by Lou Cameron
“Be careful,” Stringer countered as flat as he could without losing his temper, “I hear her current boyfriend packs a gun.”
So the cattle baron said, “Just funning. She’d likely be all whipcord and whalebone anyway. I likes my women soft and snugglesome.”
They had to sit through some trick rope spinning next. At least they could all agree that whilst one of the rope spinners looked a little swishy, none of them felt like going to bed with him.
Then it got sort of quiet. They were close enough to hear the announcer, but it was doubtful the folk in the higher seats did. They all acted surprised when the first calf came out of the chutes with a roper chasing after it at a dead run. The first roper missed and reined to a stop, shaking his head morosely as he hauled his rope back in. Nobody booed and some, including Stringer, gave him a polite hand. It was a western crowd. So more than one of them knew how easy it was to miss.
The next roper caught his calf and had it hog-tied in just under a minute. Bat Masterson thought that was pretty good. But Stringer said, “He’s out of the money with that time unless nobody else shows up intent on serious roping.”
Some were and some weren’t. Two other riders missed and one busted his rope. As the crowd applauded the last calf roper Judge Kenton turned around in his seat to tell Stringer, “I make it rider number eight for first place. How about you?”
Stringer nodded and said, “Yessir. He has the best time by a full second. His name’s O’Hara and he hails from Helena.”
Judge Kenton asked, “Do you know him, then?”
Stringer fanned the notebook in his hand as he answered, “I do now. I found the names and numbers posted together when I took ‘em down last night. I make Parker number twelve, and Hall, number ten, for second and third place.”
Judge Kenton said, “I had them tied. But since your eyes may be younger and sharper than mine, I’ll go along with you on that.” Then he turned back to pow-wow with the other old gents. He seemed to have the Indian sign on his fellow townees. So now Stringer was painfully aware he had to pay attention, lest he screw some deserving rider with a careless opinion. Just thinking about it made him itch between the shoulder blades. But since he had no eyes in the back of his head—so what the hell.
They cleared the tanbark to get ready for the next event. Apparently, the prissy dude with Pat Morrison must have decided that was a good chance to buy her some cotton candy or maybe take a leak. He’d no sooner left the box when Pat came over, bent her lips close to Stringer’s frozen face, and asked, “Did you telephone me last night, dear?”
He asked, “How come you thought it was me?”
“I didn’t,” she replied, “until just now. I thought you’d still be up at Iron Mountain.”
He couldn’t resist casting a sardonic glance at her escort’s empty chair as he said, “I don’t see what difference it makes.”
She smiled, a bit too brightly, and said, “Good heavens, he’s simply another client. Is that why you didn’t even speak to me before? You’re not jealous of another client, are you?”
He smiled up at her thinly and said, “I might have been, had you and me exchanged any promises along them lines, Pat. Would you like to pin a name on your…ah …client? I can assure you my reasons for asking are platonic.”
She looked confused and said, “His name is Martin Dobbs and he’s in the insurance business, if you must know. Why do you ask?”
“I’m paid to ask questions,” Stringer said flatly. “You’d best get back to your seat now. The next event is fixing to start.”
She asked, “Will you call me later?”
“Sure,” he said looking stone-faced, “if I need a lawyer.” She left, looking a mite hurt.
Bat Masterson leaned over to Stringer. “What was that all about?”
“Likely nothing,” Stringer frowned. “The Mister Martin that’s been giving me so much trouble seems to have a nasty sense of humor. He’d hardly send a persuader to threaten a gal if he already had a nicer notion. Gals don’t keep secrets worth a hang when you have ‘em in a really friendly mood.”
Masterson shook his head and said, “I don’t know how you do it, kid. I’ve never considered myself the hunchback of Notre Dame. But I generally have to be in a town at least a week before I’m juggling two gals at once.”
Stringer knew his pal would think he was bragging if he said he’d had three since arriving in Cheyenne. Instead, he just said, “Let’s watch the show.”
The more serious steer busting came after the calf roping. He knew harder work deserved bigger prizes and leaned forward to ask Judge Kenton what kind of money they were talking about.
When the judge mentioned a figure lower than Stringer had expected, he leaned back and told Bat, “I’m glad I gave up working cows. Everything but top hand wages has gone up since the glory days of the beef boom.”
Masterson nodded and said, “It always was a trade for total idiots. That’s likely why we call ‘em cow boys. No grown man with a lick of sense would work that hard and take as many chances for forty dollars a month.”
“If he gets that much,” Stringer pointed out, adding, “you’re talking top hand wages. I reckon that’s why a rider who sees a crack at three or four figures for a day’s work is willing to work this hard and…Oh, oh, that was a bad fall.”
He and many of the others rose from their seats for a better view as the clowns and some of the hands rail-birded closer ran out to do something about the steer roper who’d dropped his noose on too much beef and wound up going down pony and all. The pony appeared to be all right. It was already back up, with a hand chasing it. Its rider lay sprawled like a rag doll on the tanbark. It could take a lot out of a rider to have his mount roll over him like that.
But as they got the hurt rider aboard a litter, a familiar figure dressed all in brown rose clear, turned to the crowd, and gave the thumbs-up sign. As everyone else heaved a mighty sigh and began to clap in unison the cattle baron seated near them grumbled, “What’s that nigger in the brown outfit doing here?”
Stringer answered, “He’s half Choctaw and all cowhand. I’d say he was here for some prize money.”
T.S. Powers snorted in disgust and said, “That’ll be the day. The Good Lord never meant to put no nigger on a horse. It was Abe Lincoln’s fool notion. I wouldn’t hire a nigger to dig post holes. They may know picking cotton, but the skills of a cowhand are beyond their small brains.”
Bat Masterson said, “Oh, I don’t know. My pard here just said that boy was part Indian. What kind of a wager did you have in mind, T.S.?”
The beefy cattle baron frowned at Masterson and said, “I don’t recall making any wager on anything.”
Masterson laughed lightly. “Oh, I didn’t know you was all talk. I thought you were a sport. Forget it.”
Old T.S. didn’t want to. He blustered, “I guess I’m as good a sport as anyone else I see around here. But what are we betting on, damnit?”
Masterson said, “That colored boy. You say he doesn’t belong in a rodeo. My young pard here says he’s a tolerable cowhand. I’ve got a hundred dollars I was saving for more disgusting vices, but if you’d like to cover it, it might make this show more interesting for both of us.”
Powers frowned suspiciously and asked, “What event is that nigger signed in for?”
Masterson replied, “Don’t ask me. I just now laid eyes on the boy. It can’t be roping since he’d already be over in the chutes by now if it was. I reckon it has to be something else, don’t you?”
Powers hesitated, then asked, “Even money?”
“You’re a hard man to do business with,” Masterson replied. “We both know that for every winner there has to be a lot more losers. But all right, put your money where your mouth is, and old Stringer can hold the purse for us.”
The bet was soon arranged, but not before the first longhorn charged out of the chutes with a rider flanking it to either side. Neither were swinging ropes. The rider to the steer�
�s left dove headfirst out of his saddle to grab the brute’s horns and start wrestling with it. T.S. Powers gasped and demanded, “What in the name of God’s Green Pastures does that fool think he’s doing to that longhorn?”
So Masterson explained, “They call it bulldogging. It’s a sort of new way to bust a steer. You got to remember this is the dawn of the twentieth century, pard.”
The bulldogger got a round of applause as he finally managed to put the bigger brute on the ground, horn tips to the tanbark. Stringer said, “That time’s going to cost old Richardson, number twenty-six from Arizona Territory. Takes a bigger man to throw that much beef about.”
T.S. Powers opined it was the dumbest way to down a cow that he’d ever seen. Then chute number three popped open and the black rider they’d been arguing about chased his longhorn a few paces, dropped on its wicked horns, and had them both planted in the tanbark in less than five seconds. As Bill Pickett leaped to his feet again, arms triumphantly wide, the crowd tried to knock him back down with a thunderous applause. As the clapping died down, Powers said, “The event ain’t over. I might have knowed a nigger would grab a cow dirty.”
Bat Masterson said, “Cheer up. All the other riders may be pale faces, and for all we know, one or more could beat that time.”
But nobody else came anywhere close to Pickett’s time, and when the event was over, Judge Kenton turned again to say, “I make it numbers seventeen, thirty-two and eight. You?”
Stringer said, “Same way, your honor. O’Hara figures to go home with some mighty drinking money indeed if he places in any more events after winning that one.”
Then he handed Masterson the two hundred dollars and murmured low, “I don’t suppose you knew old Bill Pickett invented bulldogging in the Year of Our Lord 1901, eh?”
As Masterson put the money away he looked innocent and said, “Hell, kid, a famous sportswriter like me is supposed to know such things. But it’s true I never saw Bill Pickett do it before. So it was a fair wager at even money.”
T.S. Powers stood up, red faced, and announced, “If you wasn’t so famous in other ways, Mister Masterson, I might have more to say about how you just slickered me.” And then he grumped his way out of the box.
“I don’t know, Bat,” Stringer said, watching that fat purple suit waddle away. “You made that old boy sort of mad at you and he could have all sorts of gents on his payroll.”
Masterson shrugged and said, “That’s why I never took him for real money. Nobody’s about to go up against my rep for less than a thousand. Well, five hundred, anyways.”
Stringer said, “I wish I knew what my life was worth, or if anyone was still putting up the money.”
Masterson said, “You’re likely in the clear now. You don’t know anything about Tom Horn that I don’t know, and nobody seems to be after me.”
Stringer had some reservations about that. For one thing he knew Tom Horn had some hare-brained escape plans. Unless his old pards were dumb as he was, they could have smuggled him that gun he didn’t know how to use as a good way to shut him up forever. They wouldn’t want a reporter Horn was in the habit of confiding in to spill that bean. On the other hand, they’d tried to stop him long before anyone had managed to get that Luger in to old Tom. He turned to Masterson and said, “Bat, I was just thinking. What if all the trouble I’ve been having has nothing at all to do with Tom Horn or that Nickell boy?”
Masterson frowned. “Didn’t they send a hired gun to kill you up at Iron Mountain, where it all began?”
“Yeah,” Stringer said, “and some local toughs gave me a hard time, too. But I’m pretty sure they were acting on their own in the interest of xenophobia. The folk up there just seem to want to forget the case and leave things the way they are. My troubles with serious gunslicks started here in Cheyenne. Billy Gower followed me to Iron Mountain after I crawfished his pard, Friendly Frank, here in town. I ran that one out of this town, not Iron Mountain, last night. What if, all this time, they’ve been trying to keep me from reporting something they’re up to right here in Cheyenne?”
Masterson pursed his lips and asked, “Aside from Tom Horn, you mean? They’d be dumb as hell if that was their game. For while Lord only knows what could be going on behind closed shutters in a town this size, you only came to cover this fool rodeo, right?”
“Yes,” Stringer nodded, “and if they’d just left me alone I wouldn’t have missed any of it.”
“You didn’t miss much,” Masterson said. “All the good stuff is taking place about now. The mastermind behind all your woes can’t be worried about you writing a feature on the Frontier Days. For that’s what I’m doing, and there’s dozens of other newspapermen here today to do the same thing, even if they don’t have such good seats. Me and Charlie Siringo had a drink with Richard Harding Davis after we left you last night. He said he’d heard Jack London might show up as well.”
Stringer shook his head and said, “I ran into London over in the Yellowstone Park a short spell back. He’s covering Teddy Roosevelt’s western tour, so about now they’re seeing the troops off to the Philippines. Davis is a fair reporter, though.”
Masterson said, “There you go. Even if you was dead, these Frontier Days would still get written up fairly accurate. Like I said, it has to be something sneakier than a wide-open rodeo with half the world in the stands. Are you sure you didn’t stumble into a back room uninvited or ask some dumb question that could be taken wrong, kid?”
“I’m always asking dumb questions,” Stringer answered. Then he shot a side-glance across the box, to where the checkered and derbied dude called Martin had rejoined Pat Morrison. He thought before he decided, “Naw, he don’t look that jealous and my troubles started before I ever knew his new girl friend. If he’s a well-known local businessman, it’s easy enough to see why someone grabbed his name out of thin air. Crooks hardly ever use their real name, even with other crooks.”
Judge Kenton turned around to ask, “Who do you like in the bull riding, son?”
Stringer had to admit, “I fear I just wasn’t paying attention, your honor. You’re an official contest judge, and so far, you’ve been calling ‘em as good as I could.”
Judge Kenton said, “All right. Young O’Hara winds up in the money again. What’s the matter, son? You look sort of green around the gills.”
“I got a lot on my mind, sir,” Stringer replied, so the judge turned around to see who’d win the bareback bronc event.
Stringer nudged Masterson and said, “Try to keep tabs on first, place and show for me, will you, Bat? I got to stretch my legs.”
“Sure,” Masterson said, “and piss once for me while you’re at it,” as Stringer swung a long leg over the edge of the box. He didn’t say that wasn’t where he was going. He wasn’t sure where he was going just yet.
CHAPTER
TEN
*
By the time Stringer had talked to enough show riders to get things straight in his head the show was over a spell and most everyone else had left. So Stringer was able to walk straight across the tanbark toward the judges’ box with Rimfire Rowena and a half-dozen tougher-looking riders in tow, including old Slash. When they got to the box, Stringer saw Bat Masterson, Pat Morrison, and her insurance slicker had already left, along with a few officials. That left plenty of room for Stringer and his friends as they climbed into the box, and luckily the officials and promoters Stringer really wanted to talk to were still there.
Judge Kenton smiled. “You missed some pretty good saddle bronc riding, son. Where have you been all this time?”
“Talking to these other folk, your honor. Now we’d like to talk about the money they have coming.”
Judge Kenton pointed at a younger and harder-eyed gent in an undertaker’s frock coat, who said, “I’m Wes Keller, the treasurer, and I can assure one and all that the prize money anyone has coming is safe and secure in my pay-wagon.”
Stringer said, “We know. Big Bill Pickett and Swede Larson are
guarding it, with their hardware strapped on. Nobody is about to even smell that money until we have a full accounting.”
Stringer glanced at the other worried old gents and assured them, “None of you have anything to worry about. You were all being used as dupes, too.”
He realized it had been a mistake to take his eyes off Keller when Rimfire Rowena drew and fired her target pistol. It was almost an insult to shoot a grown man with a .32 short. But when Rimfire Rowena fired she hit what she was aiming at. Her bitty slug went into Keller’s right ear hole to wind up smack in the center of his brain. So he dropped like a felled ox with his more serious sidearm in hand but only half clear of its holster.
Stringer stared soberly down at the body on the planks between them and said, “Thanks.” Then he saw that Judge Kenton had lit out and up, striding across the empty bleachers with amazing agility. Stringer lit out after him.
As he started to gain near the top he called out, “It’s no use, your honor. By the powers invested in me by your court I just have to arrest you, on the charge of criminal fraud. But hell, with your sidekick dead you have an outside chance of beating us in court. So why don’t you cut this foolishness?”
The old man didn’t answer or even look back. He kept on going until, near the top, even he must have noticed there was no place higher to climb. He stopped with his feet planted wide on the very top seats and the guard rail waist high behind him. Stringer slowed his own pace but kept moving up as he called, “Give it up, your honor. I never did get the hang of algebra, but I can add simple figures tolerable. I knew I had you, Mister Martin, as soon as I matched the total prize money alongside all the entry fees. But we both know Lawyer Morrison is slick as well as sort of passionate. She might be able to add the figures up in a way a jury could find confusing. Nobody else around here seems half as good at simple addition as me.”
