The Old Colts

by Swarthout, Glendon

  “What time’s our trains?” Bat yells.

  “Mine five-fifteen! Yours five-oh-five!”

  Bat nods and dusts them along a gravel road due north of Garden of Eden. They are too smart to take the main highway to that metropolis—half of Dodge will be out looking for the abandoned loot, not to mention Jack Sughrue and his cohorts after the cash and the poor peace officer’s remains. They keep therefore to the section roads, describing three sides of a rectangle in order to sneak into Garden of Eden from the east rather than the west. Bat has had no experience driving on gravel. The Tin Lizzie slips and slides like a trombone player on a pair of banana peels.

  “Take it easy!” Wyatt yells. “I want to be rich before I’m dead!”

  In rejoinder, Bat begins to sing “East Side, West Side” at the top of his voice.

  They can see the trees, they can see the elevator glittering in the afternoon sun like a bar of pure gold. They turn south, and five minutes later reach the macadam highway and tool onto it on two wheels for the straight run, the last lap, and sure as the devil, once Bat has full speed up again, the red line on the Boyce Moto-Meter rises to “Danger—Steaming!” and a plume of steam gushes from the radiator.

  “Slow down!” warns Wyatt.

  “When I get home,” bawls an oblivious Bat, “I’m gonna rent Rector’s and put on a feed for Runyon and the gang they’ll never forget!”

  “Let ‘er cool off!”

  “Then I’m gonna put the Ginger Sisters in a suite at the Waldorf and strip ‘em down and cover the bed with silver dollars and lay ‘em both for Lady Liberty!”

  They enter Garden of Eden and slew off the road to reach the rear of the elevator and coast to a stop and cut the engine and sit for a minute, staring, as the steam expires and the whistle dies. Then they get out of the car as though crippled. Then they walk to the tower like men who have been to Hell itself and come back alive though badly burned.

  The dark green getaway Studebaker sits where they left it, one rear tire shredded. But in their absence a boxcar has been shunted along the railroad spur behind the elevator. It stands with doors open while a steady steam of wheat pours into it from the unload spout. By the doors stands L.D. Good and his jawbone and his miller’s cap, one hand on the line which leads up to the cut-off in the spout. He sees them coming and jerks the line, cutting off the flow of grain.

  “Back again, huh, boys?” Cats have their tongues. “You sure must need that nickel.”

  “What,” says Bat, speaking with some difficulty, “what are you doing?”

  “Loadin’ wheat, that’s what.”

  “Why,” asks Wyatt, speaking with some difficulty, “why are you loading wheat?”

  “Got a call for it, that’s why.”

  Bat lays back his head and bays like a hound. “Why in hell’d you have to load it today!”

  “Got the call for it today, that’s why.” L.D. jerks the line and the flow resumes. “Just after you left with them four deadies. Got a call for a carload and called the yard in Dodge and had ‘em send a car and it come so I’m loadin’ it. Two thousand bushels. About cleans us out.”

  “Where’s it going?” asks Bat.

  “Minneapolis,” says the scaleman. “Into flour. Then back East into bread.”

  “Bread,” Wyatt repeats.

  “Best damn bread in the country. Made from the best damn wheat in the hull damn world. Kansas hard winter red.”

  They stand in silence with L.D. Good, transfixed by the fountain of wheat flowing from the spout into the boxcar. Now and then, unmistakably, there are weeds of green in the grain. They take out bandannas and give their noses long, lugubrious blows.

  “Real enriched bread,” proclaims a proud L.D. Good, scratching his jawbone. “Listen, boys, they’ll serve this wheat to the tinhorns in the ritziest eateries in New York City!”

  Later that afternoon, bags beside them, Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson awaited their trains at the Santa Fe station. Upon return to Dodge, they had packed and split up, Bat to return the hired Ford, Wyatt to check them out of the O’Neal House.

  “How much for the car?” Wyatt inquired.

  “Not a cent. The gink said seeing’s we’re heroes, the ride was on him.”

  “Same thing at the hotel. Snotty kid at the desk said what we’ve done for Dodge, money couldn’t buy.”

  They waited. Bat lit a Spud, Wyatt a Mexican Commerce. Bat inhaled. Wyatt drew. Bat leaned against the stone wall of the station for a spell, then moved around in a circle. Wyatt leaned against the station wall for a spell, then moved around. They looked across at the new Front Street. They looked up at the replica of Old Front Street, and beyond that, at Boot Hill.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Bat. “But how in God’s name could I know things’d turn out like this? Besides, you called the play.”

  Wyatt had no comment.

  “Anyway,” Bat philosophized, “half a loaf’s better than none.”

  “Not funny,” said Wyatt, spitting tobacco.

  They leaned for a spell and moved around for a spell on the platform.

  “What’ll you do with your two grand?” asked Bat.

  “Buy a good colt, I expect. Try to train it into a winner. What’ll you do?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Give Grogan a thou right off the bat— maybe that’ll buy me some elbow room with Rothstein. The rest of it, I can probably run into a stake at pasteboards and the ponies.”

  “Sure you can.”

  Bat detected no irony. “Something on my mind, Wyatt. I told you I don’t have any life insurance—never believed in it. The way I live, I could leave Emma poor as a church-mouse. I owe her more than that. Well, this has been some stunt. What I’d like to do, soon as I get home, is sit down and write this whole thing down. How we got together again in New York after all these years and came back to Dodge to rob the bank—the whole ball of wax. Then I’ll stash it away in a strongbox and ask Em not to touch it till both of us are six feet under. Then she can sell it to some paper or library—should fetch her plenty. D’you have any objection?”

  “Nope. Nobody’ll believe it anyway.”

  “Well, they might, if I put it on paper myself—sucker born every minute. Make a hell of a story.”

  “You boys tourists?”

  They swung around to meet the shifty eye of a very old coot who’d wheelchaired up behind them.

  “Say, I recollect you!” said he. “Chinned with you the other day—ain’t you the fellers kilt all them bank robbers?”

  “Guilty,” said Wyatt.

  “My Gawd, that was some shootin’—my frien’s Earp an’ Masterson couldna done better!” enthused Methuselah. His nose was as red as before, his ten-gallon as battered, and from the smell of him he had his snootful.

  “How’re things going, old-timer?” asked Bat.

  “Mighty slow. Not worth a pinch a dried owl dung. Say—you was the ones said when you left town we might do business. You leavin’?”

  “Right quick.”

  “Well now listen.” The gaffer shot a glance east and a glance west and chaired close to them and reached into his shirt front and fumbled out an old Colt. “I still got Masterson’s pistola an’ it’s still for sale. Fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty!” objected Wyatt.

  “Cheap. Dirt. Why, this is the gun Masterson gunned down Walker and Wagner with, after they murdered his brother Ed.”

  “The other day you said you’d take thirty.”

  “I did? I musta been dyin’ a thirst. Well hell, awright. Thirty it is.’

  “What’s your name, partner?” asked Wyatt.

  “Vaughn. Orlie Vaughn.”

  “Tell you what, Orlie. You hang on to the gun. But here.” Wyatt peeled a packet out of an inside pocket and peeled off a ten and a twenty. “Here’s your thirty—and good luck to you.”

  “That’s mighty white a you,” wheezed Orlie Vaughn, stuffing the bills into a shirt pocket. “Guess the country ain’t goin’ t’hell after all
.”

  “And here.” Bat pulled from his armpit another Peacemaker and laid it in the plainsman’s lap. “There’s a real souvenir to sell.”

  “Say, what is this—Chris’mas?” Orlie acknowledged the gift with a toss of his head. “I’m just obliged all t’pieces.”

  “You can cut some notches and tell the tourists that persuader belonged to your friend Bat Masterson himself,” added Bat.

  “Allus do.” The old toper gave them a gap-tooth grin. “I tell ‘em all that. Them dudes don’t know shit from apple butter. Thank you, boys—nice t’meet some Christians for a change.”

  Orlie Vaughn doffed his ten-gallon, wheeled to the station wall, parked his chair, hopped out of it, and money in one hand, new merchandise in the other, overcame his hip handicap sufficiently to spry across Front Street and into the Long Branch Pharmacy to fill a prescription.

  Just as that door closed, the door of the Popular Cafe opened, and across the street to the Santa Fe station tripped two strapping girlies in waitress uniforms with ticking aprons—Miss Birdie and Miss Dyjean Fedder. This shameless sortie across Front Street in broad daylight to consort with two gentlemen from out of town might make them the talk of it, but decorum, their bright eyes declared, and their flushed cheeks, be damned. Each carried something in a paper sack.

  “Hullo, Cupcake,” said Bat to Birdie.

  “Evening, ma’am,” said Wyatt to Dyjean.

  “Oooooh, what you did!” gasped Birdie.

  “We saw the bodies!” gasped Dyjean.

  “A bagatelle,” said Bat, flipping his Spud.

  “Just doing our duty,” said Wyatt, heeling his Mexican Commerce.

  “We heard you claimed you’re Wells-Fargo agents,” said Birdie. “What a laugh!”

  “Had to say something,” said Bat.

  “We’re the only ones in town really know,” said Dyjean.“Think of that!”

  “Don’t,” Wyatt admonished. “Just forget us.”

  “We’ll never!” cried Birdie.

  “Never, ever!” cried Dyjean.

  “D’you really have to leave?” begged Birdie.

  “Can’t you stay over tonight?” begged Dyjean.

  “Gotta give my regards to Broadway,” said Bat.

  “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’” said Wyatt.

  “If you’ll give us your address,” said Birdie, “we’ll write to you.”

  “I move around a lot,” said Bat.

  “Yes I guess not,” said Wyatt.

  “Will you ever come back?” asked Dyjean.

  “We’ve never left,” said Wyatt.

  “There’ll always be a little bit of Masterson and Earp in Dodge,” said Bat brightly.

  “Well listen, then,” said Birdie. She and Dyjean looked north and looked south and came close to the two men and readied paper sacks. “We brought something for you to autograph. Got a pen?”

  “Right here,” said Bat, pulling his Parker.

  “Then will you autograph these for us?” Birdie and Dyjean brought forth from the sacks, as surreptitiously as possible, two massive cotton brassieres.

  “Ahem,” said Bat. “Of course.”

  “Proud to,” said Wyatt.

  Bat signed his name across a capacious cup, then handed pen to Wyatt, who signed Dyjean’s.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said Birdie, thinking fast. “You both better autograph both.”

  “Oh, Birdie!” said Dyjean.

  “You’re right,” said Wyatt, who signed Birdie’s and proffered the Parker to Bat, who signed Dyjean’ s.

  The Fedder cousins stuffed brassieres into the sacks clumsily due to the dew in their eyes.

  “Goodbye, Bat,” sighed Birdie, and kissed him on the cheek, then remembered to kiss Wyatt.

  “Goodbye, Wyatt,” said Dyjean, and kissed him on the cheek, then remembered to kiss Bat.

  “Goodbye, my dears,” said Bat.

  “A pleasure meeting you,” said Wyatt.

  “We won’t tell,” promised Birdie.

  “Not till we’re old ladies,” promised Dyjean.

  “You two’ll never be old,” said the gallant Wyatt.

  “Neither will you!” they cried, and rushed back across the street with sacks clasped to their bountiful bosoms.

  They leaned against the station wall a spell and moved around a spell. Bat’s train east was supposed to show in five minutes.

  “Amoor, amoor,” reflected Mr. Masterson.

  “They can talk about a bird in the hand till they’re blue in the face,” reflected Mr. Earp. “I’ll take two in the bush anytime.”

  Around the corner of the station hustled a husky young gent wearing a polka-dot necktie and a smile of relief and offering a glad hand.

  “Mr. Earp? Mr. Masterson? Sure glad I caught up with you in time.”

  “Oh?” said Mr. Earp.

  “Oh?” said Mr. Masterson.

  “I’m Larry Deger, Mayor of Dodge, and I’ve got a job to do before you get away.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh?”

  “Yessiree. The Town Council just had a meeting over at the Long Branch Pharmacy.”

  “Blue or orange?” Mr. Masterson inquired.

  Mr. Deger colored. “We passed a resolution—don’t know who you are, but after what you did for Dodge today—putting us on the map again—it don’t matter. We want you to have these.”

  He held up two shiny, six-pointed badges with the inscription “Marshal Dodge City.” “As mayor,” said His Honor, “I now declare you Honorary Marshals of Dodge City, with all rights and privileges thereto pertaining.”

  “Why, thank you!” said Mr. Masterson.

  “Much obliged,” said Mr. Earp.

  Mayor Deger pinned badges on lapels and once again offered his hand, which was accepted this time with smiles of civic virtue.

  “Thank you, gents. I’ve got to get along now, but you ever come back to Dodge, we’ll sure roll out the red carpet. Oh, say—we found the crooks’ guns in the back of your car. Three automatics and what they call—I think they call it a submachine gun. Oh, and an old buffalo gun—how they got that I’ll never know. Anyway, Sheriff’s got ‘em all now, but they’re rightfully yours. He’s still out looking for the loot. I can bring ‘em if you want ‘em.”

  “Do we!” said Mr. Masterson.

  “No,” said Mr. Earp.

  “No?” blurted Mr. Masterson.

  “No,” said Mr. Earp. “Dodge has treated us first class, and we’d like to repay the favor. Artillery like that’ll boost the tourist trade. Why don’t you put ‘em under glass in the Beeson Museum?”

  “What in hell did you say no for?” demanded Bat as soon as Larry Deger had decamped around the corner. “You know what that tommygun’s worth in my neck of the woods? That piece might’ve got me off the hook with Rothstein!”

  Wyatt would have responded, but just then they heard it—Bat’s choo-choo, the Santa Fe “Pioneer,” clanging into Dodge eastbound for Chicago. They looked at each other. The time had come.

  “Well,” said Bat.

  “Well,” said Wyatt.

  The train hissed in, brakes squealing, couplings clunking. This was one Harvey Wadsworth wouldn’t meet. Bat picked up his bag.

  “Take care of yourself,” said Bat. “A man your age—”

  “My age?”

  “Okeh, our age.”

  “My best to Emma.”

  “My best to Josie.”

  “You write, I will.”

  “I will.”

  They walked together down the train.

  “Listen,” said Bat. “Anytime you get a craving for the big city again, the bright lights and all, you let me know.”

  “Not likely.”

  They stopped at the car steps and shook hands.

  “So long, Wyatt.”

  “Take care of yourself, Bat.”

  “Just one thing I wanna know, pal,” said Bat. “Did you have a good time?”

  “I did,” said sobersid
es Wyatt. “Maybe the best damn time I ever had in my life.”

  Then, suddenly, they grinned at each other like kids and shook hands again, hard, and William Barclay Masterson tipped his derby to the town and the past and went up the steps fast because they didn’t trust their tear ducts because, the truth was, neither of them expected to see the other again in Dodge or New York City or, for that matter, this world.

  He has ten minutes more to wait. He leans against the station wall and moves around and then sits down in Orlie Vaughn’s wheelchair. His gimp knee aches and the crick in his shoulder and he is dead tired and a hundred years old and lonesome as hell and Los Angeles is a million miles away and sometimes, like now, there have been too many times on a trigger and too many wets of the whistle and too many pulchritudinous tits and too many good men gone including brothers—even for him. He tries to see Front Street clearly and can’t, so takes out a bandanna and wipes his eyes. Then he can, and who should cross the street, coming at him on ladder legs, but the snotnose star reporter for the Dodge City Daily Globe. Wyatt stands up, annoyed at himself for being caught in a wheelchair, and pretends to be shining his honorary Marshal’s badge with a coatsleeve. He is glad, actually, to see the stringbean again. He told Bat he’s had a damn good time, and meant it, and now the fun isn’t over. He’s about to have some more.

  “There you are!” says Dudley Robison, balancing his straw boater.

  “Mr. Robison.”

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “Just pulled out, eastbound.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that—I had a bone to pick with him. And I wanted to question you both.”

  “Half a loaf’s better than none.”

  “I guess so.” Dudley is obviously bitter. “But he told me tomorrow morning at six o’clock.”

  “Company keeps us hopping,” says Wyatt.

  “Unh-huh.” The newshawk whips out pad and pencil and puts on a reportorial face. “That’s the first thing. For your information, sir, I took the trouble to wire Wells-Fargo in San Francisco. I asked them if they have two agents working here in Dodge and I just got the answer. No, they don’t. They do not.”

  “Confidential,” smiles Wyatt.