by Judd Cole
Bill stuck a cheroot in his teeth, fired a match to life with his thumbnail, and leaned into the flame. Shading his eyes from the sun, Bill studied the street.
“Looks calm,” he remarked. “But then, so does a graveyard.”
Josh felt sweat oozing out from under his hatband. He was still bone tired, and his mouth felt as dry and stale as the last cracker in the barrel. Nervously, he watched two cowboys pull in at the Alamo. They lit down and wrapped their reins around the tie rail. Otherwise, Texas Street looked calm and empty.
“Shouldn’t we at least head for the shadows?” he suggested.
Bill grinned at him. “S’matter, kid? ’Fraid the bullet might drift? Let’s head over to the Western Union. It’s just about to close.”
Another express courier had arrived from Pinkerton. Bill’s suggestion had paid off. Pinkerton monitored telegraphic messages stored on the trunk line drum, or perforation-storage unit, that originated in Abilene. Although they were written in some kind of keyword code Pinkerton couldn’t decipher, it was clear that regular reports were being sent to important officials of the Santa Fe Railroad.
“All that is good to know,” Bill had commented. “It confirms who’s bankrolling the killing around here. And now we know some of the telegraphers are on the payroll. But it doesn’t eliminate the real problem of ’Bama Jones, or tell us who his trick-shooting companion is.”
Josh tried to quell his nervous stomach as the two men strolled across the street. Boot heels thudding on the boardwalk, they aimed for the telegraph office.
“Hang around out here, Longfellow,” Bill said. “Keep a weather eye out.”
A bell tinkled as Bill entered the little cubbyhole office. The bald-headed clerk in sleeve garters and green eyeshades glanced up as Bill entered.
“You just made it, mister,” he said. “I’m about to close up shop.”
Bill wore both ivory-grip Colts hidden under a cloth work coat. In a heartbeat, each fist was filled with iron. The clerk’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
“No,” Bill corrected him. “I’m about to close up shop. Permanently. Unless you tell me who’s paying you to send secret reports to the Santa Fe Railroad.”
“Muh-muh-mister, I don’t know what in Suh-Suh-Sam Hill you’re talking about! Honest to Christ I don’t! I—”
Bill thumbed back both hammers. The sound was ominously loud in that small office.
“Usually,” Bill explained, “I shoot first and ask questions later. In your case I’ve made an exception. But not for long. Now try again.”
The telegrapher had to grab the counter when his knees gave out. But he knew who was talking and precisely what he meant.
“The guh-guh-gentleman’s name is Ansel Luh-Luh-Logan,” he replied as promptly as he could.
The sound of the name struck Bill almost like a slap to the face. Yet he wondered why he didn’t think of Logan sooner. Bill, who had toured briefly with Colonel Cody’s Wild West Show, knew Ansel Logan well enough to respect—and fear—the man’s superb marksmanship.
“Where’s he staying?” Bill pressed.
“Muh-muh-mister, my hand to God! I couldn’t tell you that.”
Bill believed him. The man was too timid to hold back any information. Hickok returned to the boardwalk and reported this new fact to Josh.
“So who or what is Ansel Logan?” the young reporter demanded.
“He can sight into a mirror,” Bill replied, “and aiming over his shoulder, shoot a shot glass off a bulldog’s head at forty paces. I’ve seen him do it. If he hadn’t tried to rape every girl in Bill Cody’s troupe, he’d still be Buffalo Bill’s star shooter. But Cody’s a gentleman, and he won’t stand for that rough tomcatting.”
Even as he spoke, Hickok’s fathomless eyes scoured Abilene.
“Well, day’s closing in,” he told Josh. “Let’s eat. My backbone’s rubbing against my ribs.”
From necessity, it was Hickok’s habit to study every possible clue before he stepped into a street. Especially now, with his face plastered all over town. Even as he took his first step off the boardwalk, Bill caught a shadow in the corner of his vision: a shadow that didn’t belong where it was.
Josh had not yet stepped into the street.
“Freeze right there,” Bill told the kid quietly.
The westering sun threw the slanted shadow of a man into the middle of Texas Street—a man crouching up on top of the building beside the Western Union office.
Wild Bill calculated his chances quickly. He could easily hop back up onto the boardwalk, out of the line of fire. But maybe the best play now, with those handbills all over town, was to send out a strong warning to all would-be assassins.
The trick part, Hickok realized, was to move far enough into the street to give himself a line of fire. But that also meant the risk of giving the gunman first shot.
Bill took one step, then another. Just as he finished the third step he drew steel, whirled, fell to one side, and fired exactly when the gunman did.
The mystery shooter had a dead aim. But Bill saved his own life by falling at a slant. The slug whizzed past his head with the sound of an angry hornet, so close Bill felt heat lick his ear.
The gunman above wasn’t so lucky. Bill’s slug caught him high in the chest. He threw both arms out to the heavens like a priest in the pulpit. Then he crashed into the low, flimsy false front and took a piece of it with him when he crashed down onto the boardwalk, barely missing Josh.
“Jumping Jehoshaphat!” the scribe exclaimed.
The shots started to draw a crowd. Keeping a wary eye on them, Bill said, “Check him, kid. Its Hobert, I see.”
Josh knew that Bill was worried, as usual, about possum players. Once, a “dead man” had almost planted a slug in his back while Bill crossed the battlefield at Second Bull Run.
Josh knelt and felt Hobert’s neck for a pulse.
“Dead,” he pronounced. “If the bullet didn’t kill him, the broken neck did.”
Bill nodded, still watching the crowd. Neither ’Bama Jones nor Ansel Logan were among them.
“Anybody else wants to air out Wild Bill Hickok,” he said in his mild way, “is welcome to try. Anybody can get lucky, and hell, I have to die once, now don’t I?”
Everyone stared at Hobert’s wide-open, death-surprised eyes. But no one answered Bill’s question. And as Josh wrote later in his next dispatch for the New York Herald: “What, really, could anyone say?”
Chapter Twelve
Everywhere she went now, Kristen McCoy was armed for trouble.
She had located, and thoroughly cleaned, her pa’s trusty old Winchester “Yellow Boy” rifle, so called for its bright brass barrel. Now it lay on the board seat beside her with a round under the hammer.
“Hee-yahh!” she called to her team of bays, stepping up the pace as she returned to her new homestead a few miles north of Abilene.
Kristen had just finished selling a dozen fruit-tree seedlings to a local farmer. She had explained to him how easy it was to spread manure evenly through the new orchards. Soon enough, plums, peaches, and apples would flourish among the wheat and corn fields of Kansas.
Lord, but her pa would be so proud of her for carrying on his work. Kristen recalled how lovingly her father had taken his seedlings to bed with him in winter to keep them warm. The newspapers these days were full of sensational stories about men like Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and John Wesley Hardin. But it was quiet, visionary men like her pa whose hard work was turning this barren New World into a Garden of Eden.
Kristen, lost deep in her thoughts, suddenly realized that a lone rider was approaching her from behind.
Immediately her temples began to pulse with nervous blood. Kristen recalled that pale stranger with those dead, glass-button eyes.
This man could be him, returning to rape her! And he was approaching at a fast canter.
“Git!” she shouted to her bays, flicking the sisal whip across their rumps. “Git! Git up there,
damnit!”
But the moment she began moving faster, the rider pushed his mount to a full gallop.
By the time Kristen thought to study the horse’s markings, too much dust obscured it. Kristen fought down her fear and took up the Winchester, cocking it. Her pa had given her lessons and turned her into a fair-to-middling marksman.
She slewed around in the high seat and settled the butt plate into her shoulder socket. The recoil kicked into her shoulder and almost made her tumble off the seat.
But it was a good shot. The man’s black, broad-brimmed hat sailed off. With an amazingly deft reaction, he reached out and caught it.
Now Kristen realized: This man wasn’t the same one who’d tried to molest her. His hair was shorter, lighter, and less coarse. And he had a handsome, vaguely familiar face.
“Whoa!” she called out to her team, pulling back on the reins. But Kristen took no chances—she jacked another round into the chamber and kept the Yellow Boy aimed at the man as he rode up.
“Jesus, dumpling,” the handsome stranger greeted her. “Why’n’t you lower that fire stick a mite? You already let daylight into my favorite hat.”
“It’s you!” Kristen finally recognized Hickok without his curls and facial hair. She lowered the rifle and added, “You look better without all that foppish hair. But at first I mistook you for the two-legged weasel who tried to . . . attack me a few days back.”
“Black hair and a lopsided mouth?” Bill asked her. “Snake-eyed, likes to chew on twigs?”
Kristen nodded. “You know him?”
“I know him, and I mean to kill him. So far, though, I’ve got nothing but his dust. You just keep on giving him the slip, hear? That one’s wearing the no-good label.”
“He comes pesticatin’ around me again,” Kristen vowed, “he’ll be wearing lead in his belly.”
“Don’t bury him too quick,” Bill warned. “He’s the same hombre you watched kill those six soldiers.”
Kristen paled at this intelligence, momentarily speechless. Bill took a long, appreciative look at the striking blonde. Young, but a full-grown woman with a woman’s knowledge in her eyes. She wore a simple white shirtwaist tucked into frayed and faded blue jeans. Her hair hung in two long braids tied with white ribbons in front of each shoulder.
Sure as hell, she’s pretty and shapely, Bill thought. But it wasn’t just the color and lines that gave value to the best horses or women. It was a mysterious quality the Spanish called brio escondido, “the hidden vigor.” And Kristen McCoy was brimming over with it.
“Like what you’re staring at?” she demanded.
“No misdoubting that. Just wish I could see more than I do.”
Instead of taking offense, Kristen surprised him with a smile.
“I like the way you’re honest without insulting me. You’re different that way. My pa used to say there’s some men who bees won’t sting. You ever been stung, Mr. Hickok?”
Bill grinned, liking the turn this trail was taking. “Never by bee, wasp, or hornet,” he admitted.
He held up his injured hand. “But rattlesnakes like to chew on me.”
“Aww,” she cooed. “Shall Krissy kiss it and make it all better?” she teased him.
Bill grinned and nudged Fire-away in even closer.
“Actually,” he told her, “you know what? That damn snake bit me right on the mouth, too. Hurts like hell.”
“Poor baby!” Kristen was losing no time making up for her earlier coldness toward him. “Let’s see if I can ease your pain.”
Her full, heart-shaped lips parted slightly as Bill leaned forward to kiss them. But at the first pleasurable contact, a pistol barked nearby.
Bill flinched, and Kristen cried out in fright.
“Christ on a crutch!” Bill exclaimed as the precisely aimed bullet blew the high heel off his left boot.
“Bill Hickok, damn your handsome bones to hell! I don’t care how many fillies you keep in your stable. But don’t by God be swappin’ spit with ’em in front of me!”
“Well, damnit, Jane! In front of you? You dog me like my shadow. Always hemming me.”
“You don’t bawl about it when I save your bacon! I got to trail you, Bill, on account we got us a destiny, you randy-pantsed Lothario! A shared destiny, only you ain’t man enough to accept your half of it yet. I’m just keepin’ you alive until you see the light.”
“Jane,” Bill pleaded, knowing it was useless. “I ain’t in danger now! That old Mexer gal down in El Paso that told you all that ‘destiny’ hogwash don’t know her ass from her elbow.”
“Don’t matter. She knows my palm.”
By now Kristen had recovered from her fright. She stared—gaping in pure astonishment—at this stout, homely young woman dressed in man’s clothing. Only Jane’s immaculate gray Stetson passed muster.
“Who or what is that?” she demanded, but low so Jane couldn’t hear.
“That,” Bill replied grimly, “is my cross to bear through this life.”
“You’re full of it, Bill,” Calamity Jane roared back. “That old gal in El Paso previsions the future! She’s a witch, got the Third Eye.”
Bill shook his head in disgusted frustration. Once Jane grabbed hold of a notion, there was no shaking her loose from it.
“You take care, Miss McCoy,” Bill said with exaggerated formality, lifting his hat. He wheeled his mount around and rode back toward Abilene.
“You know where I live,” she called behind him. “Don’t let Cameron scare you off; he likes you now.”
“That bruja,” Jane roared at Bill as he retreated, “also said to tell you, beware the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood! And she said, beware the dead man’s hand! Aces and eights will get you kilt, Bill!”
But Hickok just waved her off in disgust and kept riding.
“Good news, bo,” ’Bama Jones told Ansel Logan in his slow southern drawl. “Word in town has it that the Kansas-Pacific will make only one more try at building that spur line. We plant another surveyor; we win the battle.”
“Harken and heed, porky,” Logan replied. “Don’t be listening to Dame Rumor. You heard what Perry told us. Hickok and Pinkerton have traced the telegrams back to big nabobs with the Santa Fe line. That ain’t all. Jay Hobert is dead, and our wagon and team are mint. You call that ‘winning’ you ignorant cracker? Hickok is still plenty dangersome. And he’s hot on our trail.”
While he spoke, Logan thumbed rounds into his big, steel-framed Smith & Wesson. The two men shared the big backyard of a local boarding-house for drifters called Ma Ketchum’s Bunkhouse. A big, sagging barn and a row of rickety outhouses surrounded the yard on two sides. Along the third side of the yard, several horses drank from a water trough made by sawing a barrel into halves.
“What’s got your teeth on edge?” ’Bama demanded, speaking around a mouthful of Ma Ketchum’s cornbread. “Get over your peeve. Hickok ain’t slowed us yet.”
Logan was indeed feeling cross today. Earlier, he had ridden out to Kristen McCoy’s place, but she was gone. So was that damned brat brother of hers, or Ansel would have hung the little hellhound up by his thumbs.
“All the matter with me,” he replied, “is I need me a quick poke. But not on no damned whore.”
’Bama shook his head in disgust. “Ain’t you particular?” he said scornfully. “Hickok will send us up Salt River if you don’t get that little blonde outta your head, bo.”
Logan chewed on a twig and said nothing. He picked up a scrag end of broken board and handed it to ’Bama.
“Here, quit banging your gums,” he told ’Bama, “and toss that up into the air high as you can.”
’Bama shrugged out of his tight-fitting Rebel tunic. He grunted hard as he flung the scrap of wood overhead.
Ansel drew his gun so fast that ’Bama didn’t even see it happen. Six times his muzzle spat fire, the board dancing and jerking across the sky as slugs riddled it.
’Bama walked over and picked it up off the ground, counting
the holes.
“Jesus! Five out of six! That’s holding and squeezing, all right.”
Logan laughed. “Five my sweet aunt! Count ’em again, porky.”
’Bama did. This time his big moon face went wide-eyed. One of the holes was slightly bigger than the others.
“God dawg! Two slugs went through the same bitty little hole!”
Logan reloaded, then holstered his gun.
“Nerve up, ’Bama. When it comes to bustin’ caps, we ain’t no clabber-lipped greenhorns. You’re the rifle master, and I’m the king of the short irons. Hickok? He made his reputation from bedding actresses and bouncing drunk cowboys around. Won’t be long now, we’ll shoot that dandy to dog meat!”
Logan had just fallen silent and turned toward the house. Abruptly, a young boy in a straw hat tore around the front corner of the big boarding-house. Logan and ’Bama paid the kid four bits a day, when they were in town, to keep watch on Texas Street.
“Hey, misters!” the kid shouted. “That man on the pretty roan is headed this way! He’s hitching his horse out front now!”
Chapter Thirteen
Joshua emerged from the cafe on Texas Street just in time to spot Wild Bill.
The frontiersman had ridden out alone earlier to search for ’Bama Jones and Ansel Logan. Bill told Josh he suspected the two killers were probably holed up somewhere in town. But Bill didn’t want to thoroughly search dangerous Abilene until under the cover of nightfall.
But like Josh, Bill had obviously heard the rapid shots behind Ma Ketchum’s place. That must be why, Josh told himself, Wild Bill was taking a dangerous chance now as he hitched Fire-away in front of the boardinghouse.
Josh was taking a sack of sandwiches and pie to the hotel. He waved the bag now to get Bill’s attention. Bill glanced rapidly around the near-empty street, then waved Josh over.
“I heard ’em, too,” Josh said. “Six shots, real close together.”
Bill nodded. “Gunshots in this town don’t usually mean much. But that rapid, six-shot string used to be Ansel Logan’s signature with Cody’s show.”
