Drew pulled his saddlebags off the horse, then let Horace take Snowball’s reins. “I’ll put your saddle in the tack room. You want your rifle?”
“Do I need my rifle in this town on a Sunday night?” Dawson asked.
“No, sir, not usually,” Horace answered. “I just asked because a lotta customers take their rifle with ’em. But it’ll be safe here.”
Horace led the white gelding into a stall and pulled his saddle and blanket off. He pulled the horse’s bridle off and left it on a peg inside the stall. The saddle and blanket he carried into the tack room and set it on the rail he had made for that purpose. He stopped to admire the obviously expensive saddle. As he set it back squarely on the rail, he felt the workmanship of the leather and when he lifted the skirt, he saw the initials TC. He had to pause then, thinking they would have been DD. Must have bought it from the original owner, he thought.
Drew Dawson’s next stop was the hotel where Wilbur Ross put him in one of his finest rooms on the second floor, front, where he would have a view of the street. Drew asked where the washroom was, since he desired to clean up after riding in a stock car with his horse for a good bit of the day. And there was plenty of time before the dining room would be open for supper.
When he went into the dining room, he was greeted by Rachael Parker. He removed his gun belt and holster before she requested it, seeing the sign on the table by the door. She had already been advised by Wilbur that an apparently well-heeled gentleman had checked into the hotel and would be eating in the dining room. “Welcome,” Rachael said. “I’m Rachael Parker, and it’s my job to see that you enjoy your supper. Sunday dinner is always a busy day for us, but Sunday supper is usually slow, so we just fix more of what we had for dinner. Today it was roast beef. Will that suit you? Because if it doesn’t, I’ll have Bess fix you some ham or bacon.”
“The roast beef will be fine,” Drew assured her. “I’ll have coffee with that.” Alice, who was standing near the kitchen door, heard him and ran immediately for the coffeepot. She was helping her mother in the dining room, since Kitty had the day off. In a minute, she came to the table carrying the big coffeepot. Since the pot was full, Rachael deemed it a little too heavy for her six-year-old to handle the pouring and took it from her to fill his cup. Noticing the look of pride on Rachael’s face, Drew asked, “Is this your daughter?”
“Yes, it is,” Rachael replied. “This is Alice.”
“Well, how do you do, Alice?” he said. “My name is Drew. I’m pleased to meet you.” Alice performed a little curtsy her mother had taught her, then returned the big coffeepot to the stove. “Fine-lookin’ young lady,” Drew said to Rachael. “You must be proud of her.”
“Indeed, I am,” Rachael responded with pride. “Thank you for your compliments. I hope you still feel like complimenting us when you’ve finished your supper.”
As they expected, the dining room was not busy at all on that Sunday evening. Emma came into the dining room while Drew was still eating, and she stopped to say hello. “Good evening, Mr. Dawson. Is my sister treating you all right?” He replied that she certainly was. “We hope that your visit to Bison House is pleasant enough to make you want to come to see us again when you’re back this way.” Having checked the registration, she knew that he was checking out in the morning.
Emma stayed for a while to have coffee with Rachael and Bess in the kitchen, and in a little while, Perley and Possum came in to eat supper. They seated themselves at a table close to the kitchen. And when Rachael brought their coffee, Possum asked, “Who’s the slick-lookin’ jasper settin’ over there?”
“That’s Mr. Drew Dawson,” Rachael answered. “And he’s not slick-looking just because he’s neat. He’s staying in the hotel overnight. I wish we’d get more customers like him, instead of so many that would look more natural at a trough.”
“She’s talkin’ ’bout you, Possum,” Perley said and received a snort from Possum in return. “I couldn’t help noticin’ the fine-lookin’ gun and holster Mr. Dawson left on your weapons table by the door,” Perley said to Rachael.
“I saw that, myself,” Possum said.
Emma came out of the kitchen and sat down at the table with Perley and Possum. They naturally talked again about the unusual Sunday just winding down. Their conversation was interrupted when Drew got up from his table to pay Rachael for his supper. He complimented her on the food, then walked over to their table to compliment Emma as well. “Well, I’m pleased to hear we’re treating you right,” she said. “This is Possum Smith,” she said then. “He’s my business partner in the hotel.”
Drew reached across the table to shake Possum’s hand. “Drew Dawson,” he said. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Like I’ve been tellin’ Miss Slocum, I think you have a first-class hotel here.”
“’Preciate it,” Possum responded with nothing more.
Realizing she was ignoring Perley, she said, “And this is Perley Gates. He’s a friend of ours.”
“Perley Gates,” Drew repeated, like most everyone else when hearing Perley’s name. “That’s a very unusual name. Is it your given name, or a nickname?”
“Given,” Perley replied. “Sounds like the Bible name, but it’s spelled different. It was my grandpa’s name.”
“What’s your line of work, Perley?”
“Cattle,” Perley answered. “I work on a cattle ranch in Lamar County.”
“Lamar County, that’s a long way from here. What brings you this far away from home?”
“Just visitin’ some friends,” Perley answered. I spent some time here about eight months ago, so I thought I’d come back to see how everybody’s doin’.”
“Perley Gates, that’s a good name,” Drew declared, “a name that’s easy to remember, just like mine.”
“Drew Dawson?” Perley repeated.
“There,” Drew replied, “see, you already remembered.” He took a step back. “It’s been good to meet you,” he said and took his leave.
“Kind of an unusual feller, ain’t he?” Possum asked as they watched Drew stop at the weapons table to strap his gun belt on.
“He’s got his own way about him,” Perley agreed.
CHAPTER 14
There was no way the outlaws could know if there might be a posse on its way to their ranch or not. They didn’t know if the so-called vigilance committee had been organized to the point where they were ready to ride as a posse. Consequently, Stark thought it was necessary to keep watch, in case they were. He believed that, if they were coming after them, they would have come yesterday, but they didn’t. Still, he thought there was no sense in taking a chance on being surprised, so he set up a schedule to watch for two hours at a time. No one was exempt, not even the wounded men. Stark said all they had to do was sit in a chair on the porch and watch the trail that led down to the house. It would not likely do their wounds any harm.
Junior saw fit to remind them that they were out of coffee and flour. Tired of hearing about the need for coffee and flour, Stark told him to kill one of their cows and get some fresh meat cooking while he took the first watch. “Bring me a slab of that meat when you get it done,” he told Junior and went out to the porch and sat down. He had not been there long when he suddenly sat up straight in the chair, his gaze caught by a flash of white through the bushes that lined the trail into the yard. He hurriedly grabbed the rifle lying on the porch floor beside him, his eyes focused on the first stretch of the path that was in the open. He raised his rifle and sighted on the spot. In a few seconds, a rider appeared. He was alone and riding a white horse. Stark waited to see if anyone followed, but there was no one else as the rider continued following the path straight toward the front porch. A few yards closer and Stark murmured softly, “Drew.” Then he blurted it out. “Drew!” His cousin had finally arrived.
“That you, Ned?” Drew called back and nudged his horse into a lope the rest of the way to the porch. He pulled up in front of the steps and dismounted to exchange
handshakes and back slaps.
“Damned if you ain’t a sight for sore eyes,” Stark said, then yelled back toward the house, “Drew’s here!” Back to Drew then, he asked, “Where in the hell have you been? You was supposed to get outta prison two weeks ago.”
“I couldn’t come straight here,” Drew explained. “I had some things to tend to before I could—had to have some money and things. They don’t give you much when they let you out of prison.” He paused to greet the rest of the gang when they filed out to see him.
After more handshaking and slaps on the back, Sledge asked, “Where’d you get that white horse?”
“Ain’t he somethin’?” Drew replied. “He ain’t got a handful of black hairs on him. Fellow this side of Fort Worth gave me this horse, right after he died. How you like that saddle? That saddle musta cost two hundred dollars, maybe more.” He chuckled then. “I ain’t ever priced ’em in that range, so I’m just guessin’. Fellow left me enough spendin’ money to get me an outfit, too. I spent a lot of it on this Colt and the fancy holster. I figure that’s my business, so I wasn’t gonna skimp.”
Junior, fascinated with the stark white horse, asked, “What’s his name?”
“The fellow or the horse?” Drew japed. “I don’t know if he’s got a name or not. I didn’t think to ask that fellow before he expired. Fellow at the stable in town yesterday asked me the same thing. I told him the horse’s name was Snowball. It was the first thing I could think of.” He paused to chuckle again, then looked at Deal and Duncan. “You boys look like you’ve had a little bad luck. Where are the rest of the boys?”
“There ain’t no rest of us,” Stark answered. “You’re lookin’ at the whole gang, except for Slim Garrett and Eli Priest, and they’re in the jailhouse in Bison Gap.”
“That was you they were talkin’ about,” Drew exclaimed, recalling his conversation with Jimmy McGee in the Buffalo Hump Saloon, “and the jailhouse shot to hell.” He shook his head slowly. “Well, I’ll be . . . What happened?”
“We ran into an ambush and a double cross is what happened,” Stark answered. “The sheriff I had in my pocket double-crossed me. Him and that mayor brought in a gunslinger. I know it had to be the mayor, ’cause the sheriff ain’t got any money to hire a gunman. And the sheriff and the gunslinger was settin’ there waitin’ for us when we tried to break Slim and Eli outta that jail.”
“What happened to the rest of the gang?” Drew wondered aloud. “Curly Williams, Quirt Taylor, Carl Leach, they were all good men. Did they cut out on you?”
“No,” Sledge answered him. “They were all cut down by that gunslinger I was just tellin’ you about.”
“How the hell did that happen?” Drew asked, knowing those three men as well as he did. “Who is this gunslinger? Has he got a name?”
“Says his name is Perley Gates,” Stark said, “nobody I ever heard of.”
Totally surprised, Drew didn’t respond at once, having to stop and consider what he had just heard. “Perley Gates,” he said the name. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure about it. Why? Have you heard of him?”
Drew smiled. “I had supper with him last night,” he said. “Well, I oughta say I talked to him in the dinin’ room of the hotel. I didn’t set down at the table with him.” He looked sharply at Ned Stark again. “Are you sure?” He asked again, “Because the Perley Gates I talked to in the dinin’ room last night didn’t look like a gunslinger to me, and I don’t reckon there’s two fellows runnin’ around here with that name. He said he worked on a cattle ranch.” When no one answered, he asked, “How’d he kill ’em? Pick ’em off with a rifle? Shoot ’em in the back? He didn’t call ’em out to face him, right?”
“No,” Jim Duncan answered, “they called him out.”
“Is that a fact?” Drew considered the possibility, bringing the picture of the pleasant-looking young man back in focus in his mind and trying to see him in that role. Curly and Quirt were both fast, not as fast as he, but they were fast. He had to ask Stark a question then. “Is he faster than I am?”
“I don’t know,” Stark answered. “I’ve seen you work, and I ain’t ever seen anybody as fast as you. But I didn’t see any of the draws this fellow had with Curly and the others, so I don’t know.”
There was a void in the conversation for a couple of minutes when no one spoke. Everyone knew what Drew was working over in his mind. They could not realize the fascination he now had for this unlikely-looking fast gun and the rapidly building desire to prove himself faster. After he thought about it a minute or two longer, he decided he was faster. He could tell by just looking at Perley. He would prove it before he was done with this town. With that settled in his mind, he asked, “What are we all standin’ around on the porch for? I need somethin’ to eat, and I need to take care of ol’ Snowball, here.”
“We ain’t got no coffee or flour,” Junior piped up.
“You ain’t?” Drew responded. “Well, why not? Who’s supposed to go get supplies?”
“With that business yesterday at the jailhouse, they’ve got the whole town stirred up, and we’re liable to be shot on sight if we go into town. There’ll be a gun stickin’ outta every window and door,” Stark answered him. “But we’ve got plenty of beef to eat, if you’re hungry.”
“I swear, cousin,” Drew said, “this is a bad situation. You ain’t got anybody who can ride into town and go to the store?” Stark simply answered with an apologetic shrug. “Beef’s good,” Drew continued, “but I need some coffee to go with it.”
“And flour,” Junior said.
Drew turned to look at him. “Right, and flour, too.” Turning back toward Stark, he asked again, “Are you tellin’ me that there’s not one of you who can go into town without gettin’ shot at or arrested?”
“That’s what I’m tellin’ you,” Stark said. “Problem is, there ain’t another store or tradin’ post within fifty miles of here.”
“That ain’t no problem,” Drew insisted. “There’s a store just three miles from here in Bison Gap, and nobody knows me in that town. So I reckon I’m gonna be the one to go to the store before we all starve to death. I reckon you’re all broke, too, but thanks to good ol’ T.C., I’ll pay for it.” His announcement brought a small measure of cheerfulness to the gang of outlaws.
“Who’s T.C.?” Deal asked.
“Those are the initials on the side skirt of my new saddle,” Drew said. “Our business transaction happened so fast we didn’t really have the time to exchange names. I’ll buy us some supplies, if somebody will fetch me a couple of packhorses.” He was interrupted right away when Junior volunteered. “Good, Junior,” Drew went on. “If we’re thinkin’ about movin’ anybody’s cows to market, we need supplies, so bring me two packhorses.” Junior ran straight to the corral. Drew talked to Stark then. “Whaddaya plannin’ to do, cousin? In your letter, you said you were fixin’ to start a big drive as soon as I got here. You wanna go ahead and go after those cattle, or you wanna get your men outta jail first?”
“We could sure use the two extra hands,” Stark said. “Jim and Frank ain’t in too gooda shape to do the job.”
“If I see that fellow, Perley Gates in town today, I’ll ask him if he wants to help us steal some cattle,” Drew japed. “He said he was a cattleman.” Joking aside then, he said, “You know, we can’t stay here if we ain’t got anybody who can go into town anytime we need something. I’ll do it now, but we’re gonna have to pick up some new faces somewhere. Right now, we can’t even go into the saloon to get a drink of whiskey. I can, but none of the rest of you can. How did all this start, anyway?”
“Well, the boys got to raisin’ hell a little too much, but it wasn’t any worse than Dodge or Wichita. What really started things boilin’ over, was when Curly Williams gunned a fellow named Tom Parker down in the saloon. Did you see that woman who runs the dinin’ room at the hotel?” Drew said he did, so Stark went on. “Well that Parker fellow was her husband, an
d he never went for his gun. I owned the sheriff at that time, so he took Quirt’s word that he did.” Stark went on to bring Drew up to date on everything that happened up to the present.
Drew listened to Stark’s account of the situation they were now sitting in, and it seemed ridiculous to him that they could have gotten so bad that their men were banned from coming to town, even in the daytime to visit the stores or shops. “I think there’s only one problem and that’s the gunslinger, Perley Gates,” Drew said. “We get him, and in a week, the town will go back like it was before he showed up.”
“Don’t think I ain’t tried that,” Stark was quick to protest. “Quirt called him out and Perley Gates cut him down. Curly went after him and got the same thing. I even offered a reward for anybody that killed him. And he’s still there.”
“He’s gotta be cut down the right way,” Drew maintained. “Out on the street, where the people can see it’s all fair and square, then it’ll be business as usual. We’ll buy supplies at the general store and stop in the saloon for a drink. As long as the boys don’t get too rowdy, everybody will be happy. Let me go into town now and get to know some of these citizens and we’ll see how best to work ’em, Hell, at the hotel and the stable, they already think I’m rich. I’ll play ’em like a piano.”
* * *
“Well, howdy, Mr. Dawson,” Horace Brooks called out when he saw Drew ride past the stable, leading two pack horses. “I didn’t know you were comin’ right back to town.”
Drew pulled up and waited to speak to him, seeing that Horace was walking out to meet him. “I didn’t know, myself,” Drew said, rapidly making up a story to explain his reappearance. “I just had a change of mind, always one of my bad habits, I suppose.”
“Where’d you get the packhorses?” Horace asked.
“I ran into a group of hunters headin’ north after havin’ no luck at all tryin’ to hunt buffalo down this way,” Drew answered, being unable to think of a reasonable explanation.
Shot to Hell Page 17