Lord, it’s like you’re naggin’ at me! You’ve ignored me and let me go my way for years, and now you’re nagging me!
I do believe this is my last trip to Dodge City.
A big, tall man with a neatly trimmed, salt and pepper beard rested his elbows on the hitching rail in front the Chicago Meat Packing office, watching two wagons full of bleached buffalo bones, stacked sixteen feet high, roll down Front Street. “That’s a lot of bones,” he muttered to no one in particular.
Sam stopped beside the man. “There’s a lot more out on the prairie.”
“Yep, but there won’t be forever. Then, everyone out here— including the Indians—will have to eat beef instead of buffalo,” the man reasoned. “You just come up the trail?”
Fortune pushed his stiff Stetson with old, rawhide stampede string to the back of his head. “Hard to hide, isn’t it?”
“You got cattle to sell? I’m the buyer.”
Sam straightened his new black tie and brushed his thick mustache with his fingertips. “No, sir. I’m reppin’ for Mr. Rocklin.”
“Rocklin? Well, it’s about time you showed up. Your crew pushed in here over two weeks ago.”
“That’s what I heard. They were supposed to rendezvous down near the Canadian in the Public Lands.”
“Well, they said the trail boss took a spill and died coming across the Red Desert. So, they hunted around a little for Rocklin, but he didn’t show, so they pushed them up. I bought them.”
“You what?”
The man stroked his chin whiskers. “I said, ‘I bought them out.’”
The suit coat suddenly felt tight across Sam’s shoulders. “They weren’t for sale. They were going to be foundation stock.”
“Out in Public Lands?” The man spit a chaw of tobacco about ten feet out into the wide, dusty street. “Cows can’t live out there. There’s no water.”
“That’s for Rocklin to decide. How can you buy twelve hundred beef from a man who doesn’t want to sell them?”
“Look, mister, that’s for your boss and crew to discuss. I’ve been holdin’ the Wells Fargo banknote for Rocklin.”
“But I’m supposed to take the herd and crew out to the ranch.”
“I paid them off out of his profits. Most of them went back to Texas, I reckon. As far as the herd, you can tell Rocklin to come to Dodge and pick out the ones he wants from another herd. I’ll sell them for the same price per head as I bought them. These Jayhawkers are gettin’ scared of Texas fever in the cattle. They won’t let us bed them down north of the tracks anymore. They want them loaded in boxcars immediately and shipped east. So that’s what I did. “Let’s go get that draft. You do have a power of attorney on you, don’t you?”
Fortune reached into his vest pocket. “Yep.”
“Good, I’ll draw you up a receipt and send you on your way.”
“How much is that banknote worth, anyways?”
The man pulled a small notebook and stubby pencil from his suit pocket, then flipped through the pages. “Rocklin has a note for twenty-two thousand and four hundred dollars.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dodge City, Kansas,
Queen of the Cowtowns
Sam Fortune entered Big Mike Feeney’s Grocery Store wearing new ducking trousers and a new white cotton shirt. The three-piece suit and tie that Rachel had chided him into buying were folded neatly in his bedroll, lashed behind the cantle of his saddle. The long-legged buckskin was hitched to the rail in front of the store.
When he left the store, Sam toted a baby loaf of yellow cheese, two dozen sticks of buffalo jerky, and a two-pound tin of salt crackers. Like a small, striped cigar, a red and white peppermint stick pinched proudly between his lips.
He tethered the grub sack in front of the fork of the saddle and tugged his new hat down in the front.
If I ride all night, I could make the ranch around noon. Providing the horses hold up and the moon’s bright enough to ride . . . and I don’t fall asleep and tumble off into one of those barrancas. Well, good-bye ol’ paint . . . I’m leavin’ . . . Dodge City. It isn’t the right words to the song, but the message fits. You’ve seen your day come and go, cowtown—and so have I.
Sam swung up into the saddle and untied the lead rope of the red roan. He plodded the horses west on Front Street. At the edge of town, he pivoted in the saddle and leaned on the buckskin’s rump while tipping his new Stetson.
A gold reflection caught his eye.
Gold earrings.
On a man.
Like a pirate.
He and another man with full beard shoved open the tall, narrow doors of the Long Branch Saloon and disappeared inside. Sam jerked the horses around and trotted them to the rail in front of the saloon.
He left the Sharps carbine hanging on the saddle. Sam pulled his Colt out of his holster and shoved it into his sogan. He bit off the wet end of the peppermint stick and shoved the rest into his bedroll as well.
Inside the Long Branch a big, bald, black man pounded an out-of-tune piano. Sam distinguished shouts from a card game, curses from disgruntled drinkers, and an occasional giggle from one of the brightly dressed girls. Cigar and cigarette smoke drifted across the room. The floor felt gritty under his boots. An aroma of whiskey and sweat wafted from most every person and object in the room.
On the far wall, next to the back door, Fortune spotted the man with earrings. His partner had his back toward the bar.
Along with half a dozen customers, Fortune leaned against the polished wood and brass bar.
“Sam, is that you?”
Fortune stared into the friendly eyes of the tall, slender bartender with thin brown hair and hawklike nose.
“Talbert?”
“Yeah. How about this?” he pointed at the white apron he wore. “Bet you never thought you’d see me in an honest job.”
Sam pushed his new hat back and grinned. “It’s a long way from dodgin’ bullets down on Delaware Ridge.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Talbert looped his thumbs through his bib apron straps. “I got me an honest woman, an honest job, and an honest little house with a picket fence around it. I like it, Sammy. It fits me.”
Sam pushed his hat back even farther and scratched his neatly trimmed hair. Is this the man who once shoved open the front door on that log cabin and dared the entire posse to come through? “Talbert, I’m happy for you.”
“You’re lookin’ scrubbed up and good, Sammy. Someone told me Judge Parker hung you.”
“I did have a run-in with the judge, but he decided three years in prison would cure me.”
“Did it?”
“Look at me, Talbert—new trousers and shirt, shaved up, and a new Stetson. What does that tell you?”
“Either you jist robbed a bank, or you got yourself a legitimate job. Did you leave the Territory?”
Glancing at the mirror behind the bar, he could see the man with the gold earrings still drinking. “I’m reppin’ for a rancher out in the Public Lands.”
“That’s good . . . that’s real good, Sam. A man has to pull out of that life before he carries too much lead. Now, you never were a drinkin’ man, so what are you doing in the Long Branch?”
Fortune nodded toward the back door. “There’s a couple of bushwhackers in here I wanted to . . . eh . . . visit with—but I can’t remember their names.”
“Who’s that?”
Sam dropped his voice down a little lower. “One of ’em wears gold earrings, like a pirate. And the other has . . .”
One of the girls began a frenzied dance next to the piano. Several onlookers clapped in tune.
Talbert pointed to his own hand. “Has both middle fingers missin’?”
Sam practically shouted to be heard, “Yeah.”
The piano and the clapping softened. Talbert leaned across the bar. “You ain’t got your pistol in that holster, do you?”
“Nope.” Sam showed him the empty holster.
“Good.” The bartender shielded his lips with his hand. “’Cause it’s against the law to pack in the city limits, and I don’t want you gettin’ in a gunfight right before my eyes.”
“A gunfight? I didn’t say I wanted to kill them. I just wanted to know their names.”
Talbert stood straight and squared his shoulders. “Sammy, there ain’t nobody that looks for McDermitt and Burns unless he’s after a gunfight. They are mean and stupid. It’s a dangerous combination.”
Fortune watched the two men’s reflections in the mirror. “Which one is which?”
“Burns has the earrings.”
“Do they tote sneakguns?” Fortune investigated.
“Do you?” Talbert replied.
Sam grinned and rocked back on his heels. “Talbert, you know me better than that.”
“Them is the type you can’t guarantee anything, Sammy. They’ve been arrested a couple times this week already for carrying guns in the city limit—so, you’d think they’d learn. I’d bet anything they pack knives in their boots.”
“Who are they, Talbert? I never heard of ’em until I was down in Antelope Flats.”
“When they get soused up, they like to brag that they rode with Frank and Jesse James. But I don’t have any reason to believe them. They seem to be in town ever’ time someone gets back shot and robbed. Remember those Orval brothers down at McAllisters that sliced up that woman and her kids? These two are like that, only crazier and more brutal. Don’t turn your back on them, Sammy.”
“I need to have a little talk with them.”
“What about?”
“They beat up a friend of mine.”
“Who?”
“Piney Burleson.”
“No! Piney? Is she all right?” the bartender asked.
“She won’t ever be all right again, Talbert.”
The bartender shook his head. “That ain’t right.”
“That’s why I need to have a little talk with them.”
The bartender rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. “You need help?”
“Talbert, you’ve got a good job, a good wife, and a good little house with a picket fence. Don’t jeopardize that. Take some trash out back or somethin’. Then, when you come in, tell them an old acquaintance from down in the Territory is out in the alley and needs to tell them somethin’.”
Talbert glanced at the back door. “You goin’ to take ’em both on?”
“You said they were dumb. Give me three minutes to get around back.”
“I also said they was mean.” Talbert plucked up a circular tin trash can. He also pulled a three-foot, hickory axe handle out from under the counter and jammed it into the two-foot can. “This billy-whacker is gettin’ old. Think I’ll toss it out into the second barrel on the left.”
Sam gazed back at the men. A heated debate brewed between them. The piano music picked up, and one of the girls sang “My Home Is on the Prairie, But My Heart Sails Off at Dawn.”
Talbert leaned over the bar. “Did you hear me?”
“Axe handle, second barrel. Yeah . . . thanks, Talbert.”
“What do you want me to tell them?”
“Tell them I got news from down in the Territory, and I need to talk to both of them in private.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doin’, Sammy?”
“I haven’t known for sure what I was doin’ since you and me jumped off that Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad mail car five years ago.”
The bartender’s eyes lit up. “How did we ever live through that?”
“It was the grace of God, I reckon.”
Talbert’s eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “I believe you’re right, but I never thought I’d hear those words from your lips.”
Fortune turned and watched three men stroll in the front door of the Long Branch. Neither did I, Talbert Manning . . . neither did I.
Sam slipped out of the saloon, looped his empty holster over the saddle horn. He rolled up his sleeves as he marched to the alley behind the Long Branch. The back door also worked as a loading door. It was four feet wide with a ten-foot ramp down to ground level. Several oak barrels, tucked against the back wall, served as rubbish containers. He spotted the tip end of an axe handle sticking out of the middle barrel.
The alley was half sun, half shade. Fortune stood in the shade with the brim of his hat pulled low. The afternoon sun lit up the door.
The bearded McDermitt shoved open the door and squinted as he tried to adjust to the direct sunlight.
He stretched his neck forward. “Mister, you want to see me?” he blustered.
“Where’s Burns? I need to talk to both of you,” Fortune called out.
The man never moved from the doorway. “What for?”
“I’ve got somethin’ for you and him.”
“Bring it to me, I’ll take it to him.”
“How do I know you’ll share it with him?”
“Share what?”
“The reward,” Fortune tempted.
“What reward?”
“I don’t want to yell it all over town,” Fortune baited. “It’s from a lady down in Indian Nation.”
The big man took several steps down the ramp. “Did Belle Star send you up here with our cut?”
“All I can say aloud is that I’m supposed to give you and Burns equal shares. I don’t want to go back and tell her I only did half the job.”
“I’ll get Burns.” The man scurried up the ramp and back into the saloon.
Within moments both men burst through the wide door. Big smiles creased dirty faces, hats rakishly tilted to the right.
Burns’s earrings sparkled in the afternoon sun as he shuffled down the ramp and into the shade. “So she decided we didn’t need to wait until September?”
Sam held fine, dry, alley dirt in his clenched left hand. “She figured the sooner you two got paid off, the better.”
“That’s exactly what I tried to tell her all along!” McDermitt added, rubbing his beard. Sam noticed the man’s missing fingers.
“Did Belle send gold dust or coins?” Burns asked as he approached.
“Come here; let me show you a sample,” Sam offered, holding the clenched fist in front of him.
“Where’s the rest of it?” McDermitt peeked over the shorter Burns’s shoulder and watched Fortune’s hand.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get your whole share. But there is one thing you ought to know: Belle Star didn’t send me up here.”
“Who did?” Burns asked.
“Piney Burleson,” Sam announced.
“Who in hades is Piney Burleson?” McDermitt blustered.
“Oh, you remember. She’s about six foot tall, thin, with long blond hair. She lives in Antelope Flats. You about busted your toes kickin’ her head in. Remember?”
Burns reached for his boot top, but the dirt in Sam’s hand blasted his face. Fortune caught the man’s chin with the palm of his hand and slammed his head straight back, catching McDermitt square in the forehead.
The bearded man staggered back and tumbled off the side of the ramp. He landed on his back in the alley dirt. Fortune’s knee found the pit of Burns’s stomach. An uppercut to the chin, followed by a resounding left jab and a right hook, sent Burns cussing and tumbling to his back.
Sam dodged McDermitt’s wild roundhouse, but he couldn’t escape the man’s grasp. Both of them tumbled to the dirt. The full impact of Fortune’s elbow slammed into the bearded man, busting the skin. The big man tried to pull away as blood dripped into his eyes, but two right
crosses to the chin left McDermitt struggling to remain on his hands and knees.
Burns lunged at Sam with a one-foot blade hunting knife. Sam heard his shirt tear and felt a red-hot gouge streak across his side. Burns was off balance from the lunge, and Sam shoved him back until he tripped over his partner, sending both men to the ground.
Fortune dove for the oak barrel and snatched out the axe handle. This time when Burns came at him with the knife, Sam slammed the hickory into the man’s arm, just above the wrist.
Bones broke.
The knife dropped.
Burns screamed and dropped to his knees in agony.
McDermitt, still on his hands and knees, reached down for his knife. Sam’s boot caught the man right behind the ear and sent him sprawling on his back. The bearded man raised his right boot to pull his knife, but the axe handle crashed into his shin. It sounded like a dry limb cracking under the weight of a wagon wheel.
Both hands squeezing the hickory handle, Fortune lunged at Burns.
“Sammy!” A shout came from the now open back door.
Fortune raised the axe handle to strike the man’s head.
“Sammy! A deputy’s comin’. . . . Don’t do it. He ain’t worth gettin’ hung over!”
Sam Fortune glanced up to see Talbert Manning and a cluster of customers gawk out at the alley.
“Give me the axe handle,” Talbert insisted.
Fortune paused as two gun-toting deputy marshals trotted up to him.
The jail at Dodge City had a solid brick wall between the cells. Sam couldn’t see the doctor work on Burns and McDermitt, but he heard their screams and curses.
An hour later, the doctor came to examine Sam.
“Mr. Fortune, your knuckles look strong enough, and that cut in the side isn’t too deep. Keep it doctored with iodine for a week, and try to keep the dirt out. When you sweat, it’s going to burn like—well, you know what. You might want to get a new shirt.” The doctor stood back and straightened his tie. “I understand you’re a former acquaintance of my wife’s.”
“Are you Rachel’s husband?”
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