Winchester 1886

by William W. Johnstone

  Jimmy stood inside the sheriff’s office, staring at the map. He was about to choose Cheyenne when he happened to look up. Belle Fourche was closer and a cattle town. He might as well hit it on the way out of South Dakota.

  Cheyenne, Wyoming

  About two or three years back, maybe four, some hired gunmen had left Cheyenne by train to take care of cattle business in Johnson County. The plan was to run off some rustlers. Well, kill off plenty of rustlers and be well paid by the big Wyoming ranchers. Of course, things didn’t turn out that way. Oh, the armed force managed to kill a few rustlers—Danny Waco didn’t rightly remember just how many—but the way Slick Amos told him, the Wyoming cattlemen were a bunch of idiots, nobody could or would command, and before long the gunmen were under siege themselves. They tried to fort up at some ranch near Buffalo, and likely would have all been killed by some testy citizen-rustlers had not the U.S. Army arrived. The so-called invaders had surrendered to a bunch of bluecoats from Fort McKinney. The gunmen, many of them from Texas, were supposed to have been tried, but since Wyoming cattlemen still called the shots in Cheyenne, most of those old boys, including Slick Amos, just wandered back to Texas.

  That little fiasco still weighed on the minds of the people and the law in Cheyenne.

  It was why Danny Waco sat at a corner table in the Paradise Saloon rereading the little letter he had been delivered that morning.

  “I’m cold, Danny,” Gil Millican said as he poured himself a morning bracer. “I don’t rightly think I’ll ever warm up.”

  “Where’s Indian?” Waco asked.

  “In the wagon yard, I reckon.” Millican downed his rye. “How long we gonna hol’ up here, Danny?”

  Waco laughed and slid the paper across the table. “Find out yourself, Gil.”

  “I don’t know what this means, Danny.” He picked up the letter, read it, shook his head, and turned to Danny. “What’s it mean?”

  “It’s what I hear folks are callin’ a white affidavit. Basically, it’s an informal request that we take our business and pleasure out of the state of Wyomin’.”

  Millican lowered the letter. “They’s runnin’ us out of Cheyenne.”

  Waco snatched the letter, wadded it up, and tossed it onto another table. “In a friendly sort of way.”

  “We gonna let ’em do that, Danny?”

  His head shook. “Nah. We’re gonna leave on our own volition.” He had heard some gambler say that earlier. Volition. Didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it sure sounded like something an educated man would say. Besides, the marshal who had asked that gambler to take his marked cards elsewhere had laughed and hadn’t arrested the sharper, merely escorted him to the depot.

  Danny Waco had found Cheyenne to be dull. Not much excitement to be found in the town, not even in most of Wyoming, at least the parts he had seen. Gil Millican was right. It was spring, and the streets were covered with a dusting of snow. They had had to spend a right smart of money on winter coats, and Danny’s luck at cards had turned a bit in February.

  “Find Indian. Get our horses and gear.” Waco fished a banknote from his vest pocket and tossed it at Millican. “Pay our bill. Because we’re honest citizens. Then bring the horses here. We’ll head south. Where it’s warmer.”

  “Mexico?” Millican asked hopefully.

  “Hell,” Danny Waco answered.

  Belle Fourche, South Dakota

  The owner of Wertheim’s Mercantile shrugged, glancing at his wife as she laid out the new scarves on the counter down at the end of the store. Finally, he reached up and touched the barrel of the Winchester 1886 .50-100-450 that Shirley Sweet had brought inside.

  “Well, Missus Sweet,” he began, “I just don’t know.”

  “It’s Miss Sweet, Mr. Wertheim. This is the rifle that finished second at that shooting contest near Sturgis.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know. I mean. I heard you. But it’s pretty beat up.”

  “But it shoots pretty.”

  Sweating, he removed his spectacles and again looked at his wife then back to Shirley. “You see, ma’am, most folks here buy shotguns. Deer rifles. Those new Winchesters in .30-30 calibers. The ’94 models. They are popular. And we sell a lot of Marlins. But this here is—”

  “A .50-100-450. Not many of them around.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You could hang it above your stag horn yonder.” She tilted her nose up at that ugly, pitiful excuse for a trophy of deer antlers that hung above the work-boxes, writing desks, crayons, pens and slate pencils, and the calendar from 1891. She guessed that the Wertheims liked the painting on the calendar. Considered it art.

  After a heavy sigh, Mr. Wertheim walked to the cash register, reached underneath the counter, and pulled out a catalog.

  Montgomery Ward or Sears & Roebuck, Shirley could not tell.

  He thumbed through some pages, pursed his lips, closed the book, and returned the catalog to its place below the cash register. Once he was back in front of Shirley, and after another cautious glance at his wife, he said, “New ones go for nineteen or twenty dollars. I can give you ten.”

  Her head shook. “New ones did not finish second in that shooting contest.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but . . . maybe if you were to sell your winning rifle.”

  “That’s not on the table.”

  “Well, you see—”

  “Thirty dollars.” Grinning, she leaned forward just enough to squeeze her breasts with her arms and give him an eyeful.

  He backed up and wet his lips “Thirty dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is . . . the rifle . . .” He had gotten up some courage. “What else are you”—he took another quick glance at his wife—“selling?”

  She straightened. “Perhaps, I should discuss this matter with Missus Wertheim?”

  The woman in question had already left for the storeroom. And Mr. Wertheim was heading to the cash register, hitting some lever or button that popped open the cash drawer, and he was soon back with thirty bucks in greenbacks, counting them out for her, and taking the rifle, which he put behind the counter.

  Shirley couldn’t believe her luck. She would have settled for ten. Expected no more than that, but her luck had returned.

  It had certainly soured after winning that shooting match near Bear Butte. Oh, she had traveled with Colonel Tom C. Curtis and his winning attitude after the match, and they had landed in Belle Fourche, a cattle town on the Belle Fourche River near the Montana border.

  Belle Fourche was a good town for a man like Colonel Tom C. Curtis. It had grown from a stagecoach station on a line that ran from Medora to Deadwood into a thriving cattle town. Cattle had been shipped out on the railroad for four or five years, bringing in herds from North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Town leaders kept saying that the Middle Creek Stockyards would likely ship some 2,500 cattle cars full of beef this year, which would make the town the largest cattle-shipping yard in the world.

  Perfect place for con jobs, shooting contests, and that dog-and-pony wild west show.

  Shirley had awaked one morning to find that the trains had pulled out the previous night with not just cattle, but with Colonel Tom C. Curtis and some hussy he had found at the Livestock Saloon. He had left her and the rest of his “Extravaganza” with one extravagant bill.

  The Colonel Tom C. Curtis’s Wild West Extravaganza Featuring Shirley Sweet, the Sharpshooting Wonder of the World was no more. The three wagons had been confiscated for auction. The old bear with only three teeth left had been shot, skinned, and his tough meat sold to a restaurant. The Italian who tried to be a great Sioux warrior hadn’t even made it to Belle Fourche, having drunk himself to death in Sturgis. The Texas roper had quickly found a job at some ranch, and was working probably before Colonel Tom C. Curtis and his hussy had stepped off that train. The twelve-year-old runaway with that loud, ugly-sounding trumpet had probably caught a freight.

  Shirley Sweet, twenty-three-year-old crackerjack s
hot, was alone.

  She had sold her medals, her signed copy of Buffalo Bill Cody’s autobiography, and much of her pride. About all she had left was that valise with a few extra clothes, and the case that carried her Remington Rolling Block. Her other guns were gone and she had just sold the Winchester ’86.

  Mr. Wertheim was staring at the closed door to the storeroom, waiting for his wife to return.

  Shirley decided to test her luck. “Mr. Wertheim,” she cooed.

  He turned, and she tilted her nose at the counter.

  When Wertheim looked down, he saw her hands resting on a deck of playing cards, right next to those neat stacks that amounted to thirty dollars in script.

  “What would you say about . . . double or nothing?” Shirley asked.

  Ten minutes later, she walked out of Wertheim’s Mercantile with ninety dollars in script and coin, and bought a ticket on the next Freemont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley train heading east. Her luck had held.

  She’d get off at a stop down the road and make her way somewhere . . . Texas, maybe. Texicans considered themselves good shots and loved to gamble. Likely she could keep her luck going down south.

  That train was just about to pull out of Belle Fourche, so she settled into a seat, leaned back, and fell asleep.

  She did not see a lean, leathery former deputy U.S. marshal named Jimmy Mann ride toward the saloons along the stockyards on a blue roan mare, holding a Winchester ’86 at the ready. Nor did she see a slim, wiry, nervous cuss named Noble Saxon leave the stockyards with a wad of cash and make a beeline for Wertheim’s Mercantile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lady Luck had favored Noble Saxon for some time, and he felt pretty good. He had made a sizable profit this fine spring day, selling thirty-two beeves for thirty-one dollars and twenty-seven cents a head. He figured out his expenses—ten dollars (including a bonus) for the two hired hands who had helped him herd the cattle from around Sundance, Wyoming, to Belle Fourche, a few bucks for grub and whiskey and three-and-a-half days in the saddle, and twenty-five dollars for some fresh duds and a Winchester Model 1886 rifle in .50-100-450 caliber.

  The latter was the sweetest part of his run of luck. He happened to walk into the mercantile when Mr. and Mrs. Wertheim were having a rollicking row. Saxon smiled at the memory as he walked across the street to the Cattle Baron’s Saloon. Mrs. Wertheim was about to rip her husband’s head off, and made him sell that rifle or toss it out the door. Either that rifle went or she was going straight to the preacher, the newspaper, and the offices of Bodeen & Masters, Attorneys at Law. It had something to do with the previous owner of the rifle. Saxon wasn’t sure of the particulars and didn’t care, because he had walked out of that mercantile with a hard-kicking rifle for fourteen dollars and fifty cents. A used saddle in this part of the country cost more than that.

  He pushed through the doors to the saloon, and got directions to a washroom, where he went to change into his new store-bought duds and wash the grit off his face and hands. He had thought about taking a bath, but, well, he had to ride all the way back to the Thunder Basin, so it did not make sense to spend money on a bath.

  After a steak and fried taters, some whiskey and a woman, he’d likely leave Belle Fourche with maybe better than $900.

  Sweet.

  Yes, sir, Lady Luck sure loved him.

  And the best part about it. Those two hired men would be leaving Belle Fourche in the morning to hire on at some ranch in southwestern Nebraska. He wouldn’t run into them ever again. Nor the Thunder Basin stock detectives. Or those ranchers whose beeves he had gathered, then doctored their brands with a running iron. Besides, he had a legitimate bill of sale, and his brand was duly registered in the state of Wyoming in Cheyenne. He was, after all, a legitimate rancher.

  Even though the Thunder Basin Confederation of Stock Raisers often questioned the size of his herd.

  Freshly scrubbed, more or less, wearing new underwear and a scratchy woolen shirt and duck trousers, he went back to the saloon proper, set his rifle atop the table, and leaned back in the chair, adjusting his new hat. It was an awesome hat, something that Wertheim gent called a “Chief Moses,” with four silver stars on the four-and-a-half-inch crown and eight more on the four-and-a-half-inch brim. The color of nutria. Cost him seven dollars. But, to Noble Saxon, it told him and everybody else that he was a man of means, a man of property, and a cattle baron who knew what he liked and liked what he knew.

  Noble Saxon knew he was a lucky man.

  He called out to the bartender, “Bring me the best Scotch you got.” He called it out like he was somebody, because Noble Saxon was somebody. He grinned as the cattlemen standing at the bar with their cigars and whiskeys turned to admire him, and watched them stare as he pulled out the greenbacks from that thick envelope. He was a man of means. Richer than God, he figured. Rancher. Empire builder. Cattle rustler.

  Eastern Wyoming

  He killed a mule deer, and ate his fill, cutting out a few steaks, but leaving most of the meat for coyotes and ravens. Noble Saxon could do that. He was a wealthy cattleman, and coyotes and ravens needed to eat, too. He might as well make things a little easier for them.

  That Winchester rifle shot true, just like the gent up in Belle Fourche had told him. Saxon rubbed his shoulder after shoving the rifle into the scabbard. ’Course, that mercantile owner had not told him just how hard a .50-caliber Winchester kicked. Punched like a mule. Might even leave a bruise.

  He followed the Belle Fourche River, running high now from the spring thaw, keeping along the eastern side, not pushing the bay gelding, merely enjoying the ride back to the grasslands of Thunder Basin. Eventually, of course, he had to leave the river, and ride south. Returning to those 160 acres he had proved up, more or less, after homesteading.

  Homesteading had proved to be more work than a man of means and ideas like Saxon felt like he should be doing. Rustling came much easier, although he did run a few head of his own. He wasn’t exactly sure just how many cattle he really had.

  The hills rolled along under a blue sky filled with plenty of white clouds. The grass was greening up; even some wildflowers had begun to bloom, attracting bees and flies. He patted the envelope in his vest, smiling at all that money he had, and wondered if maybe he should find a saloon, have himself a whiskey, let the members of the Thunder Basin Confederation of Stock Raisers see just what a man of property he was. The problem, of course, was that a cowhand or wealthy cattleman would find a lot of grass, a lot of hills, and plenty of cattle in the Thunder Basin, but not too many saloons. The nearest watering hole was a day and a half’s ride from Saxon’s dugout and corral.

  On the other hand, there was that bottle of Scotch he had bought at the Cattle Baron’s Saloon in Belle Fourche.

  In fact, he was just about to rein in the bay and unbuckle the saddlebag, cut the dust, when he saw the turkey buzzards circling off to the right. He stopped to think about what that could be, then laughed, and said out loud, “Might be one of my cows.”

  It wasn’t.

  It was Kelly Farson, deader than a doornail.

  Noble Saxon took a drink of that whiskey. He wiped his lips, dismounted the bay, and walked closer, rifle in his right hand, bottle of Scotch in his left. Farson’s horse stood up on a hillside, grazing contentedly, still saddled. Farson, however, was stretched out, like he was sleeping, his arms folded across his chest, his feet crossed at the ankles. At least, he had been, before a couple vultures had come along. Saxon had scared them off with a rifle shot, which left his shoulder throbbing again.

  A man could have thought that Kelly Farson had dismounted his horse, lay down on the grass, and died. Excepting, of course, those two bloody holes in his belly, holes that had not been caused by vultures, but bullets. Another purple hole had been drilled right in his forehead. Shot so close, his head had been burned by powder.

  The corpse had something between the fingers on his right hand, and Saxon made himself go over, and pluck the paste
card from the dead man’s stiff fingers.

  Ace of spades.

  Like Saxon, Kelly Farson was a rustler, a small rancher who supplemented his herd with beef belonging to the Thunder Basin Confederation of Stock Raisers. Only Kelly Farson shunned whiskey and cards.

  After taking another long pull from the bottle, Saxon returned to his horse, gathering the reins, and swinging into the saddle. He put the bay into a good lope and left Kelly Farson and his horse alone. Saxon had thought about taking Farson’s horse. After all, it wouldn’t do the dead man any good, but he sure didn’t want to give any stock detective reason to pin Farson’s death on his own hide. That’s probably why they had left the horse there, hoping they could lure some unsuspecting small rancher into taking a horse and getting himself lynched.

  Late that afternoon, Saxon happened upon another small rancher, Ryan Banding. Young fellow—honest as far as Saxon knew—with a good-looking wife. Banding waved his hat and reined in, and Saxon rode up, took another sip of Scotch, and offered the last few drops to Ryan Banding.

  Banding didn’t drink, either—which relieved Saxon, who finished off the Scotch and tossed the empty bottle into the grass.

  “Jay Hyatt’s dead,” Banding said.

  Jay Hyatt. Another rustler.

  Saxon almost said, So is Kelly Farson, but merely asked, “How?”

  Banding shook his head. “Don’t know who done it, but he was found three days back. Shot twice in the back, and once in the head. With a rifle.” He shook his head again and spit out the bad taste. “I found him. By a fire. With a running iron.”