by J. Roberts
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
Teaser chapter
Killer Conversation
“You must be Santiago Jones.”
“That’s me,” Jones said. “I’ve got an idea, Adams.”
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t we step down from our horses and settle this between us?”
“That sounds good to me.”
“Your man will stay out of it?”
“He will. And yours?”
“They will, too.”
“Okay, then,” Clint said. “Step down.”
“Is he serious?” Coleman asked.
“No,” Clint said. “Watch the others. They’ll draw, for sure.”
“I don’t know . . .”
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THE LAST TRAIL DRIVE
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY Jove edition / June 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Randisi.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-42961-7
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ONE
Doan’s Crossing, in the Texas Panhandle, was once the jumping-off place for trail drives heading north to Colorado and Montana. As Clint Adams rode into town he could see it had fallen on hard times. Trail drives were not a commonplace occurrence anymore. Towns that once depended on them for their livelihoods—Dodge City, Ellsworth, Doan’s Crossing—were dying.
Clint was not in Doan’s Crossing for old times’ sake, though. He was there to meet a friend of his, an old-time trail boss named Flood. He didn’t know why Flood wanted to meet him, or why he wanted to meet in this town, but they were good enough friends that he came anyway.
He had ridden to the Panhandle directly from Labyrinth, Texas, arriving exactly on the day he and Flood were to meet. He hadn’t seen Henry Flood in five years. Flood was fifty then, and was lamenting the oncoming end of the great trail drives. Flood was smart enough to see how the railroad was spreading, and soon drives would not be necessary to move cattle. Also, the advent of barbed wire, and the invention of Gustavus Swift’s refrigerated car, were pretty much sealing the deal.
The reason Flood wanted Clint to meet him here, where many of the man’s cattle drive’s had pushed off, had to have something to do with cattle, but what? Clint had ridden in from the south and had seen neither hide nor hail of a steer. He was just going to have to wait for Flood to arrive to find out.
Clint saw to it that Eclipse was well cared for at a livery stable, and then got himself a room at the Central Hotel. He checked with the clerk, but no one named Flood had checked in yet.
He stowed his things in his room, and then went to the Crystal Palace Saloon. Once a thriving saloon and gaming establishment, it had obviously fallen on hard times. It was early, but that was not the reason there was no gambling going on. As he entered he saw that all the gaming tables that had once filled the place were gone. In their place were empty tables and chairs.
Clint went to the bar, where a barman was fighting boredom by wiping the bar down with a dirty rag. When he saw Clint, he slung the rag over his shoul
der.
“Help ya?”
“Beer.”
“Right.”
The man brought Clint a beer that was warm and had too much head.
“That the best you can do?” Clint asked.
“Best I can do,” the barman said, “and best you’re gonna get in town.”
“Glad I’m just passing through then,” Clint said.
“Least it’s wet.”
Clint took a sip, and decided that was all that could be said for the beer—it was wet.
“Days of cold beer are gone, I’m afraid,” the barman said. “Left with the cattle drives, I guess.”
“How long you been a barman?” Clint asked.
The man grinned.
“Since the cattle drives left,” he said.
“Drover?”
“Cook, if you can believe it,” the man said. “I know, I look more like a waddie.”
Clint studied the man. He was tall, about six three, looked fit, except for a slight potbelly. Had the look of a waddie more than a cook. In his forties, he was still capable of participating in a cattle drive . . . if he could find one. A waddie used to be called a rustler, but as the years went on became known as a cowboy who moved from outfit to outfit, working cattle drives.
“Came here a few years ago looking to hook up with some outfit,” he said. “Never did. Took this job as a temporary thing.” He laughed. “Temporary.”
“When was the last drive that came through here?” Clint asked.
“’ Bout one or two each year the last few years, but they wasn’t hirin’,” the barman said.
“You know a man named Henry Flood? Hank—Hank Flood?” Clint asked.
“Flood? Don’t know ’im, but heard of ’im.”
“Heard of him lately? Here in town?”
“No, not lately,” the barman said. “Why? You lookin’ for him?”
“He’s looking for me,” Clint said.
The man stuck out a large hand.
“Name’s Spud,” he said. “Spud Johnson.”
“Spud?”
The man grinned.
“I can do wonders with a potato.”
Clint shook his hand and said, “Clint Adams.”
“Clint . . . Adams?” Spud asked.
“That’s right.”
“You friends with Flood, Mr. Adams?” Spud asked.
“I am,” Clint said. “Long time.”
“So you’re not here for . . . I mean, to cause . . . um, I mean, to kill—”
“Don’t believe everything you read or hear, Spud,” Clint said. “I don’t go anywhere to kill anyone. Understand?”
“Oh, yessir,” Spud said. “I understand good.”
“Calm down,” Clint said, as the man grew tense. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. The only thing I’m here to kill is some time over a warm beer.”
“Yessir.”
“I’m going to take a turn around town,” Clint said. “If Hank Flood does come in looking for me tell him to stay put. I’ll find him.”
“I’ll do it, Mr. Adams.”
“It’s Clint, Spud,” Clint said. “It’s just Clint. Okay?”
“Yessir,” the barman said. “That’s okay with me.”
TWO
There was one other saloon in operation in Doan’s Crossing. There used to be more, but one by one they had gone out of business. There also used to be a number of whorehouses, but now there was just one.
Debra Moore remembered when the trail drives used to come to town—or, more to the point, the drovers. They used to come to the whorehouses by the dozens, trying to get their ashes hauled one last time before they hit the trail for three months. Some men found it nearly impossible to go that long without a woman.
She thought three months without hearing another woman’s voice, or seeing another woman, would have been paradise. Debra was popular with men, but other women hated her, and it was mutual.
When she was younger they used to hate her because she was so pretty. Now that she was in her thirties, they hated her because she so obviously had distain for all of them.
In other words, she had an attitude.
She stood on the balcony smoking a cigarette, the wrap she was wearing barely hiding her opulent curves. Men rode by and stared up at her. Women glared.
The door behind her opened, and someone came out. “Got a fella for you.” It was Glenda, the madam, an old whore who had stayed around long enough to be put in charge. She was fat and fifty, and hated not only Debra but all the other whores who were younger than she was.
“Give him to one of the other girls,” she said. “I’m on a break. And my pussy’s sore.”
“Yeah, all the girls got sore pussies,” Glenda said. “Mine’s still sore from thirty years on my back.”
Debra grinned at Glenda and said, “I’m surprised you still have a pussy.”
“Smart mouth,” Glenda said. “How about you get inside and put your smart mouth to work?”
“I told you, give him to one of the other girls.”
“He don’t want one of the other girls, he wants you,” Glenda said.
“He asked for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Who is it?”
“How do I know?” Glenda said. “Just some cowboy.”
Debra drew on her cigarette, then flicked it out into the street down below.
“If you don’t want to work, Debra, why don’t you pack up and leave town?”
“Don’t worry, Glenda,” Debra said, “I will, and soon. This town’s about a week from dead.”
“Get inside before your cowboy walks out the door with his money.”
“And goes where?” Debra asked. “Where else is he gonna go and get a poke in this town?”
“Maybe a friendly saloon girl.”
“The saloon girls in this town are hags.”
“That may be, but they got wet slits between their legs, just like we got—well, maybe not you anymore. You dried up a long time ago, didn’t you, Glen?”
“Bitch!” Glenda said, and left Debra standing there.
Before Debra went inside she lit another cigarette and smoked it slowly. As she did she saw a man in the street stop and look up at her. Even at a distance she could tell this was not a man like other men. It was in his stature. This was not a man she was ever likely to meet while plying her trade. This man didn’t need to pay for a woman. Women were drawn to him.
But not this woman, she thought, shaking her head and flicking another cigarette into the street.
This woman had work to do.
Glenda found the cowboy waiting in the hall.
“She’ll be down soon, cowboy,” she said.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“You sure you don’t wanna try one of the other, younger girls?”
“No, thank you, Ma’am,” the man said, fingering his hat in his hands, “I’ll just wait for Debra.”
Glenda shook her head and said. “Suit yerself.”
Debra went back inside, walked downstairs, and found the cowboy waiting for her in the front hall.
“Hello, Deb,” he said.
She stared at him and said, “Sonofabitch.”
He grinned at her.
“Good,” he said. “You still remember me. Now how ’bout we go upstairs?”
“Fuck you, Roy,” she said.
“That’s kinda what I had in mind.”
THREE
Henry Flood rode into town with his segundo, Jack Trevor. Just outside of town to the east was a herd of a thousand Texas beeves. His hands were busy branding them, getting them ready for the drive North.
“Just like old times, huh, Hank?” Trevor said.
“Not quite, Jack,” Flood said. “This town looks all but dead.”
“Yeah,” Trevor said, “I remember how it used to be. But still . . . it’s Doan’s Crossing, huh? Let’s get a drink.”
“Okay, we’ll get a drink, but then we got to find us a cook, and we got to
find us a Gunsmith.”
“Hank,” Trevor asked, “what do we need with the Gunsmith?”
“The man’s a legend, Jack.”
“Yeah, maybe, but he ain’t a drover.”
“He don’t have to be,” Flood said. “He’s my friend. And this just might be the last trail drive. We need to have a legend along with us.”
“But Hank . . . you’re a legend.”
“I ain’t a legend, Jack,” Flood said. “I’m a tired-out old trail boss.”
Flood was probably sixty, but it was hard to tell. His face was lined, but that could have been from the sand and sun, not from age. He spent most of his life on the trail, at the mercy of the elements.
Jack Trevor had been riding with Flood for the past twenty years. He joined him as a very young man, learned his trade, and was now a top number two man—the best of the foreman—and maybe the last.
“You’re the best trail boss there ever was, Boss,” Trevor said.
“So then, I must know what I’m doin’, right?” Flood asked.
“Yeah, right.”
Flood reined in his horse in front of the Crystal Saloon.
“Let’s get that drink, and then we can start lookin’. I wanna get that herd started tomorrow.”
They dismounted.
“You think we’re gonna find us a cook in one day?” Trevor asked.
“We’re either gonna find one,” Flood said, “or I’m gonna do the cookin’ myself.”
Clint had been in the saddle for days, so a walk around town was good for stretching his legs. It was also sad, because a lot of storefronts were closed and boarded up. The once thriving Doan’s Crossing had fallen on the same hard times as many other towns along the old Chisum and Goodnight-Loving Trails.
He passed one building that was not boarded up. Up on a second-floor balcony a woman was standing, slowly smoking a cigarette. She was wearing just enough clothing to cover her body, but he could tell from where he was that she was generously built.