trapping my legs in the saddle. I had to get my legs free and somehow roll away from the animal. Small as he was, if I fell under him I could expect something to break. I hit the ground with a thump, then a bump, then a crunch, and then a sloshing sound I could not identify. I lay there stunned. My head had hit a soft spot in the grassy soil and I saw stars instantly. I rolled on my back and laid there. How long a time I did not count. "What the hell had happened?"
Finally my head cleared and I assured myself nothing was broken I raised up, looked about, and there was the horse laying on the ground about a hundred feet from me. He was withering, shaking, whining and panting.
I gathered myself up and moved over to him. It was easy to see he had broken a front leg. Probably stepped into soft spot or a hole in the soil. The horse unfortunately was done for. I gathered up the mochila, took out the colt 44 dragoon revolver and regrettably placed the barrel against his head and did what had to be done. The worse thing that could happen on the prairie was loose your horse, and I had just lost mine. What a great way to start my day.
Still aching from being thrown, I sat down and took a close look around. The landscape soared off into the distance towards infinity. There was little cover and the sun was near it's zenith, but fortunately I had a hat, a water sack and the revolver. There was nothing I could do for the horse, he would just have to lay there for the birds or other creatures to dispose of. I thought of the saddle but decided since I had a long way to walk, the mail pouch, the water and revolver were the only things worth taking. In the distance I could still see the gray smoky haze and that worried me. What could be causing that...
