This Old Bill

by Loren D. Estleman

  "The circus man?"

  "That's him. I'm thinking of taking him in as a third partner."

  Will glared. "What for? We're doing all right."

  "We'll never do better. The trick is to stay where we are, and that won't be easy with competition like Pawnee Bill and Adam Forepaugh and half a hundred others planning their own European tours. It'll take fresh ideas, new blood. Bailey's got both. I'm running low."

  "You're just tired. You said so yourself."

  "I lied. I've a dozen things wrong with me, any one of which I'm assured will kill me if I don't draw rein. The short of it is this tour has knocked a number of years off my life I can scarcely spare."

  "You don't drink enough," joshed Will.

  "I've dealt with Bailey before. He has some ideas I think you'll like."

  "No sideshows or freaks, Nate. That's one of the things Arizona John and I agreed on before you came in."

  "Just meet Bailey, that's all I ask. If you don't like him, he stays out. That's fair." He slid back into his former slouch and resettled his hat over his eyes.

  The scout frowned. "Every time I hear the word 'fair' I feel around to make sure I still have my wallet."

  Salsbury's only response was a mild snore. The train chugged on in counterpoint.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The study was a museum.

  The walls bristled with mounted buffalo heads and bows and lances and Melton Prior's framed sketches of Queen Victoria greeting the Wild West. Yellow Hand's war-bonnet and cured scalp flanked an enormous stone fireplace over which hung Rosa Bonheur' s impressive painting of Buffalo Bill astride Billy, while Lucretia Borgia, her original bluing worn down to bare steel, leaned in the corner. The rest of the decor had a crowded, haphazard look, items dumped in corners and larger souvenirs propped like disused storm doors against the walls. A photograph of William Tecumseh Sherman, signed in the general's crooked hand, stood incongruously in a jungle of family portraits on a roll top desk mounded over with papers. For all that, the place had a warm untidiness about it, the tobacco-reeking carelessness of a room in which work was done, an occasional drink spilled, and a life lived. An old shoe of a room in which the visitor felt oddly at home. It was part of a suite that included a bedroom and a bath, and every room stamped with the seal of its inhabitant.

  The door opened, admitting more warmth and a burst of sunlight in the person of a big man in worn riding clothes topped off with a big hat set at a jaunty angle, a huge stab of raw youth with rusty iron in its long hair and beard and wrinkles around the eyes, emitting an outdoor aroma of leather and horse. The visitor's hand was seized in a surprisingly small paw with piano-wire tendons and wrung until the blood retreated protestingly up his wrist. The iron smile parted and a voice like a sustained blast on a steam whistle said: "Welcome to Scout's Rest, hoss. Didn't my sister Julia have a glass filled for you? No one leaves this place empty-bellied or sober."

  "She made the offer, Colonel," replied the other, drawing back slightly, as anyone does when the door of a furnace is suddenly flung open in his face. "It's a tad early for me, I'm afraid."

  Will laughed, the famous baritone fairly rattling the windows. "We'd've cured you of that quick enough on the hunt. I taught the Grand Duke to open his eyes with rye every morning and I hear tell he's still doing it with vodka."

  "That was the Russian Grand Duke Alexis? Or Michael? You've met them both, I believe." The guest produced his pad and hunted for a pencil.

  Will pulled at an ornate bell rope. "Alexis. You said in your wire you were with the Omaha Herald?"

  "Yes, sir. My editor is anxious to publish the first in-depth interview with Buffalo Bill since the Wild West's return from Europe."

  The maid came to the open study door. Determining that the journalist craved nothing, Will asked for rye and branch. "Just a twig," he added, winking broadly. When the servant withdrew, he transferred a stack of thick scrapbooks from one of a pair of stuffed leather armchairs to the floor, apologizing for the room's cluttered condition. "My house in town, Welcome Wigwam, burned to the ground while I was in South Dakota. Thank Christ no one was hurt. When I heard about it I wired orders to save Rosa Bonheur's picture and the rest could go to blazes. But our brave little party of brigadiers got out almost everything of value, and it looks as if I'll have to rebuild just to make room for it." He removed his hat with a graceful flourish and sailed it at a peg next to the door. It caught and hung there.

  Sitting, his guest explained that he'd heard of the family's misfortune. "It must be crowded here with all of you and your sister's family living under one roof."

  "Well, Scout's Rest isn't your typical sod hut with a little building out back, and with Julia and Bill's boy still in Europe and my Arta making her home with her new husband, we don't all rub up against each other too much." He grinned down any potential argument. Actually, Julia and Louisa barely tolerated each other at the best of times and living together got along like bitch badgers in season. Whether he sensed the lie or not, the journalist changed the subject.

  "How did you find Europe?"

  "Easy. I just got off the boat and there she was. Much obliged, missy." He accepted a huge tumbler full of clear liquid from the maid, who curtsied and swept out, drawing the door shut behind her. "But I got to clear up something you said before. The Wild West didn't come back with me. It's waiting for me back in Alsace-Lorraine, where I left it along with some Sioux and Cheyenne to settle all this buffalo shit about me mistreating the Indians in my charge. Pardon ma français, hoss." His eyes crinkled over the glass.

  "That seems as good a place to start as any. How do you suppose that rumor got started?"

  "The herd's full of young studs fixing to pull down the old bull. I reckon they saw their chance when that bunch got homesick in Italy and started making noises about leaving the show. But they were the same bucks I brought back with me and they put a stop to that kind of talk in a blue-tick hurry."

  "Some thought they were coached to say good things about their treatment."

  For an instant Will's benign features hardened. Then he smiled and leaned forward and patted his guest's knee. "You ever try to get an Indian to do or say a thing he didn't want to?"

  The journalist admitted that he was not long from Philadelphia and that he had not yet met an Indian in the flesh. His host chuckled. "Let 's just say it requires a brand of patience and perseverance I never could afford."

  "But surely that press conference back East was just a side trip. You were recalled by President Harrison to deal with the Ghost Dance crisis."

  "No, that come up after I got back." He was serious now. "I offered my services to General Miles and he accepted them with gratitude. The plan was for me to talk my old friend Sitting Bull into federal custody and let this Indian Messiah thing that's got the Army jumping like scorpions in hot sand peter out on its own."

  "What stopped you?"

  "Cheap politics, hoss. I was on the very threshold of Sitting Bull's camp at Grand River with a wagonload of his favorite hard candy and a band of armed men to handle the hostile braves around him when a wire came from Washington City countermanding Miles's orders. If not for that, the Hunkpapa would be safe under house arrest right now and the biggest worry at the agency would be whether the drought will kill the corn."

  "But instead the Army is preparing for another Indian war."

  "War, hell!" This time the windows really did rattle. "It will be the 7th Cavalry all over again, only in reverse. The Indians are counting on their painted shirts to turn away bullets. They'd better, because all they got to fight back with are a few Winchesters and those rusty old single-shot Springfields they took from Custer. Sweet Jesus, there ain't even buffaloes enough to make sinew for them to string their bows!"

  The tirade had startled the journalist. When at length he resumed writing in his pad, his host sat back and sipped his drink. Quietly: "You're wasting your time here, son. You ought to be out in the Badlands, watching a proud race dangle
to death on the end of a memory and an old man's wild dream."

  For a space the young man's scratching pencil crowded out all other sounds. Then he brought up the scout's youth on the frontier. Will brightened somewhat and retold the whole thing, borrowing heavily from Ned Buntline and the play Buffalo Bill, forgotten after nearly twenty years. "When I was eight years old my father was stabbed in Salt Creek, Kansas, by a man named Dunne for speaking out against slavery. The mob would of cut him to pieces then and there except I fought them back until a neighbor came forward to help me get him to a wagon."

  The reporter, a slim youth with innocent eyes and a hopeful moustache, took it all down with a child's faith. It helped that when Will thought back to that long-gone trading post, what he remembered was the way the incident had been portrayed on the stage. He spun a few lies about his Civil War experiences, then invited his guest to tour the ranch. He selected a roan gelding for himself from the stables and saddled up a sorrel mare for the journalist. "We always rode geldings on the scout," he explained, mounting. "Stallions got your hair lifted whistling at the Indians' fillies when you were trying to keep cover."

  He pointed out the twin lakes he had named Arta and Irma for his daughters, and cattle grazing in the largest existing stand of buffalo grass, stretching tall and green to the horizon. Pointing southward: "Not three days' ride that way I had an altercation with Major William B. Royall, who was in temporary command of the 5th in '68. He sent me out for buffaloes to feed the regiment, but when I asked for wagons to bring back the meat he said, 'I am not in the habit of sending out my wagons until I know there is something to be hauled in.' " He mimicked a West Point tone of voice. "Next day I cut seven healthy cows out of a small herd and shagged 'em right into camp before I cut them down. Pony soldiers diving every which way. Royall was standing there with a big curly at his feet wanting to know what the hell I thought I was doing. I said I thought I'd make the buffaloes furnish their own transportation."

  "Colonel, you're arguably the most famous man of the century," said the other, trying to write and ride at the same time. "Any thoughts on that?"

  "Get in line at the theater."

  They rode to a rise from which they could observe the broad irrigation canals that linked the twisting braided Platte in the north to a swift creek dividing the ranch from east to west. Along the eastern boundary the buildings of North Platte stood like chess pieces on a board. The surrounding countryside was as flat as a wagon bed.

  "You don't see anything like this in Europe," said Will. "There you can't turn around without sticking your elbow in someone's eye. I think that's one reason they're always fighting; someone's always sticking his elbow in someone else's eye."

  "Do you think there will be war between France and Germany?"

  "Son, I'd rather fight an Indian naked than answer a question like that."

  They made their leisurely way back to the house while the sky to the west went from blue to bronze. Several times they crossed paths with lean-jawed cowhands heading out toward the big pasture. Invariably, they flipped him the casual two-fingered scouts' salute and said, "Afternoon, Colonel." He called them all "hoss." Asked why, he admitted with a shamefaced grin that while he could remember the troop strength of any of the outfits he had scouted for at any given time, he couldn't hold a name. Before they parted company at the stables, Will clamped a punishing hand on the journalist's shoulder.

  "Remember what I said about going to the Badlands, hoss. When that's done you'll not see another Indian making a stand anywhere but on the grounds of an exhibition."

  The young man shrank under his grip and assured him he'd think about the advice. Will looked at him closely, then sighed and released him and shook his hand again and watched him climb into his buggy.

  "Philadelphia." He shook his head and went inside for a drink.

  Coming up dawn at Standing Rock, red fire painting the low tops of the butte-like hills to the east. Will's breath and white-haired James McLaughlin' s curled and mingled in the silver-thin air. The Indian agent and Yellow Hand's slayer had little to say to each other.

  Presently a trooper wearing the absurd Prussian-inspired spiked helmet and flared tunic of the new cavalry appeared around the corner of the commanding officer's headquarters leading an old stallion whose fresh iron shoes rang on the frozen earth. Although it had grown gaunt and slat-sided from years of grass feeding, the beast had firm muscles on a frame larger than any Indian pony's. Will stroked its dished white face. "Easy, big fellow. You remember me, don't you?"

  "Sitting Bull's family asked that the horse be returned to the Wild West," McLaughlin explained. "He never forgot your generosity and spoke of you often."

  Will scratched the hollows behind the flicking ears and said nothing.

  Suddenly the agent cursed. The horse shied at the abrupt exclamation. "It was a stupid misunderstanding. The Indian police thought Sitting Bull's Sioux warriors were going to shoot and Sitting Bull's Sioux warriors thought the Indian police were going to shoot. So someone shot. We're still sorting out just who."

  "Why trouble with it? He'll still be dead when you've finished."

  "Your way was no good either. Maybe you'd be dead too, and then we'd have a full-scale war on our hands. The War Department is burning to test its new Hotchkiss guns under actual battlefield conditions."

  "I think that's what you were scared of from the start. That's why you tried to get me drunk that night here on the post, figuring I'd be too sick to go out in the morning. When that didn't work you sent a telegram to Harrison to get him to rescind the arrest order."

  McLaughlin smiled grimly. "You outdrank some cast iron constitutions that night. Some of those whiskey-tough veterans are still wobbling."

  Will tethered the horse behind his buckboard. "For what it's worth, I think you're a good man with Indians. Seems like no matter what stand we take with them it's over their cold carcasses." He offered his hand.

  The agent hesitated, then took it.

  "Strange thing," he said as the scout mounted the driver's seat and untied the reins. "When the shooting was still going on and Sitting Bull was dead, the horse reared and started dancing on its hind legs. The Indians who saw it swore the old man's soul had entered its body."

  "He's trained to dance when he hears gunfire. I reckon he thought he was back in the arena."

  "Maybe."

  Will returned to Europe with the horse and replacements for the Indians who had gone back to their reservations. Black Heart, Short Bull, Kicking Bear, Long Wolf, Yankton Charlie, Scatter, and Revenge wandered seasick among the gingerbread villages and ice-cream peaks of Alsace-Lorraine and posed for Arizona John's inescapable camera with the Tower of London at their backs. Victoria entertained the company at Windsor Castle, confiding to her journal that Colonel Cody's beard had gone gray. "Sitting Bull's Last Mount" outdrew every other act in the show except Annie Oakley's and the star's own. Subsequently he rode it in place of old Billy, who like old Charlie before him died on board the Persian Monarch on the way home. Indians who had made the previous trip identified the sea burial to curious tribesmen as a tribute to the Death Spirit to insure a safe voyage.

  "Good-bye, William. Write the girls."

  At the door Louisa presented a powdered cheek, which he brushed lightly with his lips. Her skin was coarse, her figure growing matronly, and there were leaden threads in her hair. She had stopped accusing him of deserting her when he left on his frequent excursions. Moreover, she no longer accompanied him to the railroad station.

  Bill Goodman helped load his bags into the carriage. "Are you going too, Irma?" he asked.

  "Just to the station." Will laid a gentle hand on his daughter's shoulder. Caped and bonneted against cinders, she was a bright, pretty child who took after her father in looks and energy, as lively and mischievous at thirteen as Arta had been quiet and withdrawn. Goodman helped her into the rear seat and turned to face his brother-in-law. A man measures his age by the people around him, and the
scout wondered when Goodman's hair had finished turning white.

  "Will, this is a hell of a time to bring it up, but you're a hard man to tie down lately. The ranch accounts are scraping bottom. I'm going to have to squeeze to make this month's payroll."

  "What happened to that ten thousand I deposited last summer?"

  "You used most of it to finish rebuilding Welcome Wigwam. I didn't want to say anything—"

  "I haven't time to see to it just now. When I get to Chicago I'll wire the bank to transfer over another ten from my personal account."

  Goodman looked embarrassed. "I was thinking you might give me permission to sell off that southwest five hundred. That way we could make expenses and still show a profit this year."

  "No. Matter of fact, I'm considering taking on another thousand up north. It's for sale at a good price."

  "This is getting to be a costly pastime."

  Will patted his broad back. "Just keep on running her the way you been, Bill. I hear they're talking about Scout's Rest clear down in Mexico."

  "I shouldn't wonder." Goodman climbed into the driver's seat.

  At the station Will left the baggage to Goodman and a colored porter and lifted Irma down. He grunted. A bullet of pain sniped at his lower back.

  "Your old father shook hands with Alexis on this very spot. He was as tall as a telegraph pole, but he could stick a rifle in the air and miss the sky. His brother Alexander is Czar now. Phil Sheridan was there. And Custer. His hair wasn't really yellow, but red like a prairie fire."

  "I know, Papa. You told me."

  He bent to kiss her, feeling again the sharp tug in his back. At the conductor's warning bawl he shook Goodman's hand, mounted the step, waved, and went inside to wave again from his seat in the coach. The hoarse whistle made the floor buzz under his feet. As the train reeked back and then relied forward, he reflected that his daughter was almost as tall as his brother-in-law. Time slid like a shadow over his thoughts.

  He spent much of the journey to Chicago in the club car with James A. Bailey, a small, wiry, jerky man his own age who wore rimless spectacles and a goatee and affected a pedantic superiority that irritated the scout. Some of the alcoholic conferences began with Nate Salsbury present, but after a few minutes the graying manager would invariably excuse himself to go lie down in his compartment and rest an aching head or settle a sour stomach. Bailey would then produce his own sketches and diagrams for reconstructing the show, chattering away to Will about lights and equipment and order of entry like some mad cross between an excited professor and a sideshow barker. Will looked at the circles and squares and nodded as if he understood everything, thinking that if all this was good enough for Nate he was no one to stand in front of it. But he backed up when his new partner mentioned one-night stands.