The Third Western Novel

by Noel Loomis

  Ferguson turned on them all. “And it has happened,” he said, “because the crooked land-grabbers and professional squatters and fake townsite promoters have heard that Ferguson’s Ferry is the place to come to steal land from the government, and you, Mr. Logan, have done nothing to discourage that report with your wild-eyed editorials in the Chronicle, and they try to pass off worthless paper instead of paying in gold or silver.”

  He swung on the mortgage agent, “And you, Major Yeakel, have done nothing to discourage it, for you make a commission on every loan, good or bad. And you, Mr. Logan, print four thousand papers every week and send them back East, and they are paid for by the Western Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society, and you have not the moral courage to oppose these goings-on because it might stop people from coming out here. And you, Mr. Simmons, with your talk of getting a townsite charter from the territorial legislature. Every one of you would like to see me disposed of because I am the only one this side of Omaha will tell emigrants the truth.” He looked back at the newspaperman. “So let them talk, Mr. Logan. Let them say what they will. As long as I own this ferry, I will continue to operate it as honestly as I know how, and also continue to give the straight facts to the emigrants.” He raked them all with his blue eyes. “I am coming to see you this afternoon, gentlemen. You especially, Mr. Logan.”

  The newspaperman backed away a step. “What do you want to see me for?”

  “At the rate rowdies and thieves are coming in, they will soon overrun us, and I am going to organize a Ferguson’s Ferry Protective Claim Association, Mr. Logan, and I want you to announce it in your paper. If there is no law in this part of the territory, we will make some law. If men like Wiggins are allowed to come in and are welcomed with open arms, with none to oppose them, an honest man will not be able to live here for thirty days.”

  Simmons, tying up Wiggins’ forearm, looked at Ferguson. “That claim association is illegal,” he said. “It’s just a way to get around the law. We’ll fight it.”

  “Of course you will,” said Ferguson, “and it will be a fight to see if honest people can keep men like you from sticking their noses in the public feed-trough at everybody else’s expense.”

  Simmons exploded and came at him. Ferguson was weary by that time and beginning to weaken, but he stepped aside from Simmons’ floundering rush, went after him, seized his left arm as Simmons was turning, and pivoted to his own left, bringing Simmons’ arm across his back until he heard it crack. Simmons roared, and the men closed in silently.

  Simmons’ face was white, and the men muttered as they helped him away.

  Major Yeakel looked at Ferguson curiously. “A bone breaker,” he said. “That’s mayhem, Ferguson—mayhem.”

  Ferguson held his left arm close against his side. “I don’t seem to have any friends at Ferguson’s Ferry,” he said, “and I don’t suppose I shall—until we get a few honest men in the neighborhood.”

  CHAPTER II

  Ferguson walked upstream to a clump of willows, went behind it, and took off his shirt. It was a fairly deep wound, but he did not think it had hit his lung. He got down on his knees to wash it. He heard steps, and Mr. Benson appeared. “Need any help?” he asked.

  “Guess not,” said Ferguson. The wound was already turning blue around the edges of the cut. “He had a dull knife,” Ferguson noted. “He is the kind who would have.”

  “He would have had a broken back,” Benson said, “if you had not taken pity on him.”

  Ferguson grunted as he got the wound thoroughly clean. “I brung the axle grease,” said Benson, pulling up the lid of the can with his nails.

  Ferguson smeared it on liberally, while Benson tore a strip from an old red shirt that had been rolled up under his arm. They tied it around Ferguson’s chest.

  No Horse, the Oto Indian who helped Benson, came down with the span of mules and expertly tied the end of the towrope to the rung on the doubletrees.

  Ferguson looked at Benson. He was a mild little fellow, older than the usual emigrant—getting close to sixty, Ferguson thought—and he was the kind they always picked on.

  “I lost my farm in Missouri to the tax collector,” Benson said, rolling up the rest of the red shirt, “and I figured to come out here where land was free, and start all over.” He drew a deep breath. “But a feller like Simmons don’t care who gets there first. He got my hundred and sixty.

  He followed Ferguson’s eyes. “It looks like we got a covered wagon with a whole passel of young’uns, this time.”

  “And an extra man with a black horse,” Ferguson noted. “Dressed in deerskin and moccasins. Long black hair. A mountain man, maybe?”

  Benson shook his head. “I was with Ashley when he fought the ’Rees, and I knowed Smith and Bridger and Leroux and the lot, and I never seen a mountain man walk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “So all-fired open and biggety—like he was expectin’ the wimmen to come flockin’ around him.”

  Ferguson’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Lots of different kinds come across on the ferry.”

  Benson nodded vigorously. “That there ferry is the key to the whole thing, Johnny. You can keep tabs on who comes into the country—and it’s the only thing around here that’s good for reg’lar cash money.”

  “I was lucky to get here first,” Ferguson admitted.

  Benson stared at him. “You’ll be lucky to keep it,” he said. “Them fellers are full of schemes, and they won’t rest until they git control of the crossin’.”

  Ferguson hitched up his trousers as he started back. “That may be a while,” he said.

  Ferguson walked out on the dock and called across the water to the figure in deerskins, who now stood with his feet apart, a long-barreled Kentucky rifle held upright in his left hand.

  “Throw the snubbing-rope,” said Ferguson.

  The man did not move. “I paid six bits for passage on this boat,” said the man. “I didn’t hire on as a deck hand.” Ferguson ran out to the end of the dock and jumped the gap without trouble. Mr. Benson could almost bring her in with his mules. Ferguson sprang to the stern, cast the coil of rope to the dock, and leaped off again. He caught up the end of the rope, passed it around the snubbing-post, and brought a little pressure against it as the stern passed him. The rope creaked and the ferry slowed.

  “All right, Mr. Benson,” Ferguson called in that voice that did not have to be raised.

  The towrope went slack. Ferguson put on more pressure and brought the ferry to a dead stop. The front end swung in slowly against the dock. He took a double half-hitch on the post, and then stepped across onto the ferry and ran up to the bow to get the forward rope. He secured it on the forward snubbing-post, and finally straightened up and looked at the man in deerskin clothing. He wore a very broad black hat with no sag in the brim—which marked him as a newcomer immediately. Ferguson said, “You can pay me the six bits.”

  “Your price is high,” said the man, who was not over thirty.

  “You agreed to it,” said Ferguson, wary.

  The man gave him a silver dollar, and Ferguson gave him a quarter. The man tried to twist it against his teeth, and decided it was good.

  Ferguson asked him curiously, “Come from far?”

  “Far enough,” said the man. “Delaware.”

  “Going far?”

  “No farther’n necessary.” He started to lead his big dun horse onto the dock.

  “If you’re stopping here, my name is Ferguson.”

  The horse’s hooves thudded hollowly on the planks as the man swung him around. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he said with no apparent malice, “but my name is George Keller, scouting the land for Zachariah Mawson.”

  “I have not had the pleasure,” said Ferguson.

  “Mawson is two days away with four grown sons and twelve thousand head of sheep, headed for Nebrasky.”

  “It seems no concern of mine.”

  “He will want passage for the sheep.”


  Ferguson hesitated, and looked at the opposite shore and the gray-topped wagons. “I will show him a place to swim them,” he said.

  “No swimming,” said Keller. “The loss is too heavy. Ain’t you in business to make money?”

  “I’m also in business to ferry emigrants—and yon shore is thick with some who had waited for days.” He turned back to Keller. “It would take several days to move that many sheep, and meantime, the emigrants would have to wait.”

  “Isn’t one man’s money as good as another’s?”

  “In the wagons,” said Ferguson, “there are women and children.

  “I have heard you don’t like sheep,” said Keller.

  “I’ve nothing against them,” said Ferguson, noting the children drawing up in a semi-circle behind Keller. “But my first duty is to people.”

  “Your first duty is to the man who offers the fare.”

  “Provided he comes in his proper turn,” said Ferguson, watching him.

  “How many are ahead?”

  Ferguson waved at the Iowa shore. “All those.”

  Keller asked suddenly, “Have they all applied for passage?”

  Ferguson began to get his back up. “By setting their wagons there, they have applied,” he said. “Mr. Mawson will have to wait his proper turn—about four days.”

  Keller sneered. “What’s your price?” he demanded.

  “Ten cents a head.”

  Keller snorted. “For sheep? It was four cents over the Mississippi.”

  “This is not the Mississippi,” said Ferguson.

  “We will give you six.”

  “The price is ten.”

  Keller studied him for a moment. “I will meet you halfway.”

  Ferguson glanced at the men ashore, listening. He turned back to Keller. “I will meet you halfway between six and ten. The price will be eight—no less.”

  “It’s robbery.”

  Ferguson took a step toward him, and noticed the great breadth of the man’s shoulders. “It is the price,” he said quietly.

  Keller fixed his black eyes on Ferguson for a moment, and then unexpectedly conceded. “Mr. Mawson won’t like it,” he said.

  “I will have to risk that,” said Ferguson.

  Speculation was in Keller’s eyes as he tried to size up Ferguson. “It may be a bigger gamble than you bargain for.”

  Ferguson said thoughtfully, “I worked ten years in the coal mines, where every day was a gamble for a man’s life, so I don’t suppose this one will be anything unfamiliar.”

  Keller got on his horse and sat him straight-backed—not round-shouldered like a cowhand. “If you’re goin’ to wet-nurse emigrants, you better get some sugar-tits on hand, because there’s plenty of ’em coming.”

  “No more than usual, I imagine.”

  “A lot more than usual. All the way from Indiana. There’s a panic in the East, and everybody who isn’t tied down—and some who are—is leaving.

  “Headed for where?” asked Ferguson.

  “Anywhere there’s free land.” The dun shook its head impatiently. “Where’s the townsite around here?”

  “There isn’t any,” said Ferguson.

  “They’re selling lots back East, and they said the townsite was close to Ferguson’s Ferry.”

  “Have you bought a lot?” asked Ferguson.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Not much,” said Ferguson, beginning to find it hard to feel friendly toward the man. “But I know of no townsite closer than Catherine on the west or Tehama on the south—and they aren’t close. Perhaps it is somewhere else in Nebraska.”

  “I know what they told me,” said Keller, seeming sure of himself.

  “I got a prospectus here,” piped up the little man on the wagon, digging a thick wad of folded paper from inside his shirt.

  Ferguson went across the deck to look at it, and he heard the hooves of Keller’s horse clomp on the planks behind him as Keller turned his horse to watch.

  The little man put his feet up on the edge of the wagon box and began to unfold the map on his legs, while Ferguson walked in close to the wheel to see the map, and Keller, on his horse, drew up to the doubletree. “Was you bothered by Indians?” Keller asked.

  The little man looked up. “Miz Hudson and me, we come through a bunch, but they never paid us much mind. My wife was scairt, but I figgered they was only after somethin’ to steal.”

  Keller looked darkly across the river. “An Indian will take a mile for every inch you allow him. We was pestered all the way from the Mississippi.”

  “These Oto Indians will not harm you,” said Ferguson. “They have not been treated too well, and they resent it, but I don’t think—”

  “What you think,” Keller said with unexpected vehemence, “don’t amount to a damn when an Indian starts wavin’ a scalping knife.”

  Ferguson looked up at him. “The Otos are friendly,” he said quietly.

  “They’re Indians,” Keller said, as if it were a terrible indictment, “and this country ain’t safe with them around.” He put his hand on the butt of a pistol, hanging from the saddle-horn. “I aim to do my share to make it safe.”

  Ferguson turned to face him. “Because you want to make it safe, or because you figure that’s the quickest way to be a hero without danger to your own hide?”

  Keller came down fast. He landed hard on both feet, and as he did, Ferguson lowered his head and waded into him with both arms pumping. He backed him into the dun, which was thrown off balance, staggered against the side of the wagon, and neighed in fright.

  Hudson grabbed the reins of his team and began to mutter, “Whoa, now; whoa, boy!”

  Keller finally got his feet under him and came back with a rush. Liquor was strong on his breath, and Ferguson gave ground cautiously. Then Keller caught him between the eyes with a hard fist, and Ferguson stumbled backward. Keller hit him again, boring in with the sure instinct of a killer, but Ferguson backed toward the end of the ferry. He shook off the fogginess in his head, and kept Keller at a distance, then he moved back in, throwing long lefts and rights that landed with a crack of bones. Keller backed away and almost fell into the crack between the ferry and the dock, but recovered in time to move backward on the dock, now seeming puzzled at the relentless attack of Ferguson.

  Keller charged, but Ferguson sidestepped and whirled. From behind, he seized Keller’s jacket as Keller was turning and spun him. Keller was off-balance, and his feet slammed on the planks as he tried to keep from falling. Ferguson spun him entirely around once, and as Keller came to a stop, Ferguson, poised, hit him three times with each fist, and Keller went down hard.

  Ferguson went back on the ferry, led the dun horse across to the dock, and slapped it hard on the rump with his open hand. The horse bolted off the dock and slowed down, and was caught by Simmons.

  Ferguson went back to Hudson. “Let’s see that map again,” he said, rubbing his hands to limber them. He ached all over—and his side throbbed painfully with each breath.

  The little man was staring at him.

  “Simon!” cried the fat woman.

  Hudson came to with a start. “Yes, Marthy.”

  “The gentleman asked to see the map.”

  Hudson brought himself back to reality with an obvious effort. “Yes, sir.” He picked up the map from the floor of the wagon and put it again on his legs, and wrapped the reins around the foot-iron. “Now, see here,” he said in his Kentucky twang. “Here it is. It says ‘Logan City’ in these here big letters.”

  “It does, for sure,” Ferguson agreed, staring at the highly-colored lithograph of an extensive street plan.

  “According to this here,” said Hudson, “the townsite is only nine miles from Ferguson’s Ferry.”

  Ferguson shook his head slowly. “There is no townsite that close to the ferry.”

  “There has to be,” said Hudson. “It shows it on the map.”

  “Anybody who can pay for it,”
said Ferguson, “can have a map printed.”

  “But it shows streets and all,” said Hudson, beginning to sound scared.

  “I see it does.” Ferguson examined the map more carefully, noting with dismay the neatly drawn streets, the stream marked simply “River,” the square marked “City Hall,” and others labeled “Fire Department,” First Methodist Church,” “Academy of Learning” and “Female Seminary.” Finally he looked up at Hudson. “Have you bought a lot from this plat?” he asked.

  “Two of ’em, right across from the railway station, there.” Hudson pointed with a trembling forefinger. “Do you think there’s something wrong?”

  Ferguson asked him: “Why did you choose lots close to the railway station?”

  “We’re goin’ to put in a bakery. My wife bakes the best bread in the state of Kentucky, and I can make real good pies. We had a bakery back home, and did real well. But we got all these children.” He looked around. “They need some room to grow.”

  “How much did you pay for these lots?” asked Ferguson.

  The little man began to turn pale. “Four hundred apiece. The man said they were worth five, but he let me have them for four.”

  Ferguson looked at the bold legend across the bottom of the lithographed sheet: Logan City, Nebraska Territory’s Coming Metropolis. (Take the north route to Ferguson’s Ferry.) He looked up finally and said, “Mr. Hudson, you may have lots, but there is no such townsite to my knowledge.”

  “But the man said—”

  “I suppose you wanted to sell bakery goods to travelers.”

  “We aimed—”

  “But I must give you the unpleasant news that there is no railroad in the territory of Nebraska.”

  The woman spoke up. “Maybe it’s building, Simon.”

  “It may be building,” said Ferguson, “but I do not know of it. How much money do you have left?”

  “We sold out for twelve hundred,” said the little man. “I paid eight hundred for the lots. We bought clothes, and the wagon and team, and I guess we’s mighty near broke,” he confessed.

  “Well, you’re strong,” said Ferguson, handing him back the map, “and your wife looks strong and your children look healthy. You’ll be able to find something.”