Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1

by W. , Johnstone, William

  “Man in a dress,” Martin said derisively, laughing just as the music started.

  As the couples broke apart to swing with the others, Martin made a round with the men, including Duff. But on the next round, he rebelled. Pushing one of the men aside, he started swinging around with all the women until he got to Meagan. That was when Duff stepped out into the middle of the square and grabbed him by the arm.

  “Get out of my way, girlie,” Case Martin said to Duff. He reached for Meagan, but as he did so, Duff, using his thumb and forefinger, squeezed the spot where Martin’s neck joined his shoulder. The squeeze was so painful that Martin sunk to his knees with his face screwed up in agony. The other squares, seeing what was happening in this one, interrupted their dancing. Then the caller stopped, as did the band—the music breaking off in discordant chords.

  “If you gentlemen are going to dance in our square, you’ll be for doing it correctly,” Duff said, talking quietly to the man who was on his knees in pain.

  “Missy, you done started somethin’ you can’t finish,” Al Woodward said, throwing a punch at Duff.

  As gracefully as if he were performing a dance move, Duff bent back at his waist and allowed Woodward’s fist to fly harmlessly by his chin. Duff counterpunched with one blow to Woodward’s jaw, and Woodward went down to join Martin, who was still on the floor.

  Walker, who had been sitting this dance out, pulled his pistol and leveled it at Duff.

  “No!” Meagan shouted.

  Duff reacted before anyone else did. Pulling the sgian dubh, or ceremonial knife, from its position in the right kilt stocking, he threw it in a quick, underhanded snap, toward Walker. As he had intended, the knife rotated in air so that the butt, and not the blade, hit Walker right between the eyes, doing so with sufficient force to knock him down.

  Marshal Ferrell and his deputies took charge then, escorting all three of the troublemakers out of the dance hall and down to the jail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Within three months of that unpromising beginning, Woodward, Martin, and Walker began working at Sky Meadow. On this day, almost two years after the three had been hired, they were working the south range of the ranch. They weren’t herding, they were just making certain that the cattle, which had a tendency to wander about as they were grazing, stayed within the confines of the ranch. As they were riding up a long, low hill, they heard a cow bawling.

  “Listen to that,” Woodward said.

  “Listen to what? It ain’t nothing but a bawlin’ cow,” Martin replied.

  “That ain’t no ordinary bawlin’. That’s a scared bawlin’,” Woodward insisted.

  The three cowboys urged their horses into a rapid lope up the rest of the rise, and when they crested the ridge, saw that a pack of wolves had brought down one of the animals.

  “The sons of bitches! Look at that!” Martin said. He pulled his rifle from the sheath.

  “No,” Woodward said holding his hand out to stop Martin. “You can’t hit the wolves from here. We need to get closer.”

  Thinking the newly killed cow would keep the attention of the wolves, the three men rode down the hill as fast as they dared across the uneven ground, hoping to close the distance so they could come within range of the wolves.

  Just before they got into range though, the wolves sensed their presence and darted off.

  “The bastards are getting away!” Martin said, angrily. Pulling his rifle, he began shooting, though the range was too great and the bullets did nothing but kick up little dust clouds where they hit. The wolves escaped easily.

  Dismounting, the three cowboys walked over to the steer. It was lying on the ground now, still alive, even though the wolves had already begun to eat him. Too weak to make any sound, the animal looked up at the three men with big, brown, pain-filled eyes.

  “Damn,” Woodward said. “Look at the poor bastard.” Pulling his pistol, he shot the animal in the head, putting it out of its misery.

  “This is the third one we’ve found like this,” Walker said.

  “Yeah, well, now we know for sure what’s causing it, ’cause we actual seen the wolves while they was doin’ it,” Martin said.

  Woodward chuckled. “What did you think was doin’ it, Case? Prairie dogs, maybe?”

  “No, but I thought it maybe could have been a cougar or somethin’.”

  “Yeah, I guess it could have been. All right, come on, let’s see if we can find them wolves before they get ’em another one.”

  The three cowboys hunted the wolves for the next two hours, but without success.

  “What do we do now?” Martin asked.

  “We need to tell Elmer,” Woodward said.

  “I ain’t lookin’ forward to tellin’ him about a problem that we ain’t took care of yet,” Walker said.

  “I know what you mean, but it’s got to be done.”

  Back at the ranch, Elmer was supervising the half dozen or so men whose duties this day had not taken them out on the range. Cowboys, as Elmer explained patiently, almost patronizingly, anytime he hired a new hand, had to be jacks of all trades.

  “You got to be part carpenter so’s you can keep the buildings up, and part wheelwright so as to keep the wagons repaired. You need to be some veterinarian too, so’s you can take care of the animals, and even a little bit of a doctor to take care of wounds and such, seein’ as we’re so far from town that it ain’t always that easy to get to a real doc.”

  At the moment, a couple of the cowboys, Ben and Dale had one of the ranch wagons jacked up with the left rear wheel off. They were packing the hubs with grease, a job that was so dirty and unpleasant that it was passed around among the men so that one person didn’t have to do it all the time. Elmer approached the two men, carrying two glasses of lemonade.

  “I thought you boys might like this,” he said, offering a glass to each of them.

  “A cold beer would have been better,” Ben said. “But this will certainly do. Thanks, Elmer.”

  The two men wiped as much grease from their hands as they could before they took the glasses.

  “How is it goin’?” Elmer asked.

  “This here is the last wheel on the last wagon,” Ben replied. “What you got in mind for us after this?”

  “I don’t have nothin’ more in particular for you, today. Why don’t you boys just look around and see if you can find somethin’ that you know needs doin’. If you do find something needs done, just go ahead and take care of it.”

  “All right. Hey, Elmer, after we’re done for the day, you don’t mind if we run into town, do you? They say there’s a new girl at Fiddler’s Green,” Ben said.

  “I don’t mind, if all your work is done,” Elmer said. “New girl, huh?”

  “Yeah, and they say she’s really a looker,” Dale added.

  “She’ll just be one more way Biff has of getting money from you boys,” Elmer said. “By the way, have either of you seen Simon Reid?”

  “Reid? Ain’t he mucking stalls today?” Dale asked.

  “He is supposed to be. But he ain’t there.”

  “He ain’t? You mean he’s left Earl to muck the stalls all by his ownself?”

  “It sure looks like that,” Elmer said.

  “I don’t like to tell tales on others,” Dale said. “But if you got three men workin’ and one loafin’ on a job, you can bet the one loafin’ will be Reid.”

  “I tell you what,” Ben added. “If that son of a bitch run out on me like he did to Earl, I’d near ’bout lay an axe handle up alongside his head next time me ’n him seen each other.”

  “And I’d hand you the axe handle,” Ben added.

  “If you see him, tell him I’m lookin’ for him,” Elmer said.

  “Will do,” Dale promised.

  Elmer left the two men, mumbling to himself as he started back toward the ranch office. The ranch office was a relatively new addition to the Sky Meadow compound, a small building that sat between the “big house” as the cowboys called D
uff MacCallister’s residence, and the bunkhouse. Duff was in the office tallying the latest numbers, compiled by the almost daily count given him by the cowboys.

  “Elmer, you’re looking a bit peeved,” Duff said when Elmer came into the office and sat down at his own desk with a disgusted sigh. “Would you be for tellin’ me what has you in such a state?”

  “It’s Simon Reid, again,” Elmer replied. “That son of a bitch is as worthless as tits on a bull. I thought I was a better judge of men than that. I should ’a’ known from the time I hired him that he wasn’t worth a cup of warm piss.”

  Duff laughed. “Elmer, ’tis no one I know with a more colorful grasp of the English language than you. Sure ’n’ sometimes I wonder if ’tis English at all that you speak.”

  “Damn it all to hell, Duff, I’m tryin’ not to cuss, I really am. But Reid absolutely makes my ass knit barbed wire.”

  Duff laughed again. “Och, mon, now your language has gone from colorful to incomprehensible. How does one’s arse knit barbed wire? Never mind, I know the answer to my own question. One’s arse would knit barbed wire very painfully.”

  At that moment there was a knock on the door.

  “Maybe that’s Reid,” Elmer said, getting up to answer the door.

  It was Woodward, Martin, and Walker.

  “We need to talk,” Woodward said.

  “Duff is cipherin’ an’ such. Let’s talk outside, so’s not to disturb him,” Elmer responded, stepping out of the office, and then shutting the door behind him.

  “We’ve got problems, Elmer,” Woodward said. “Big problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Losing beeves kind of problems,” Woodward said. “We found three of ’em down half eaten.”

  “Half eaten?” Elmer replied, confused by the comment.

  “By wolves,” Walker added.

  “You’re sure its wolves?”

  “Yeah, hell they was still workin’ on one of the beeves when we seen them,” Woodward said. “Five of the critters they was.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot ’em?”

  “We tried to shoot ’em, but we can’t get close enough to the bastards to hit ’em,” Martin said.

  “They’re too damn smart—they either see us or hear us or somethin’. But we can’t get no closer ’n about two or three hunnert yards from ’em before they start runnin’. And you can’t hit no wolf from three hunnert yards away. Hell, you can barely see the sons of bitches from that far,” Walker said.

  “The bastards started eatin’ on that last poor critter even before it died. We had to put it out of its misery,” Woodward said.

  “Good, that was the right thing to do,” Elmer said. He sighed. “All right, thanks for tellin’ me about it. I’ll let Duff know.”

  “I agree, Duff needs to know,” Woodward said. “But for the life of me, I don’t know what he will be able to do about it.”

  “This is Duff MacCallister we’re talking about, remember?”

  Woodward laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Now that I think about it, I have no doubt but that he will take care of it.”

  “Listen, you boys haven’t seen Simon Reid, have you?”

  “Reid? No, not since this mornin’,” Woodward said. “Didn’t you toll him out for workin’ in the barn today?”

  “Yeah, I did. But he ain’t there, and accordin’ to Earl, he ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since just after lunch.”

  As Elmer, Woodward, Martin, and Walker were having their impromptu conference, Simon Reid, the subject of their conversation and the man who had been the cause of Elmer’s earlier agitation, was having a business meeting with three men. The meeting was being conducted five miles away from the ranch compound. It was at the extreme west end of Sky Meadow, and its remote location was by design, for the business at hand was cattle rustling. The cattle being rustled belonged to Duff MacCallister.

  “As you can see, I’ve cut out ten of ’em,” Reid said, referring to the cattle that stood stoically nearby. “They’re Black Angus, which is the finest and most expensive cow in the country. Do you have any idea how much these here cows is bringin’ at the Kansas market?”

  The three men Reid was making his pitch to weren’t Sky Meadow cowboys. They weren’t even local men. Creech, Phelps, and a third who called himself Kid Dingo, were from Bordaux, a town that lay twelve miles north of Chugwater.

  When none of the three answered him, Reid continued his pitch. “Right now, these cows, at the Kansas City market, is bringin’ forty dollars a head.”

  “Yeah, well that’s interestin’ an’ all, but you may have noticed that we ain’t exactly the Kansas market,” Creech replied.

  “And I ain’t askin’ for no forty dollars, neither,” Reid said. “I’m just tellin’ you that so’s that you know what a good deal I’m givin’ you. I’m only askin’ twenty dollars a head.”

  “We’ll give you five dollars.”

  “Five dollars?” Reid replied, reacting sharply in response to the low offer. “What do you mean five dollars? Come on, Creech, are you out of your mind? I’m takin’ a hell of a risk by sellin’ these cows to you in the first place. I stole these here cows from Duff MacCallister’s herd, and if you don’t know much about him, well, let me tell you, he ain’t somebody you cross. Besides which, I know you’re goin’ to get at least thirty dollars a head for ’em, when you get ’em back to Bordaux.”

  “What we sell ’em for ain’t no concern of your’n,” Phelps said.

  “Come on, fellers, me ’n’ you’ve know’d each other a long time,” Reid said, continuing to plead his case. “You ain’t got no call to try and cheat me like that.”

  Creech, Phelps, and Kid Dingo moved away a few feet so they could talk privately. They consulted for a moment, then, nodding, Creech turned back to Reid.

  “All right, we’ll give you ten dollars a head for ’em, but that is as high as we are goin’ to go. That’s a hunnert dollars for you, and we’ll take it from here. All you got to do is put the money in your pocket and ride away,” Creech said.

  “A hunnert dollars,” Phelps added, with a smile. “Think of the whiskey and the whores you can buy with a hunnert dollars.”

  “All right,” Reid said. “Give me the hunnert dollars and the cows is yours.”

  The transaction made, Reid pocketed the money and started back toward the barn. He was supposed to be mucking out the stalls. That was a job he hated, but he smiled as he thought of the one hundred dollars riding in his pocket right now. Having that much money would make the job bearable.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At the butte where Woodward and the others told him they had seen the wolves, Duff MacCallister reined up his horse, Sky, then sat in the saddle for a moment as he perused the range before him. Except for roundup, and cattle drives, such as when he would drive a herd down to the loading pens and rail head in Cheyenne, the cattle were never in one large herd. Rather, they tended to break off into smaller groups, bound to each other within those groups as if they were family units.

  Duff saw one such group now, gathered near the water and standing together under the shade of a cottonwood tree.

  With a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck, Duff dismounted, and then walked out onto a flat rock overhang. Lifting the binoculars to his eyes, he studied the open range below him. That was when he spotted them: at least eight wolves, sneaking up on the cattle.

  Duff walked back to his horse, then pulled a Remington Creedmore Rifle from his saddle sheath. The rifle, a recent purchase, had been developed especially for the Creedmore Marksmanship Club. It had a well-deserved reputation for accuracy, featuring a telescopic sight as well as a device that would allow the shooter to compensate for range and wind.

  Woodward had reported that when anyone tried to get close enough to the wolves to shoot them that the crafty creatures would see, smell, or hear them, then dart quickly out of the way. That meant that the only way the wolves could be eliminated would be if som
eone could shoot them from a standoff position that was so far away that the wolves would not even realize they were in danger.

  Such a feat would take a rifle with extreme range, as well as a marksman who was skilled enough to take advantage of that superior range. The scoped Creedmore was that rifle and Duff MacCallister was that marksman.

  Lying down on his stomach, Duff took up a prone firing position on the rock. He cranked in the range, then, picking up a few grains of grass dropped them to estimate the windage. That done, he sighted in on the wolves. The wolves were at least five hundred yards away, so distant that without the magnification of the scope, they could barely be seen.

  Because of the great distance the wolves were totally unaware of Duff’s presence. They approached their prey with the extreme confidence of a predator who knew that, collectively, they were superior to any creature that might be near.

  But Duff was not near, and they were not superior to him.

  Duff squeezed the trigger, and the gun boomed and kicked back against his shoulder. One and a half seconds later the lead wolf was sent sprawling by the impact of the heavy bullet. A tenth of a second after the strike of the bullet, the sound of the shot reached the remaining pack, but it was so far away that they were unable to connect that sound to what happened to the leader of the pack.

  A second shot killed a second wolf, and within less than a minute, Duff had killed every one of them. His work done, he picked up the remaining shells, returned to his horse, replaced the rifle in its boot, mounted Sky, and started back home.

  When Duff returned to the compound, he could hear the blacksmith’s hammer ringing, and outside the machine shed he saw Ben and Dale painting a wagon. He could also hear his foreman’s voice coming from the barn. The voice was loud and angry, and Duff heard Reid’s name being spoken.

  “I gather Elmer has found the errant Mr. Reid,” Duff said to the two men who were painting.