“Finally, me ’n two other men said we would climb the rigging, so up we went. Well, sir, I’m a-tellin’ you, that ship was rollin’ from side to side so much that I was hangin’ out over the sea ’bout as much as I was over the deck.”
Elmer stopped talking and took a swallow of his coffee, then bit into a sweet roll. “This is the best eatin’ I ever done outdoors.”
“Yes, well never mind all that. Just finish the story, will you, please,” Dewey asked. He, Woodward, and Martin had been riveted to the tale.
“What do you mean finish the story? Seems to me like I purt nigh did finish it.”
“No, you ain’t finished it atall. Last you said was that you was hangin’ on for dear life, sometimes over the deck ’n sometimes over the sea. So what happened?”
“Yeah,” Woodward asked. “What happened?”
“Oh. Well, once we got the sails reefed, we just tightened up the hawsers that was holdin’ the ship tied to the dock, ’n rode the storm out just as pretty as you please.”
“Tied to the dock?” Martin said. “What dock?”
“Oh. Well, that would be the dock at Port Moresby.”
“Port? You said you was in the middle of the ocean!”
“What are you talkin’ about? I never said we was in the middle of the ocean.”
“You damn sure did. You said you was six days from New Caledonia.”
“That’s right, we was. It took us six days to get from New Caledonia to Port Moresby.”
Duff, and Hanson laughed out loud, but Dewey, Woodward, and Martin didn’t appreciate it as much.
“Damn, Elmer, you’re as full of it as a Christmas goose,” Dewey said.
Duff put an end to the storytelling. “Elmer, it’s time to get the night riders out.”
“All right, I’ll take it from now until ten. Dewey, you got it from ten till twelve, Martin, from twelve till two, and Woodward, from two till four. I’ll relieve you at four.”
“There’s no need for you to do a double shift,” Hanson said. “I would be glad to take the four o’clock watch.”
Elmer glanced toward Duff.
“Why not?” Duff said with a smile. “They’re his cows, after all. Who would have a greater interest in watchin’ over the herd?”
“All right,” Elmer said. “Mr. Hanson, I’ll wake you at eight bells.”
“Bells?” Woodward questioned. “What do you mean, bells? Don’t you go ringin’ no bells in the middle of the night.”
“There’ll be no bells rung, you landlubber, you,” Elmer said. “This is talk that only me ’n Mr. Hanson ’n Duff can understand.”
“As long as there ain’t no bells rung to wake me up.”
“Don’t you worry none ’bout gettin’ woke up,” Martin said to Woodward. “When it comes time for you to relieve me, if you don’t wake up, I’ll get you woke up with a bucket of water from the cook wagon.”
“You no get water from my wagon,” Wang said.
“Yeah, I will, too.”
Wang picked up a knife. “How you carry water, if you no have hand?”
Woodward laughed. “Ha! The Chinaman got your butt, didn’t he?”
“Yeah? Well, you just wake up when I come for you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Some nine hundred miles south of where Duff and company had spent the night, Val Cyr dismounted to relieve himself. He had seen a lot in his fifty-three years. He had ridden the outlaw trail even before the war, and when the war started he joined up with Bill Anderson where he continued doing what he had been doing all along—robbing, burning, and killing. But then robbing, burning, and killing became, according to Anderson, a patriotic duty.
Cyr remembered 1864 as a summer of violence, when the men riding with Anderson went on a campaign that killed hundreds.
Cyr was the bloodiest of all the raiders, surpassing even Bloody Bill Anderson in his killing. Then, on September 27, Anderson’s gang captured a passenger train, the first time Confederate guerrillas had done so. Moving through the train, they robbed all the men onboard, taking almost ten thousand dollars. Twenty-four Union soldiers were among them, and they were taken off the train and shot. The civilian passengers were allowed to leave, but they had to do so on foot, because the train was set on fire.
With the train burning behind him, Anderson set out to pillage the town of Centralia, Missouri. When more than one hundred Union soldiers pursued them, the guerrillas were made aware that they were being trailed, and they turned from the pursued to the pursuers.
The Union soldiers had thought they were chasing no more than twenty or thirty men, but the number was much greater. They were surprised and ambushed.
“Bugler, blow retr—” That was as far as the captain got before he was cut down. Val Cyr personally shot the bugler when he lifted the instrument to his lips.
For the next several minutes, pistols, rifles, and carbines roared as gun smoke roiled up over the town in an acrid smelling, blue-gray cloud. Soon the saddle of every Union mount was empty, their riders either dead or dying on the ground. After the storm of battle was over, Cyr walked through the street shooting those who were wounded, and even the few who attempted to surrender.
“Ease up a bit there, Cyr,” Anderson called out to him. “There ain’t none of them boys goin’ to be able to do us any harm.”
“They’re Yankees, ain’t they?” Cyr asked.
“They’re Yankees, all right.”
“Then there ain’t no need in leavin’ any of ’em alive.” Cyr saw one wounded soldier lying with his head on a young woman’s lap. “Get away from ’im,” he ordered.
The woman shook her head no. “This is my husband and I will not leave him.”
“Have it your way,” Cyr said. “But if you get a bullet in your leg when I shoot this damn Yankee, don’t blame me.” He pulled the hammer back on his pistol and aimed it at the head of the wounded soldier, but before he could pull the trigger, he heard the click of the hammer being pulled back on another pistol. Looking toward the sound, he saw Elmer Gleason pointing a Navy Colt at him.
Elmer shook his head no. “There ain’t no need in killin’ that feller, or any of the other ones that’s already been shot. There can’t none of ’em hurt us now.”
“Like I told Anderson, he’s a Yankee, and I’m goin’ to kill him.”
“If you kill him, I’ll kill you,” Elmer said calmly.
“What the hell’s got into you, Elmer?” Cyr demanded. “Me ’n you is cousins. And now you’re tellin’ me you’re goin’ to kill me?”
“Yeah, I’m tellin’ you that if you kill that man, I’m goin’ to kill you,” Gleason said. “Ambushin’ these fellers while they was all armed, and comin’ after us was one thing. But killin’ ’em while they’re lyin’ there wounded ’n half dead, ain’t right. I don’t intend to do it ’n I don’t intend to let you do it. Leastwise, not with any more of ’em.”
“You’re growin’ soft, Elmer,” Cyr said with a sneer. “You might want to think about gettin’ into another line o’ work.” With that, he lowered the hammer on his pistol, then turned and walked away.
One month later, on October 26, 1864, the Yankees located Bloody Bill Anderson just outside Glasgow, Missouri. Though greatly outnumbered, Anderson and his men charged the Union forces, killing five or six of them, before encountering heavy fire. Only Anderson and Elmer Gleason continued the attack, Elmer riding side by side with his leader. The others retreated.
Anderson was hit by a bullet behind his ear and killed instantly. Not until then did Elmer turn and join the others in retreat. Four other guerrillas were also killed in the attack, but the rest of the men were able to escape.
After that battle, Cyr went out on his own, not to find another venue to fight the war, but to continue to rob and kill, though he was doing it for himself. By the time the war ended, he was too well-known to remain in Missouri, so he drifted into Kansas.
He knew all the saloons and gambling dens in all the wild to
wns such as Hays City, Dodge City, and Abilene. He spent his ill-gotten gains on the half-nude girls with pretty faces and heavily shadowed eyes who plied their avocation in such places, and lost money to the pale-skinned and thin-lipped gamblers with their broadcloth frock coats and wide-brimmed flat-crowned hats.
Cyr shook off twenty years of memories and buttoned up his trousers, remounted, and continued to ride through the deep, narrow, steep-walled canyons and flat mesas of the surrounding countryside. He was out of money, he was hungry, and he was thirsty for some whiskey. Then he saw something just ahead that would take care of that problem for him.
The small, ripsawed timber building had only one word on the sign out front. STORE. It was surviving in the middle of nowhere, precisely because it was in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was twenty miles south, and across the line into Verde County.
Cyr dismounted in front of the store, blew his nose onto the ground, and pulled his pistol. Holding his gun down by his side close to his leg, he stepped in through the door. A small bell tinkled, announcing his presence.
The inside of the store was in deep shadows. Dust motes floated in the few bars of light that managed to make it through the dirty windows.
“I’ll be right with you,” a disembodied voice called from somewhere in the little building. “I’ve just been takin’ me an inventory of what I’m a-goin’ to be needin’ to order when the wagon comes through next.” A small, bald-headed man wearing a white apron and wire-rim glasses came out of the back room, rubbing his hands together. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Without so much as a word, Cyr raised his pistol and shot the man in the forehead. “You can die for me.”
Stepping around behind the bar, he pulled out the cash drawer and smiled. “You was doin’ all right for yourself, wasn’t you? There must be over a hunnert dollars here.” He gathered up all the money and stuffed it into his pocket. Then, taking three bottles of whiskey, a few cans of beans, and a couple cans of peaches, he left the store.
Chugwater
From the Chugwater Defender:
Cattle On The Move
Though railroads have nearly put an end to the trail drives of old, it is still necessary for ranchers some distance removed from the nearest railhead to continue with the practice. That is the case with the cattle recently purchased by Mr. Cal Hanson, an Englishman who has come to America to go into the cattle business.
As reported in an article previous, Mr. Hanson chose to come to our own Laramie County where he has made the purchase of six hundred head of Black Angus cattle from local rancher Duff MacCallister. Mr. MacCallister is credited with introducing Black Angus into Wyoming, and indeed, is one of the earliest western proponents of the breed.
One can readily see the advantage of Black Angus cattle when it is realized that but one cow of this superior breed will bring, at the market, two times as much money as a Hereford, and four times as much as a longhorn. The current price of a Black Angus cow at the Kansas City Market is sixty dollars a head.
There were two saloons in Chugwater. One, of course, was Fiddlers’ Green, owned and operated by Duff’s friend Biff Johnson. The other was the Wild Hog. It made no pretensions toward gentility, nor even sanitation.
The Wild Hog existed for the sole purpose of providing inexpensive drinks to a clientele who didn’t care if the wide plank floor was unpainted and stained with spilled liquor and expectorated tobacco juice. The saloon did offer food from a menu that was prepared in its own kitchen, primarily biscuits, bacon, eggs, beans, and fried potatoes. In addition to the plate lunches, a couple jars were always sitting on the bar, the vinegar in the jar discolored by unclean hands dipping into it to extract its contents, mostly boiled eggs and pickled pigs’ feet.
One other major thing set it apart from Fiddlers’ Green, and that distinction ensured a brisk business for the Wild Hog. The difference was in the women who were employed by the two saloons. Whereas the girls who worked the bar at Fiddlers’ Green provided pleasant conversation and flirtatious company only, the women who worked at the Wild Hog were soiled doves, who, for a price, would extend their hospitality to the brothel maintained on the second floor of the saloon. Nippy Jones, who owned the Wild Hog, made it very clear to the girls he hired that they would be expected to offer that service.
Two of the Wild Hog customers, Vic Forney and Henry Crump, were nursing a beer at a table in the back of the saloon. Unable to afford any of the girls, though the opportunity to enjoy the services of the soiled doves had been presented to them, they had eaten a lunch, of sorts, from the free boiled eggs and pickled pigs’ feet in the jars on the bar.
Crump had also picked up from the bar a free copy of the Chugwater Defender and was reading a story with great interest.
“Hey, Forney, you know what Black Angus cows is bringin’ in in Kansas City?” Crump asked, tapping the newspaper with his finger. ‘They’re bringin’ sixty dollars a head.”
“Well now, ain’t that just real interestin’?” Forney replied. “But tell me, Crump, what the hell does that have to do with us?” He punctuated his question by taking a bite from the pig’s foot he was eating.
“I tell you what it has to do with us. Money, that’s what it means.”
“You ain’t talkin’ about rustlin’ them cows, are you? ’Cause oncet you rustle cows, the next thing you got to do is drive ’em somewhere. Then you got to sell ’em. You damn sure ain’t goin’ to be gettin’ no sixty dollars a head for ’em when you sell ’em.”
“You’re right. That’s how come we ain’t goin’ to be stealin’ no cows.”
Forney looked up from the pig’s foot. “Then where at is the money comin’ from?”
“The Englishman that bought the cows is the same one that put thirty thousand dollars in the bank here. Now you know damn well he didn’t pay no thirty thousand dollars for the cattle, ’n that means he still has it on him. That’s where we’re goin’ to get the money. We’re goin’ to take it from him.”
“Where?”’
“We’ll find a place.”
On the trail
The herd was three days out, and had stopped on the banks of Lodge Pole Creek. Water and good grass ensured that they would have no problem keeping the cattle together on what would be their last night out. Elmer had given Wang a night off, and cooked a breaded fried steak with biscuits and gravy for supper. Even Hanson had gotten in on it, making a bread pudding.
“Whoa, this is good,” Martin said. “I ain’t never tasted nothin’ like this before. Who woulda thought you could make old bread taste this good?”
“I do believe that this will be our last night on the trail. That is correct, is it not?” Hanson asked.
“Aye, ’tis correct. We’ll be to Cheyenne by noon tomorrow, but the cattle train isn’t scheduled to be there until day after tomorrow, so we’ll put the cattle in holding pens and spend tomorrow night in Cheyenne. When we get there, I shall send a telegram to Jason Bowles, and I’ve nae doubt but that he’ll meet you with some men to help get the cattle out to your ranch. Elmer, Wang, and I will be along as soon as we can get another train lined up.”
“You’re going on, are you, Wang?” Hanson asked.
“I wish to see Texas.”
“Well, if you like Texas, and you want to stay there, I’d be happy to give you a job.”
“I belong to Mr. MacCallister,” Wang said.
“I understand, my friend. I truly understand.”
“Who has first watch tonight?” Martin asked as he cleaned his mess kit and put it back into his saddlebag.
“I think you do,” Dewey said. “I follow you.”
“Good. Don’t be late.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”
“If you ain’t out there to relieve me on time, I’m just liable to dump a whole bucket of water on you,” Martin said. “And it won’t cost me my hand to do it, ’cause I won’t have to get it from Wang’s wagon this time. I can get it right out of the creek.�
� He chuckled as he mounted his horse and rode out to keep watch on the herd.
“Hey, Martin,” Dewey called. “How ’bout you sing to them cows a bit, get ’em all calmed down for me.”
“Whoa, what are you talkin’ about Dewey?” Woodward asked. “You ever heard that boy sing? He sounds like a coyote with his foot caught in a beaver trap.”
The others laughed.
Chapter Eighteen
After breakfast the next morning, they got the cattle moving for the last ten miles, and by noon they were in Cheyenne, on schedule, loading the cattle into the holding pens.
Woodward, Martin, and Dewey, after getting a bonus payment from Duff, started back home.
Cheyenne
Wang and Elmer stayed in town with Duff. They were going on to Texas to deliver half of the herd. The first train wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the next day.
“Well, it would seem that we need accommodations for the night,” Hanson said. “Have you a suggestion?”
“You can’t beat the InterOcean Hotel,” Duff said. “What do you say we go check in at the hotel, get cleaned up, then have us a good meal at the Cheyenne Club?”
“An excellent idea, even for a Scotsman,” Hanson said with a little laugh. He looked around. “What happened to Elmer and Wang?”
“Cheyenne has a Little Chinatown. I expect they went there.”
Two men were standing in front of the gate as Duff and Hanson started to leave the pen.
“Excuse us, gentlemen, we are going to have to open the gate,” Duff said.
“Yeah, don’t let us get in the way,” one of the two men replied.
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