A Thousand Texas Longhorns

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “I need a cook to feed my crew. A good cook. And what I would need from the cook is a man who is not only handy with a Dutch oven and skillet, but makes coffee that doesn’t taste like muddy water. And, more importantly, can work a musket or revolver like a soldier. Way I remember things, you fill that bill, compadre.”

  José Pablo Tsoyio bowed with graciousness.

  “I’d need you on the other side of the Trinity north of town, come daylight. I’ve got a crew of five others. I take half of what we get. You get ten dollars extra. The rest is divvied up between you and the other cowhands. Agreed?”

  “It would be an honor to ride with you again, patrón.”

  “The honor, José, will be mine.” He turned to the bar. The waiter and the barkeep were staring, anticipating, the bottle of brandy and two clean cordials waiting.

  Jameson Hannah nodded, and the bartender was pouring when Hannah turned back to José Pablo Tsoyio.

  “We aim to drive fast, and February is not always cooperative when it comes to weather. Get those cattle to Jefferson. Maybe spend the rest of the winter across the border in Louisiana.”

  “Some might find that advisable,” José Pablo Tsoyio said.

  “Yeah. I figure the rightful owners of those cows will be annoyed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  He put the old man to bed again, glanced sadly at the wooden prosthetic that had replaced the right hand, and pulled the sheets and blanket over Dr. Sparhan. Drunk again. Passed out—before ten in the morning. Seth Beckstead had never seen a man so hell-bent on drinking himself to death, but on this bitterly cold morning, he did not plan to spend his time moping around, mopping up the doctor’s vomit, which would come at some point. He had something better in mind. He grabbed his coat, muffler, and hat, and his black satchel, and left the rawhide cabin, hanging a CLOSED sign on the stag horn on the wall. As though some patient might actually come by.

  Fifteen minutes later, frozen numb by the harshest wind he had ever felt, Beckstead pounded on the door while stamping his feet just to get the blood circulating again. Perhaps he heard footsteps inside, but with the howling wind and the wool over his ears, he could not be sure. He tapped again. Even wearing gloves, his fingers ached with cold.

  “Yes. Who is there?”

  That did not sound like Ellen Story. Then he remembered the midwife. “It is Dr. Seth Beckstead,” he yelled.

  “One moment.”

  The moment lasted half of February. He turned, just to keep moving, and stared down the barren street. Barren from what he could see, which was no farther than thirty feet. He didn’t think it was actually snowing this morning. The wind was just driving snow that had fallen during the past four days. If the midwife did not open the door soon, they might find him come spring thaw, buried under a mountain of dirty snow.

  The door opened, the voice inside said something, but Beckstead could not hear. He slipped inside, then had to help a prim, dark-headed woman push the door closed. “Thank you,” he said, and began peeling off his gloves. “Forgive me, ma’am, but I have forgotten your name.”

  Dark eyes, though not as dark as Ellen Story’s, bored through him. “We have not been introduced.”

  “My apologies. Your mistress, Missus Story, said she had hired a midwife. I . . .” He remembered his hat, removed it, dumping snow onto the bearskin rug. “I am Seth Beckstead. Mr. Story asked me to check in on his wife while he is traveling.”

  She bowed, though the eyes did not lighten with any trust. “I am Popie Papadakis.”

  “What a delightful name.”

  “Surely you jest, Doctor.” She turned. “Missus Story is in the loft. Follow me.”

  * * *

  It was much warmer in the loft, and Ellen Story smiled as he came to the bed, and sat in the rocking chair where he guessed Miss Papadakis spent much of her time. Slowly she peeled back the white cloth, and Beckstead smiled at the sight of a tiny, pink-faced baby with already a thick mane of black hair on the top of his head.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Ellen whispered.

  She. Beckstead looked again at the sleeping newborn. “I have never seen anything more lovely,” he lied. He thought the woman holding the child was the prettiest creature God had ever created. “Have you given her a name?”

  Ellen laughed softly, and sighed. She wiped a tear that suddenly appeared. “Nelson never considered a girl’s name. We were both so certain a son would be born. The way he . . . she . . . kicked. You remember, Doctor. Don’t you?”

  “I shall never forget.”

  “She was to be Nelson Story Jr.” Ellen’s head shook. “But I think . . . Montana.”

  “It is a beautiful name for a beautiful baby.” Beckstead began opening his satchel. He pulled out the stethoscope. “And a fitting name, too. The first daughter of Montana Territory.”

  “I would think not, Doctor,” Ellen said. “Bannack City came before Virginia City, and think of all the Indian girls born here. Alice Montana Story and I are newcomers to this land.”

  Beckstead nodded in fascination. “Alice Montana Story. Well, Mother, I would like to check up on both of you, if you will allow.” He was shaking the thermometer in his left hand. “Open your mouth, please, and stick out your tongue.”

  * * *

  “Your prognosis, Doctor?”

  Dropping the stethoscope into the bag and pulling a handkerchief from his vest pocket, Beckstead turned back toward the bed and smiled. “A long life for two lovely women,” he said. “Just do what you’ve been doing, obeying Miss Papadakis, resting, sleeping, and loving your wonderful—and healthy—daughter.”

  It wasn’t all the truth. The baby’s lungs and heart were weak, but that might be expected for a child born in a brutal winter. Ellen had hemorrhaged more than usual and remained fatigued. Yet these things happened often during childbirth, or so he had heard. Bringing babies into the world was not what medical doctors did; they left that to midwives, or just let the mothers do it on their own. Keeping them alive afterward . . . that was a doctor’s job.

  “Popie, alas, will be leaving us tomorrow,” Ellen said with a sigh and a smile at the midwife, still hovering in the corner, dark eyes like a hawk’s, waiting for the right moment to swoop down and claw out Beckstead’s eyes.

  “But . . .”

  “I was not the only woman in Virginia City with child. She must attend to Missus Fletcher’s needs.”

  “Twins,” the Greek said. “Most likely.”

  “Well . . .” Beckstead could not think of anything to say.

  “I was hoping, since you are our physician, that you might check on us. What would be your fee for this?”

  “Missus Story . . .”

  “I insist.”

  “We shall figure that out later. I want you to rest.”

  “And I want you to tell me about your adventures in our town. How is Mr. Walsh, your roommate?”

  He closed the bag, set it on the floor, and laughed with true emotion. “Patrick Walsh is a wonder. But getting a good night’s sleep in the Weston Hotel is . . . shall we say . . . ?”

  “Impossible,” Ellen said. “I have heard the stories, Doctor.”

  He shook his head. The Weston had four rooms, all about six feet by twelve feet, and there was a kitchen in the back where guests could cook their own meals, and a parlor with a big skylight in the center for entertaining guests or working or reading or just sitting around while waiting and praying for spring. The problem was, well, the hotel had no hallway. You walked into the first room, tried not to disturb the guests, and entered the second room, tried not to disturb the guests, and entered the parlor, proceeded on to the third room, then the fourth, and finally the kitchen. It could make for a long night, what with Virginia City being a twenty-four-hour town, and it proved especially hard for the guests who happened to be in the first room, and the current tenants in that room happened to be Seth Beckstead and Patrick Walsh.

  “Patrick snores, too,” Beckstead told Ellen after
she finally stopped laughing. He also farted, constantly, but Beckstead left that detail out, as well as his frequent use of the chamber pot from the time he staggered in from the saloons well past midnight till the time Beckstead had to get prepared for work around five in the morning. Work. To fix Dr. Sparhan black coffee and gruel and sit around and watch the old man throw up and start drinking the worst whiskey a man could find in the Fourteen Mile City. Until the doctor closed the doors to his office and wandered to the bucket of blood on Jackson Street.

  “My lady should get some rest,” the Greek watchdog spoke.

  At which point the baby awakened and began to cry.

  “Well, Doctor,” Ellen began, “I guess it is time to part. But you will pay us another visit.”

  “Every day,” he said, already rising and pulling on his protection for the long walk back to Dr. Sparhan’s lodging. “Shall we say tomorrow at nine-thirty?”

  “Very well, sir. I look forward to our visit.”

  “No more than I do. Is there anything I could bring you?”

  “The Post?”

  “Easily obtained, as I happen to be on good terms with the printer.”

  Ellen’s laugh sounded like a symphony.

  The Greek cleared her throat. The woman knew not the meaning of the word subtlety.

  He nodded at her hard face as he reached the ladder and started down. “Good-bye, Alice Montana Story. Take care of your mother. It is a beautiful name, Missus Story.”

  He reached the bottom and finished dressing for the storm beyond the door.

  “I think so,” Ellen called down, and her next sentence almost broke Beckstead’s heart. “I do pray that Nelson does not make me change it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “I’ve been trying to figure you out, Boone.” Nelson Story’s hard eyes trained on the dark-eyed, dark-headed young man leaning against the split-rail fence. “You just follow me like a pet dog. I almost invalid you by bashing out your brains, and here you are. Still with me.”

  Mason Boone turned, stared, and shrugged.

  “I didn’t give you a choice at first,” Story said. “You had to ride that stagecoach out of Virginia City. But once we strung up those road agents, you could have taken your leave. Yet here you are.”

  “All you had to say,” Boone said, “was ‘Git.’”

  “Just what do you get out of this?”

  The Texan let out a quick laugh. He pointed to his coat, pulled it open, showed the belt around his waist, the holster on his right hip, the .44 Army Colt. He moved his right leg out, moved his foot left, right, left right, left right. Those boots had cost fourteen dollars back in Atchison, Kansas. He pushed back the black hat.

  “I haven’t bought breakfast or supper since Alder Gulch, either,” he said.

  “I meet Andrew Johnson, president of these United States, in Washington,” Story said. “I shake hands with him. I watch Julia Dean Haynes at the Brigham Young Theater in Salt Lake City, playing Juliet. I meet bankers in Philadelphia and New York City, and I take you back to Ohio, my old stamping grounds. You never said a word.”

  “But I ate well. Slept in some fine hotels.” Which Story knew to be true. Boone had enjoyed the food and even champagne at William Ebbitt’s boardinghouse in Washington City, and had gotten lost trying to find his room inside the sprawling hotel run by the Willard brothers while Story was meeting with Montana territorial representatives.

  Now, here they stood on pastures near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, tombstones and crosses covering much of the ground. Story walked to the nearest grave, turned, studied the Texan. “At first, I figured you aimed to assassinate me.”

  “It crossed my mind,” Boone said, “a time or two.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I wasn’t completely convinced I would survive the attempt.”

  With a nod, Story moved to another headstone. “I told you I never fought in the rebellion.” He had changed the subject with such abruptness that Boone appeared dumbstruck. “Many of my friends did. I learned about many of their fates when I was back home in early January. Several of the lads I grew up with fell here.”

  “Several of mine fell here, too.”

  That caused Story to reconsider the Texan.

  He thought about the dead Ohioans. Brothers Ed and Dick Woodard. Story had been trying to court the boys’ sister, Rebecca, so the Woodard boys tried to persuade him to leave their sister alone. In Woodard fashion. Jumped him on the porch, slapped his face, buried one fist in his stomach, slammed a heel on his toe. Threw him against the wall, and stepped back while laughing and issuing a few taunts and threats.

  Naturally, no one inside the farmhouse dared open the door, or even turn up a lamp inside. Pa was six feet under by then, along with Ma and Story’s brothers. All Story had known was that worthless petticoat Pa had married, figuring the widow Ruhamy Russell would be a good enough mother for his surviving son. She even gave Story two stepsisters, though one of those had died by the time the Woodards came calling. Maybe that’s what changed Story. He didn’t like being ambushed, and he certainly didn’t like being called back from Athens to work on a damned farm. Nor did he like the Woodard brothers.

  So while Dick and Ed laughed, Story drew the barlow, the one Pa had given him, unfolded the blade, and slashed Ed Woodard from wrist to elbow. Both brothers ran off the porch like scalded hounds.

  Now, nine years later, the whole affair seemed so damned silly. But back then . . . hell, the whole world had pissed him off. Once Pa dropped dead, Story had to drop his studies at the university, return to Bungtown, to a stepmother who despised him. And once Ed Woodard’s arm was stitched up, Story heard the whispers, from neighbors, workers at the gristmills and copper shops, even his stepmother. N. G. Story. Stands for No Good. So he had lit a shuck for Kansas Territory.

  He told himself he came to Tennessee to apologize to the Woodards, let the brothers know they had taught him a lesson he had never forgotten. That Golden Rule he often recited: Do unto others, but do it first.

  Story moved to another grave. “Most of these are unmarked ‘Unknown.’”

  “Most of those who fell near me don’t even have markers,” Boone said.

  Story thought about asking Boone about the battle here. He wanted to. But that was not Story’s way. It might show weakness. He didn’t have to ask. Suddenly, Boone started talking.

  “It was damned cold. Not warm like it is today. I mean, warm for this time of year. We’d trade with you boys. They’d send us food or coffee, and we’d send them tobacco, mostly. That was at night. Next morning, we’d be trying to kill each other. Hell of a thing.” His head shook. “Hell of a thing.”

  When they reached the rented carriage, Story snapped the quirt, and the dun began to head back toward town.

  “What do you know about cattle?” Story asked as they trotted back to the path.

  “Not a whole hell of a lot.”

  “I thought Texas was cattle country.”

  “Not where I hail from.”

  “Well, here’s what I know, from talking to everyone I’ve met in practically every city we’ve visited. Cattle. Texas cattle especially. There’s a fortune to be had. A man with grit and determination can drive beef to Sedalia or Kansas City and ship the herd to Chicago and turn a massive profit. That’s where you can make a fortune.”

  “What do you know about cattle?” Boone asked.

  “I just told you . . .”

  “You told me about business. About money. What do you know about working cattle, driving cattle? You don’t just sell your beef in Chicago. You’ve got to get that herd to Chicago. So what do you know about cattle?”

  Now Story knew why he had brought Boone with him. The man didn’t fear Story, and spoke his mind. There weren’t many people around these days who would do either of those things.

  “I don’t know a damned thing about cattle.” Story lashed out at the horse. The buggy increased speed. “But here’s something else I know. I know
that if a man could get a herd of cattle to Virginia City, Montana, he’d make more money than he’d ever see in Chicago.”

  Boone started to laugh, before realizing Story was serious. “You’d try to drive a herd of Texas steers to Alder Gulch?”

  “Not steers. What they call a mixed herd. Steers. Cows. Bulls.”

  Boone pulled down his hat. “What I do know about cattle is that mixed herds are harder to handle. Just like horses. Geldings, you’re probably fine. But once you put two stallions and a mare in that mix, you’re playing with fire.”

  They did not speak for a quarter mile. Story said, “I also learned this. The Gallatin Valley would make fine cattle country. Ranching. And a man needs at least a bull and a cow to start a ranch.”

  Boone let out a long breath. “Here’s what I know about you: You have balls. And ambition. I don’t know about brains.”

  Story glanced at Boone: “Here’s what I know about you. You’re tougher than a cob. With a head of granite. But you lack vision.”

  The silence lasted until the town came into view. Story said, “You’ll come to Texas with me.”

  Boone shook his head, but when he started to protest, Story was already talking. “You went with me through Idaho and Utah. Across Nebraska, Kansas, and into Missouri. To Ohio. To Washington City, New York, Philadelphia, and here we are, on some whim of mine, in Tennessee. You’ve been my ward and my manservant. Now you’ll be my adviser.”

  “You don’t take advice,” Boone countered. “You don’t even give it. And I’ve already told you I don’t know a damned thing about cattle.”

  “But you know about Texans. And that is why I’ll be paying you from now on . . . in wages . . . not duds and grub and train tickets and visits to cemeteries filled with dead soldiers.”

  “Story . . .”

  “One hundred dollars a month. Virginia City wages, of course. Starting now.”

  When Boone sank back onto the seat, Story said, “I see we have reached an understanding.”

  They did not shake on the deal.