Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave

by Mark Mitten

  Glancing down the boarding table, Lee nodded in a friendly fashion towards the three strangers. Two of them appeared to be middle-aged, and the third seemed half that. One of the older men was dressed like a working cowman — from the wide-brimmed hat to the worn leather chaps to the rawhide gloves tucked in his belt. The other two wore dapper suits and, Lee imagined, were undoubtedly used to city lights more than starry nights.

  “Sam, them was fine eats and a bellyful to think on,” the cowman called to the store owner.

  Sam Singer ignored the comment. He worked his way back to the table with two heaping plates for Lee and Davis. Sam rarely spoke while carrying hot plates. It was hard to do two things at once. At least to do two things at once, and do them both well. It had been over a year since he dropped the last plate while trying to carry on a conversation. And he hated dropping plates. It was embarrassing and wasteful.

  “You boys riding for anyone?” the cowman asked.

  “Looking for cow work,” Lee replied and bit into a dill pickle. “Been up in Colorada punching for the B-Cross-C.”

  “Thought we might latch onto a wagon down this a’way,” Davis told him. “Thought to check the XIT…or head on down to the King.”

  The cowman looked over at his city companions, but they were busy sopping up gravy with their biscuits.

  “I’m AG Boyce,” he said, and introduced his friends. “This here is Mr. AL Matlock and his colleague Mr. George Findlay.”

  “Afternoon to you,” Mr. Matlock said in a sober Southern drawl, raising his gray eyes up from his plate. He looked them over thoughtfully, taking in their gear and demeanor.

  “Hello there. And how are you?” Findlay added, in a surprisingly deep voice and an equally surprising thick Scottish accent.

  Lee and Davis both looked straight at him, curiously. George Findlay was barely twenty years old and clearly out of his element. He kept glancing back and forth between Matlock and Boyce the whole time he sat at the table. Lee stared at him. He had a young boyish face, and not a hair on his chin — Mr. Findlay’s deep voice simply did not match the look. Lee pondered the incongruity while he cut into his beefsteak. It was downright bizarre.

  “I’m the new general manager of the XIT,” Boyce continued. “Things there are…changing.”

  Matlock and Boyce exchanged a look of firm resolve.

  Lee glanced up from his plate with immediate interest, but Davis was chewing mindlessly on a biscuit. He looked like a horse, with his jaw rolling around and his eyes half-closed. The two of them had been riding for too long in too much sun, and Davis was too sore and hungry to realize an opportunity was at hand. Of course, the pickle was fresh, the beefsteak well-seasoned and the coffee so tasty that even in the middle of this Texas heat Davis was enjoying it thoroughly. Emmanuel only knew how to scorch coffee. How many times had he told the man, you don’t boil the water. You let it simmer, but never boil. And since they quit the B-Cross, neither Lee nor Davis had thought to purchase a coffee pot for their kit…which became a daily gripe.

  Lee elbowed him.

  “You are just the man we need to speak with, then.” Lee said to Boyce. “Changing? How so?”

  “Well now,” Boyce went on. “Been a big change-up in management. And soon there will be a ranch-wide turnover of hands. We are in fact on our way out to the Yellow Houses headquarters right now to set this thing to spin.”

  AL Matlock studied them both closely. As a lawyer by trade, Matlock was in the business of distinguishing truth from lies. Experience gave him the sense to gauge a man’s reliability in a relatively short time. He liked how the Good Book put it: Ye shall know a tree by its fruits. A fig tree produces figs.

  “You boys interested in cow work?” he asked them.

  “Yessir,” Davis said, perking up. “Punching cattle, peeling broncs. Gather prairie chips if need be.”

  “May be part of it. We’re gonna need ropers, bulldoggers, men to handle the irons and the knife.”

  “All that and more,” Lee said, very genuinely. He could not believe their luck. Every single operation they rode through since quitting the B-Cross was no longer hiring. It was the middle of the season and most outfits had their quota.

  “The B-Cross-C,” Boyce said. “Beaver Creek. That’s Til Blancett’s outfit.”

  Lee and Davis both looked at him with surprise. The B-Cross was just a local brand in the backcountry of Colorado. There were a lot of small outfits tucked up in the Rockies. For a big Texas foreman to even be aware of the B-Cross was unusual, let alone know the fellow’s name who ran it.

  “Yes sir, it is. Mr. Blancett is a top notch boss.”

  “Why are you no longer there? Blancett turn you out?”

  “No sir, we got along famously. Top hands on crew, too, but…there was an incident. Ran across some hard cases on the drive.”

  Lee’s eyes fell to the table and he tapped his fork on the top of his biscuit. Some time had certainly passed since then. Lee tried to push it out of his mind after they cashed out with Til. Lee had not known the B-Cross boys long, but they all came to be pards pretty quick. It was hard to believe Ira and Edwin were bickering one day and shot dead the next. Lee wondered how Casey and Steve were healing up, and whether LG was alive at all.

  Matlock was studying them both carefully.

  Boyce leaned closer.

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “Some bad men shot up the crew. Scattered the herd. Lost some of our boys to gunplay a’fore we even knew what the hell was goin’ on.”

  “Still not sure the whereabouts of some of them,” Davis mentioned. “It was an ugly time.”

  Davis ran a sleeve across his chin and pushed his plate away. The memory of Steve and Rufe galloping past came to mind. Steve’s shirt was drenched in blood. Rufe kept shouting that his brother was shot. Davis could still see them, riding by like the devil was coming. Rufe was a mess of worry. They all made camp in the glen and waited for the rest of the B-Cross to ride in. But they never came. The raiders did, though, later that night. But just at the right time, Til appeared and flushed them out like quail.

  “The whole crew about got wiped out.”

  Matlock softened and exchanged another inside look with Boyce. Boyce nodded his head, as if he were agreeing to some unspoken question. He turned toward Lee and Davis and raised his cup in a respectful gesture.

  “You boys can tie on to the XIT,” Boyce announced. “Come along with us. We’re riding on as soon as we’re done with our feed.”

  “Thank you sir,” Lee said. “Much appreciated.”

  “Listen here,” Matlock began. He paused and looked over the two cowmen again. Listening to them talk about the B-Cross, he could hear loyalty in their words. That was what he was looking for. Loyal men who rode for the brand. And men who could handle hardship, as well. With things as bad as they were at the XIT, hardship was not only expected. It was guaranteed.

  “The XIT has in its employ some hard cases of its own. It’s done up. That’s why I’ve been brought on. Syndicate in Chicago hired me to fix it. And I aim to.”

  George Findlay sat quietly the whole time but was following the conversation closely. The Scotsman with the unsettling baritone voice nodded at the remark.

  Boyce leaned back in his chair and began rolling a cigarette.

  “The ranch is harboring all kinds of ilk. Gambling. Horse thieves. General lawlessness is rampant,” Matlock went on. “I’ve surveyed the conditions myself. I was just telling Mr. Findlay here, on top of all this crud, last week I recognized Billy Ney. He’s now ranch boss right under Barbecue Campbell. I saved Ney from a hanging down in Vernon a couple years back, you see. Thought I did right at the time but I recognized my error soon after. He’s rotten. And him being at the XIT is evidence that something is wrong as wrong is.”

  “And Campbell is one hard-boiled egg,” Boyce added. “He’s the man who stocked the ranch with such deviant hands.”

  “I’ve reported all this to Chicago,” Matlock confid
ed. “They wanted me to take it over, but I’m a lawyer not a ranch manager. Mr. Findlay and I were sent to look into things, and I am appalled at what we found. Fact is, I’m lucky to have run onto Boyce…and lucky he was willing. Hell, I was just up in Colorado City last week. There’s a man up there I had hopes would run this show. A civic leader. An experienced rancher. I told him he was the man of the hour. But know what he told me? He told me he’s of greater value to his family alive than to be shot full of holes at the XIT.”

  He shook his head in disgust.

  “If that tells you anything,” he added.

  Boyce puffed softly on his cigarette. Stories about the XIT were all over the Panhandle. He had been delivering cattle for the Snyder brothers up until the day before. On his way down from Colorado City, he ran into Matlock at a watering hole. Matlock laid it out as it was. Boyce knew he could do the job and signed on right there. He knew there was a chore ahead of him, and the thought of adding reliable men before they got there was a good one.

  “XIT’s got a mean reputation,” Boyce said. “Call them the Xmas hell variety.”

  Matlock set his coffee down and nodded.

  “And we’re stepping in. Turn that reputation on its head.”

  “Sakes alive, sounds like a first-class mess,” Davis said.

  “Well your man in Colorado City was right to be cautious. The B-Cross was shot full of holes,” Lee said and spat on the floor. “Been through all that, and back again. If you need help count us in.”

  “Could use you,” Boyce said, sincerely. “Need some good men. I’m angling to fire just about ever’ man I see.”

  “There’s still some honest ones left…men I can set store by,” Matlock told Boyce. “Frank Yearwood, Earl Wright, Mack Huffman.”

  “You point ‘em out to me when we get there.”

  Matlock’s coffee was too cool now to be worth drinking and he poured it out the open window behind him. From the kitchen, Sam Singer saw him dump his cup and rushed out with the coffee pot. He had his own reputation to maintain: good coffee and timely warm-ups.

  Chapter 11

  Riding at an easy pace, Lee and Davis trailed along behind the buckboard. Mr. Matlock and George Findlay drove that, while AG Boyce road ahead on his sorrel. The sun was slipping below the horizon. The sunlight refracted off the clouds above, casting a rich evening hue all across the wide grassy plains.

  They were on a defined path. The grass was worn away from use. Everywhere else, all they could see for miles was open prairie. In some places the grass rose up over the wagon wheels. They could see a long stretch of barbed wire fence up ahead.

  “Lee, want to catch that gate?” Boyce asked.

  Trotting his quarter horse around the buckboard, Lee went on ahead. There was not an actual gate, so much as a section of wire tied to a wooden post. He leaned low to unhook a wire hoop, which held the post in place. He pulled it back and they all rode into the Yellow Houses Division. Lee looked up and down the fence line. It seemed to stretch on forever.

  With the fading sunlight, the evening was finally beginning to cool off. The breeze was hardly noticeable but they all welcomed it.

  “We’re in one of the Yellow Houses pastures now,” Boyce told them. “We’ll bed down under the stars tonight. Roll into headquarters tomorrow, come what may.”

  Beyond the creak of the buckboard was a vast silence — the quietude of miles and miles of grassland. Lee enjoyed this about Texas. It felt peaceful. Working up in Colorado’s high country for so long, he had forgotten how big the sky was. In the mountains, he had begun to feel walled in and the change of scenery was welcome.

  “I can really breathe out here,” he said to Davis. “I think I spent one too many winters up there.”

  The sun dropped out of sight and the air took on a dim quality. Mosquitoes came out and hummed around them.

  “We’ll camp up there,” Boyce announced.

  In the growing gloom they could make out a windmill. It was nearly dark when they pulled up to it. A large wooden water trough circled out at its base, three feet high and sixteen feet across. Matlock noticed it was full of water and broke into a wide grin.

  “Ain’t like this everywhere,” he commented. “The XIT is bone dry this year. Take it when you can get it.”

  George Findlay untacked his mules and led them to the tank. The mules drank, and then he hobbled them and let them graze. Both Davis and Lee staked their horses and shook out their bedrolls.

  “Good thing we had a big dinner,” Davis said. “Supper’s in a can.”

  He opened up his saddle bag and rifled through it. Lee put his own saddle in the grass, laid down on his Navajo blanket, and pulled his bedding up to his chin. The grass smelled good. Some crickets were out and the frogs were croaking, too. Lee smiled to himself. This was what it was all about. The gentle lap of water against the tank’s sideboards was rhythmic enough to lull him to sleep. He nodded off without waiting for Davis to open up the can.

  “We’re eighteen miles out from headquarters,” Boyce said to Davis quietly. He took off his boots and made his bed in the back of the wagon. “At an easy pace, we’ll be there by dinner tomorrow.”

  Boyce laid down and sighed.

  “I met Til Blancett down in Dallas couple months back, at the stock show. Otherwise, I might not know the brand.”

  “Peculiar luck,” Davis replied. But Boyce didn’t say anything more.

  Davis chewed on cold pinto beans and licked his spoon until it was clean. He walked over to the trough and filled his canteen with fresh cold water. He glanced back at the horses. His bay was just a silhouette — head arched toward the ground, grazing. The sound of the horses and mules cropping grass seemed loud in the stillness.

  Matlock and Findlay were stretched out in their own bedrolls, sound asleep. Lee was out, too, and Davis could only make out Boyce’s bare feet in the gloom — sticking out of the wagon.

  Palming some cool water, Davis washed his face a little. He wondered how Til and the boys were doing. Things had changed after the shootings. The cattle drive was done for. Til was thinking about buying some land up in South Park. Settle down, he said. Said he missed his wife. The McGonkin brothers wanted to stay on, and so had Emmanuel. They left Casey to heal up at that girl’s home in Gold Hill. He had been shot up pretty bad. Gyp moved on. No one knew what had happened to LG. That was the end of the B-Cross — as a trail driving outfit, anyhow. So that day both Davis and Lee decided it was time to move on.

  Above him the sky was dark and the stars were really out, now. Davis appreciated the night sky. It was calming, reassuring. If God Above could make all those little stars way up there, give them each a place and a path to travel…well, the same could be said for him, he guessed. Even when things got so balled up he didn’t know much what to think.

  Chapter 12

  Colorado

  Leadville

  Tabor Opera House

  Only one gas lamp was burning at the moment. There were other light fixtures lining the upper room but they were all out, deliberately. Moonlight shined in through the 3rd-story windows and whitewashed the men inside. Horace “Haw” Tabor twisted the end of his walrus mustache and paced the floor. The other men in the room made him feel very uncomfortable, so he paced.

  “Prescott Sloan just opened up The Pastime,” Big Ed Burns informed him in a low voice. Big Ed’s eyes looked like little marbles — little black marbles. Horace paused and glanced over at Big Ed. Those little black marbles stared back dully. It was unsettling, so Horace resumed pacing.

  “It’s over on State Street,” Big Ed said sharply, watching to see how Horace reacted. Big Ed scowled. He watched Horace Tabor, the so-called Silver King of Leadville, pace back and forth across the dim room. Big Ed smirked. He knew Tabor had no stomach for this.

  “Ain’t that hard to figure,” Big Ed told him. “Soapy Smith gives Prescott Sloan his whole stake in the Matchless Mine. In turn, Sloan claims he put a hunnert thousand in a PO Box in Denver
. Well, hold the damn press…the PO Box is plumb empty. And now Sloan opens up a top-sawyer saloon right here of all places. Could only be stupider if he opened it in Denver.”

  Horace pressed his hand to his belly. The doctor told him it was an ulcer and urged him to lessen his work load. Relax. Maybe take a vacation in lower climes. But Horace had not taken the advice or the vacation. He shook his head at the bitter irony of life’s twisty paths. He knew where this was headed.

  “Can you count two and two, Haw?”

  “I can count two and two,” Horace replied. “Hell, I can count to a million with the Matchless alone. And I don’t have any control over Prescott Sloan opening up a saloon in Leadville. Or closing his bank in Ward. Or hoodwinking Soapy Smith in Denver. Such machinations are not mine in origin, nor mine to wrastle against.”

  Big Ed turned around and glared at the other men standing behind him. There were three of them. They all stood silent as rocks, impassive — they were Big Ed’s muscle. Not that Big Ed needed any muscle. His name was really a good description of his stature. He was a big man. But he always liked to bring the boys along anyhow.

  Horace saw that Big Ed’s men had their eyes fixed on him, and none of them seemed to blink. It was disturbing whenever he braved a glance in their direction. The mood in the room was unpleasant to Horace, and he did not like it. He hoped to dispel it soon and get home to Elizabeth. Have some buttermilk. Buttermilk might soothe his stomach ache.

  “Aw, Big Ed, come on. Alright, what can I help with? I’m a busy man…a respectable man. I must keep it that way in the perception of this fine community.”

  Big Ed took a step closer to Horace, and Horace could smell the liquor. It was cheap whiskey. Up close, Big Ed’s black marble eyes looked even smaller, like dark shadowy specks in his flat white moonlit face. Horace’s ulcer was churning but he managed to stand up straight and maintain his composure. Surely the doctor had something more potent than chalky magnesium tablets for a man of his social and financial caliber.