Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  “You boys taking those horses to Dodge?” Whiskers asked.

  “Probably, or wherever we can find a buyer,” Billy answered.

  Now even at a distance a person could tell those horses for what they were. Up close, not more than four or five wore so much as a single brand. I could tell Whiskers was a trader, and he was eyeing that herd like Billy was eyeing that Sharps.

  “I’m Billy Champion, this gent here to my right is Nate Reynolds, and the skinny galoot to my left is Andy.”

  “Andy Custer,” Andy threw in. He insisted on telling everyone he was kin to the late general.

  Billy gave him an impatient look and continued, “If you’ve got a bit to spare, we could use a little grub to get us on through. We ain’t got much hard money, but maybe we could deal you out of a bit of salt and beans.”

  Whiskers didn’t answer about the food. He looked past us out to where our horses grazed. “I heard of you. You’re the man who backed John Jay down. Do you know you’re on his range right now?”

  Billy ignored the question just like Whiskers had done. Everyone in Southwest Kansas, the western half of the Indian Territory, and probably back down the trail south into old Texas knew about Billy’s run-in with Jay.

  Jay’s outfit took in a big chunk of country, and was running a lot of cattle. Billy had brought a herd up from South Texas a year ago, and delivered it to Jay’s headquarters in Kansas. That’s how Billy and I had met; I worked under him on that drive.

  Billy and Jay disagreed on the delivery count, and things got a little heated. Like a lot of self-made men, John Jay thought a lot of himself, and he was used to running roughshod over lesser men. He cussed Billy for losing too many steers on the trail, cussed about their condition, and generally let Billy know what he thought about his poor abilities in regard to managing a trail herd. The recount on a hot day had clipped everyone’s fuses pretty short. Before Jay had gotten good and wound up, Billy put his hand on his Colt and told him they could settle things between them real quick if he had the guts. Jay backed down in front of our crew, and his. He paid up according to Billy’s count, and the taste of humble pie didn’t set too good with either he or his hands. He ought to have counted himself lucky that Billy didn’t kill him right then. In those days, nobody would have denied Jay deserved anything he got. You had best be careful how you spoke to prideful men with pistols on.

  I was just damned glad it didn’t end up in a killing that day. It probably would have gotten both crews into it.

  “Lot of trouble, driving horses,” Whiskers said.

  “What trouble?” Billy answered.

  “The market can be doubtful, and it can take time to find a buyer.”

  “That’s a good set of horses, and we’ve got time.”

  “It’ll be tough to sell them in their winter clothes.”

  “The grass is greening; they’re putting on weight as we speak. They’ll be fat and summer-slick in a couple of weeks.”

  “It’s hard to see them from here.”

  “I don’t guess I’d mind showing them to you.”

  Two traders had met. Whiskers went behind the cart, and untied a horse from the off-wheel. Billy rose and eased out to the paint. I mean he eased. The horse raised his head and snorted, and made two bounds away from Billy before he managed to con his way up to him and get a hold.

  “Little wild, ain’t he?” Whiskers said as he rode up.

  Billy stepped aboard. “He’s a little green, but he’s a traveler.”

  He reached down to rub the horse affectionately on the neck, and that paint traveled about twenty feet sideways in one jump. Whiskers cackled like an old hen, and the two of them made off for the herd.

  Never one to pass on a chance to nap, Andy sprawled out in the grass. Me, I took the opportunity to study that peculiar little layout. The cart was not of the Mexican type, but rather a spoke-wheeled job with a single seat, and tarp on the bed. A one-eyed, brown mare stood hip-shot alongside. She was galled with harness sores, and so skinny you could almost see through her. The cart was a one-horse rig, and it was amazing to assume that she was responsible for pulling it.

  The sun was busting through the clouds and hitting the ground, promising for a pretty day. Andy must have been enjoying it, because he brought out the band, snoring to a tune all his own.

  I took up a piece of sourdough and wiped the last of the bean juice from my plate. I watched Billy and Whiskers in the distance. They were drifting lazily through the grazing horses, stopping to study this one and that one from time to time. I knew the haggling was getting serious when at one stop I heard, even at a distance, Whiskers go to cussing until he gagged on his tobacco.

  After what must have been half an hour, I decided to leave the bean pot, and join the fun. As I rode up Billy motioned me on over to him.

  “Put Driblet through his paces so this man can see I’ve told him correct.”

  Paces? Billy sat there smugly with a twinkle in his eye, like he expected me to have something to show him. With a sigh of surrender, I rode out from the herd and put on a little demonstration of what that sorrel nag couldn’t do.

  I pedaled him up to a lope with a good dose of my guthooks, and with a little finesse, managed to ride him in a big circle to the left. He was so sore-footed it was a job to keep him from breaking stride, and he had a trot that would jar the front teeth out of a beaver. He wrung his tail in frustration, and jacked up his head and gaped his mouth against the bit. I pulled him down slowly to what you could call a stop, made an attempt to roll him back the other way, and loped a couple of circles to the right. I headed back to the horsetraders, not aiming directly at them, as I wasn’t sure I could stop short enough to keep from crashing into their midst. I took a severe hold, and bit-bumped him into the ground.

  Whiskers grunted his approval and spat tobacco juice out in a thick black arc. “Stops hard, don’t he?”

  I didn’t want to tell him just how hard it was.

  “Just like I told you, he can turn around like a cat in a stovepipe, stop on a dime, and get back like a bad check,” Billy chimed.

  “Smooth, ain’t he,” Whiskers added.

  I was beginning to get a good handle on his horse appraisal skills. “I’d say so.”

  “See there, and he’s pretty to boot,” Billy said.

  The sorrel did have a flaxen mane and tail, a big blaze face, and two socks on his hind feet. Beyond that, you couldn’t tell where the ugly stopped and the horse began. He was so narrow you couldn’t have passed your fist between his front legs, and he had a long, thin bottle head that was disproportionately large in comparison to the rest of his body.

  The horses were drifting farther down the creek looking for grass, and I left to go bring them back a little closer to camp. When I returned, Billy left Whiskers and rode up to me for a private discussion of the kind that happens when parties are horsetrading.

  “You know, we might get ten to twelve dollars a head for those horses in Kansas if we found a buyer. And those soldiers down south may have got word we stole them, and wired the news north. It’s happened before,” Billy said solemnly. “If we could make a good trade here, it’d be better than going to some farmers’ calaboose over a bunch of ten-dollar Cheyenne ponies.”

  “What’s the trade?”

  “Five dollars a head, and we take the cut with us, or throw them in.”

  “Cash money?”

  “Well, that’s a lot of hard money. Let’s see.” Billy made a show of tabulating on his fingers. “Fifty head minus one that’s got a knocked-down hip, one with an eye put out, and five that a coyote wouldn’t eat. Let’s say ten head of cuts. That’s forty head at five dollars.” He fired up his finger adding machine again.

  “Two hundred,” I said impatiently.

  “Yeah, two hundred. How’s that sound?”

  “Hard money?”

  “Well . . .”

  “How much hard money?” I could see where things were headed.

  Bi
lly tried one of his smiles to frame the wonderful price he was fixing to shoot at me. “Sixty-five cash, that Sharps gun, fifty rounds of friction for it, and a little sack of victuals.”

  “Who gets the gun?”

  “You can have my old Winchester.”

  “What about Andy?” We sometimes forgot about Andy, and I felt it my job to see that he was treated in a Christian fashion.

  “I’ve got an old converted Colt Navy in my bedroll that he’s been wanting. I’ll give it to him so we all get a new shooting iron. We’ll split the cash three ways.”

  “That old Navy ain’t worth ten dollars.”

  “Once I tell Andy that Wild Bill Hickok favored Navy Colts he’ll think he’s getting a hell of a deal. He’ll probably become a two-gun bad-ass himself,” Billy snorted. “Besides, the boy’s gotta pay something for the education we’ve been giving him.”

  “That’ll work.” I agreed readily, satisfied that things were divided equally enough.

  “Just think, partner. We can drift down to Mobeetie and have a sure enough good time with that money.” He slapped his thigh in sheer exuberance.

  Billy felt it was his job to always keep my spirits up. After two years of riding with him I’d come to learn how to get at the truth of things when he told me something. When Billy was trying to convince you to go along with what he suggested, whether good news or bad, you just had to divide or multiply everything by two. Things were just generally halfway like he said they were. If he told you about a trip, and you didn’t want to go, he would tell you it was only a two-day ride. It would wind up taking four. If he told about a hundred dollars to be made at something, and you went along, you might make fifty. He wasn’t a liar; he just got too enthused with convincing you to go along with his plans.

  “You can have my saddle horse,” Billy said.

  “What are you going to ride?” I was shocked by Billy’s generous mood.

  “I’m keeping the paint.”

  I threw a disgusted look at the paint, and headed out to rope Billy’s horse out of the herd. I’d lost my personal saddle horse somewhere in our flight with the stolen herd, and was more than happy to take Dunny. He was as gentle and dependable as the day was long. Billy could have that flashy little pinto nag if he wanted him. He probably thought the horse matched his ivory-handled pistol.

  “Who’s going to help Whiskers drive that bunch?” I asked.

  “That fellow looking over the creek bank pointing a shotgun at us,” Billy burst out, obviously enjoying my shock and growing discomfort.

  Sure enough, after he pointed out the direction I could make out somebody looking at us over a cut-bank in the creek. He had been there all along, not ninety feet from us when we were at the fire. That would have made most folks nervous.

  “Old Whiskers ain’t too trusting,” I said.

  “His name is Harvey.”

  “I’ll call him some other things once we get out of here. I don’t like anybody pointing a gun at me, especially when I don’t know they’re there.”

  We rode back to Harvey Whiskers’ camp, and Billy was smiling like somebody holding a gun on him was the funniest thing in the world. I threw my saddle on Dunny, proud to have the little black dun, or what a lot of folks call a line-backed buckskin.

  Harvey began pulling his saddle from the horse he was riding. “I think I might keep that sorrel for my own personal horse.”

  “I bet you’ll love him,” I replied.

  I stepped up on Dunny, and Billy came up with a little canvas sack of grub that he handed up to me.

  “Get up, Andy,” Billy hollered.

  Andy didn’t stir until I walked Dunny over the top of him. He sprang from the grass in one move. “That horse could have stepped on me!”

  “Mount up.”

  While Andy went out to get his horse, Billy handed me his Winchester, and shoved the Sharps in his own saddle boot. I took a latigo string from a bunch I carried on my back dee, and tied it to the saddle ring on the carbine. As soon as I’d hung it on my saddle horn, Harvey walked up and paid us the currency. Billy held the coins out in his palm to eye them appreciatively. Reaching down, I snatched a twenty-dollar gold piece and a few dollars more from the little pile in his hand, and pocketed them.

  “Hey! We’ve gotta divide it evenly!” Billy cried.

  “If you were an educated man you’d call that an eyeball-cut.” I laughed and started to turn away.

  Harvey was saddling the sorrel, and he called out across the horse’s back. “I’d say that wasn’t much of an accurate split.”

  “I’d say you’d better call in that man you got out yonder. I’m tired of my back feeling most too wide.” I wasn’t feeling funny anymore.

  I wasn’t about to try and ride out of there with Whiskers’ money, only to give it back to him after I was shot in the back. Common sense and experience made me wary, and with Billy along I would have thought nothing of bearding the devil in his den.

  Harvey didn’t argue any and waved his man on in. A big black fellow came walking up out of the creek with a long-barreled shotgun cradled in one huge elbow. That man was a giant, and must have stood half way past six feet. One of his legs was as big around as my chest. He wore a big-brimmed, straw sombrero, a rough calico cloth shirt, and a pair of patched overalls that ended about three-quarters the way down his calves.

  “You want me to hitch up the mare, Mister Harvey?” The man’s voice was deep, and slow.

  Andy rode up just as that fellow spoke, and I thought he’d break a spring. “Where the hell did he come from?”

  “Let’s go.” Billy reached up and tucked some of the money into Andy’s vest pocket.

  Andy wasn’t having any of it. His voice raised a notch higher, “Has that nigger been holding a gun on us all this time?”

  I studied the black man standing there like a tree. He was as calm as can be, with that shotgun looking awfully little on his arm. A quiet man can be the one to watch in a fight, and despite his outward calm, I could tell he would scrap at the drop of a hat if Andy continued to push him.

  “Let’s go, Andy.” I tried to relate the seriousness of the situation in my voice.

  “That nigger don’t scare me none,” Andy sneered.

  That black man’s face might as well have been chiseled from stone, but I noticed his thumb ease up onto the hammer of his scattergun. I figured I’d have to shoot him, but by then it would probably be too late for Andy. That shotgun had two holes in the end of it big enough to stick your thumbs in. A double-barrel ten-gauge with full chokes at fifty feet can be a serious proposition. A man might miss, even with a shotgun, but who in their right minds would want to chance it?

  Before things got too Western, Billy shoved his horse against Andy’s. “Let’s go.”

  Andy didn’t want to leave without a fight, but Billy spurred into him, and Andy’s horse staggered, turning away from camp in order to regain its balance. Before he could turn back, Billy cut Andy’s horse across the rump with his hat. That bay horse farted, gathered itself up, and took off in a runaway with Andy hauling back on his mouth to no avail.

  Billy eyed the black man for a long moment. A second seems like an awful long time in a situation like that. Billy could be a little abrupt when it came to disagreements, and I resigned myself to whatever was about to happen.

  “Was there enough grub in that sack to suit you?” Harvey’s voice interrupted the staring match.

  Harvey must have had more sense than I had thought to change the subject. Of course, there would come a time when I would rethink a lot of the things about people I had judged in my past, some of them sooner rather than later.

  “It’ll do,” Billy said to Harvey, but he was still looking at the black man.

  Billy wasn’t one to pick a fight, but I knew he wouldn’t let anybody think they had run him off. We had been in the act of leaving when Harvey called up his man, but that didn’t keep Billy from taking the time to roll a cigarette and study the weather for a
bit. That black man hadn’t said a word to us, or threatened with his gun. Still, the calm, massive presence of him challenged us, and Billy seemed to feel it most.

  “I wonder if Andy has gotten his horse stopped yet?” Billy finally asked me.

  He turned the paint and we took our own sweet time riding away from camp, as if there wasn’t a gun at our backs. Andy was long gone, obviously unable to turn his cold-jawed pony. Once we reached the crest of a big hill we struck a lope to catch up to him, and I turned in the saddle for one more look back. Harvey had gone to saddling the sorrel we had sold him, but that black man stood in the same spot like he was rooted there. He appeared determined to watch us until we were out of sight.

  About half a mile over the hill, Andy loped back to meet us. “You’d no call to do that, Billy. No nigger ever backed me down.”

  Andy was just about as mad at Billy as he was at that black man. However, he worshipped Billy too much to want to shoot him—or kill him anyway. While the two of them jawed back and forth, I happened to look to our east. About two miles off I could see a long plume of dust worming its way toward Harvey’s camp.

  “You two look yonder. I think that’s those Cheyenne fogging it up our trail.” I didn’t wait for a response. I just stuck the spurs to Dunny and headed west.

  Billy and Andy didn’t take long in following suit. We ran that way for about a mile, and then hit some canyon country and slowed to a long trot. We stopped just off the edge of a big canyon, looking back the way we had come, and listening for sounds of a fight. There were no gunshots, and the wind was blowing too hard to hear anything else.

  “I wonder what that nigger thinks about a bunch of mad Cheyenne?” Andy was obviously pleased.

  “I hope that old man is a talker,” I said.

  “I hope they give him a chance to talk,” Billy replied.

  “He was a crafty sort, and if he does squirm his way out, those Cheyenne can read sign.”