“Damn Hatcher,” Mickey said. “He had Ben Savage cold when he came in here to talk to Wilson. He shoulda shot him while he had the chance.”
Wilson shook his head. “Mr. Dalton ain’t gonna like this.” Back to Stump, he said, “I expect you’d best ride out to the Double-D and give him the news.”
“Tonight?” Stump asked, not especially excited about taking the one-hour ride to the ranch this late.
Wilson hesitated a moment. “I reckon it won’t make any difference. You can wait and go out there in the mornin’.”
* * *
Up at the Lost Coyote, Tuck Tucker followed Ben in the front door, chattering away about the brief gunfight. “I was just on my way here to have me a drink after I et. When I heard them shots, I thought somebody was shootin’ up my shop. By the time I got down there, you’d already took care of business.” When they walked inside the saloon and saw the inquisitive faces gathered near the door, he immediately began to verbally recreate the incident for them.
Tiny and Rachel waited until Tuck was finished before Rachel asked Ben, “Is that the way you remember it? You mighta had a closer look than Tuck,” she japed.
“Pretty much, I reckon,” Ben replied, “except for the part where Tuck said Hatcher called me out and we decided to face off in the middle of the street. There wasn’t time to do any deciding about what to do. There wasn’t time to do anything but try to shoot him before he shot me as soon as we saw each other, and I reckon I was the lucky one this time.”
“Come on,” Tuck cajoled, not willing to let Ben downplay the contest between him and the gunman, Hatcher. “You was just quicker’n him on the draw. Ain’t that right?”
“I don’t know if I was quicker than Hatcher or not,” Ben tried to explain. “Both of us already had our guns out and we both fired as soon as we saw each other. I was just lucky.”
“If you say so,” Tuck said, preferring to believe his own version of the gunfight. He turned to Tiny then. “I’m ready for that drink of likker I started for before I heard the shots.” He followed Tiny back to the bar.
“Come on, partner,” Rachel said, “I’ll bet you could use a drink, too.” She led him over to a table next to the kitchen. “Sit down and I’ll get it for you.” She went to the bar then and picked up a bottle and a couple of glasses. He nodded his thanks and sat down. When she returned, she poured them both a drink and sat down at the table with him.
“Well, thanks a lot for the service,” he said and tossed his drink down.
“I expect we need to treat you to some good service while we can,” she said as she refilled their glasses. “’Cause if you keep going the way you have been your first couple of days, you might not be around that long.” It was said in jest, but she was not certain but what it might prove to be his fate.
“Maybe I might better get myself a will drawn up, like Jim did,” he japed. “I could name you as my heir, but if I did, I’d have to watch my back around you then.” They joked about it, but in the brief time Ben had been exposed to Daniel Dalton, he had learned that he was dealing with a man who lived by a set of principles suited to his own desires and ambitions.
* * *
An hour’s ride from Buzzard’s Bluff, Daniel Dalton sat at the dining room table with his wife. There was seldom much conversation between them at the table, and this night was no exception. Estelle suspected his business in Buzzard’s Bluff had not gone well for him, for he was especially mute on this evening. When Maria Gomez came into the dining room with fresh coffee, Dalton was prompted to break the silence. “Has Spade Gunter asked to see me since we’ve been sitting here?”
“No, señor,” Maria answered.
Maybe it was too soon to expect Hatcher’s return from Buzzard’s Bluff, but he decided to ask on the chance that he had. Unless it was extremely important, Maria would not usually interrupt his dinner or supper and she might not realize that this matter was important. “If he does, or Ed Hatcher, either one of them, let me know right away.”
“Sí, Señor Dalton,” Maria answered. She turned her attention to Estelle Dalton then. “You do not eat enough, señora. Is not good?”
“It’s very good, Maria,” Estelle responded. “I just don’t have much appetite for food lately.”
“You need to get out of the house once in a while,” Dalton said, a comment she often heard from him. “Do something besides sitting in that damn chair in your room. Get some fresh air and maybe you’d have an appetite.”
“Thank you for being concerned about me, dear,” Estelle said. “But I’ll be all right.”
That was the final bit of conversation between them until he had finished eating. Once he had, he wasted no time excusing himself and withdrew from the dining room. She knew that was the last she would see of him until breakfast.
His mood was no better the next morning when he walked into the kitchen while Maria was still in the middle of preparing breakfast. “Spade?” he asked and she shook her head. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said and went out the back door. He walked briskly across the yard to the bunkhouse and the little cook shed where Ned Snyder was busy cleaning up after breakfast for the crew.
“Mornin’, boss,” Ned greeted him. “You need somethin’?”
“Where’s Spade?” Dalton asked and when Ned said he thought he was still in the barn, Dalton asked, “Did Hatcher come in last night?”
“No, sir,” Ned answered. “Ed ain’t come back yet. You want me to tell him you’re lookin’ for him when he does?”
Dalton didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Yeah, tell him.” Then he turned around and started back to the house. Could be good news, could be bad. Knowing the kind of man Ed Hatcher was, he knew there was a very good possibility that he had stayed at the Golden Rail to celebrate his killing of Ben Savage. There were two other possibilities for his late return. One was the chance he had killed Savage, but Mack Bragg had jailed him for it. That possibility didn’t concern Dalton. The other was one he didn’t want to hear—that Savage had killed Hatcher.
There was nothing he could do but wait to hear of Hatcher’s success or failure and shortly after he had eaten his breakfast, he received the answer when Stump Jones arrived at the ranch. When Maria told him that Stump had come to the kitchen door asking to see him, Dalton got up from his desk and followed her back to the kitchen.
“Mornin’, Mr. Dalton,” the saloon handyman began. “Mr. Bishop sent me out here to tell you that Ed Hatcher’s dead—said you’d wanna know.”
“The damn fool!” Dalton uttered before he could catch himself. “He should have shot him in the back.” As soon as he said it, he realized he had lost control of his emotions in front of the lowly handyman.
“I hear tell that’s what he tried to do, but that Ben Savage feller turned it around on him and shot him down,” Stump said.
This was not the news Dalton wanted to hear. He was not sure if Savage was a threat to the Golden Rail’s business or not. He had just outlasted one ex-Ranger, only to have another one take over the Lost Coyote. This one was younger and said that he was going to continue to run Lost Coyote just as Jim Vickers had. As far as competition between them, Dalton wasn’t worried about that, for he would continue to attract the drifters and outlaws. But he had aspirations of making Buzzard’s Bluff talked about in the same circles as Dodge City and Tombstone, wide-open towns that attracted cowhands, drifters, gamblers, outlaws, and prostitutes. If that happened, he could expect to pull in a lot more money than he did now. And he saw saloons like the Lost Coyote as a hindrance to that image and encouragement to settlers—farmers who didn’t spend their meager incomes on whiskey and painted ladies. The unforeseen arrival of Ben Savage had caused Dalton to take actions he would not have needed to take. He saw immediately that Savage was a danger to his plans and had to be eliminated. His encouragement of Ed Hatcher to take the ex-Ranger out was strictly a business decision in his mind and he felt no guilt attached to it. Without the renewed threat of Savag
e, he was confident that he could have eventually run the woman, Rachel Baskin, out of business. He was just sorry now that Hatcher was not the gunman he had claimed to be.
He glanced up from his thoughts then and realized that Stump was standing there, waiting for instructions. “All right, Jones, you can tell Wilson I got the message.” Stump nodded solemnly but did not turn to leave. Dalton realized the simple handyman was sniffing the aroma of baked biscuits still lingering in the kitchen. “Maria, give Mr. Jones a cup of coffee and a biscuit, if you have any left over.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stump replied at once. “That’ud be mighty nice of you. I sure would enjoy some coffee and biscuit before I ride back to town.”
“You’re welcome,” Dalton said. He considered himself a compassionate man. His dealings, when it came to the business of making money, had nothing to do with that. He did an about-face and returned to his study. When he had decided what next to do, he would call Spade in and give him his instructions.
CHAPTER 10
The next few days brought a more peaceful atmosphere to the little town of Buzzard’s Bluff. There was nothing from Daniel Dalton after the shooting of Ed Hatcher even though Sheriff Bragg was convinced it would only be a matter of time. It was still a time of indecision for Ben Savage, however. He felt relatively useless around the saloon, since it was obvious that Rachel was accustomed to handling the operation of the daily business without help. The only job he was supervising was the repair of the north side of the front porch. And Ham Greeley took only one full day to complete that job. After that Ben was idle again. In fact, he felt that every time he volunteered to do any chore, more often than not he made it more difficult. At the same time, he found he was not suited to sitting around doing nothing. Luckily, Rachel came to his rescue.
She approached him one evening. “There’s something I thought I’d talk to you about and see what you think of it. Remember when we first went over the books? I told you we were gonna need a shipment of whiskey. Well, I was thinking you might wanna go with Johnny Grey to pick that up. It’s a five-day ride from here in a wagon, but we get it a whole lot cheaper if we go pick it up and haul it back, ourselves.”
“Where do you go to get it?” Ben asked.
“Houston,” she said. “Tuck went with Johnny last time, and I was worried the whole ten days till they got back. On the trip before, they told them at Houston that some outlaws robbed one of their freighters. They said they took what money they had and as much whiskey as they could carry on their horses. Then they set the wagon on fire and burned up the rest of the whiskey. Like I said, I didn’t go to sleep until they got back to Buzzard’s Bluff. Johnny said the time I shoulda been worrying was when they drove down to Houston with an empty wagon. If the outlaws were smart, that’s when they woulda hit them—when they still had the money to buy the whiskey. I told Johnny I wouldn’t ask him to go again. It’s not worth the money we’d save to put them in danger. Besides that, he doesn’t like to leave his little farm that long.” She paused to give him a sweet smile, then said, “I’ll bet Johnny might change his mind if he knew you were gonna escort the wagon. I’ll bet Tuck would go again, too. Of course, he claims he wasn’t worried about outlaws.”
He smiled back at her. “Sure, I’ll go with either one of ’em to get the whiskey. You say it saves us money to haul it ourselves?”
“About a hundred and twenty-five dollars,” she replied. “And that’s counting the cost of the supplies for Tuck and Johnny, plus fifty dollars apiece for them to haul it.”
“Whenever Johnny’s ready,” Ben said. “Tomorrow mornin’, if he’s ready.”
“I doubt he’d be ready to go on that short notice. I’ll tell Annie to ask him if he wants to go again. He’ll be in here to eat breakfast in the morning, so we’ll find out then. Tuck Tucker will be in tonight to have a drink, that’s for sure.”
“You sure this ain’t some wild idea to get me out from under your feet for a while?” he joked.
She laughed and replied, “I’ll never tell.”
* * *
As Rachel had speculated the day before, Johnny Grey decided not to make the trip to Houston because he didn’t want to leave his farm for the time it would take, just when he had a sow about to have pigs. But she was accurate in her prediction that Tuck Tucker was always ready to go. Tuck furnished the wagon, anyway, and insisted on doing the driving. That suited Ben just fine, because he intended to ride his horse. Cousin needed the work and Ben was a hell of a lot more comfortable in the saddle. They started out, following a wagon road down the Navasota River, Ben on the big dun gelding, Tuck driving a team of mules. Rachel and Tiny waved to them from the porch of the Lost Coyote when they drove past. The little redheaded gnome driving the wagon sat up and gave them a proud salute in return, while Ben touched the brim of his hat with his forefinger. It worked out that the first stop to rest the mules would be Tuttle’s Trading Post, which was only a little over ten miles from Buzzard’s Bluff. Ben smiled when he thought how surprised Tuttle and Rosa would be to see him show up again.
He was surprised when Daniel Dalton failed to come to Buzzard’s Bluff to complain to the sheriff the day after the death of Ed Hatcher. Ben suspected that Hatcher was not acting without Dalton’s knowledge or direction in the matter. But Dalton had made no visit to town since it happened, to pick up Hatcher’s horse and belongings, or to pay Merle Baker for the burial of the body. Ben had to wonder if he might be wrong in judging Dalton’s limits when it came to violence. He could only hope that was the case and the reason Dalton didn’t show up in town to protest Hatcher’s death. Whatever became of it, he saw no advantage in hanging around in case Dalton made some effort to seek revenge for his two dead cowhands. It would be him that Dalton would be after, anyway. He’ll just have to wait till I get back, he thought.
As far as this morning was concerned, he was glad to be back in the saddle, on his way to Houston—a trip that would take him five days, to a town he hadn’t seen in a long time. Cousin was wearing new shoes and it would be an easy trip for the big dun, since the rate of travel would be half his usual to accommodate Tuck’s mules. As he rode along beside the wagon, he was subject to a near-constant stream of observations on a countless number of things—on most of which, Tuck spoke as an expert. On topics he claimed no expertise about, he still commented, however. To rest his ears, Ben found it necessary to occasionally ride on ahead of the wagon, supposedly to scout the trail before them. In spite of the wear on his ears, Ben came to like the fiery little man who resembled a fictional character out of a children’s book of fairy tales.
They arrived at Tuttle’s store at mid-morning, and Ben received his usual warm welcome. After he and Tuck took care of Cousin and the mules, they went up to the store where Rosa had made coffee for them. Ben told Wilfred and Rosa about the great change in his life that had happened in the short time since he had last been there. “I declare,” Tuttle marveled, “if that ain’t somethin’, Ben Savage, owner of a saloon.” He looked at Rosa as if to see if she could believe it. She beamed her response, already convinced that Ben could do anything. “I’ll be...” Tuttle went on. “So I reckon you’re a Saloon Ranger now. What did you say the name of it was?”
“The Lost Coyote,” Ben answered. Then he told him how Jim Vickers had come to name it that. “At least, that’s what Rachel Baskin told me.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good name,” Tuttle commented.
“I never knowed that was the reason Jim Vickers called the saloon that,” Tuck confessed. Ben almost laughed, thinking that it must be one of the very few things Tuck claimed no knowledge of.
“Buzzard’s Bluff,” Tuttle mused. “That place has sprung up like a weed in the last couple of years. It sure cut into my business. I used to deal with a lot of the small ranches and farms between here and there. I even did a fair amount of trade with the Double-D, but that’s all dried up. I don’t know why I don’t look into stockin’ my store in Buzzard’s Bluff, instead o
f Navasota. Heck, Navasota’s about twice as far from here as Buzzard’s Bluff. I’ve just been doin’ my business with Navasota for so long.” He looked at Rosa and grinned. “We still do enough to keep us goin’, though, don’t we?”
His comment cut to the bone of Ben’s thoughts. He hadn’t thought about the harm the town could do to a small trader like Wilfred Tuttle. And he immediately felt guilty about the supplies he had bought from Cecil Howard for this trip to Houston. If Tuttle’s situation had occurred to him, he would have waited to buy some of the supplies from him. It was too late now. The money he was carrying was to pay for the whiskey he was going to pick up. He tried to think of some personal items he might need but could think of nothing. Finally, it occurred to him that he could use some .44 cartridges, so before they left, he bought a couple of boxes. Tuck bought some smoking tobacco and a box of matches, so that helped. And Ben insisted on paying for the coffee Rosa made for them.
When the mules were rested, Ben and Tuck said farewell to Tuttle and Rosa and continued on down the Navasota River toward the town of Navasota, planning to stop for the night about ten miles short of the town. When they reached Navasota, the wagon trail to Houston left the river and angled in a more southeast direction. Tuck was familiar with the trail, since he had taken the journey before. And when they reached Houston, Tuck guided them to the Baldwin & Sons Shipping Company, where they loaded a three-month supply of corn whiskey. They tied their full load down under a canvas sheet and started back that afternoon, planning on stopping at a popular camping site by a wide creek about ten miles north of Houston. They had decided on that spot on the trip down because of the presence of a couple of freight wagons parked there and evidence of many campfires. They figured there might be less danger of outlaws attacking wagons this close to Houston, especially if there were several wagons there.
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