by J. T. Edson
‘For shame, amigo,’ the newcomer protested, his accent indicating origins in a less affluent section of the Lone Star State’s society than the other two Texans at the table. It also had a pleasant tenor timbre which suggested he might be a good singer. ‘Now would I lie about anything?’
‘Was you to tell me that Monday comes a day before Tuesday every week, I’d go straight out and check a calendar,’ Dusty claimed. ‘Gentlemen, with my sincere apologies for bringing him into your company, let me present the Ysabel Kid.’
‘I assumed you would be he, sir,’ Johnson asserted truthfully, deciding that here was another man who would live up to much of what was told about him. He also noticed how, although neither had offered to do so when introduced to Stone Hart and Dusty Fog, his companions were rising and extending their right hands to the black clad Texan. ‘Have a seat, sir, please.’
‘Gracias,’ the Kid answered, drawing out a chair after he had shaken hands with the young Easterners.
‘By gad, this is remiss of me, Captain Fog!’ the New Englander boomed. ‘Perhaps you and Mr. Ysabel would like a drink?’
‘Just a beer will do for me, please,’ Dusty accepted.
‘The same for me,’ agreed the black dressed Texan, sitting down.
Three – They Can’t Talk if They’re Dead
‘Well, sir,’ Walter Johnson said, after the drinks had been delivered and he had explained to the latest arrival at the table something of the project which the Society for the Preservation of the American Bison had concocted. ‘Did you ever see, or hear of, bis—buffalo being driven?’
‘I’ve never done it myself, nor even seen it done,’ the Ysabel Kid answered. ‘But Grandpappy Long Walker told me’s how you could get a big bunch of ’em to head the way you want, happen you do it slow and easy.’
‘How big a bunch?’ the New Englander inquired.
‘He allowed to have helped haze along over a thousand head at a go in his day,’ the black dressed Texan replied.
‘Ah yes!’ Kevin Roddy put in, with the air of one who considered he was stating the obvious. ‘That would be so they could select and kill only the most suitable animals, then release the rest, of course.’
‘Select and release nothing,’ the Kid corrected. Duplicating the summations of his fellow Texans, he also sensed that where he was concerned the attitude of the young Easterners was governed by knowing he had mixed blood, and he had no liking for the somewhat condescending friendliness to which they had treated him on being introduced. ‘The idea was to get the whole bunch of ’em to where they could all be stampeded over a cliff together.’
‘But nothing was wasted,’ Morrell asserted. ‘Not as it is these days!’
‘Like hell nothing was wasted,’ the Indian dark Texan denied, thinking how people of the young Easterners’ outlook and persuasions always sought to show in a favorable light any race they considered to be acceptable underdogs. They’d take no more than they wanted and leave all the rest for the coyotes and buzzards, just like white folks do. Fact being, happen they picked wrong and the bunch went over a cliff where it’d be hard work fetching out the hide ’n’ meat, they’d leave ’em all to rot and go find another bunch for driving.’
‘I feel we’re straying from the point, gentlemen!’ Johnson injected firmly. Knowing his companions were completely lacking in tact when any of their beliefs were questioned, he silenced them with a glare before either could continue the discussion. The thing which interests me most is, could just any Indian do the driving?’
‘Not when it came to moving the herd to where it was wanted,’ the Kid supplied, the question having been directed at him. ‘Only braves who’d been taught ’specially could do that.’
‘Huh huh!’ the New Englander grunted, nodding as if to indicate he had expected to hear what he had been told. ‘And would such a drive be for a long distance?’
‘No further than could be helped,’ the black clad Texan answered. They wouldn’t be kept moving for more than half a day at most.’
‘Unless I’m reading the sign wrong,’ Stone Hart drawled. ‘I’d guess you’ll be figuring on moving your herd a whole heap further than that.’
‘We are, sir, we are indeed,’ Johnson confirmed. His tone took on a suggestion of making a statement, rather than delivering a query, as he continued, ‘So doing it will be a job for experts?’
‘Happen you tried it without fellers’s knowed everything about what they was doing and could do it,’ the Kid claimed, ‘you’d wind up with the herd scattered to hell ’n’ gone the first time any lil thing at all went wrong. Which, sure’s sin’s for sale in Cowtown, [2] said things’d start going wrong ’most straight away.’
‘It wouldn’t be easy, even with a well trained crew,’ Dusty Fog estimated. ‘Buffalo might live in herds like cattle and eat the same kind of food, but they’re not even partly domesticated like longhorns.’
‘And longhorns can be hell to handle, even for men who’ve grown up around them,’ the trail boss of the Wedge supplemented. ‘So I don’t know whether buffalo could be driven like them, but it’d make a mighty interesting challenge to find out.’
‘It would indeed, sir, it would indeed!’ the New Englander agreed. ‘However, unless they feel they have any more to add, I feel we’ve imposed for quite long enough upon Captain Fog’s and Mr. Ysabel’s time and, with our thanks, they can rejoin Miss Woods and their companions.’
‘Stone can tell you more than either of us about whatever else you’ll need to know now,’ Dusty asserted, accepting what had amounted to a dismissal and shoving back his chair. ‘Which being, the sooner I go stop those other two knob-heads blackening my good name with Freddie, the happier I’ll feel.’
‘We’re grateful to you both for having given so freely of your time and advice,’ Johnson declared, rising and extending his right hand towards the small Texan. Neither of his companions offered to duplicate his action, either to him or the Kid, so he went on, ‘You will, of course, impress upon Mr. Ysabel the importance of keeping what we’ve been discussing confidential, Captain Fog. Having it become known that we’re planning to move and settle so many buffalo would arouse a storm of protest in some quarters, and there will be others who’ll consider it a god- sent opportunity to hunt down the unfortunate beasts, as is being done everywhere else they still exist.’
‘You can count on us not to say a word about it to anybody,’ Dusty promised and the Kid nodded his concurrence. ‘And we both wish you all the best of luck with what you’re hoping to do.’
‘Damn it all!’ Francis Morrell protested, his high pitched voice quivering with petulant indignation. ‘Why do we need to spend our money on having that goddamned peckerwood, Hart, and his lousy redneck hired hands to drive the bison for us?’
‘Because, brilliant as you may consider yourselves, none of you have either the knowledge or the experience to even start doing it,’ Walter Johnson replied, showing not the slightest concern over being subjected to six stares varying from disapproving to frankly hostile. ‘I doubt whether any of you, white or red, could be counted on to even sit a horse well enough to start the herd moving, much less cope with any of the emergencies which are sure to arise.’
After Dusty Fog and the Ysabel Kid had left the table at the Fair Lady Saloon, the New Englander had got down to the business which had brought him to Mulrooney. As was anticipated by Stone Hart, despite the obvious disapproval of the two younger Easterners, he had negotiated on behalf of their Society to obtain the services of the Wedge crew for the proposed transfer of the buffalo. Quoting a price which more than satisfied the trail boss, he warned this carried the proviso of being willing to work under what—in shipping circles—would have been termed ‘sealed orders’ with regards to the final destination. Using the same reasons he had given for insisting that the two members of the OD Connected ranch should refrain from mentioning the project, even to their closest associates, he had stressed the vital necessity for everything to do with it bein
g kept a secret. Agreeing the precaution was justified, Stone had accepted the terms and declared his men would be willing to accompany him without knowing more than that they had a herd of some kind of deliver.
With the matter concluded, clearly in a manner less to the satisfaction of Kevin Roddy and Morrell than for the two negotiators, the meeting had been concluded. Arranging to meet Johnson for further discussions upon what would be needed for the drive, the trail boss had rejoined his crew. Leaving the saloon, the Eastern trio did not return to the rooms they were occupying at the expensive and luxurious Railroad House Hotel. Instead, they had made their way through a lower rent district to the smaller and less costly establishment in which four more members of their party had found accommodation, so as to lessen the chance of them being connected with one another.
Faced by the quartet on arrival, in spite of their soberly colored city clothing being of a better quality than was the norm for intended guests, the desk clerk at the Grimsdyke Temperance Hotel had been dubious over allowing them to rent rooms. They had been different in other ways from the usual kind of visitors who came his way. In their mid-twenties, of different heights and builds, they had either aquiline or slightly Mongoloid coppery brown faces which reminded him of paintings he had seen depicting various kinds of Red Indians. However, while their hair was black and rather longer than would have been permitted by cowhands, it did not extend to shoulder level as he had heard was generally the case with braves. What was more, they had all spoken excellent English with no trace of a ‘foreign’ accent.
Guessing what was worrying the clerk, one of the four had explained their alien appearance by claiming they were recent immigrants from Bohemia. Although uncertain of the country’s exact location, the clerk had a vague recollection it was somewhere in Eastern Europe. Therefore, when it was suggested by the spokesman that they paid for their rooms in advance, he had put aside his misgivings and opened the register which they had signed with the appropriately sounding names, ‘Ivan Boski, Peter Romanov, Rudolph Petrovich and Hugo Budapest’. Nor had he been given any cause to regret the decision to accommodate them. They had kept to themselves and behaved in a more decorous fashion than was occasionally the case with more conventional guests.
Joining the quartet in the room occupied by ‘Boski’ and ‘Petrovich’, on Johnson describing what had taken place at the Fair Lady Saloon, Morrell raised a protest!
The answer from the New Englander did not go unchallenged!
‘You don’t have to include all of us!’ stated the shortest, most thickset and Mongoloid looking of the four; who had signed the register, ‘Hugo Budapest’. ‘We Osage have always been excellent horsemen!’
‘Not always, only since you caught horses which were brought over here by the Spaniards and escaped,’ Johnson corrected dryly. ‘And, in any case, you’ve never been near one since you were sent East as a boy.’
‘That’s true enough!’ agreed tall, slender and hawk faced ‘Peter Romanov’, with a mocking grin.
‘I know more about riding than you, anyway!’ ‘Budapest’ claimed heatedly. ‘No Yakima seed-gatherer ever took the war trail, or even walk—!’
‘At least we never became lick-spittle run-arounds for the Army!’ ‘Romanov’ countered. ‘Which is more than can be said for the Os—!’
‘Debating tribal differences won’t change anything,’ Johnson interrupted firmly, stepping between the two clearly angry younger men. ‘We can’t drive the buff— bison, if you insist—ourselves. So you’ll have to accept it must be done by somebody who can!’
‘But why does it have to be a bunch of lousy Southern peckerwood scum who fought against us during the Rebellion?’ demanded Roddy sullenly.
‘Because Captain Hart and his Wedge crew are the best there are,’ the New Englander replied, unable to resist the temptation to annoy the fair haired Easterner by employing the military honorific. However, he decided to refrain from pointing out that the other had done no fighting whatsoever in the War Between the States. ‘Certainly they’re the best available who aren’t attached to a particular ranch. With what’s at stake, I feel sure your backers who’re putting up the money wouldn’t want to risk everything upon a bunch hired just because they supported the Union, rather than former Johnny Rebs who know practically everything that will be needed to be known if the buffalo are to be collected and delivered.’
‘He has a point,’ claimed ‘Ivan Boski’, the tallest, bulkiest and most prominently aquiline featured of the quartet. His manner was closer to conferring a favor upon a hired hand by agreeing, rather than speaking about an important member of their party. ‘And, anyway, Kevin. With what’s in store for them when we’ve got the herd close enough to where we want it, I’d think you would prefer them being peckerwoods.’
‘That’s true,’ Morrell supported. ‘And, having it done by some of that Rebel scum makes the end result so much more satisfying.’
If he had not already long since arrived at the conclusion, looking at his associates and listening to the conversation, Johnson would have deduced why he was being paid a good sum of money to accompany them. The men financing the scheme had realized that not one of the six possessed the ability to handle negotiations and deal with the kind of specialists needed to give the project a good chance of succeeding.
Born into wealthy families of Boston and Newark, New Jersey, respectively, Roddy and Morrell had discovered they lacked the intelligence and force of personality to succeed in the business world. Therefore, they had developed into radical activists of the worst kind. Professing a desire to improve the lot of the under-privileged working class masses, they were arrant snobs who patronized and looked down upon the very people they were supposed to be helping.
Imbued with a hatred for everybody who did not adhere blindly to their point of view, the Easterners included the majority of Southrons in this category. As far as they were concerned, anybody who served—or was even remotely connected—with the former Confederate States was beyond the pale. In this, they included the men who possessed the requisite knowledge to move the buffalo. Therefore, neither of them could be counted upon to obtain the services of a trail drive crew comprised of Texans.
Far from being recently arrived immigrants from Bohemia, a subterfuge insisted upon by the New Englander, the other four had been born in different parts of the United States. Furthermore, the likeness between their features and those of Indians on various illustrations seen by the desk clerk was far from being a coincidence. ‘Romanov’ had first seen the light of day on the Yakima Agency in southern Washington State. Born in the ‘Indian Nations’ of Oklahoma, ‘Budapest’ and ‘Boski’ were respectively of Osage and Creek parentage. Coming in height and physique between the Yakima and the Creek, but with features more Mongoloid in aspect than either, ‘Petrovich’ was of Onondaga Iroquoian birth.
The fathers of each Indian were wealthy members of their tribes who had accepted that the continued rule by the United States’ Government was unavoidable and elected to prepare their offspring to make the most of such a state of affairs. With that objective in mind, their sons had been sent to various cities in the East to be educated. While the College For Indians in which they eventually enrolled and met produced many graduates willing to work towards bringing accord between their respective nations and the ‘paleface’ population who would be their neighbors, none of the four could be included in that number.
Having failed in competitive society, like Roddy and Morrell, the quartet had decided the only hope of gaining the power they craved was by other means. Therefore, they had found the company of white radical-intellectuals very much to their taste. Such people were only too willing to listen to and spread the stories they told of how their respective tribes had been persecuted, while just as eagerly accepting denials of any happenings which might serve to discredit the image they painted of themselves as poor and downtrodden ‘noble Redmen’. By adopting and playing to the hilt such double standards, they had become
prominent amongst the political activists—although the term had not yet come into usage—who were bringing the College into disrepute. None of the four had devised the scheme which depended upon the transference of a herd of buffalo to a new location, but all were soon actively involved in its implementation.
This, in its turn, had brought the four young Indians into contact with Johnson!
Far from being a radical-intellectual, the New Englander was a competent and successful confidence trickster. He had been hired by the organizers of the scheme because, unlike any of them, he had spent sufficient time west of the Mississippi River to know where to look for and how best to deal with the kind of men who would be required to move the buffalo a considerable distance.
Johnson had not been enamored of being accompanied by any of the young radicals, particularly the Indians. Even before setting out, despite supposedly working for a common cause, they had constantly been at one another’s throats over matters of tribal pride. Therefore, he had made it a condition of his acceptance that—as he had pointed out to Morrell and Roddy at the Fair Lady Saloon—he was given command of the party. Having been disinclined to take the risks of going themselves, the men who were financing the scheme had acceded to his terms.
While in the East, the quartet always dressed in the full regalia of their respective tribes with the intention of—as a later generation would put it—establishing their ethnic origins. Wise in the ways of the West, the New Englander had insisted they did not attempt to do so while there. He had pointed out that having four Indians from widely separated nations travelling together would attract unwanted attention and could lead to trouble with local populations. To avoid either possibility, he had made them have their hair cut to conform with white fashion and wear garments which would allow them to pass without arousing undue notice. Knowing their physical appearances would still require explanation, he had concocted the story of them having come from Bohemia and given them names which might have originated in that country.