by Ben Bridges
I studied him. He had a corpulent, pasty face and very dark eyes that seemed to view the world from out of liquefied pouches. He was about fifty years of age, and his hair was so completely black that I could only conclude that he colored it artificially. It grew thick at the sides, I noticed, but he had to scrape what little remained on top artfully across a pink pate. He had long sideburns, as was the fashion of the day, and a black, pencil-line moustache.
He labored over to us, a careful smile playing at his mouth as he ranged his eyes across me. I felt ill at ease with his scrutiny, for it was more as if he were judging a prize bull than a man.
‘Mr. Colter?’ he asked as he finally came to stand before my horse.
I answered him with a similar question. ‘Mr. Black?’
His face broke into a genial smile and he nodded forcefully. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘Step down and come meet the others! Tapper, take care of the gentleman’s horse, if you please! This way, Mr. Colter!’
I dismounted, passed my reins to the fellow in the duster, allowed the affable Simon Black to pump my hand effusively and then followed on as he led me towards the tent.
‘Quite dreadful, that spot of bother you ran into the other day,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I felt quite ill when the editor of the Advocate came up to tell me. I’m sure I don’t know what Fort Wray is coming to, Mr. Colter. Still, thank goodness the fellow didn’t harm you.’
He stopped suddenly and I almost walked into him. He turned around and studied me critically. ‘He didn’t harm you did he?’ he asked quietly.
‘If you mean Mills,’ I said, ‘no, he didn’t.’
Black looked relieved. ‘Well, that’s a mercy, for I’m afraid that what we are proposing is certainly no job for a convalescent.’
We continued on towards the tent. There was something theatrical in the way he brushed back the flap and bade me enter before him. He was something of a performer, I judged, and he was trying to make my entrance a thing of drama for the benefit of his companions.
His companions.
I ducked my head and went inside. Immediately I was struck by the way the material of the tent turned the filtering sunshine into a weird green twilight. I came to another halt and surveyed the scene before me.
A portable table had been erected in the centre of the flimsy structure, and behind it sat four men, on collapsible chairs of hardwood and canvas. A silver ice bucket sat in the middle of the table, and projecting from it I saw the long, green-glass neck of a champagne bottle. Beside this was a humidor, the lid of which had been left up to expose a line of fat, expensive Cuban cigars. Each man had a glass on the table before him, with bubbles popping sluggishly to the surface of what little champagne remained in them.
Mr. Black dropped the flap behind him and with a flourish, introduced me to the others. Arthur Shaw. A G Tyrell. Sam Reasoner. John Chase. As I nodded to each one in turn, it was not difficult to see that they were cattle-barons, once-tough men who had carved empires out of this rough land and now spent their declining years growing rich and turning soft.
They were all dressed in a curious combination of big city finery and old reminders of their former glory. They complemented their expensive gray suits with battered Stetsons and scuffed, spur-hung boots. They quaffed champagne because they felt that they should, but I knew that any one of them would gladly have emptied his glass into the thirsty earth if it meant he could then refill it with raw, snakehead whisky.
They, like Black, weighed me up with shrewd eyes but said very little, other than to mutter a perfunctory greeting. After that, Mr. Black gestured for me to take the single chair on the near side of the table and, as he labored around to retake his own chair among the cattlemen, he offered me a drink, which I declined.
Once he was installed in his creaking seat, Black put his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers and said, ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that whatever we say here this afternoon is to be treated in the strictest confidence ...’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I’ll come right to the point, Mr. Colter. We — that is, these good gentlemen and some other members of the Cattlemen’s Association — have been experiencing some trouble with the outlaw John Kidd. You’ve heard of Kidd, I take it?’
I nodded. Everyone had heard of Kidd, even back then. ‘Rustling?’ I prompted.
Black said, ‘That is one word for it. Kidd has organized some sort of bullyboy racket in our neck of the woods. If one of our members “donates” a certain number of cattle to Kidd and his men, they in turn guarantee to “protect” the ranch from rustlers.’ He snorted his disgust. ‘The nerve of the man!’ he said, and his cronies shuffled around and muttered their agreement. ‘If they refuse, Kidd goes ahead and helps himself anyway.’
‘And you want this business stopped.’
‘Indeed we do.’
‘Where has he been operating, Mr. Black?’
‘Mostly to the south and east of here, down along the Arikaree. As near as we can figure it, he hides the stolen stock away somewhere near the Kansas line, blots their brands and then pushes them east, over the line and thence on to a buyer down towards the Smoky Hills country. By the time he’s reached his destination and is ready to sell them, the doctored brands have healed nicely. Any but the most experienced cattleman would think they’d been there for years.’
I thought about it. I thought, John Kidd. Now there was a challenge! Eventually I said, ‘That would explain why you’re offering such a high salary. Kidd is quite the man of the moment.’
It was no lie. If all was to be believed, he had a wild and reckless nature that had captured the public’s imagination. He had been born in ’54 and spent his childhood years learning all forms of rascality — and pistolmanship — at his grandfather’s knee. The rustling of horses and cattle was evidently a kind of tradition within the Kidd family. But John had gone one step further. He had branched out into the road-agenting game, starting with stage hold-ups and graduating to trains and finally banks. It was, by all accounts, quite a lucrative trade. Rumor had it that he had taken twenty thousand dollars from a bank in Denver the previous April just by threatening to blow the place up with some liquid he had claimed to be what we now call nitroglycerin.
‘We are realists, Mr. Colter,’ said Black, curtailing my thoughts. ‘We are as aware of John Kidd’s reputation as are you. We know we need to hire the best man for the job. And the best man invariably comes expensive.’
I considered it some more, knowing that they were expecting a response right here and now. I could use the money, there was no denying that. And there was no way I could hope to earn a comparable sum within such a relatively short space of time anywhere else. I did not know the terrain, it was true, but I could hire someone for that. And I was a fast learner.
At last I nodded. ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘I’m game for it. I can’t give you a definite time limit, of course, but you have my word that I’ll find this fellow and chase him clean across the border for you.’
That sent another little ripple through them.
They shifted around and threw meaningful looks at each other, and Mr. Black shuffled his high-button boots under the table and gave me an unctuous smile. ‘I fear you may have misunderstood our meaning, Mr. Colter,’ he said. ‘We are paying you to kill this man, not just chase him away.’
Something cold made itself known in the pit of my stomach, and I knew that what had brought it to life was the word kill. I looked at them. Outside, by the pens, a man yelled something at an ornery cow and the cow bawled indignantly back at him.
Some of the condensation beading the neck of the champagne bottle suddenly trickled down into the ice bucket.
I said, ‘I fear we have both made a mistake, Mr. Black. I am not an assassin. I do not kill men for money. I would prefer not to kill another man ever again.’
‘We want Kidd dead,’ said the grizzled old man Black had called Arthur Shaw. He looked
as if he had shrunk down inside a suit that was a size too big for him, and when he spoke, one of those fat Cuban cigars danced at the edge of his mouth. ‘After all the trouble he’s been to us, nothing less will do.’
I stood up. ‘Then perhaps you had better find yourselves another man,’ I suggested formally. ‘I’m sorry if you feel I have wasted your time, gentlemen.’
Black, also standing up, said, ‘Hold on a moment, Colter. Can’t we at least discuss this?’
‘That depends on how much you want this Kidd out of your hair,’ I replied. ‘Now, I will catch him and bring him to justice, or I will run him out of the territory for good and all. But I will not kill him if I can possibly help it.’
‘We want him dead,’ said Sam Reasoner. ‘On that we are agreed, Mr. Colter.’
‘Then I wish you luck in finding a man for the task,’ I said with a nod. ‘Good day, gentlemen.’
I turned and pushed out into the fresher air of the brisk afternoon, with its din of men and animals and the shrill, high whistle of the huffing train, and went across to the buck wagon to untie my horse. I nodded farewell to the man in the duster, Tapper, and led the animal around and put one foot in the stirrup. By that time Simon Black had followed me outside, and stood watching as I settled myself more comfortably in my saddle.
‘Please, Mr. Colter,’ he said, squinting up at me from out of his curiously liquefied eyes. ‘Don’t let’s be so hasty here. I’m sure we can come to some more equitable agreement. Perhaps if we were to offer you more money … ?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Black,’ I replied. ‘I’ve killed enough men in my time. I’ll kill no more, if I can help it. And no amount of money will make me change my mind on that.’
He looked up at me and saw that I would not be swayed. His shoulders dropped and he nodded in resignation. ‘Very well. I thank you for coming, sir, and … and I wish you well in the future.’
‘And I you,’ I said, and rode away from him until, at last, the drifting, yellow dust obscured me from his sight.
Chapter Three
Principles are fine and noble things, of course, and I knew I should have felt quite proud of myself as I headed back to Fort Wray. But I could not help regretting the loss of such a munificent salary, for I had been counting on the money to give me a new start in life. Still, there was little to be done about it now. I would just have to begin a fresh search for some other source of employment.
As I rode back to town, the early winter darkness was already leeching the color from the sky, and it was turning distinctly chilly again. I slowed the mustang to a walk as I entered the town limits, my immediate impulse being to return to my hotel and consider my position. But I had already spent enough time within those four walls, and suddenly I felt an uncharacteristic urge to have a drink or two instead. Tomorrow was soon enough to begin the process of picking up and organizing the threads of my life. For now, I might as well lose myself in a merry crowd.
I pointed my horse up the street, not knowing where I would end up. Street-flares had already been lit along most of the main arteries, and I headed for the place that offered the most light, that lively part of the town where I had been braced by Dick Mills.
I reached a saloon calling itself The Mother Lode, dismounted and tied my horse to the rack out front.
At that time of the afternoon the place was still relatively quiet, which suited both my mood and my purpose. I walked up to the far end of the bar and ordered a beer. It came and I stood there with one foot on the brass rail, alone with my thoughts.
The saloon was pleasantly warm. A wagon-wheel chandelier cast cones of dim saffron light down over the other customers. Some, like me, stood up at the bar, while the rest were seated at the round, scratched tables that took up the centre of the big, sawdusted room. In one corner, a man in a striped shirt and a derby hat broke the low babble of conversation by playing odd snatches of tunes on an old piano. A few girls moved among the patrons, trying to entice them to spend their money on high-priced, so-called ‘effervescent wine’, but I was too introspective and remote to pay them much heed, and so they left me alone.
I thought about the proposition that had been put to me earlier on. Had I known what was expected of me, I probably would never have come to Fort Wray. And if I had not come here, Dick Mills would doubtless still be alive, and I would not have his death adding weight to all the others I still carried with me.
The beer was flat and tasteless. I pushed the schooner away from me and when the bartender came over with a question in his expression, I ordered a whiskey. That was more to my taste, and I took it to a quiet corner table and spent the next twenty minutes just savoring it.
At last full dark filled up the oilpaper windows and a few more customers drifted in and named their poison. I drained my glass and made to rise and leave.
It was then that I heard someone snap his fingers, and when I turned my head and glanced up, I found a man looking down at me and muttering, ‘Now, don’t tell me … It’s Colter, isn’t it? The famous Ash Colter?’
I peered at him closer. ‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ I said. I remember that my words slurred a little, for I was not really much of a drinker, and even a modest amount of alcohol swiftly worked its disorientating effect upon me.
The fellow looked quite pleased with himself.
‘Well, I’ll be!’ he murmured. ‘Fancy me running into one of the country’s most illustrious sons. May I buy you another drink, Mr. Colter? I’d consider it an honor.’
I knew I had had enough, but by that time I was just sufficiently drunk to throw caution to the wind, and so I said that indeed he might. He turned at the waist and, raising one hand, snapped his fingers to get the bartender’s attention. ‘A bottle of your finest over here, if you please!’
He was tall and sturdily put-together, quite young-looking, with a well-defined jaw, slightly insolent blue eyes and a generous nose. His suit marked him as some sort of an office worker. He took a seat across from me and, a moment later, the bartender brought over a bottle of Old Kentucky and a spare glass. My new-found companion poured himself a drink and a refill for me, then raised his glass and said, ‘Your good health, Mr. Colter!’
We clinked our glasses together and I sipped some more.
‘My goodness, but I’ve followed your exploits for quite a few years now,’ he enthused. ‘The Snake River Shootout … that dreadful business down on the Washita with Custer … the hell-towns of Elton and Yellow Creek … You have lived a full life, sir, and no mistake!’
I shrugged, unwilling to discuss those old times.
I set my glass down, realizing at last that I had drunk more than was wise for me, and again prepared to leave.
My companion frowned. ‘You’re not going?’ he asked with some disappointment. ‘My dear sir, see it from my point of view. This is the kind of opportunity that only comes once in a man’s life, to talk with a legend.’
‘My apologies,’ I replied carefully. ‘I thank you for the drink, and wish you well.’
I had just started to rise when he said, ‘But we have so much to discuss! Your friend Page, for instance. And what of this business with John Kidd?’
I sat down again and frowned at him. So far as I knew, my business with the Cattlemen’s Association had been confidential. Simon Black himself had affirmed the desire for secrecy before we had embarked upon our discussion. It occurred to me then that this had been no chance encounter. This man was a reporter, in search of a story. I was a fool not to have realized it sooner, for did the Cattlemen’s Association not have its offices above the Fort Wray Advocate?
‘I have no comment to make on the matter,’ I said stiffly.
But he was a tenacious fellow, and he was set on pursuing it. ‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, ‘I think you did a wise thing in declining the Association’s offer.’
The drink had turned me surly. ‘And what would you know about it?’
He shrugged. ‘Like all well-info
rmed men, I know of Kidd’s reputation. Any man would be wise to steer clear of him.’
‘I did not make my decision out of cowardice, sir.’
‘And neither am I saying that you did, Mr. Colter,’ he replied easily. ‘But all the same, you have an enviable reputation of your own to consider. You must be reluctant to take even the slightest chance that Kidd might shatter it.’
The fellow really was infuriating. ‘And who says that he would?’ I barked.
‘Why, the outcome of any such encounter is a foregone conclusion, surely. Kidd has a brilliant intellect, and they say he is unchained lightning with a gun. Any man who set himself up to capture or kill such a fellow would have his work cut out for him.’
I waved one hand dismissively. ‘You know little of the matter, sir.’
‘Well, you can’t blame a fellow for being curious, Mr. Colter. The Cattlemen’s Association of Colorado offers you a quite staggering sum to track down one man, and you refuse it? What is the public supposed to think, if not that you are reluctant to face the legendary Kidd?’
‘I have my reasons,’ I gritted.
My tormentor shrugged vaguely and dug into his pocket. ‘Very well,’ said he. ‘Have it your own way. But I can promise you this, and I trust you will take no offence, for I mean it well — once word gets around, people are going to ask themselves if Ash Colter is all he’s cracked up to be.’ He withdrew something from his pocket and tossed it into the centre of the table. ‘For the drinks,’ he said, and got up, turned around and strode out of the saloon.
I watched him go, feeling indignant and yet knowing I was a fool to feel that way. I had my reasons, as I had told him, and good reasons they were, too.
I got to my feet and was just about to leave when I thought to glance down and see what he had tossed so carelessly onto the table. Although it had been screwed into a ragged ball, I could see that it was a bill of some kind. But it was not a bill with which I was at all familiar.