The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set

by Robert Vaughan

  You may reply to me, care of LP Herd, Abilene, Kansas.

  Sincerely, your brother,

  Cade

  “All right, boys, we’ll stay here for two nights,” the colonel said. “I don’t want to leave the herd unguarded, so half of you can go in tonight, and half of you can go in tomorrow night. Work the schedule out among yourselves, but remember this when you go into town. The gamblers are crooked, the drinks will be watered, and the only thing the women want from you is your money. Enjoy yourselves, but keep that in mind and stay out of trouble.”

  Even though the IIIX herd no longer belonged to them, Cade and Jeter still had a proprietary interest in the cows. The two men flipped a coin, and winning the toss, Cade chose to go in the first night.

  Rufus had actually gone into town earlier. He planned to buy everything he needed today, then have it taken out to the herd by supply wagon tomorrow.

  Ft. Worth was a small town, with saloons and businesses spread out along Main Street. When Cade and the others got there, Van, who was the wrangler and knew all the horses, pointed to a horse that was tied up in front of one of the saloons.

  “That’s the horse Mr. Slade is riding,” he said.

  “He must ‘a got all the buyin’ done already,” Unger said.

  “You think maybe he got ‘ny canned peaches or somethin’ like that?” Boo asked. “I sure would like me some peaches.”

  The name of the saloon, Nippy Jones, was painted in red and gold letters across the high false front.

  “Tell me, Van, have you ever been in a saloon?” Cade asked as the eight riders tied off their horses.

  “No, sir. I ‘mos did when we come through here last year, but Colonel Puckett, he wouldn’t let me come into town by myself. ‘N when he come in with me, he wouldn’t let me go into a saloon. He said I could go into one this time as long as I stayed out of trouble.”

  “Ha! You ain’t nothin’ but a boy,” Boo said. “What kind of trouble does Colonel Puckett think you’d be gettin’ in to?”

  “Och, he is but a boy, is he? And would ye’ be for tellin’ me what ye’ are if not a bairn yourself?” Campbell asked.

  The others, including Van, laughed.

  Nippy Jones Saloon, like the Gem and other saloons in Galveston, had batwing doors across the front opening. But it did have solid doors that were folded back against the wall.

  Two of the bar girls came to greet them.

  “Oh, what a handsome bunch of men!” one of the girls said, and she reached out to put her hand on Unger’s shoulder.

  “I want all you fellers to see which one this fine lady picked when she said we was all handsome,” Unger said. “It’s clear that she thinks I’m the most handsome.”

  “Unger, ‘tis thinkin’ I am, that not even yer own mither would call ye handsome,” Campbell said.

  “Oh, an accent,” the girl said. “What kind of accent is that?”

  “Why, ‘tis no accent at all, lass, for ‘tis the tongue of Scotland. To me, everyone else sounds funny.”

  “There’s Mr. Slade at the bar,” Van said, pointing to the cook.

  “You fellers go ahead ‘n join ‘im,” Slim, one of the other cowboys said. “I see him ever’ day. While I’m in here, I’ll be spendin’ my time with the ladies.”

  “Me too,” Lefty said.

  “Well, then you two gentlemen just come with us and we’ll have a fine time,” said one of the two girls who had met them when they first came in.

  There was a roulette wheel at one of the tables, and a game of faro at another. One of the cowboys headed for the roulette wheel, but Unger started toward the faro table.

  “If you boys want to find me, I’ll be bucking the tiger,” Unger said.

  Cade, Boo, Van and Campbell joined Rufus Slade at the bar. The bartender, wearing a white shirt with sleeve garters, greeted them.

  “What will it be, gents?”

  “‘N would ye be for tellin’ me, mon, if ‘tis a good Scotch ye keep here, or will I have to satisfy my thirst with some swill that is nay fit for man nor beast?” Campbell asked.

  Smiling, the bartender reached under the bar then brought up an unopened bottle and set it before him. “How is this for you, friend? It was distilled from the finest barley in Scotland and the mist of the moors, cured for twenty years in a barrel of charred white oak cut from Paisley forest itself.”

  Campbell smiled broadly. “Och, ‘tis a good mon ye be. ‘N if ye would pour me a glass I’ll be for visitin’ a bit of heaven when it reaches m’ tongue.”

  “Beer,” Cade said, and Boo ordered the same.

  “And you?” the bartender asked Van.

  “I’ll have a beer too.”

  “Mr. Slade, did you get ‘ny canned peaches?” Boo asked.

  “They take up too much room,” Slade replied.

  “Oh,” Boo said, clearly disappointed.

  “Get up!” a loud voice called. “You know that’s my chair.”

  When Cade and the others looked toward the loud, angry voice they saw a slender man with a dark moustache and black eyes. Like most in the saloon, he was wearing a pistol, but his rig was different from the others. It was all in one piece, the holster hanging down from the belt by a wide leather strip.

  “You wasn’t here, Mr. Shardeen, so I didn’t figure it was your chair,” a man said, getting up quickly and stepping away from the table.

  “That’s my chair all the time whether I’m here or not. I’d better never see you, nor anybody else in it again.”

  “No, sir, no sir, you won’t never see me in it again,” the man replied in a frightened voice.

  “Nell, get over here,” Shardeen called.

  “I’m with these gentleman now, honey,” Nell replied. She was one of the two girls who had accompanied the two LP cowboys to the table. “I’ll be over there as soon as we finish our drink.”

  “You’ll get over here now,” Shardeen demanded.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Nell said. “I’ve got to go to him.”

  “No you don’t,” Lefty said. “Not ‘til you’ve finished your drink, you don’t.”

  “Lefty, leave it be,” Slim said, putting his hand across the table onto Lefty’s arm to keep him from doing anything foolish. “I don’t have a good feelin’ about him.”

  When Nell joined Shardeen at his table, there was a noticeable reduction of tension in the saloon. That’s when Slade saw that Van had taken no more than a sip from his glass.

  “You don’t like beer?” Slade asked.

  “No, sir, none too particular,” Van replied.

  “Maybe you’ll like this.” Rufus handed Van a small, brown sack.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just somethin’ I got for you. Look inside,” Rufus said.

  A big grin spread across Van’s face when he opened the sack. “Horehound candy!” he said excitedly. He took out a drop and put it in his mouth.

  “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t bein’ very mannerly.” He held out the sack to the others, all of whom declined. That was when Unger joined them.

  “How did it go with you bucking the tiger?” Boo asked.

  “I figured I’d better quit while I still had enough money to buy myself a beer.”

  “You can have mine,” Van said, sliding his glass toward Unger.

  “Well, now, Van, that’s very kind of you,” Unger said. “But what will you drink?”

  “I think I’ll have myself a sarsaparilla.”

  “A sarsaparilla? Did I just hear somebody order a sarsaparilla?” The question was loud, and dripping with ridicule. The volume and tenor of the question stopped all other conversation. It had come from Shardeen.

  “I like sarsaparilla,” Van replied.

  “What are you doin’ here, boy?” The tone of this question was just as derisive.

  “I’m with the others. We ride for the LP. We’re takin’ a herd up to Abilene.”

  “Are you now?”

  Cade turned toward the loud talker,
and though he glared at him, he didn’t say anything, mindful of the colonel’s admonition to stay out of trouble.

  Shardeen continued with his harangue. “I know that when drovers is out on the trail for a long time without no women, it sometimes gets lonely for ‘em. Are you their sweet young thing?”

  “What? I don’t understand what you mean,” Van said, confused by the question.

  “Honey, why don’t you leave the boy alone?” Nell said. “He isn’t bothering anyone.” She forced a smile. “Besides, you asked me over here to join you. How do you think it makes me feel, if you don’t pay any attention to me?”

  “Why the hell should I care what a whore feels like?” Shardeen asked.

  “You got no call treating me like that,” Nell said.

  “I’ll treat anyone, any way I want, ‘n there’s nobody that can do a damn thing about it.”

  Shardeen, now aware that Cade was glaring at him, stood up and moved away from the table.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” Shardeen asked.

  “Mister, I don’t know what put that wild hair up your ass, but I think we’ve had about enough of you,” Cade said.

  The belligerent man smiled. “Well now, I was wonderin’ when you was goin’ to step up and defend your sweet young thing.”

  “Stay out of this, Cade,” Rufus said. “Van is the cook’s helper, and since I’m the cook that makes the boy my responsibility. I’ll take care of this fool.”

  Shardeen laughed out loud. “The cook? You’re the cook, and you’re going to take care of me?”

  “Find yourself another saloon, and leave us be,” Rufus said.

  “Now hold on there,” Shardeen said, lifting his hand toward Rufus. “I was about willin’ to let all this go, but I’ll be damn if I’ll be given orders by some belly robber.”

  “If you want to live, you’ll find another saloon,” Rufus said.

  Shardeen’s eyes narrowed. “Mister, do you know who I am?”

  “Yeah, I know who you are. You are Luke Shardeen, and you fancy yourself a gunfighter. I also know that you’ve put the notches on your gun by killing drunks, young boys and old men.”

  Shardeen smiled. “Funny you would say that, bein’ as you’re an old man. You want to be the next notch?”

  “There won’t be a next notch, Shardeen,” Rufus said. “If you don’t leave this saloon right now, I’ll kill you.”

  Cade had followed the exchange first with concern, then with interest, and now with shock. He had been with Rufus Slade for a little over a month but he couldn’t say that he actually knew him, because Rufus kept to himself so. The cook had said more words in the last minute than Cade had heard him say in the whole time he had known him.

  From his time in the army, in the Camp Douglas prison camp, and on board the Fremad, Cade had developed a keen sense of reading people and situations. Right now he knew that this particular situation was about to come to a head. And that same ability to read people told him that Rufus was a much greater threat than Shardeen could possibly know.

  “What is your name, cook? I’m going to want to remember you,” Shardeen said.

  “The name is Slade. Rufus Slade.”

  “Rufus Slade? Wait a minute? Are you saying you are the one they call Ruthless Slade?” Shardeen asked, his entire demeanor changing from one of arrogant confidence to uncertain fear.

  “It’s not a name that I like, but I have been called that,” Rufus replied.

  Without another word, Shardeen’s hand dipped to his pistol, and he had it out in flash, firing as soon as he brought the gun up. The bullet from his gun slammed into the bar between Cade and Rufus.

  There was a second shot, so close after the first that there was barely a discernable space between the two. The second shot was fired by Rufus and he stood there holding a smoking gun in his hand as Shardeen, with an expression of total shock on his face, went down.

  “I thought you were dead,” the Ft. Worth city marshal said. “I heard that Ruthless Slade was killed three, maybe four years ago, down in San Antonio. Nobody has heard anything about you since then.”

  “I didn’t want anyone to hear from me,” Rufus said. “I put that life, and that name behind me. Until today.”

  “Yeah, well everyone in the saloon said that Shardeen drew first. And I don’t mind tellin’ you, if there was ever a son of a bitch that needed killin’ Luke Shardeen is the one. There won’t be any need for the law.”

  20

  ONLY TWO MEN in the outfit had known of Rufus Slade’s background as a gunfighter. Colonel Puckett had known, and so had Ian Campbell.

  “There was a time when Mr. Slade sold his gun,” Colonel Puckett told Cade and Jeter. “He didn’t sell it to the highest bidder, you understand, he sold it to the people who he thought were on the right side of any dispute. He was a paladin, you might say.”

  “A paladin?” Jeter asked. Cade was unfamiliar with the word as well, so he was glad that Jeter had asked.

  “The word comes from the time of King Charlemagne. In the battle of good versus evil, a paladin is a warrior for the good.”

  “And now he is just a cook,” Jeter said.

  “Just a cook, Mr. Willis? Do you think there is something ignoble about being a cook? Do you think he is a bad cook?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Jeter said quickly. “I think he’s a real good cook. I ain’t never et no better beef ‘n dumplins than what Rufus makes.”

  “I understand Jeter’s comment though,” Cade said. “Why did Rufus give up being a paladin?”

  “It happened in San Antonio. Three men had been paid to assassinate Rufus, and during the shootout, Rufus killed four.”

  “Four? But you said three,” Jeter said.

  “Yes. Once the gunfight started, Rufus’s closest friend came out of the saloon, gun in hand, to help Rufus. Rufus reacted only to a man with a gun in his hand, and he shot him. He killed his best friend.”

  Cade thought about what Colonel Puckett had told him about Rufus Slade, and having seen him in action, he could well understand how he could have been a gun for hire. And yet the Rufus Slade that he saw after they left Ft. Worth was totally unchanged from the Rufus Slade of before. He was a cook who was dedicated to feeding his men, and as taciturn as he had ever been. Cade waited several days before he approached Rufus with his request.

  “Would you teach me?” Cade asked.

  “Now why do I think you aren’t asking me to teach you how to make biscuits?” Rufus replied.

  Cade chuckled. “You’re right. I want you to teach me how to use a gun the way you do. I know there must be something other than just good reflexes and coordination to having a fast draw.”

  “A fast draw,” Rufus said. It wasn’t a question; it was a declarative sentence dripping with derision.

  “Yes, I’m sure there must be some procedure that you can learn for a fast draw,” Cade said, having missed the scorn in Rufus’s comment.

  “Did you notice, Mr. McCall, that Shardeen got his gun out, and fired before I did?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s because he started his draw before you did.”

  “The other man must always draw first. Otherwise you’ll be committing murder. Here’s your first lesson. It isn’t who shoots first; it is who hits what he is shooting at first.”

  “Yes, I can see how that would be so.”

  “Why do you want to do this?”

  “Because I have seen good and evil,” Cade replied. “And I want to be an agent for good.”

  “You want to be an agent for good? Tell me, if you can, what is good about killing?” Rufus asked.

  Cade paused for a moment before he replied.

  “I was in the war, Mr. Slade. I have seen thousands of men killed, and I was one of those doing the killing. It wasn’t good versus evil. I killed good men, husbands, fathers, and sons, all of whom were loved by someone. And I killed them for no other reason than that they were wearing a different uniform than I was. You a
sk me what is good about killing? I can tell you for certain, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, good about killing.”

  Rufus nodded. “You have given me the right answer. All right, I’ll teach you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rufus shook his head. “Don’t thank me, Cade. You are about to step through a door into something that will take control of you for the rest of your life. There will come a time when you will curse the day you ever heard of me.”

  Cade began putting into practice the techniques Rufus showed him. He recalled the first lesson:

  “When you grab the gun, you want to get a good grip by coming down hard on the handle, wrapping your thumb around one side, ‘n all the fingers but the trigger finger round the other side. Keep your trigger finger pointin’ straight down, on the outside of your holster, and don’t even touch the trigger ‘till you got the gun up level, otherwise you might wind up shootin’ yourself in the leg.

  “And the other thing is, you don’t aim at your target.”

  “If you don’t aim, how do you hit the target?” Cade asked.

  “You think where you want the bullet to go.”

  “Thinking” the bullet to the target seemed like a bizarre concept, but before long Cade was able to use this kinesthetic sense to draw his pistol and put his bullets on target quickly, and with unerring accuracy.

  Three weeks after leaving Ft. Worth the herd was pushed across the Red River without the loss of a single cow. Crossing the river meant they were out of Texas, and now in “The Nations”. There, they were met by a delegation of Indians. Though some of them were dressed in native garb, many were wearing clothes that were no different from the clothes worn by the drovers.

  One of the Indians, wearing buckskin that was decorated with dyed porcupine quills, dismounted and walked toward them. He held up his hand, palm facing the cowboys.

  “Hello, my friends,” he said. “I am Jimmy Standing Deer of the Cherokee Nation.”