“Two more won’t be enough, Tisdale,” Cade said easily.
Tisdale stood for several more seconds. With the power of the colonel and all the deputies behind him, he was used to evoking fear in others. The serenity of this man had instilled fear in him.
“All right,” he finally said. “But once you finish your pie and coffee, you three get on over to Texas Street where you belong, so as not to cause any trouble for the decent folks.”
The deputy left the café and Billingsly let out a loud guffaw. “I haven’t enjoyed anything that much since Bessie June pushed Silas Crabtree out her window, and he fell into the watering trough. You were magnificent!”
“You were indeed,” Mrs. Wagner said. She smiled broadly. “Your coffee and pie are on the house.”
“No, now, we couldn’t do that,” Jeter said. “We heard you ‘n the deputy talkin’. How you goin’ to pay your taxes, if you go around givin’ away your pie ‘n coffee?”
Mrs. Wagner laughed. “Your pie is ten cents apiece, the coffee is a nickel. I owe fifty dollars in taxes. Forty-five cents isn’t going to break me, nor is it going to pay my taxes.”
“Millie, I told you not to worry about those taxes,” Billingsly said. “I’m going to help you pay them.”
“I appreciate the offer, George, I really do,” Millie said. “But you didn’t even have enough money to save your own newspaper. There is no way I would prevail upon you to help me save my café.”
“Ah, but coward that I am, I sold out before my newspaper was confiscated. Because of that, I’m not totally bereft of funds. I said I would help you, and I will. I just want Dobson to have the false anticipation that he is going to have his way.”
22
IT WAS MID-MORNING when Cade, Jeter and Boo stepped into the Trail’s End Saloon, but despite the early hour, the saloon was full and noisy. The bar was packed with cowboys. not only from the LP but from the other herds that had been brought to Abilene in the last several days.Behind the bar was a painting of a reclining naked woman. Over time, several would-be marksmen had tried to augment the painting by putting bullet holes in strategic places. Most had missed.
Duke and Lefty were at the bar, Unger and Slim were at the gaming table, Rufus and Ian were sitting at one of the tables.
“Cade, would ye ‘n the lads be for joining us?” Ian called.
“We’ll be right there as soon as we get a drink,” Cade replied.
“Sure now, ‘n there’s nae need to mingle with the uncivilized crowd at the bar. The young lass will bring your drinks.”
“All right,” Cade said. Because there were three of them, Boo had to take a chair from an adjoining table.
“Damn, you’re all cleaned up,” Jeter said.
“Aye, for ‘tis no heathen I am. The first thing I did when reaching this wee village was to get a bath ‘n a shave.”
“You said something about us being able to get a drink?” Cade said.
“Aye, I did, didn’t I, lad? Bessie June!” Ian called.
An attractive young woman approached the table, wearing a revealing costume and a practiced smile.
“What will it be, gents?” Bessie June asked.
“As long as it isn’t what you served Silas Crabtree just before you pushed him through the window,” Cade replied, returning Bessie June’s smile.
“My goodness is there anybody in Kansas who hasn’t heard of that?”
“You may as well get used to it, you’re a famous woman,” Cade said.
“I suppose I am. So, what do you handsome but unwashed,” she paused and, with a smile, pinched her nose, “gentlemen want this famous woman to bring you?”
“A beer will be fine.”
“Nae!” Ian said, holding up his hand. “A heathen place this is, to be sure, but ‘tis a decent scotch they have. ‘N would you be for tellin’ me why anyone would drink anything else?”
Cade laughed. “Scotch it will be, then.”
Bessie June retuned quickly with the scotch, and when Cade tipped her, she made a little curtsey toward him. “Now I feel bad that I said something about you being unwashed.”
“No need to feel bad about it,” Cade said. “We are unwashed, but I intend to correct that condition after a drink or two.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud shout from the gaming table. “You cheating son of a bitch!”
The shout was followed by gunfire from at least three guns. The drover who had called out went down under the gunfire.
The victim was obviously a drover, but he wasn’t someone from the LP herd. The three who had shot him, all of them wearing a star on their shirts, approached and stood there for a long moment, the smoking pistols still in their hands.
“All right,” one of them shouted. “Get back to your business. We’ll take care of this.”
“For a town that’s so wee, ‘tis strange to see that Abilene has so many in its constabulary,” Ian said.
“Constabulary?” Boo asked.
“Gentlemen of the law,” Ian explained, nodding toward one of the three men wearing badges. “There are three in here, ‘n there were three in the first pub we visited. If there are as many in every pub in town, ‘twould mean at least thirty.”
“They are not gentlemen, and they are not the law,” Cade said.
“They aren’t the law?” Rufus asked.
“Not real law, they ain’t,” Jeter said. “They’re private detectives.”
“I’ve heard of private detectives, but not like this,” Rufus said. “What are they? Railroad detectives? Pinkerton agents?”
“Nothing that legitimate,” Cade said. “They work for a man named Dobson.”
“Colonel Dobson,” Jeter said. “Don’t forget, he was a blue belly colonel.”
Colonel Dobson’s office was upstairs over the Cattleman’s Bank. His desk, of carved oak, sat on the far side of the room. The large office intimidated his visitors who would have to cross the space between the desk and the door.
Dobson had done well for himself, arriving in Abilene shortly after Joseph McCoy began to institute his plan of making Abilene a railhead for shipping cattle. Dobson was quick to recognize the brilliance of McCoy’s plan, and while McCoy would be making money in handling cattle, Dobson would make money by handling people.
“The town is going to grow fast,” Dobson told McCoy. “It’s also going to attract a rough crowd of men, who will want to celebrate the end of a long cattle drive. If we have no law to control such men, they could destroy everything you’re trying to build.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” McCoy had said. “I guess I didn’t think that far. We won’t be able to depend on the county sheriff and we have no law in the town.”
“I’ll supply the law,” Dobson told McCoy, explaining his idea of using a private detective agency.
When Dobson got a license to operate his private detective agency as a city police force, he also got the authority to assess a tax on all the businesses of the town. Now, he was contemplating a new source of income, and he was talking it over with Enos Crites. Crites was the chief of the private police.
He was also a seasoned gunfighter who had faced down, and killed, many men.
“I want you to go down to the holding pens and see McCoy,” Crites said. “Tell him he is to collect a fee of fifty cents per head from every cow that ships out from Abilene.”
“All right,” Crites said.
There was a knock on the office door.
“Colonel, may I come in?” Tisdale called.
“Yes, Crites was just leaving. Did you collect the taxes From Millie Wagner?”
“She said she didn’t have the money.”
Dobson smiled. “I didn’t expect she would have. Looks like I’ll be going into the restaurant business.”
“There’s something else,” Tisdale said.
“What is it?”
Tisdale told about encountering the three drovers in Waggy’s Café. “They were former Confederate sol
diers. Sometimes they act like they was the ones that won the war. I told ‘em they couldn’t be in Waggy’s, that they had to keep themselves on Texas Street, but they wasn’t too happy about it. I’ve got a feelin’ them three might wind up givin’ us some trouble.”
“I pay you to take care of trouble. Did they go to Texas Street?”
“Yeah, they went, all right.”
Tisdale didn’t mention that they had called his bluff, moving on their own time.
“Then what makes you think those three men, in particular, are going to give us any trouble?”
“Actually, it may just be one of ‘em,” Tisdale said. “I expect he’s the one the other two listen to. Leastwise, he’s the one that did all the talkin’.”
“Does the talker have a name?”
“Oh, yeah, he has a name all right. Cade McCall, he says he is.”
“Cade McCall?” Colonel Dobson said, showing some interest in the name.
“Yeah, why, do you know him?”
“No, how would I know him?” Dobson replied, quickly. “But if you think he is going to be a troublemaker, maybe you should find a reason to see to it that he doesn’t have the opportunity.”
“What do you mean, charge fifty cents per head? What in the hell is Dobson thinking about?” McCoy asked. “After everything else these men have been through, almost three months on the trail; storms, stampedes, Indians, rustlers, drought, and you expect them to pay the city fifty cents a head taxes when they get here?”
“They’ll pay it,” Crites said.
“They may not pay it.”
“What are they going to do, take the cows back?” Crites asked with a mocking laugh.
“Well if Dobson wants to charge fifty cents a head, he is going to have to take it up with the owners and trail bosses himself. I have absolutely no intention of doing it.”
“The colonel isn’t going to like that.”
“The colonel is doing all right for himself. I’m sure he will adjust.”
“Mr. McCoy?” someone called. “The broker is here for the T bar S herd.”
“I’ll be right there,” McCoy replied. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Crites?”
Crites watched McCoy walk away, then he remounted for the ride back into town to report to the colonel on what McCoy said. He found Dobson having his lunch in a private dining room at the Drovers Cottage.
“McCoy says he won’t do it,” Crites said.
Dobson buttered a roll.
“You weren’t persuasive enough,” Dobson said.
“I know people. And I know that no matter how persuasive I get, McCoy won’t change his mind.”
“I see.”
“Look, I’ve already told you how I feel about McCoy. Why don’t you just let me kill the son of a bitch, and that way we can take over the whole operation?”
“That’s what you think, is it?”
“Yeah, that’s what I think.”
“Clearly, you haven’t thought it through, Mr. Crites. Remember, it was McCoy who arranged for the cattle to come here in the first place. He is also the one who talked the railroad into coming here, and he is the one who made the deal with the meat packers. Without McCoy there would be no more cattle business, and without the cattle business, this whole town would wither and die on the vine. No, sir, I will not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”
Leaving Dobson at his meal, Crites passed through the dining room of the hotel. Here, cattle owners, brokers, and railroad officials were enjoying the finest cuisine Abilene had to offer. And though Dobson paid Crites enough money to eat here if he wanted, this wasn’t for him. They served food at the Trail’s End Saloon, and he had a private table there. That’s where he would have lunch.
For the next two days Cade, Jeter, and Boo had to stay out at the bedding grounds. The work was very easy, there was no need to drive the herd and the cows had settled in, comfortable with the grass and the water. The cowboys merely rode, lazily, around the herd by day, and were even less active by night.
When Cade, Jeter, Boo, and Rufus went back to town, the first place they went was a barber shop where all four had a bath and a shave. From there, they went to Baker Clothiers to buy new duds.
“What do you think?” Boo asked. He held one leg out to show off his calfskin boots coming up to just below the knees, cut off square on the top and with “mule-ear” tugs hanging down each side. They were high heeled, with a red star at the top.
“When the women see me in these boots, they won’t be able to keep their hands offen me.”
“Ha!” Jeter said. “How much did them boots cost you? Three fifty? You can go into any saloon in town and pick up a woman for two dollars.”
“Yeah, but then the two dollars will be gone,” Boo said. “I’ll still have these boots.”
Rufus laughed. “I think the boy has you on that one, Jeter.”
Cade glanced toward the wall clock. “Hey, it’s nearly noon. Why don’t we go get dinner?”
“Waggy’s?” Jeter asked.
Cade smiled. “Why not?”
“We’re not supposed to be there, that’s why not,” Boo said.
“Well, that was when we were drovers with nothing but trail dust and dirty clothes. But we’re all cleaned up and wearing new clothes now,” Cade said. “You might say we are quality folks in these parts, and in these times.”
Millie Wagner looked up when the four men walked in. After a few seconds she flashed them a welcoming smile.
“My!” she said. “I almost didn’t recognize you gentlemen.”
“You just didn’t recognize us ‘cause last time we was wearin’ old clothes, ‘n now we’re wearin’ new duds,” Boo said.
“It probably also makes a difference that we don’t smell like cows now,” Cade added.
“There are four of you this time,” Millie said, looking toward Rufus.
“This is our cook,” Jeter said. “If you got ‘ny more o’ that dewberry pie, I want him to try it out after dinner. Maybe he can fix it for us out on the trail sometime.”
Millie laughed, then led the men over to an empty table. It wasn’t hard to find a place to sit, all three of the tables were empty because there was no one in the café.
“You are open, aren’t you, Mrs. Wagner?” Cade asked. “Maybe we should have checked with you.”
“I’m open.”
“Oh, I just thought that since it’s dinner time, there’d be a crowd here.”
“Since Dobson passed the law that no drovers can leave Texas Street, you are the dinner crowd,” she said.
23
VAN BEECHER WALKED out of Baker Clothier with a buoyant bounce to his step. He was wearing new trousers, shirt, and boots, but he was most proud of his new hat, a black, high – crown Stetson. He took it off to look at it again, smiling in the pride of ownership.
“Hey, you! Cowboy! Get back on Texas Street where you belong!” someone shouted.
“There ain’t nothin’ on Texas Street that I want to see,” Van answered. “Why should I go there?”
The man who had issued the order was wearing a star on his vest. “Because I told you to go there.”
“And I told you there ain’t nothin’ on Texas Street I want to see.”
“I’m an officer of the law,” the deputy said. “Now how is it goin’ to look to the others if I give an order, ‘n it ain’t obeyed?”
“Mister, the only ones who can give me orders are Colonel Puckett ‘n Rufus Slade.”
“You’re wearin’ a gun,” the deputy said. “Either get over on Texas Street like I told you, or pull that gun.”
“What? You would shoot me because I’m not on the right street?”
“Nah, I’m goin’ to shoot you ‘cause you didn’t obey my order. Now, get over on Texas Street like I tole you.”
“No.”
“Then pull your gun.”
“I ain’t a’ goin’ to do that neither. If you shoot me it’s goin’ to be just flat out murder, ‘n I don’t
think you want any of these good folk who are lookin’ on to see that.”
The deputy drew his pistol and fired, his bullet taking off Van’s right earlobe.
Van let out a cry of pain, and put his hand to his shredded ear. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Draw,” the deputy said.
“I ain’t a’goin’ to draw on you.”
The deputy drew, and fired again. This time the bullet hit Van in the fleshy part of his left leg, about six inches above the knee.
Now Van was holding his right hand over his ear, and his left hand over the bullet hole in his leg. Blood poured through the fingers of both hands.
“Are you crazy?” Van shouted. “Why are you shootin’ at me like that?”
“I’m tryin’ to get you to man up so you’ll fight back. I’ll let you draw first,” the deputy said, his pistol now back in his holster. He smiled. “I tell you what, I won’t even draw ‘til you got your gun out.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself, you don’t have to draw if you don’t want to. You can just stand there ‘n let me cut you to pieces,”
“Ahhhh!” Van screamed making a desperate grab for his pistol.
The deputy watched, amused by the awkwardness of the draw. He waited until the gun was level before he started his own draw. He pulled his pistol and fired in one quick motion and Van Beecher, with a look of surprise, fell face down onto the boardwalk.
“You shouldn’t ought to have done that, Deputy Tisdale,” one of the witnesses said.
“You seen it,” Tisdale replied. “He drew on me first.”
Slim, Duke, and Lefty had left the Trail’s End on an exploratory tour of the other saloons. Jess Unger and Ian Campbell of the LP were still in the Trail’s End saloon. Three of the cattle outfits, having completed all their business, were now on their way back to Texas, and that left only the LP and the Rocking K still in town.
At the moment, Campbell and Unger represented one half of all the paying customers in Trail’s End. The other half being from the Rocking K. There were two more men in the saloon, but they weren’t paying customers. They were deputies, and as such were entitled to free drinks.
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 18