Because the money he had was the result of diamonds he had gathered in South America, he decided the Gem would be an appropriate choice, so he stepped inside, pushing through swinging, half-doors. Just inside he stopped and looked back at the doors. There didn’t appear to be any doors other than those swinging panels, and while it did seem to facilitate the entry and exit, he couldn’t help but wonder how they locked the place up at night.
Cade stepped up to the bar. The bartender, sporting a full, handlebar moustache, stepped up to him.
“Yes, sir, what’ll it be?”
“Beer,” Cade said.
“I’ll be damn. We thought you were dead. Everyone in the 33rd Tennessee thought you were dead. You are Sergeant McCall, aren’t you?”
When Cade turned toward the speaker, he saw a thin, wiry man with a light brown stubble on his chin. He was dressed exactly as all the men Cade had seen in the street, and, like many of those men, he was wearing a belt with a holstered pistol.
“Jeter Willis,” Cade said with a big smile. “I haven’t seen you since Franklin.”
“No, I reckon not. And the last time I seen you, you was lyin’ dead right in front of the cotton gin.”
Cade chuckled. “I was lying there, all right, but I wasn’t dead.”
“Well I sure as hell thought you was, ‘n ever’ one else did too. Come on, Sergeant, bring your beer over to the table,” Jeter said. “We’ve got a lot of catchin’ up to do.”
“I expect we do. And we can start with me no longer being a sergeant. The name is Cade.”
“You just got off the boat, didn’t you?” Jeter asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
Jeter laughed. “Well, if you had a sign hanging around your neck it might be a little more obvious.”
“What are you doing here in Texas?” Cade asked.
“I mostly grow’d up in Texas. I might have wound up in the 33rd Tennessee, but I got there with General Hood’s Division, and, like me, Hood was from Texas.”
“Oh, yes,” Cade said. “I had forgotten that.”
“How is it you can be walkin’ aroun’ here like this, seein’ as you was kilt at Franklin?”
“I wasn’t killed at Franklin.”
“Yeah, that’s what you keep tellin’ me.” Jeter reached up and pinched Cade on the cheek.
“Ouch!”
“I reckon you’re tellin’ the truth all right,” Jeter said. “I ain’t never heard of no ghost you could pinch.”
“Pinch me again and I’ll knock you on your scrawny ass,” Cade said with a laugh.
“I ain’t goin’ to do it no more now that I know you ain’t dead.”
16
FOR THE NEXT HOUR the men caught each other up on the last two years, with Cade telling about Pogue Elliot dying in the Yankee prison at Camp Douglas. He said nothing about his brother marrying Melinda, because even, after all this time, it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. He did tell about his adventures in South America, though he left out the part about being shanghaied, because he found that too embarrassing.
“I been right here in Galveston ever since I been back,” Jeter said. “I drove a freight wagon some, rode shotgun on a stagecoach some, hell I even deputied a bit, but mostly what I’ve been doin’ is punchin’ cows at a couple near-by ranches.”
“Punching cows? I’m not sure what that even means,” Cade said.
Jeter laughed. “You’re in Texas, and you don’t know what punchin’ cows means? You’ve got a lot to learn, ‘n I reckon I’m goin’ to have to be the one that learns you. Let me ask you this. You got ‘ny money? The reason I ask is ‘cause if you don’t, I’ll lend you some, on account of the first thing we have to do is get you out o’ them Eastern duds ‘n into some Texas clothes.”
“I appreciate the offer of the loan, but I have some money left from my voyage to South America. And I was thinking about getting some different clothes, but I figured I’d have a beer first.”
“All right, finish your beer ‘n I’ll go with you,” Jeter said. “Lord knows you won’t be able to buy ‘em yourself, ‘cause you won’t have no idea in hell what to buy.”
Cade didn’t believe he had ever seen a store quite like Blum’s, not even in Memphis or New Orleans. Here, less than one third of the inventory was given over to the type of clothing he was used to, the knee-length frock coats, shirts of patterned fabric, neckties and bowler hats. Those clothes were hanging on racks near the wall, almost as if Mel Blum had put them in his store as an afterthought.
The clothes that made up two thirds of his inventory were stacked up on long tables. The pants were separated by size and by denim or canvas. The shirts gave Cade a little more opportunity to express some personal preference, as they were separated by size, color, and style. Some of the shirts had a double-breasted panel, while the others had a single row of buttons.
“You think these pants will fit you?” Jeter asked, holding up a pair of brown canvas trousers.
Cade held them against his waist, then nodded. “Yeah, they’ll fit.”
“Better get two pair.”
Cade reached for a pair of blue denims, and Jeter held his hand out. “You don’t want those,” he said. “Them’s for farmin’ or workin’ in a mine. For cowboyin’, you need the canvas.”
When Cade left the store half an hour later, he was wearing new trousers, boots, and a yellow shirt. Carrying the rest of his purchases, as well as the clothes he had started the day with in a brown paper package, wrapped by the store, he followed Jeter out onto The Strand.
“Next thing we have to do is get you a rifle, pistol, and holster,” Jeter suggested.
“Yes, I noticed that nearly everyone, including you, seems to be wearing a pistol.”
“There,” Jeter said, pointing to a store. The sign, painted in an arch across the front window read: Guns, Holsters, Ammunition.
The proprietor of the store was a small, bald-headed man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties. He was wearing wire-rim glasses.
“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, greeting the two men.
“My friend, here, needs to be outfitted,” Jeter said.
“I won’t need your help for this,” Cade said.
“I reckon not,” Jeter replied. “I recall that you was real good with guns in the army.”
Cade picked up a Colt, double action, .45 caliber pistol. “I’ll take this,” he said. He reached for a Henry repeating rifle, exactly like the one he had used on the monitor, to repel boarders. “And this,” he added.
“Have you got a room?” Jeter asked when they left the gun store a bit later. Cade, like Jeter and nearly every other man he saw, was now wearing his pistol in a holster.
“No, I just got off the boat, remember?” Cade replied with a broad smile.
“I’m staying in Mrs. Barrington’s Boarding House,” Jeter said. “I know she’s got an extry room ‘cause Dawkins signed on as an able bodied seaman to the Ocean Spray, a couple of days ago, ‘n Mrs. Barrington ain’t put nobody else in it.”
“What about that place?” Cade asked, pointing to a large, two-story white house with a red roof and red shutters. A wide, deep porch spread across the front of the house, and it was furnished with at least a dozen rocking chairs, some of them occupied. A sign on the well-kept lawn read: Arabella’s Red House.
“That’s too high-falutin’ for the likes of us,” Jeter said. “Mostly it’s just ship’s captains, or rich cattlemen who stay there when they come into town. I’ll say this, though . . . the woman that runs it, Arabella Dupree? She is one fine looking woman.”
“Married?”
“I think she might be widdered, ‘cause when she first come here she was a’ wearin’ widder’s weeds. She didn’ wear ‘em all that long, ‘n truth is, she looks a whole heap better without ‘em. I reckon she figgered that since most of them that stays with her is men, it would be better for business if she didn’t wear black all the time.”
Jeter helped Cade get checked in at the boarding house, and once he got his room, Cade put away his extra clothes and the rifle.
“Tell me, Jeter, in your time here, have you run across a woman by the name of Chantal?”
“Chantal?” Jeter shook his head. “No, don’t know as I’ve heard that name. Who is she?”
“I . . . uh, met her in New Orleans, but I heard that she’s moved here.”
“Pretty girl, is she?”
“Yes, so pretty in fact that, if she has come here, she’ll most likely be working in a bar.”
Jeter smiled. “Ah, so Chantal is that kind of a girl, is she?”
“Very much so.”
“Wait a minute, what are you a’ lookin’ for a girl like that for, anyhow? I though you was all fired ready to marry up with Corporal Waters’ sister, wasn’t you?”
“It didn’t work out,” Cade said without any further explanation.
“So, are you plannin’ on tryin’ to find this Chantal?”
“Yes.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what. On account of because me ‘n you is such good friends, I’d be willin’ to go into ever’ saloon they is in Galveston with you, ‘n we’ll just check out ever’ one o’ the little darlin’s that’s pushin’ drinks. If this Chantal of yours is in town, we’ll find her.”
“She’s not my Chantal,” Cade replied, quickly.
“Then does that mean that if we find her, I can have her?”
Cade laughed. “Careful what you ask for, you may wind up with more than you bargained for.”
“We’ll try the Gem first,” Jeter suggested. “I know they ain’t no one by the name of Chantal that works there, on account of it bein’ my favorite saloon ‘n all, it’s where I go the most ‘n if they was a Chantal there, I would know her. But, I’ve made some friends there so we can ask around. Maybe someone there would have heard of her, especially one of the girls.”
Once again, Cade was curious about the swinging doors as they stepped into the Gem.
“What are you lookin’ at?” Jeter asked, when he saw Cade studying the entryway.
“I don’t see any doors, except for these,” Cade said. “How do they secure this place when it is closed?”
“Hell, that’s easy,” Jeter answered with a chuckle. “They don’t need no solid doors, on account of this place ain’t never closed.”
Jeter called out to one of the bar girls. “Hey, Lucy, come here, I want you to meet a friend of mine.”
Lucy was dressed to flaunt all her assets. She also had long, red hair.
“Oh,” she said, flashing a broad smile when she approached. “A red head, just like me.”
“His hair ain’t red like yours. His hair ain’t hardly red a’ tall,” Jeter said.
“Well, honey, I use a bottle to make my hair even redder, I don’t expect this gentleman does,” Lucy said.
“He wants to ask you somethin’,” Jeter said.
“Well, we don’t have to rush this,” Cade said, returning Lucy’s smile. “Let’s have a beer.”
Lucy called another girl over, and the two joined Cade and Jeter. Lucy, as women invariably did, ran her finger over the hook-like scar on Cade’s forehead.
“Jeter said you wanted to ask me something?” Lucy asked after a few minutes.
“Yes. I’m looking for a woman.”
Lucy’s smile broadened. “Well, honey, you’ve found one.”
“No,” Cade said. “I mean a specific woman. I knew her in New Orleans, but I heard she has moved here.”
“Darlin’, Galveston is a big place,” Maude, the other girl said. “And Lucy ‘n me don’t exactly mix with the fine ladies of the town.”
“Neither would the woman I’m looking for,” Cade said.
“What’s her name?” Lucy asked.
“I only know her first name.”
“One name is all any of us have,” Maude said with a laugh.
“Her name is Chantal. She’s Cajun.”
The two women looked at each other for a moment, then Lucy spoke.
“I don’t think either one of us have ever heard of her.”
None of the other girls in the Gem had heard of her either, and the search in the Age, Texas King, and Cow Palace proved just as unproductive.
“Let’s try the Anchor,” Cade suggested.
“We ain’t goin’ to find ‘er there, neither,” Jeter said. “The Anchor is mostly for sailors, there ain’t hardly no cowboys that ever goes there.”
“I met her in a sailors’ bar,” Cade said.
“Yeah, that’s right, you was a sailor for a bit, wasn’t you?”
Cade didn’t tell Jeter that he had been shanghaied in that sailors’ bar, and that Chantal was the one who had set it up. If she was still in that business, the Anchor would be the most logical place for her.
Their visit to the Anchor proved to be as fruitless as had been all the others.
From the Anchor, they went to the Stirrup and Saddle, the sixth saloon they had visited. They asked about Chantal here as well, but got the same negative response. The bar girls, seeing no immediate future in spending time with the two men, moved on to more productive ground, leaving Cade and Jeter alone at a table.
Jeter had drunk a beer in every saloon they had visited, but Cade had switched to coffee after the second saloon, and was drinking coffee now.
“Maybe she didn’t actual come to Galveston,” Jeter suggested. “Or maybe she did come here, only she left to go somewhere else.”
“I think you may be right,” Cade conceded. “I knew that finding her would be a long shot, but I thought I would at least give it a try.”
“She must ‘a been some woman for you to come over here just to find her.”
Cade smiled. “How do you know I didn’t come over here to just look up an old friend from the war?”
“I have to confess that when I first seen you over at the Gem, I thought you was a haint,” Jeter said. “I mean, seein’ as I seen you layin’ there dead with all the others that had been kilt. Only here you are, ‘n you ain’t no haint, you’re real.”
“You aren’t going to pinch me again, are you, Jeter?”
“No, I ain’t goin’ to pinch you again,” Jeter replied with a little laugh.
“What do you plan on doin’ now?” Jeter asked. “I mean, seein’ as you come here to find Chantal, ‘n didn’ find her.”
“I don’t know, I hadn’t given it that much thought.”
“Why don’t you come on a cow hunt with me ‘n Johnny Lattigo?”
“A cow hunt?”
“Yeah, me ‘n Johnny’s got us a plan. They’s thousands of cows that don’t belong to nobody that’s just wanderin’ around over in Jackson and Lavaca counties.”
“What do you mean, they don’t belong to anybody?”
“They’re called mavericks. Long time ago some bulls ‘n cows escaped, ‘n since then they’s thousands of cows that’s been borned. All we got to do is round ‘em up, then take ‘em up to Kansas. We can get thirty dollars a head for ‘em up there. Why, say we was to round up seven hunnert ‘n fifty cows, that’d be fifteen thousand dollars. That would give us enough money to hire maybe three or four drovers to help us drive the cows on up to Abilene, ‘n that’s where we’d sell ‘em. Even with all the expenses paid, me ‘n you ‘n Lattigo would more ‘n likely wind up with better ‘n four thousand dollars apiece.”
“You make that sound pretty easy,” Cade said.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, there ain’t nothin’ a’ tall easy about it. First of all, roundin’ up the cows ain’t goin’ to be easy. ‘N the young bulls is all goin’ to have to be castrated, then we’re goin’ to have to brand ‘em all, so’s folks will know their ours.”
“You said castrate the young bulls, what about the old bulls?”
Jeter laughed again, and shook his head. “Lord, do you have a lot to learn. Well, here’s your first lesson. You don’t go messin’ with no full grow’d bulls, ‘n you for su
re don’t try ‘n castrate one. Not unless you want one o’ them horns stuck clear through you.”
“All right, when do we start?”
“Lattigo’s drivin’ for the stage company right now, ‘n he just took his last run to Houston. He’ll get back tonight, ‘n we’ll start out tomorrow. That is, soon as we can get you a horse ‘n saddle.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Listen, seein’ as this is goin’ to be our last night in town for a while, what do you say we get us a couple of women and do it up right?”
“I’d rather not, but you go ahead,” Cade said.
“Wait a minute. You ain’t still goin’ to be a’ lookin’ for Chantal, are you? ‘Cause I think we’ve done show’d that she ain’t nowhere about in Galveston.”
Cade chuckled. “No, I’ve given up looking for her. I think I’ll just get a good dinner and go back to my room. All this cattle business is new to me, and I need to get myself ready for it.”
“Fine, you do that. But just don’t go thinkin’ yourself out of it. ‘Cause if you do, it’ll be a big mistake.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m actually looking forward to it now.”
Cade was on Market Street when he saw the disturbance between a well-dressed young woman and a rather large, overbearing man.
“I told you when I seen you that if you didn’t give me twenty dollars a week, I was goin’ to tell what I know about you,” the man said in a gutteral voice. “Well, you ain’t paid me nothin’ in the last three weeks, so I want the money now.”
“Please, sir, I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Then why don’t I take it out in a little trade?” the man said. “You ain’t worth sixty dollars, so it’ll take quite a few visits for you to catch up.”
As the man reached for her, he tore the sleeve from her dress. The woman screamed.
“Back away from her, you son of a bitch!” Cade said, and even as he spoke the words, he pulled the man away from the woman then spun him around.
Angrily, the man swung at Cade, but Cade had anticipated it, and he ducked under the swing, then counterpunched, hitting the man on the chin. The bully went down.
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 13