A River of Horns

by Peter Grant

  After visiting a barber for a first-class shave, and an early supper in the hotel dining room, Walt and Dan decided to walk around town in the evening light, to get a feel for the place. As they stepped out of the hotel onto Front Street, Walt saw Bat Masterson approaching. He raised his hat to him, and introduced Dan as his future branch manager in the city. “We’re just walkin’ around, tryin’ to get a feel for the place,” he added as the two shook hands.

  “Good idea. If you’d like to walk with me, I’ll show you the important bits.”

  “Thanks, deputy.”

  “Call me Bat, both of you.”

  “All right. I’m Walt.”

  As they started walking again, the lawman asked, “I’ve been thinkin’ on your name. I was sure I’d heard it somewhere before. Aren’t you the one who killed that Kiowa war chief, Hunting Wolf, not far from here back in ’66? There’s also talk of you takin’ down a bunch o’ desperadoes in Colorado an’ New Mexico a few years back; and didn’t you shoot some fast-gun Mexican bandido south of the border, two years ago?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “I’ll pass the word to the other deputies. We always like to know when someone like you is in town, so we can cool down any hotheaded youngsters who think they can get a quick reputation by challengin’ you. All they get most o’ the time is a grave in Boot Hill, o’ course, but then their friends want to try for evens, and things can get rowdy for a while. We prefer to keep ’em peaceful, right from the start.”

  “So do I. Thanks, Bat.”

  As they walked, Masterson explained the two halves of the city: the northern part, above the railroad yards and Front Street, largely reserved for city residents and businessmen; and the south side, mostly occupied by cowhands, buffalo hunters, and the saloons, stores and cathouses that catered to them. “We call Front Street the ‘deadline’,” the deputy explained. “North o’ there, we crack down hard on troublemakers. In the rest o’ town, we try to back off and let the boys have their fun, unless they get too rambunctious. If they do, we have to break a few heads and toss ’em in jail to cool off.”

  “I’ve heard Texas cowhands complain that you’re kinda rough on them,” Walt observed.

  “If I was one of them, I’d likely think so too, but there’s two sides to it. They’re comin’ off months on the trail with no whiskey, no wimmen, and no way to have fun. They want to let off steam. All they have to play with is a gun, a horse, a rope and three months’ pay, so things can get rough. Those who want to sell ’em a good time and take their money ain’t angels, either; and cowhands and skin-hunters mostly don’t get along real well. A mixture like that is primed to blow. On the other hand, we want to keep the town in one piece, and the businesses open, and the womenfolk safe an’ happy. That’s why we try to keep them apart – and, yeah, sometimes we have to get rough when a drunk, riled-up trail hand won’t have it any other way.”

  Dan guffawed. “I’d say you got your work cut out for you. Seems peaceful enough tonight, though.”

  “Yeah, because there’s only a few cowhands in town. Trail drive season won’t get goin’ until early May. After that, things’ll be a lot more noisy.”

  “I’ve got three herds arrivin’ then,” Walt told him. “My partner’s bringin’ them from the Panhandle, nine or ten thousand head. There’ll be close to a hundred cowhands, wranglers, nighthawks, scouts and cooks. They’ve been on the trail for more’n a year, startin’ in New Mexico at the Mexican border.”

  Masterson rolled his eyes. “Thanks for nothin’! I’ll tell the sheriff. Hope they ain’t arrivin’ all at once.”

  “Pretty close together, I should think.”

  “See if you can get your partner to tell them to hold it down, will you?”

  “I’ll ask him, but after a year, they’re going to want to unwind – and they’ll have eight or nine months’ pay to do it with, ’cause they’ve got a year’s half-pay comin’, plus a bonus of three months’ pay.”

  Masterson took a deep breath. “I can see we’re gonna have some real interestin’ times south o’ the deadline, real soon now!”

  As he turned to leave them, he hesitated. “You said you were lookin’ to buy a freight yard here?”

  “Yes,” Walt replied.

  “You might do well to talk to Sean Flanagan tomorrow mornin’. He’s bog Irish, loud-spoken, and he likes his whiskey, but he’s a good man clear through. I used to do business with him when I was huntin’ buffalo. He runs a small freight outfit, and they’ve been squeezed since the railroad arrived. I know he was thinkin’ o’ looking for a partner, or sellin’ out altogether. His freight yard ain’t big, but it’s well established, and he’s got a dozen wagons handlin’ orders an’ deliveries within a hundred miles o’ town. Tell him I sent you.”

  “We’ll see him. Thanks.”

  The depot of Flanagan Freight was near the rail yards. It had a small administration building, a bunkhouse for its teamsters, and a large warehouse, with a barn and a corral to house its horse teams. The proprietor proved to be a large, burly man with a good-sized beer belly, a roaring laugh and flaming red hair.

  “Sure, I’ll talk with yez boys about it,” he assented eagerly when Walt told him why they’d come. “And young Bat sent ye, did he? There’s a darlin’ man, to be sure, thinkin’ of his ould Uncle Sean like that! What d’ye say to a wee drop o’ the creature?” He lifted a bottle of Irish whiskey above the counter, and winked. “It’s near sunset in Ireland right now, so why not?”

  Walt wasn’t accustomed to hard liquor so early in the day, but in the interests of negotiations, he assented. He sipped the glass Sean handed him, and his eyes widened. “This isn’t saloon liquor,” he said with warm approval. “This came out of a real good bottle.”

  “That it did, me bhoy. I’ve got a brother in New York who imports the stuff. He runs a saloon there, and sends me a case of it every couple of months, bless him. I arrange huntin’ trips for his customers who want to collect a buffalo head.” His face fell. “O’ course, wi’ the buffalo bein’ almost shot out o’ existence around here, that ain’t goin’ to last much longer.”

  “You could send them out to Colorado,” Dan suggested. “There’s a helluva lot o’ wild game in the Rocky Mountains, or near the boss’s hoss ranch in the Wet Mountain Valley. He’s taken grizzly an’ black bear, mountain sheep and elk there.”

  “Aye, I could do that, if I knew someone there who could fix it up.”

  Walt couldn’t help smiling at the thinly disguised suggestion. “Let’s get our business here sorted out. If it goes well, we’ll talk about that too.”

  Sean looked at Walt consideringly. “So, ye own a freight outfit, a hoss ranch, an’ ye’ve got cattle comin’ in? A man would say ye’re doin’ all right for yourself.”

  “I work hard at it. That’s why we want a depot here, too.” Walt explained about his partner’s ranch in the Panhandle, and contracts to deliver freight from the railhead to the ranch and the Army fort nearby. “We’re workin’ on contracts for other forts, and as the Panhandle grows, there’ll be more ranches nearby. I’ve already got ox-wagons down there. About thirty are on their way here right now. We need a local depot to collect freight for the Panhandle, load them up when they arrive, and look after the teamsters until they head back south.”

  “Hmmm… so they’ll be comin’ up empty?”

  “Mostly, yeah.”

  “Mister, if you’re willin’ to have them pick up cargoes for me on the way here, I’ll be glad to share this depot with you, and hold goods here for them to take back down. Y’see, the trade in buffalo bones is beginnin’ to boom.”

  “Buffalo bones?” Walt and Dan spoke in surprised unison.

  “Yeah. There’s factories in St. Louis that want ’em. They use bone char to refine sugar, an’ bonemeal for fertilizer. The hoofs are used to make glue, and the horns get turned into buttons, combs an’ what have you – knife handles an’ pistol grips, too. There must be tens o’ thousands o’ t
ons o’ buffalo bones left out on the prairie. The hunters took the hides, an’ maybe the tongues, then left the rest to rot. I pay $7 to $9 per ton for plain bones, an’ $12 to $15 for horns an’ hoofs, dependin’ on what I can get for ’em. The railroad charges me $8 per ton to ship ’em to St. Louis. I get $20 to $22 per ton for the bones there, an’ $28 to $30 for horns an’ hoofs.”

  Walt did some rapid mental calculation. “So, if my thirty-odd wagons each brought up three tons every time they came, which’ll be at least four times a year, that’ll be 360 tons.”

  “Sure would. You’d earn three or four thousand dollars from me for them here, an’ I’d make as much again in profit in St. Louis. We’d both benefit. For that, I’ll rent you half my warehouse at a real low rate, an’ let your manager here use this office alongside me. We’ll work like brothers, you’ll see.”

  Walt couldn’t help smiling at the Irishman’s enthusiasm. “You won’t have any problem workin’ with a black man as your partner?”

  “Faith an’ begorrah, no! Didn’t them damned Yankees have signs outside some o’ their saloons in New York, when I arrived from the ould country before the war? ‘No dogs, blacks or Irish’, they read. Dan and I both know what it’s like to have to fight for your place in life. We’ll just fight for each other, this time, instead o’ with each other.”

  Dan grinned, and held out his hand. “That works for me, Sean.”

  Sean gripped his hand, then Walt’s. “Sure, an’ that calls for another drop o’ the creature to seal the deal!” He splashed another hefty dollop of Irish whiskey into their glasses.

  By the time they’d settled the details, and Walt had paid the Irishman six hundred dollars for the first year’s rental, their heads were swimming. “Dang, boss,” Dan muttered as they wended their way back to the hotel, “you really think I can survive this? He’s got a heavy hand with the bottle!”

  “I reckon he’s a lot more shrewd than he looks,” Walt said, shaking his head. “He wanted us liquored up while we were dickerin’. That’s why I had a real good breakfast before we came, with plenty o’ bacon to line my stomach. I’ve dealt with Irishmen before.”

  “Then I want lessons, please, boss. I’m gonna need ’em!”

  Walt laughed. “First, line up a place to live, and look for a boarding house where our teamsters can stay while their wagons are loaded. There won’t be room for all of them in Sean’s bunkhouse. It’s too small. Pick a place well clear of the saloons an’ cathouses, so our men can get some sleep when their money runs out. Ames Transport will pick up the tab, o’ course, but not more than a dollar a night per man, includin’ supper an’ breakfast.”

  “I’ll get right on that, boss, just as soon as I’ve slept off all that Irish whiskey!” Dan glanced at him. “He’s chargin’ us a whole lot less rent than I thought we’d have to pay.”

  “Yeah, but he’s gonna make thousands out of the buffalo bones we bring him, much more than he’d make out of a normal rental. Our teamsters will benefit, too. I’ll have Sean pay them half the money for the bones they collect, to make up for the extra work of findin’ and loadin’ them. I’ll be satisfied with the other half, plus the profit on our cargoes. Maybe, when long-distance wagon freight shuts down, that’ll be something the teamsters can carry on with for themselves.”

  Dan stopped dead in his tracks. “Shuts down?”

  “Yeah. Don’t forget, the railroads are still spreadin’ fast. Sooner or later, they’re gonna drive us out o’ business between here an’ the Panhandle. We’ll still handle local deliveries there, but the railroad will carry all the long-distance cargo. I reckon we’ve got no more than ten to fifteen years till that happens. It’s gonna happen everywhere else, too. We’ll be restructurin’ our operations over the next few years, relyin’ more on local depots to take freight from the railroad an’ deliver it nearby. I daresay, in due course, we won’t have long-distance wagon trains at all.”

  The big man shook his head. “It’s been the only trade I’ve known since I left the Army.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll find something else to do by then, and I’ll make sure all our teamsters are looked after. We won’t toss them out into the gutter to starve.”

  Dan gave him a sidelong look. “I reckon it was a real lucky day when you sent Nate to buy our wagons an’ hire all of us. You’ve looked after us like we was your own men all along.”

  “That goes with the territory. I want you to look after our people the same way, now that you’re a branch manager. If we treat them well, they’ll work hard for us. If we don’t, they won’t. It’s like a law o’ nature – you see it everywhere. I don’t ever want to hear of our people bein’ treated badly.”

  “You won’t hear it from Dodge City, boss, not while I’m manager. You got my word.”

  The following evening, Walt and Dan dropped into the Long Branch Saloon. They ordered drinks and sat down at a table near the bar, looking around. Various professional gamblers, working for the house or on a profit-sharing arrangement, offered faro, chuck-a-luck, vingt-et-un and other common games of chance. A poker game was under way at a big table in the rear, with fairly high stakes. Walt noticed Bat Masterson leaning against a wall, keeping an eye on proceedings in the room, with another tall lawman standing nearby.

  The batwing doors swung open, and a dozen hide-hunters and skinners thrust their way inside. Their entrance was marked by a disgusting stench of dried blood, stale sweat and horseflesh. As their clothing made clear, none of them had bothered to bathe or change their attire for some time. They had obviously just come in from the range.

  “Belly up to the bar, boys!” one bellowed. “We just got paid, an’ tonight’s our night to howl!”

  Many of the patrons hastened to the bar to drink the free bounty, but Walt shook his head slightly. He didn’t want to get boxed in by the crowd, not with questionable characters like these at his back. Dan got the message, and stayed in his seat. He noticed that Walt pushed his chair back slightly, to give himself room to move if necessary, and followed suit.

  “You ain’t drinkin’ my whiskey, strangers,” the skinner who’d ordered free drinks called to them. “Too good for the likes o’ us, are you?”

  “Just waitin’ for the crush to clear, then we’ll be right there,” Walt replied, smiling disarmingly.

  The truculent skinner wasn’t persuaded. “When Cal Sibbert calls for free drinks, everyone drinks ’em – or else!”

  “Well, thank you, Cal.” Walt nodded slightly to Dan, and stood up, turning towards the speaker.

  “You’re dressed awful fancy for a cowhand, an’ you talk high-falutin’ too. I don’t think I like you, stranger.” Cal pushed through the throng towards him, leering threateningly. Clearly, he expected Walt to be intimidated.

  “I’m sorry about that, but it’s your problem, not mine,” Walt informed him bluntly.

  “Why, you –”

  Cal raised his fist as if to swing it. Dan, standing to his right and just behind him, took his chance. His hand snaked out, seized the revolver in Cal’s holster, and drew it. Before the skinner knew what had happened, the gun was safely in Dan’s hand.

  “Hey! Give that back!”

  Dan shook his head as he stepped back, keeping the revolver pointed at the floor. “I’ll just pass it over to the deputy there. He’ll hold onto it until you’re ready to head outta town.” He turned towards Bat Masterson, who nodded and stepped forward to accept the gun.

  Behind Cal, another skin-hunter’s hand dropped to his belt. He began to draw a revolver from its holster. Walt grabbed the lapel of his jacket with his left hand, and tugged sharply as his right came up. With a popping sound, the top two buttons of his jacket flew off, and his right hand drew his concealed revolver from its shoulder holster in a smooth, flickeringly fast motion. “Hold it right there!” he snapped as he lined the gun.

  Everybody in the room froze for a moment, then the other patrons began to slide out of the line of fire. The skin-hunters’ faces t
urned ugly as Masterson drew his own gun, followed by his colleague. “Relax, Wyatt,” Bat said. “That gent’s Walt Ames. Marshal gave him permission to carry his gun.”

  “All right, Bat,” the other said. “Don’t think these skin-hunters bothered to ask about that, though. Shed ’em, boys.” He made a meaningful gesture with his gun. The skin-hunters slowly drew their revolvers with finger and thumb, and laid them on nearby tables. The reputation of the Dodge City lawmen was sufficient to deter resistance.

  As soon as they were disarmed, and the lawmen had searched them to confirm that, Walt holstered his revolver and picked up the buttons from his jacket. “Sorry about that, Bat,” he said to Masterson, “but I didn’t aim to see my branch manager shot for no good reason.”

  “You did fine,” the other reassured him. “That’s about the fastest draw I’ve ever seen from a shoulder holster, too. Lucky your buttons came off like that, to open the way for it.”

  “Wasn’t luck. I sew them on with light thread, an’ not too much of it, so they’ll break loose if I need my gun in a hurry. Sure, I lose a button now an’ then, but I carry spares.”

  “Good idea. I’ll remember that trick. Here, meet Wyatt Earp. He’s a deputy city marshal, and a friend o’ mine.”

  Walt nodded to him. “Evenin’, deputy.”

  Earp said, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ames,” then turned to the skin-hunters. “Boys, you can have all the fun you like, so long as it don’t involve guns. I reckon you should go somewhere else for this evening. Keep it peaceful, you hear me? – and, if I was you, I’d get a bath first, and burn those clothes you’re wearin’, and buy new ones.”

  They nodded, although they looked surly and resentful, and turned towards the batwing doors. Cal looked back at Walt, his face ugly. “I ain’t forgettin’ you. You ain’t heard the last o’ this.”

  Masterson laughed. “Cal, you ain’t pretty, you ain’t clean, but mayhap you got the sense of a louse. If you ain’t heard about Walt Ames, talk to your friends. I reckon some o’ them will know his name. All I’m gonna say is, if you want to take him on, buy yourself a six-foot plot in Boot Hill first. You’re gonna need it. Also, tell the rest of us when and where. We want to watch, and place bets – and my bet ain’t goin’ on you, Cal.”