by Bruce Graham
“Not asking for much, are you,” said the again grouchy man.
Marshal Reeves shrugged and handed Olsen the papers that I had reviewed. “After you’ve done that he and I will take some refreshment from your kitchen.” He stood stock still.
Olsen disappeared into the tent.
“You know this man well,” I murmured.
Marshal Reeves turned and smiled. “Very well.”
After several minutes Olsen reappeared and handed three papers to Marshal Reeves. He handed them to me while Olsen called two men off the work crew and unloaded the body from the horse. “Nice and bent. We can’t bury him straight. But he wasn’t straight in life.”
I reviewed the papers: a receipt for $445 in greenbacks, a statement of having received the body of wanted Edward Goslin and written proof of who he was and an order for “Marshal Bass Reeves to be paid $200 reward for killing of Edward Goslin, train robber.” “All in order,” I said and handed the papers to Marshal Reeves.
Marshal Reeves stuffed the papers into his shirt pocket and turned and led his horses and me and my horses out of the camp. “Olsen doesn’t like me or Judge Parker, but he’s honest enough. A mile or so up the way is the fork.”
At the fork we led the horses down to a small rivulet where they drank. Marshal Reeves dug a battered pad and pencil from a pants pocket. He handed them to me. “You said you’d write.”
I took them and waited.
Marshal Reeves stared into space. Then: “I tracked the Goslin Brothers as far as this side of Atoka, where I found them camping. During the night I moved in and shot it out with them. John rode off. Edward was killed. I delivered his body and recovered money to the railroad camp and obtained paperwork including for reward.”
I wrote out what he dictated.
“Print your name and sign your name.”
I did that and gave the paper to him.
Marshal Reeves handed me a coin.
I didn’t take it.
He pushed it toward me. “I insist. You’ve helped me a lot today.”
I still paused and looked at the coin. “It’s twice what I agreed to.”
“You got me through the camp without problems. That’s worth it.” He forced the coin into my hand. “I was born a slave, my parents, then I, worked without pay for a master who wasn’t very nice. When I became free I promised the Lord that I’d never expect anybody to labor for me without me paying him. If you don’t take this I’ll be breaking my pledge to the Lord. You wouldn’t want me to do that.”
I studied his earnest face and closed my hand on the coin. I smiled. “For your peace of mind. I spent three years in the Union Army, and I’d consider that to be my payment to you, but on the other hand I didn’t do much fighting. So, yes, I’ll call it square. How long have you been doing this job?”
“Twelve years. Billy Gates was a bailiff at the Federal Court in Fort Smith and knew me from my work on the railroad, carrying freight. I forget how, but he recommended me for an appointment, he said because I was honest, strong and dependable, and knew the Indian lingo and could handle guns. I’d knowed that we freemen needed to be ready to defend ourselves from---well, from a lot of things, and I’d become a crack shot with a rifle and a pistol. So I latched on and been at it ever since.”
When the horses were fed we stood in the center of the fork. I extended my hand. “I’m glad to have met you, Marshal Reeves.”
“Me, likewise, Mister---what did you say your name was?”
“Nate Gould.”
“Yes. Good luck.” He climbed on his horse and led the other horse toward the Northeast.
I mounted up and went toward the Northwest.
After a few yards I heard Marshal Reeves calling me. “Have you ever been to Austin, Texas?”
“Lots of years ago.”
“Did you work at the State Capitol building?”
I paused and thought carefully.
“Lots of troublesome Confederates down there.”
“Yes, there were.”
“Have a good journey.”
I could hear his horses’ hooves beating for several minutes until the sound died away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
My unfortunate experience with Ramona, and my fruitless fantasizing over Jennifer were probably influential in my persistent failure to make a serious connection with a woman, especially one that would lead to marriage and a family. My recollections of my Vermont family were certainly positive. But the West was not a good place to expect to find a good mate. From my experience in the saloons I knew that the women there were poor prospects for a meaningful relationship. My allegiances to the Trinidad Methodist Church and other organizations were not enough to generate interest by women connected with them, who tended to be cloying and who I knew would not appreciate my business..
I was forty years old when I encountered the waitresses at the Harvey restaurants. When I had dealt with them a few times I flirted with several, but was rebuffed by them ignoring my overtures. Once I was a bit more insistent than I should have been, which caused the manager to quietly suggest that my waitress was not interested.
The women that I randomly encountered in connection with my work, almost always treated me as if I had some sort of communicable disease. And my interactions with other women were too casual to provide any hope for any sort of deep relationship.
Once in a while, the story goes, even a blind pig finds an acorn. And once in a while every gunfighter finds himself an innocent victim of some genuine malefactor.
Two towns, among others, in the old West in which I transacted no business were Dodge City, Kansas and Tombstone Arizona. I was twice recruited to cope with the doings of the first community, but on each occasion, I excused myself for undisclosed reasons. The almost limitless unpredictability of the town’s violence meant that my calm and orderly approach to matters would do me no good. Dodge City was from its beginnings and until the end of the great Western era the focal point of widespread irresponsibility for a series of reasons.
Perhaps Dodge City’s fate was predetermined by its being at the 100th meridian, which was the approximate break point between the agricultural Midwest and the Western range. A famous dictum alludes to the risk of being “west of the 100th meridian where sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t.” In other words, past Dodge City the traveler or settler faced great uncertainty.
In its earliest days the tiny town was merely the watering hole for soldiers from nearby Fort Dodge, which had been established in the 1840s to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. Soon after the War the town began growing, distant from law and order. The saying that “West of the Missouri, there’s no law and beginning at Dodge there’s no God” soon had meaning to anyone in Dodge City. The organized municipality was formally established in 1871 and was a focal point for both the buffalo slaughter and the cattle trade when the railroad arrived in 1872.
Buffalo hunters, whose business was facilitated by the almost unbelievable stupidity of those wondrous beasts, shipped the hides and the bones east in stupendous volumes. And for the moment the town was the railroad’s end point, which meant that the rough cut construction crews added to the wildness of the place.
Science played a role in Dodge City’s growth, when the movement of vast herds of cattle from the South to the railroad terminals was forced west due to the state of Kansas prohibiting movement of livestock in eastern Kansas because of tick disease. When Dodge City flourished with the influx of Texas cowpunchers relieved of the rigors of the trail, the town became totally lawless, and almost Godless. For a decade the town was a nest of the largest collection of murderers, gunfighters, fugitives and general troublemakers in the nation. Even the most ruthless gunfighters and professional killers were often victims of the atmosphere created by their own conduct.
But all good things must end, and when the Kansas lawmakers extended the ban on cattle movement to western Kansas, the cattle trade left for further west and the town withered into
just another sleepy community of the High Plains.
During the heyday of Dodge City’s wildness I refused to become just another target. I happened to travel through there in about 1880 and didn’t even leave the train. The chronicles of the area are too well known for me to repeat. Later, when the town had settled down, there was nothing to generate business for me.
I shunned Tombstone, in southern Arizona, for a different reason. Although the conflicts there between the Yankees and former Confederates smoldered long, it was first the numerous and unpredictable Clantons that caused me to shy away. When they were wiped out by the Earps, I didn’t feel like competing with them on their home turf when there was plenty of business in other locales.
At about this time I learned that two of the worst of a bad bunch had gotten their just deserts. Ben Thompson, whose top hat and fancy cane marked him as a dandy among gun hands, was the most ruthless and cold blooded of that crew. He met his end in an ambush in a theater in Austin, Texas with his friend King Fisher, another amoral gunfighter.
King Fisher was reputed to be one of the worst among the cold blooded killers, but with a sense of humor. In Texas I encountered a sign at a fork in a road, “This is King Fisher’s Road. Take the other.” Since I saw no reason to tempt fate without an opportunity for gain, I took the other.
The 1880s were the most prolific time for the profession of gun fighting, and was the time when many of the most celebrated of that ilk met their maker.
During that time I was hired to escort the lovely daughter of one John Wickersham from his enormous Colorado ranch to Madison, Wisconsin, where she was to become one of the first women admitted to the University. The elder Wickersham feared that some discontented cowpunchers with whom he had a serious difference of opinion might make good on threats, that “we know where your family lives.” I packed my Colt .45 in my gear, but fitted my dignified traveling suit with two derringers.
One of the other passengers on the train was a crusty but young man, who made it a point to strike up a conversation with us and claimed that he owned a silver mine in Nevada. When we were drawing into Topeka, Kansas, the man suddenly asked the girl to get off with him for lunch. She looked at me with an expression that said “Get me out of this.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather that Lucy not do that.”
The young man sneered. “You got something on with her, Pop?”
I stared at the youth. “Shall we just leave it that you go your way and we’ll go ours?”
“I’m getting off here, and I just want Lucy to stop with me. What you say, Lucy.”
Lucy did not look at the man. “No, thank you.”
I continued to stare at the youth. “Please, just leave it alone.”
With a speed that startled me the young man produced a Colt .45 that he leveled at me. “You dudes should learn about things out West. I say she’ll go with me.”
Lucy fidgeted. “I’ll do it, if you just put the gun away.”
The young man let his hand with the gun droop until it was pointing at the floor.
I felt in my coat vest pocket with my left hand. I sprang up and in an instant had my derringer rammed into the young man’s chin. “Sonny, you better drop the gun.”
Suddenly the young man moved backwards and did not let go of the pistol. He leaned backwards over seats opposite to ours.
I jammed the derringer deeper under his chin. “Right now.”
“I got a bead on the girl. You better give it up.”
Lucy leaped up and slammed her hand down on the young man’s gun.
The gun fired into the floor of the car.
I pulled the trigger on my derringer.
The young man flopped across the seats and was still. His pistol dropped to the floor. Within seconds a conductor and several passengers were gathered around. I had serious explaining the do and but for several other passengers there might have been a necessity to make my case to a Kansas judge. As it was we were detained for a day and we did have some justifying to do with the University authorities for our late arrival.
This was the first unintended killing for which I was responsible since my double homicides at the picket duty during the War. I did not feel any better about this one than those. For another time my regret for the outcome hung like a cloud over me.
It was on my only trip to the Black Hills that I almost met my fate due to a misunderstanding. I had been retained to escort a shipment of mining equipment through the Hills to the gold diggings. Because this equipment was rumored to possess special qualities enabling the more economical, and less labor intensive, extraction of even more gold than was already moving, a curious alliance of Indians and miners was suspected of wanting to destroy or at least delay the equipment.
I was assigned to ferret out the miners’ part of the conspiracy. I wandered the territory and dropped in on various gatherings, but wasn’t able to discern such a plot. I did, however, pick up talk of a plan by several ne’er do wells to abduct the young son of a company executive, and even that, the scheme involved an unnamed person close to the firm’s office. Instead of continuing my assigned job I laid a trap for the kidnappers. When the grab was ready to be made I sprang on the malefactors, pistol at the ready. But suddenly three other men moved onto the scene and blazed away. My gun arm was hit by a bullet. I fumbled to reach my pistol, but by the time I brought it into action I was hit by another round in my leg and was on the ground.
Two of the kidnappers fell dead and the rest broke and fled and I was left to explain my situation with difficulty to the company police and the sheriff, since nobody with the company knew me by sight.
To my chagrin the company was less than appreciative of my efforts. “We knew they were coming,” said the company police chief. “We were waiting to net them all, and if you hadn’t butted in we would have rounded them all up. Now all we have are bodies.”
The executive was gracious, paying for my medical care and my daily fee for my several days’ service. But I was hors de combat for several weeks with the loss of several jobs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Beginning in about 1880 my income was regular enough and my cash on hand sufficient that I could seriously consider saving for my time when I’d be too old or too feeble to outshoot the younger gunfighters coming along. In my travels I had become accustomed to meeting, hearing about and even seeing in action twenties and even teenaged men whose quick draws were already a threat to those of us who had been making a living out of the barrel of a gun. Most of these late comers were born and developed---I hesitate to say raised or educated---in the West and quick learners of fast draws. They were skilled from the first with the Colt ’73, unlike I who had to shift from the pre-war Navy to the new Peacemaker.
Every few weeks I would take cover in the street or saloon from stray shots by these youngsters, whose chip-on-the-shoulder attitude would lead them or someone else to an early visit to Boot Hill or the local physician. Until near the turn of the century, however, my adversaries rarely were of this new type. Since I fancied myself an ethical cut or two above the amoral gun hands that infested the cow and mining towns, I was more used to dealing with the older gunfighters, who by the late 1880s were becoming a dying breed, one by one, in the path of civilization and law and order.
But I still was apprehensive about the day when my hand would lose its quickness. So I looked about for investment opportunities. My savings in the Trinidad Bank seemed sufficient to let me weather a spell of little business. I began by purchasing the house that I had rented for many years, when the owners offered it to me. In that I was effectively saving the month’s rent instead of paying it out. When my cash balance had increased my next investment opportunity was when a fire at the homestead of Karl and Lucy Krueger drove them out. They had been settled for almost twenty years and were the outright owners of 95 acres on the Purgatoire River.
While they were staying in town in anticipation of leaving I approached them with an offer to buy the land.
We arrived at a price, with me paying a third down and the balance over five years, and closed the deal with Attorney Miles Newsome. The Kruegers were satisfied and I was glad to have a piece of good land that I quickly leased to the Weisbord Ranch so that the property was self-supporting.
I was short of cash for a year or so, but on a trip to South Dakota I learned of another parcel of land, 160 acres, and that the wife of the family had just died, leaving the husband with three children to care for. He wanted out, and I struck a deal, paying a quarter down with the rest payable over five years. I rented the property to a young family that, again, made the property self-sustaining.
With these two investments, and regular income from my professional skills, I settled down and simply paid off my debts and gathered extra cash in the Trinidad Bank. I even speculated that I might leave my trade and settle into a more respectable occupation. I occasionally thought that I might sell out my land holdings and retire to Vermont as a person enjoying respectability and a comfortable income.
But it is said, all good things must end, and so it was with my savings and investments.
It’s called the Panic of 1893.
Twenty years before I was not in a position to be affected by the depression of 1873, although my income was limited. Age, however, and an increasing awareness of vulnerability, placed me where I had much more to lose.
I tried to follow the events in New York and Kansas City, but the best I could do was read of the turbulence in Denver where the workers and small business people were destitute. By early 1894 the crisis hit home, when the ranchers renting my Purgatoire land closed up shop and the tenants in South Dakota gave up the ghost and went East. At the same time fewer clients called for my services. I looked to my savings in the Bank, but out of naivete, I did not draw down my account in time. When word spread that the Trinidad Bank had been closed I joined hundreds of other citizens lined up in vain hope that we would be able to obtain at least part of our savings.