Sporking The Coach That Never Came - Chapter 6
Why did I start this? Oh yes, because I've hated this book since I was a kid and the mind boggling research fail - especially at the book's climax - just had to be shared.
6. Kid Ruby?
Jay showed up at the Weber house at two o'clock Sunday afternoon. He was wearing good clothes, even a necktie. Why? Paul could tell right away that his grandmother was impressed with the Ute boy. Would she have been impressed if he showed up in jeans and a tee shirt? If not, it says nothing good about her.
Paul shows Jay the scrapbooks. Jay asks him if he's going to write about Billy.
"Yes, but there's something strange about him. Look at this letter. I found it in his trunk." Paul gave Jay the letter.
Jay notes that Smart and Hart rhyme, and, of course, that the heart on the letter could relate to the belt buckle. As it turns out, he plans to write about a mystery, as well.
"I think I'll write about the stagecoach that disappeared in the Indian Peaks area back in 1873."
"Disappeared? A whole stagecoach? But they were so big!" I'm stunned. Paul knows what a stagecoach is! Maybe one appeared in an arcade game.
Naturally, Jay goes on to describe one in great detail for no in-story reason. He continues: This one had four horses, five passengers -- and forty thousand in gold aboard."
Apparently no trace was ever found of it, or its passengers.
"When the coach left Colorado Springs for a mining camp seventy miles away, the news went out over the telegraph, so the miner expected it. The gold was for their payroll. But the stagecoach never got there. Wait, what? The Indian Peaks wilderness isn't seventy miles from Colorado Springs, it's a hundred and twenty some. Oh, boy, we're in for some more research fail, aren't we.
"The route that old coach took was between rock cliffs almost all the way. There weren't any lakes or swamps or crevasses to fall into." Surely stagecoaches between Colorado Springs and the Indian Peaks area would have gone up to Denver and then into the mountains. Assuming that payroll for mines in that area didn't come out of Denver. And skipping over the fact that the stagecoach, as we learn in shortly, vanished in Ute Pass, and was going to Fairplay - which is not in the Indian Peaks area.
In any event, Jay and Paul plan to go to the downtown library together to research their projects later that week. Grandma, somewhat oddly, offers a neighbor's son's bike - since he's away for the summer. Why that gives her the right to offer someone else's property, I don't know. Jay also mentions that it doesn't make any sense for the vanished stagecoach to have been stolen by Utes, since the Utes had no interest in gold and wouldn't have been able to spend it, anyway. Jay and Paul then go to a park near where Jay lives to play soccer, after Jay changes clothes. There's more horribly awkward conversation - Paul asks if Jay has an indian name and if Utah got its name from the Utes. I bang my head on the desk. They meet up with Kelly and Brian again, and Kelly offers to ask her dad about the letter, and Frank Hart, and plans to tell her parents and Mr. Dobbs about the stagecoach disappearance as well.
The next day, Paul takes the letter to the librarian. Frank Hart isn't a name he's heard of either, and the librarian wonders: If Billy was Billy Hart, why change it to Smart? Which could be a good question if the book weren't so very good at making everyone sound stupid. He urges Paul to take care of the letter, so Paul, oddly, says: "I'll keep it in my room along with the buckle from the trunk. So he's stopped wearing it, then? When did that happen? And why?
He finds no Frank Harts in the books at the library. And Kelly reports back that her family and Dobbs had never heard of the stagecoach disappearnce or Frank Hart, either. Her dad thinks the stagecoach disappearance is a legend. But he does want to see the letter, so they take it to her dad's shop. There's a lot of repetitive non-information in this chapter.
Paul reports to Jay that he had no luck with either of their projects and they plan to meet the next morning to cycle to the main library, which is, indeed on Cascade Avenue. Yay, the book got something right! They get a microfilm machine and the films for 1873.
Starting with January 1, 1873, the two boys sat hunched over the viewing screen, scanning every page. There was nothing of interest to them until the June issue of that year. Suddenly there it was -- the account of a stagecoach that was missing! It traveled three times a week between Colorado Springs and Fairplay, and then one day it had disappeared! Sadly, old newspapers, being rather dense, aren't all that easy to look through. Ms. Beatty got the story of the missing stagecoach from the book Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State, but that's the only place I've seen the story mentioned. I would have to carefully read the paper for the entire year of 1873 to prove or disprove the story. That would take weeks. I did skim the June issues, but nothing leaped out at me. I don't think Ms. Beatty has seen papers from that time. The front page is a jumble of stories that all appear to run together, at least on the microfilm, with ads sprinkled in here and there. There's no headline. There are no small headlines over the stories. I cannot believe that anyone could read through them to June and July in a morning.
The papers accuse various gangs, and, of course, the Utes, of being responsible for the disappearance. Stories about the search for the coach end at the end of June.
In the July 1873 issues there were a string of stories about Colorado Territory's desperados, describing them as much as possible and listing their crimes. There was quite a bit about the Reynolds and Devil's Head gangs, but the paper only gave a very sketchy picture of the outlaw called Kid Ruby. A member of his band who was caught and hanged had told the sheriff only that "Ruby" was his leaders name, and nothing more about him. The paper went on to say that Kid Ruby always wore a wide hat and a long rain slicker or duster over his clothing, and a bandanna over his face. No one had ever seen his features!
I'm not entirely sure why they read up on outlaws, but curiosity is a reasonable explanation. Paul wonders if Frank Hart could have been Kid Ruby, and the two of them try to find more about him. They don't find out much more, but there is an article stating that he seemed to have left the territory.
They go back to the neighborhood and meet up with Kelly and Brian at Kelly's dad's store.
Kelly introduced Jay to her father and the boy told him and Dobbs what he'd found in the old papers about the missing coach.
When Jay finished, Morse shook his head. "Hart and heart, and Ruby and rubies. Well, maybe. I dunno, kids. I never heard tell of a Kid Ruby Oh, come on! This was published in 1985, who the hell has heard of outlaws from a century ago? Besides history buffs, that is.
Jay asks if he can have a copy of the letter.
Paul nodded. "Sure, you can copy it if you want to, I guess. It's still on top of my bureau. But why would you want to use it?"
"So I could ask if Frank Hart and Kid Ruby were both the same dude." I thought you were doing the vanishing stagecoach.
Paul said, "I'd planned to put it in my essay! I found the letter!" I don't think said is the right word to use there. Actually, there's no need to have a speech tag at all.
Mr. Morse was grinning now. The adults in this book keep randomly being assholish. "Why don't both of you use it? Paul, you could ask if Frank Hart was Billy Smart's father and why Billy took another name. Jay, you can wonder about Frank Hart being the Ruby Kid. You could both use the same guesses and set up a mystery for the people who read your essays. WHY? They already have topics for their essays. One of which is already a mystery. What the hell?
And the chapter ends. Yay. This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/87139.html.
6. Kid Ruby?
Jay showed up at the Weber house at two o'clock Sunday afternoon. He was wearing good clothes, even a necktie. Why? Paul could tell right away that his grandmother was impressed with the Ute boy. Would she have been impressed if he showed up in jeans and a tee shirt? If not, it says nothing good about her.
Paul shows Jay the scrapbooks. Jay asks him if he's going to write about Billy.
"Yes, but there's something strange about him. Look at this letter. I found it in his trunk." Paul gave Jay the letter.
Jay notes that Smart and Hart rhyme, and, of course, that the heart on the letter could relate to the belt buckle. As it turns out, he plans to write about a mystery, as well.
"I think I'll write about the stagecoach that disappeared in the Indian Peaks area back in 1873."
"Disappeared? A whole stagecoach? But they were so big!" I'm stunned. Paul knows what a stagecoach is! Maybe one appeared in an arcade game.
Naturally, Jay goes on to describe one in great detail for no in-story reason. He continues: This one had four horses, five passengers -- and forty thousand in gold aboard."
Apparently no trace was ever found of it, or its passengers.
"When the coach left Colorado Springs for a mining camp seventy miles away, the news went out over the telegraph, so the miner expected it. The gold was for their payroll. But the stagecoach never got there. Wait, what? The Indian Peaks wilderness isn't seventy miles from Colorado Springs, it's a hundred and twenty some. Oh, boy, we're in for some more research fail, aren't we.
"The route that old coach took was between rock cliffs almost all the way. There weren't any lakes or swamps or crevasses to fall into." Surely stagecoaches between Colorado Springs and the Indian Peaks area would have gone up to Denver and then into the mountains. Assuming that payroll for mines in that area didn't come out of Denver. And skipping over the fact that the stagecoach, as we learn in shortly, vanished in Ute Pass, and was going to Fairplay - which is not in the Indian Peaks area.
In any event, Jay and Paul plan to go to the downtown library together to research their projects later that week. Grandma, somewhat oddly, offers a neighbor's son's bike - since he's away for the summer. Why that gives her the right to offer someone else's property, I don't know. Jay also mentions that it doesn't make any sense for the vanished stagecoach to have been stolen by Utes, since the Utes had no interest in gold and wouldn't have been able to spend it, anyway. Jay and Paul then go to a park near where Jay lives to play soccer, after Jay changes clothes. There's more horribly awkward conversation - Paul asks if Jay has an indian name and if Utah got its name from the Utes. I bang my head on the desk. They meet up with Kelly and Brian again, and Kelly offers to ask her dad about the letter, and Frank Hart, and plans to tell her parents and Mr. Dobbs about the stagecoach disappearance as well.
The next day, Paul takes the letter to the librarian. Frank Hart isn't a name he's heard of either, and the librarian wonders: If Billy was Billy Hart, why change it to Smart? Which could be a good question if the book weren't so very good at making everyone sound stupid. He urges Paul to take care of the letter, so Paul, oddly, says: "I'll keep it in my room along with the buckle from the trunk. So he's stopped wearing it, then? When did that happen? And why?
He finds no Frank Harts in the books at the library. And Kelly reports back that her family and Dobbs had never heard of the stagecoach disappearnce or Frank Hart, either. Her dad thinks the stagecoach disappearance is a legend. But he does want to see the letter, so they take it to her dad's shop. There's a lot of repetitive non-information in this chapter.
Paul reports to Jay that he had no luck with either of their projects and they plan to meet the next morning to cycle to the main library, which is, indeed on Cascade Avenue. Yay, the book got something right! They get a microfilm machine and the films for 1873.
Starting with January 1, 1873, the two boys sat hunched over the viewing screen, scanning every page. There was nothing of interest to them until the June issue of that year. Suddenly there it was -- the account of a stagecoach that was missing! It traveled three times a week between Colorado Springs and Fairplay, and then one day it had disappeared! Sadly, old newspapers, being rather dense, aren't all that easy to look through. Ms. Beatty got the story of the missing stagecoach from the book Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State, but that's the only place I've seen the story mentioned. I would have to carefully read the paper for the entire year of 1873 to prove or disprove the story. That would take weeks. I did skim the June issues, but nothing leaped out at me. I don't think Ms. Beatty has seen papers from that time. The front page is a jumble of stories that all appear to run together, at least on the microfilm, with ads sprinkled in here and there. There's no headline. There are no small headlines over the stories. I cannot believe that anyone could read through them to June and July in a morning.
The papers accuse various gangs, and, of course, the Utes, of being responsible for the disappearance. Stories about the search for the coach end at the end of June.
In the July 1873 issues there were a string of stories about Colorado Territory's desperados, describing them as much as possible and listing their crimes. There was quite a bit about the Reynolds and Devil's Head gangs, but the paper only gave a very sketchy picture of the outlaw called Kid Ruby. A member of his band who was caught and hanged had told the sheriff only that "Ruby" was his leaders name, and nothing more about him. The paper went on to say that Kid Ruby always wore a wide hat and a long rain slicker or duster over his clothing, and a bandanna over his face. No one had ever seen his features!
I'm not entirely sure why they read up on outlaws, but curiosity is a reasonable explanation. Paul wonders if Frank Hart could have been Kid Ruby, and the two of them try to find more about him. They don't find out much more, but there is an article stating that he seemed to have left the territory.
They go back to the neighborhood and meet up with Kelly and Brian at Kelly's dad's store.
Kelly introduced Jay to her father and the boy told him and Dobbs what he'd found in the old papers about the missing coach.
When Jay finished, Morse shook his head. "Hart and heart, and Ruby and rubies. Well, maybe. I dunno, kids. I never heard tell of a Kid Ruby Oh, come on! This was published in 1985, who the hell has heard of outlaws from a century ago? Besides history buffs, that is.
Jay asks if he can have a copy of the letter.
Paul nodded. "Sure, you can copy it if you want to, I guess. It's still on top of my bureau. But why would you want to use it?"
"So I could ask if Frank Hart and Kid Ruby were both the same dude." I thought you were doing the vanishing stagecoach.
Paul said, "I'd planned to put it in my essay! I found the letter!" I don't think said is the right word to use there. Actually, there's no need to have a speech tag at all.
Mr. Morse was grinning now. The adults in this book keep randomly being assholish. "Why don't both of you use it? Paul, you could ask if Frank Hart was Billy Smart's father and why Billy took another name. Jay, you can wonder about Frank Hart being the Ruby Kid. You could both use the same guesses and set up a mystery for the people who read your essays. WHY? They already have topics for their essays. One of which is already a mystery. What the hell?
And the chapter ends. Yay. This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/87139.html.