“No problem. I didn’t want those ladies putting up with him.”
“You know, I may need a job pretty soon. You need any deputies? This stage business is getting swallowed up by railroads.”
“Come see me when that day comes.”
“Thanks. I will.”
Back in the coach, they headed east, boiling up dust in their wake. It was late in the afternoon when they arrived in Miles City, and Herschel helped both the women down. He could see by all the traffic that things were booming.
“Ma’am,” Rip said, taking off his weather-beaten felt hat. “It’s about five miles out to where the train will be. They’ll have a cab to take you in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you. And thank you, Sheriff Baker. We enjoyed your company. I can tell my friends in St. Louis I met a real man of the West.”
“You have a drawl still,” Magdeline said, stopping and using her hand to shade the sun to look up at him.
“I was born in Texas, miss.”
“Yes, I could tell. Your mother raised you right, sir. And thanks for listening to my poor mother. She’s been worried ever since we learned James had been killed that she would have an old maid on her hands.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“Really?”
“Stay in Montana and teach school. There will be more moon-eyed cowboys coming around to court you than there are jackrabbits.”
“Really?” She looked as perked up as he’d seen her in eight hours. Whirling around, she looked over the traffic. “Will they need one here?”
“Try the courthouse. They usually know about such openings.”
“But we’d miss the train.” Lines of concern creased her smooth forehead.
He shrugged. “There’ll be another one tomorrow.”
A slow, sly smile crossed her mouth and she nodded. “Thank you.”
He tipped his hat to her. Some cowboys would sure owe him if she stayed and taught school. “Good luck, Magdeline.”
It was two blocks to the sheriff’s office, and when he came in sight of it, he was shocked. Two deputies armed with shotguns stood guarding several men seated on the ground in leg irons. It was obvious this was where they were being housed.
A hatless Sheriff Don Harold sat looking haggard behind a cluttered desk in the outer office, talking to two handcuffed men under the guard of an older man.
“Put them on the chain gang,” he said to the deputy.
Then he went to looking through papers piled on the desk.
“Yes?” He never looked up.
“You look bad.”
“What?” His eyes tried to focus for a second. “Damn, that’s you, Baker.”
“You stop eating and sleeping both?”
He shook a finger at Baker. “Wait till you get the damn railroad in your county. Folks were calling it great progress. I call it bullshit.”
“Can you take a ten-minute break? I’d even buy your supper.”
Harold put both hands on top of his legs and nodded like a wooden Indian. “Let’s go eat something. I’m so tired of this.”
“I can’t say I’m ready for it either.” Herschel didn’t want to think about the mess outside being in his town.
“Let’s eat at the Grand Hotel. We can get a private dining room and talk.”
“Sounds fine.”
“You just get here?”
“Ten minutes or so. Came on the stage.”
“Well, if we all survive it, we’ll have train service here in two months.”
“Why so long?”
“Can’t get enough rails. Everyone in the world is building railroads. They run out all the time. Lay off the hands for a couple of weeks and they all get drunk and rowdy. It’s bad.”
“I have two murders and a store robbery and I think I’m overworked.”
They stomped up the steps of the hotel, and Harold opened the left front door with the glass in the window. “Two murders? I have two murders a night on a slow one.”
“You still single?”
“Yeah, why?”
“There’s a young lady on the stage today from St. Louis who went to get married in Idaho and her fiancé was killed in a mine accident before she got there. I tried to talk her into teaching school in Montana. She went to see about a job at the courthouse. She sticks around, you might like to meet her.”
“If I ever have time. What’s her name?”
“Magdeline Carson.”
“Nice-looking?”
“Yes, and a lady. She won’t talk your ear off either.”
Harold looked hard at him with his clear blue eyes brighter than they had been since he’d arrived. “That would be wonderful.” Then he signaled to the man who was seating people in the dining area. “Put Sheriff Baker and me in a small room in the back.”
Harold repeated Magdeline’s name three times.
“Just bring us some food,” Harold said, waving off the menus. “He drinks coffee, I drink whiskey on days like this.”
Exhaling, he collapsed in his chair. “You didn’t come to help me find a wife. You need something.”
“There is a man over in the eastern part of my county named Roscoe Hatch. He’s killing beef and hauling it over here and selling the meat.”
“Smart man. We have all kinds of folks want to eat. Most wouldn’t look at a piece of meat and ask was it his, would they?”
“He’s of course a bully. Keeps some toughs around him so the little ranchers won’t complain much.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Roscoe Hatch. There may be others. A Wally Hamby, looks part Indian, high checkbones, and a blond-headed Dane named Olsen.”
“You can ask around. I never heard of them.”
The waiter brought Herschel’s coffee and a bottle of bonded Kentucky whiskey for Harold. “Stan, you know anyone named Roscoe Hatch that sells butchered beef?” Sheriff Harold asked the waiter.
“Oh, I can ask Earl. He does the buying.”
“Thanks. Send him around.” Harold held up the jigger toward Herschel. “Here’s to much better days.”
“Yes, we can use them.”
“There are more pickpockets, con men, cheating tin-horns in Miles City than I could even imagine existed in the entire West.” He downed the whiskey and made a loud “ah.”
“Sir?” said a new man who came up.
“You must be Earl, the meat buyer. Sheriff Baker from Billings is over here looking for some men who might be selling stolen beef.”
“What are their names?”
“Hatch?”
The man shook his head.
“Olsen?”
Again, the man shook his head.
“A dark-haired, high-cheekbone guy—”
“Named Hamilton. He is one of four men sells us beef. A big man calls himself Smith and a blond-headed Dane who calls himself Kaufman.”
“That’s my boys. Who’s the fourth one?”
“A well-dressed man of means. His name is—well, what he calls himself is Thompson.”
“It sounds like they do have a gang,” Harold said as the food arrived. Sliced beef, potatoes, and peas heaped on a plate. Also, hot French bread and butter by the bowl.
“Thompson live around here?” Herschel asked, never hearing of the man in his county.
“I can ask,” Earl said.
“No, don’t tip them off. Business as usual. I don’t want them thinking I’m on to them.”
“I had no way to know they were rustlers, Sheriff.”
“Hell, Earl, we didn’t know either. Don’t worry. Do business like you always do.”
Harold nodded at Herschel. “Let’s eat. We’ve solved one crime already.”
“I’ll be damned if we haven’t. Food looks good and it tastes better.”
“What did they used to say, eating stolen beef is the best meal?”
“I recall that growing up.”
How would he ever catch them at it? That was the next part. Oh, well, this way, he’d a
t least be home in time to take his girls to the next Soda Springs dance.
SIXTEEN
RAIN struck in mid-afternoon of the second day. Two ferry crossings and they were at the old outpost of Fort Gibson. A cluster of log buildings in disrepair, with a few small businesses that all looked as dismal as the dripping countryside. Thurman found a livery and spoke to the man who owned it.
“You can get a meal at Marty’s over there and sleep in my bunkhouse,” the gray-headed man said. “There ain’t no one else here, so you and her would have it by yourself.”
“Things pretty slow?” Thurman asked.
The man laughed. “Worse than that. It’s dead. Railroad got to Muskogee and shut this place down.”
“That’s what happens, they say. Grain the mule and horse.”
“I will. Pull your rig inside. It’ll be safe and dry in here.”
“Thanks. I’ll tie the dog up while we go to eat.”
“He won’t hurt nothing loose.”
“All right.” He went out in the drizzle and told Mary to drive inside.
Once the rig was inside, the man sent them off to eat. They found the café across the street, warm and smelling of good food when they came in. There were pegs to hang their slickers on the wall, and a smiling buxom woman told them to take any table.
“Nice place,” Mary said softly, looking around at the tableclothes and curtains.
“Thanks. Beef stew is what we have to eat,” the woman said. “What to drink?”
“Coffee,” he said. “Beef stew’s fine.” He winked at Mary. “We’re stew eaters.”
“Good. The rain’s got every one holed up, so we didn’t cook as much as usual today. Oh, we’ve got plenty for you two. Have to watch things close to stay in business.”
“I imagine that is so,” Thurman said.
“Times are hard, aren’t they?” Mary asked him when the woman went back in the kitchen.
“I guess. Things seemed all right in Fort Smith, but they sure aren’t up here,” he said. “Maybe folks will make some good crops and things will look up. Just so I don’t have to tend them.”
She chuckled. “I had started a garden.”
He nodded. Since he left south Texas, he’d lost almost a month, been shot, collected reward warrants on five outlaws, and found Mary. She was the brightest thing in the whole deal.
They left Fort Gibson the next morning and set out for Wichita. Passing around Tulsey and going across the rolling flint hill grass country, they camped in the open and enjoyed the meadowlarks’ song at dawn. He’d been to Wichita during the heyday of the cattle business. In place of the wild cow town, he now found a large industrial center with grain elevators, blocks and blocks of homes, and railroad yards. The land the trail crews once spread their herds over while waiting for cattle cars less than a dozen years before was all under the plow. The contrast of what he’d seen then with what he saw now struck him forcefully.
“Where are the trees?” she asked.
“They grow on islands in the river where a prairie fire can’t get them. From here on, trees are rare.”
“What do we use for cooking?”
“Dry buffalo chips. No, they’re gone, too. Dry cow chips.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“It will work. The cooks with cattle outfits used ’em for years to feed entire crews. They get real dry out here.”
“Oh, I won’t ever say a bad thing about trees again.”
“Why not? Hell, out here they couldn’t hear you anyway for the wind.”
Laughing, she gave him a shove. “You can be mean sometimes.”
“To who, the trees?”
He drove downtown to the stockyard district and found the Baltimore Hotel. He looked at the four-story brick structure and nodded to Mary. “This is supposed to be where the cattle buyers hang out. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Fine.”
He put Blacky on a lead and went inside. When he inquired about the bar, the desk clerk sent him to the left and he walked into an ornate sitting room. When he found the door locked, he knocked, and someone opened a small slot and looked at him, then told him to come in.
Discretion and more stringent laws no doubt forced the gamblers to be back there. He entered and stood to let his eyes adjust. A half dozen men were around a table large enough to accommodate a dozen. Cigar smoke curled in the air. Kansas was dry, he recalled.
“Can one of us help you, sir?” the man preparing to deal the cards asked.
“Rip Salton here?”
The man shook his head. “He got religion and a new wife. She won’t let him gamble.” Then he deftly dealt the five cards around the table.
“Russ Barker?”
“Omaha. Got too slow for him in these parts. Who else?”
“I was just passing through. I brought some herds up here years ago. Thought I might know someone.”
“Thurman Baker?” a man on the far side said, taking off his wire-framed glasses. “I remember you. Only man that ever wore a clean white shirt all the way from south Texas to Kansas.”
The others laughed.
“I guess I’m short your name.”
“Abraham Reames.”
The name came back to Thurman. “I think I loaned you a dozen horses when some renegades down in the Territory stole your entire remuda.”
“A lifesaver. Saved my ass, that’s for sure.” Reames came over and shook his hand. “How have you been?”
“Fine. I want to stable my horses and get my wife a room. Then, if you all don’t mind, I’d like to join you.”
“Come on. We love new money,” the dealer said, and the rest voted yes.
So he got a room from the desk clerk and moved Mary into it. She kissed him and he left her there. Then, the clerk sent for a young man from a nearby livery and he took the mule and horse as well as Blacky to his livery.
In twenty minutes time, he was back in the gambling room ready to play cards.
“What’ve you been doing since the cattle drive days?” the dealer asked as he dealt him his first card.
“Acquiring horses in Mexico.”
“That profitable?”
Thurman nodded. “There’s some fine original Barb horses in parts of Mexico. Expensive ones.”
“What’s a real barb worth up here?”
“I sold the last herd of sound and green-broke for a hundred fifty apiece.”
“Whew, that’s too high for me.”
Thurman counted out five dollars and bet it on two queens in his hand.
Cost him a two-dollar raise to stay, but the third queen came in his draw.
“Where you headed?” he was asked.
“Montana.”
“That’s a long ways.”
He bet five again and in the end, his ladies won the hand.
“Why Montana?”
“I’m looking for my son. He’s supposed to be up there.”
“What’s his name?’ a thickset man across the table asked.
“Herschel Baker. Do you know him?”
The man nodded. “What would you give me if I tell you right where he’s at?”
“What’ve you got to have?”
“Naw.” He shook his head as if he’d changed his mind about something. “If you saved Reames’ butt back then by just flat giving him horses when no one had too many, I’d have to tell you where he’s at. Time I usually got up here to Kansas, we were damn near walking.”
Thurman never picked up his new cards. Was he about to learn where in Montana his son was located?
The man fanned his cards and smiled smugly behind them. “The Yellowstone County Jail.”
“What for?” His heart quit. In jail . . .
The man grinned back at Thurman. “He’s the elected sheriff up there.”
Everyone laughed.
“What else do you know about him?”
“He’s married. Has a nice wife and three stepdaughters. Two years ago, he took on all the politicians in that
county and got elected as an independent. Cleaned house and set all those big outfits on their butts. Nobody owns Herschel Baker. I can tell you that for a fact.”
“What town is that in?”
“Billings.”
Thank God. He’s alive. “Excuse me, gents.” He rose. “I need to go share this news with my wife.”
“Barmaid?” He called the girl over. “Give them all a round of drinks. Here’s twenty, they can have all but the dollar that’s yours.”
“Well. Thank you,” she gushed.
“See you guys.” Thurman waved to them. He couldn’t wait to find a map and see what end of Montana Billings was at.
SEVENTEEN
WHAT else did you learn in Miles City?” Art asked.
“They all used an alias up there. Hamby they called Hamilton. Hatch was Smith and Olsen was Kaufman. But the mystery man in the deal is the fourth one. They called him Thompson and said he was the boss, not Hatch.”
“That surprises me. I’d of thought Hatch was the ring-leader.”
“They do a brisk business with the fanciest hotel in town. Keep them in beef.”
“Who is this Thompson?” Phil asked. “You see him?”
“No, he wasn’t around. In fact, they know little about him in Miles City. I don’t think he lives there.”
“No idea where he lives?”
Herschel shook his head. “They’re a pretty well-organized ring as far as I can tell.”
“Where do we go next?” Art asked.
“I think get the state brand inspector down here and get a search warrant. Then make a raid on Hatch’s place. He may have a telltale hide in his possession. It only takes one.”
“When will we do that?”
“The district man, Carl Ruger, wasn’t at home. I left a letter with his wife concerning it. And for him to contact me.”
“Any description of this new guy?” Phil asked.
“A big man, wears a suit and a black hat. Brown hair and eyes, talks like he’s very educated. A man of means, the hotel man said.”
“He runs the deal?”
“The hotel kitchen man said he did. The other three made the deliveries.”
“How do they order it?”
“Someone comes by each week and leaves some beef and takes the new order. They’re so dependable, the hotel counts on them.”
The Sundown Chaser Page 14