Winchester 1886

by William W. Johnstone

  The barber from Sturgis had shown up, too, trading in his razor and strop for a Ballard No. 5 Pacific single-shot rifle and several boxes of .40-63 cartridges. The barber, Chase knew, had been one of those snake-in-the-grass sharpshooters under Hiram Berdan’s command during the Rebellion—back when his eyes and muscles had been thirty years younger. Even a couple of enlisted men and two officers from Fort Meade were in the competition.

  He saw an 1866 Springfield that had been modified into a .50-70 sporting rifle. Chase didn’t remember the shooter’s name, but he knew that gun. He had beaten it in the Fourth of July contest three years back.

  Turning his head right and left, he saw a Chaffee-Reese bolt action . . . a Howard .44 single-shot carbine . . . a .43-caliber Keene, the first bolt-action rifle Remington had produced . . . two Colt Lightnings, both probably in .32 caliber . . . even a few rifles Chase couldn’t identify.

  He shook his head, amazed at just how many people came out thinking that they could outshoot him. Well, it wasn’t every day that somebody put up a purse of $1,500, winner take all.

  No second place this go-round.

  He rode past the field they would be shooting across, starting at fifty yards. Colonel Tom C. Curtis had sure done his best, lining the shooting grounds with barbed wire that had been decorated with bunting. Buggies and wagons were parked all along the lakeshore, and corrals had been thrown up, with hay for the horses and mules to eat scattered across the ramshackle affairs.

  Chase smelled stew and bread. One tent appeared to be more popular than the rest, and he guessed Colonel Tom C. Curtis had hired a few beer-jerkers from the Sturgis saloons. Folks must have come from Deadwood . . . from Rapid City . . . maybe as far away as Pierre or even Montana or Wyoming.

  As he reined in his horse, Sergeant Jay Chase saw the woman.

  It never ceased to amaze her just how many men couldn’t shoot worth a hoot. Colonel Tom C. Curtis’s harebrained shooting championship started with paper targets at fifty yards, which was nothing more than a pot shot for Shirley Sweet.

  The day proved perfect for shooting. No wind. Not even cold, and the paper targets had been painted red to make them easier to spot. But plenty of men swore bitterly, blaming their rifles and not their own incompetence, when their shots missed the bull’s eyes, missed the circles, missed the entire bright red paper square.

  Shirley, of course, did not miss.

  She had brought along her No. 3 Remington Rolling Block Sporting Model.

  Colonel Curtis pleaded with her not to shoot so straight in the early rounds. Build up her odds. Make the bets higher. Nobody would bet on a woman to win, not in South Dakota. Not anywhere in the West. Probably not anywhere in the world.

  “I’m here to win,” Shirley said. “And nothing’s guaranteed.”

  “Just make it interesting, sweetie,” Curtis begged.

  She rammed a cleaning cloth down the Remington’s 30-inch barrel. “Do you have $1,500 to pay the winner?”

  “I will. Once all the bets have been collected, sweetie.” That was the colonel’s scam. The bets would pay for the bartenders he had hired and the whiskey and kegs of beer he had bought.

  Knowing Curtis the way she did, he also would be collecting a percentage of the take from the soiled doves in their cribs and from the church collection plate.

  Everyone bowed for the parson’s invocation and prayer and the passing of the plate, and then Shirley finished cleaning her rifle and waited for her turn in the firing line for the second round—iron discs, probably removed from plows at the Sturgis stores that catered to farmers, at a hundred yards.

  A steel target at one hundred yards was more to her liking. No spyglasses needed for the judges to announce where the bullets had hit. You just fired, and waited to hear the ping. Or not.

  She beat the gentleman with the bolt-action Keene, and he bowed graciously and kissed her hand. She liked him . . . and his Remington .43.

  But that cowboy with the dirty Henry that she beat in the next round, iron discs at two hundred and fifty yards? She didn’t care much for that louse. He cursed his luck, cursed Colonel Curtis, cursed his pards who heckled him so mercilessly, and cursed her as a man decked out in women’s garb. Then he stormed away to the tent saloons.

  Five hundred yards made things more interesting—shooting cracker boxes, also painted red with white bull’s eyes. Shirley used her tang sight for the round.

  And then there were three.

  Shirley Sweet. Libertino Adorante, a silver-headed barber from Sturgis who had a Ballard No. 5 Pacific .40-63. And a wiry sergeant from Fort Meade, who called himself Jay Chase. To her surprise, he was shooting a beat-up Winchester repeating rifle in .50 caliber that reminded her of Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann.

  Actually, she had hoped he might have been there. She even looked around for any sign of Danny Waco, but if he was at the competition, he was in the saloons or brothels. Probably not at the church tent, unless he was robbing it.

  “Children, ladies, and gentlemen!” Colonel Tom C. Curtis spoke through a red, white, and blue megaphone. “Our three finalists will be shooting at a target that has been posted on the far side of Lake George Washington.”

  Shirley figured that was not the name of the frozen pond out on the flats.

  “Its distance from here is one thousand yards—almost a full mile.”

  More like six-tenths, Shirley thought as the crowd oohed and ahhed.

  “The target is a church bell—”

  “That, Colonel, is sacrilegious!” the preacher bellowed.

  Curtis lowered the megaphone and found the parson. “It’s from an abandoned Catholic church, sir.”

  The preacher was Protestant, and he nodded his acceptance and withdrew his protest.

  “As I was saying . . .” Colonel Tom C. Curtis returned to his megaphone. “The bell has been painted red, white, and blue in honor of our glorious nation’s first president, on this, his . . . his . . . his . . . one hundredth birthday!”

  Applause. Shirley didn’t know exactly when George Washington was born, but she had to guess he would have been a bit older than a century mark, but she decided to stop listening to Colonel Curtis and focus on that target. If she could see it.

  “How will we know if we hit it?” the barber asked.

  “Why, my good man,” Colonel Curtis answered, “church bells ring, don’t they?”

  Laughter erupted. Even Sergeant Jay Chase chuckled. Shirley, who was trying her best not to listen to that blowhard and cheat she worked for, had to smile.

  “Shooters will fire from the prone position. Shooting sticks are allowed at this stage in this round.” The colonel waited as the Sicilian barber from Sturgis and Shirley went to their tables and grabbed their shooting sticks. The barber carried a fancy tripod. Shirley’s was just a couple old fire-hardened limbs tied together with rawhide, which she had been using since her childhood in Ohio.

  Sergeant Jay Chase just rubbed the front sight of his Winchester ’86.

  Of course, the colonel waited five more minutes to allow more bets to be placed before he returned to his megaphone.

  “After a random drawing of lots, our finalists will fire in this order. Liber . . . tin . . . o Adorante . . .” Curtis butchered the barber’s name. “Sergeant Chase of the finest cavalry in the world. And Shirley Sweet, second only to Annie Oakley among our nation’s shooters of the fairer sex.”

  Shirley had never met Annie Oakley, but figured she could give Buffalo Bill’s sharpshooter a run for her money. She shook her head at the colonel’s attempted compliment and whispered, “I’ve never shot one of the fairer sex. Not even a man, though I’m tempted right now.”

  “So am I,” she heard Sergeant Jay Chase say.

  She turned, saw the soldier, and smiled. He grinned back.

  Three minutes later, the crowd hushed as the barber stretched out on the ground and sighted down the Ballard. They waited. The rifle boomed.

  A moment later, the bell beyond the pond
chimed.

  Locals cheered, but fell silent as Jay Chase stepped to the line.

  “Sergeant,” Tom Curtis said as the soldier stretched out on his belly. “Would not you prefer to use shooting sticks?”

  “He may use mine,” the barber offered.

  “Thank you, no.” Chase levered the Winchester, waited, and fired.

  The crowd exploded in delight at the ping of the bell.

  Shirley Sweet allowed the Sturgis mayor to help her to the ground and braced the Remington’s stock against her shoulder. She drew a breath, let it out, found the bell in her sights, and squeezed the trigger. She didn’t hear the sound, but the crowd did. Everyone cheered, except those who had bet against her. They cursed.

  “What’s next?” the mayor asked. “Do we move the bell?”

  “Let’s put ’er atop Bear Butte!” someone joked.

  When the laughter died, Colonel Tom C. Curtis said, “I think it would be easier to have our shooters back up fifty yards than move that bell.” His head shook. “It weighs a ton.”

  So they moved back and fired again.

  Shirley went first. She knew she had hit it, and immediately moved back to her table to clean the Remington while the other two men shot. People slapped her on the back. A few ladies even deemed to compliment her. Most of them, however, looked at her as if she were some freak of nature.

  The sergeant fired.

  When she heard the chime, she stopped cleaning her rifle. She thought for sure that Jay Chase would miss. He was shooting a repeating rifle, for goodness sake.

  It was the barber who missed. He bowed graciously, but Shirley saw the tears in his eyes as he accepted condolences and disappeared.

  “I guess,” Colonel Curtis said, “we should back up another fifty yards.”

  “Good,” a cowboy joked. “We’ll be closer to the whiskey.”

  “That’s a mighty fine rifle you got, lady,” Sergeant Jay Chase said as he cleaned his Winchester.

  “I’m impressed with yours as well, Sergeant,” Shirley told him. “I just got rid of a Model 1886 Winchester myself.”

  “What for?”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think that rifle would work in long-distance shooting. I must have been mistaken. It wasn’t a .50-caliber, of course.”

  “Of course.” Withdrawing the ramrod, Sergeant Chase winked at her. “Maybe you’d like to make things a might more interesting. I can give you a chance to win it.”

  “Are you wagering your rifle, Sergeant?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been admiring your Remington, lady.”

  She extended her hand. “Well, Sergeant, I think we have a bet.”

  “In this final—Well, I don’t know. Maybe it shall be our final round or perhaps our two shooters will be shooting from Montana, perhaps even Idaho, before long. At any rate, this round our two finalists will be shooting from standing positions.”

  Shirley tried not to listen to Curtis’s rambling. She tried to focus on the bell. After so many rounds, the Remington Rolling Block felt heavier than a mountain howitzer. She also felt the wind picking up just a little, blowing northwest to southeast. Her throat was parched, her lips cracked, and her heart pounded.

  She didn’t know why. She hadn’t felt a case of nerves shooting at targets in three or four years.

  “Sergeant Chase, you have the honor of firing first,” Curtis explained.

  Shirley drew a deep breath, let it out, and butted the Remington on the ground, turning to watch the soldier lift his Winchester to his shoulder.

  Sweating, Chase worked the lever, but lowered the hammer and the Winchester. He took a deep breath.

  So, Shirley thought, he’s nervous, too. Well, who wouldn’t be with fifteen hundred dollars and a rifle on the line? Not to mention, bragging rights in Meade County, South Dakota.

  After wiping his hands on his blue Army-issue trousers, Chase brought the ’86 back up. He slipped the crescent-shaped butt plate against his shoulder, thumbed back the hammer, and took a deliberate aim. The rifle spoke.

  People held their breath and waited. There was no chime. The crowd gasped, groaned, moaned, whistled then everyone was looking at Shirley, even Jay Chase, who stood shaking his head, amazed that he had missed.

  Eleven hundred yards. Could she even see that red, white, and blue bell?

  She set the sights for that distance and brought up the heavy rifle. It began to weave. She cursed her boss, the scalawag Tom Curtis. He had to eliminate shooting sticks in this round? He thought she could outshoot a career Army soldier who had probably fought against Indians? She wondered if the good citizens of Sturgis and the Black Hills would tar and feather her along with Colonel Tom C. Curtis when they realized he couldn’t pay off the winner or the bets.

  She sighted, wet her lips, and waited until her arms held the Rolling Block just slightly steady.

  Finally, Shirley inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and squeezed the trigger. The gun roared. Her shoulder ached. Lowering the rifle, she waited and listened.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  For an eternity, there was no sound. And then . . .

  Ping.

  Shirley almost threw up. The crowd roared, and Colonel Tom C. Curtis mopped his brow with a polka-dotted bandana.

  Somebody clapped her back. Another tousled her hair. She stepped away from the congratulators and made herself take a deep breath, staring across the plains, across the pond or lake or whatever it was, and shook her head in disbelief.

  “Miss Sweet?”

  Slowly, she turned to see Sergeant Jay Chase standing beside her, holding out that Winchester rifle. “I believe that this belongs to you, ma’am. Nice shooting.”

  She glanced at her own rifle, before shaking her head. “Sergeant Chase, it was a silly bet. I couldn’t—”

  “No, ma’am.” The soldier cut her off. “A bet is a bet. I am a lot of things, Miss Sweet, but one thing I’m not is a welsher. Take it.” He grinned, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Besides, I bet on you.”

  That news made her straighten her posture. “Sergeant, are you saying . . .”

  Again, he stopped her and thrust the gun toward her. “No, ma’am. I tried my best. My bet won’t match that fifteen hundred bucks you’re about to get . . .”

  Fat chance, she thought, of me ever seeing a dime of that purse.

  “But it’ll tide me over for a few months.”

  She took the rifle.

  “Besides, on a sergeant’s pay, just keeping this .50-caliber cannon in cartridges will leave me busted.”

  She knew he was lying. A man like Sergeant Jay Chase would never bet against himself, but she thanked him and watched him bow graciously in defeat and then walk away, leaving her alone with her victory. Well, not alone. People still clapped her back with their massive hands. One shoved a bottle of bourbon at her, but took it back and drank greedily before staggering away.

  After a while—she wasn’t sure how long—she found herself standing alone on the plains of South Dakota, feeling the wind begin to pick up, still hearing the cheers and curses, songs and celebrations. But the ruckus was coming from the tent saloons.

  She held a Remington Rolling Block in her left hand, butted against the ground, and a Winchester 1886 in .50-100-450 in her right, the still-warm barrel aimed at the earth.

  Deadwood, South Dakota

  Spring 1895

  “Well, Mann, I hate to see ye go,” the boss said in his Irish brogue as he slid the envelope across the table. “Ye makes a bloody fine miner.”

  “Another month,” Jimmy Mann said, “and I’d be a bloody fine mole.”

  The boss laughed, then tapped the envelope. “Took out, of course, what ye owed the bloody company.”

  Jimmy stared hard through the barred windows that separated the boss and the payroll from the line of employees.

  “Don’t fret, Mann. Ye ain’t like most of ’ese blokes. Keeps to yeself, ye does. Don’t drink, don’t fight, just read bloody newspaper a
fter bloody newspaper. An’ the only time I ever seen ye at the sheriff’s office was when ye was readin’ dodgers an’ the like.” His hand lifted, and Jimmy dragged the envelope, opened it, and seemed satisfied at the cash.

  Behind him, another miner grumbled, cursed, and told him to hurry along.

  Ignoring the rudeness and impatience, Jimmy nodded at the boss. “Thanks for everything.”

  It wasn’t something a mine boss heard often in a place like Deadwood. He actually appeared taken aback. “Well, Mann, as long as I’m here, ye’ll have a job waitin’ for ye.”

  Jimmy nodded again and left the payroll line for the last time. He had bought a horse—a blue roan with some thoroughbred in her—a new saddle, and plenty of cartridges for his Colt and his Winchester .45-70. He had money, new clothes, some grub, and a full stomach, having splurged on breakfast at the café closest to his hotel. He had seen everything he needed to see in Deadwood, including—on a whim—Wild Bill Hickok’s grave. All he wanted to see was Danny Waco, in the sights of his Winchester ’86 short rifle.

  The question was, where was Danny Waco?

  Jimmy had almost gone blind reading every issue of every newspaper that arrived by stagecoach in Deadwood and every issue that the local newspapers had exchanges with. No newspaper had mentioned his name. Nothing. Maybe Waco had gotten caught in a blizzard. Or killed by some road agent. But Jimmy did not believe that.

  He ruled out riding east. Pierre, Sioux Falls, and even Yankton just didn’t seem to be towns that would have appealed to Waco. And if the outlaw had had enough of winter, the way Jimmy had, he didn’t think Waco would ride up into North Dakota or Canada, either.

  So . . . Montana? Miles City or Billings or even farther west into the mountains and gold camps there? Wyoming? Sheridan or Buffalo or maybe start heading south and find Cheyenne or Laramie? He wouldn’t want to risk Nebraska, especially not after that fracas in Ogallala and the robbery in Chadron.