This series was put on hold for a couple of weeks, so let’s go back to where we left Miles.  He had just arrested the crooked city marshal of Silverton, Todd Johnson, and had placed him in his own jail.  Miles had moved off into a darkened corner away from the office desk and was waiting for the night to pass when shots were fired blasting out the windows, the glass falling on the desk where he might have been sitting.  Let’s return to the action in another exciting adventure in the Saga of Miles Forrest.

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       I had expected something of this nature to happen, but even if one is prepared for it, shots do tend to get one’s attention.  I waited, lifting the barrel of the Greener toward the door.  It was silent, then the door crashed open.  I still waited.  One man came through, then another, and I could see a third coming.  It was time to unload both barrels.  There were screams, a thud, some yelling and two men hurried to get back outside.  I quickly pulled my pistol, fired three shots at the entrance, then quickly reloaded the shotgun and my pistol in the lull.

       Another man was down, and possibly one more hurt bad enough that he wouldn’t cause any problems.  That buckshot may have even twinged the third man in the doorway.  I had lost count of how many deputies Johnson now had, but it had to be only a handful.  They would be more careful about showing themselves or doing anything rash.

       I didn’t move for at least thirty minutes, waiting to see if they would try anything else.  I also wanted Johnson to be on edge.  He would be wondering what had happened and since the door to the cell room hadn’t opened I’d let him think the worst.  Finally I did move, but it was up to the front corner.  I would be protected from shots coming in from either window or the entrance.

       Sitting on a chair in the front corner I could see the figure of the man lying on the floor.  Shame.  Why do some men go to the bad this way?  I’ve heard all the reasons, but really none of them make sense.  The devil sure gets his claws on some of them, lying and deceiving them into thinking that evil is the best, quickest, and easiest way to get ahead, but all it really does is hasten their appearance before their Maker.

       It must have been around five o’clock when I heard someone holler.  “Marshal!”  I didn’t answer.  I didn’t want them to know my location.  Besides, were they hollering for me or their boss?  Again, I heard, “Marshal!” louder this time.

       The sounds of footsteps on broken glass caught my attention.  No matter how quiet they were trying to be, I couldn’t help but hear them, and it helped that I had moved closer to the outside wall.  “Marshal Johnson,” came the voice again, quieter this time.  Then a holler, “Hunker down!”

       Two men came in, I fired the Greener again, and heard one man holler, “No!”  It was then I saw the stick of dynamite in his hand as he was falling.  I moved toward the wall, pulling the desk that was there over on top of me.  It wasn’t light when it fell on me, but I figured that was all the chance I had.  Seconds later, the stick of dynamite exploded.  If the shotgun blast hadn’t taken care of them, that explosion certainly would have.  

       Two left, three?  Maybe there were more, but one thing for sure was that explosion would wake the town people.  They were used to hearing dynamite going off up in the camps and around the mines, but not down on a main street.  

       I was trying to pull myself out from under the desk when I heard a voice, “My land, this place is a disaster.  Lloyd, go for the doctor, I see bodies lying about.”

       From my prone position all I could see were the legs of men coming to view the scene.  I let the man go for the doctor, then spoke up.  “Everybody hold still.  I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Miles Forrest, and any sudden move might make me jerk my finger and you’d be joinin’ those on the floor.”

       “Sure Marshal,” came the voice.  “What in the world happened?”

       “Get out of the way!” hollered a man whose voice I recognized.  “Miles, are you in there?”

       Morgan Appleby.

       “Morgan, clear those people out of the office and make way for the doctor.”

       “Where are you, Miles?”

       “I’ll show myself after the office is clear.  I have Johnson in a cell in the back.”

       Slowly the men began to move out of the office, but I knew they were hanging around on the boardwalk and in the street outside the jail.  Holding on to the back of the desk, I pulled myself up.  The concussion from the blast had made me some dizzy and there were some bruises and cuts I didn’t know I had.  I felt the hand of Morgan grasp my arm, holding me steady.

       “When the doc shows up, I need to have these men identified, and also see if Johnson has any more deputies.”  

       Morgan helped me move over to my original position to the chair in the back corner.  He looked at the office and began to shake his head, when…

We left Miles as he began his search for Marshal Johnson in the rooms above the Silver Bucket Saloon.  He was determined to bring Johnson and his deputies to justice.  Several had been killed and Miles knew there were at least eight deputies remaining, but he was making first and foremost his arrest of Johnson.  Let’s go to those days of yesteryear and another thrilling adventure in the Saga of Miles Forrest.

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       Providence was with me because when I kicked open the door, Johnson was sitting on the edge of his bed pulling off his boots.  He glanced at me, then over to the chair where his holster was draped.  Throwing his boot at me, he lunged for the chair.  The boot hit me on the left arm, but I was already stepping forward swinging the Greener in a downward motion.  The barrel caught his wrist just before he could grab his pistol.  I heard bones crack, and a yell bellowed from the marshal.

       As he grasped his wrist I moved forward thrusting the Greener against his chest, holding it there as I reached for my handcuffs.  He started to struggle until I cocked one of the barrels which immediately got his attention and settled him down.  Putting the cuffs in the hand that held the shotgun, I reached and pulled his good arm away, then slapped the cuff on it.  I wasn’t even cruel enough to cuff his broken wrist so I pulled his arm behind him and attached the other end to his belt.

       “Up,” I said, then motioned with the shotgun.

       My, he looked a sight as we left the room, one arm behind his back and only one boot on.  At least he would not run away easily.  I could see the pain on his face as we walked out the doorway.  He tried his best to not move his right arm.

       Slowly we moved down the hallway and I had him stop at the top of the stairs.  I wanted to survey the crowd below in the saloon.  “Slow and easy,” I said, then cocked the other barrel.

       It didn’t take long for those in the bar to look our way.  I saw movement, a man walking to the other side of the room.  A deputy.  There must be at least one more on the floor and they wanted me to pass between them.  People began to move away, sort of like the sea did when Moses entered it.  

       Someone to my right fired, the bullet tugging the top of my jacket.  I jerked the Greener in his direction, fired one barrel then brought it down on the shoulder of Johnson knocking him to the floor.  Turning my attention to the other man, whose attention had gone to his partner, I fired the other barrel knocking him back and on top of one of the tables.  Quickly I held the shotgun in my left hand and drew my pistol.

       Scanning the room, I didn’t see another threat so I nudged Johnson with the Greener to get up then gave him a little shove to get him moving.  He was in a world of hurt right now, broken wrist, and possibly a broken collar bone.  With the blasts from the shotgun and me walking the marshal out of the saloon the people gave me quite a bit of leeway.

       As  I stood out on the boardwalk I looked up and down the street, then a smile crossed my face.  What better place to keep the marshal until the train left in the morning–the jail.  It was a block and a half away, and we sure received the glances as we moved down toward the jail.  Johnson was having trouble walking, partly because of only having one boot on, the other was the pain from his injuries.

       Coming to the jail, I motioned him in to find only a deputy at the desk in the front office.  With my pistol I waved for him to move back to the cells.  “Leave the gunbelt on the desk,” I ordered.  He went in one cell, and I placed Johnson on a cot in the one across from him.  

       Securing the cells I started back to the main office.  “I need a doctor!” came the cry of Johnson.

       I didn’t want to be cruel but I wasn’t about to go out into the night in search of a doctor.  “You’ll live!” I hollered back.  I knew he might be in pain, but he was in no danger of dying.

       Moving the chair from the desk over to the corner I was able to be hidden from one window, and I could see the entrance and the other window.  Now it was waiting time, until the morning.  The next major obstacle was to get Johnson down to the train depot the next morning.  When I blew out the lamp it was dark in the room.  Almost no light was coming in.

       It was almost an hour later, when a gunshot blasted the window…

With Tioga and Smokey Fountain in jail back in Durango, Miles has traveled back to Silverton.  He is determined to bring down the crooked Marshal Johnson and his cronies.  However, Sheriff Gold was in Telluride, and Mateo had to see to duties in Durango.  Miles was alone, possibly outnumbered eight to one.  Join with me now in another thrilling tale in those exciting days of yesteryear.

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       By the time I walked the quarter mile into town, it was dark.  While sitting on the train I had pondered several plans, but tossed them all away.  Now walking in the cool night air of the high country, I tried to think of some definite plan to arrest Johnson.  If I could get him I figured the rest would fold.

       I found out that Johnson had a room above the Silver Bucket, but to get to it I had to go through the saloon, and even before that I had to make my way up the streets to get to it.  Stopping in the shadows by a hardware store before crossing Greene Street, I thought I should hide the Greener as best I could.  Pushing it up under my lightweight coat I held it by the barrel.  I wanted to be able to get it into action as quickly as possible and figured I could let it slide down my hand then bring it up.  

       When I finally was able to get it into position, I didn’t like the cumbersome way it felt.  This was Silverton afterall.  Would it be that strange for a man to walk into a saloon with a shotgun?  I made sure my badge was hidden, but wanted to be able to flash it if needed.  Staying as much as I could in the shadows I moved across Greene Street, moved up to the alley and ducked in it.  I’d make my way up the alley a couple of blocks.  

       I hadn’t gone very far, when I could hear the commotion of wickedness and revelry.  It was primarily along Blair Street, but also along some of the side streets.  It was too early to move in on Johnson so I found a darkened spot behind a building.  Moving deep into the shadows, I plunked myself down and began my wait.  I knew the dives and saloons wouldn’t start to quiet down for several hours yet, and some of them were open all night closing only for a couple of hours in the morning to clean up the joint.

       The Silver Bucket was a half block up then two blocks down on Blair Street.  I sat there thinking of the past week or so.  Of Ferguson, the store owner being killed for standing up for his rights.  Of Devlin, shot down while in my custody.  I thought of the beating my friend Morgan Appleby took and then the fight at the Wells Fargo office and the one at the house of Ron Barnes.  

       I had sent a telegram to the new U.S. Marshal in Denver, Walter Smith, telling him of my actions.  I knew what Dave Cook would do as well as Jens Blasco, but Smith was not known to me.  I hoped he would approve of my actions.

       “Yur in my spot,” came the slurred voice a man startling me.  I had dozed off, and his voice along with the reeking smell of liquor emanating from him brought me quickly to my senses.  “Yuh, need to find yur own place, theesen’s mine.”

       “Okay friend, no need to get yurself all riled up over it.  Yuh can have yur spot, if’n yuh help me up,” I replied trying to act as if I was in a stupor.

       He reached down his arm and bent over.  I grasped it and when I began to pull I realized that I was going to bring the drunk down on top of me.  Moving to the side I held his arm while struggling to get up on my own.  “Theesen my spot, jist so yuh’s know,” he muttered then slid down where I had been sitting.  

       Before I had taken two steps I could hear him snoring or snorting was more like the sound.  He was hard to see in the darkness and as I looked down, I wondered how he would survive the winter up here.  Parson Chapman had introduced me to the Reverend Sinclair who I knew fed the down-and-outs during the winter months, those who did not work for the mines or did not have the means to make it down to Durango.  I don’t know if he had a place where they could stay though.

       I shook myself to make sure I was awake and opened my coat so I would have easy access to my pistol, then moved on out of the alley.  There were a few people still on the streets with some derelicts lying by hitching rails.  I also noticed that there were two men handcuffed to the posts.  In a few minutes I found myself standing outside the Silver Bucket.  There were still several patrons at tables and along the bar.  My glance then took in a staircase to my right.  Breathing a prayer, I then pulled my hat down low and walked in moving slowly but directly toward the staircase.  I wasn’t sure of the time, so I looked around the room to hopefully find a clock.  There was one right above the entrance; twenty minutes past midnight.

       No one tried to stop me as I started up the steps, and I didn’t look around to see if anyone was even paying attention.  As I topped the stairs, I looked down a hallway with two rooms on one side, and three on the other.  I hadn’t bothered to even think that there may be more than one room.  I decided to walk down the hall and begin from there working my way back to the stairs.

       Outside the first door, I stopped, checked the Greener then pulled my pistol making sure it was loaded and ready.  I listened outside the door, then reached down to slowly try turning the knob.  Locked.  I took a deep breath and hoped I would make too much noise as I kicked the door in.  It was now, I …

Sheriff Gold and Mateo had been able to secure Tioga in the Durango jail.  He was spilling his guts telling the district attorney and Judge Klaser all about what Marshal Johnson was doing in Silverton.  Miles had been able to arrest Smokey Fountain, one of Johnson’s deputies and the man who killed Miles’ prisoner.  He was sitting in the Durango jail as well, barely hanging on to life because of the wound in his leg.  He had lost a lot of blood and infection had set in.  Come back with me to yesteryear and another thrilling Saga of Miles Forrest.

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       “I don’t know Miles, if that prisoner of yours is going to make it,” remarked Doc Jones, while sipping at his coffee in the diner.  “I just can’t seem to get rid of the infection or bring down his fever.  If I could have gotten to him sooner, well, then there might be a chance.”  He set his cup on the table and began to rub his chin.

       “It couldn’t be helped.  I had to keep him in the baggage room of the station, and then the train ride back to Durango.  It was probably twelve, maybe thirteen hours before I could get him to you,” I replied.

       It was then I glanced at Molly and received one of her “looks.”  The kind that meant “you were dumb to do what you did,” kind of look.  “Miles, why did you even try to go back up to Blair Street?”

       I chuckled, along with Charlie, while Doc just wiped his hand over his mouth.  “Well, I thought I might send Marshal Johnson a little message.”

       “You really did that?” piped up Doc.  “Handcuffed three of his deputies to awning posts?”

       “Yeah, I did.  I would have tried to do a couple more, but didn’t want to push my luck.  The saloons were starting to empty out, and I didn’t want to get caught.”

       Charlie was shaking his head.  “I would imagine that Johnson was fit to be tied when he found those deputies.”  He looked up at the clock on the wall.  “Sorry, I’ve got to be going if I want to be in Telluride by tomorrow night.  We’ll take care of them when I get back.”  He took one more swig of his coffee, then headed over to give Marta a hug and kiss goodbye.

       “You’re not waiting; you’re going back up there?” stated Molly and it wasn’t a question.  She knew me well enough.

       “Miles, you ought to wait, or at least take Mateo with you,” squaked Doc.  “How many men does he have now?”

       I pulled on the edge of my moustache, then tasted my coffee which had lost its heat.  “He started with around a dozen,” I said, counting the men that I knew were no longer with him.  “He’s short five.  I should be all right.”

       Molly had gotten up to retrieve the coffeepot from the stove.  “I should clobber you alongside the head but you probably wouldn’t feel a thing,” she muttered as she filled my cup instead of conking me with the pot.

       “She’s right, it don’t make sense you going back up there alone,” declared Doc, who put his hand over his cup so Molly wouldn’t refill it.

       I tasted the hot coffee, much better.  “No, right now is the time.  They’re edgy and I don’t want them gettin’ set.  I’ll be careful, you know I always am.”

       “Oh, excuse me!” Molly had snorted at my remark as she was taking a drink and spurted coffee on her hand with some dripping off her chin.  It brought a big grin to my face, but then I received that “look” again, this time in the form of a scowl.

       “They won’t be expectin’ me back so soon, and without help.  This way I can get into town without bein’ seen.  It’ll be dark before the train arrives and I’ll slide off as it slows down upon entering town.”

       At that moment in through the door walked Rev. Chapman.  “I just spoke to the Sheriff.  I hear you’re going out to do the Lord’s work,” he remarked then pulled out a chair.  Molly immediately got up to pour him a cup of coffee to which he nodded a thank you.

       “I don’t know about the Lord’s work,” huffed Doc.  “Maybe a fool’s work.”

       The preacher put his hand on Doc’s arm.  “Surely he is.  Someone has to ensure justice.  Just like you Doc Jones, someone has to mend up the bones and sew up the wounds.”

       “Just like Parker has to bury the dead,” scoffed Doc.

       “The dead can bury the dead,” said the preacher.  “That’s when my job comes into play, to comfort the broken-hearted.”

       “Can’t you talk sense to him, Dale?” asked Doc.

       A large smile appeared on the preacher’s face.  “You think I could change his mind only knowing him a short time while the two of you know him inside and out.  No, no my friends, we’ll pray and send him on his way in the hands of the Lord.”

       A few hours later I was getting off the train as it slowed moving into Silverton.  I’d walk the last half-mile into town and by that time it would be good and dark.  “Time for…”