Cody got up from the table, stepped out into the arena and, holding a megaphone in front of his mouth, made an announcement to the crowd and the participants.
“Ladies and gents, and all the cowboys who took part today, this ends the performance.”
The crowd applauded.
“I want to thank all of you for coming.” He turned the megaphone toward the group of cowboys who had participated in the auditions. “Now, if you cowboys will just wait around for a bit, we’ll be calling some of you up for interviews.”
Prentiss Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:
The bucking contest was held on the arena in front of a specially built grandstand at noon. It began just as the last stage rolled out of Cinnabar taking tourists to the park, but several tourists remained behind for the show and were part of a crowd of approximately five hundred spectators. Those who were present bore witness to one of the greatest exhibitions of bronco busting this writer has ever witnessed. In order to give the audition the greatest show of honesty, Buffalo Bill chose Falcon MacCallister and this writer as judges of the contest.
It was a magnificent exhibition of horses that had never been ridden trying to throw cowboys who had never been thrown. The horses leaped and spun, reared on first their back legs then their front legs, doing all in their power to get the objectionable weight off their backs. Oft times they were successful, and more than one cowboy suffered the ignominy of finding himself facedown in the dirt as the noble steed pranced around the ring in victory. But, just as often, the cowboys succeeded and it was the horse who found himself humiliated before the large crowd there gathered. Along in mid-afternoon a funny incident occurred. A young man, barely out of his teens, applied for permission to compete. Much younger than the other participants, he also stood out for his dress and appearance. He was wearing cowboy boots and spurs, but no chaps, sombrero or the customary vest. He asked to ride in the tryouts.
Stares, sneers and sniggers were openly directed in his direction but Buffalo Bill Cody said that the boy would be permitted to ride. Some of the cowboys, who were not themselves applicants, selected the wildest of all the horses from the remuda. A cowboy then held the wild horse while the young stranger removed his old and very worn saddle from his own horse, and transferred it to the wild horse that had been selected for him.
Those in the crowd, consisting mostly of tourists from the East, were totally unaware of what they were about to see. They had already seen wonderful exhibition of riding and roping, but they had no idea that this young man was about to mount the wildest horse of all. I could tell by the expression in the faces of some of the cowboys who did know, that they were now having second thoughts and some, I think, would have gone out to stop the rider and thus prevent any injury.
With an expression that was set and determined, the young man climbed aboard.
With that the fun was on. With his head to the ground and back arched like an angry cat’s, the wild cayuse bucked and pitched and sunfished; jumped straight up and came down twisting and then shook himself in an effort to get rid of the man on his back, but it was all for naught.
Unable to unseat his rider, the horse broke into a run down the road. The horse galloped at breakneck speed, going so far down the road that he disappeared.
“Now we have done it,” some of the cowboys said, and expressions of remorse circulated through the cowboys as they appeared truly remorseful over the trick they had pulled on the young rider.
Then a great cheer spread through the crowd as the young man was seen returning, this time riding on a horse that was trotting and well under control. As the young man returned to the arena, he leaped down from the horse on one side, then back on to the horse and leaped down from the other side, and then back on again, all to the appreciative roars of the crowd.
Finally he rode up to the stand where Falcon MacCallister, Buffalo Bill, and I were sitting. Swinging down from the horse he removed his hat and made a sweeping bow.
“Sirs, I present you with a fine horse, tamed and eager to serve his master, but not broken, sir. Never broken. His spirit is as great as it has ever been.”
“Young man,” Buffalo Bill said. “I do not even need a response from the judges, for I make the judgment myself that this is one of the finest rides I have ever seen.”
With that announcement, the cowboy who had practiced every spare moment for a year for the event, but who did not have enough money to purchase a cowboy outfit, got the job.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Look there. MacCallister is leaving,” Slayton said. “And he’s the son of a bitch I want the most.”
“Dewey, you, Slayton, and Taylor follow him. Keep an eye on him and find out where he’s going. When you find out, come back and tell us.”
“How about we just kill him?” Slayton asked.
“No, don’t do anything yet. We’re going to do this right, so we have to plan everything all out,” Ebersole replied.
“He’s going,” Taylor said.
“Come on,” Slayton said. “I don’t intend to let him get away.”
After the audition and judging, Buffalo Bill began interviewing several of the participants to see who wanted to join his Wild West Exhibition, and who in fact he wanted to recruit. Prentiss Ingraham was part of the interviewing process, but Falcon had no particular interest in it, so he decided to take a walk through the small town of Cinnabar. He, Buffalo Bill, and Prentiss Ingraham had made arrangements to stay at the Cinnabar Hotel, which was the only hotel in town. The Cinnabar Hotel was run by George Canfield, who was Sherman Canfield’s father, and he, like Sherman, was an old friend of Buffalo Bill’s.
Nearly every cowboy in Cinnabar, those who had performed well and those who had performed poorly in the tryouts, now seemed bent on getting as drunk as they could. Falcon had no more desire to get drunk than he did to be a part of the interview process, and nothing seemed more unappealing to him than to be around a lot of men who were drinking heavily when he wasn’t drinking at all, so he had no problem in avoiding the saloon.
Though he did not go into the saloon, it was nearly impossible to avoid it, as the laughter, shouts, hurrahs, and singing spilled out of the saloon to fill the streets of the little town.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” a cowboy’s loud voice carried over all the others. “Did you boys see me ride that sumbitch? I stayed in that saddle liken as if I was glued to it.”
“Well, hell, Connie, that ole’ cayuse didn’t buck more ’n two or three times!” someone replied.
“Yeah, but on them times when he did buck, I stayed on,” Connie insisted, and his reply was met by a lot of a laughter.
“Hey, anyone know the song ‘Buffalo Gals’? What do you say we sing ‘Buffalo Gals’?”
“The piano player ain’t playin’ that.”
“That don’t make no never mind. He can play what he wants and we’ll sing what we want.”
Discordant singing followed, joined by other singers, but not the piano player who continued with his own tune.
Heart Mountain, Wyoming Territory
At that moment, some one hundred miles away as the crow flies, Sam Davis, Lee Regret, and Sergeant Depro were waiting at Heart Mountain for their rendezvous with Mean to His Horses. The army wagon that Depro had used to transport the guns and ammunition up from Fort Keogh was pushed up into a ravine and covered with sage brush.
“Here they come,” Davis said.
“They?” Depro said. “What do you mean, they? I thought we were dealing with just Mean to His Horses.”
There’s five of them, and each one of them is leading a pack horse,” Davis said. “It makes sense when you think about it. There’s no way Mean to His Horses could get all those guns back by his ownself.”
“I reckon you are right,” Depro said. “But I don’t like it.”
“Bet you’ll like spending all that money though,” Regret said.
“Yeah, I’ll like that just fine,” Depro agreed.
&nb
sp; “You have guns?” Mean to His Horses asked as he and the other Indians rode up.
“You have gold?” Davis replied.
Mean to His Horses threw down two bags. Davis opened the bags and dumped the contents out on the ground. They were all twenty-dollar gold pieces.
“Good Lord,” Regret said. “There must be two hundred of them.”
“Give me guns,” Mean to His Horses said.
“They are in the wagon,” Davis said, pointing to the ravine where the wagon lay, covered with sage.
“You’re going to need bullets for them guns, chief,” Depro said. “And that’s goin’ to cost you extry.”
“Already I give you more money than you ask,” Mean to His Horses said. “I will take bullets too.”
“Huh, uh. Not without payin’ extry, you ain’t,” Depro said.
Mean to His Horses was already armed, and he raised his rifle and pointed it at Depro.
“Give me bullets,” he said. “Or I will kill you and take the bullets.”
“Back off, Depro,” Davis shouted. “The chief is right. There is more money here than we asked for.”
“All right, all right!” Depro said, holding up his hands. “Take the bullets. Davis is right. I reckon you have already paid for ’em.”
All the Indians but Mean to His Horses had already gathered around the wagon and were jabbering excitedly among themselves as they broke open the boxes and began pulling out the guns. They started whooping and hollering and dancing around, holding the rifles over their heads.
“Boys, I think we would be smart to ease on out of here while they are busy with those guns,” Davis suggested.
“What about the wagon?” Depro said. “We can’t leave it here.”
“Why not?”
“It’s got army markings on it. Sixth Cavalry markings. If someone finds it here, they can trace it back to me. I ain’t leavin’ without that wagon.”
“Depro, take it from me,” Davis said. “If you don’t leave without the wagon, you won’t leave at all. I think them Injuns mean to kill us.”
“Davis is right,” Regret said. “We need to get out of here now.”
“Yeah,” Depro finally agreed. “Yeah, that’s probably a pretty good idea.”
The three men slipped off quietly, leading their horses until they were some distance away. Then, mounting, they rode off at a gallop.
One hour later, after the three divided the money, Depro started back to where he had left the wagon. It was his intention to burn it so that nobody would ever be able to recognize it and connect it to him. He had just gotten the fire started when two Indians came out of the brush and grabbed him.
Cinnabar
Falcon had not gone far when he realized that he was being followed; but who it was, and for what purpose, he didn’t know. He altered his route, leaving the main street and choosing the new route, not only to see if he actually was being followed, but also because he saw ahead of him several open lots. One of the lots was filled with cut logs, preparatory to building a cabin. If he was being followed, this would be good place to confront them.
When Falcon reached the lot where the construction was pending, he stepped off the street and slipped in behind the logs. Pulling his gun, he looked back into the direction from which he had come.
By the light of a full moon and the ambient light of the nearest street lamp, he saw the men who were following him. He could see their forms, but not their faces, so he would have been unable to identify them even if he had known them.
There were three of them, all with drawn pistols. They had come off the main street and were now walking in the same direction Falcon had taken, pausing for a moment to look around. Evidently they had not seen him slip behind the logs and now they were wondering what happened to him.
From the center of the town could still be heard the raucous sounds of cowboys celebrating their selection or lamenting their failure. There were shouts, laughter, and loud conversations, even as the discordant singing continued to do battle with the tinkling of the only piano in town.
“What the hell?” Slayton asked. “Where did he go, Dewey?”
“I don’t know, one minute he was right in front of us, the next minute he was gone,” Dewey answered. “He just disappeared, like a haint or somethin’.”
“MacCallister ain’t no haint, I can tell you that,” Taylor said. When you and the others left me behind back at the train robbery, I got a chance to see him up real close, remember?”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t have no choice, we had to leave you,” Dewey replied. “But we come to break you out of jail, so you really ain’t got no complaint now, have you?”
“Keep your eyes open. He has to be down here, somewhere,” Slayton said.
“Yeah, Slayton, we know he is here somewhere,” Dewey said. “We all seen him come this way. The question is, where?”
“Wherever he is, I aim to find him, and I aim to kill the son of a bitch,” Slayton said.
“Ebersole said don’t kill him yet,” Dewey said.
“I don’t care what Ebersole said, I say we should kill him. Hell, I should have killed the bastard back in Sheridan when I had the chance.”
“Haw,” Taylor said. “From what I heard, you didn’t have no chance with him back in Sheridan.”
“That’s ’cause he got the drop on me when I wasn’t lookin’,” Slayton said. “Well, I’m lookin’ now, and I aim to kill ’im.”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Maybe we should go back and get Ebersole, Peters and Hawkins.”
“No, I think Slayton is right,” Dewey said. “Ebersole and the others is keepin’ an eye on Buffalo Bill, and we may not get another chance this good. Besides, there’s three of us and only one of MacCallister. Just how damn hard can it be for three people to kill one man?”
“From what I’ve heard of MacCallister, it ain’t goin’ to be easy, even with the three of us,” Taylor said.
Because he had overheard the conversation, Falcon now knew who was after him. He recognized Taylor’s voice and knew that he was the one they had captured after the aborted train robbery. And from Taylor’s comment about being left behind, he knew that the other man must have been one of the train robbers who escaped. He recognized Slayton too, from the run in he had with him back in Sheridan. What he did not understand is why Slayton was with the train robbers.
Looking around, Falcon saw a fairly good-sized rock lying on the ground. He picked it up and tossed it toward a rock outcropping. As he hoped it would, it made a loud, chinking sound.
“He’s over there, by them rocks!” he heard one of them yell out loud.
“Shoot him! Shoot the son of a bitch!”
All three men began shooting then. The night was illuminated with muzzle flashes as guns roared and bullets screamed as they ricocheted off into the darkness. There were flashes of orange light as the bullets sparked little fireballs when they hit the rocks.
Falcon was well positioned to pick out his targets. The three shooters were clearly visible in the moon’s glow, backlit by the street lamp behind them, and illuminated by their own muzzle flashes. They made perfect targets, and Falcon picked one of them off with one shot.
“Damn! He’s seen us!”
“Son of a bitch! He ain’t by the rocks, he’s over there! Kill him! Kill the son of a bitch before he kills us!” the other yelled.
Amazingly, the remaining two attackers made no attempt to find cover or to run away. Instead, they stood their ground and continued to shoot at him.
Falcon shot two more times, and the final two went down.
Then it was quiet, except for the barking of some nearby dogs and the ongoing singing and celebration from Cinnabar’s lone saloon. A billowing cloud of gun smoke drifted up over the deadly battlefield and Falcon walked out among the fallen assailants, moving cautiously, his pistol at the ready.
He needn’t have been so cautious. All three men were dead.
By now the insistent singing o
f the cowboys had won over the piano player and the piano joined them as more began to sing, the words and celebratory music incongruent with the scene that had just played out in this open lot, could be heard all over the little town.
Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight,
Come out tonight, come out tonight?
Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight
And dance by the light of the moon?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Leaving the empty lot, Falcon went to get George and Sherman Canfield, Bill Cody, and Prentiss Ingraham so he could bring them back to the scene of the shooting. George Sherman was carrying a lantern and he held it down low, enabling them to see the faces of the three men Falcon had shot.
“Do you know them, Falcon?”
“I can’t say as I know them,” Falcon said. “But I know the names of two of them.” He pointed. “That one is Billy Taylor. Last time we saw him, he was in jail back in Bismarck.”
“And this fella is named Slayton,” Ingraham said. “Last time we saw him, he was in Sheridan.”
“I wonder how Taylor got out of jail,” Cody said.
“From what I overheard, this man is one of the ones who attempted to hold up the train,” Falcon answered, pointing to Dewey’s body. “And they broke Taylor out of jail.”
“They broke him out?” Cody asked, emphasizing the word “they.”
“Yes.”
“That means the rest of them might be here.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Falcon said.
“Seems strange that Slayton was with them though,” Ingraham said. “I mean, how do you suppose that came about?”
“My guess is they were looking for us, and when they came through Sheridan they recruited Slayton,” Falcon said.
“Yes, I can see that,” Cody said. “It’s for sure that Slayton had ill feelings toward you.”
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