Winchester 1886

by William W. Johnstone

  “What do with that you?” asked another trooper in broken English.

  “Win money,” Sergeant Jay Chase said. “Win lots of money.” He wondered how many of the soldiers at Fort Robinson thought highly of their own marksmanship . . . and how much of their pay they had left and were willing to bet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Crawford, Nebraska

  The town has growed some, Danny Waco thought as he sat at a table in one of saloons, since my last visit in 1886.

  Back then, there hadn’t been anything but a bunch of tents. Tent saloons. Tent cathouses. A tent hotel. Even Calamity Jane had pitched a tent and filled it with ten dance-hall girls and plenty of soldiers and railroaders who wanted to see them girls—ugly as sin, the way Waco remembered, just like Calamity Jane—do the can-can. That had been back when some railroad, the Fremont, Elkhorn, and something or other Valley, had been laying rails into Wyoming.

  They had named the little hell-on-wheels after some dumb Army officer who had gotten himself killed down in Mexico. Made sense, Waco figured, since the bluebelly had once been stationed at Fort Robinson.

  Most of the tents were gone, replaced by frame and picket buildings, even a brick structure or two. Another railroad had reached the village by ’87. Crawford had a newspaper, the Crawford Clipper, stores, warehouses, and solid hotels. Of course, the soldiers stationed at Fort Robinson still demanded gambling dens, brothels, and saloons, which is why Waco had decided to come down this way after spending most of the winter in Belle Fourche and Rapid City. He hadn’t even gone to Deadwood, figuring that’s where the law would expect him to light out for after robbing that sorry old bank in Chadron.

  Chadron wasn’t far at all from Crawford, but Waco figured the law had forgotten all about him and the money they had taken. Besides, nobody would look for him that close to where he had pulled that job.

  The losers he had conscripted into pulling the Chadron job were long gone. Waco and Millican had left them in Hot Springs. For all Waco knew and cared, the boys had been captured and lynched. He had picked up a big, tall, mean-looking Sioux Indian. The cuss stood six-foot-six in his moccasins He wore his long black hair filled with silver streaks in braids, and had the meanest face Waco had ever seen. Man didn’t say two words a month, and Waco liked it that way. The Indian didn’t even remind him of Tonkawa Tom.

  The big Sioux—Waco and Millican merely called him “Indian,” for they did not know his name—carried a Winchester, too.

  Not an ’86, of course. Waco shook his head, thinking about that rifle, wondering what had ever become of that .50-caliber cannon, or that weasel of a gambler who had cheated him out of that repeater down in Caldwell all those months ago. No, Indian carried a Model 1866, the first repeater produced by Winchester. It chambered the old .44 Henry rimfires, but it was sure better than those old Henry rifles. Nelson King had improved the design of the old Henry, tweaked those quirks, put a loading gate on the side. It shined, too, because of the brass gunmetal receiver. That’s why most folks called the Winchester ’66 the “Yellow Boy.”

  A month back, Waco had gotten a better look at that rifle. He saw the name Winchester’s original owner had carved into the stock. He couldn’t read the name because Indian had nailed a bunch of studs into the stock. Waco never could understand why Indians always did that. They had to decorate things all the time. Make them pretty. Indians were like stupid petticoats in that regard. Waco couldn’t see the name, but he could see something underneath all those studs—7TH CAV.—which made him believe Indian had killed some bluebelly officer with Custer back in ’76 on the Little Big Horn.

  Waco saw the Yellow Boy first, then the big Indian as he pushed his way through the batwing doors. A few people stopped their drinking and their idle chatter to stare at the tall Sioux, and the barkeep frowned hard, then turned to busy himself cleaning glasses with a dirty towel. No one said anything to Indian.

  Waco had to smile at that. They were probably so scared of the big cuss, they would have served him a whiskey had he asked for a drink, and even told him it was on the house.

  Indian stopped at the table where Waco sat emptying a bottle of rye with Gil Millican. “Soldiers come.”

  Waco snorted. “Soldiers are always coming. There’s a fort here, ain’t there?”

  “These come other way. From Chadron.”

  That made Waco frown. It was probably nothing. He had robbed that bank in Chadron, but that was a civilian affair. The Army wouldn’t be involved. Those bluecoats were probably heading over to Fort Robinson on some military matter.

  On the other hand, he had been thinking about trying for Cheyenne. Get out of these rawhide dumps like Crawford and Belle Fourche and Ogallala and see a real bona fide city. The morning had dawned clear, sunny, and warm. He figured the temperatures might even get above freezing. “Well,” he said at last. “I reckon it’s a nice day for a ride.”

  “Where we goin’, Danny?” Millican asked.

  Waco finished his rye. “Cheyenne. That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Ain’t never been there,” Millican said.

  “Sure you have,” Waco reminded him. “That’s where you killed Burl Scott back in ’89.”

  “I thought that was in Laramie.”

  “No. Cheyenne.”

  “Well, then, you reckon it’d be safe for me there, Danny?”

  “Nobody remembers Burl Scott. He was a two-bit saddle tramp. And nobody remembers you, Gil. They remember Danny Waco. They fear me, too. We’ll be safe. Let’s ride.”

  Indian grunted, turned, and headed for the door. The menfolk in the saloon began to drink again, and talk, and stop staring. Waco tossed some coins on the table, pushed back his chair, and grabbed his rifle and six-shooter, which he had laid on the table—just to be safe.

  When the Colt was back in its holster, he buttoned his coat, pulled on his gloves, and made for the horses, all tethered in the muddy street.

  The soldiers were coming by. The big wagons were filled with straw or hay or something like that. No, those boys weren’t coming to arrest him.

  Waco snorted and grinned at Gil Millican. “That’s what’s become of the Army, Gil. Bluebellies are now protecting convoys of straw.”

  Millican laughed and moved for his horse.

  Waco slid in beside him on his own stolen mount, grabbed the reins, and backed his horse in the street after the last wagon had passed. “Let’s ride. Cheyenne’s waiting.”

  He kicked his horse into a trot and passed the first wagon full of feed for Army mounts. Or maybe the U.S. Army was feeding its troops straw these days. He laughed at his joke, and pulled his hat low, kept his head down as he passed the other wagons and lead riders. Just to be safe. He didn’t want to take any chances and be recognized.

  It’s why Danny Waco rode right past Jay Chance, and did not notice the Winchester ’86 the sergeant was carrying.

  Fort Robinson

  “Why don’t you make it twenty dollars, Captain?” Sergeant Chase told the officer. “These .50-100-450 shells don’t come cheap.”

  “Do you have twenty dollars, Sergeant?” the captain said with a smirk.

  Chase handed the Winchester to the trooper from New York, named Eustis. “Hold this, Useless.” Looking at the captain, he said, “Let me check my poke, sir,” and pulled out his pouch from the deep pockets on his trousers. Methodically, he opened the pouch, and fished out a few coins. Nodding, he returned the gold pieces into the pouch, which disappeared inside the mule-ear pockets.

  “Yes, sir,” he told the captain. “Appears that I have fifty-five dollars. In coin, too. Not script. Never did trust that paper money.”

  The captain, a tall, wiry cuss, whipcord thin and ramrod straight, streaks of gray just appearing on his Burnside whiskers, took the bait. Practically swallowed the hook. “Well, Sergeant, should we make our bet fifty-five dollars then?”

  Chase smiled. “Do you have fifty-five dollars, Captain?”

  The captain glared. Did no
t even bother to answer, and snapped his fingers. A black corporal, likely the captain’s striker—or slave, maybe, Chase thought—hurried forward with a leather case.

  Other soldiers gathered around, and even a few of Chase’s recruits whistled skeptically at their sergeant’s chances when they saw the rifle that came out of the case.

  “That’s a High Wall, Sarge,” Trooper Eustis Whatever-his-last-name-was whispered to Chase. “I saw a sharpshooter win a contest with a gun just like that at Creedmoor back in ’89.”

  Creedmoor would be what once had been Creed Farm on New York’s Long Island. It had opened back in 1873, and the National Rifle Association had been holding target matches on a yearly basis ever since.

  “They let you in to Creedmoor?” Chase asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t sir me, boy.” He nodded, though, at the New Yorker and looked at the rifle the captain held. Before he stepped forward, he told the recruit, “You might not be so worthless after all, Useless.”

  The High Wall, Model 1885 single-shot Winchester was what many marksmen considered John Moses Browning’s best-designed rifle. The one the captain was showing off to his troopers and junior officers looked mighty fine. It had that strong, case-colored falling-block action—an element that had led many people to consider the model the best single-shot, long-range rifle ever made. Better than the Sharps. Better than the Remington—which was saying a lot.

  The captain’s weapon had the full octagonal barrel, just a couple inches from being a full three feet long, and was gloss-blued with gold engraving. The stock was walnut, satin finished with a pistol grip, and the forestock cut checkered. It even had one of those fancy recoil pads, not the steel, shoulder-crushing crescent butt plates most High Walls sported, but the same kind of butt plate Mr. Browning had put on the 1886 Model Winchester that Trooper Eustis still held.

  The captain’s High Wall had a long brass sight that ran almost the full length of the barrel to just past the trigger, hammer, and fancy lever. The whole shebang likely was fifty inches in length.

  “Naturally, Sergeant,” the captain said as he removed his eyeglasses, handing them to the corporal for cleaning. “I shall remove the telescopic sight. For sporting purposes, of course.”

  Chase spit out tobacco juice. “No need to bother with that, Captain. You’d just have to sight it in again when you put it back on. My eyes are fine. I don’t need telescopes.”

  The orderly was returning the officer’s glasses.

  “Or bifocals.” Chase enjoyed seeing the captain’s face flush.

  “Suit yourself,” the captain said. Testy. Mighty testy—and that, Jay Chase figured, was a good thing.

  “What does she shoot?”

  “A .45-90,” the officer replied.

  “How much she weigh?”

  “Thirteen pounds.”

  “What’s the length of pull?”

  The captain considered the sergeant with something more than curiosity or contempt before he answered. “Roughly thirteen and one-half inches, Sergeant. You know something about guns, I take it. More than the average noncom in this man’s Army.”

  Pushing back his winter hat, Chase grinned. “Well, I reckon we’ll find that out in a few minutes, won’t we, Captain?” He decided that he liked Fort Robinson. It didn’t have all the trees that he found at Fort Meade, and it certainly felt colder, but it was a good post. With good people.

  It had been founded in the early to mid 1870s after the government had established the Red Cloud Agency. This part of the state wasn’t flat, but pretty. Not Black Hills pretty, but filled with rolling hills, now covered with snow and ice. Chase knew it would green up come spring.

  Crazy Horse, that big Sioux leader, had been killed there, bayoneted by another Indian. Another year later, a bunch of Dull Knife’s Northern Cheyenne bucks had busted out of the guardhouse, or wherever they were being held, killing a bunch of soldiers. And many, many Indians died, too.

  The fort was manned primarily by a bunch of blacks. The 9th Cavalry of those so-called “buffalo soldiers” had called Fort Robinson headquarters since 1895. Lots of soldiers and officers, Chase didn’t care much for those black boys in blue, but he knew the 9th was a fine outfit. He would gladly have traded some of his greenhorns for these soldiers—but that would not have gone over well with the commanding officer at Fort Meade.

  In fact, Chase figured some of the buffalo soldiers could give him a run for his money in a target-shooting match, but he wasn’t shooting against that tough-looking soldier or that corporal who acted as if he had yet to hear that President Lincoln had freed the slaves a few decades back.

  They reached the clearing. Two black troopers carried paper targets and hammers. Two others had posts. Apparently, they were used to the captain and his target shooting. And they were a long way from Creedmoor, New York.

  Other officers, white men—for most of the 9th was commanded by white officers, although Chase had heard of a black lieutenant in the regiment named Young, a West Point graduate. He’d been stationed out there for a year or so before being shipped off to Utah for a while. He was teaching military sciences at some college in Ohio that educated Negroes.

  “Shall we say two hundred yards, Sergeant? To start.” Captain Wilbur Lincoln grinned. He had a crowd of black soldiers he commanded, white officers, even a major and the post surgeon, for his cheering section. The captain adjusted his spectacles.

  Earlier that day, Chase had cleaned the rifle, had sighted it in, test-fired half a box of cartridges, and had bought several more boxes in Crawford. He took his rifle from Trooper Eustis and felt the wind. Little of it, just a slight breeze blowing north to south. The sky was clear. He doubted if it was any warmer than thirty-five or thirty-eight degrees.

  The Winchester felt right in his hands. The captain kept grinning, figuring he had already won that fifty-five dollars.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Captain Lincoln,” Chase said casually. “How about if we make it five hundred, sir?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Fifty-two . . . fifty-three . . .” Captain Wilbur Lincoln, eyes red, face pale, countenance embarrassed, had to dig for change. Quarters and dimes and finally, pennies. “Fifty-four . . . fifty-five.” He sighed.

  Sergeant Jay Chase beamed and slid the much heavier pouch back into the deep pockets of his trousers. “Thank you, Captain Lincoln.”

  The captain turned to a young lieutenant, probably fresh out of West Point, with fuzz for a mustache and pimples on his cheeks. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rush, I will pay you back come payday.”

  “Whenever you can afford to, Captain Lincoln.” The green pup of an Army officer grinned at the sergeant. “I bet on the winner.”

  Chase had to laugh as he took the Model 1886 Winchester from Trooper Eustis.

  “You bet on him?” Captain Lincoln found that hard to believe.

  “Yes, sir,” the kid beamed. “You’re darn-tooting I did. I saw Sergeant Chase at Creedmoor seven years ago. My father took me to see the contest.”

  Chase reconsidered the snot-nosed lieutenant. As if he could remember that kid from that far back.

  It also made Captain Wilbur Lincoln reconsider the noncom who had just bested him, first at five hundred yards, then at a thousand. With a repeating rifle that looked as if it had been marched over by the entire command at Fort Robinson. “You? You shot at . . . Creedmoor?”

  Turning toward the officer, Chase spit tobacco juice onto the ground. “Oh, I did not do that well,” he said sheepishly. “Why five, no six, yes, six fellows outshot me that time. Come on, Useless.” He strode back toward the enlisted men’s barracks, where the post adjutant had graciously agreed to house the boys from the 6th Cavalry for the night before they continued their journey north to South Dakota. Trooper Eustis followed close behind him.

  A black sergeant handed Chase the paper targets. “That was some groupin’, Sergeant.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate that.” Chase would study the
targets later.

  Four others cheered him as he ambled past. Others, of course, those idiots who had so unwisely bet on Captain Wilbur Lincoln and his fancy little target rifle, sent him looks of bitter derision. He greeted them with pleasant smiles, anyway. Just to make them feel worse.

  Speaking of feeling worse, Chase felt the urge to rub his shoulder or at the least send Trooper Eustis to the post sutler to buy some liniment. It felt as if it were black and blue. Actually, he sometimes wondered if he had chipped his collarbone. That Winchester kicked like an elephant.

  But it had won him fifty-five dollars from a snobbish officer who had been spotted a fancy brass telescope and a long-range rifle. At five hundred yards. And then a thousand. And that took a bit of the bite out of the pain Sergeant Jay Chase was feeling.

  “What you thinking, Sergeant?” Trooper Eustis asked.

  “I’m thinking what a bunch of suckers there are stationed at Fort Meade these days.”

  Meade County, South Dakota

  George Washington’s birthday proved sunny, calm, and even warm as Sergeant Jay Chase rode to the designated sharpshooting contest cheered by those green kids he still was trying to whip into shape and cheered by some of the leading gamblers in Sturgis.

  It had been decided to hold the contest around a little lake or pond or whatever you wanted to call it—still frozen over, although the ice didn’t look that firm—that lay north of Fort Meade, almost on a line that ran from Sturgis to Bear Butte off to the northeast. If he looked behind him, Chase knew he could make out Sly Hill and Oyster Mountain, maybe even Granite Peak and Crook Mountain in the Black Hills. Instead, he focused on his competition.

  He rode under a banner proclaiming THE MEADE COUNTY SHARPSHOOTING SPECTACLE OF THE WORLD.

  So, Chase wondered, will the winner be world champion or county champion, and will this truly be a spectacle?

  He saw an Indian with a big, battered flintlock rifle. A buckskinned vagabond with a beard to his belly. Cowboys with Winchesters and Marlins, one with a Spencer, another two with Henrys. Six or seven trappers or buffalo hunters or wolfers with Sharps rifles, one of which even had a telescopic scope. That reminded him of Captain Wilbur Lincoln. He wondered if the uppity captain had ever paid back that snot-nosed lieutenant.