West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels

by James Reasoner

  Sam was amazed and hesitant, looking first to Joel then to the pile of money as if he were torn between fair play and outright stealing.

  Joel seemed unconcerned as he poured another drink. "You can take your share and ride back to Texas if you want, or you can ride with us. Personally, I didn’t leave anything of value in San Antonio and I don’t believe you did either, so I see no need to go back." He gestured with his glass, focusing his attention on his companion. "But you, Sam, you can do what you want." The smile touched his lips and then spread to his eyes, a hint of challenge lurking behind the warmth. "Bandit or petty thief," he murmured.

  Sam couldn’t help but like Joel, but the man was no upstanding cattleman as he had no doubt professed to Richardson and Cranston. He was clever, smart enough to trick others into trusting him. Sam was no stranger to stealing either, what with the fixed races he had done. Nor was he above taking advantage of a situation when the opportunity arose, and he figured he could get away with it.

  However, he had never conjured the thoughts of long range thinking that it took to make a score as big as the one Joel had just accomplished, and though delighted by the offering of the new-found riches, he wasn’t sure that being called a bandit instead of a petty thief made it any less a crime. Still . . .

  Mind made up, his right shoulder hitched in a slight shrug and he reached over and took the stack of money. Smiling broadly, Sam stuck out a hand to his friend. "Reckon I’ll ride along for a spell, Joel."

  Joel shook hands and then stood. "I was hoping you would. Now let’s get cleaned up and get to some serious drinking."

  Sam, Joel, Willie and Skeeter went on a week-long binge of drunkenness and reckless gambling, outrageously giving the scantily clad, painted-up percentage girls huge tips.

  Late one night, the revelry began to change as one man grew emboldened by the effects of the strong drinks he swigged. With a nickname like Skeeter, it would be easy to assume the man was a mild-mannered, easygoing sort. That may have been true on the job, but once Skeeter got a few drinks in him, he became overbearing, demanding, mean and nasty. As the evening wore on, it seemed Skeeter would purposely attempt to pick a fight with anyone over the slightest reason. An argument over card dealing grew to fisticuffs between Skeeter and the dealer. Willie stepped in when another man took the dealer's side. Before any guns were drawn, a quick-acting deputy marshal arrested Skeeter and Willie. The two spent the night in jail, paid twenty-five-dollar fines and were released. They came into the saloon around noon to find Joel and Sam sipping beer. "Looks like you two had a rough night," Joel observed.

  "I should have shot that son of a bitching dealer!" Skeeter said, pulling out a chair. "Still might if he screws with me again."

  "Well, you better make it quick," Joel advised, before Skeeter could even sit down. "We’re pulling out soon as I get a meal."

  Sam was just as surprised at this new revelation as Willie and Skeeter. No one questioned nor argued with Joel’s decision.

  "Where are we going?" Willie asked.

  Joel gulped the last of a mug of beer. "We’re all tired of cattle driving. We ought to do something different for a spell. I’ve a hankering to go up Dakota way, see some new country. There’s a gold strike going on up there. A poor man’s gold strike is what a fellow told me. That’s where a man can search the creek banks for gold by using only a shovel and a pan, just like they did out in California. No heavy equipment involved. Every damn fool and his son are either there already or on their way. They say Deadwood at night is a regular Sodom and Gomorrah."

  "You sound like a preacher, Joel," Sam noted.

  Joel smiled. "Yeah. Well, anyway, I was told that there are plenty of saloons, whiskey, loose women and gold money being gambled in Deadwood. I’m dying to see the place, so I figure on checking it out and seeing where Hickok was killed. Of course it’s still like I’ve always said before, you all can do as you want, but I’m going. We can check out Ogallala on the way. I understand that the place is another trail end cow town."

  The foursome made a trip to the mercantile where they bought an assortment of food items for trail cooking and camp goods, coffee pot, cups, skillets and such. They split the goods up so each man had a gunny sack of items tied behind his bedroll. There was no hurry, no deadline to meet, so they rode casually northwest into the Nebraska territory.

  Four days later, in an evening camp, Sam sat by the campfire finishing a smoke and thinking about how good a shot of rye whiskey would go right now and a gambling table. The call of saloon life pleasures was getting stronger as they neared Ogallala.

  Ogallala proved to be a trail end cow town full of excited cowboys roaming from saloon to saloon recklessly partying just like they did in Kansas. Sam, Joel, Willie and Skeeter stayed three nights then, unsurprisingly, Joel declared it was time to leave the city comforts and head on north. "Time’s up," Joel said, "we’ve seen everything Ogallala has to offer and it isn’t any different than Ellsworth, so I figure we ought to go on up to Deadwood."

  The mornings were crisp, clear and sunny, with a wisp of high clouds slowly moving above. Later in the afternoons it would warm up to near eighty-five degrees. After two days of travel, Sam noticed that the further north they traveled the colder it was getting in the mornings, especially before daylight when the nighttime dew had formed into frost on his blanket.

  It was a brisk, sunshiny October day when the foursome rode into Deadwood. Sam figured the place was the grubbiest burg that he had ever laid eyes on. It didn’t appear to be much of a town that was built in a gulch. The middle of the single street was deep in mud with, ditches, holes, manure and tree stumps. One and two story frame buildings snugged together on both sides of the roadway.

  Any cattle town had this place beat in appearance, Sam figured. Hell, even Skiddy Street, built in a ravine in the low end of town, down in Denison, Texas had a better daytime appearance than this. But the street was busy, teams and wagons slogged along up and down its length, some were stopped, their owners in various modes of loading or unloading boxes, crates and goods of all sort. Boardwalks were full of men dressed in woolen work clothes, their heavy boots clomping the boards as they moved along.

  No one paid the four new arrivals any attention. With all the activity on the street there was no room to tie their mounts to a hitch rack so they rode around until locating a livery and checked the horses in. Afterwards, they walked to the first saloon they came to, The High Grade. The saloon was already lively, smiling girls working the floor, gaming tables operating and a piano player plinking out a familiar tune off to one side. They took seats at an empty table and ordered a bottle and four glasses. Skeeter flipped out a five dollar gold coin to pay for it. "I’ll buy the first round," he said. "I need something to warm me up, I liked to froze last night."

  The bartender looked at the five dollar gold piece. "It's ten dollars for the bottle," he said matter-of-factly.

  Skeeter frowned then produced a second five dollar gold piece. "How much is it for a glass of beer?" he asked sardonically.

  "Two bits," the bartender said then turned and left.

  Joel just grinned. "Hell, Skeeter, after you get a couple shots down you won’t even pay no never-mind to paying double price for drinks! Makes me wonder how much the girls charge?" He looked around, hopeful.

  By nightfall they found out everything in this northern town was at least double or triple the price of what they were used to paying. A sleeping cot in a large room full of snoring drunks cost a dollar a night. A decent room cost up to five dollars a night as opposed to fifty cents to two dollars, depending on the quality, in Texas or Kansas. When it came to food, fifty cents would buy a bowl of gruel or greasy stew, while a decent meal of meat potatoes and bread cost one to two dollars, whereas twenty-five cents to fifty cents was common for fare in cattle towns. It cost a dollar a day just to feed and house a horse. The high prices were merely the cause of high demand by the growing crowd of wide-eyed strangers coming to a gold rush. At time
s during the day or night a thousand men or more crowded the streets and business establishments. It was indeed a carnival atmosphere to merely sit and watch the activities up and down the street. Freighters coming in to deliver goods and getting their wagon stuck in the muck on the street while teetotalers pointed and laughed, others would rush out to lend a hand to the stranded wagon. Hammers banged in the clear morning air as carpenters worked at a frenzied pace in getting a new building erected, while nearby in the street, donkeys brayed and freighters urged on their teams with cussing commands.

  This was Deadwood.

  Chapter 6

  A whole month passed while the four Texas men attempted to blend into the town while making at least one visit to the more than fifty saloons with seemingly a new one opening daily. It didn’t take long for them to figure out which places to avoid and they tended to stick with The High Grade as their choice of saloons. The High Grade offered twenty-cent beer, a free lunch assortment of meat and cheeses, round the clock card games, and saloon girls who were friendly. It was the kind of saloon the Texas cowboys were used to and expected.

  After a time, the partying and laying out more cash than they had imagined, it was Willie who sought to change things when he came into the saloon and settled at a table with the others. "I think I found a way we can make some money instead of giving it all to the merchants and dealers."

  Joel set his half full whiskey glass down. "What do you have in mind, Willie?"

  "I ran across a man last night who wants to sell his quartz mine," Willie said.

  "If it’s any good why does he want to sell it?" Skeeter smirked.

  Willie poured himself a drink from a rye bottle sitting in the middle of the table. "He’s sick, least he said he was. He just wants enough to get himself back to Louisiana before he dies."

  "How much is he asking for it?" Joel asked.

  "He said four hundred dollars would buy everything, the claim with a cabin tent and digging tools included.

  "It’s not too far from here, a couple miles," Willie continued. "It sounded pretty good and I thought, if everyone agreed, then we could take a look and give it a try. I, for one, am tired of these prices in town. It wouldn’t cost anything to live out at the mine excepting the grub, of course."

  Willie, Skeeter, Joel, and Sam rode out to the mine and liked what they saw. They pooled four hundred dollars and bought the claim as equal partners. The thought of making a rich strike was on each man’s mind when they moved into the former owner’s campsite which consisted of a ten by sixteen cabin tent. It had log walls four feet high then a canvas tent completed the top half of the walls and roof of the cabin with a tin stove inside. There was even a small corral and brush covered lean to for the horses.

  The four men spent two weeks of sloshing in ice cold creek water and made a half-hearted attempt to make the mine pay and earn an honest living. By now it was late into the fall. As the days grew shorter, wind funneling from the north had a definite chill to it. Evenings were spent huddled around a table and chairs made of tree limbs, near the cabin stove while drinking whiskey and playing cards.

  It didn’t take Joel long to figure that the mine held little gold, and that he wasn’t cut out for the back-breaking labor a profitable mine required. The mine had quartz rock, but little of it was gold bearing and they had no equipment to bust out of the rock what little gold flecks that could be seen by the naked eye. Joel had lost interest in squatting and working a pan in the icy water of the creek that fronted the claim.

  Willie and Skeeter had turned in for the night and were both snoring while Sam and Joel still sat before the stove. Joel spoke, the words coming in a near whisper. "I believe this mining is for others to do. I’d just as soon take my chances on the turn of a card."

  Sam nodded, then got to his feet and retrieved the whiskey jug and poured himself a cup full. "I don’t think this mine is as good as we all thought it would be," he said. "When I was back in Denton, I did some freight hauling. I figure the owners of the company made good money at it. I know I never missed a payday and it seemed like we were always behind in the deliveries. Deadwood has got two, three times as many people living here and they all need stuff. All the freight that comes in to Deadwood has got to come from somewhere. We could go into town tomorrow and see about some freight hauling. We’d have to buy a wagon, but we already got horses that ain’t doing anything but growing lazy. It would beat hell out of freezing our fingers in that icy creek."

  Joel nodded. "I don’t think that Willie and Skeeter are ready to give up on the mine just yet. Between the two of them, they panned out nearly half an ounce of gold today. They might get ten dollars for it. It isn’t enough of a showing for me though, so freight hauling sounds right down my alley. I’ll go with you in the morning."

  Over a mid-morning meal, Joel told Willie and Skeeter of his and Sam’s intention of seeing about doing some freight hauling. Willie was more than eager to get back to the panning in hopes of doubling yesterday’s take. "Skeeter and I want to pan some more dirt out of that hole we were working yesterday, so we’ll be right here when you get back."

  It was Joel, the better salesman of the two, who was able to secure a haul from Cheyenne to Deadwood, a load of dry goods needed by Sikes Mercantile. Joel and Sam rode to Cheyenne and bought a wagon for a hundred dollars. It was a high price for a farm wagon, but the price included the traces, collars and singletrees, a complete outfit. Sam and Joel were able to get the goods loaded, which was mostly sacked flour and cornmeal. With winter weather at hand, a canvas tarp was purchased and wrapped around the load. That would have been sufficient in a simple snowstorm but what they encountered twenty miles from town was a deluge of heavy rainfall.

  When they pulled the wagon to the back of Sikes’ store and lifted the canvas, it was clear that despite the covering, water had gotten to the cargo. Fortunately, it was only the bottom layer of goods that was soaked. Sikes threw a fit, then shrewdly figured out that since some of the goods had been destroyed the freight bill was null and void. Sikes insisted that Joel and Sam owed him a hundred dollars against, he quickly calculated, inflated prices of the lost goods. When Sam and Joel began to walk away, Sikes indicated that he would be lodging a complaint to the authorities. Joel and Sam took their horses but left the half-unloaded wagon. They checked the horses into the livery and then headed for the saloon.

  "He can have that damned wagon as far as I’m concerned," Joel said. "If I’d have known that Sikes was such an asshole, I’d of took that load of stuff and sold it to someone else."

  Sam laid a coin on the bar to pay for two beers. "Yeah, he can keep the wagon, we’re out of the freighting business, anyway."

  It was a sorrowful meeting with Willie and Skeeter back in the mining camp when Sam announced the failure. Willie told of his and Skeeter’s findings of not double the amount of gold but less than half of what they had expected the last few days. The mine was so poor it was considered a failure and now Sam and Joel were unable to do a simple thing like freighting some goods. It was too much to bear. They were all depressed and sought solace in the contents of a bottle of rye whiskey. Thereafter, the four rogues fell into slovenly ways, staying up until drunkenness forced them to retire in the wee hours of mornings, leaving them dead to the world until well into the afternoon.

  Joel and Sam had given up on the mining altogether but kept the camp as a place to sleep out of the weather. Willie and Skeeter still maintained there was gold to be found at the site and spent most of their time at the camp. The horses were given portions of sacked grain from town so they didn’t have to pay to board the animals. By early evening, Sam and Joel would return to the comforts of a saloon for a beer or so, which inevitably led to whiskey drinking and gambling all over again. The ideas for the making of legitimate money seemed exhausted and nothing more was mentioned of it.

  Joel’s and Sam’s background of being somewhat experienced gamblers with the ability to pull off a cheat from time to time back in the co
w towns of Texas and Kansas, was an option that could no longer be risked in Deadwood, although they had tried. But the professional gamblers in the town were too sharp and the stakes too high, and inevitably Joel and Sam had no choice but to leave the games, sadder but wiser men.

  A long dry spell followed, and there was no regard for conservation when it came to cash in their jeans. So the entire cold winter was spent in mindlessly squandering the herd money they had previously stolen.

  One night, in the High Grade Saloon, Joel introduced Sam, Willie and Skeeter to two men who sat sipping from beer mugs at a table next to theirs. One man, Jack Davis, was known by Joel from back in Texas. The other man’s name was Tom Nixon, and he was new to everyone. Both men appeared to have led tough lives. They were tall and lean of frame with a certain hunger in their eyes. Davis and Nixon were also cattle drovers who had finished a drive to a northern destination, then had been drawn to the goldfields with illusions of quick riches. The two had acquired a placer mining claim as well, with similar results to Joel and his group’s mine. The harsh reality of gut-busting work in brutally cold weather, for little more than eating money, had taken a toll on the men. Jack indicated that he and Nixon would be going back to Texas, if things did not improve at the mine. A short time later Davis and Nixon called it a night and left the saloon, presumably to return to their claim.

  * * *

  It was a cold spring morning, and the men were lounging in the cabin over the midday meal when Willie suddenly spoke up. "Skeeter and I are pretty tired of trying to make this mine pay. The gold just ain’t there!" He turned to Joel. "You figure we’ll be here much longer?"

  Joel took a deep breath then sipped his coffee before giving an answer. "I believe this high living has caught up to us, and those damned card dealers in the saloons won’t let a man win a decent pot. The way the weather has been, with six inches of snow still on the ground, I reckon we’re not going anyplace real soon. I’m thinkin’ we better keep what money we got in our pockets until it warms up some. Then we’ll head south."