Nathan Gould- Gunfighter from Green Mountain

by Bruce Graham

  The varying list of participants during my games in Trinidad included Leon Goldman, the proprietor of the local clothing store, Attorney Burrows, two coal mining office employees, a deputy city marshal, Isaac Phillips, a rancher and G A R member, Rebecca Grayson, who managed the local telegraph office and the owner of the livery stable that became the local gasoline dealer. During one of the games Rebecca made an offhand comment about my volume of telegrams declining, remarking, “Fewer shootouts, I presume.”

  I made no reply, other than to say that I would be reckless and raise the bet. Fortunately, no one else picked up on her comment and we moved on.

  As I approached my sixtieth birthday the group melted away as members died or grew too old for the effort.

  Before I departed Trinidad I had installed a telephone and electric current and running water from the city reservoir and replaced my privy with a cesspool, and was considering replacing that with a new invention, a septic tank, or even, as was discussed by the city fathers, with a connection to a city sewer system. I walked from my house to the city center and back on good wood and concrete sidewalks and needed to be cautious crossing the still earthen streets, that the local authorities were discussing covering with macadam, or hard top.

  In other words, my life in Trinidad was the same and experienced the same changes as multitudes of people across the Great West.

  Trinidad’s one brush with gunfighter notoriety came in 1882, when the notorious Bat Masterson arrived and set up a faro game in the seediest saloon in town, whose dealer was the notorious Wyatt Earp. The two of them were accompanied by a group of other shady characters. The situation was clouded when Masterson gave up the faro game and was appointed acting city marshal, at about the same time that Earp and the others left town. Contrary to popular belief, Masterson was not a gunfighter in the same sense as dozens of others, myself included. He was not noted as particularly quick on the draw and his frequent scrapes with the law, and on the side of the law, were simply because he was ready to use his gun readily and with good effect.

  I had long been puzzled, and am still so, about why Masterson “settled,” if that is the right word, in Trinidad. He had worn out his welcome in many places and the year before had left Dodge City under a cloud after a wide-ranging shootout among different factions.

  I learned of Masterson’s appointment as city marshal when I returned from a trip to Arizona where I had thrown a dishonest land agent for the railroad out at the behest of the local business community. As customary in those days the marshal was at the stage depot, surveying the arrivals in town for wanted characters and potential troublemakers. On dismounting I felt that the marshal was familiar. On my way home I stopped at the Bank and deposited most of my cash proceeds from my trip. I noticed that the teller seemed a bit nervous. “Anything wrong, Bill?” I asked.

  “The new marshal has a lot of people on edge,” he replied as he counted out my cash.

  “He looks familiar.”

  The teller wrote out my receipt and held it out to me. “Bat Masterson,” he whispered.

  “Ah, yes, I was in his neighborhood once years ago at---well, he was buffalo hunting. He’s been all around and involved in trouble a lot of places.”

  “Wyatt Earp was here also.”

  I shrugged. In my travels I had, and would again, run into the wreckage left behind by the peripatetic and unpleasant Wyatt Earp whose shenanigans were often immoral, often illegal and almost always a disgrace to even the ethics of the gunfighting profession. I didn’t feel like commenting further on him or his kind. I pocketed my receipt, picked up my valise and left.

  Since I was not in the habit of frequenting the Trinidad public houses I managed to avoid encountering Masterson on his turf. He was not likely to meet me in my milieus at church or the family restaurants in town. So I had no reason to anticipate meeting the chronic troublemaker. I wished to avoid him because he might recognize me for the gun hand I was and bandy about town the sort of business in which I was engaged.

  Only once did I fail in my policy of non-recognition, and in a strange, backward way. I was invited to attend the wedding of Thomas Gilmartin, to be held at the home of Calvin West, the informal gathering spot for the local United Confederate Veterans, which boasted a couple of dozen or more adherents. Gilmartin was one of the few people in Trinidad aware of my occupation. The announcement of the event included the statement that Gilmartin “had served with distinction in the late War under Confederate General Kirby Smith.”

  The notoriety of the wedding became a matter of interest in the community and objections were raised to the event in general and the officiating at the ceremony by the areas’ Methodist clergyman, especially among the many Union veterans in the area. Threats of violence were bruited about. On the day of the wedding I joined about three dozen guests at the West home, where the event was to be held in the front yard.

  We were hardly gathered when Masterson appeared, armed and in the regalia of his office. “This thing is called off,” he shouted, waving his arms. “Go home.”

  West confronted the marshal. “By what right---“

  “The Union vets are on their way, ready for a fight. I don’t want a riot.”

  A hubbub erupted, the ladies expressing unease, the men muttering threats.

  Masterson pointed toward Gilmartin. “You’re to blame, bragging about your rebel service. Do this thing someplace else in private.’

  West glowered at Masterson. “The story was wrong. He wasn’t in the Confederate Army, I was, and the War’s over for twenty years.”

  A hum of voices could be heard in the distance.

  “I can’t stop them,” shouted Masterson. “Go home before people get hurt.”

  The voices were closer. Down the street a mass of men, appearing to be several dozen, surged toward us.

  Masterson looked around at the wedding guests. “Was anybody here with the Union? Talk to them.”

  When nobody else spoke I said: “I was with the Union Army, Vermont Volunteers. What would I say?”

  People around me began to drift away, shrink back from the street.

  “Whatever you want,” said Masterson. “Your very voice will tell them that you’re a Yankee. You’re a New Englander.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I shuffled past Masterson and to the edge of the street.

  The crowd was almost in front of the house, shouting, a scattering of clubs waving.

  I held up my hands. “Fellow Yankees, fellow Union veterans, fellow victors over the Confederacy. I am one of you.”

  I glanced quickly about. Gilmartin was almost to the house. Few of the invited guests remained. I still was unsure of what to say.

  “We don’t want Johnny Rebs here,” called one voice. “He was bragging about being a rebel,” said another.

  I spotted one man in the crowd whose name I could fortunately remember. “Lem Crosset, what are you doing here?”

  The man, obviously too old to have served in the War, shrugged.

  “And you, from the feed store, you know me. Didn’t I tell you that I was with the Union volunteers?”

  The young man in the Union kepi and blue shirt nodded.

  “Nathan Gould from Vermont. I signed up to wear the blue when I was eighteen. I served four years. I’m with you in your support for the Union. But attacking our fellow citizens twenty years later isn’t any good. Let bygones be bygones. What did Lincoln say? ‘With malice toward none, with charity toward all.’ Let us follow his teaching.” I stood still and looked at a sixties man a few feet from me. “Brother, will you lead us in prayer? Our Father, who art in Heaven—.”

  The old man followed along: “Hallowed be thy name, they kingdom come---.” A few feeble voices joined in, then more, and finally the entire crowd finishing. One by one the people in the crowd drifted away until the street was empty.

  Masterson ambled to stand beside me. “What a performance. You could run for Governor with a line like that.” He turned toward the house. “
All right. You can go on with the ceremony.”

  People began to appear.

  “Nathan Gould,” said Masterson. “Your name rings a bell, I know you from somewhere. Not Dodge City or Denver, I don’t forget a face from there. Wait a minute. You’re a gun hand.”

  I put my index finger to my lips. “Shhhhh. I don’t do it around here.”

  “You’re fast. I’ve heard that you’re really fast. Maybe not the fastest, but fast. Why aren’t you marshal?”

  “I want to be at peace here. I believe in what I said to the crowd. I do what I do in other places. I’d have no peace if people knew about me here. So keep it quiet.”

  “Good, I’ll do that.” Masterson held out his hand.

  I took his hand and held it for several seconds. “To the brotherhood of the gun.”

  “Right.” He turned and strode away.

  The wedding went on in peace. I resumed my quiet life and, as far as I know, Masterson did not spread the word that I was a gunfighter. Over the ensuing winter he kept things calm in Trinidad, only a few minor charge arrests. In the April election, he was ousted from city marshal, partly on the basis that he had been influential in persuading Colorado’s Governor to not order the extradition of Doc Holliday on an out of state murder charge and having concocted legal shenanigans to promote the deal. Masterson left town and I had nothing further to do with him. I understand that he made somewhat of a career out of prize fight promotions and writing for the New York newspapers. He may have had a reputation as a Wild West gunfighter, but in reality it was mostly hot air and hanging around with real gun hands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  During the summer of I believe ’85 or ’86 I was traveling through the Indian Territory, on horseback, since neither the railroad nor the stage lines were operating there. I had just done a straightforward job of guarding the cash being used in the establishment of a bank, without having to engage in any gun play, in Paris. The heat was oppressive. I paused along a stream, I think it was the Kiamichi River, at midday. The stream was a few hundred feet off the trail and masked from the road by a line of bushes and small trees. I hitched my horse to a tree, and at the river bank doffed my clothes and plunged into the water with a bar of soap. I enjoyed the refreshment and scrubbing and emerged, clean and sweet smelling. I went to my clothes, in all of what my father once called my “Adamic splendor” and was suddenly face to face with a man and a woman and two girls enjoying a picnic lunch. There was shocked surprise by all of us, and many apologies by me. The man went for a buckboard in the road. I fumbled with my clothes and barely had my pants on when I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun held by the man.

  I couldn’t raise my hands without causing my pants to fall down, but obviously that is what the man expected. “Hold on,” I said. “I don’t mean any offense.”

  The woman and girls were gathering up the lunch and blanket.

  “You knew we were here,” the man said. “And your gun’s right there. Put up your hands.”

  I smiled and rolled my eyes toward the man’s family. “My britches will fall down.”

  “Well pull up your galluses.”

  “If you promise not to shoot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I yanked my suspenders over my head and wriggled around. “Now what?”

  The woman and girls were almost to the buckboard with the lunch items. “We’re ready, Pa,” said one of the girls. She looked in her middle teen years, and hadn’t taken her eyes off me since I’d come in sight.

  “Okay, you’ve done enough to spoil our day,” said the man. “We’ll go on our way. But give us your gun.”

  “Why? Would you leave a traveler defenseless here in the wild. Go your way and---.”

  “I don’t want you getting after us with a gun. You can catch us faster than we can travel in the buckboard.”

  “Use your head. I didn’t intend to cause you a problem. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “We’ll be going through Kosoma. We’ll leave your gun there, with the railroad foreman.” His shotgun was still leveled at me.

  I didn’t know what else I could do. “So the railroad has a crew there?”

  “They’re building through there. Back up and I’ll take your pistol.”

  “What’s going on here?” The voice was from behind the man with the shotgun. A large man in traveling gear was standing at roadside, pistol in hand. “I’m a Federal officer. Drop your gun.”

  The man half turned and threw down his shotgun.

  The man at the roadside worked his way down the slope.

  I could make out a badge on the man’s jacket.

  “I’m Charles Nugent, with my family,” said the man who had had the shotgun. “We were accosted by this man, naked, and I wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to follow us.”

  “I’m Marshal Bass Reeves,” said the man from the roadside. He was obviously Black, with a large bushy mustache and scant hair around the sides of his head. He kept his gun aimed in the general direction of both of us. “You, who are you?”

  “Nathan Gould.”

  “What’s your business?”

  There was nothing I could do but state the truth. “I’m a hired gun. Not wanted anywhere.”

  The former shotgun holder snorted. “I was right. You are dangerous.”

  “Well,” said Marshal Reeves, “do either of you have any reason to prefer charges?”

  “Not me,” I said. “I don’t blame him for being angry, and he was just being careful. I’m sorry I upset the family.”

  Nugent shrugged. “No, I guess it’ll be okay, especially with you here. He didn’t actually do anything. I don’t think he meant any harm.”

  Marshal Reeves flicked his pistol and put it into his holster. “In that case, Mr. Nugent, you seem to be ready to leave.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Nugent. He leaned down and reached for the shotgun.

  “Toss out the shells,” said Marshal Reeves.

  Nugent took up the shotgun by the butt and went through popping and pocketing the shells. He worked his way up to the road and onto the buckboard with the woman and the girls. In a couple of minutes he was out of sight in the direction of Kosoma.

  Marshal Reeves watched until the buckboard was out of sight. He turned toward me. “And now, Mr. hired gun, what were you doing in these parts?”

  “Is it all right if I get dressed?”

  “All except your guns. I want an explanation.”

  I went through dressing and getting into my boots, and left my gun belt on the ground. I was in Hugo, while Thaddeus Critchley set up his bank. He had a bundle of cash, and I was there until the safe arrived. Now I’m headed home.”

  “And where is home?”

  “Trinidad, Colorado.” I put on my hat. “My horse can use his feed and water.”

  “All right.”

  “My guns?”

  “Leave them while I bring down my horses for their drink and feed.” He turned and went up the slope.

  I found my horse and brought him to within a few yards of my gun belt. I got his feed from my saddle bag and fed him. Then I led him to the stream and let him drink his fill.

  Marshal Reeves was a few yards away with two horses that were drinking. Across one horse was a body, boots still on. Also hanging from the horse were saddle bags and two boxes.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Near as I can figure it’s either John or Edward Goslin. He has papers on him, but I can’t read them. Can you read?”

  “Very well.”

  Marshal Reeves led the two horses to a bush, to which he tied them. He fumbled in the dead man’s pockets and produced a sheaf of papers. He held them out to me.

  One of the papers was a discharge from the United States Army, dated four months earlier, for Edward K. Goslin, of Denver, Colorado. Another paper was a receipt from Wells Fargo for $390, in the name of Edward Goslin. A third paper was a bill of sale for a roan gelding to Eddie Goslin. The final paper was a ha
ndwritten letter, signed by a Rosetta Goslin and addressed to “Eddie, My Son.” I handed the documents back to the Marshal. “Four papers indicate that the man is Edward Goslin.”

  “Good. I understand that the Railroad is offering a $200 reward for Edward Goslin, dead or alive. He helped rob a train last June. He had money with him that probably came from the train. Which way are you going?”

  “North.”

  “So am I. To Fort Smith. I’ve already sent three men on with my helper in the Black Mariah. That and Edward Goslin will do it for this trip. If you want you can accompany me for a little while, to the fork.”

  “Suits me. I can have my gun?”

  “As long as you ride ahead of me.”

  I laughed. “Sure, to the fork.” I climbed up and we were on our way.

  “Hired gun, how would you like to earn ten dollars?”

  “Money’s money.”

  “When we get to the fork I’d like for you to write out a statement of what I did on this trip. I can’t write.”

  “Glad to.”

  We walked for a while, then mounted up and moved at a brisker pace into a bustling work camp where railroad ties and rails were being set out.

  Marshall Reeves led the way to an official looking man next to a tent. “Mister Olsen, how are you?”

  The man nodded. “Work’s slow, thanks to you. You’ve put the kibosh on us by shutting down the entertainment.”

  “The Indians and Judge Parker look askance on whoring and gambling and fire water until municipal authorities exist to license at least the drinking.”

  The man waved an open hand in the air. “I see you’re up to your usual work, you and Rooster Cogburn: ‘Bring ‘em back dead’.”

  “All right,” said Marshal Reeves. “I have good news. This carcass here is Edward Goslin, one of your hold up men. And this---.” He made a show of dragging a saddlebag from beside the corpse. “---is part of the latest robbery proceeds.”

  Olsen brightened up and grabbed the saddlebag.

  “All I want you to do is to count the money and give me a receipt for the body and the money, and a voucher for my reward and I’ll be on my way. My companion here will read over what you give me.”