“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Haverkost said, a grin crossing his face. “Yes, sir, I think that would be real sweet justice.”
Tom Nixon, a buffalo hunter, was at the sutler’s store when Sergeant Haverkost came in.
“Have you heard?” Haverkost asked the sutler. “Colonel Dodge is sending Cap’n Kirby ‘n his black trooper into Dodge City to clean it up.”
“What are ya a’ saying?” the sutler asked.
“You knowed Private Taylor was kilt. And there was folks who seen it. They’s a sayin’ it was murder, plain as day.”
“You don’t say.”
“Hell, Dodge City ain’t nothin’ but a hell hole anyway. If you ask me, it’s about time we done somethin’. I think it’s time we showed them feather merchants in a thing or two.”
“When are they goin’?” the sutler asked.
“Tomorrow mornin’, I think.”
Nixon left the sutler store without comment, and rode at a gallop into town. By the time he pulled up in front of Rath and Company, his horse had worked up a lather.
Charles Rath was out front of his store when Nixon dismounted.
“Here, Tom,” Rath said. “What’s got you all excited, that you would treat your horse like that?”
“They’re goin’ to burn the town down,” Nixon said.
“Who’s going to burn the town down? If it’s Indians coming, we need to get word out to the fort.”
“No!” Tom said. “It’s not Indians. It’s the soldiers that are going to do it.”
The Harrison and McCall Freight Company Office was across the tracks from Front Street, right next door to Cutler and Wiley’s Railroad Company store. Cade and Jacob were returning with a load of flint buffalo skins after they had dropped off their delivery to Camp Supply, when they were hailed by Michael Cutler.
“Did you have a good trip?” Cutler asked.
“Yes, nobody attacked us, and we didn’t have any trouble with the wagon,” Cade replied. “In my book, that’s a good trip.”
“If you just got back, you probably haven’t heard the news then, have you?” Cutler asked.
“What news” Cade asked.
“According to Tom Nixon, there’s a bunch of black soldiers from the fort who plan on burning the town down.”
“Tom said that? And he was sober.”
“That’s what he’s sayin’. He heard Sergeant Haverkost tellin’ the sutler,” Cutler replied. “It’s a big mess. Weasel Slater killed a black soldier, and it looks like the black troopers are out for revenge. Anyway, Robert Wright’s called a meeting of all the town businessmen to discuss it.”
“What do you think, Cade?” Jacob asked.
“Well, we’re businessmen,” Cade replied. “I think we should go find out what’s going on.”
“All right,” Jacob agreed.
As the two walked from the freight office they saw Jeter ahead of them. Cade halted for a moment. “Looks like Jeter’s going to be there,” Cade said.
“Do you want to skip this?”
“No,” Cade said. “If we’re going to live in the same town, I can’t avoid him for the rest of my life. Heaven knows, I’ve tried to make amends, but he won’t accept my olive branch. The next move is up to him.”
They listened to Tom Nixon’s report in which he made the claim that black soldiers were coming from the fort, with orders to burn the town down in revenge for one of their own being killed.
“How do you know this?” Jeter asked.
“They’re all ‘em talkin’ about it,” Nixon replied. “The whole fort is in an uproar.”
“They’ve got a right to be upset,” Jeter said. “When Slater shot Taylor, that was nothing but pure murder.”
“Jeter, we’ve talked about this,” Wright said. “If that black trooper had an axe in his hand, then shooting him was an act of self-defense.”
“It was murder,” Jeter insisted.
“We know how you feel about the Slaters,” James Kelley said. “And I can’t say as how I blame you. If they took my saloon away from me, I’d feel the same way.”
“They’re not the ones who took my saloon away from me,” Jeter said, glaring across the room at Cade. Cade met his gaze, but said nothing.
“Maybe so,” Kelley said. James Kelley, like everyone else in town, knew the story of how Cade gambled the saloon away.
“But you have to put your own feelings aside and think of the whole town,” Bob Wright said. “We can’t stand by and let a mob come in here and burn us down.”
“I don’t see how these soldiers could do this anyway,” Jeter said. “You’re talking about the army here. They would have to follow the law, wouldn’t they?”
“What law?” Herman Fringer asked. “That’s one of our problems. We don’t have any law.”
“I can stop ‘em,” Nixon said.
“How?” Rath asked.
“There’s at least thirty-five or forty buffalo hunters in town right now, all of ‘em good shots, ‘n all of ‘em has a Sharps fifty. Why, we could wait outside town until they got here, ‘n kill ever’ damn one of ‘em.”
“No!” Cade said, speaking up, quickly.
“So, what do you say, McCall?” Nixon challenged. “You think we should just let ‘em burn the place down?”
“I say go ahead and gather up the men,” Cade said. “But we aren’t going to ambush them. We’ll meet the soldiers at the edge of town. I don’t think they want to go to war with us.”
“I agree with Cade,” Bat Masterson said. “I’ll join the group.”
The next morning forty-two citizens and residents of Dodge City were one mile east of town, spread out across the road that led from Fort Dodge. Most of the members of the “Dodge City Brigade” as they were calling themselves, weren’t permanent residents of the town, but were buffalo hunters. Cade, Bat Masterson, Billy Brooks, and Jeter Willis were also with the group. Jeter maintained as much of a separation between him and Cade as was possible.
By mutual agreement, Tom Nixon was in charge of the brigade, and he had advanced about a quarter of mile down the road from the others. After a short while he came back, his horse not galloping, but moving at a rapid trot.
“Here they come, boys, get ready,” he said. Dismounting, he took his horse back to a place of relative safety, then he returned to his position in front of the others.
They could hear the approaching troops before they saw them, a distant rumble of hooves. They saw a cloud of dust, then mounted soldiers materialized from the dust. The soldiers were black, but the three officers leading them were white. The officer in the very front was Captain Doyne Kirby.
“Hold your guns up like this,” Nixon ordered, “with the butt of the rifle on your hip.”
As the soldiers approached, it was obvious that Kirby saw the men arrayed across the road in front of him. He held up his hand.
“Troop, halt!”
By now there was less than a twenty-yard separation between the soldiers and the men of the town,
“Who’s in charge here?” Captain Kirby called out.
“I am,” Nixon replied.
“I know you,” Kirby said. “I’ve seen you on the post several times. You’re that buffalo hunter, Billy Nixon, aren’t you?”
“The name’s Tom Nixon.”
“What’s the meaning of this, Mr. Nixon? Why are there armed men here, impeding the progress of the United States Army?”
“We ain’t a’ plannin’ on lettin’ you come into town ‘n burn us out,” Nixon said.
“Who gave you that idea?” Captain Kirby asked. “We have no intention of burning anyone out. All we intend to do is go into town, arrest this . . . Weasel Slater, I believe his name is, and bring him back to the fort for trial for the murder of Trooper Taylor.”
“We ain’t goin’ to let you do that, neither,” Nixon said. “Fact is, I’m orderin’ you to turn aroun’ ‘n go back to the post. You ain’t wanted here.”
“And if we refuse?”
; “They’s more ‘n forty of us here,” Nixon said, taking in the men behind him with a sweep of his arm. “Most is buffalo hunters. Ever’ damn one of us has a Sharp’s fifty, ‘n a hunnert rounds of ammunition. ‘N I’ll tell you this, right now, if we commence to shootin’, you three white officers will be the first to go down. Then, we’ll take all these black heathens that’s behind you, down to the Arkansas River, ‘n we’ll drown ‘em.”
“I think you’re bluffing,” Captain Kirby said. “You wouldn’t dare shoot at the United States Army.”
“You’d better take heed, Captain,” Cade McCall said as he moved forward. “I did a lot of shooting at the U.S. Army during the war, and I’m not the only one in the group to have done so.”
Captain Kirby glared at the assembled men of Dodge City for a long time, then he held up his hand.
“Left column, left about, right column, right about!” he shouted, making a circle with his hand. The soldiers who had advanced by a column of twos, now peeled off by columns to the left and to the right, then started back in the opposite direction.
“Officers post!”
The two Lieutenants who were with him, turned and hurried to be in front of the troop as it started back toward Fort Dodge.
“We’ll be back with a legal warrant to arrest the murderer,” Captain Kirby said. “You can count on that.”
“Yeah? Well don’t bring no troop of black soldiers with you, ‘cause next time we’ll commence shootin’, soon as we see you,” Nixon said.
“Forward,” Kirby ordered.
“Forward!” came the supplemental commands from the two lieutenants.
“Ho!”
Cade watched the troops withdraw, then he looked for Jeter. Jeter was already heading back to town.
17
The next day Colonel Dodge left the fort and proceeded to Dodge City, not with a mere handful of troops, but with most of his regiment. Posting his troops in a blocking position on the road at each end of the town, the colonel met with Robert Wright. There was no mayor of the town, but Colonel Dodge realized that for all intent and purposes, Wright filled that position.
“What can I do for you, Colonel?” Wright asked.
“I’m here to inform you that I’ve put a blockade on the town,” Colonel Dodge said. “I intend to search for the murderer of Private Taylor, and until that search is concluded, I will not allow anyone to enter or leave Dodge City.”
“You can’t do that,” Wright protested. “The army has no authority over civilian matters.
“Oh, but I do. I want you to read this telegram,” Colonel Dodge said, handing the paper to Wright.
To Richard I. Dodge
Colonel Comdg. Third Infantry
Fort Dodge, Kansas
Until Ford County is fully organized you are authorized to hold, subject to orders of the civil authorities of the proper judicial districts, all persons notoriously guilty of a violation of the criminal laws of this state. I desire that you should exercise authority with great care and only in extreme cases.
Thomas A. Osborn
Governor of Kansas
“This says only in extreme cases,” Wright said.
“Do you not consider the murder of my personal cook an extreme case?” Colonel Dodge asked.
“Ordinarily I would, but it shames me to say that we’ve had so many murders here that it would strain credulity to single out one, as extreme.”
“Well, I consider the murder, by a civilian, of a soldier of the United States Army to be extreme enough to satisfy the governor’s restrictions. Therefore I intend to find that murderer. I’m told that the murderer’s name is Weasel Slater.”
“I’m not conceding that it’s murder,” Wright said. “But that is the name of the man who killed the soldier.”
Leaving Wright, Colonel Dodge, with a squad of armed soldiers, entered the Devil’s Den.
“I’m looking for Weasel Slater,” Colonel Dodge said. “I’m told he’s your brother.”
“He is,” Luke said. “Only he ain’t here no more.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Luke said. “See, here’s the thing. When that colored man come after him with that axe, well, Weasel didn’t have no choice but to shoot ‘im. He hated doin’ it, I mean the colored man bein’ a soldier ‘n all, but what was he to do, just stand there ‘n get his head bashed in?
“Anyhow, he got word that some of the other soldiers was lookin’ for ‘im to kill ‘im, so he left town. ‘N I don’t blame him none neither. Why, me ‘n my brother both told ‘im to do that.”
After hearing this, Colonel Dodge dispatched his soldiers to search the place, but found no trace of Weasel Slater. Concluding that the man was not at the Devil’s Den, the colonel had all the other business establishments searched as well.
In the meantime, Cade and Jacob were supposed to pick up a load of supplies from Fort Dodge, but when they attempted to leave, they were turned back by the soldiers that were posted at the end of town.
When they came back, Cade saw Colonel Dodge standing on the porch in front of Zimmerman’s Hardware. He knew the colonel fairly well, because for the last six months, he and Jacob had done a lot of business with him. He stopped the wagon in front of the store.
“Good morning, Colonel.”
“Mr. McCall, Mr. Harrison,” Colonel Dodge replied.
“You and your boys seem to be pretty busy right now,” Cade said.
“We’re looking for that son of a bitch that killed Private Taylor.”
“Yes, sir, that would be Weasel Slater,” Cade said. “But he isn’t in town anymore.”
“You know this for a fact, do you, McCall?”
“A hard, absolute fact? No, to be honest, I can’t tell you that. But I’m more than just reasonably certain that he’s gone. I haven’t seen him around lately, and he normally makes himself pretty visible.”
The Colonel shook his head. “It’s a damn shame when a good man like Taylor gets shot down—is murdered—and there’s no fear of legal consequences.”
“Unfortunately you’re right about that,” Cade replied.
“McCall, how sure are you that this Weasel Slater, the man we’re looking for, is gone? You said you were reasonably certain, would you go on record as being more than ‘reasonably’ certain?”
Cade smiled. “I’m damn certain, Colonel.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Colonel Dodge chuckled. “All right, ‘damn certain’ being more dogmatic than ‘reasonably certain’ I’ll end the search, and lift the blockade.”
“The town will appreciate that.”
“Lieutenant Nichols!” Colonel called.
“Yes, sir?” Lieutenant Nichols was standing out in the middle of Front Street supervising the search for Weasel Slater.
“Recall the troops, Lieutenant. We’re returning to the post.”
“Very good, sir,” Nichols replied. “Sergeant Cobb?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Recall the troops!”
Three buildings down the street from Zimmerman’s Hardware, Jeter was standing in the front door of the Dodge House Saloon. He was watching the conversation between Cade, who was still sitting in the wagon, and Colonel Dodge, who had stepped out into the street to speak with him.
“What’s going on down there?” George Cox asked.
“It looks like Cade and the colonel are palaverin’ about something,” Jeter replied.
“I hope he’s telling them to leave.”
“Ha!” Pete Cahill said from behind the bar. “If that’s the best man we can get to talk to the colonel, the army will be here ‘til Christmas.”
“There’s not a better men than Cade McCall.”
“What?” both Cox and Cahill asked, the response in unison.
“Jeter, this, coming from you?” Cox asked, surprised by Jeter’s comment. “I thought you and McCall were on the outs.”
“We are,” Jeter said. “But that’s a personal matter be
tween Cade and me. And our disagreement has nothing to do with the quality of man that Cade McCall is. He’s as fine a man as I’ve ever known.”
An army sergeant stepped up to the front of Dodge House. “Any of my men in here?”
“No,” Cox replied. “There were a couple of soldiers here a while ago, but they did a search of the building and satisfied themselves that Slater wasn’t here, so then they left.”
“What’s going on, Sergeant?” Jeter asked.
“We’re goin’ back to the fort,” the sergeant answered.
“Did you find Slater?” Cox asked.
The sergeant shook his head. “No, the skunk wasn’t nowheres to be found. I think the son of a bitch done skedaddled outta here.”
“That’s what the colonel was told as soon as you got to town,” Cox said.
“Yes sir, there was lots of folks told us that Slater was gone, but the colonel didn’t listen to none of ‘em ‘till McCall told ‘im. It seems the colonel puts some store in that feller’s words.”
“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t find the man you were looking for,” Cox said, “but I can’t say I’m sorry to see you leave.”
Two weeks later, after having taken a load down to the North Fork of the Canadian, Cade and Jacob reached the Cheyenne village of Spotted Wolf. By now most of the Indians in the village knew Cade and Jacob, and knew that their arrival represented a fresh supply of food, so they were greeted warmly.
In addition to the subsistence items: flour, coffee, corn and tobacco, Cade and Jacob had brought what the Indian agent had called trifling objects. These included beads and bracelets, shawls, handkerchiefs, vests, and bolts of mainly red cloth that would be traded for buffalo skins. When the wagon rolled to a stop, the Indian women soon surrounded it, digging through the items looking for the most favored item—New York umbrellas.
Spotted Wolf came to meet them as well a smile on his face. “At last you come, my friend.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Cade said extending his hand. “We were here about six weeks ago weren’t we?”
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 52