The Old Colts

by Swarthout, Glendon

  As boy buffalo hunters they met. As middle-aged men, and legends in their own time, they parted. About the breadth of their relationship, in terms of people and places, much was known; about its depth, little.

  One fact was indisputable. In twenty-five years they had never thrown down on each other.

  Bat’s ribs hurt like blue blazes.

  “Wyatt?”

  “What?”

  “You might as well know. I’m henpecked as hell.”

  “Me, too.”

  Bat came over, pulled up a chair, and sat down. “Something else. I’m stone broke. If John D. Rockefeller offered me one of his dimes, I’d grab it.”

  Wyatt sniffed, reached, detached the clothespin from Bat’s nose, and affixed it to his own. “So am I,” he said. “Broke.”

  “No. I heard you made a pile in Alaska.”

  “I did. Then I got shystered in real estate around San Diego. Then my claims in Nevada petered out. I’m living off Josie’s money, and she never lets me forget it. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Why?”

  “I need a new stake. Bad.”

  “I’ll be damned. So do I. I’ve had a long streak of bum luck. I’m in hock to a bookie up to my neck. That’s why we got manhandled tonight. That’s why we gotta carry iron from now on. The next time they won’t be so gentle.”

  They were silent.

  “I thought, New York City’s where the money is and Bat is. If there’s anybody I know who can take a pot with a pair of treys, it’s Bat.”

  Bat detached the clothespin from Wyatt’s nose and affixed it to his own. “Trust me. I’ll think of something,” he said, and went back to bed.

  Under the goosegrease Bat’s ribs began to burn, and one frond of a Boston fern dangled down far enough from a table to pester his forehead. He twisted and looked over through gray light and could see his friend’s big feet on the end table outlined against a window.

  “Wyatt?”

  “What?”

  “You comfortable?”

  “As can be.”

  “Sorry about the sofa.”

  “No, I’ve got a cricky right shoulder—pain comes and goes. Arthritis.”

  “My legs cramp a lot. My feet get so cold I have to wear socks in bed. Poor circulation.”

  “Bat, how old are you?”

  “None of your damn business. How old are you?”

  “None of your damn business.” They were silent.

  “We didn’t even recognize each other,” Bat said.

  “A couple of old Colts,” Wyatt said.

  They were silent.

  “Wyatt?”

  Wyatt barely heard him over the early-morning roar of the city cranking up for another go-round. “What?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Damn glad.”

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  “That was bad tonight. You hadn’t come along, I’d be in the hospital really bunged up.”

  “How much do you owe?”

  “Over three thousand.”

  “My God.”

  “Emma doesn’t know.” They were silent.

  “You scared, Bat?”

  “Me?”

  Lucca let them cool their heels outside his office in the HQ at 300 Mulberry Street, and, while waiting, Bat described to Wyatt his beef with the NYPD. On detraining from Denver in ‘02, he’d been locked up by the cops immediately—the charge, having a hogleg on his hip. A friend he’d met in Kansas, the theatrical tycoon John Considine, Sr., went his bail, and he was immediately released, but the episode, rather than being embarrassing, turned out to be perfect press-agentry. The incarceration of W.B. Masterson, the mythical marshal who’d rammed law and order down the throat of the hinterlands, made every paper, and Bat was off to the celebrity races. It was the NYPD which was red in the face. They’d had it in for him ever since.

  Anthony Lucca, the Commissioner, knew Bat, and Bat identified his companion as Mr. Dave Mather. “Friend of mine from Kansas, visiting our fair city for a few days.”

  “What can I do for you, Masterson?”

  “Well, we’d like gun permits. Just temporary, two weeks maybe.”

  “No,” said Lucca.

  “You don’t understand. Last night—”

  “No,” said Lucca.

  “Last night we got roughed up bad, on 49th Street, right in front of my place.”

  “You saying our streets aren’t safe?”

  “Two mugs jumped us. It wasn’t robbery, it was assault and battery and attempted mayhem and—”

  “Not a chance.” Commissioner Anthony Lucca had meat hands and a bullet head. He looked like a flatfoot who’d fought his way to the top from a Bowery beat. “You guys tamed the Wild West, didn’t you? So take care of yourselves.”

  “Now listen—”

  “Tell you what, though.” Lucca grinned sarcasm. “You’re not getting any younger, I’ll give you protection. I’ll put a man on you night and day—in uniform. Can’t you see the papers? ‘Police Protect Bat Masterson!’ ‘New York’s Finest Shield Old Shootist!’ Wait’ll your pals see that. You’ll be laughed out of town.”

  Bat scowled. “You’ll laugh out of the other side of your face, Lucca. I’ve got friends.”

  “You got friends, I got the law.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Come on, Wyatt—I mean Dave.”

  “You were bluffing,” said Wyatt.

  “The hell I was,” said Bat. “We’ll get permits. I’ve got friends in very high places.”

  They sat in Bat’s Morning Telegraph office. Lewis had been introduced to Mr. Dave Mather, passed the time of day, and said so-long. Bat leaned back and deposited his shoes on his desk. Wyatt bit off the end of a cigar, crossed his legs, and lit up.

  “Damn, my ribs are tender.” Bat sucked on a Spud. “Wyatt, I’ve been thinking—the only way we can get rich quick is show business. Everybody’s doing it.”

  They talked about that. Bill Cody was making a financial comeback with the Sells-Floto Circus even though he had to be hoisted into the saddle every show. Bat’s friend William S. Hart was making moving pictures, in California, with Tom Ince and cleaning up. Frank James had done very well giving lectures decrying the life of crime. Bill Tilghman, a mutual friend from Dodge days who’d lately stopped in to say hello to Bat, had just made a moving picture called “The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws” and had, he said, high hopes for a big gross. As they talked, it developed that both of them had rejected fat offers to go on the road with the Buffalo Ranch Show and Wyatt, living not far from Los Angeles, was asked every other week to star in a film.

  “Why don’t you?” asked Bat.

  “Just a fad, movie pictures,” said Wyatt. “Not much future.”

  “Well, that leaves the stage. We could do a double— ‘Masterson & Earp.’”

  “‘Earp & Masterson.’”

  “Who says?”

  “Sounds better.”

  “Either way, a few weeks on the circuit and we could bow out. I’ve got friends in vaudeville, too.”

  Wyatt pulled his chin. “Don’t think I could, Bat. Make a fool of myself in front of people.”

  “For a thousand a week?”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “Six weeks, six thousand.”

  “What’d we do?”

  “Damifino. We can’t shoot much any more, prob’ly, and we never did trick roping. There’s a kid here now, in the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic—Will Rogers. You should see him rope and crack wise at the same time. Anyway, all we’ve got is our reps and names—’Masterson & Earp.’”

  “‘Earp & Masterson.’”

  “Either way, they’re worth big bucks at the box office.” Bat snapped his fingers. “Got it! I’ll phone Eddie Foy! He’ll put an act together for us!”

  “Eddie Foy?”

  “Sure. He’s a name in this town, and he owes me. I saved his ass onc
e—remember? I’ll have to tell him who you are, but he’ll keep it under his hat.” Bat leaned, took the phone from the desk, and sat it in his lap. “By the way, Wyatt, do you fool around?”

  Wyatt raised eyebrows.

  Bat winked. “I mean, do you chase a skirt now and then?”

  Wyatt clamped ethical teeth around his cigar. “I might. Now and then.”

  “Fine. I’ll have Eddie fix us up with a couple of cuties.”

  “Eddie Foy here, too,” said Wyatt, shaking his head. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You didn’t believe me either.”

  “I still don’t.”

  They hopped the LIRR at Penn Station.

  “Where we going?” Wyatt inquired.

  “You’ll see.”

  Then Bat hired a hack for Oyster Bay and gave directions to the driver so that Wyatt couldn’t hear.

  “Where we going now?”

  “To see somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “If I told you, you’d get cold feet.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “Trust me.’

  The hack clattered up hill and down dale and by salt marshes along the shore and stately homes facing the bay and swung into a graveled drive which circled up to a big house growing out of green lawns and guarded by great trees, its ground floor brick and ivy, its upper stories shingled mustard yellow, and the whole trimmed in rose pink. They pulled under a porte cochere, told the hackie to wait, climbed steps, crossed a spacious porch, and rang a turn-bell. A colored man in a white jacket answered.

  “Mr. Masterson and Mr. Mather,” Bat announced.

  “Yessuh, you expected. Come on in.”

  They entered and had a quick look-see through a doorway into a paneled hall huge enough to stack hay in, before they turned right and were led into a study with broad windows framing the crest of the hill before which the mansion was situated.

  “He be right along,” said the servant, and left them alone.

  “Take off your hat!” hissed Bat, removing his.

  “Why?”

  “Take off your hat!”

  Welcoming them from the walls were the heads of an Austrian boar, an Ethiopian gazelle, and some Congolese specimen with horns and a beard and a resigned expression. On the floor were the skins of a zebra and a lion. In between these on shelves were books, urns, pots, statuary, a ticking clock, and, below them, a zoo of leather couches and massive rocking chairs, the seats and backs of the latter swathed with the fleece of Rocky Mountain sheep. Suddenly he entered, crop-headed and barrel-chested, his eyes beaming behind thick lenses, his tusks flashing in that famous smile, striding at them as though he were charging out of a chute. He wore sweater, breeches, and cavalry boots.

  “Bat, how grand to see you again!” The voice was unexpectedly thin and high-pitched, a reed rather than a horn.

  Bat shook the extended hand. “Thank you, sir, a real pleasure to see you! I’d like you to meet my friend from Kansas, Mr. David Mather. Dave, the President.”

  Wyatt had gone white as a sheet.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mather!”

  Wyatt had lockjaw. “Sir, Mr. Roosevelt, I, yes, well, say,” he got out, and instead of his hand, shoved his slouch hat into the President’s paw.

  Theodore Roosevelt loved the West with heart and soul, and the men who made it equally. When, soon after his inauguration, he was informed that Bat Masterson was in New York, broke and arrested for concealing a firearm, he forthwith appointed him a deputy federal marshal and summoned him to Washington to swap lies about their youthful adventures beyond the wide Missouri. Bat later resigned the post and went to work for Lewis on the Telegraph, but from that first White House meeting, till Taft succeeded in 1909, a standing invitation stood. Bat took advantage. As the newspapers noted, he passed easily into the Oval Office while magnates and potentates twiddled their thumbs and waited their turn. President and plainsman made a mutual admiration society. Each saw in the other something of the man he might have been, and something of the man he would have liked to be.

  TR assigned them a couch, pulled up a rocking chair, and for fifteen minutes shot the breeze with Bat while Wyatt, still in a state of shock, tried at least to look alert. Was the President of a mind to run against Wilson? Possibly, possibly not, it depended.

  “Spoken like a true Mugwump!” added TR, rocking vigorously. “I don’t like to be wishy-washy, never did, but it’s all I can give you now, Bat.”

  “Well, if you do, Mr. President,” Wyatt spoke up to their surprise, “you have two votes here.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mather.”

  Who would the Republicans nominate?

  “Hughes. He will resign from the Court, accept, and I will support him.”

  Would the U.S. get into the fracas in Europe one of these days?

  “We must, Bat,” said TR, rocking vigorously. “It is our duty—Germany has run amuck. And when we do, I will ask for command of a regiment of Westerners like the Rough Riders. We’ll show the Kaiser a thing or two, by Godfrey!”

  “Well, if you do, Mr. President,” Wyatt spoke up to their surprise, “Bat and I volunteer here and now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mather. But aren’t you two a little past the soldiering stage?” asked TR, grinning and ignoring his own age. He stopped rocking and sniffed. “What’s that infernal smell?”

  “Ahem.” Bat cleared his throat. “It’s prob’ly goose-grease, sir.”

  “Goosegrease?”

  “I’m sorry. That’s why we’re here, Mr. President. I’ll get right to it before we wear out our welcome. Last night two mugs jumped us and gave us a good beating. Emma— Mrs. Masterson—greased my ribs, but they’re still sore. Dave here’s staying with me a few days, and I tried this morning to get us gun permits for a couple weeks— to protect ourselves—but the NYPD says no cigar. D’you think you could help?”

  TR launched himself from his chair. “Think I could? That’s how I started out—President of the New York Police Board in ‘95! What’s the Commissioner’s name?”

  His visitors rose. Wyatt put on his hat. “Lucca,” Bat said. “Anthony Lucca.”

  “You’ll hear from him shortly, mark my word.”

  TR walked them to the front door. “Delighted to see you again, Bat—and to meet you, Mr. Mather. You know who else I’d give my eye teeth to meet? That Earp fellow, Wyatt Earp. I’d like to have the straight of that shootout in Tombstone. Where is he now, Bat?”

  “He lives in California, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, I think I’ve heard. I offered him a federal Marshal’s job in Arizona once, when I was in Washington, but he turned me down. I still have his letter somewhere—very well written and moving.” He opened the door for them. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. And do drop in again, Bat—we’ll talk till we run out of soap.”

  “I’ll do that, sir.”

  “Bully!”

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” said Wyatt.

  They shook hands. The door closed behind them.

  But no sooner had they descended the steps to the hack than the door opened and Teddy Roosevelt marched down the steps to them. The sun sank in the west now, and mighty oaks and maples laid shade like compassionate hands upon the house.

  “Bat, I hate to see you go. This country will never see your like again. And none of us is getting any younger.” TR pulled a bandanna from a pocket and polished his glasses. They caught a glisten in his eyes. “You know, Bat, men like you and Earp will be legends someday. They’ll write more books about you than any of us politicians—oh, the whoppers they’ll invent!” He put on his glasses. “If you think you’re famous now, wait till you’re dead and gone!”

  “I can wait, sir,” smiled Bat.

  “Likewise,” said Wyatt.

  “Right now,” Bat reminded, “I’ll settle for some Hartford hardware.”

  TR laughed, assured him he’d have it soon, saw them into the hack, and waved them on their way.

  Going down the dri
ve, Bat leaned out of the hack to look back.

  “What?” Wyatt asked.

  “I dunno,” said Bat. “I got a queer feeling. That I won’t ever see him again.”

  He continued to lean out of the hack, straining for a last sight of his friend. In the shadows under the porte cochere the twenty-sixth President of the United States seemed to diminish as he stood before Sagamore Hill, and when the hack turned onto the bay road he disappeared.

  “Left, one, two! Back, one, two! Right, one, two! Back— Wyatt, what in hell’s the matter?”

  “I can’t dance, goddammit!”

  “It ain’t a dance, goddammit!”

  Emma was out, which was fortunate because they’d had to rearrange her furniture drastically to clear a little floor space. Wyatt sat stubbornly down on a sofa and put an elbow into a Boston fern.

  “The audition’s at four.” Bat ran a finger round the neckline of his collarless shirt. “We’ve got two hours to rehearse. Eddie Foy worked out this step and got us a theater and we can’t let him down. And I talked George Cohan into writing us a song—you realize what that’d cost us if we had to pay? George M. Cohan? And John Considine’s catching our act!”

  Wyatt had worked up such a sweat he’d taken off his shirt and was down to longjohns and suspenders.

  Bat used the intermission. “All right now—do you know any pieces by heart? What about ‘The Face on The Barroom Floor’?”

  “Nope.”

  “‘Spartacus to The Gladiators’?”

  “Nope.”

  “Anything?”

  “Well, maybe,” Wyatt allowed. “Mr. Roosevelt mentioned that letter I sent him when I said no to the marshal’s job. I recited it once, in San Francisco. I could do that, I expect.”

  “Fine and dandy. I’ll do ‘The Cowboy’s Profession of Love.’ The boys here get a kick out of that. What we’ve got to get down is the dance.”

  “You said it isn’t a dance.”

  “It isn’t, goddammit.” Bat glared at him. “It’s a shuffle!”