by Leon Loy
While Dr. McCarty was applying iodine from his medicine bag to the wound on Sparrow’s hip, Caleb took Buck by the collar and shoved his face forward to the ground. The injured man groaned and sputtered in the dirt.
“That was my solution, too,” Caleb said to Holliday. “A bullet to the brain. Sparrow convinced me to let the law in Dodge City deal with him.”
“The judge will send him to Lansing for a long time,” Holliday said. “Which is too good for him.”
“When you lie down tonight, hold this bandage on the wound,” Dr. McCarty said to Sparrow, as she let her dress down. “Try to keep it in place. That will remain sore for a few days, but should heal just fine.”
Caleb noticed a second medical bag between the doctor and Holliday. “You plan on setting up practice out here in the breaks?” he asked.
“This is the ransom money the scoundrels demanded in exchange for your dear wife,” Dr. McCarty said.
“What price did they put on her?” Caleb said.
“Two thousand dollars. Way under value,” Holliday chimed in.
Caleb shook his head. “Doctor, I am ashamed to have put you through all this. Please forgive me.”
“I’ll not hear any more of your apologies, Caleb,” the doctor said. “It is all over with now.”
Sparrow cast a glance at the cabin, and said, “The body inside…?”
“I buried him behind the cabin this afternoon,” Dr. McCarty said. “Joe, too. Is that where they held you?”
“Yes,” Sparrow replied, and then turning to Caleb, she said, “I cannot go in there.”
“No, you won’t have to. We’ll sleep out here.”
“As will we,” Dr. McCarty said. “John Henry is claustrophobic, and I certainly don’t want to spend a night in that place.”
“What about him?” Sparrow asked, indicating Buck.
“I’ll put him in the cabin,” Caleb said. “Doctor, can you bring some light?”
Dr. McCarty took a burning stick from the fire and went ahead of Caleb.
Buck struggled vigorously as Caleb tied him to the bedpost. “My brother died in this bed,” he muttered.
“And so will you, if you give me any grief,” Caleb threatened.
“Can I have a drink of whiskey?”
“No whiskey.”
“Some water?”
“Did you give Sparrow water when she asked for it?”
Buck looked at the doctor hoping for sympathy. He got none. Dr. McCarty handed the torch to Caleb and hurried out of the cabin.
Caleb moved the smoldering stick close to Buck’s face. “If I hear another complaint, or so much as a whimper from you….”
“I never did nothing to her. Not like you think. Ask her.”
“She told me you didn’t violate her, and that is all that is keeping me from killing you. But don’t say you did nothing to her.”
Caleb pressed the tip of the burning stick against Buck’s cheek. It made a searing hiss against his flesh, eliciting a shriek.
“Hush, or I might just set this bed afire,” Caleb said. And Buck cringed away as far as the ropes would let him move.
When Caleb rejoined the others at the fire, they all had questions on their faces. “I was just tucking him in,” he explained.
Holliday grinned, and said, “Save some of him for me, Caleb.”
“I’m saving him for the judge in Dodge City,” Caleb said, casting an affirming glance at Sparrow. “Providing you are able to ride, Dr. Holliday, we’ll get an early start for home in the morning.”
The dentist turned the empty bottle of “Old Grandad” upside down, and tossed it in the fire. “The sooner the better, my friend,” he said. “The well has run dry.”
22
Front Street north of the railroad tracks was blocked from traffic on the Saturday afternoon following the return of Caleb and Sparrow Thomason. Even though arriving cattle drives had brought dozens of thirsty Texas drovers to town, Mayor Kelley declared the day a holiday. Only the saloons and dance halls south of the tracks were open for business after noon.
The fascinating account of Sparrow’s abduction, escape, and rescue appeared in the pages of the Ford County Globe. The Earp brothers and Doc Holliday embellished the story considerably, much to the embarrassment of both Caleb and Sparrow. The clerk’s half Indian wife, once shunned by the town’s so-called gentry, had now become the object of admiration, and the topic of conversation around every table and bar in Dodge City.
Despite the Thomasons’ aversion to being heralded as heroes, Dr. McCarty and Sallie prevailed upon them to make an appearance Saturday evening in the parlor of the Dodge House, where a banquet was being held in their honor. Tables were set up along the boardwalks and in the street to accommodate the crowd. The couple made an appearance at the banquet, and then excused themselves early, making a hasty retreat to the solace of their little house at the end of Cedar Street.
Charles Rath had learned of the Thomason’s unfortunate episode through Texas cattlemen returning through Fort Griffin. Though he was not due to return to Dodge City for another six weeks, Rath sent word to his store operator on Front Street to reinstate Caleb to his former position as soon as he wished to return to work. Caleb wasted no time doing so as he had exhausted his finances funding his search for Sparrow. The town offered to take a collection on behalf of the Thomason’s, but Caleb declined. He also declined offers from Marshal Deger to hire on as a Deputy City Marshal, as also from Bat Masterson to serve as Deputy Sheriff.
A month later, on the thirtieth of July, a Ford County court found Buck Hester guilty of assault and battery, wrongful imprisonment, and three counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to forty years hard labor at the Kansas State Prison in Lansing.
Deputy Marshal Morgan Earp accompanied Sheriff Masterson to the railroad depot with the prisoner. Buck’s feet were shackled, and iron handcuffs were clamped around his wrists. While in the city jail, his long hair had been cropped short, and he was given a clean shave that morning. His shattered chin had healed considerably, though an ugly red scar ran parallel to his mouth.
A crowd had gathered to witness the despised kidnapper’s departure from Dodge City. Caleb and Sparrow stood on the deck beside the McCartys. As he was led onto the passenger car landing, Buck turned and scanned the crowd. His eye caught Sparrow’s and for a brief instant, he imagined he saw her express affection for him. Ever since she had prevented her husband from killing him in No Man’s Land, he had harbored the idea that she must have feelings for him, as he had for her. He grinned, and winked at her, before being shoved inside the car. Caleb did not see this, though he did note the disturbed look on Sparrow’s face.
“What is it?” he enquired.
“Was I right to stop you from shooting him?”
“There’s nothing he can do to you, ever again,” he said. “That is the last we will see of Buck Hester.”
She looked away from the train, and smiled at him, though not very convincingly. “Caleb, let’s go home.”
He took her hand, and they walked away from the depot.
23
Fifteen months after the celebrated return of the Thomasons to Dodge City, Charles Rath approached Caleb as he was descending a ladder in the store on Front Street.
“Caleb, I’d like a word with you, if you can spare a minute,” he said.
The younger man followed Rath to the large oak desk set up in a corner of the stockroom which served as an office. Rath took a seat behind the desk, motioning Caleb toward a cane-bottomed chair. It was dark and cool in the corner, and Caleb was glad to get off his feet.
“How long have you been with me, Caleb?”
“Three years this month,” answered Caleb.
“Three years,” Rath repeated. “I have been in Texas most of that time. Fort Griffin, Sweetwater, and down in Stonewall County.
Left things here pretty much in your hands.”
Caleb nodded, wondering where this was going.
“You have been a hell of a clerk. No, let me amend that; you are one hell of a man. That business down on the Cimarron—how you found your wife, and brought back Buck Hester—not just any man could have done that.”
Caleb shifted in the chair. It made him uncomfortable when people praised him for the rescue. “She’s my wife,” was all he could say.
“Yes. And a fortunate woman she is,” Rath said. He started to say something else, but hesitated. Caleb saw a change come over his face.
“There’s something I’ve always wondered about,” he continued. “Back in ’78, there was a fire in Fort Griffin, a week before I arrived with my supply wagons. That whore-man, Patrick O’Riley, was burned to death in his cabin. They said the man must have been drunk, and tipped over a lantern. I remember, you told me about what O’Riley had done to your wife. And, if I remember correctly, you said you were going to close down his whoring business. I loaned you a fine horse to go to the Flat to do just that. This fire happened the same week you were there. That business with Buck Hester and your wife happened right after that, and I never asked you about it.”
Caleb set his jaw, and looked Rath in the eye, but said nothing. After all this time, why was he bringing this up now?
“I’ll just say this,” Rath continued. “If any man had reason to set a torch to O’Riley, you sure did. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. It was just something I’ve always…” he paused, and then added, “Well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?”
“No, Sir,” Caleb said, relaxing his jaw, and breathing a lot easier.
“Sweetwater is what I want to talk to you about. The town has grown since you were down there. It’s not even called Sweetwater anymore. When they registered for a post office a few months ago, they found there was another town in Texas already named Sweetwater. So, someone came up with the name Mobeetie. Claimed it means sweet water in Comanche. Others say the word really means buffalo shit. Not a bad name, now that that’s about all that’s left of the buffalo. When I first came out to this part of the world, Caleb, there wasn’t a mile you could ride in any direction and not be in the middle of them. It was a fine time in those days. I made my fortune because of the buffalo.
“I know you’ve heard me talk about those days quite a lot. I’ll not linger on it now. With the Indians back in the reservations, and the buffalo all gone, cattlemen by the dozens are building ranches down in the Texas panhandle. You see how much freight we send down there. Between the Canadian and the North Fork of the Red, there are some spreads that rival anything to be found further south. And, Fort Elliott still buys most of their supplies from us. I foresee my store in Mobeetie rivaling this one in sales and profits within the year.
“What I’m getting at, Caleb, is this: I’d like for you to run my store in Mobeetie, as a partner. I need to spend more time here in Dodge City with my family. You’ll run the business just as I would, and your salary will be triple of what you make here.” He paused to allow Caleb time to absorb what he had just proposed.
Caleb was watching the store owner’s face as he talked, taking it all in.
“Think on it a day or two, if you need some time,” Rath added.
“I will,” Caleb said, standing. “When would you need me there?”
“I would like to have you move in by the first of next month. I’ll loan you a wagon and team to move your things.”
“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Rath. I’ll let you have my answer in the morning.”
“If we are to be partners, it’s time you called me Charlie.” He stood up, extending his hand, which Caleb shook. “Why don’t you take off early today and talk it over with that pretty wife of yours?”
Caleb removed his apron and hung it on a nail in the stockroom wall. Before leaving the store, he bought a handful of peppermint sticks. Sparrow had acquired a taste for them, and he would need a little help to sweeten the news.
Mobeetie
1881
24
The boards creaked beneath his boots as he strode across the narrow walkway to the door. The creaking seemed louder than usual in the still quiet of the morning. It would be half an hour yet before the sun broke above the horizon.
Everything was cloaked in gray, darker under the overhang of the boardwalk. Finding the lock by feel, Caleb turned the key and opened the door, which also creaked loudly, only in a different pitch.
Moving cautiously to prevent bumping into the box stove and injuring a shin, he shuffled his way across the dark room to the counter on the far wall. As he had done almost every morning for the past year, he found the lamp and the box of matches and lit the wick. The room came to life as the glow from the lamp transformed the gray interior into shades of color. Windows lined the front and down one side of the store, letting in enough light so that the lamp would soon be unnecessary.
Caleb hunched his shoulders and hugged himself against the morning chill. The old wound in this shoulder always reminded him when summer was waning. The weather, however, was not cool enough to fire up the stove yet. The day would soon be warm enough.
Fumes from the kerosene and the low hiss of the lamp held a hypnotic effect on him. He stared at shadows pulling away from the lamplight on the floor, and savored the solitude for a long while.
The first yellow sunbeam, crossing ninety-three million miles of space, peaked through a window and danced across his face. He closed his eyes, basking in the feel of it, and imagined what it would be like to soar above the dirt and dust of the prairie town with nothing but sky between him and the sun, a hawk lost in a world of blue.
The imagining caused him to chuckle at himself, and he decided he’d wasted enough time. Pushing away from the counter, he strolled about the room and took a mental inventory.
Everything was exactly where he left it the day before. The more colorful merchandise, the stacks of blankets, quilts, furs, bolts of calico, wool, and cotton, and thread, ribbon, silk, buttons, collars, undergarments, suspenders, dungarees, hats, and shoes were displayed to the left of the large iron stove, nearest the windows to catch the light. Extending to the right, along the far wall were rifles, pistols, ammunition, lamps, pots and pans, cooking utensils and dishes, saddles, and various farming implements. From the ceiling rafters hung buggy whips, harnesses, lanterns, pails, and ropes.
Behind the counter, shelves reached to the ceiling stocked with coffee beans, spices, baking powder, oatmeal, flour, sugar, tropical fruit, hard candy, eggs, butter, fruits and vegetables, honey and molasses, crackers, cheese, syrup, dried beans, and cigars and tobacco. Also behind the counter was the apothecary section with patent medicines, remedies, soaps, toiletries, and elixirs. Some of the bottles sparkled blue and green as rays of sunlight from the windows began spreading over them.
He walked to the back room through a door behind the counter, unlocked a floor safe hidden beneath a barrel, and pulled out a canvas bag of cash. He relocked the safe, returned to the counter, and placed the bag of money on top of a till, and then checked his pocket watch. It was ten minutes after six, too early for military customers from nearby Fort Elliott. Ranchers and their wives would start arriving in town by noon. Most lived in remote areas and would have a journey of several hours to half a day, or more.
His first customers would be the girls who worked in the dance hall across from the saloons on the southern end of the street. Bleary eyed, hung over, and sleepy, they would come early to avoid running into the more respectable citizens of Mobeetie. Not that there was an abundance of respectable citizens in Mobeetie. Saloons outnumbered all other businesses in the tiny town, two to one. Opportunists found there was more demand for liquor and whores than dry goods. And more profit.
He held a soft spot for the working girls. In his gambling days, he had witnessed firsthand the hard l
ife led by these women, many of whom were barely into their teens. They served overbearing bosses in the most demeaning jobs, only a little above slave labor, and sometimes worse. The prettiest ones would be employed to dance with, and entertain, patrons to keep them in the halls longer, so more drinks could be sold to them. Some of the more desperate girls fell to whoring in order to survive. Often forsaken by their families, these girls led a solemn and miserable existence.
Pulling the money out of the bag, he separated the bills and coins and placed them in the till. Beside the till was his tablet of paper and three pencils, kept sharp for reckoning purchases. He took one, and wrote “Rath and Thomason Mercantile” at the top of the paper.
On the counter nearby was a set of iron balancing scales, which he fiddled with to get the weight set just right. He then walked to the front door and opened it, finding the air not nearly as brisk as when he arrived. The boardwalk and street south toward the saloons was still in blue shadows, contrasting with the tops of the tall false fronts which were catching the golden sunlight.
He stepped onto the boardwalk and stomped back and forth to locate the creaking boards with a mind to fix them later in the day. Sparrow would arrive with lunch at noon, and would remain with him until closing. Normally, there would be two additional employees to assist him, but he had let them both have today off. It was Tuesday, and he expected business to be slow.
A mongrel dog, mostly black, with a face turned silver, was lying in a sunny patch on the street watching him. He knelt on one knee and the dog came to him, climbing the step with its tongue hanging out. It was panting like it had been chasing something.
“Good morning, you old hound,” he said, scratching behind its floppy ears. “What have you been after?”
The dog rolled over onto its back.
“I’m not scratching your belly,” he said. And the dog sat up like it understood.
Caleb stepped out into the street so he could see the saloons. Among them were the Lady Gay, Buffalo Chip, White Elephant, and the Mint. Out of his view, at the edge of town, was Pendleton’s saloon, which had doubled as a shipping outlet for buffalo hides. Buffalo hunting had tapered off over the past few years. Charles Rath had shipped out more hides than anyone else, but that was over. A mile to the northwest, near Fort Elliott, was Ring Town Saloon, which catered to the black soldiers.