Cheyenne Cowboy

by M Gunn

  Tough men of all shapes and sizes went about their daily rituals as expertly as those with far more profitable and acceptable professions. They knew how to handle even the most brutish of steers and how to get them from one stock pen to another and entice them up into the stock cars.

  The pair of lawmen had entered the vastly different end of town toting their weaponry with trepidation. There was little if any respect for star packers in and around the aromatic stockyards. They lived and died by a different set of rules to those who dwelled in the better side of the cattle town. They tended to sort out their own troubles without any help from men like Marshal Cole Grey and his deputy Ben Graff.

  ‘Keep your wits primed, boy,’ Grey said through gritted teeth, the pungent smell growing stronger as they ventured deeper into the confines of the yards. Both men knew that if they got into any trouble in this part of Dodge, they could not depend on any help coming from the rest of town. They were on their own and they both knew it.

  ‘Why the hell do we have to come down here, Marshal?’ Graff asked as his sweating hands gripped his scattergun tightly. ‘They sure don’t want us poking our noses into their business.’

  The middle-aged marshal nodded as they strode along the wooden platforms and stared at the rail tracks gleaming in the morning sun.

  ‘It’s part of our duties, Ben,’ Grey replied. ‘We gotta come down here once a day to earn our pay. Them’s the rules.’

  The skittish Graff licked his dry lips as his eyes darted around them at the faces of the men who toiled in this cesspit of a place.

  ‘Even if there was trouble around here, we sure couldn’t do much about it,’ the deputy grumbled.

  ‘You never said a truer word, boy,’ Grey sighed. ‘You’d need an army to make these hombres obey the rules. Even if you arrest one of them it don’t make it any easier. The last marshal to do so got himself killed a short while after his office was raised to the ground. They stick together down here.’

  ‘But we still gotta come down here?’ Graff gulped. ‘I got the feeling that there’s a gun aimed at me with every step we take.’

  ‘That’s ’coz there is.’ Cole Grey glanced at his partner. ‘As long as they don’t start squeezing them triggers, we’ll be OK.’

  The two men continued to do their rounds. A job neither they nor the countless sweat-soaked men who observed them liked.

  Dust floated up into the blue sky as pen gates were closed along the tracks. The huge ramps were raised and pinned back up to secure the moaning cattle inside the cattle cars. A huge black cloud of smoke exploded up into the sky as the mighty engine started to move.

  The massive locomotive full of cattle had no sooner left the stockyards than another equally large train pulling a long caravan of empty cars behind its tender hissed its way into Dodge City and wound its way across the rail points to where it would take the remainder of the large herd Tom McGee had auctioned hours earlier.

  Both lawmen watched as men emerged from every shadow and began the process all over again.

  ‘Them hombres sure know what they gotta do,’ Graff noted as he dried his temple on the back of his sleeve. ‘Look at them, Marshal. They’re like a swarm of ants.’

  ‘They know their jobs OK,’ Grey agreed.

  The stock pens covered an area beside the tracks even larger than the sprawling town itself and over the previous few months had seldom been empty. Herds were making their way from at least a dozen starting points to be sent back east. Dodge had never been so busy or so dangerous.

  Both Marshal Cole Grey and his newly appointed deputy Ben Graff realized it. The lawmen carried their scatterguns across their chests and moved through the grim yards as fast as their boots would carry them. They would not reduce their pace until they were back in the heart of Dodge itself.

  They stared at the large locomotive as it sent black smoke signals up from its tall stack. The whistle began to summon the mysterious figures to it.

  ‘Look at them, Marshal,’ Graff said as they approached the far side of the vast stockyards. ‘They’re like moths to a flame. Where in tarnation do they all come from?’

  ‘It’s best we don’t know where them hombres come from, Ben,’ Grey groaned as he continued to peel his eyes and watch every shadow. The sun was blinding and they were headed directly toward it as it slowly rose above the numerous wooden shacks and warehouses that dominated the yard. ‘We just walk through here like we’re paid to do and keep on walking until we get back to civilization.’

  Although neither had ever had the misfortune of encountering trouble at the railhead, they knew that anything could happen in this part of town. If it did, they wanted nothing to do with it.

  Both men skipped across rail tracks and headed up to where they could at last see the way out of the yard. Beads of sweat rolled down from their hat-bands as they passed the juggernaut of a locomotive, hissing like a thousand ornery rattlers. Jets of boiling steam shot from behind its wheels and kicked up even more dust than the moaning white-faced cattle could muster.

  Grey looked at the pens to their left. There were at least a thousand steers still remaining to be transported to the insatiable eastern seaboard. Men with long prodding poles somehow defied gravity and ran across the top of the wooden pens jabbing at the stubborn animals. Slowly but surely the steers began to move toward the train through their man-made avenues.

  ‘I sure wouldn’t wanna be one of them steers, Marshal,’ Graff said as they kept walking to the way out of this noisy and dangerous place.

  ‘They’ll be sizzling on a fancy plate in a couple of days, boy,’ Grey thought as he rubbed his throat and licked his lips. ‘Damn I’m hungry.’

  The marshal paused as they stepped up on to the high platform. Graff stopped beside his superior and clutched his shotgun across his belly as Grey squinted over the countless pens. Steam rose from the cattle, which were still contained in their temporary holding pens.

  ‘What’s wrong, Marshal?’ Graff asked as the older man bit his lower lip and continued to survey the sun-bleached area below their high vantage point.

  Grey glanced at his deputy. ‘There ain’t nothing wrong, Ben. I’ve just got me a feeling in my innards that something ain’t right, that’s all.’

  The deputy stepped closer to his mentor. ‘You got a gut feeling that there might be trouble brewing?’

  ‘Yep.’ Marshal Grey nodded and stared across at the numerous men who were moving between the pens. Some were watering the steers and others were feeding the anxious cattle. ‘Something’s gnawing at my craw besides the fact that I ain’t had no breakfast.’

  ‘What we gonna do about it?’ The deputy paced around his stationary boss. His young eyes darted between every man in the area. Just like the marshal, Graff knew that this was another world compared to the rest of Dodge. They lived by different rules in this part of town. Men lived and died here from various causes and yet news of any tragedies seldom reached the ears of the lawmen.

  ‘Nothing, Ben,’ Grey replied. ‘We stay out of it whatever it might be. I got a hankering to try and live long enough to earn my pension.’

  The naïve deputy stared at Grey. ‘We ain’t gonna do nothing at all?’

  The marshal patted his deputy on the shoulder. ‘There’s enough trouble brewing in all the whore houses and saloons down yonder, Ben. That’s more than we can handle if the truth were known.’

  The youngster dried his temple again.

  ‘So they can do whatever they like around here without us getting tangled up in it?’ he gasped.

  Grey nodded. ‘Yep. The only time we get involved is if they start shooting in our direction, boy. Otherwise we don’t see or hear nothing. Savvy?’

  Graff shrugged. ‘I reckon so.’

  ‘These bastards got enough troubles without the law adding to their burden, Ben.’ The marshal rested the twin-barrelled scattergun on his shoulder and turned away from the huge train.

  Graff sniffed and then rubbed his nose in a vain bi
d to rid the smell of manure away. ‘I reckon you’re right, Marshal. This place gotta be the worst place anyone could wish to find themselves in.’

  The marshal started to lead his deputy on the last leg of their journey through the maze of pens, wide-eyed steers snorting and grunting as they became dimly aware that their plight was far from over.

  ‘Even the cowboys that bring the steers in here don’t loiter too long,’ Grey drawled. ‘And most cowpunchers ain’t the brightest candles in the box but they’re smart enough to know that this part of town is damn lethal.’

  Graff nodded and trailed his boss as the sturdy marshal stared at the train coming to a halt two hundred yards away from the platform they were standing upon.

  ‘That locomotive must be intending picking up passengers, Marshal,’ The deputy said.

  ‘What makes you say that, Ben?’ Grey asked.

  The deputy aimed the barrel of his weapon at the passenger car being tagged on to the end of the long line of cattle cars.

  ‘Look, Marshal,’ Graff urged.

  Grey looked and paused for a moment. The well-appointed Pullman car looked out of place. ‘At least it’ll be downwind of these white-faced steers.’

  The constant wailing of cattle sent a chill down the spines of both men. They glanced at one another and then the elder of the lawmen curled his finger at the deputy.

  ‘C’mon, boy. Let’s get the hell out of here and get some grub,’ he said before turning and marching away from the train. ‘The sound of steers kicking up a fuss like that spooks me something awful.’

  The two men walked shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Do you think them steers know what’s going to happen to them, Marshal?’ Graff asked as he glanced over his shoulder and squinted through the haze and the dust.

  ‘They know, boy,’ Grey sighed. ‘They know.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Cheyenne cowboy glanced through the steam which rose from his coffee cup and noticed the two lawmen had just entered the main street. He lifted his spoon and was about to stir the black beverage when he saw the green blinds being lifted on the bank’s doors. Within seconds the door was opened and a few of the locals were allowed to enter.

  ‘Is everything OK, Cheyenne?’ a gentle voice asked from behind Hammer’s left shoulder. ‘You confused?’

  Hammer glanced at the buxom waitress and smiled. ‘I am a little confused, ma’am.’

  She moved around the table top where they could look straight at one another.

  ‘What you confused about?’ she pressed.

  He lifted a finger and pointed at the two men striding down the long street opposite his position by the window of the small café. The sun glinted off their tin stars like dazzling fireflies.

  ‘Who the hell are they?’ Hammer wondered loudly. ‘They sure ain’t the same lawmen that were here six months ago.’

  ‘That’s Marshal Grey and his new deputy,’ the waitress answered before placing his dessert down beside his hand.

  ‘Earp’s gone?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘They say old Wyatt and his kin are headed for Tombstone,’ she ventured. ‘Must be some real big money over there if the Earps are interested.’

  Hammer lifted the cup, downed the coffee and then placed it back down upon its saucer. He rose and adjusted his gun belt. She watched as the wide-shouldered young cowboy moved toward the door. She was about to speak when he interrupted her before any words could escape from her crimson lips.

  ‘I’ll be back for that handsome looking slice of pie, ma’am.’ He smiled and pulled the door toward him.

  ‘I keep telling you that my name’s Betsy, Cheyenne,’ she sighed. ‘When are you gonna start calling me by my name?’

  ‘I’ll be back, Betsy,’ he said as he stepped out on to the boardwalk.

  The mature female exhaled loudly as she watched the handsome cowboy walking toward the bank. Her eyelashes fluttered to the pounding of her heart.

  ‘If only I was five years younger,’ she regretted.

  Hammer touched his hat brim as he crossed paths with the lawmen.

  ‘Marshal,’ he acknowledged.

  Grey returned the greeting. ‘Cheyenne.’

  The cowboy stepped up on to the bank’s boardwalk and looked at the two lawmen as they continued on their way toward their office at the far end of town. He was still perplexed that everyone in Dodge seemed to know him by name. In his opinion his brief and bloody encounter with Emmett Holt and his previous band of followers must have been greatly exaggerated by the newspapers. Hammer knew the truth; he had gotten lucky and his bumping into the ruthless outlaws had been purely accidental.

  The cowboy recalled how it seemed that every shot he had fired that day, had somehow found its mark. What had appeared to be skill had been nothing more than luck.

  Then as he turned and entered the bank, he was greeted by the rosy-cheeked man he recognized as the owner. The man beamed and rushed toward the cowboy with open arms.

  ‘Cheyenne, my boy.’ Farnum Foster greeted Hammer loudly and wrapped his arms around the cowboy. ‘I guess you’re here to collect your reward money.’

  ‘My what?’ Hammer stared down at the far shorter Foster in utter surprise. ‘What reward money?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know.’ Foster released his grip and patted the cowboy on his back before leading him to his private office. ‘I have it all ready for you.’

  Hammer frowned. ‘You have?’

  ‘I certainly have.’ Foster nodded like a dog with ticks. ‘I’m not going to mess with the famed Cheyenne cowboy.’

  The door closed behind the confused cowboy and Hammer found himself turning full circle as his eyes trailed the excited Foster around the interior of his office.

  ‘What’s going on, Mr Foster?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘Sit down, Cheyenne.’ The owner of the bank gestured at the chair across the desk from his own far grander seat. As the cowboy sat down Foster opened his desk and produced a telegraph message. He showed it to Hammer. ‘You earned some rather big money by your actions, my boy. I’ve been contacted by the authorities down south to pay you three thousand dollars’ bounty. It seems you rejoined the cattle drive before they could pay you themselves.’

  The cowboy felt his jaw drop at the unexpected news.

  ‘I’m being paid for getting mixed up with them outlaws?’ he gulped in surprise. ‘Hell, I only done what any other hombre would have done.’

  ‘Modesty.’ Foster smiled as he withdrew a pile of cash from the drawer and started counting it out on the ink blotter before him. ‘I like that. Modesty.’

  Hammer stared at the cash on the desk and swallowed hard as the skilful hands of the banker shuffled it into a neat stack. He rubbed his jaw.

  ‘Those critters were worth money dead or alive?’ he asked. ‘And just coz I killed them, I’m being paid?’

  Foster handed the cash to Hammer. ‘Indeed you are. This is payment by grateful authorities. I am proud to hand it to you, my boy.’

  Hammer looked up at the joyous Foster.

  ‘But I came here to put money into my account, Mr Foster,’ he said drily. ‘I’m a tad mixed up.’

  ‘I read all about your exploits in the newspaper, Cheyenne.’ Foster nodded frantically. ‘Such bravery. You must be one of the fastest men with a six-shooter in the territory.’

  ‘I just got lucky,’ Hammer tried to explain.

  ‘There’s no need to be modest here, my boy.’ Foster smiled as he sat on the edge of his desk and stared at the dumbfounded cowboy. ‘We’ve all read the newspaper reports of the incident.’

  Hammer pulled out his bank book and trail drive earnings and piled it together with his newly acquired fortune. He sheepishly handed it all to Foster.

  ‘Can I deposit this with you, sir?’ he asked nervously.

  Foster snatched it out of the cowboy’s hands. A wide smile crossed the face of the rosy-cheeked banker. ‘Of course you can.’

  Within seconds the banker had jotted down
the details in Hammer’s bank book and returned it to the cowboy. He then led the still-befuddled youngster back to his office door and out to the street. Both men paused on the boardwalk as Foster looked the cowboy up and down as though inspecting him.

  ‘What are you intending to do with all that money, Cheyenne?’ he asked the cowboy who was staring down at the bank book in his hands.

  ‘I’m gonna look for a small ranch in these parts soon, Mr Foster,’ Hammer explained as he slid the book into the safety of his shirt pocket. ‘Reckon I got more than enough now.’

  ‘You surely have, Cheyenne.’ The banker grinned. ‘What are you gonna do now?’

  ‘I reckon I’ll go eat me some pie,’ Hammer said as he stared at the café and the well-endowed female in the café window. Then the cowboy looked to where Foster had been standing on the boardwalk next to him and realized that the banker had gone back into his office. ‘Yep, I’m gonna go eat that pie.’

  The agile young cowboy hopped down on to the sandy street and started to walk toward the café. His mind was racing with the possibilities that were now open to him with an extra three thousand bucks to his name. Two handsome females crossed before him and glanced in his direction. He smiled, touched his hat brim and they giggled. He watched as they hurried on their way holding their parasols aloft against the merciless sun.

  Grinning, Hammer continued toward the smell of freshly baked apple pie. He was halfway across the wide thoroughfare when his attention was drawn to the sound of jangling spurs coming from down the street.

  The noise of the spurs seemed familiar.

  When the Cheyenne cowboy reached the opposite side of the street he stepped up on to the boardwalk. He rested a shoulder against a porch upright and stared into the bright, sunbathed street to where the sound of the spurs still chimed. Few men wore spurs that rang out. Most preferred the silent type he and his fellow cowboys favoured.

  His eyes narrowed.

  Hammer watched silently as the six figures left the lawyer’s office and walked in single file across the wide street. They looked even dirtier than when he had first noticed their arrival in Dodge from his hotel window.