Prairie Fire, Kansas

by John Shirley

  Heywood bent and looked. “It’s loose, all right. Quite loose.”

  “Are you looking for a way to welsh on a bet?” Sweeney demanded.

  Franklin rounded on him, fists taut. “I thought I saw you fooling with that cinch! You made sure to say you win if he falls off—and then you made sure he fell off!”

  “That’s a lie!” Sweeney snarled, but stepped back out of Franklin’s reach.

  “Now, I don’t know . . .” Heywood muttered, scratching behind one ear. “Coe—you think this man did what your partner says?”

  Seth glared at Sweeney. “Not a speck of doubt!”

  “Vince, what do you think?”

  Vince tugged thoughtfully on his mustache. “I did see Sweeney put a hand on the horse and wondered at it—couldn’t see what he was doing. But by God, I’ve watched this man Coe all day, and that’s a horseman! He’s not the man to make a green mistake! And he’d have fallen off before now if that cinch was loose—it wasn’t loose till Sweeney was fiddling with it!”

  “Yeah,” Heywood said reluctantly, “I reckon so. Well, then . . .”

  “Now, look here!” Sweeney began. “I’ve been working on this ranch for a full six weeks, and this man just got here and—”

  “You’re done working on this ranch,” Heywood interrupted. “You’re fired! Vince, pay Peanut here off and escort him off the property. Right away.”

  “What about the bet?” Franklin asked. “That horse cleared the fence, and it wasn’t Seth’s fault he came off!”

  Heywood turned to him and Seth, narrowing his eyes. “That bet is canceled on account of . . . of all this. It was invalidated.” He seemed testy now that Franklin had challenged him about the bet. “You two, stay for supper at the chow shack, and Vince’ll pay you after. Then hit the trail. And don’t be gossiping about this!” He turned and stalked away.

  Seth shook his head and went to pick up his hat, which lay on its crown in the dirt.

  * * *

  * * *

  Hannibal Fisher elected to take Ruskett’s horse for his own, since no one yet knew it was stolen. At a small ranch to the south, they got forty dollars for the one he’d taken from that barn outside Newton. The horse was worth more, but the hard-eyed old rancher must’ve guessed it might be stolen, and what with him having two armed, grown sons at hand, Fisher wasn’t inclined to argue.

  They’d traveled most of a long, hot day south, fast as they could without doing real harm to their mounts, and just in the last afterglow of sunset, they saw smoke rising from a low, rocky hill about five hundred yards off the road.

  “Somebody’s got a camp out there,” Fisher said as they reined in.

  “You supposing it’s this Seth Coe you’re looking for?” Diamond asked.

  “I reckon they could have taken their time, heading south—and this could be their camp. There’s but one way to find out.”

  Just as they’d done with Ruskett, Fisher and Diamond tied the horses in the brush off the road and stealthily worked their way toward the camp, being careful where they set down their boots. Fisher had the rifle, Diamond the shotgun. Fisher had given him the shells but kept Diamond in front of him as they started up the hill.

  The hill was stubbled with small, scrubby trees around low, mossy boulders. They followed a deer trail, winding between the boulders, toward the top of the hill just above the camp. That way they could have the drop on the cowboys. But getting into position, lying belly down on a shelf of rock about thirty feet above the camp and peering through a partial screen of juniper bushes, they saw by the campfire glow that Seth Coe and his friend Franklin were not there at all. Instead, there were four men; a tubby, shirtless man with a mane of red hair was squatting by the fire and cooking, the other three passing a mostly empty whiskey bottle and grumbling at one another.

  “Too warm for a fire,” said a bearish man. “We got the lantern.”

  “Got to cook the stew with something,” said the tubby man, stirring the cast-iron pot with a stick.

  “That tub without his shirt,” whispered Diamond, “is Smiley Briggs. I rode with him and Buster Gaines—the one shaped like a big ol’ bear. We had a run at a stagecoach, didn’t get but three hundred dollars out of it. I know the half baldy with the high forehead there only by sight—him with the scraggly brown beard and the suspenders. Name’s Sweeney, is all I know. Horse thief, mostly. Don’t know the younger one.”

  With the three men—and yet somehow not with them—was a lean young man with a worried, quizzical look on his face. He sat a little apart from them, his hat hanging from a broken branch on a tree beside him. He was holding a canteen in his lap, tapping it absently with his fingers as he gazed into the fire. He looked to Fisher like a fella who usually went clean-shaven, but he hadn’t had a chance at a razor for a few days. He took off his blue bandanna and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  Fisher saw he wasn’t wearing his gun belt, but it was in reach, and he had a Winchester by his side. The other three had guns handy and rifles. It would not do to startle them.

  “What you look so sour for, Bettiger?” Smiley asked. “Gettin’ a free meal, ain’t you?”

  The younger man shrugged. “I’m just weary, is all. And I’ve earned my meal same as you, Briggs.”

  Fisher gestured to Diamond to pull back, and they wriggled to deeper cover. “I would confer with those men,” Fisher whispered, “if you think we could talk to them without getting in a fight.”

  “I expect so, if we do it right.”

  “They might’ve seen Coe on the trail. And I might be able to use them. . . .” I need such men, Fisher thought. “You call out to them, real careful—tell ’em your name.”

  Diamond nodded and cupped his hand. “Hello the camp! We are friends!”

  “Devil take it—some lying posse snake!” Briggs growled, reaching for his rifle.

  “It ain’t the law, Smiley. It’s Curt Diamond! Me and my partner here saw your fire! We want to talk, is all! Can we come into the camp! We got half a jug of corn liquor left!”

  There was a brief whispered colloquy at the fire. Then Briggs called out, “Come on in, but hands up.”

  “Can we trust them for that, Curt?” Fisher asked softly.

  “Sure, I’ve ridden with Gaines and Briggs, and we parted with no sourness. Come on, Hannibal.”

  They wended their way down the hill and emerged into the firelight, guns held over their heads.

  “Howdy, boys,” Diamond said, chuckling. “How’m I going to get that jug up to camp with my hands held up like this?”

  “Well, leave your gun, and go get it,” said Gaines.

  “You act like you don’t trust me!”

  “It’ll make the others feel easier,” said Gaines.

  Diamond nodded and handed him the shotgun.

  Fisher handed over his weapons without complaint and said, “Mind if I sit down?”

  “I know you,” said Bettiger. “Hannibal Fisher. Wanted in Kansas City right about now.”

  “I won’t deny it,” said Fisher. “I hear you boys have spent some time in the willows yourselves.”

  Briggs grinned. “We’re there now! Looking for some way to skin us a hog and get enough bacon to head for Mexico.”

  “I might could help you with that. I’m looking for a man carrying a good deal of money that belongs to me. And his partner’s got some, too. Along with that, I figure it’s time to make a withdrawal from a bank. . . .” He had a vague plan forming about using these men to rob a bank as cover for settling the matter with Coe.

  “Pull up a log and set,” said Gaines. “Tell us about this fella holding your money.”

  “He’s a cowboy,” Fisher said, sitting on a small fallen tree trunk. “Likely on his way to Texas. Black hair, dark eyes. Maybe a ’breed. Name’s Seth Coe. Rides with a tall man called Franklin.”


  “Seth Coe!” Sweeney burst out. “Why, I saw him and that Franklin not but three hours ago!”

  Fisher went rigid, staring fixedly at Sweeney. “Did you now. Whereabouts?”

  “A few miles outside of Prairie Fire, ’bout five miles southeast of here. I was working out on Black Creek Acres, about to set up some horse rustling. Gaines and Briggs here, they were coming to meet me, help me with the herd. I had a plan to get every last horse off that spread so’s they couldn’t come after us.”

  “A plan that went tails up, what I hear!” Bettiger snorted.

  “Only because I got fired! And why? Seth Coe! He spoke against me! Him and his partner, they got me fired. Boys, I’d throw in with Fisher here if it’ll help me get back at that Coe! I’d like to see him dead!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sunday morning, wearing his new blue shirt, Seth was trotting Mazie east along the town side of Black Creek in search of Josette. He had some aches and pains from pitching off the horse, and he had slept fitfully in the hotel in town, but he was feeling surprisingly good this summer morning. There was thin cloud cover and just enough breeze to offer some coolness, and a pretty girl was waiting for him among the gooseberries. Or so he hoped.

  Twenty minutes more, he spotted her yellow polka-dotted shade bonnet lying on an old multicolored quilt beside a covered basket. He rode a little closer and saw her in the shade close to the creek. Josette was crouching down to pick gooseberries, which she dropped into a tin bucket. He saw she had close-fitting leather gloves on; the vines, in a shrub about five feet high, bristled with sharp thorns. She was wearing an ankle-length yellow summer dress, with puffy shoulders, and white button-up shoes.

  Seth nudged Mazie a little closer and climbed down as Josette turned to look at him with a curiously crooked little smile on her petite lips. It was that funny little smile he remembered from childhood.

  “Morning, Josette!” he called as he led the horse over the creek. He tied Mazie where she could reach the water and the small patch of grass on the bank.

  “You remembered!” she said, dropping a few berries into the bucket.

  “Never was a doubt I would,” Seth said, strolling over to her, just as if he were calm and collected, though inside his heart was thudding. Calm down, you damn fool, he told himself. “What you got there, most of a pail?”

  “Oh, yes, several quarts.”

  “Red gooseberries, are they? We used to eat the ones that were kinda yellow and green down by the river in Texas. You remember?”

  “Those are sweeter. These are a bit tart.”

  “Why, I like some tartness. Maybe that’s why I always liked you.”

  “Oho!” She pretended outrage. “So you think I’m sour like a pickle?”

  “More like a Kansas gooseberry. Had a green-apple pie yesterday. My favorite. Can I help you?”

  “You have gloves?”

  “Heck, I don’t need gloves if I’m careful.”

  “Then you must be very careful indeed.”

  He plucked at some berries, got one free, and accidentally crushed the next one.

  “Now you crush them, Seth! You don’t remember how to do it at all!”

  “Well-l-l . . .” He tried again—and immediately ran afoul of a thorn. “Ouch!”

  “Did I not tell you? You need gloves.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Seth went to his saddlebags, found a pair of leather gloves, and pulled them on as he returned to her. He tried to pick another berry—and crushed it as he attempted to pull it off the vine. “Dang it!”

  “Yes, it’s more difficult with those cowhide gloves. Now, I’m using some old kid gloves. You can pull the vines out of the way for me so I can reach toward the back. . . .”

  Glad to have something he could accomplish for her, he held the vines back, and looking at the creek, he asked, “You remember when we swam in the river? You in your . . . your knickers. Me in some old cutoff britches.”

  She adopted a prim expression. “Yes—I was just a little girl then. Do not expect to see me swimming in my knickers today.”

  “No, ma’am.” He pulled another vine down to her and said, “I was remembering this morning you nearly drowned in the river one time, and I pulled you out—”

  “What! It was I who pulled you out!”

  “That is not how I recollect it! You fell off the raft, and on account of the current—”

  “You were swept away, and I took your hand and pulled you to the shallows.”

  “Why, it was the other way around!” But he was laughing as he said it. “You are a bit sour, ain’t you?”

  Josette brushed something off a particularly large gooseberry. “This one would not survive in the bucket. It’s too ripe.” She turned to him with that peculiar, teasing squiggle to her mouth and then held the berry up to his lips. “You can have it.”

  Somehow feeling breathless, Seth opened his mouth, and she placed the berry on his tongue. He had never tasted anything so vividly before.

  “Now, that’s the finest fruit I ever tasted. . . .”

  “You see? I know how to choose them. Voilà, I have enough berries. I think I have enough for two pies and some preserves. Let’s sit down.”

  “Shall I put this bucket in the water, keep it cool?”

  “Yes, in the shallows there. Not close to your horse! She’ll eat them all!”

  He set the bucket in the water and went to sit by her on the old blanket. “You make this quilt?”

  “It was the first one I tried to make. Very badly. It’s only good for sitting on the ground.” She was poking through the basket and drew out a jar full of what he assumed was well water.

  “Looks like corn liquor in that jar!”

  “What a wicked notion! That is water! You think I’m drinking like my father?”

  “I was only joshing. The old fella go back to the pump a little too often?”

  “Back to the pump? Oh . . .” She averted her eyes and said almost inaudibly, “Yes.”

  She looked embarrassed, and he was sorry he’d asked her about it. But he was worried Dubois might be a brutish drunk. Her father had angered quick when he’d thrown Seth out of the store.

  Josette changed the subject, nodding at Mazie. “That is a fine horse. We have only a mule now. Papa sold my horse, Marie, this spring. . . . I miss her so.”

  “Why’d he sell her?”

  “He said we did not need her. He wanted the money. But I needed her. She loved me, that horse.”

  She looked as if she might cry and turned away, busying herself taking picnic items from the basket. Seth was gratified to see Josette had clearly packed enough for two. She had been expecting him. She’d wanted him to come.

  Seth wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her—not just for the loss of the horse, but for the sadness he sensed she carried with her. But that was something that would happen between two grown-ups of long acquaintance, not the friends they’d been as children. Most likely Josette thought of him as that childhood friend, not as a suitor. He figured he should let it alone.

  And yet, watching Josette take out a loaf of homemade bread, a jar of preserves, butter in a ceramic jar, two plates and silverware, two red napkins, and then neatly arrange it all on the quilt, he marveled at the way she brought grace to the simple act of unpacking a basket.

  He was shaken, realizing how affected he was by her. He had known a good many women; some were as good on a horse, as good at ranch work and at working a gun, as he was. Josette was a town girl, but he knew she was a strong woman. It was right there in how she carried herself and how she spoke.

  Seth knew right then and there. He cast away all doubt. He wanted to marry Josette Dubois.

  Franklin would say it was foolishness. Why, you’ve known her as an adult but for a few minutes here and there! But it felt as natural as the springtime t
haw of ice into fresh water.

  Seth couldn’t ask her now. It wasn’t proper. A man and a woman needed courtship. Josette would need time to be sure.

  He glanced around. “I don’t see that mule. . . .”

  “No, Papa has him. Probably rode into town to the saloon. I walked here—it is only half a mile.”

  She sliced two pieces of bread and began buttering them, and a startling thought came to him. Maybe she wouldn’t take to him in a marrying way at all! He wasn’t a tall, handsome figure of a man. But women had always seemed to like him, anyhow. Bernice Clumm had hinted broadly of matrimony back home.

  Still—he wasn’t a landed, moneyed man. Not like, say, that Heywood Kelmer. A good-looking, wealthy man like that would have much more to offer.

  Seth found himself wondering who might be courting Josette. She had to be the prettiest girl in Prairie Fire . . . so someone must be courting her.

  She gave him some bread and poured water into a chipped mug and handed it to him.

  “I thank you kindly, Josette. Here, now—should I be calling you by your Christian name? Maybe I should say ‘Miss Dubois’ or ‘ma’am.’” He knew he was fishing for some sign of her regard, and he was a little ashamed to do it.

  “Don’t be silly. We are old friends! Josette is right and proper.”

  “Would your father approve of that familiarity?”

  “I suppose not.” She made an eloquent dismissive shrug that seemed to derive from some distant European ancestor. Then she gave an impish smile, and he sensed he was about to be teased. “But it’s true he did not seem to take to you, Seth. Some rough cowboy off the prairie!”

  “I’m nothing like that! I’m a rough cowboy from Chaseman, Texas!”

  Chewing her bread, she laughed without opening her mouth and nodded. There was a twinkling merriness in her eyes that he remembered from childhood. She swallowed and said, “Exactement.”

  “These are some fine strawberry preserves, Josette. You lay ’em up?”

  “Certainly, I did.”