Shortgrass Song

by Mike Blakely

  Bannon smiled, a perfect row of white teeth appearing under the silver and yellow mustache. “I’m six feet even. I simply made sure nobody else in the cast stood over five seven. Creates an illusion through relative size. That’s quite a mount you’re riding.”

  The cowboy leaned forward on the saddle horn. “Oh, he cuts a pretty good outline, but he ain’t crazy about dust and sweat.”

  “Maybe that’s what I saw in him. We’re kindred souls. How’s your marksmanship with that Colt?”

  The cowboy paused, then answered cautiously. “Fair.”

  “How’s your roping?”

  “Can’t be beat. I’m top hand.”

  “How would you like to show off your stuff from here to New York City?”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m organizing a traveling tent show. Calling it Bull Bannon’s Extravaganza of the Western Wilds. First show’s in Saint Jo, two weeks from Saturday. I need a top hand.”

  “New York City?”

  “Yes, and Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, and all points in between. What’s your name?”

  “Cole Gibson.” He shook the major’s hand, calloused but manicured.

  “Got a nickname?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Better get one.”

  “How come?”

  “Back east they think everybody out west has a nickname. Let’s make yours to have something to do with roping. Like ‘Loop’ Gibson or … How about ‘Lariat’ Gibson?…” The showman glanced at the rope coiled on the cowboy’s saddle. “I’ve got it! Cole ‘Seagrass’ Gibson.”

  Gibson reeled back, propping his hand on the dappled rump. He tried the name on, snickering. “Seagrass Gibson.”

  “It’s got a ring to it.”

  “I don’t hardly use this grass rope, though, except for heel ropin’.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The folks back east won’t know the difference. They don’t know grass from gut line any more than they know sit from sic ’em. Get six of the best ropers you can find in Dodge City and have them report to the station this afternoon. No drunks. See my assistant, Captain Singletary.”

  “Well, hold on a minute,” Seagrass said. “What’s the pay, and for how long?”

  “The show will run at least through the summer. As for pay…” He stroked his mustache and tossed a golden curl of hair over his shoulder. “What do you make as top hand on the trail?”

  “Forty a month.”

  “I’ll double it. But the men you hire will only get fifty a month. Plus a tent or a boxcar to sleep in every night. Do we have a deal?”

  Seagrass mulled it over for a second. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Get to work.”

  The dapple gray turned toward the stockyards, its rider entertaining fanciful visions of Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York.

  Bannon bit the end off of a cigar as he scouted the street. He fished a match from his pocket, struck it on his boot heel, lit his smoke, and strode briskly down the boardwalk.

  Coming to a corner, he heard a fiddle wailing across the way. He spit a flake of tobacco. The intersection was deep with mud and his boots were shiny, but the music intrigued him. He sprang from the boardwalk to the tailgate of a passing wagon, rode across the mire, and jumped to the saloon front across the intersection.

  The music rang cleanly through the smoky air. A few modestly dressed saloon girls danced with some old veterans of the trail. Bannon spotted the fiddler in a corner, sawing on a dusty instrument he held propped against his right shoulder. He couldn’t see the musician’s face, leaning into the fiddle tune as he was, his hat brim low over his eyes. The bow moved too fast to follow. It hopped from string to string, raked harmony from them in pairs, and jittered like dragonfly wings.

  Bannon put his elbow on the bar and his heel on the brass rail as he watched the ladies whirl the old trail bosses. The fiddler finished his tune with a flourish, jerking the bow so quickly that his whole body shook. A small, short burst of applause rang from the dancers. As the fiddler bowed and brandished his hat, a trail hand dropped a coin in and pulled him down from the soapbox he was standing on.

  “Sell me a whiskey, will you?” Bannon said to a harried little man behind the bar.

  “Keep your shirt on.” The barkeep looked up once, then did a double take. “Say, you’re not … No, you’re not Bull Bannon?”

  “Thirsty Bull Bannon to you. Where’s my whiskey?”

  The fiddler had switched to guitar. He strummed a lively rhythm as the old trail hand standing next to him started singing “Utah Carroll,” gravel voiced but on key.

  And now, my friends, you ask me, what makes me sad and still,

  And why my brow is darkened like the clouds upon the hill.

  Run in your pony closer, and I’ll tell you the tale

  Of Utah Carroll, my partner, and his last ride on the trail.

  The major sipped his whiskey once, then cupped it in his hand for show as he looked over the barmaids. He knew the song. When the last verse started, he began weaving his way between the poker tables, toward the soapbox. The musician harmonized with the drover in singing the last two lines. His voice sounded smooth as honey compared with the grating of the trail boss.

  Then on his funeral mornin’ I heard the preacher say

  I hope well all meet Utah in the roundup far away.

  Bannon flipped a silver dollar into the upturned hat. “How many instruments do you play?”

  “I don’t know,” the musician said. “How many fiddles, guitars, banjos, mandolins, and harmonicas you reckon there are in the world?”

  Bannon snorted. “You’ve answered that one before. Do you know these girls who work here?”

  “Most of ’em.”

  “Tell them I’d like to hire them. I need some authentic saloon girls for a traveling tent show. No funny business, just serving drinks in the beer garden and playing in the saloon scene in the show.”

  “Why don’t you tell ’em yourself?”

  Bannon ignored the suggestion. “I could use a western singer, too. What would you say to thirty a month plus all the money you can collect in your hat?”

  “To do what?”

  “Sing these old cowboy songs in the beer garden, maybe chase a steer or two in the tent show.”

  The musician seemed interested. “Where’bouts?”

  “Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.”

  He put the guitar on a table, moved the money from his hat to his pocket, and put the hat back on his head. “Who are you?”

  “Major Bull Bannon.”

  “You sure you’re the real Bull Bannon? Where’s your fancy buckskin suit with all the furs and beads sewed onto it?”

  “I wear store-bought off the stage. Who are you?”

  “Caleb Holcomb.”

  “Got a nickname?”

  He fell a step behind in the conversation. “They used to call me the Colorado Kid.”

  “Who did?”

  “Buffalo hunters in Texas.”

  “Who’d you hunt with?”

  “Washita Jack Shea, Badger Burton, Smokey Dean Wilson, and old Elam Joiner, before the Comanche butchered him. And a fellow from back east that we called Red Hot Frost.”

  “Red Hot Frost!” Bannon released a burst of laughter. “That’s one of the best I’ve heard. I fought with Jack Shea on the Washita, scouting for the Seventh. Hunted with Smokey Wilson in Kansas. Never met Joiner, but knew of him.” He pulled the watch from his vest pocket, glanced at it, and returned it without missing a word. “Always hunted alone, I heard. That was his downfall. Badger Burton was a fool from what I saw of him. Anyway, Colorado Kid won’t do. Let’s see … Fiddlesticks … Rosin … Catgut! ‘Catgut’ Caleb Holcomb. That’s appropriate. Has a good ring. Carries the hard c sound through it.”

  Caleb still hadn’t caught up with the major’s line of thinking. “Am I supposed to call myself that?”

  “Once I print it on the program, you’ll never hear the end o
f it back east. Bring the gals around to the station before nine o’clock in the morning.” He leaned close to speak confidentially. “No soiled doves, just honest barmaids.” He offered his hand to seal the deal.

  Caleb still wasn’t ready to shake. “What’ll I tell ’em their pay will be?”

  “Same as yours. Dollar a day and tips. They’ll have their own tent and their own sleeper car. No funny business, on my honor.”

  He felt the tight grip of Bull Bannon’s hand.

  “See my assistant, Captain Singletary,” the major shouted over his shoulder as he left.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  When the train came to a stop at St. Joseph, “Catgut” Caleb Holcomb and Cole “Seagrass” Gibson jumped from their boxcar and headed for their horses, several cars back. On the way they met Bull Bannon, stepping from his bright-red Pullman coach with fancy yellow letters on the side spelling BULL BANNON’S EXTRAVAGANZA OF THE WESTERN WILDS.

  “Where are you two going?” the major asked.

  “To get our horses,” Caleb said. “I’ve got somebody to look up in town.”

  “I’m goin’ with him,” Seagrass added.

  “No you’re not. Neither one of you. We have ten boxcars to unload and five tents to erect.”

  The cowboys looked at each other.

  “You never said nothin’ about unloadin’ trains or puttin’ up tents,” Seagrass complained.

  “Did you think they would erect themselves?”

  “Well, the first show ain’t for five days yet,” Caleb said.

  “What show?” Bannon roared. “We have no show! We need rehearsal! Unload the cars, set up the tents, then we’ll rehearse!”

  A short, husky bear of a man stepped from the red coach, rolling his sleeves up on his hairy forearms. He held a whittled-down pencil between his teeth and carried a leather-backed notebook under one arm.

  “Captain Singletary,” the major ordered, walking away to inspect the show grounds, “put these men in charge of livestock.”

  Singletary eyed the two men as he opened his notebook and licked the point of his pencil. “Seagrass Gibson and Catgut Holcomb,” he mumbled as he jotted their names down. “Build your pens downwind, gentlemen. One for horses, one for longhorns. You’ll find the troughs and fence rails in the third boxcar.” He walked toward the head of the train, muttering to himself as he scribbled.

  “I’m damned if I ever thought I’d take pay to put up circus tents,” Seagrass said. “I’ve got half a mind to saddle my horse and ride on back to Texas.”

  “I’ve got the other half. We might just make a whole mind, partner.”

  Gibson nodded indignantly. “Maybe we ought to wait till payday though,” he said after some reflection.

  Caleb felt his empty pockets. “I guess so. Where’d Singletary say them fence rails were at?”

  It took them all of the first day to rehearse the two-hour show just once. The second day, they got through it three times. The third day, Bannon marched them through six rehearsals with military precision, railing at the oncoming darkness when the sun set.

  Caleb played bit parts in the main show, herding long-horns, shooting blank cartridges at Indians. His real responsibility was performing in the western saloon reconstructed inside the beer-garden tent. Bannon ordered him to sing and play for the cast there every night after rehearsals.

  The third night he approached the stage and said, “Catgut, I haven’t heard you repeat a single tune in three days. How many songs do you know?”

  “How many?” Caleb said. “Hell, major, I know ’em all!”

  On the fourth day of rehearsal, Captain Singletary pulled Caleb out of the grub line, where he and Cole Gibson were waiting to get supper. The show manager handed the musician a stack of sheet music.

  “What’s this?” Caleb asked, staring at the hieroglyphics.

  “Major Bannon’s repertoire.”

  “His what?” Cole asked.

  “That’s what he’s going to sing for tomorrow’s matinee.”

  “Matinee?” Caleb said.

  Singletary frowned. “The afternoon show.”

  Caleb blew a sigh through his mustache. “I didn’t even know he could sing.”

  “Of course he can sing. He’s taken voice lessons.”

  That night Bannon ordered Caleb to the beer garden to rehearse. “Where’s your sheet music?” he asked when the accompanist arrived.

  “I don’t read chicken scratchin’,” Caleb said, “but I know all them songs anyway. Which one you want to start with?”

  “‘Home on the Range,’” Bannon said.

  Caleb stepped onto the stage beside the major and started the waltz time. He didn’t see why they had to rehearse this stuff at all.

  Bannon grabbed the neck of the guitar, deadening the music. “This is fine for your part of the show,” he said pointing to the floor of the stage. “You can stand wherever you want. But then when you get the crowd warmed up, you’ll ask Bull Bannon to sing a song or two. Not Earl Bannon, not Earl Stanley Bannon, not E.S. Bannon, and not Major Bannon, but Bull Bannon. I’ll make out like I’m modest, but you’ll insist and get the crowd behind you until I step up on stage. Then,” he pointed to a dark corner of the stage, “you’ll step back there and play softly while I sing. Understand?”

  This Caleb did not care for. “All right,” he said through clenched teeth. “But, major, if you ever want to stop the music again, I’d just as soon you grab me by the neck instead of my guitar.”

  He took his place in the shadow and listened to the major sing, coming quickly to the conclusion that the man had wasted whatever money he might have spent on voice lessons. Caleb had played songs for men who could stutter off-key with more feeling than Bull Bannon sang with. He hit all the pitches, but there were no guts in anything he said.

  After a tense two-hour rehearsal, Bannon let Caleb go. He saddled Powder River immediately and rode to town. He had been trying to get into St. Joseph for four days, but rehearsals had kept him busy. Bannon was probably expecting him to practice his own routine for the cast again tonight, but Caleb had taken enough orders. He had business of his own to attend to in town.

  He asked a few people on the streets if they had ever heard of a woman named Sarah Ludlow. Finally, an old gentleman scratched his head, stared at the stars, and brought her to mind.

  “Ludlow, Ludlow,” he muttered. “Sounds familiar. Yes, come to think of it, there’s an old lady named Ludlow who runs a boardinghouse at the end of Hall Street. I don’t know if her name is Sarah. Everybody calls her Widow Ludlow.”

  Caleb tied his reins at a hitching rail in front of the rundown two story. There were lights on in most of the rooms, so he didn’t think it too late to call. When he knocked on the door, an old man answered.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Ludlow,” he said.

  The old man left the door open, disappearing into another room. Caleb waited on the porch until a stooped, shriveled, gray-haired woman appeared.

  “We don’t have any rooms,” she said curtly, closing the door in his face. “Good night.”

  He blocked the door with his hand. “Wait, ma’am! I’m not lookin’ for a room.”

  She looked him over suspiciously. “What do you want, then? You’re not a drummer.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m a friend of a friend. That is, if your name is Sarah Ludlow.”

  “It is, but you’re obviously mistaken. I don’t have any friends.”

  Caleb felt suddenly awed by the ravages of time. Burl Sandeen had described his Sarah as the prettiest thing in Missouri. But that had been fifty years ago.

  “I met a friend of yours ten years back,” he said. “He helped me out of a bad spot. I’ve always wanted to make it over to Saint Jo and tell you he’s still thinkin’ of you.”

  “Young man, what on earth are you talking about?” She pursed her lips and glared at him. The old man had wandered back into the parlor behind her and was cupping his hand behind his ear.

  “I’m
talkin’ about Burl Sandeen. He’s a friend of mine.”

  The widow’s eyes grew wide and she stepped back from the door.

  “What’d he say?” the old man shouted.

  The Widow Ludlow whirled as if starlted by the voice. “Go to bed, Mr. Hazelwood, it’s none of your concern!” She walked out onto the porch with Caleb and closed the door behind her. “Sit down, young man,” she said, pointing at a rocking chair on the porch. She sank into a porch swing facing the rocker. She seemed quite aggravated. “Now, tell me what you know of Burl Sandeen.”

  “Well, he saved me from freezin’ in the Medicine Bow Range ten winters ago. Let me stay with him in his cabin. We nearly starved, but we made it on wolf meat and beans.”

  “And what did he tell you about me?” she demanded.

  “He said he wanted to marry you a long time ago. Said he went on a trip to the mountains and when he came back, you had married some other fellow named Ludlow. Said it nearly broke his heart, and he moved back to the mountains. He said the last he heard of you, you had moved to Saint Jo. That’s how I found you. I wasn’t sure you’d still be here, but I thought I’d try lookin’ you up. I thought you’d like to know where old Burl is at.”

  “I would at that,” the old lady said, shaking as she rose. “I most certainly would. I would like to dispatch a marshal to arrest the old bastard. There is no statute of limitations on murder.” She had become hateful, her voice vindictive.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Count yourself among the luckiest fools on the face of the earth, young man. Thank God for your life. If you wintered with Burl Sandeen, you might as well have survived a season in hell with the devil!”

  He was sure she was a crazy woman now. The dark porch and the old creaking house began to spook him. “Are we talkin’ about the same Burl Sandeen?”

  “The old fugitive obviously forgot to mention that I never wanted nor intended to marry him in the first place. It was the happiest day of my life when he left to go trapping in the mountains. I hoped Indians would scalp him. He was the vilest boy I had ever known and hadn’t given me a moment of ease since I was sixteen. He disgusted me. I don’t suppose he told you that.”

  “No, he didn’t tell it quite that way,” Caleb agreed.