Wheeler's Choice

by Jerry Buck

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We crossed the toll bridge over the Arkansas River and rode into Dodge City along Bridge Avenue.

  The Lady Gay Dance Hall was on the right when we got to Front Street. The Varieties Dance Hall was on the left. Across Front, which was a hundred yards wide and bisected by the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka &Santa Fe Railroad, beckoned the bright lights of a dozen or more saloons. The street was so wide it was called The Plaza.

  Alamo, Daffern, Chago, Dusty, and I had ridden in from our camp just south of the river. In the morning we’d drive the three thousand head of Texas longhorns into the cattle pens by the Santa Fe.

  Tinny piano music filled the night air, mixed with a confusion of loud voices and laughter, the tromp of boots on wooden sidewalks, jangling spurs, creaking teamster wagons, and the crack of whips.

  “Ain’t it jes’ like I tol’ ya?” Daffern said proudly. “Streets fulla bull-whackers, hiders, cowboys, and painted harlots. Ain’t it a purty sight?”

  “Long’s I don’t have to marshal here,” I said. “And I thought Colchester got wild at cattle-drive time.”

  “You ain’t seen nuttin’ yet,” Daffern said. “They got some new dance all the way from France over at the Varieties. Called the cancan. Ladies throw up their dresses and shake their bottoms at the cowboys. ”

  Alamo snorted. “Only bottoms I seen lately’s the back end of a longhorn.”

  Wide-eyed, Dusty asked, “You mean they show their bottoms? Fer real?”

  We laughed, and Daffern said, “Fer real, Dusty. ’Cept they got ’em covered with some kinda lacy pants. Still, it’s a sight to make a cowboy’s blood pump a little faster.”

  Dusty whistled.

  “What’s it gonna be, gents?” Daffern asked. “We gonna watch the dancers or we gonna cross the Deadline and do a little drinkin’?”

  The Deadline was defined by the Santa Fe tracks. South of the Deadline law enforcement was lax and things were more wide open. The main part of town, north of the Deadline, was still pretty wide open, but it was more closely patrolled by Marshal Wyatt Earp and his cane-carrying deputy, Bat Masterson. Every cowboy had to check his guns north of the Deadline. But the best saloons—in fact, virtually all the saloons—were over the Deadline.

  We settled on the Lone Star Saloon.

  Alamo said he would feel more at home starting in an establishment named after his native state.

  The Lone Star was one of the smaller saloons, wedged into Front Street about halfway between Bridge Street and First Avenue. At one comer was Charles Rath and Company, and at the other comer was Kelley’s Opera House.

  Next to the saloon was Zimmerman’s Hardware, where F. C. Zimmerman sold everything from pistols to tinware. Sticking out from the false front was a twelve-foot wooden rifle, painted a vivid red and resting over the wide sidewalk on a pole. It was aimed directly at the Dodge City jail and marshal’s office, which was in the middle of The Plaza next to the tracks.

  “This ain’t th’ cream,” said Daffern, downing a whiskey. “Want th’ best, ya gotta go where Chalk Beeson is. He’s got hisself th’ Long Branch now. We’ll mosey over there in a spell.”

  “Whiskey’s whiskey,” Alamo said. “Taste’s same one place as anothern.”

  “I’m talkin’ atmosphere,” said Daffern. “If ya just off a drive and still got trail dust in yore throat, ya in th’ right place. Th’ Lone Star’s a good cowboy saloon. Now, th’ Lone Star used to be th’ Saratoga when Chalk had it. ’Member me talkin’ ’bout it, dontcha?”

  Alamo said, “I doan ’member you talkin’ bout nothin’ else.”

  “Anyways,” Daffern continued, “Chalk’s packed hisself over to th’ Long Branch—and thas the place you set yer aim fer after a bath and a shave and ya got clean duds on yer back. Whadda you say, Ben?”

  “I say I feel nekkid without my shootin’ iron. Never been in a place before where you had to check ’em.”

  Chago said, “A man get a leetle wheeskey in himself, he might feel like he want to shoot up someplace, no?”

  “I know,” I said, “but I got my eye peeled for meeting up with a few gents.”

  “Si, the three hombres you speak of. May you have good hunting.

  Alamo slapped the bar and said, “Barkeep, another toddy.”

  The barkeep was a round-faced man with a huge black, bushy mustache. He wore a brocaded vest and had frilly black and white garters on his sleeves.

  I pushed my glass to him for a refill and asked, “Fella named Bill Smoot ever come in here?”

  He poured my drink silently.

  I added, “He’s a big man, with a nose like—”

  “I know what he looks like,” the barkeep said.

  “Seen ’im lately?”

  He studied me for a while, his eyes like black stones. Finally he said, “Who’s askin’?”

  “A man who wants to know.”

  He said nothing.

  “Man doan seem too friendl—” Alamo said, but I waved him down. It was up to me.

  “Name’s Ben Wheeler. I run into Bill once in Texas. Thought I’d renew the acquaintance.”

  I sipped my whiskey slowly. I stared at those black eyes, but I couldn’t read any response. He had played this game before.

  The barkeep took a swipe at the bar with his towel.

  “I reckon he been in town a time or two,” he said. “Maybe two, three weeks back. Ain’t seen ’im since.”

  “He with the Kid? Name of Bayliss. Had blue eyes like—”

  “I know the one,” he said. “Got a mean streak widern Th’ Plaza. Nervous fella. Eyes always shiftin’. Allus lookin’.”

  “He leave with Smoot?” I asked.

  “’Spect he’s round.”

  The news struck me hard.

  Kid Bayliss was in town!

  I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I tried not to betray my feelings to the barkeep.

  I asked, “What about a gambler named Jasper Rollins?”

  The barkeep’s eyes narrowed. He took another nervous swipe at the bar with his rag. ”I reckon you ask too many questions.”

  We hit the Long Branch next, which was identified by a longhorn’s head over the front entrance. Inside it lived up to Daffern’s advance billing. The saloon was a long, narrow room, with a gambling room beyond it. The imported bar was ornately carved. Behind it was a huge mirror, and above that was a set of longhorns.

  “What’d I tell ya,” Daffern said. He pointed to the rear of the saloon. “That’s Chalk playin’ th’ fiddle. The one with th’ big mustache.”

  We all looked. Dusty said what we were all thinking: “They all got big mustaches.”

  “The one on the right.”

  The little orchestra played under a stuffed elk’s head hanging on the wall. The band consisted of two violins, a trombone, comet, and a piano. They were playing a sweet rendition of “Lorena.”

  I didn’t learn much more at the Long Branch.

  The barkeep hadn’t seen Smoot in a couple of weeks, either. He thought maybe Bayliss was still in town, but he wasn’t sure. When I tried to question him about Rollins, he told me to ask Luke Short, who ran the gambling concession at the Occident.

  We wandered over to the Occident. Short was happy to see me when he thought I was going to part with some of my trail money.

  As soon as I asked him about Rollins, his memory suddenly went blank.

  I got the impression Jasper Rollins had a few friends in town. And they were covering for him.

  After midnight, we collected our guns and led our horses back across the Deadline to the Elephant Livery Stable. The action in the Varieties was still going strong as we passed it.

  Dusty, a newcomer to drinking, was unsteady on his feet. We had to help him along.

  He looked up at the big elephant painted over the double doors of the livery stable.

  “Thash un elephant!” he slurred. “I seen th’ elephant once—when I kilt that Injun!”

  Insid
e, the proprietor, Ham Bell, offered us glasses of buttermilk. He regularly walked the streets of Dodge with a bucket of buttermilk, offering a dipper to every drunk he encountered.

  Dusty eagerly sipped the white liquid, then spit it out.

  “Buttermilk!” he stammered. He clamped a hand to his mouth and ran off into a darkened comer of the stable.

  I pushed Dusty’s head into a horse trough until he felt sober enough to climb the ladder to the hayloft and sleep it off.

  Ham Bell’s hayloft was the busiest cowboy “hotel” in Dodge—and the cheapest. It didn’t cost a dime.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next days were busy ones as we moved the cattle into the pens by the railroad tracks.

  After some haggling, Angus got top dollar for his cattle. He immediately paid off each cowboy and gave him a horse. Then he sold off the remuda.

  Angus paid me for my cattle, then tried to pay me wages. I wouldn’t accept the money. I had agreed to do it for no wages.

  “You drive a tough bargain,” Angus said. “So I tell you what—I’ll buy you dinner tonight at Delmonico’s.”

  “That I’ll take,” I said.

  I met Angus in front of the Dodge House, and we walked next door to Delmonico’s. The sign in front said: “The restaurant of the elite.”

  “You checked into the Dodge House yet?” I asked as we ordered whiskey at the bar.

  “Aye,” Angus answered. “And a lucky man I am. I only have to share my room with three other drovers. You’d think for a dollar and a half a day a man could have a little privacy.”

  “I thought it was crowded in Ham Bell’s hayloft.”

  “At least you can get a man’s drink here,” he said. “Over at the Great Western Hotel Doc Galland and his missus run a dry place. Not a drop. Man’s not only a teetotaler, he don’t want anyone else to indulge.”

  Laughing, I said, “That sounds like old Ham. Every time I run into him he tries to pour buttermilk down my gullet.”

  “That the fella walks up and down The Plaza with a bucket?”

  I nodded, and Angus added, “Talk is he’s plannin’ to run for sheriff of Ford County. Heaven help Dodge if they get one of them prohibitionists in there.”

  We picked up our drinks and followed a waiter to our table at the back of the crowded restaurant.

  “Charlie Heinz sets a toothsome spread,” Angus said as we dug into the meat and potatoes.

  “Reminds me,” I said. “You and Ginger patched things up yet?”

  Between bites, he said, “’Bout as well as you can ever patch up anythin’ with that ornery old cuss.”

  Later, over coffee and berry pie, Angus said to me, “Don’t look around but that man at the comer table hasn’t taken his eyes off us the whole meal.”

  I said, “I see him. That’s Doc Holliday. Calls himself a dentist, but mostly he’s a gambler and gunfighter. One of the best. He and Wyatt Earp’re thicker’n thieves.”

  “Looks a mite drawn to me.”

  “Too much hard living. The consumption don’t help, either.”

  Angus said, “He’s comin’ this way.”

  Holliday, in a long gray coat, black striped pants, white shirt, and string tie, stopped at our table. He was very slender, and his mustache drooped down his thin face.

  “Evenin’, gents,” he said. He looked at me and asked, “You the Texan what’s been askin’ after that road agent Bill Smoot?”

  I looked up at him. By force of habit, he drew his coat away from his right side. But he, too, had checked his gun.

  I said, “I made a few inquiries.”

  “You got business with him?”

  “I got some unfinished business he started down in Texas.”

  “So I hear,” Holliday said, then coughed into his handkerchief. “Mind if I sit a spell?”

  Before I could answer, he pulled out a chair, spun it around, and straddled it with his hands resting on the chair back.

  “You acquainted with Smoot?” I asked.

  “I got no quarrel with him, long’s he conducts his trade somewheres else.”

  “He been practicing lately?”

  Holliday coughed again. “Maybe. I hear he’s developed an interest in railroads.”

  I digested that information and stored it for future use.

  “He been traveling with a fella name of Kid Bayliss? Or a gambler named Jasper Rollins?”

  “Bayliss is bad news. Smoot was smart to get shut of him. I seen him struttin’ round town. But he gives me a wide berth.”

  “And Rollins?”

  “Played a few hands with him,” said Holliday. “Seems Jasper’s got a weakness for a holdout, but I keep him honest. He had the gamblin’ concession at the Alamo.”

  “Had?”

  Holliday said, “Luke Short’s the wrong man to ask about Jasper. Two birds of a feather. Luke suggested to Jasper that the climate here’bouts was gettin’ unhealthy. He lit out of town a day or two ago.

  “He suddenly develop an interest in railroads, too?”

  “Well, he did leave town on the Santa Fe,” Holliday said. “But if I know Jasper he probably headed for his old stampin’ ground. He’s kinda partial to fleecing cotton planters on the riverboats.”

  Holliday stood up and shoved the chair back.

  “Nice talkin’ to you, gents,” he said. “If you ever got need of a dentist, I got me an office up in room twenty-four of the Dodge House. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.”

  Holliday walked toward the door, then looked back and said, “’Bout that unfinished business—good luck. Never could abide a man with a weakness for a holdout.”

  Two nights later I was drinking at the Long Branch with Dusty and Alamo. Beeson’s little orchestra was playing, and from the next room came the sounds of gambling.

  Alamo was angry. “You mean that Luke Short fella up and warned Rollins and he skipped out?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” I said.

  “I got half a mind to call him out,” he said.

  Dusty wanted to march over to the Occident and take a swing at Short. I calmed them both down and ordered another round of drinks. Dusty was sticking to beer and getting more control over his stomach.

  “Leastways,” Alamo said, “he oughta be horsewhipped. Them tinhorn gamblers stick together, thas a fack.”

  Dusty was more impressed that I had talked to Doc Holliday.

  “I seen him on the street, but I ain’t worked up courage to say hello,” said Dusty. “Saw Wyatt Earp, too.” Dusty opened his shirt front, where he had several dime novels. “I got books tell all ’bout their exploits and adventures.”

  I said, “I’ll find Rollins—and Smoot—when the time comes. Right now, Bayliss seems to be hereabout, but he’s making himself mighty scarce.”

  “The mess of ’em sounds like a prize crew,” Alamo said. “You need any help, you let me know.”

  “Yeah,” said Dusty, “me, too.”

  “Appreciate the offer,” I said, “but this is kinda personal.”

  I finished my drink and said, “Now if you boys’ll excuse me, I think I’ll head back to my private room at Ham Bell’s horse hotel.”

  Dusty said, “Gosh, Mr. Wheeler, you got that money fer them cows an’ all. I figgered you’d move into the Dodge House with th’ gentry.”

  “Dusty,” I said, “I’d rather share a hayloft with a bunch of cowpokes than a bed at the Dodge House with four gentlemen. ’Night.”

  The air was hot, and even at this late hour teamster wagons piled high with hides kept the dust swirling on the bone-dry street. A steady wind off the prairie picked up the dust, along with the smell of the hides, the sweaty teamsters, and horse flops all over the street, and blew it right into my face.

  I checked my gun to see that it had five rounds, then set out across Front Street at its intersection with Bridge Avenue.

  I stepped onto the board sidewalk in front of the Varieties.

  CRACK!

  A
bullet thudded into a wooden porch post near my head.

  I drew my gun and threw myself behind one of the big water barrels squatting outside the dance hall. The shot came from nearby, but there was no sense throwing lead blindly.

  The only thing I knew was that it wasn’t a stray shot. Somebody had meant it for me.

  I studied the shadows. I couldn’t see anything. A few curious men poked their heads out of the dance hall. They ducked back in quickly when they saw me crouching behind the fire barrel with a gun in my hand.

  The music and revelry continued unabated.

  In Dodge it was just another shooting. Killings were so frequent in the wild cow town that people just ran for cover and, when it was over, went back about their business. Dodge was about to have another man for breakfast. I didn’t intend to be the man they carted off to Boot Hill in the morning.

  I reached down and unstrapped my spurs. Their jangling was too much of a giveaway.

  It was my guess the shot came from the direction of the livery stable, just a few doors west of the dance hall. I still couldn’t see anyone.

  A teamster wagon came lumbering along Front, heading west. I darted out into the street and put the wagon between myself and the stable.

  I walked along beside the wagon until I could see the elephant sign. I let the wagon roll past and ran for the windmill and water tower beside the barn.

  The explosion of a gunshot split the air. The bullet kicked up dust by my feet. I had seen the flash of gunpowder.

  The man was on top of the water tank.

  I fired once on the run and sought protection in the shadows of the windmill. Above me the big fan spun rapidly in the wind. The shaft running down the middle of the . windmill creaked and squealed as it pumped water from deep beneath the earth.

  I studied the water tower. The wooden tank was on stilts and high enough for a man to walk under. The top of the tank was probably fifteen feet high. A ladder was nailed to one side of the tower.

  “Bayliss!” I called. “You dirty sneak! I’m comin’ after you!”

  I kicked the bottom rung of the ladder, gave it a good shake, then ran under the tank and came out behind it. I had a clear view of the top.

  I saw a figure silhouetted against the starlight lean over the top of the tank and aim his gun down the ladder.