“The last one was. The day before that it happened at the Alhambra. And no more ‘n two weeks ago we had a shootout right out there in the middle of the street.”
“I was here for that one,” Jeter said. “For a town of less than 500 people, how many killings have we had this year already?”
“I haven’t been here all year, but if you walk up on Boot Hill, you can count at least ten or fifteen new graves,” Charles said. “We’ve got to get some law and order in this place, or someone who’s dear to us is gonna be next. I’m bringin’ my wife out when the train gets here, and I want it to be safe for her to walk our streets.”
“I agree. What time did you say the meeting would start?” Jeter asked.
“Henry says to come about eleven. All of you who work nights should be up by then.”
The next morning while all the leading business owners were gathering at the apothecary for their meeting, Cade McCall was in The Alhambra Saloon, playing poker with Dooley Coulter, Ian Bligh, and Cap Jensen. Coulter and Bligh worked as hostlers and mechanics for the Southern Kansas Stage Line. Nobody quite knew the source of Jensen’s income, but he never seemed to be without money. It was rumored, though there was no actual way of substantiating it, that Jensen had robbed a bank down in Texas. He was, if anyone had been pressed to quantify him, a genuine desperado who had already been in two shooting scrapes in Dodge City alone, and it was rumored that he had killed at least three men. He was not a man anyone wanted to cross.
“Hey, Cade, how come you’re not at the meetin’ this mornin’?” Coulter asked.”
“What meeting?” Cade asked as he picked up the cards from the latest deal.
“They’s some kind of a meetin’ a’ goin’ on down at the drug store. All I know about it is that it’s for all the businessmen in town.”
“I’m not a businessman,” Cade said.
“You own half the Red House, don’t you?”
“I don’t have anything to do with it. That’s Jeter’s operation.”
“But the way he tells it, you own half of it. That’s makes you a businessman,” Bligh said. “Leastwise, in my book it does.”
Cade laughed. “Are you inviting me to the meeting, Mr. Bligh?”
“What? Hell no, I can’t do nothin’ like that.”
“Well, there you are. Mr. Bligh would invite me to the meeting, but he doesn’t have the authority. And those who have it are disinclined to include me.” Cade lifted his glass, in salute to the table, then downed the whiskey.
“I thought we was here to play cards,” Jensen said.
“Well, just what is it you think we’re a’ doin’, if we ain’t a playin’ cards?” Coulter asked.
“Seems to me like all youse is doin’ is jawbonin’,” Jensen said. “You got a jack high showin’, Bligh. It’s your bet.”
Down at the opposite end of Front Street the Fringer Apothecary was closed for business. The leading citizens of the town were meeting, with Robert Wright conducting the proceedings.
“As all of you know, we had yet another killing here, yesterday. That’s the sixteenth killing this year.”
“Damn. That many. It’s almost like we’re back in the War again,” A. B. Webster said.
“Eb Collar’s not complaining. Hell, he’s doin’ more business than any of us,” Moses Waters said with a laugh.
“Mr. Waters, an undertaker likes to be paid for his services,” Collar said. “When these fellas die with nothing, the most I can do is wrap a sheet around ‘em and make sure we plant ‘em deep enough so the wolves won’t get ‘em.”
“Next thing you know, old Collar’ll be startin’ a cobbler’s shop.” Webster chuckled when he thought of his own joke. “The sign’ll say slightly used boots.”
“Back to the purpose of this meeting,” Wright continued. “I took it upon myself to write to Governor Harvey to see if the state could help us rein in this lawlessness. He said until we are incorporated we can’t have any local law enforcement, and there’s no sheriff for Ford County—in fact, all of Southwest Kansas. We’ve got the military, but we all know they only go after Indians or horse thieves so we can’t count on their help. That leaves us with only one option.” Wright stopped and looked around the room to make certain he had everyone’s attention. “Gentlemen, we are about to incorporate the town of Dodge City.”
“Dodge City?” Moses Waters asked. “What’s wrong with Buffalo City? I have a hell of a lot more buffalo hunters in my place than I got soldiers from Fort Dodge.”
“The railroad wants to call the town Dodge City,” Daniel Wolfe said.
“Look, I want the railroad here as much as anyone else,” Waters said. “But that don’t mean they can start runnin’ our town. What right do they have to tell us what to name this place? I still say we should call it Buffalo City.”
“There’s another problem with that, Moses, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the railroad,” Wright said. “It turns out there’s already an incorporated town in Kansas called Buffalo, and the U.S. Mail won’t allow us to use the same name.”
“Well why didn’t you say that in the first place? I can understand givin’ in to the post office a lot better than rollin’ over ‘n playin’ dead for the railroad.”
“Hell, I got no problem with callin’ it Dodge City,” George Hoover said.
“Good, that saves some rewriting,” Wright said.
“What rewriting? You mean it’s already been written?” Waters asked.
“Yes.”
“If it’s already been written, what’s the purpose of this here meeting?”
“Merely writing it doesn’t ratify it,” Wright said. “For that, we’ll need half the people who live here to agree. Now, I’m going to read it to you, then I want all of you to sign it. After that we’ll get a few more signatures, then submit it to the state capitol in Topeka…and the town of Dodge City will be in business.”
“You mean with a mayor and a marshal and everything?” Hoover asked.
“Eventually. But to get it started, there will be a board of directors with seven directors.”
“Who will the seven be?” Frederick Zimmerman asked.
“That’s what we’ll decide today. Charles, you drafted the charter, would you like to read it to us?”
Charles Rath walked up to the front of the room, cleared his throat, and began to read.
“Charter of the Dodge City Town Company, of Ford County, State of Kansas,” he began.
“Be it remembered that on this, the 15th day of August, 1872 . . .”
5
At the opposite end of Front Street from the apothecary, Cade McCall was at The Alhambra, still absorbed in the card game that had occupied his time for most of the morning.
“Are you just goin’ to sit there, McCall, or are you goin’ to play cards?” Cap Jensen asked with a growl.
“What’s your hurry, Jensen?” Coulter asked. “We all got a right to study our hand a bit.”
“McCall’s been studyin’ it long enough,” Jensen said.
“You’re just upset that he’s beatin’ you is all,” Coulter said.
“I fold,” Cade said, laying his cards, face down.
“You fold? You son of a bitch, you’re into me for almost a hunnert dollars!” Jensen said, angrily. “Now that I got me some good cards and a chance to get some of it back, you won’t even play the hand?”
Cade picked up his whiskey glass and tossed the rest of his drink down before holding it up to one of the girls who worked at the Alhambra.
“Lil, another drink, if you please.”
“Sure, honey.”
Cade turned his attention back to Jensen. “It’s called playing cards intelligently,” he explained. “When I have a hand that I think can win, I will play it. When I have a hand that I think won’t win, I will fold.”
“So, what you’re sayin’ is you ain’t got that pair of tens backed up, huh?” Jensen reached across the table and flipped Cade’s down cards over. “What
the hell? There’s another ten in your hole cards. You're a' holdin' three tens 'n you fold? What are you doin’ playin’ a man’s game, if you ain’t got no more guts than to bet on three tens?”
"You were so anxious to bet, I figured maybe you had a full house, or four of a kind," Cade replied.
“Jensen, you cheated,” Bligh said. “You ain’t allowed to look at another player’s cards, even when they fold.”
“Let it be,” Cade said, reaching for the glass Lil returned to him. “Let him look, I don’t mind.”
“Ha, you should have played your hand!" Jensen said, as a big smile spread across his face after the hand was played out. "I've got three eights, ‘n was lookin’ to pair up one of my other cards, but didn’t do it. You had me beat, but you lost your nerve."
“Better to be cautious than sorry, I always say,” Cade said.
Jensen’s three eights won the hand, and he pulled the pot back in.
While the next several hands allowed Cade to maintain the lead he had established, he never drew the hand that would let him surge ahead.
“Cade, they’s somethin’ I been wantin’ to ask you,” Coulter said.
“I’m playing cards,” Cade said. “At least I’m trying to.”
“Seein’ as how Willis says you own half the Red House, how come it is that you don’t hardly never spend no time there?”
“Mr. Coulter, are you saying you don’t enjoy my company?” Cade asked.
“What? No, I ain’t a’ sayin’ nothin’ like that. I was just wonderin’, is all.”
“I suppose it does seem odd,” Cade replied without further explanation. “Ace high, I bet ten dollars.”
“You’re feelin’ pretty bold on that ace,” Bligh said, sliding ten dollars into the pot.
“Ha!” Jensen said as the next card doubled up his jacks. “Twenty dollars.”
Cade, Coulter, and Bligh matched his bet.
The next two face up cards for Jensen were queens, so that he now had two pair showing: queens and jacks. He smiled, broadly, as he examined his hole cards.
Cade had a pair of aces, showing.
“Well now, this is the hand I’ve been looking for,” Jensen said. “Fifty dollars.” He pushed the money into the pot. “Boys, that makes the pot better ‘n two hunnert dollars.”
“That’s too rich for me,” Coulter said. “I’m figurin’ you have a full house, ‘n whether it’s queens or jacks up, you’ve got me beat. I fold.”
“Me too,” Bligh said. “I’ve already stayed in this game too long.” As Coulter had before him, Bligh dropped his cards on the table.
“It’s up to you, McCall,” Jensen said.
Cade made a big show of studying his hole cards, then looked at his ‘up’ cards, consisting of a pair of aces, a nine, and a seven. He looked at Jensen’s queens and jacks.
“What about it McCall? You goin’ to match my bet?” Jensen asked.
“No,” Cade said.
“I didn’t think so.” Jensen reached for the pot.
“Not so fast,” Cade said. He smiled. “I’m not going to match your bet; I’m going to see your fifty dollars, then raise it by a hundred. You see, unlike the others, it won’t make any difference to me whether you have a full house or not.”
“What do you mean you don’t care if I have a full house or not? What the hell have you got that you’re bettin' so hard? You ain’t showin’ nothing but a pair of aces’.”
Cade smiled. “It’ll cost you a hundred dollars more to find out.”
Jensen put his hand on his money and started to slide it out, then he stopped and pulled it back.
“No. Hell no,” he said. “If you folded on three tens a while ago, there ain’t no tellin’ what you got there now. You got two aces showin’, ‘n even if you have another’n in the hole, it wouldn’t beat a full house. Only, you said, you don’t’ care whether I have a full house or not. There ain’t no more aces up.” Jensen sighed. “Son of a bitch. You got four aces, don’t you?”
“Could be,” Cade said. “Or, I could have an aces up full house. Either way, I would have you beat.”
“There’s already over two hunnert dollars in that pot, ‘n one hell of a lot of it’s mine. I hate givin’ it away, but there ain’t no sense in throwin’ good money after bad. I fold.”
Cade reached for the pot.
“Wait, I got to see that hand,” Jensen said, and before anyone could stop him, he flipped the cards over. “What? You ain’t got nothin’ else!” he shouted. “A pair of aces? You bet all that money on a pair of aces? Hell, I had you beat showin’!”
“That you did,” Cade replied.
The other two players laughed. “It’s called runnin’ a bluff, Jensen. He suckered you in good.”
“You son of a bitch!” Jensen shouted, standing up so quickly that his chair fell over behind him. He had a gun in his hand.
“I’m about to put your lights out, you damn . . .”
That was as far as he got before there was an explosion of gunfire. The others, who were shocked to see that Jensen had drawn on Cade, were even more shocked to see that, despite the fact that Jensen had drawn first, it was Cade who fired first.
“How the hell did you . . .” Jensen started to say, then he fell backwards onto the floor.
Cade, who had the disadvantage of drawing his pistol from a seated position, now held the smoking revolver in his hand.
“I’ll be damn,” one of the saloon patrons said. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that. Nothin’ at all like that.”
"I guess this ends our game.” Cade stood and raked in the money, then headed for the door.
“Is he dead?” someone asked.
Bligh squatted down beside Jensen’s body. His unseeing eyes were open, and the expression of shock was still on his face.
“He’s deader ‘n a doornail,” Bligh replied.
“I didn’t think anyone could beat Jensen,” another replied.
“Jensen pulled his gun first, ‘n he was standin’ up. McCall not only beat ‘im, he was sittin’ down when he done it,” Coulter said.
Down at the apothecary, the board of directors had just been voted in. The seven men selected were Robert Wright, Herman Fringer, Henry Stitler, Lyman Shaw, W.S. Tremaine, Edward Moale, and Jeter Willis.
“In testimony whereof we hereunto set our hands and affix our seals the day and year above, written,” Charles Rath read, and twelve men signed as witnesses.
Just as the last man signed, someone came running into the building.
“There’s been another shooting!” he shouted. “There’s been another man killed!”
“Who was it?” Collar asked. “Who was killed?”
“I’m not sure, I heard Dooley Coulter talkin’ and he said it was Cade McCall.”
“What?” Jeter shouted. “Are you sure it was Cade?”
“I’m ain’t sure…but I am sure he was one of the ones that was in the shootin’. It happened down at the Alhambra, ‘n the other’n that was in the fracas was Cap Jensen. ‘N from what we all know about Jensen, I’d say it’s more ‘n likely it was McCall who was killed.”
“Jeter, I’m sorry,” Wright said. “But if it is Cade, you can’t really be all that surprised. He’s been flirting with the devil ever since his wife died.”
“No,” Jeter said, shaking his head. “You don’t know my friend.”
Leaving the meeting, Jeter ran down to the Alhambra.
“No, it warn’t McCall that was kilt,” Bligh said. “It was him that done the killin’.”
“It was Cap Jensen what was the one that was kilt,” Coulter said. “He’s lyin’ back in the storeroom right now, seein’ as how Eb Collar ain’t down at the mortuary.”
“I’ll tell you this. Jensen brung it on his ownself,” one of the other witnesses reported. “McCall was a sittin’ in his chair when Jensen drawed on him.”
“Where’s Cade now?” Jeter asked.
“Don’t rightly know. He picked up the pot
and got out of here,” Coulter said.
“Thanks,” Jeter said, hurrying out of the saloon.
It wasn’t hard to find Cade. When Jeter entered the Essington, he saw him in the restaurant sitting alone, eating quietly as if nothing had happened. Cade always had been someone who never got rattled, but to see him eating so calmly after just facing down a known killer seemed rather odd.
Jeter studied his friend for a long moment before going in to speak to him. He wished there was some way he could take the pain from Cade’s soul.
Cade glanced up at Jeter when he approached the table, but he didn’t stop eating.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Jeter asked.
“Have a seat.”
"You had a little excitement, I hear," Jeter said as he pulled out the chair.
"If you call killing a man excitement," Cade answered as he applied pepper sauce to his pork and beans.
"You know you can eat free at the Red House anytime you want."
"No need for me to be cutting into your profit."
"Well, if you feel that way, you could pay," Jeter said with a smile.
"Why should I pay for it, if I can eat free?"
The smile on Jeter's face faded. "Yes, why indeed?" he replied.
"What are you doing here, Jeter? Isn’t there some sort of meeting, organizing the town, or something?”
“The meeting’s over. I was elected to the board of directors,” Jeter added, the smile returning.
“I can’t think of a better man for the position.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you just come to tell me about the meeting?”
“No. I wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
"If you heard about the shooting, then you probably knew I wasn’t killed.”
"I wasn't talking about bullet wounds."
"Cap Jensen isn't the first man I've ever killed, Jeter. And I dare say you’ve killed a few yourself."
"Yes, but . . ."
"But what?" Cade asked.
"Nothing," Jeter said. He shook his head. "Nothing at all. By the way, when are you coming to see Chantal? You know damn well Magnolia would welcome you to our home at any time."
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 44