by Mari Sandoz
But Wright knew the wealth of those buffalo years, with their vast spread of hide outfits, so recently working the region from the Republican River up at the Nebraska line down to Double Mountain and along the cap rock to the Concho, where a scattering were still out. He knew about the traders and their bull trains of goods following the herds, the long strings of wagons racked high as great hay-loads, hauling in the dried hides, the millions of dollars harvested each season—all with almost no investment, very little risk. Still, there was no denying that the cowboy's sweat and dust were sweet as prairie roses compared to the stink of the buffalo skinners. There had been stink, too, in the drying hides staked down all over the prairie around Dodge like great faded leaves around a giant tree, say a catalpa, like dead leaves dark-edged and stiff, pressed close to the earth by the coming winter.
The cowboys usually had all their trail wages when they struck town, perhaps two, three months, or half a year and longer if the herd owner was short of cash until he sold the stock. Generally they never wallowed in the velvet long, perhaps only one lurid night. So Dodge clasped them gratefully to her maturing bosom and consented to be their queen. Her youth had been gaudy, with liquor, gun fights, and the fast-growing Boot Hill Cemetery that was started in the wild clashes of the track layers, the troops from the post and the first hide men. There was even a time, back in 1873, when many believed that Dodge City had been ordered burned to the ground. The quiet, inoffensive Negro servant of Major Dodge, commander out at the fort, had been killed by members of the vigilantes, who were, the army men complained, an outlaw gang running a hell hole of a town. But although the troopers came, the torch was never set to the tinder-dry shacks of Dodge. The town was left to face the collapse of her great boom and the hope of a bonanza in beef, perhaps not quite so profitable in hard cash but certainly drawing a lot of fancy, overadvertised gunmen.
Not until last year, 1875, when the hide men and their gun-packing hangers-on were mostly gone, did the law-and-order faction of the town, the mayor and his supporters, pass an ordinance against carrying concealed weapons. Now, as then, they were opposed by the other saloonkeepers, the gamblers, and dance-hall owners, and particularly by the merchants made wealthy by the once apparently inexhaustible buffalo. Now luck was bringing the dusty strings of Long-horns bawling over the south table. It wouldn't be like the hide days but they planned to make the most of the new opportunity, not let a few do-gooders annoy the cattle kings, their trail hands, or the buyers. There were shipping points all the way from Dodge west to the mountains ready to grab any trade driven out here. The railroad, too, favored a wide-open town. It brought business and visitors, easterners and foreigners, come to see, to feel part of a wild and romantic west. Large hunting parties with eyes beyond the buffalo and antelope were particularly welcomed, men traveling in private cars, with money to invest in railroad lands, even railroad stock.
Mayor Hoover, prominent saloonkeeper of Dodge, brought in a gun slinger to keep the cowboys in order. They ran him out. Next the mayor hired Wyatt Earp, one of the many gunmen of the West who did their killing not for fun or personal reasons but for pay, shooting on whichever side paid the best. Earp had a hand-picked force, including the Mastersons, of whom young Bat, well known for courage and marksmanship since the fight at Adobe Walls, was a talented and tireless gambler. It seemed he had been wounded in a shooting scrape over a woman down in Sweetwater, Texas, but was recovered.
Earp and his men wasted no time trying to quiet Dodge, but did aim to keep most of the noise and the shooting south of the Dead Line, drawn, as usual, at the railroad tracks. On the north side gun toting could bring arrest or even a shooting at sight, although Earp and his force took more satisfaction in buffaloing the ordinary cowboy, pistol-whipping him across the side of the head and then dragging him off to jail for the $2.50 bonus per arrest. They managed around 300 arrests a month, and split between $700 and $800 on top of their wages. This buffaloing galled the Texans particularly, and from damnyankees at that. They considered anything short of a bullet in an encounter fit only for Negroes and poor whites and did a little plotting to get even in what they considered a manly way.
Some said it was news of this that pushed young Bat Masterson to head for Deadwood Gulch, talking gold. But although he left Dodge in July and got as far as Cheyenne, the big outfitting station for the Black Hills, it seems he found such good pickings at the gaming table there that he stayed. Wyatt Earp left Dodge, too. In September he and his brother were headed for the gold fields by wagon, perhaps because the cattle season was about over, and the gambling with it. Trailers coming back from the north said the Earps had urged Bat Masterson to return to Dodge and run for county sheriff. There would be more Texans up to buck the tiger next year, pure profit on top of what Bat could rake in as sheriff.
A lot of cattle had come into the Dodge region during the summer of 1876 but what was called the season's largest single drive of Longhorns wasn't marketed there but crossed near the town and went on north. Richard King had gathered up 30,000 head from his coastal ranges and divided them into twelve herds, each with a crew of fifteen good men, fairly well paid: the trail boss at $100 a month, the cowboys $25, and the cook $30. The first herd, around 2,300 head, reached the Ellis, Kansas, region at the K.P. in early June and was pushed on to the hungry Indians at Red Cloud Agency in northwest Nebraska. By mid-June thousands of King's stock grazed along the Smoky Hill River, with several herds already well up toward the Nebraska cow town of Ogallala.
Although King avoided the thickly settled regions, there was loud complaint about these "through" herds directly from the depths of the fever-bearing Tegions. Northern stock began to sicken all along the route. Even lone milk cows that happened to cross King's trail died, and traders at the agencies and the army posts up North lost their stock, even those they hurried off into the White River breaks or the Pine Ridge. Angry letters were fired to the state governors and petitions were circulated for wider quarantine areas and better enforcement from the Red River to Montana.
By now even north Texans were turning dark faces southward. They rode long distances to plan resistance not only to rustlers and the comancheros but also for a stand against the coastal herds that carried the killing fever to the stock of north Texas.
By the end of the 1876 season the prairie that had been so deep and golden in cured winter range last year was bare as a mangy coyote's rump for eighty, a hundred miles around Dodge, even most of the cow chips on the bed grounds tromped to dust. Here and there the looser knobs and hills were blowing curls of sand across the darker ground, to lie like thin drifts of yellowish snow. Thirty thousand cattle had been shipped East from Dodge out of the 322,000 reported into west Kansas. Even though this number did not approach the Abilene region, with its 600,-000 cattle in seventy-one, or the 405,000 to Wichita and Ellsworth in seventy-three, it was a vast increase over the two years since. Besides, many herds went up through Colorado, some to feed the booming gold camps of the Black Hills. Usually they were stopped by the reservation Sioux who still claimed the Hills, but although the swooping warriors were threatening in their paint and feathers, there was usually nothing that a couple of Longhorns cut out for the hungry Indians wouldn't settle, perhaps worn-out, footsore, trail-gaunted steers tough as rawhide for the Sioux whose teeth had bitten into fat young hump rib of buffalo only a few months ago.
The real danger up around the Hills was the loss of the trail hands. Sometimes even men of long experience swapped their saddles and gear for a pick and a gold pan.
"You can't get them to dig a shovel of dirt even for a branding fire but up here they'll prairie-dog it all day into hard rock," an angry cattleman snorted as he gnawed off a fresh chew and put the plug away in his back pocket, in its saddle-worn place.
Many herds went on government contracts to the northern Indians, all on reservations now except the last remnant out with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull in the Yellowstone country. In addition many herds of young steers or she-stuf
f went to northern ranches, some pushing well beyond the Platte, many deep in Wyoming, poised for a run into the Yellowstone country as soon as the troops cleaned the Indians out. Instead, Custer's foolish ambition gave the Indians their great victory.
Business in the cattle trail towns was strictly seasonal, the winter months quiet as in a hibernating dog town. Dodge was very different now from the days when the hide men came in after a couple of good fall months with thousands of dollars dragging heavy at their greasy pockets. But not all the town slept. Invitations were sent all around Texas and the Southwest, promising a good cattle market next summer and a fine welcome, with some traveling shows and play-acting brought in, even a prize fight, and everything running wide open.
Each year the gap between the Texans and the Yankees had narrowed a little, at least during the quiet times of winter. Last summer the Yankees on the streets were outnumbered many times by the southerners, the "damned Texans," or "the goddamn Johnny Rebs," although they were the men bringing in the business. Now there was the public fury over the election steal, but the North was the only market for beef, with money tighter than dried rawhide, unemployment growing, more railroad wage cuts coming, bringing threats of strikes that might spread westward, knock out the shipping points.
But the cattle had to be sold, if possible, and some steer herds were started up the new Western Trail to beat the glutted market, gathered before they could put an ounce of spring meat on their narrow ribs. Perhaps not realizing how fast settlement was moving westward Powers, Bulkley and Company angled one of their herds off eastward from the barren trail into the quarantine region of south Kansas. The grangers swarmed upon them like angry bumblebees and only after a heavy fine and damages for haystacks and crops barely planted could they move on.
Very little grass was left to start around Dodge this spring, after the overgrazing and the sharp hoofs of last summer. But every green spear that pushed through the ground was cropped off at sight. The quarantine line, the homesteaders, and the range claimants had pushed in to a line running just east of the Dodge town limits, with many settlers along the river westward, too, crowding into the newly established ranches. The stretches of open prairie were so limited now that the campfires were like some low-lying red-starred Milky Way in the haze of night. One June day 25,000 cattle changed hands and with so many cowboys taking their turns on the town there was a great deal of noise and dust and galloping of horses, and some popping of pistols, particularly when the crews started back to camp.
But most of the trouble rose from conflicts and ambitions among the local men or those tied in with them. Robert Gilmore, or Bobby Gill, as Dodge knew him, the brother-in-law of Billy Thompson, was up to see about Billy's defense in the shooting of Sheriff Whitney over at Ellsworth. While in Dodge and pretty drunk he made a few remarks about law enforcement. According to the Dodge City Times Marshal Deger grabbed him and headed him toward the cooler, kicking him along as he went. Bat Master-son, from the sheriff's office, was not fond of Deger anyway, even before he entered the race for county sheriff against him. He ran up and got an elbow clamped across the marshal's throat like a cowboy mugging a calf. In the kicking and cursing, Bobby Gill broke loose, but Deger's assistant jerked Bat's gun from his holster and put it on him to let the marshal go.
Some Texans stood around to watch. They weren't fond of Deger either but many had lost money to Bat and didn't realize that he was a friend of the Thompsons, and so of Gill, up to get Billy Thompson turned loose. They just pushed their hats back and grinned their enjoyment, not mixing in, not even when Deger whipped his gun over Bat's head until the blood flew. Some of them had been buffaloed that way last summer by Earp and the Mastersons. Now it was amusing to see it going the other way.
In the meantime Ed Masterson, assistant to Deger, did his duty and arrested Bobby Gill for disturbing the peace. Bat was fined $25, Bobby $5 and costs.
Although it was all a mix-up the Deger side strutted a little. This fining ought to lose Bat his job as deputy sheriff and take him off the ballot for sheriff. Instead, Bat bought into the Lone Star Dance Hall, a hangout for the last remnant of shaggy buffalo hunters and some of the wilder Texas cowboys that Deger was always hazing. This made Bat a bona fide citizen, a property owner, and added to his sudden reputation for sympathy with the poor drunken celebrants. Often now he had four, five of them laid out sleeping it off and cheating Deger out of the arresting fee. This was a different man from the one who collected bounty for arrests last year. Truly Dodge City seemed to change a man.
Before this the long-rumored prize fight was finally staged. Due to the opposition from the law-and-order factions and the thin-mouthed folks of the town it was staged in front of the Saratoga saloon just as the sun rose in slanting light across the prairie, the police off to bed, and the belles from below the tracks free to come out. Whitney, described as a noted fighter, was matched against Haley, the Red Bird of the South. Much of the town managed to be out to see the fight, or at least stand back at the fringe of the crowd and gather what was happening from the yells and curses. The rest heard about it for days, or read the account in the papers. It seemed that about the forty-second round Red was plainly in pretty bad shape and by the sixty-fifth he had both ears practically chewed off, one eye broken, the other closed, one cheekbone crushed, seven teeth knocked out, his nose and jaw broken, a flap bitten from the side of his tongue, and generally bruised and battered up. It seemed that the Red Bird of the South was deserting the ring, disgusted with the fighting business.
It was a hot, flyblown summer around Dodge, with so many cattle close-packed, once nearly 100,000 head, the herds clustered like ants around a splattering of sorghum, the hungry stock kept separate only by constant herd riding, day and night, the cattle dropping flesh while the buyers haggled or weren't there at all. They were particularly scarce after the railroad strikes spread west, crippling some lines as far as Omaha and Kansas City and no telling where next, even with President Hayes calling out troops against the strikers, whom he called revolutionists, perhaps remembering how he got the presidency less than a year ago, with these same troops under Grant ready to back him against the man who was legally elected to the White House.
Talk of the troops fraternizing with the strikers brought rapid shifts and drastic action. By September the strike seemed broken. But there were still cattle waiting out at Dodge and cowboys, tired of the long delay, tore through the dusty town shooting up the place when perhaps they had no money to do anything else. Most of the officials frowned on this but the hanging signs, the false fronts of the stores kept drawing their bullets. Even the rain barrels along the street, filled long ago against the danger of fire in the drouth, burst into holes that spouted stale and stinking water.
Finally fall came and with it the end of the cowboy disturbances of 1877 and the golden hope of the season. Instead of surpassing the 322,000 cattle into the region last year, only 201,159 head were reported, and this in spite of the decision of the Supreme Court that found the Missouri quarantine law against Texas cattle as such unconstitutional. That meant that the Kansas blanket quarantines were out, too, and local inspection posts had to be set up, with veterinarians to inspect the stock for disease or suspected disease. Once more the good blooded stock of Kansas was in immediate danger. Not that the quarantine had been stringently enforced. Still there were ways of keeping ticky cattle out so long as men had guns and ropes and bull whips and the chance of collecting damage for grass and crops and gardens.
The buffalo hunters were all pretty well out of work, and many trail drivers found $25 a month mighty slow pay. These, in addition to the loose-end veterans, North and South, and the newly unemployed, brought on a great jump in horse stealing and cattle rustling. The thieves seemed particularly drawn to the easy law and easy money of places like Deadwood and Dodge City. Bat Masterson, sheriff of Ford County now, and considerable unorganized territory, too, was busy chasing these thieves, and successful enough to increase his reputation as
a dashing young man and apprehender of outlaws, and for arrogance, too, particularly on the premises of other officers, and at the gambling table.
Then, early in April 1878, Ed Masterson, Dodge City's new marshal, was called out to quiet six cowboys having a noisy evening at the Lady Gay, south of the Dead Line. The noisiest seemed to be Wagner, a cowboy hurt thrown from a horse recently and not carrying his drinking whisky very well. Masterson disarmed him and gave the gun to Walker, his boss, to be checked with the bartender until they headed for camp. Later the marshal saw Wagner on the street but with his gun back in the holster. He tried to disarm the cowboy a second time and in the scuffle that brought a crowd out the marshal got the pistol pushed into his belly with a bullet. He staggered back, his hands clapped tight over a hole big as a fist. Bat and some others came running up, firing. Wagner and his boss were both hit and managed to get away in different directions while Ed Masterson drew himself up and with his clothing asmolder from the close shot, blood streaming over his boots, he walked stiff and wooden through the crowd of dark-faced Texans parting for him. It seemed he must go down every step he took, but he reached Hoover's saloon and fell inside the swinging doors. He died a little later, up in his brother Bat's room, but before anything could be done Wagner was dead, too, and although his boss was recovering it would be a long, long time before he was in the saddle again.
Bat buried his brother out at the fort because Dodge City had no respectable burial ground for man. The news item about this was used to advertise the healthy climate of this mecca of the cow. Here lead poisoning was the only fatal disease of man, and only those who lived in the midst of violence were susceptible. The Ford County Globe carried a eulogy of the dead marshal, with a short verse, a rhyming verse. Perhaps culture was coming to Dodge, or at least something resembling its shadow seemed to be sidling up.