by Tim Champlin
The horse ran back and forth two or three more times, but finding escape impossible, he finally stopped at the far end of the barn and stood quivering and looking wild-eyed at us, his ears pricked forward.
Curt climbed down from his spot on the loft ladder and slipped some bills from his billfold.
"Here's a hundred. Take it or leave it."
The fat owner hesitated, but when Curt started to put the money away, he reached for it quickly and turned away, muttering under his breath.
"Throw a saddle and bridle on him when he calms down, and in the meantime I'll be looking over your stock of mules."
"Have you got a bill of sale for that pony you want to trade?"
"No," Curt replied. "He's an Indian pony we found running wild on the plains northeast of here."
"How can I be sure of that?"
"If you'll take a good look at him, you can tell he's never been owned by a white man."
Wiley, who was more of an authority on mules, picked out a good one, and after more haggling, Curt paid the owner another seventy dollars difference for him and a double-rigged McClellan saddle.
When we had signed the appropriate papers and were leading our two animals from the barn, I could contain my curiosity no longer.
"How did you know there was something wrong with that horse, Curt?"
"Did you notice that brand on his hip?"
"Yeah. It says 'U.S.' He's an old cavalry horse."
"I mean the other brand just below it."
I looked again. "Oh, yes. I didn't know what it was. Looks like the letters I. C."
"That's right. It stands for Inspected and Condemned. The Quartermaster Corps has found him unfit for army service. But at first I couldn't figure out why. He's not over four years old, and he appeared to be sound in limb and wind. And then it finally came to me. A lot of horses are rejected because they can never get used to the sound of gunfire. And that's a fatal flaw for a cavalry horse. I guessed right about this one."
"Where are we going to keep these animals?" Wiley asked. "Don't you want to leave them at the livery?"
"No. He'll probably jack up the price of boarding them because I got 'em for a little less money. Besides, you never know what the night will bring. I want them handy in case we need them in a hurry for some reason," Curt replied.
Wiley and Cathy and I looked our questions at each other. What could possibly happen? It was okay to be prepared, but I thought Curt was getting a little overly cautious.
There was a somewhat level, grassy area behind our hotel at the base of the steeper hill. It was here that Curt and Wiley picketed the horse and mule for the night before we retired to our rooms. All of us gathered in Cathy's corner room and moved our chairs near the window to have a good view of Main Street. As night gradually came on, we could see more people arriving from the north end of town, apparently from the creeks and Crook City. The people were getting ready to really give a welcoming celebration to the long-awaited troops. Bonfires flared up on the hillsides and even in the street. I could hear the steam whistle from the sawmill sounding off. Soldiers surged up and down the street in groups and mingled with the citizens. Every few minutes the concussion of an explosion blasted our ears as someone set off a powder charge on an anvil.
The last light of day, combining with the wavering light of the bonfires below us, showed that there were more women in Deadwood than I had originally thought. Both the upper and lower windows of the saloons, eating houses, wash houses, and the Grand Central Hotel were crowded with them—women of all ages and appearances. I noticed Cathy eyeing these women also.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"About what?"
"Those women. Are they wives, mothers, cooks, laundresses, ladies of the evening? What are they all doing in a town two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest railroad in an area surrounded by hostile Indians?"
"I hate to say it, but I imagine that most of them are harlots. I've seen the type in other frontier mining camps —the ones who are too old or ugly to practice their trade in more civilized towns." She gave a little shudder. "I feel so sorry for them. They're really pitiful."
"Well, there may be some of them here on legitimate business," I said to brighten her up. "I saw two women dealing blackjack in a couple of the places we passed today. And there were some women cooks at the Grand Central, where we ate, too."
"You can't really believe those hard-looking harpies are actually honest working women?" She was incredulous. "The cooks may be, and there are probably some storekeepers' wives here, though," she conceded. "And now and then I suppose a woman could wind up in a place like this due to some odd set of circumstances. Look at me. Four months ago I never would have dreamed I would be here, especially with the likes of you." She laughed and gave me a shove.
We were interrupted by a chant set up by the crowd in the street below us: "We want Buck! We want Buck! We want Buck!"
The chant was taken up by others, until the whole street rocked with the voices of some two thousand people shouting in unison.
And they didn't have long to wait. In two or three minutes the chant broke into wild cheering as the bearded general appeared on the balcony of the Grand Central Hotel. He began to address the crowd, but we were too far away to catch more than a word or two now and then. He was interrupted often by laughter and applause.
Shortly after he finished speaking, General Buck and several of the officers who were staying at the Grand Central were escorted by some of the town officials to some waiting buggies and driven off toward the upper end of town where they disappeared from our sight.
"Probably going to take in a show at that big tent theater just beyond the cemetery," Curt surmised. "Except for the hell holes on Main Street, it's probably the only entertainment in town."
"Where are the rest of the troops staying?" Wiley asked. "The officers probably got all the hotel space."
"They're camped just out of town on one of the creeks, I'd guess. At least, those that haven't got the strength or inclination to spend the night in town drinking and gambling and blowing their summer's pay."
I backed away from the window and struck a match to the coal-oil lamp, and the darkening room sprang into light again. Then I tore a piece off my old shirttail and proceeded to clean my rifle. Curt joined me in cleaning my Colt. We got them pretty thoroughly dried out to prevent any rusting, but lacked anything we could use in the way of a cleaning rod for the rifle. And we had no oil. But we compromised by pouring a little coal oil from the lamp down the barrel and on all the moving parts to give them a protective coating until we could get something better.
"I hope the troops move out of here tomorrow. I don't want to stay cooped up in this room for a couple of days or longer."
"You and me both."
There was too much noise in our hotel and up and down the street for any real sleep that night, but we decided to give it a try, anyway. M a precaution, Wiley slept with my rifle on the floor in his sister's room, and Curt and I shared the other room and kept the revolver. In spite of the occasional gunshots that brought me up, tense, and the drunken shouting and banging around in the hallways and other rooms of our hotel, I finally slept sometime after midnight. The last thing I remember was the faint sound of several voices trying to sing to the accompaniment of a hurdy-gurdy.
CHAPTER 5
I awoke to silence and opened my eyes to full daylight and a cool breeze rustling the curtains at the window. I had slept so soundly that it took me a minute or two to remember where I was, as I rolled over on the floor and threw back the quilt I had wrapped myself in. I stretched, got up, and went to the window in my long johns. The breeze carried the fresh smell of pine. Even though the Hills were known for their rain and snow, the weather had relented for the time being and the blue sky contained only a few small fluffy clouds. From the angle of the sun on the buildings across the street, I guessed it was at least nine o'clock. I had been more tired than I realized.
I glanc
ed around at Curt, but he was still dead to the world. When I looked back at the street, I was suddenly struck by the absence of people, especially for this time of morning. I saw two or three pedestrians, and as I looked, a lone horseman passed down the street. Apparently, the whole town was sleeping off its celebration of the night before. Or they were all at work somewhere.
It wasn't until a half-hour later, when the four of us had dressed and gone down the street to breakfast, that we discovered the soldiers had departed early that morning. They were on the way south toward Custer City, much to my relief and the relief of Curt and the two Jenkinses.
After breakfast we retrieved our horse and mule from behind the hotel and went shopping for provisions. We bought rice and sugar and coffee, onions, dried beans and canned tomatoes, shovels and picks, a compass, matches, bedrolls, ponchos, tin mess-gear and pans, bacon and flour, and, optimistically, another small buckskin pouch for gold. We also replenished our ammunition and bought another good, used Colt .44 and two holsters and belts. I made a leather loop for my Winchester on the Morgan's saddle.
Wiley, with much experience as a mule packer, rigged a homemade wooden pack saddle, removed the light McClellan, and lashed the pack expertly on our mule. The whole load didn't weigh much over 120 pounds.
While Wiley was rigging our pack, the rest of us made some discreet inquiries of the hotel clerk about gold prospects in the area. But he had come to Deadwood only two weeks before, and knew next to nothing about it. He was a small, thin man, who appeared more interested in making his money from behind a counter than on the business end of a shovel.
"How about the claims office?" Cathy suggested as we stood in the middle of the street, undecided about which way to start out. "At least they'll know which claims have already been staked." It struck me as the most practical suggestion we had heard.
But this proved to be less than enlightening. Since we weren't familiar with the names or locations of most of the creeks, or the details of the topography, the information we got did not help us that much.
"Let's drop in at the Golden Eagle Saloon and ask Burnett," Wiley suggested.
"Who's Burnett?"
"Pat Burnett—you know—the bartender. Bartenders know everything."
"Good idea."
"Is Jenkins an Irish name?" Curt asked Wiley as we tied our mounts to a hitching rail out front.
"English. Why?"
"You can think of some of the darnedest reasons to get a drink."
"It is hot out here," he said with a grin.
The Golden Eagle was dark and cool, and Burnett was sitting on a stool behind the bar with nothing to do.
"Business a little slow?"
"So far. But we had enough last night to last about three days," he answered, stuffing a yawn. "Coulda used a little more sleep this morning myself."
We ordered a beer and began to pump him about prospecting sites. As it turned out, he had been in Deadwood since its founding and was familiar with most of the region.
"I do a good bit of prospecting myself whenever I get a chance," he told us. "'Course I'm not going to tell you where my favorite spot is, 'cause I'm getting ready to stake a claim myself if it pans out. But if I was you, I'd head south of town, a little deeper into the hills. The creeks up north toward Crook City are pretty well staked out, but there's some likely-looking country a little farther south. There are prospectors in there now, but they are the brave or foolish ones. Until the troops came, the Indians was kiln' off most of the men who went out there. As a matter of fact, and near as anybody can estimate, we've had about four hundred people killed by Indians in the Hills just this year. Folks coming into town nearly every day reportin' scalped bodies in the remote canyons or along the trails."
We looked at each other significantly.
"You wouldn't be joshin' us a little, now would you?" Wiley asked, "just to scare us off your prospectin' territory?"
"Nope," he replied soberly. He waved his hand in a general southerly direction. "There's plenty gold out there for anyone who has the guts to go look for it I'd probably be out there every day if I wasn't so fond of keeping what hair I have left. The Sioux and Cheyenne are really sore about us taking their hills. In fact, the first preacher in town, Reverend Smith, was killed and scalped last month. He was just walkin' up the gulch one afternoon to preach at the next town, but he never got there. A miner found his body along the road next day and brought him in."
He went on to tell us the general lay of the land. He even got out a pencil and paper and sketched from memory the major creeks and canyons, indicating the corduroy road that snaked a sinuous way south to Custer City, some sixty miles away.
Curt thanked him, folded the map, and was tucking it away when the bat-wing doors flew open and four men burst in, talking and laughing loudly. Ignoring us, they shoved up to the bar and ordered whiskey. They were dirty and unshaven and obviously had been drinking for some time. Burnett went to wait on them, and they paid for their drinks with greenbacks. I took a closer look at them. Under the dirt and grime, they were wearing remnants of cavalry uniforms. Apparently they were deserters, or else had been lying drunk somewhere in town when the regiment moved out this morning.
As the man closest to us threw back his head and gulped the jigger down, his bloodshot eyes fastened on Cathy.
"Hey, gal, kin I buy ya a drink?" he leered, showing tobacco-stained teeth.
"No." She moved away from his hand, which was reaching for her arm.
"Aw, c'mon, baby, let's you and me have some fun I got money." His companions looked on, grinning.
I noticed they were still wearing their standard-issue Colts. "Better leave her alone," I cautioned him as I noticed the look in Curt's and Wiley's eyes. "She doesn't work in here. She's with us."
For the first time, he looked at me. "Get your own girl," he said, shortly. "I just asked this girl to have a drink with me." He glared at me, his hand dropping toward his gun belt.
"Back off, Private Arnold!"
The voice at my shoulder cracked like a whip.
The man's jaw dropped slightly and his eyes shifted to Curt's face. As recognition slowly penetrated the alcoholic haze, his slack-jawed surprise at being called by name slowly changed to an arrogant grin.
"Well, by God! Boys, look who it is. Old Cap'n Wilder, himself. Fancy meetin' you here. Have a drink with us—now that we're all in the same boat, so to speak." He winked familiarly and laughed. His three companions had still not spoken.
"Get out of my sight!" Curt said in a low, deadly tone.
Arnold turned his head toward his friends, and in mock seriousness said, "Can you imagine an Injun-lovin' deserter bein' too good to drink with us?"
Wilder's jaw muscles tightened and I eased back out of the way. But Arnold's friends, who were not as drunk as he, saw the dangerous turn things were taking.
"Come on, Milo, we don't want any trouble. Let's get out of here," one urged.
"Yeh. I met a couple o' girls down at Myra's place last night. Let's go down there," another one said, taking him by the arm.
But Arnold shook off the hand. "Not until I teach this uppity sonuvabitch a lesson," he snarled.
Curt and I were the only ones of our group who were armed. Wiley pulled Cathy off to one side, away from the bar. From a glance at his face, I knew he wanted to get into the fight, but he also knew this would not be settled with fists. Arnold's friends also had moved aside.
"You're drunk. Get out of here," Curt said as if dismissing the whole thing.
"Not till I teach you a lesson, you smart-mouthed, Injun-lovin' West Pointer. You're no damn better than we are. You deserted just like the rest of us. Only difference is, we didn't leave 'cause we were afraid to fight. We'd just had enough of you and all your, officer buddies treatin' us like niggers."
I could see Curt's face growing slightly redder, and I knew the man was getting to him. But none of the rest of us said anything. As long as it was between the two of them, it was a fair fight
. Even Burnett, who, I'm sure, had a shotgun behind the bar, was not interfering.
Finally, Curt turned away from the bar and faced his tormentor. "Okay, private, you've had your say. Now make your move or crawl out of here with your tall between your legs!"
With a choking cry of rage, Arnold reached for his gun. Curt leaped to his right as he grabbed for his own Colt. Arnold's gun roared a split second ahead of Curt's, but Arnold was the one who staggered back, clutching at his right thigh with his free hand. Curt's gun roared again as Arnold raised his gun for a second shot. Arnold fired. Both men missed, and through the cloud of powder smoke I saw the front window disappear in a shower of glass. When his leg gave way, Arnold had caught himself from falling by hooking his right elbow on the bar. As he braced his arm along the bar and cocked his gun to lire again, Wilder leaped forward and brought ins gUi barrel down on the soldier's right wrist, knocking the revolver loose. It skidded across the polished wood and fell behind the bar. Then Curt brought his gun barrel up, pistol-whipping him across the right temple, knocking him to the floor, where he lay half-stunned.
The fight was over, and Curt stood, breathing heavily, as Arnold's friends rushed to his aid. I saw Burnett relax his grip on something below the bar, and I looked at Wiley and Cathy, who were just getting up from behind an overturned table. I had been so interested in the fight, I had forgotten to take cover during the few seconds it lasted.
My ears were still ringing from the explosions and my nose stinging from the acrid powder when I heard a thundering of hooves outside and looked up to see a six-horse hitch gallop by at full speed, pulling a stagecoach. In a second, the fight was forgotten, and I ran for the door. I didn't know what was wrong, but I had never seen a coach driven full tilt through a town that way.
As I hit the bright sunlight in the street, other men were running from buildings, looking toward the runaway. I caught a glimpse of someone's back on the box, someone apparently trying to halt the flying team. Two men on horseback finally caught up with the lead horses as the coach neared the lower end of Main Street. Before the team could be stopped, the stage had careened out of sight around a bend in the street.