by Peter Grant
Earp added, “When you’re leavin’ town and want your guns, you know where to get ’em. Cal, if you want yours early so you can take on Mr. Ames, come see me. I’ll fix you up.”
Cal didn’t answer. Looking sullen, he followed his friends out of the doors.
“Thanks, both of you,” Walt said, looking at the lawmen.
“It was our pleasure, Mr. Ames,” Wyatt Earp replied gravely. “Also, I have to agree with Bat here. That’s about the fastest draw from a shoulder holster I ever did see. Is that what you used against Enrique Sandoval in Mexico, a couple of years back?”
“Yeah, it is, although I sorta tricked him as well.”
Earp smiled. “Get an advantage any way you can, I always say, ’specially if it’s you or him. We’ve got to hand in these guns at the marshal’s office. After we’ve done that, d’you mind telling us about it? Professional interest, you understand.”
“Sure. Come on back here, and let me buy you a drink, and we’ll talk.”
17
May 1876
Tyler Reese smiled as he saw the buildings of Dodge City on the horizon, early on the morning of May 3rd. He glanced at the men on either side of him. “There she is, boys! She’s gonna be the biggest and wildest trail end town of them all, now that Abilene an’ Ellsworth an’ Wichita are closed down. She’s closest to Texas, so she’ll get almost all the Texas herds.”
“How many saloons and cathouses are there, boss?” a cowhand called cheerfully.
“I dunno, but if there’s less’n a score o’ saloons, I’ll be real surprised. As for cathouses, you’re too young to know about them places, an’ so am I!” A roar of derisive laughter and ribald catcalls from the others greeted his sally. Grinning, he went on, “All right, let’s not waste time talkin’. I want to make sure everything’s ready for our herds when they get here in a couple o’ day’s time.” He spurred his horse into a canter.
Tyler’s first stop was the Dodge Hotel. He checked the register, saw that Walt was in, and stomped up the stairs to knock on the door of his room. They exchanged a fierce hug.
“So you made it!” Walt exclaimed, a little breathless after Tyler had squashed the air from his lungs.
“We sure did. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see your ugly mug again, after more’n a year on the trail. Pity you didn’t bring Colleen with you. She’d be even easier on my eyes.”
Walt grinned. “She wanted to come, but she’s six months pregnant, so the doctor said it wouldn’t be wise.”
“A second kid already? You’re workin’ fast!”
“She says she wants six, so I’ll have my work cut out for me.”
Tyler sniggered. “Oh, well. You know what they say. They’re fun in the breedin’, but hell in the feedin’!”
“I’ll say! Young Thomas is eatin’ us out o’ house and home already.”
Tyler booked rooms for himself and his escort, then spent the afternoon giving Walt a detailed account of all that had occurred since they left the Mexican border. Walt was duly impressed. He endorsed Tyler’s ambition to expand the size of the ranch from what they had originally discussed.
“Sam was right to donate that warehouse to Fort Elliott,” Walt added. The cantonment on the Sweetwater had recently been officially christened. “Thanks to Major Bankhead’s letter to the Commanding General about us, several other forts are talkin’ to us about freight contracts, in the Indian Nations, Texas and New Mexico. We’ll make much more money off them than a new warehouse will cost us. I’ve already cut enough lumber to keep wagons busy all year ferryin’ it down to you. There’ll be enough for all you need, and Sam too, and we’ll have more to sell to the fort, and to settlers as they move in.”
“Sounds good. Speakin’ o’ settlers, any ideas about how to mark off our land so they don’t try to squat on it?”
Walt shrugged. “Fencin’ that much land will be real expensive right now. I’d rather wait for this new-fangled barbed wire to get into full production. They say it’ll be a lot cheaper. For now, why not use an ox team to plow a couple of furrows right around the perimeter? Get the surveyors to mark it clearly with stone cairns, so you can prove it’s ours. At every cairn, plant a post in the ground, branded at the top with Circle CAR. That’ll tell people that inside the furrows is private land. If they ignore it, you’ll have to get a bit more persuasive with them.”
Tyler laughed. “I reckon the boys can be real persuasive, if they have to be. We may have to close the ford to outside traffic, if it gets too heavy. Don’t want all the world an’ his brother traipsin’ across our land.”
“Uh-huh. One more thing. When you buy our land, make sure you get all the rights to it, includin’ mining and mineral rights. That’s got to be spelled out in the deed of sale.” Walt explained the initial difficulty he’d had in buying an additional parcel of land in the Wet Mountain Valley. “I got the mining an’ mineral rights in the end, although it took a bit of arguin’. I don’t suppose there’s anything worth mining on the Circle CAR’s land, but you never know. Better to be safe, rather than sorry. If there is, we want to own it ourselves, not be overrun by outsiders tryin’ to stake claims.”
“That’s a real good point. I’ll do it.”
To Tyler’s pleasure, a number of the cattle buyers he’d messaged were in town, some staying at the same hotel. He met them that night at supper, and cheerful greetings were exchanged. “I hope you brought lotsa money with you,” he teased Garfield. “You’re gonna need it.”
“If your cattle are in good condition, they’ll fetch top dollar this early in the season, and I’ll pay it gladly,” the buyer assured him. “The demand in the East for Texas beef is stronger than ever.”
“They’re in good condition all right. Just wait ’til you see them.”
Walt spent much time over the next two days watching preparations at the stockyards. Water troughs and tanks were filled, and a small steam engine of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad spent much time tootling up and down the tracks, shunting empty cattle cars into trains and connecting them to full-size locomotives, ready for a fast run to the stockyards in Chicago. The first train was backed into position at the loading pens. Clearly, the railroad was determined that any delay in processing Tyler’s three herds would not be laid at its door.
The first herd appeared at about eleven in the morning of the third day. The trail drive crew thinned the stream of cattle over the last couple of miles, so a final count could be made. Tyler did it himself, assisted by Garfield in person. The first herd of the season warranted such attention. A couple of other buyers sat their horses nearby, making their own count, just in case.
As the final steer walked between them and headed for the loading pens, the cattleman trotted his horse over to the buyer. “I make it 3,044 head,” he announced.
“I agree,” Garfield said. “Do any of you gentlemen have a different figure?”
“No,” another buyer said, and the others grunted agreement. “We can start the bidding.”
The offers and counter-offers came fast and furious. Clearly, the first herd of the season was in great demand back east, and every buyer wanted the extra profit it would bring. The herd was eventually knocked down to Garfield for $39 per head.
“Don’t worry, gents,” Tyler consoled the unsuccessful bidders. “I’ve got two more herds this big coming in, one in two days, the other in four.”
“Then we’ll be here to buy ’em,” another buyer assured him.
Walt had to swallow hard at the realization that the first herd had just fetched well over a hundred thousand dollars. If the other two did likewise, their dream would become a reality.
Tyler went with Garfield to the bank to accept payment, then met the trail crew in the back room of the Long Branch saloon to hand over more money than most of the cowhands had ever seen in their lives. They received their half-pay for over a year on the trail, plus a bonus of three months’ wages for agreeing to defer payment until now. They walked away wi
th over ten months’ wages apiece.
“Be careful with it!” Tyler warned them very seriously. “Every shyster in creation’s gathered south o’ the deadline to relieve you of your money. Some of ’em ain’t particular how they do it. If I was you, I’d put at least half your money on deposit with Wells, Fargo, so you don’t spend or lose it all. Still an’ all, it’s your life an’ your money, an’ you’re grown men. You gotta make your own choice, an’ live with it.”
He also reminded them of the city ordinance against carrying firearms. “They mean it, boys. Don’t go flashin’ your gun around, and don’t think that just because you’re a Texan, you can lick any Kansas lawman ever born. Mebbe you can, and mebbe you can’t. You don’t want all your hard-earned money taken away from you to pay your fine, now do you?”
Walt reinforced his message by telling them how he’d watched Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp disarm the buffalo hunters and skinners. “They didn’t stand for any nonsense from them, and they won’t from you, either: but if you don’t give them cause, they’ll leave you in peace to have your fun.” Some of the hands glowered at the thought of being disarmed, but most of them appeared to see the sense of Tyler’s and Walt’s warnings.
After calling for drinks on the house, Tyler took Walt and a bottle of good whiskey to a table at the back of the room. They watched the cowhands down a few drinks before heading for the bathhouse to get clean, then the clothing store to buy a new set of duds for the celebrations that night.
“Think they’ll listen?” Walt asked him.
“Iffen they don’t, they’ll surely wish they had when they wake up with sore heads an’ empty pockets tomorrow mornin’,” Tyler said, shaking his head. “Still, it’s on them. They’re men grown. If they can’t figure it out by now, mebbe they never will.”
The second and third herds came in on schedule, to meet the same fierce bidding from the buyers. Since more of the cattle in those herds were the smaller Mexican animals, rather than the Texas mavericks gathered up and branded by the trail crews, they fetched slightly lower prices, but not enough to worry Walt or Tyler.
When the last of the cattle had been loaded onto railroad cars, and the last of the hands paid off, and the celebrations were well under way, Walt and Tyler adjourned to the former’s hotel room. “All right, what does it look like?” Tyler demanded eagerly as he sat down.
“It looks real good,” Walt assured him, reaching for several sheets of paper on which he’d kept track of their sales and expenses. “You brought in three herds. The first had 3,044 cattle, and fetched $39 even per head. The second had 2,926, and fetched $38.25 per head.”
Tyler shook his head. “Yeah, they had a couple o’ stampedes on the way up here. Lost a few head.”
“It happens. The third herd had 3,027 head, and fetched $37.50 per head. That makes a total of 8,997 cattle, and a total price of $344,148, for an average of just over $38.25 apiece.”
Tyler let out a long, slow sigh. “So your plan worked out. Damn, Walt, that was a hell of an idea you had!”
“We’d never have done it without you to ramrod all the herds.”
“And the trail crews and I’d never have been able to get ’em here without all the supplies you got to us, and those fine cooks you trained. I reckon all the cowhands who rode with us are gonna bitch an’ moan like crazy when they have to eat regular trail cookin’ once more!”
Walt grinned as he took up another piece of paper. “We paid out $51,273 in wages, bonuses and expenses here, includin’ Pablo’s finder’s fees, money set aside for the wages an’ bonuses of your ranch hands when you get back to the Circle CAR, and all the Ames Transport costs I’ve carried over for you until now. That leaves us with $292,875. Out of that, we each get back our seed money: $50,000 for me, and $30,000 for you.”
Tyler nodded. “I’ve got $3,517 for you from Pablo, too. You told him to give it to me in case of emergency, but I didn’t need it, so you get it back.” He told Walt of recovering over $5,000 from El Jefe on the Mexican border, and how he’d recycled what was probably money stolen from those who’d sold cattle to him.
Walt grimaced. “Hell of a way to get money, but it helped us. Good thing you killed him. He likely needed it. Anyway, after our seed money, there’s $212,875 left over. Dividing that in proportion to the seed money, you get three-eighths, or $79,828. I get five-eighths, or $133,047.”
Tyler was silent for a long moment, a beaming smile stretching almost from ear to ear. With the $4,000 he’d brought from Gainesville, but not needed, plus his seed money, plus his share of the profits, he was now worth more than $113,000 – a huge increase from his personal net worth just two years before, when he and Walt had made their plans. At last he said, “So we did it. We’ve got enough to fund our ranch, and we’ve got our starter breedin’ herd already on it, all bought an’ paid for.”
“Yeah, buddy, we did it.” Walt reached out his hand, and Tyler wrung it hard.
“Iffen you’re up for it, I’d like to put a full hundred thousand each into the Circle CAR,” the cattleman said. “That’ll buy our land, and build everything we need, and also buy up to a hundred Durham or Hereford bulls to improve the meat on our calves. We’ll also have enough money for two full years of runnin’ costs, mebbe more, even if we don’t sell a single cow durin’ that time. Iffen we don’t need it all, we can always pay it out to ourselves in a few years.”
“I’m up for that. You still want to buy the extra land you spoke about?” Walt asked.
“Oh, heck, yeah! It’s all in one nice neat package, good water, good grass, an’ control of the only year-round ford for thirty or so miles along the river. It’s perfect! We’ll pay more for it, but we’ll get more, too, and be able to run more cattle on it.”
“You’re the expert. If you say we need it, let’s do it.” Walt grinned. “I reckon Colleen will be happy enough with that, but she’ll be even happier when she sees the rest o’ the money. We’d invested just about all our spare cash in this venture. After puttin’ a hundred thousand into the Circle CAR account, an’ payin’ Nate his profit share, I’ll deposit the balance o’ what we earned on the herd, plus our fifty thousand seed money, plus the $3,517 from Pablo, into our own account. That’ll boost our balance to almost ninety thousand, enough to build our homes in Pueblo and on the ranch, and see Ames Transport and the Rafter A through the next few years as well.”
“You’d better send her a telegraph message once you’ve deposited it, tellin’ her to go to Wells, Fargo and check the balance. She’ll be real happy to see it. I reckon Nate’ll be happy, too,” Tyler added. “He asked that I bring him half his wages an’ bonus in cash, an’ put the rest into his account with Wells, Fargo. He said you’ve got his bank book, and I should bring it to him.”
“Yeah, that’s what we agreed at the start of all this. Colleen and I are paying him a five percent share of our profits from the Circle CAR, so he’s gonna get more’n six and a half thousand dollars from that, plus his back pay an’ bonus. Now, what next?”
Tyler sighed. “I’m gonna stay here for a few days. I reckon I’ve earned a break, an’ I sure need it! After that, I’m gonna place orders for a bunch of things we’ll need, for your wagons to bring down when they’re delivered here. You brought the information I asked for?”
“Yeah, I’ve got brochures an’ leaflets describin’ all the things you’re after. There’s a firm in Iowa named Kelly & Tannyhill who make a wagon-mounted drillin’ rig. It can be powered by a horse or ox, and go down to 300 feet. That should be more’n deep enough for your wells, an’ you can rig a Halladay windmill to pump up the water into drinkin’ troughs or tanks.”
“We sure can! Sounds like just what we need. I also need to find out whether anyone’s made a machine to twist hay into bundles.” Tyler described the Nebraska hand’s useful innovation to replace firewood. “If there is such a machine, I’ll buy two, one for the ranch and one for your depot. Your teamsters will need fuel for the winter, too.”
“Yeah, they will. You should buy some horse-drawn hay mowers, rakes an’ balers, too. I use ’em on the Rafter A, and they’ve tripled or quadrupled our hay yield. We cut a lot on open range, savin’ our grazing for our hosses. We also need a lot fewer hands to get it in. The machines cost up front, but they save a bundle every year.”
“I’ll send off for two of each, then. Let me know what brand to buy. I also want more molds for adobe bricks, an’ complete blacksmith’s an’ carpenter’s shops for the ranch with all their tools, an’ furniture for our buildin’s, and half a dozen Winchester 1873 rifles for our ready rack. A couple o’ Sharps or Remington buffalo guns for long-range work would be nice, too, and a couple o’ decent shotguns as well. There’s prairie chickens an’ turkeys to be had. Don’t tell the hands I said so, but a man can get tired o’ eatin’ beef all the time.”
Walt laughed. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“After I order all that, an’ arrange for Sam’s wagons to bring it to us, it’s back to the Panhandle.” He told Walt of the ‘bet’ he’d made with the surveyors. “I’ll head for Austin with their courier, an’ buy the land for the Circle CAR and Ames Transport’s depot as soon as the plats are filed.”
“Thanks. If you’ll pay that out of the ranch account, I’ll transfer money to it to cover the cost of the depot’s land, once we know what it is.”
“I’ll do that. When I get back from Austin, Nate will take a few weeks off. By midsummer we’ll all be hard at work. It’ll take us several years to make the Circle CAR all we want it to be.”
“I’ll see about comin’ down to visit as soon as you’ve got some guest quarters worth the name,” Walt promised. “Colleen wants to come with me, to see our investment.”
