The Third Western Novel

by Noel Loomis

  “‘A farmer from up near Ferguson’s Ferry was in today with his first vegetables of the season: a cucumber that measured eighteen and a half inches from end to end, and a potato that weighed fourteen pounds. He tells us that the corn up there will make at least ninety bushels per acre. It is already knee-high, and gets plenty of sunshine and has had lots of rain. Veritably, this is the garden-spot of America.’”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

  “There has never been a crop raised up there because nobody has been there long enough. There has been no rain since the first of May; it is too early for cucumbers and potatoes, and nobody in the territory will make ninety bushels of corn to the acre.”

  Ferguson heard Major Yeakel cross the hall to the printing-office door, and stop.

  “The readers expect some exaggeration,” said Logan. “Every paper in the country does it.”

  “They do it—but do the readers know they are doing it?”

  Yeakel said from behind him: “It is traditional to put on your best face, Mr. Ferguson.”

  Ferguson turned. “Is it traditional also to lie?”

  “I hardly call this a lie,” Yeakel said smoothly.

  “I do,” said Ferguson. “You are trying to attract emigrants here so you can make loans to them at prohibitive rates.” He looked at Yeakel, a very thin man with brown muttonchops. “What are you going to do when these farmers can’t pay their loans?”

  Yeakel raised his eyebrows. “It doesn’t matter. I get my commission when I make the loan.”

  “And if a man does not make a crop this year, he loses his claim along with his house as well and whatever improvements he has made.”

  Yeakel shrugged. “It’s risky for both sides.”

  “Of course. If the farmer goes broke, his property will not begin to pay the loan.”

  “That’s for the loan company to worry about,” Yeakel said steadily.

  Ferguson controlled his impatience. “Aren’t you concerned with what happens to the men—to the country?”

  Yeakel stared at him. “I’m a businessman,” he said. “I am here to make money.”

  “At the expense of ruination?”

  “That is not my responsibility. I am not a wet-nurse for a thousand families of simpleton farmers. I came out here to make money, and I certainly would not live in this Godforsaken country for any other reason.”

  Ferguson thought about it for a moment, then turned back to Logan. “You got it down?”

  Logan said slowly, “How do you want it signed?”

  “‘John Ferguson.’”

  “That will cost you fifty cents,” said Logan, counting the lines with his pencil.

  Ferguson said, “I’ll not pay you a penny for running that notice.”

  Logan seemed surprised. “That’s actually very cheap. You don’t object to paying a fair price for it, do you?”

  “That announcement is news,” said Ferguson, “and as such you are in the custom of running it for nothing.”

  “But—”

  “But this is something that neither you nor Major Yeakel wants done, so you are going to charge fifty cents for the notice.” He looked around at Yeakel, and then back at Logan. “It’s news,” he said, reassuring himself. “If you don’t run it, no matter. I will post a notice at the general store, and I will post another at the ferry. There will be many men at the meeting, Mr. Logan, and if you stay away, the loss will be your own.”

  “It won’t be legal.”

  “No public meeting has to be published in a newspaper to be legal.” Ferguson said, “I am sorry I caused you to waste such a big sheet of paper, Mr. Logan,” and turned on his heel and started to walk out.

  “By the way,” said Logan.

  Ferguson stopped and turned around.

  “That no-good Indian working for you—you’d better get rid of him.”

  Ferguson stared at him. “No Horse is a good worker—and bothers nobody.”

  “He bothers me and he bothers others,” said Logan. “Get rid of him or you’ll be sorry.”

  After a moment, Ferguson went past Yeakel, who eyed him coldly, and crossed the street and went into a long, narrow room that smelled of kerosene and whisky and stock tonic.

  Mr. Weinstein was a small man, thin, triangular-faced. He wore a neat, gray beard and spoke in a gentle voice: “You want something Mr. Ferguson?”

  “I’d like to post a notice on your bulletin board.”

  “Certainly. Help yourself. It’s open to all.”

  “It is a notice for the organization of a claim club, Mr. Weinstein. It might cause trouble.”

  Weinstein looked at him for a moment and then said: “No trouble for me, Mr. Ferguson. Trouble for you, perhaps.”

  “No more trouble than I have now.”

  “That is something only you can say, Mr. Ferguson.” He got a flat piece of brown paper from under the counter, and handed Ferguson a pencil from behind his ear.

  “Write it out, Mr. Ferguson, if you are not afraid to sign it.”

  Ferguson smiled to himself as he wrote out the notice. He signed it with a flourish, handed it to Weinstein, and asked: “That big enough to suit you, Mr. Weinstein?”

  Weinstein smiled gently. “It may not suit everybody, but I suppose you know that.”

  “If it did suit everybody,” said Ferguson, “it would not have to be done.”

  Weinstein nodded but said nothing.

  “Could you let me have an extra piece of paper?” Weinstein gave one to him.

  “Ever hear of a townsite called Logan City?” asked Ferguson.

  Weinstein shook his head.

  “Do you know how much land Charlie Logan has?”

  “A hundred and sixty, I hear.”

  “And Major Yeakel the same?”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “It isn’t much,” said Ferguson as he left.

  He was leaving Chippewa to go northeast to the ferry when he saw ten or twelve trotting horses moving fairly fast.

  Some time before he met them, he knew they were Indians; they did not ride either abreast or in single file like whites, but scattered and in disorder. They reached the trail before he did, and turned toward him.

  Ferguson rode up and said, “Howdy.”

  A bareheaded Indian with black braids and wearing moccasins and shapeless wool trousers said, “Howdy, Sandy John.”

  Ferguson rode to a stop, and sat sidewise in the saddle to rest. “What are the Otos doing over here?”

  Walking Bird said, “We come to pick out our land.”

  “Land!”

  “Washington says we can have land west of river for reservation.”

  Ferguson stared at him. “You’re sure?”

  “Indian agent, Mr. Newcomb, told us.”

  “It must have been specified land, though.”

  Walking Bird shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of land that is. Mr. Newcomb said it is just south of your farm.”

  Ferguson frowned. “You don’t mean you’re just planning to move in today?”

  Two of the Indians behind him grunted, but Walking Bird shook his head at them. “We have to wait until Washington moves the whites who have pre-empt’ our land.”

  “That sounds like trouble,” said Ferguson.

  Walking Bird raised his eyebrows. “Trouble all around. White men coming into our land on the other side, before we get moved. Indian Department says no, you can’t do it, but whites do it anyway.” He looked sourly at Ferguson. “You must not have a very good chief in Washington.”

  “Did Newcomb say how soon you could move?”

  “He say pretty soon; not many whites on land along river, he thought.”

  “Let me give you some advice,” said Ferguson.

  “Sandy John always friend, open his heart to Otos.”

  “Then listen with care: don’t go any closer to white men than you have to, and don’t get into any arguments.”

  Walking Bird smiled. “Yo
u think white men won’t like it?”

  “I know they won’t—and you do too.”

  “White men don’t like anything, I guess, but more land.”

  “Some do.”

  “If we have one like that in the Oto tribe, we get rid of him—send him to the Sioux.”

  Ferguson smiled. “Sometimes I wish it could be that simple for us.”

  “It’s very simple: you have a bad man; you punish him. Get rid of him.”

  “You would be safer on the other side of the river,” said Ferguson.

  “No good. Whites moving in.”

  “The Indian agent is over there.”

  Walking Bird said, “I never hurt anybody who behaved himself. I will not hurt white man who minds his own business.”

  “They don’t all mind their own business, though.”

  “Is their bad luck. Otos great fighters.”

  “The whites come here with wives and children,” said Ferguson. “They have sold out everything, and they come out, and they get scared. If they don’t find free land, they won’t have anything.”

  “Not very smart,” said Walking Bird. “I have four wives and nine papooses, and I have been moved by Washington three times. They don’t ask, they don’t tell me I can have any land at all.” His bronze arm swept the country to the east. “All this land was Oto land.” He turned in his saddle, which was hardly more than a leather pad on a framework of sticks, and gestured to the west. “All this was Oto country. And to the north, and to the south. And now we have none of our own. The soldiers move us. Now the Indian Department says we will have a hundred and sixty acres apiece, where once we had a hundred and sixty sections. And we are supposed to be glad. We have to be glad, for if Washington does not say it, we have nothing at all. White men want what we have now in Iowa. What’s the matter with white men? They don’t need land. They don’t hunt, they don’t fight each other. They want land to raise more corn than they can eat. Why does Washington let them do that?”

  Ferguson nodded slowly. “We do strange things,” he agreed. He looked over the Indians—all young, all somewhat resentful. “Stay out of trouble,” he said. “There are men who would like nothing better than to kill some Indians so they can go home and brag.”

  “Sure,” Walking Bird said scornfully. “Maybe we lift some scalps ourselves.”

  “If you got into a fight, the whole country would go after you, and you could not possibly win in the long run.” He smiled. “Your four wives and nine children will eat better if you stay alive.”

  There was grumbling in the ranks, but Walking Bird quieted them. “We will stay out of trouble,” he said. “We just want to look at our land and see what it is like.”

  “So long.” Ferguson rode off, worried far more than he had admitted to the Otos. With violence beginning to run loose in the country, it was bound to hit the Indians if they were anywhere around. A man like Keller would have no compunction.

  His mule team was grazing quietly on the flat; Ferguson stopped at the top of the slope and looked down on a group of men arguing with Mr. Benson. The ferry was on the other side, and below him, just off the ferry, were two covered wagons with ox teams, numerous dogs and a large number of children. Ferguson saw Mr. Benson shaking his finger in Charlie Logan’s face, and spurred the sorrel into a downhill lope; Logan must have lit out for the ferry while Ferguson was in Weinstein’s store. They turned to look as he rode up and swung off the horse, and Ferguson asked, “What’s the trouble, Mr. Benson?”

  Mr. Benson’s voice was trembling when he said: “Him and Major Yeakel and Mr. Simmons and Mr. Wiggins demanded passage to the other side free, but I told them they would have to pay.”

  Ferguson turned scornfully to them. “If you wanted to start trouble, you could have waited for me.”

  Major Yeakel said: “We have business on the other side, and we cannot afford to hang around waiting for you.”

  “Business of organizing trouble for the ferry?” Ferguson demanded.

  “Land business,” said Logan.

  “Perhaps you want to sell more lots in Logan City?”

  Simmons spoke up: “What we have in mind is none of your lookout.”

  “Then why didn’t you pay your fare like anybody else?”

  “We would have,” said Logan, “but your man here got bossy with us.”

  Ferguson said: “Mr. Benson never gets bossy with anybody. He does the job I pay him to do—and I take it ill that you descended on him all at once. You spoke to me at Chippewa, and you must have hurried here to the ferry as soon as I left, merely to make trouble.”

  “A very bold indictment,” said Major Yeakel.

  “A justifiable one,” Ferguson answered. “Now what do you want?”

  Dave Ackerman and Roy Ernest rode down the slope—Ackerman big on a buckskin horse, Ernest with flapping knees akimbo on a black. Wiggins, his arm in a sling, looked up at the two men calculatingly, then moved a little behind the others and stayed quiet. Simmons said, “We want across, but we don’t see no—”

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Yeakel, “we do not want to cross on your ferry, after your inhospitable reception.”

  “That answers one question,” said Ferguson. “Now why don’t you go away and let Mr. Benson take care of his work?”

  “What work?” asked Simmons. “He ain’t doin’ anything.”

  Ferguson said coldly: “Mr. Simmons, if you would follow Mr. Benson around for a couple of days and do some real work instead of trying to figure out a way to beat somebody else out of something, you would not ask such a fool question.”

  Simmons stepped forward. “I take it that’s a challenge.”

  “You’re of age,” said Ferguson. “Take it any way you like.”

  Yeakel laid a hand on Simmons’ arm. Simmons shrugged it off angrily, but he stayed back.

  “Mr. Benson, you’d better go to your mules,” said Ferguson. “I hear Teddy Root’s foghorn voice across the river.” Benson looked at Ferguson, then at the men facing them, and it was quite obvious that, frightened or upset as he was, he wanted to be there for the showdown—but Ferguson waved him on. “I may have other fish to fry with these gentlemen,” said Ferguson, “but the ferry must continue to operate. Otherwise, the eager lambs on yonder shore will not be able to reach Nebraska for the shearing.”

  Charlie Logan demanded: “What do you mean by that?”

  Ferguson watched Benson start up the slope, and he noted that, from somewhere or from nowhere, a crowd had started to gather, for half a dozen men now stood above them on the slope, waiting. A small boy back at the two wagons shouted: “Come on, everybody! There’s gonna be a fight!” Children piled out of the wagons and came running from the brush along the river like drops of water squeezed out of a sponge. Mothers started calling, but Ferguson did not think they would have much luck.

  He turned back to the business at hand, noting that Ackerman and Ernest were standing beside him. Ernest could not be much good in a fight, but he seemed willing to try. Ferguson said, “You ever hear of Logan City?”

  Nobody answered for a moment, but finally Charlie Logan said, “What about it?”

  “Somebody in the East,” said Ferguson, “is circulating colored lithographs of Logan City—a town that never existed.”

  “That’s not saying it won’t exist,” said Yeakel.

  “Nor is it saying that it will exist.”

  “There’s no law against drawing up plans,” said Logan.

  “Maybe there’s no law against selling lots in a townsite that doesn’t exist,” said Ferguson, “but that doesn’t make it right.”

  One of the men from the crowd on the slope walked out toward Ferguson. He wore a big, droopy-brimmed hat, a full black beard, high boots, and a red cowhide vest with the hair on. “Did I hear you mention Logan City?” he demanded.

  Ferguson restrained his satisfaction, for he knew what was going to happen. “You heard of it?” he asked.

  “You’re damn tootin’ righ
t I heard of it.” He took a worn, tightly-folded paper from inside his shirt, and began to unfold it—a colored lithograph. “It says down here, ‘Logan City, Nebraska Territory.’” He looked up. “Which one of you gents is responsible for that?”

  Logan moistened his lips. Yeakel watched, hard-eyed. Simmons swallowed. Wiggins looked across the river.

  “Well,” said the man, “I asked a question.”

  Major Yeakel broke the silence. “We don’t even know you.”

  “You don’t have to—but my name is Art Grimes, and I come out here from Pennsylvania. I want to know where Logan City is.”

  “Maybe,” said Ackerman, “Charlie Logan would know something about that.”

  “If he don’t,” said Ernest, “Major Yeakel will.”

  “I don’t give a damn who it is,” said Grimes, “so I find out where the town is.”

  “There’s no town of that name,” said Ferguson. “You might as well get used to the idea.”

  Grimes stared at him. “You mean to say—” He held up the map. “Right here it shows ‘Blacksmith Shop,’ ‘Post Office,’ ‘Saddlery,’ ‘Sanitarium,’ ‘Baptist Church’.” He looked up. “It shows all these here places, and I want to know where they are.”

  “They don’t exist,” said Ferguson.

  “Now that don’t make sense,” said Grimes. “It shows ’em on this here map, doesn’t it?”

  “My good man,” said Major Yeakel, “anybody can draw a map, and they can print anything on it they want to—but that doesn’t prove it exists.”

  “It better,” said Grimes, “for I paid three hundred dollars for a lot on the strength of this map.”

  “Three hundred!” said a new voice from up on the slope. A man came running to join them, and Ferguson recognized Simon Hudson. “They absolutely swore four hundred dollars was the bottom price—and I bought two.”

  “What I want to know,” said Ackerman, “is who made up this map.”

  Yeakel said, “A draftsman, of course.”

  “Who paid for it?”

  Yeakel was in no hurry to answer.

  “You—Logan!” said Grimes. “It was named after you. Who was in on it?”

  “I never intended—”

  “Who pocketed my three hundred dollars?”