The bartender nodded. “I’ve no problem with serving the Celestials as long as they’ve the money to pay for it. Anyway, where else would you go? It’s more ’n likely I’m the only one that would serve him, except Ma Ling’s Chinese Restaurant.”
“Good,” Duff said. “In that case I’ll have a Scotch, and though I’ll be for letting my friends order for themselves, ’tis I who’ll be paying for it. And I’ll be paying for Mr. O’Leary as well.”
“What is that accent, mister?”
“Why ’tis nae an accent m’ lad, but ’tis music to the ear of the Scotsman.”
“From Scotland, are you?”
“Oh Lord, don’t get him started,” Elmer said. “For if you do, like as not he’ll haul out his pipes ’n give you a tune.”
Prescott laughed. “And what’ll you have?”
Elmer ordered bourbon, Wang ordered wine, and O’Leary ordered a beer.
As the bartender turned away to get the drinks, Duff happened to see an iron bar attached to the wall alongside the mirror. “Elmer, I’ll be thinkin’ that you’ve seen one of those before.”
As Prescott noticed Duff and Elmer’s interest in the iron bar, he commented, “I’ll bet you don’t know what that is.” He set the drinks before them.
“If I were guessing, I would say that ’tis a Flinders bar,” Duff said.
“That’s what it is, all right,” Elmer said. “That’s what you use to orient a ship’s compass.”
“By damn, the two of you do know,” the bartender said with a big smile. “I take it you gentlemen have both been to sea, for it would take a sailor man to know what that is.”
“Aye, we’ve both been to sea,” Duff said. “What is it doing here, if I may ask? It seems to me that we are a long way from the sea.”
“That we are, friend, that we are. And you’re right, it is a Flinders bar, but it isn’t just any Flinders bar. It’s the Flinders bar off the greatest fighting ship ever to sail the seas. I grabbed it off the CSS Alabama just before I abandoned ship. I knew it was going down, ’n I wanted a souvenir.”
“So you sailed on the Alabama, did you? I understand the name of the saloon now.”
“I more than just sailed on her. I was her helmsman. Do you know anything about the Alabama?” Prescott asked.
“I’ve heard of her. She was some sort of a raider, wasn’t she?”
“She was much more than a mere raider. The Alabama captured or burned sixty-five Union merchant ships and took more than two thousand prisoners before we run into the Kearsarge. We woulda sunk the Kearsarge, too, but for the fact that a hundred-pound shell we lodged in her rudder post didn’t explode.”
“’Tis good to see that you survived,” Duff said.
“Yes, but I’m sorry to say that nineteen of my shipmates died that day.”
“To your lost shipmates,” Duff said, lifting his glass.
The others, including Wang, lifted their glasses with him.
Duff had put a dollar bill on the counter to pay for the drinks, and the bartender pushed it back to him.
“No, my friend, for your sentiments, your first drinks are on the house.”
“My thanks to you, and ’tis a foine man you be.” Duff tossed the drink down, then ordered another. Ordinarily, one drink would be his limit, but since the bartender had bought the first drink it seemed only right that he buy another.
“Tell me, Mr. Prescott, you got ’ny grub in this place?” Elmer asked.
“I sure do,” Prescott replied. “How would fried potatoes, eggs, and biscuits suit you?”
“Sounds like somethin’ my old mama woulda cooked for me,” Elmer replied. “If she had been sober long enough to cook it,” he added with a chuckle.
“Mr. Wang, if you would like, I can send someone down to Ma Ling’s for a Chinese dinner for you. I’ve done such a thing before.”
Wang, who most of the time kept his expressions neutral, allowed a smile to spread across his face. He put his hands together, prayer like, and dipped his head slightly. “One thousand thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Prescott said. “I know a few Celestials, and I’ve always known them to be good people.”
Seeing the headline RIDER WITH BILL ANDERSON SENT TO PRISON at the top of one of the stories, Elmer picked up the newspaper and began to read. “I’ll be damned. Roy Kelly’s done got hisself throwed in jail.”
“I beg your pardon?” Duff said.
Elmer thumped the newspaper. “Roy Kelly. He’s a feller I rode with some back in the war. Says here they sent him to prison just for ridin’ with Anderson. Hell, maybe I better not say nothin’ ’bout who I rode with, seein’ as lots of times me ’n Kelly was ridin’ side by side.”
Chapter Eight
Over at the Hog Pen Saloon, Pete Jaco and Clem Dawkins were having a beer at a table in the back. It had been chosen so they could have a private conversation, but they needn’t have worried. The noise level was such—discordant notes coming from the out-of-tune piano, loud guffawing of the men, and the high-pitched cackles of the women—that they could have been talking anywhere in the saloon without the likelihood of being overheard.
“I seen ’em comin’ in ’n I heard somebody say they was five hunnert of ’em,” Jaco said. “Black Angus they was too, ’n them is some of the most expensive cows they is. I say we snatch ’em up.”
“From the pens?”
“No, not from the pens. We’d never get away with it if we tried takin’ ’em from the pen. I’m talkin’ ’bout after they leave town, while they’re out on the trail,” Jaco said.
“Where is it do you think they’re a-goin’?” Dawkins asked.
“Well, I seen O’Leary lookin’ ’em over, ’n bein’ as he rides for the Slash Bell, I reckon that’s where they’ll be a-goin’.”
“How many men are there?”
“Well, with O’Leary, there’ll be four of ’em, but seein’ as one of ’em is a Chinaman, I reckon that’s near ’bout the same thing as there bein’ only three of ’em.”
Dawkins frowned. “Still, we’d be outnumbered if we hit ’em with just the two of us. Besides which, even if we was to take ’em all out, there ain’t no way we could move five hunnert cows all by ourselves.”
“I expect Rexwell, Moss, and the Weeper would more ’n likely ride with us if we ask ’em. That’d give us five men ’n we’d outnumber them, even if you did count the Chinaman.”
“What are we goin’ to do with these cows even if we do get ’em?”
Jaco explained. “If we was to take all five hunnert of ’em, there ain’t no doubt in my mind but what we could sell ever’ one of ’em for thirty dollars apiece. That’d be fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Woowee, I didn’t know there was that much money in the whole world. You’re good at cipherin’. What would that come out to for five of us?”
“That’d be three thousand dollars apiece,” Jaco said. “You have to admit, that’s pretty good money.”
“Yeah, it is good money, if we could sell them.”
“What do you mean, if we could sell them?”
Dawkins sighed. “When you are talking about that much money, you have to find someone who is stout enough to make the purchase, and yet don’t have no problem with buying stoled cows. So, who do you think we could get to buy ’em?”
“I expect we could sell ’em to Dirk Kendrick. I hear tell he’s buildin’ hisself up a herd.”
“You think Kendrick’s got that much money?”
Jaco nodded. “I figure he has a lot more than that. And he’s smart enough to know that he could take the cows to market ’n get near twice what he’d be payin’ us for ’em.”
“All right. It all sounds good to me.” Dawkins rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Now, how do we go about it?”
“They ain’t plannin’ on movin’ the cows till mornin’,” Jaco said. “I say we go out there tonight and wait on ’em. We’ll hit ’em tomorrow mornin’, just before they cross Cypress C
reek.”
* * *
“The Dunn Hotel would be a good place for us to spend the night,” O’Leary said. “I don’t know if they would let Mr. Wang stay there or not, but Ma Ling, who runs the Chinese restaurant, also has a boardin’ house for Celestials out behind her restaurant. Mr. Bellefontaine will pay for it.”
“That will be acceptable to me,” Wang said.
“Are you sure, Wang?”
Wang laughed. “It will be good to see someone who does not have round eyes.”
Duff laughed as well. “Aye, ’tis understandin’ I am, for ’twould be good for me to hear the Scottish brogue spoken. Very well, Wang, go and spend some time with the heathens.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Duff was standing in his hotel room, looking out onto the street below. It was a busy night in Merrill Town, with a full cacophony of sound floating in through the open window. From the Hog Pen and Alabama saloons, Duff could hear the two pianos competing with each other, the out-of-key piano winning the battle. The voices of scores of animated conversations spilled out through the open windows and doors of the town’s buildings and somewhere someone was singing. He heard a gunshot, but knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t a shot fired in anger. The shot was followed by a woman’s high-pitched scream, then a man’s deep-voiced laughter.
Duff extinguished the lamp, then lay in bed with his hands folded behind his head, staring up into the darkness. It was at such times that he sometimes thought about the events in his life that had brought him to the American West. He had been a soldier in North Africa, and a landowner in Scotland, where he had every intention of marrying his sweetheart and settling down to raise his bairn to follow him someday.
But his sweetheart was murdered before the wedding, and it was his revenge of her death that had brought him to this place and this time. In America, he had started a new life, and had made friends like Elmer Gleason and Wang Chow, men whose loyalty was without question.
Back in Chugwater he had a woman friend, Megan Parker. She was more than a friend. She was also a business partner. Truth to tell, she was even more than that. Not since Skye McGregor had Duff felt about any woman as he felt about Megan. And if he could get Skye out of his heart, it would be Megan he would be marrying.
He wrestled with those thoughts. He didn’t know if he was being unfair to Skye for having such feelings about Megan or if he was being unfair to Megan for holding on to such feelings for Skye. Finally, the thoughts settled, and he drifted off to sleep.
About two miles west of Merrill Town
Jaco, Dawkins, Rexwell, Moss, and the Weeper passed a bottle around a campfire.
“You know what we ought to do,” Jaco said. “What we ought to do is join up with them Fence Busters.”
“Why?” Dawkins asked. “Once we get our hands on these cows ’n sell ’em, we’ll have more money than we’d make by ridin’ with Dirk Kendrick.”
“Yeah, but this is just one time. After this money is gone, what’ll we do next? With the Fence Busters there’s always money to be made. And there ain’t no law that can touch ’em, neither.”
“What do you mean the law can’t touch ’em?” Moss asked. “Are you sayin’ what they’re a-doin’ ain’t against the law? You done said that Kendrick would be willin’ to buy stoled cows. It’s agin’ the law to buy ’em if they was stole, same as if you had stole ’em yourself.”
“Well, yeah, it’s against the law to buy property that someone else has stoled. But the reason I say there ain’t no law than can touch ’em, is on account of they’s at least thirty of ’em, or maybe more. ’N Kendrick’s got ’em organized like an army, so there ain’t no sheriff that can go up ag’in ’em, ’n there ain’t no posse that wants to run into ’em, either. Yes, sir, joinin’ up with the Fence Busters is just exactly what we need to do.”
“Yeah, but Kendrick won’t take just anyone,” Moss said.
“Oh, he’ll take us,” Jaco said. “After we pull this deal off, he’ll take us. Especially if we trade these cattle to him for takin’ us in.”
“Trade the cattle?” Dawkins said. “What are you talkin’ about? Jaco, you ain’t sayin’ give ’im the cattle for nothin’, are you?”
“No. But I figure we could use the cattle to bargain. You know, sell ’em to ’im for a little less, in return for takin’ us into his group.”
“How much less?”
“Say, fifteen dollars a head. We’d still wind up with fifteen hunnert dollars apiece.”
“That ain’t the three thousand dollars you said,” Dawkins complained.
“No, it ain’t. But let me ask you this. When’s the last time you had fifteen hunnert dollars all at one time?” Jaco asked.
“I ain’t never had that much money.”
“Then think about it. More money ’n you ever had in your life, plus a way of makin’ a lot more money.”
“Yeah,” Dawkins said. “Yeah, you’re right. All right. You want to bargain to get us in, go ahead. I’m with you.”
“Now you’re bein’ smart about it.”
“What time you reckon someone’ll get here?” Dawkins asked Jaco.
“I figure sometime ’round mid-mornin’ tomorrow.”
“How you plan to do it?” Moss asked.
“There’s only four of ’em. We’ll just wait until they get into rifle range, then we’ll each one take a rider and shoot ’em,” Jaco said. “Once all four of ’em are down, taking the cattle will be a piece of cake.”
Merrill Town
“Well, Sky,” Duff said to his horse the next morning, “sure ’n I bet you had a better night last night, than you did all those nights you were on the train.”
Sky whinnied and shook his head as if he understood and was answering.
“But we’ll be goin’ for a wee bit of a walk now, so you’ll be able to get all those kinks worked out.”
When Sky and the other three horses were saddled, the four men rode from the stable to the holding pens where the cattle had spent the night. The bell was still hanging around Brother Ben’s neck, and Elmer rode into the pen, found the big steer, and led him out. The others followed.
Fifteen minutes later, the small herd and Duff, Elmer, Wang, and O’Leary were riding down Bratton Road through the middle of town, the passage of the cattle being watched by dozens of onlookers on either side of the street. As the cattle were following behind Brother Ben, it was more of an orderly procession than it was a cattle drive. The dulcet clang of Brother Ben’s bell echoed back from the buildings that lined both sides of the street.
“Hey, O’Leary! What’s that bell that’s a hangin’ around that steer’s neck? Is it a dinner bell?” someone shouted.
The remark got a few laughs.
“Only for them’s that can afford it, Carl. I reckon you’ll just have to keep eatin’ bacon.” O’Leary’s response got even more laughs.
The cattle streamed on through town, then started toward the Slash Bell outfit.
After they were out of town, the cattle fell into a steady three-mile-per-hour walk, which meant they should reach the Slash Bell Ranch sometime around noon.
There was something about sitting in a saddle with the warm sun streaming down and the familiar smell of cattle filling his nostrils that Duff found comforting. He let his horse match the pace of the moving herd. Sky had moved cattle so many times Duff had no doubt that even if he wasn’t in the saddle, his horse would be able to keep the herd moving.
Cypress Creek
Jaco, Dawkins, Moss, Rexwell, and the Weeper were waiting at the creek. They could hear the approaching herd before they could see it—a clanging bell, the lowing of the cattle, the shuffle of hooves, and an occasional whistle. They waited until the advancing cattle came into view, moving across the prairie like a low-lying, black cloud.
“Look there,” Jaco said. “It’s just like I said, They’s only four of ’em.”
“How are we goin’ to do it?”
“As soon as the fir
st ones of the men actual gets into the water, we’ll commence to shootin’. That’ll more ’n likely spook the cows, and the first thing those riders will do is try ’n stop ’em. While they’re worryin’ about the cows, we’ll be pickin’ ’em off. Soon as we get all four of ’em kilt, we’ll gather up the cattle.
“By that time, the cows will be stampedin’, won’t they?” Moss asked.
“They might turn ’n start runnin’, but I don’t know as I’d call it a stampede. All we have to do is catch up with them, then turn them back in on themselves, get them to runnin’ in a circle ’til they get tired. After that, they’ll be easy enough to handle.”
“Somehow, I don’t see this as easy as you do,” Moss said.
“You want the money, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, I want the money.”
“Then you just do what I tell you to do ’n you’ll have fifteen hunnert dollars in your hand by nightfall.”
“Hey, Moss,” the Weeper said. “What you goin’ to do with all that money?”
“I’m goin’ to Austin, ’n I’m goin’ to get me the best-lookin’ saloon gal in the whole town.”
“Ha! That would more ’n likely take up ever’ cent you’d have,” the Weeper replied.
“Quiet,” Jaco said. “They’re gettin’ closer.”
* * *
Wang rode up beside Duff.
“What is it, Wang?” Duff asked.
“I think there are men ahead,” Wang said.
“What kind of men?”
“They are not men we wish to meet,” Wang said. “I think they are trouble.”
Duff and Wang rode to the front of the herd to share Wang’s warning with O’Leary.
Elmer, seeing the three men congregate, rode up to join them. “What’s up?”
“Wang says there are men waiting for us ahead,” Duff said.
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