The Poacher's Daughter

by Michael Zimmer

  “These days aren’t so bad. Some of the old-timers are gone, but me and Wiley are still around. And you. Shoot, you ain’t old enough to be thinking so glum.”

  “I might be tender in years, but I was out here before it changed and I remember what it used to be. I reckon that makes me as much an old-timer as Charley Schuyler.”

  “Come on down to Miles and have a drink. I’m thinking you could use it.”

  “Maybe I could.” She sniffed. “You reckon they’ll let me in a saloon, Shorty, bein’ a woman and all?”

  “Being a woman never stopped Calamity Jane.” He smiled. “You’re feeling under the weather on account of Muggy and Jimmy, but you’ll chipper up again. Come on down to the Silver Star. Let’s have a toot.”

  Rose straightened, firming her grip on the reins. “I reckon that sounds fine. It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious tootin’.”

  She gave Albert a nudge with her heels and they turned onto the Miles City trail. At the river, Wiley was already boarding the ferry. Rose knew he wouldn’t wait. The Silver Star Saloon was only a short ride away, and Wiley Collins had become a man with a purpose.

  Chapter

  6

  The Silver Star was new since Rose’s last visit to Miles City. It was a long, narrow building with a steep-pitched tin roof and a wide verandah. There was a corral out back where thirsty drovers could turn their horses loose, and an open-faced shed where they could sling their saddles over racks made for that purpose. Hay was provided in mangers along one side of the shed, and a wooden trough assured the boozy cowpokes that their mounts wouldn’t suffer for water. All this for a nickel a night, payable on the honor system to the barkeep inside.

  After Rose and Shorty had seen to their horses, they entered the saloon through the rear door. Although not as stylish as some of the larger establishments along Main and Fifth, it didn’t take Rose long to discover the Silver Star’s allure for men like Wiley and Shorty. She’d hardly bellied up to the bar when a long-legged man in a black frock coat and sporting a wax-tipped mustache hooked the heel of his drover’s boot over the brass foot rail at her side. He propped an elbow on the bar and smiled broadly, the wind-tanned flesh around his blue eyes crinkling into a maze of tiny crevices. “Howdy, Rose,” he said, touching the broad, stiff brim of his hat with the fingers of his left hand.

  “Sam!” Rose squawked.

  The needle-like tips of the tall man’s mustache curled upward like scorpion tails. “I didn’t expected to see you in these parts.”

  She stammered some comment about business bringing her east, knowing he wouldn’t take offense at the vagueness of her reply. She’d fed Sam Matthews many a time on his forays up and down the trail, and knew him as a pistoleer, a gambler, an occasional horse thief, and a full-time gentleman. Glancing around the saloon, she saw no fewer than half a dozen others who fit a similar description—all of them friends she’d fed or let sleep in the barn with Albert and the mules. But only Sam, like Wiley, had she occasionally allowed to share her bed.

  “I heard about Muggy,” Sam said, motioning for the bartender. “I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Well, I reckon he had it comin’ if anyone did,” she replied. She knew Sam meant well, but it was beginning to irritate her that people kept thinking she required consolation over Muggy’s death just because he was her husband. She wondered who would share her grief when Albert died, yet the strawberry roan had proved a far more loyal companion than Muggy ever had.

  The bartender appeared opposite them, and, feeling suddenly awkward, Rose ordered a whiskey.

  “I’ll have another beer,” Sam said, “but get Rose’s drink first.”

  On her left, Shorty also ordered a whiskey. Then he leaned forward to nod at Sam. “Qué es, stranger?”

  “Howdy, Shorty. I figure you know Wiley Collins walked in not twenty minutes ago.”

  “Me ’n’ Wiley have patched up our differences,” Shorty assured him. “Besides, he knows I can shade him in a pistol fight.”

  Sam seemed to relax. “I am glad to hear that. It’s a sad business when friends fall out.”

  “Hell, I couldn’t shoot Wiley,” Shorty confided. “I know his ma, and it’d break her old heart if something happened to her boy.”

  Grinning, Sam said: “I was told by Wiley that he didn’t have a ma, that he was foaled from a thoroughbred mare out of a grizzly for a daddy.”

  “Well, that’s Wiley. If he wasn’t born a liar, he picked up the habit soon afterward. If he was foaled from anything, it was some wormy, knock-kneed mustang.”

  The bartender returned with their drinks, collected his coins, then moved on. Sam paid for Rose’s whiskey despite her protests. “I’ve got it,” he insisted, tossing an extra dime onto the bar.

  Rose let it slide, although so much chivalry was starting to make her uncomfortable. “What brings you to these parts, Sam?” she asked.

  “Business. Probably the same as yours, if you’re riding with this yahoo.”

  “Shoot,” Rose said, unable to suppress a grin. She took a sip of whiskey, letting the liquor burn a path through the trail dust in her throat. It felt odd to be in a saloon, standing up to the bar like one of the boys, but damn if it didn’t feel kind of nice, too. Like coming home after a long journey away.

  “You keeping up on those tricks I taught you?” Sam asked.

  “What tricks are those?” Shorty inquired, cocking a brow.

  “Gun tricks,” Rose said quickly. “Dang it, Shorty, you got an ornery mind.” She put her hand on the Smith & Wesson, saying to Sam: “I ain’t kept up recent-like, what with summer and all the chores that’s needed doin’. Plus I got this new pistol, and ain’t tried it a-tall with this. But I practiced last winter with my Colt and got pretty good for a while.”

  “This isn’t the place, but sometime you ought to show Shorty your road agent spin,” Sam suggested.

  “She good at it, is she?” Shorty asked.

  “One of the best.”

  The road agent spin was a trick Sam had picked up from an old-time Kansas pistoleer. It worked on the assumption that an assailant had gotten the drop on the shooter and was demanding his firearms. Sam, who carried a brace of revolvers when on the tramp, had demonstrated the technique to Rose after a supper she’d fed him the previous year, holding both his revolvers toward her, butt first, as if to surrender them. But when Rose reached for the pistols, Sam had flipped them back into his own hands so fast it had been a blur.

  It was only when he’d showed her how to do it in slow motion—keeping a trigger finger inside each trigger guard as the pistols were proffered, then letting them tip out and down while simultaneously spinning them back into his hands—that Rose had finally understood the trick.

  Although she’d never taken displays of gunmanship as seriously as a lot of the men who rode the Owlhoot, she’d been impressed with the road agent spin, and had practiced it diligently with her old cap-and-ball Colt after Sam left.

  Rose finished her whiskey, then switched to beer. Sam stayed a while to talk horses with Shorty, then ambled off to join a card game. Toward evening, Rose and Shorty went out in search of a meal. She’d forgotten about the Bull’s Head Restaurant until they passed it on the boardwalk. Grabbing Shorty’s arm, she hauled him back. “Let’s eat here,” she said.

  “Naw, let’s go to the Yellowstone Café. It serves a better steak.”

  “I got my mind set on eatin’ here, Shorty. My pap and I ate here once, a long time ago.” She walked over to peer through the open door. The place was shabbier than she remembered, but there was still a mounted buffalo head on the wall, red and white checked cloths on the tables. “Come on, gol-darn it. I been trailin’ you boys all over creation the last couple of weeks. You can trail me this once.”

  Laughing, Shorty followed her inside, where they ordered steaks with boiled potatoes, beets, and fried co
rn. The coffee was stout enough to float a nail, but the stewed apples sprinkled with cinnamon they had for dessert more than made up for it.

  “I could get used to ridin’ with you two roosters if we ate like this every once in a while,” Rose said, cleaning out the dessert bowl with her finger.

  “That’d suit me,” Shorty said, leaning back to start a cigarette. “You’d better talk to Wiley, though. He’s under the impression he’s ramrodding the outfit.”

  “I’ll do that, soon as we get back.”

  He gave her a sheepish look. “I won’t be going straight back, Rose. I’ve got some business to attend to on the other side of town.”

  “I’ll give you a hand.”

  Shorty swallowed hard and nearly choked. Then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard he spilled his tobacco, then tore the paper. Finally he shook his head and started another. “I think I’d better handle this myself,” he said, eyes sparkling.

  Rose felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “You’re gonna visit one of them dance halls, ain’t you?”

  “Naw, but there’s a widow woman I keep company with when I’m in town. She’s a nice girl, but does a little red-light work on the side. Nothing serious, and only with drovers she likes.” He shrugged self-consciously. “We get along, her ’n’ me.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Shorty. I ain’t no pampered gal that don’t know the ways of nature. Men has got their needs, that’s all there is to it.”

  “It ain’t that so much,” he replied, looking kind of perplexed. “It’s just that every time I come into Miles, I half expect to find her married off to some local rancher. She could have her pick of the local bachelors. I can’t figure out why she hasn’t done it yet.”

  “I’ll bet she’s got her cap set for you, and is just waitin’ for you to get the urge to settle down.”

  “She’ll have a good long wait. I settled down once. It’s too painful for my taste.”

  Shorty’s words pierced Rose’s heart. It was the truth, she knew, and something a fiddle-footed person like Wiley Collins or Sam Matthews would never understand. But Shorty knew about the pain. So did Rose. For a moment she tried to imagine what it would be like if she and Shorty threw in together as husband and wife, then tucked the thought away as impractical.

  Shorty paid for the meal out of his own poke and they went outside, stopping on the boardwalk in the softening twilight. The chill on the breeze seemed earlier than usual, and, looking off to the northwest, Rose saw a familiar blue haze on the horizon. It surprised her a little to realize a winter storm was brewing, after so many days of sweating on the trail, but it was time for it, she supposed. October now, and maybe the downhill side of it at that. She’d have to find a calendar while she was in Miles City and figure out what the date was. It was something she hadn’t paid much attention to at the cabin, but she’d need to keep better track of the months if she was going to hang around a town.

  Making his amends, Shorty headed off in search of a shave and a bath. Alone, Rose suddenly felt big and awkward in her shabby male attire. She wished she could go with him, at least as far as a barbershop. The thought of scrubbing up with hot water and maybe getting her hair trimmed—it was bothersome, being so long—was appealing, but she was short of funds after the skinning Two-Hats had given her, and she knew she’d have to make do, dirty, until she could slip down to the river and sneak a bath after dark.

  With nowhere else to go, she returned to the Silver Star. Wiley would be there, and maybe Sam and some of the boys. They’d be poor company compared with Shorty, but better than standing alone on a street corner like some addle-brained child of the wilderness, watching the lights come on in homes and businesses around town.

  The bartender, Tom, was making the rounds of the saloon, lighting the dozen or so hurricane lamps along the walls with a long taper, when Rose paused at the front door. She saw Wiley playing cards at the back of the room, but he was so intent on his game she doubted if he’d even been aware that she’d left. Sam Matthews was bucking the tiger at faro, and the others she knew were likewise occupied.

  Even with so many familiar faces on hand, Rose almost didn’t go in. The working girls had returned while she and Shorty had supper—seven of them that she could see. They’d been away that afternoon attending the funeral of a whore who’d been found beaten and drowned in the Yellowstone the day before. According to Tom, the dead girl was new in town and had worked in a different saloon, but even though none of the Silver Star hookers had known her, they’d all experienced a certain kinship with her fate.

  The whores intimidated Rose, and if it hadn’t been so cold she might have gone elsewhere, but she didn’t know a soul in Miles City, or own an outfit warm enough to withstand an early winter storm. Grimly she pushed inside, sidling up to the end of the bar and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  Although the soiled doves spotted her right away, they gave her a wide berth. No doubt they were as curious about her as she was about them. Even Calamity Jane, they said, generally wore a dress when in town, although Rose knew that wasn’t something a smart man would bet on.

  Rose was grateful when Tom brought her a beer. The first one gave her something to concentrate on, and the second one sparked a goal of sorts. She’d been drunk a few times in her life, so she knew what she was doing when she picked up the pace of her drinking.

  It was a few minutes past 8:00 when the batwing doors swung open and her old friend, Joe Bean, walked in. The room went immediately silent, although by then Rose was too far along in her drinking to notice. She swiveled on her elbows to squint toward the doors. “Joe!” she exclaimed, and in the deep quiet the name seemed to echo cavernously.

  Joe’s attention had been riveted to the back of the room, his gray eyes glittering like slivers of polished flint. A muscle in his cheek twitched when Rose called his name, but otherwise he didn’t move. No one did, until Joe heaved a sigh and looked her way.

  “Hello, Rose.”

  She glanced toward the rear of the saloon, where a couple of the boys were ducking out the back door. “Dang,” she said, puzzled. But Joe seemed unperturbed. He walked to the bar as if on an evening’s stroll.

  “Joe, I’m sorry as all get-out if I messed up some of your business. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I’ll admit to a modicum of surprise myself,” he replied amiably.

  Joe Bean was a handsome man in his early thirties, of average height and weight, although stoutly framed. He wore his brown hair cropped short and sported a neatly trimmed mustache. His eyes were deep-set, his jaw square and solid. He wore a new-looking suit in black, a brocade vest, a string tie over a white shirt, and boots that were nearly dustless. He looked, in fact, as if he was on his way to a funeral, or had just come from one, and Rose was tempted to ask if he’d known the whore they’d buried that afternoon. Then Sam Matthews stepped away from the faro table, and Joe swung quickly to face him. “Have a loose rein there, friend Matthews,” Joe advised tersely.

  “You two-bit traitor,” Sam snarled. “Why don’t you crawl back under a rock where you belong?”

  Joe’s gaze narrowed. “I’ll not suffer that kind of abuse for long,” he replied evenly. “If you wish to press your luck, I’ll oblige you right here.” He moved away from the bar, flipping his coattails back to reveal a short-barreled Colt in a cut-down holster.

  Sam teetered a moment over the line of indecision, then abruptly pulled in his horns. “Not today, but we’ll meet again.”

  Joe smiled his friendly smile, but kept his hand poised over his revolver. Sam turned and pushed through the throng, exiting the rear door as the two waddies before him had done. Joe eyed the remaining crowd speculatively, but no one seemed inclined to take up Sam’s cause.

  “What was that about?” Rose asked when Joe returned to her side. “Are you two on the warpath?”

  “I’ve taken
a position with the Yellowstone Basin Cattlemen’s Association,” Joe answered in oddly precise tones. “That seems to have put me on the warpath with quite a number of men in here tonight.”

  Tom brought a whiskey poured from one of the fancier bottles behind the bar, then scooped up the change Joe carelessly tossed onto the counter. Lifting his glass, Joe said: “Some might call you a brave woman, Rose, to stand beside a man surrounded by so many enemies. I suspect it’s just innocence, however.”

  “Shoot, we been friends since ’way back,” she reminded him. “I remember when you wintered with us up in the Frozen Dog Hills, hunting buffalo. When was that … ’Seventy-Nine. Eighty?”

  “’Seventy-Seven, I believe. I’m no longer a hunter, Rose, although some call me that.” He took a sip of whiskey, rolling it over his tongue as if to savor the taste.

  Understanding dawned at last, and Rose reared back in disbelief. “Joe, you ain’t become a Regulator, have you?”

  “That word has picked up some ugly connotations recently,” he replied carefully. “We call ourselves range detectives.”

  “Range detectives?” Her expression crumbled. “Hell’s bells, Joe. Range detective … Regulator … Strangler. What’s the difference. You might as well have fought with Crazy Horse against Custer.”

  “There is a difference, although I doubt if you could grasp it in your present condition. I didn’t know you imbibed. I hope it’s only a temporary response to Muggy’s death, and not a permanent affliction. By the way, my condolences on your loss.”

  “Condolences, Joe. Imbibed. Affliction. What’s got into you. You never used to use that kind of language.”

  He ducked his head, then lifted it doggedly. “You’re right, of course. I’ve spend considerable time in the company of educated men recently, and picked up some of their worst habits. But it’s not simply a question of conceit. I needed change in my life. I needed to wipe the stink of dead buffalo off of me for good. This job has done that. It’s given me respectability. I’ll not jeopardize that for the likes of Sam Matthews or Wiley Collins.” He paused as if weighing an issue, then said softly: “There is a list. Have you heard of it?”