by Bill Brooks
Harve kept an eye on the sky, saying he was watching out for more crows. “I reckon we’ll be lucky if we don’t see no more crows this trip.”
“I see any more crows,” Teddy Green said, “I’m going to chunk a rock at them.”
“You’d have to have a pretty good arm to chunk a rock at a crow and hit it,” Harve said.
“If you don’t stop talking about crows, I might take a rock and chunk you with it,” Green said. “My disposition is sour and all this talking about crows isn’t improving it any.”
Harve was about to reply, for there was little he liked better than arguing a point, when they heard the drum of hoofs and turned to see riders, bearing down on them.
“Hope they ain’t road agents,” Harve said. “We don’t have even a stick to fight with.”
“They’re not road agents,” Cole said. “That’s Colorado Charley Utter and his bunch.”
Chapter Sixteen
They sawed at their reins until they pulled their ponies up just short of where the three men stood. Colorado Charley Utter looked disdainfully at their condition and said: “You boys look like you been rode hard and put away wet. What happened, some road agents come by and rob you?”
Teddy Green glared at the man.
“Never seen me a bunch of barefooted stragglers out on these plains that lived to tell about it,” Utter said. “Why, you boys would be easy prey for any yahoo with bad intentions!” This said, he looked at his crew and hooted like they had tickled his funny bone.
“You best ride on out of here, mister, and leave us alone,” Teddy Green said.
Colorado Charley blinked like an owl. “Why, we could rope you boys and drag you around behind us like you was tree stumps. How’d that be?”
“Move along, Utter, before you talk your way into a fight,” Cole said. He was feeling some of Teddy Green’s wrath at being fooled with by a bunch of assassins.
One of Colorado Charley’s sidekicks, the one with the batwing chaps and Walker Colt on his hip, leaned off to one side and spat and said: “Hell, Charley, let’s just shoot the sons-of-bitches and be done with it. They’d be as easy to kill as prairie chickens.”
He was right, of course. They were armed to the teeth and all the three men had was their pride and not much of that.
“Hold off, Miller,” Utter ordered, raising his right hand. “No use wasting good bullets.” Then he leaned forward, spat, and looked at John Henry Cole and said: “Why, it’d just be a good waste of bullets. I reckon these yahoos will plumb walk themselves to death.” With that, he spurred his horse and rode away, the others close on his heels, except for Batwings.
“I ought to shoot you boys just for practice,” Batwings said.
“Yeah, maybe you should,” Cole agreed. “Hell, you’d be doing us a favor, I reckon. We don’t find water and food soon, we’ll die a hard death. A bullet would be a blessing.”
Batwings seemed to like that, the fact they’d die a hard death. It caused him to smile like a mule eating briers and Cole thought: If he doesn’t shoot us, I’ll find him and make him wish he had.
“You gents have a good walk, hear.” Then he rode off.
Harve whistled and said: “Thought the son-of-a-bitch was going to plug us with that big iron.”
“I’ll remember him,” Teddy Green said.
“Yeah, me, too,” Cole said.
They made Hump Dance in three hours—which is to say they limped on in. Their feet were bleeding, but their bellies were full of corndodgers and fatback the widow had fed them, so they probably weren’t nearly as bad off as they appeared. However, they did see women grabbing up their children and ducking inside whatever door was nearest when they saw what looked like three disreputable range bums.
“They act like we’re heathens,” Harve said.
“We probably look worse,” Cole said.
“I still got that twenty-dollar gold piece in my pocket,” Harve said. “Let’s stop in that whiskey den and have us a beer, and then I’ll see if this burg has a telegraph and wire Denver for funds so we can buy some horses and outfit ourselves.”
A spot along the bar cleared when they approached. It was either the sight or the smell of them, or maybe both. They drank their beers in silence, then Harve ordered a second round, and they drank that.
“You boys look like you could use a whore,” the bar dog said. “You ain’t got no boots and no hats, but that don’t mean you ain’t got no need.” He had his eye on Harve’s double eagle lying atop the bar.
“We need a lot of things, mister,” Teddy Green said. “Whores ain’t one of them.” Green’s voice was rough and tired and mean from the long walk. He had said earlier that if he didn’t get himself a hat and a horse soon, he might kill the next man who gave him any guff.
Harve wiped the foam from his lips and asked the bar dog if they had a telegraph in town. “Sure, sure,” the man said, then told him how to get there.
“We might as well wait here for you,” Cole said. “At a table near the back where we won’t be a living spectacle for every yahoo in Kansas.”
They took their beers and found a table where the light was dim. Cole and Green sat there about five minutes before Teddy Green said: “I’ve never been in such poor shape in my life, not even fighting Comanches in Texas.”
“Well, a Comanche is one thing and a cyclone is another,” Cole said. “We just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You ask me, this whole state is the wrong place.”
“I won’t disagree with you. What I’ve seen of it so far hasn’t exactly made me want to go find a wife and move here.”
“At the rate we’re going,” he said, lifting his glass of beer to his mouth, “we won’t ever catch up with Ella and that man she’s run off with. Either Charley Utter will, or that murderous fool, Gypsy Davy. I’m afraid it’s too late for us, John Henry. I’ve got a down and dirty feeling about this mission.”
“Well, maybe if we don’t catch up with them, neither will Colorado Charley or Gypsy Davy.”
“Those are long odds, John Henry. Leastways far as we know, they’ve got horses. We don’t even have a single rusty pistol among us. I am thoroughly disgusted.”
“You can give up,” Cole said, “if you feel that way. Go back to Texas and forget Ella.”
Green stared at Cole. Even in the shadows, Cole could see the light in his eyes. “Technically she is still my wife. What kind of man would I be to quit and go back to Texas and forget about her? Worse comes to worst, I’ll give her a decent burial.”
“I understand,” Cole commented.
“I try not to think about it, but my mind keeps turning it over, what they’ll do to her if they find her first.”
Cole let his own thoughts push aside his weariness. If they were going to stop Utter and his bunch, they’d just as soon do it sooner rather than later. Cole knew that, and he believed Teddy Green knew it as well. “We’ll have to kill him.”
“Who?”
“Utter, most of his men, next time we run into them.”
“I know.”
“You up for that?”
“I never killed a man who hadn’t yet committed a transgression,” he said, “or hadn’t cornered me in a fight.”
“You killed Comanches.”
“That was different.”
“Maybe not as much as you think.”
“Don’t tell me what I think, John Henry.”
“I’m just saying, if we take on Utter and his bunch after the fact, it will be a little too late, don’t you think?”
He bobbed his head. “Yeah, way too late.”
“Then we stop them the next time we run into them.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said. “You?”
“I didn’t walk halfway across Kansas just to get faint
-hearted now.”
“Well, if your friend doesn’t get the money wired here, we might have to chunk rocks at them.”
“Like David slew Goliath,” Cole said.
“Our aim will need to be true,” Green said.
“Let me ask you something. You ever wish now that you hadn’t chased Comanches and run them to ground?”
There was a moment of thoughtful silence between them before Green answered. “Yes, many times. They were a noble people, but sometimes they committed wrongful acts … that’s why I did it. But I miss not having them as adversaries. They were a worthy breed … not at all like Colorado Charley Utter and those pistoleers that ride with him, or that ear-wearing maniac, Gypsy Davy. Such men don’t compare with the Comanches.”
“Does it feel a little odd to you?”
“What’s that?” he said.
“That we both love the same woman.”
“Not so odd. Ella’s an easy woman to love.”
“I guess the strange part is,” Cole said, “neither one of us seems to know her as well as we thought we did.”
“Do we ever really know another person?” Green said.
“No, I guess not.”
They sat and nursed their beers for half an hour more before Harve returned, looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
“We’re fixed up boys … got us a line of credit at the bank,” he said, waving a telegram. “Had my bank in Denver send a confirmation of my resources. We’re back in tall cotton, boys. We can walk over to the mercantile, get us some duds, pistols, boots, and a new hat for you, Mister Green. Then we’ll take a walk down the street where I’m told there’s an Injun who has horses for sale.”
“Well, things are looking up again,” Teddy Green remarked. “Maybe we will find Ella yet, before the others do.”
They bought the clothes they needed. Teddy Green selected a broad-brimmed hat the color of a dove. When Harve asked why didn’t he want another bowler—there were several on display—Teddy Green replied: “No, sir, I think that fancy bowler was nothing but bad luck to me. And besides, I probably looked foolish in it. It was a vanity on my part. This one will do just fine.” And he set it squarely down on his head.
“Well, at least now you look like a Ranger and not some fancy-Dan,” Harve said approvingly.
They each bought weapons. Cole chose a .45 Schofield because he liked the heft of it. Teddy Green favored a Russian model .44 Smith & Wesson, and Harve picked out a double-action .45 Colt with bird’s-eye grips. They also bought Winchester repeating rifles and plenty of shells, boots, saddles, and blankets.
“Throw in a few cans of those peaches, too,” Harve told the clerk. “I got a sweet tooth for peaches.”
They walked out of the mercantile different men, dressed and armed and looking dangerous.
“I don’t feel naked now,” Teddy Green said, shifting the .44’s weight in the scabbard of his gun belt. He wore it crossed over on his left hip, butt forward.
“We’ll go down there and see that Kiowa the man told me had the horses,” Harve said. “Then we’ll find us a bathhouse, scrub off this prairie, and get the nits washed out of our hair. Afterward, we’ll eat like hogs and get a fresh start in the morning.”
No one disagreed with the plan.
That night, as they sat in the saloon, having filled their bellies with steaks, fried onions, potatoes, and cornbread, Cole couldn’t help but feel guilty that they had been delayed in the pursuit of Ella Mims. Outside, the wind was whistling and rattling the windows and they were sitting around, cozy and content. Who knew what depredation Ella might be suffering at that very moment? Cole feared that with every passing hour, their chances of finding her before the others did grew slimmer and slimmer. He saw the distant stare in Teddy Green’s gaze and knew he was thinking the same thing. Men in love, Cole thought. They were willing to do anything to save the woman they both loved. It occurred to Cole that, if things turned out badly, this might be the last trail for all of them. He drank his liquor and listened to the wind and rolled himself a shuck. The wind sounded like a woman moaning—like Ella crying to them from the grave—and a chill ran down his spine. For the first time since they’d begun the journey to find her, Cole was afraid that maybe they were already too late, that maybe Teddy Green’s earlier premonition was right.
Chapter Seventeen
They continued south for several more days without any change in scenery. The prairie seemed as endless as an ocean, the grasses stirred by constant winds. Large white clouds drifted overhead and every so often they would see herds of grazing antelope in the distance but could never get within rifle range to bring one down. The meager supplies they’d purchased in Hump Dance were again running low, and so were their spirits, since they hadn’t yet come across any sign of Ella Mims and Tom Feathers. Cole was even starting to doubt that they were on the right trail. The fugitives could have gone off in any direction at any time. But if the information they’d received was correct, the fugitives were heading for Gonzales, Texas, and that put them on the right road.
Night found them camped along a tributary twenty miles north of Dodge City, according to Harve, who claimed he was now familiar with the country.
“This here is Pawnee Creek,” he said as they unsaddled the horses.
“Looks more like a river than a creek to me,” Teddy Green said. “Why, a man could drown in this river you call a creek.”
“A man did drown in it,” Harve said. “His name was Jim Bones, and he drowned right in this very creek whilst trying to ride a paint horse across it. Paint horses ain’t very good swimmers. I’d never ride a paint horse across no creek, or no river, either.”
“I’ve never known paint horses to be worse swimmers than any other horse,” Teddy Green said. “Whatever gave you such an idea?”
“Having to write a letter to poor Jim’s folks back in Missouri is what gave me that idea,” Harve said. “Why, if he had been riding any other color horse than a paint, he might be alive today. And so might the horse. As it was, we never found either of them.”
Teddy Green waggled his head as he shook out his blanket and placed it on the ground. He and Harve Ledbettor seemed made for each other; they bickered like two old maids on just about every subject that struck their fancy. But Cole had a feeling that they genuinely liked each other and would have missed the company and the chance to argue if one or the other wasn’t there.
“What do you say, John Henry?” Harve asked, not content to let the matter drop. “Ain’t a paint horse just about the worst swimming horse there is?”
“I guess a paint horse can swim just as good as any other color horse,” Cole said. “And Jim Bones might have drowned no matter what he was riding. River crossings are always iffy and come tomorrow, we’ll have to find ourselves a place to cross this one.”
“I know one thing,” Teddy Green said, wrapped up in his blanket now. “A mule will never put itself in harm’s way. If Jim Bones had been riding a mule, he might not have drowned at all because no mule will cross deep water.”
“Well, I have heard that mules are smarter than horses,” Harve said. “But it is unseemly for a man to go about on a mule. Anybody want to share this last can of peaches?”
“Not me,” said Teddy Green. “I’m not partial to peaches.”
“Humph,” Harve muttered. “I never met anybody who wasn’t partial to peaches.”
“Well, you have now.”
“I guess you two will argue until the stars fall out of the sky,” Cole said. “Maybe we ought to get some shut-eye.”
Harve looked up at the sky as though he expected to see the stars falling, then chuckled and ate his peaches, making slurping sounds before tossing the can aside and rolling up in his blanket. They could hear the river slipping its banks and it seemed like just one more obstacle to finding Ella Mims.
* * * * *
The next day, they found a place to cross and came out on the other side in fine shape and by midmorning they rode into Dodge City.
“Let’s go check in with the law and see if we can learn anything about strangers passing through in the last few days,” Cole suggested.
“I’ll catch up with you,” Harve said. “I’ve got to get me a refill on this flask and buy some more peaches.”
Cole asked a kid with a spotted dog where the city marshal’s office was and he pointed and said: “Yonder is Mister Earp’s office.”
They tied off in front of the office. Cole wondered whether or not Earp knew anything about Ella Mims or Tom Feathers having passed through, or about seeing any of the others—Charley Utter or Gypsy Davy. He was a much bigger man than Cole had supposed him to be. He was sitting behind a desk, writing something on a piece of paper when the two walked in. Another man sat in the corner, reading an issue of the Police Gazette. Both men wore black frock coats and city marshals’ badges and both looked up.
“Help you gents?” the one behind the desk said.
“You Earp?” Teddy Green said.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and Cole could see the instant precaution in his gaze. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m a Texas Ranger and this man’s accompanying me. We’re looking for a woman who might have passed through here a few days ago traveling by hack. She’d be with two men, one of them a colored.”
Earp had a sandy mustache that drooped below his chin and slate-gray eyes. The other man reading the Gazette could have been his twin.
“No, sir, I haven’t seen anyone of that description, but you might ask my brother, Wyatt.”
“I thought you said you were Wyatt?” Teddy Green said.
“No, sir, you asked me if I was Earp, and I am an Earp, but I’m Morgan Earp. That ’un in the corner is Virgil. Wyatt is running a faro game over at the Alhambra.”
“Which way is that?” Cole asked.
Morgan Earp looked at him as he said: “Out the door, turn right on Front Street, take it to First, and take a left. You can’t miss it … Kelly’s Opera House is upstairs, Hungerford’s meat market is right across the street, and George Dieter’s Centennial Barbershop is two doors down, same side, in case you’re thinking of getting a haircut whilst in the city.”