by Ralph Hayes
Maybe, he thought, it had to do with saving his life.
‘Grew up in Virginia. Killed my first bear at eight.’ A slight grin. ‘Was trading with the Cherokee at ten. It was a hardscrabble life.’ He got up from the fire, walked over to a wolf’s corpse near by, grabbed it by the tail, and flung it away from the camp. ‘I reckon your horse run off.’
‘He’ll be back by dawn. He’s done this before. He don’t like wolves and bears. Silly beast. Why did you come out this way.’
‘The diphtheria took my family down, and I wanted to start a new life somewhere. Now, can we forget the history lesson?’
Cahill grunted. ‘Sorry. Just making palaver.’
O’Brien sat there staring into the fire and thinking. By this time it was all starting to run together in his head. A year before the War between the States was over, when O’Brien was just sixteen, he had wanted to join up with the Confederates, but his immigrant Scots father had told him he would shoot O’Brien in the leg to keep him at home. After his folks and sister were gone and buried, he had taken the Ohio west, and then hired onto a wagon train that was going to Texas. He was a cattle drover for a while there, then began riding shotgun for Wells Fargo. He had been fired from that job just a week ago after he had a dispute with a boss and knocked him down. He had been looking for an area for good trapping when he came upon Cahill.
Cahill poked the fire with a stick and sparks flew up into the blackness.
Out on the prairie somewhere a coyote howled at the moon.
‘I was born and raised in Texas,’ Cahill said quietly in his soft drawl. ‘Never liked it. Rode north to Colorado and started trapping and selling the pelts at the Fort Griffin Rendezvous. Or trading them off to Blackfeet and Crow for food and equipment. I built and abandoned a half-dozen cabins in the mountains. They are still there, probably. When the beaver and ermine played out, I moved on. Now I got other ideas.’
‘I been looking for something myself,’ O’Brien said. ‘Maybe do some cowpunching at one of these big ranches hereabouts.’
Cahill suddenly looked over at him in the firelight. ‘Say. That name O’Brien just rung a bell. There was a man by that name that folks call the White Lakota.’
O’Brien stared at the fire. ‘Hmmph.’
Cahill grinned. ‘That’s you, ain’t it? By Jesus, that’s you!’
O’Brien glanced over at him. ‘Don’t never call me that.’
‘How did that come about? The name?’
O’Brien sighed. ‘It was when I first come out here. On a cattle drive in Nebraska I went looking for a stray heifer and was dislodged from my mount. Fell hard. My employer never found me. But the Lakota did. Chief Gray Hawk took me in till I was well again. Liked it so much I stayed on for a while. Learned a little of their tongue, and their habits. They’d found me at the mouth of a cave I had drug myself to. The kids of the village thought I lived in the cave.’
Cahill snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it! They told it around that you emerged from a bear cave full-grown and was put there by the Thunderbird.’
O’Brien shook his head. ‘They seem to like stories like that. They also say I can’t be killed by a bullet. It’s all bullpucky and peyote smoke.’
‘I think I can guess where that come from. The bullet story. The same Bible drummer that heard the White Lakota story said you attacked a gunslinger in Laramie one night while he emptied his gun at you, and beat him to death with your bare hands.’ He glanced over at O’Brien and reassessed the big size of him.
O’Brien frowned at him. It was one thing to save a man from ending up in a wolf’s belly, but another to sit through all this.
‘Like I said, let’s forget the past history.’
‘Just one more question. Did that really happen?’ Cahill asked tentatively.
O’Brien let a long breath out. ‘In the first place, that didn’t happen in Laramie. Some liquor-crazy drifter decided to kill me because I didn’t laugh at his joke. He didn’t care that I wasn’t carrying iron. He just started blasting away at me.’
‘Good Jesus.’
The fire cracked at their feet. O’Brien threw a small chunk of wood at it and sent more sparks flying.
‘He only hit me twice out of five shots, and one hit was just a graze. I went on in and threw a punch that broke his jaw and something in his neck. He hit the floor and never moved again. He still held his gun and its barrel was smoking. But I never beat him to death.’
‘No,’ Cahill said, giving him a look. ‘You did it with one punch.’
O’Brien picked up a stick and studied it. He hadn’t talked this much to anybody in the past six months.
‘You never know what will happen in a brawl. That lead he put in my ribs was still festering weeks later.’
‘You want another cup of coffee?’
‘I think I’ll pass. Oh, there’s your horse.’
Cahill’s zebra dun mustang had just meandered into the camp behind Cahill and now it guffered at him. O’Brien’s stallion returned the greeting. Cahill rose and went over to the mustang.
‘So there you are, you mangy beast! Now that the danger’s past it’s OK to dally with us that stayed and fought.’ He grabbed the horse’s reins and took it over to the tree where the appaloosa was tethered. The animals touched muzzles.
‘He seems to like your gray,’ Cahill said with a smile as he returned to the fire.
‘They get along a lot better than people,’ O’Brien observed.
Cahill poured himself a cup of coffee and resumed his seat on a thick chunk of wood. O’Brien was sitting on his saddle.
‘There’s nothing like a set-down in hardship camp,’ Cahill remarked, more to himself than O’Brien.
‘You must like being alone, though,’ O’Brien suggested. ‘Trapping by yourself in the mountains.’
‘I can handle it either way,’ Cahill answered, sipping at the hot coffee.
O’Brien could smell the aroma of it. ‘I’d prefer going it alone, I think. I met some damn fools on ranches, and at Wells Fargo.’
Cahill grinned. ‘I avoid townsfolk like the plague. They can talk you to death about horses and women.’
They exchanged slow grins and then studied each other’s faces for a moment, each realising they had some things in common.
‘You ever think of buffalo hunting?’ Cahill said after a long moment.
O’Brien shook his head. ‘Only been on one hunt. With Chief Gray Hawk. The Lakota won’t kill a buff if they can’t use the meat as well as the hide.’
‘Well, that’s different from the way the white folks go about it. You ever run across one of the hide companies?’
O’Brien shook his shaggy head. ‘Can’t say I have.’
Cahill’s narrowed eyes, the colour of granite, glistened in the firelight.
‘A couple of days’ ride from here, in Ogallala, there’s a man I know by the name of Elias Walcott. He owns a hide company over there, and operates all round that area. It’s a big business now, because of the new demand for buffalo robes back east.’
‘I’ve heard about them,’ O’Brien commented. ‘That never appealed to me much.’
‘I met Walcott when I come up here from Texas,’ Cahill said. ‘He owned a ranch near Wichita. I worked for him about a week before I headed for the mountains. He’s a Bible-thumper, but not a bad fellow.’ He looked over at O’Brien. ‘My luck has petered out, trapping. I’ve decided to head for Ogallala. I heard Walcott was looking for a few more hunters to round out his crew.’
‘Sounds like he’d be glad to see you,’ O’Brien offered. The fire was guttering out, and he decided to let it die down.
Cahill caught his eye. ‘I been thinking about you, young fellow. I reckon you’d do to ride with, and I don’t say that about just anybody.’
O’Brien studied his face and said nothing.
‘Do you think you might like to try buffalo hunting for a while? If I’m reading you right you ain’t got any big plans. And Walcott pays twice as
much as you’d get cowpunching.’
O’Brien ran a hand over his dark mustache and his blue eyes went very serious.
‘Gray Hawk says the big hide companies are like locusts,’ he said. ‘They come and feed off the prairie and leave it wasteland.’
‘I know their methods are rough-hewn,’ Cahill replied, ‘and I wouldn’t want to make a career with Elias Walcott. I’m talking about getting ourselves a grubstake there, and then moving on. I think we could both use a little cash for our pokes.’ He paused. ‘I just picked up a couple of Kansas City newspapers last week. You can find out what’s happening in the big world out there when we take a break for the mounts.’
‘I don’t read or write,’ O’Brien said.
Cahill looked over at him soberly. ‘Oh.’
‘I was only taught shooting, tracking, and preparing meat for the table. There was never any schools near by.’
‘Well, out here shooting is a lot more important than reading. And it’s just what Walcott needs. I could teach you to read.’
O’Brien scowled at him. ‘I don’t need no goddam littleboy school lesssons, Cahill.’ Then he added menacingly, ‘I get along just fine without all that.’
Cahill saw he had gone too far with this young loner, and the tone of O’Brien’s voice made his throat constrict.
‘Sorry again, O’Brien. Don’t pay no mind to me.’
O’Brien looked out into the night. ‘I might ride there with you. Just to look the situation over.’
‘That’s just what I’m doing,’ Cahill said, trying a grin. ‘I’m glad I’ll be riding with you, partner.’
O’Brien gave him a sober look. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’
CHAPTER TWO
Cyrus McComb was seated at a long trestle-table in the big mess hall, having his evening meal with the other hide company hunters who had been with him the previous day when Sam Spencer had been killed.
There were several other long tables in the building, and a long counter on one wall where food was served to the workers on tin trays. At the other tables were hide-trimmers, scrapers, tanners and others. The groups usually ate at their own tables and did not mix much. McComb’s riflemen were always exclusive in their habits because they considered themselves a cut above the other employees of the company, and to be its backbone.
McComb ate hungrily, glancing at the faces of the men across the table. One of them, an Irishman named Flannery, looked up at McComb occasionally as he ate, sober-faced. He had not spoken to Elias Walcott, and would not, but he had seen McComb at Spencer’s horse just before they all assaulted the herd out there, and had his doubts about what happened.
Luis Navarro, who knew what had caused Spencer’s death, sat across the table from McComb and ate his beef stew quietly. He had been with McComb when they all arrived back in town that day, the wagons loaded with ‘green’ hides, and McComb had repeated his promise to Walcott that he would get to the bottom of the mystery that surrounded Spencer’s death. He sat there now eating as hungrily as McComb.
‘Cyrus. Did you and Walcott make arrangements for Spencer?’ His intention was to give credence to his sidekick’s fictitious concern. McComb stopped eating, and spoke very loudly to the table.
‘That brave boy will get a fine burial tomorrow, and Walcott will expect every mother’s son of you out there at Boot Hill.’ He looked over at the other tables, where everyone knew what had happened and raised his voice: ‘And that goes for the rest of you reprobates.’
‘Have you found out anything about how it happened yet?’ Navarro continued in the same vein. There was just the edge of a smile on his lips after he spoke, unnoticed by any at the table. McComb shot Navarro a quick, dark look.
‘I examined the saddle and blanket. I saw the remains of a tumbleweed on the blanket. Maybe he laid it on the ground for a minute when he saddled up here in town and picked up all that stuff. That’s what we’ll go with now. But if I find out anybody fooled with that gear after he got it on, I’ll kill the bastard myself! And that’s a by-God promise!’
A rifleman down at the end of the table, across from McComb, spoke up.
‘I’m not trying to throw mud on nobody here. But somebody seen you over at Spencer’s mount just before you saddled up to ride, McComb.’
Navarro looked over quickly to McComb. A scowl grew slowly on McComb’s square face. There was a thin scar that started on his left jaw and ran down onto his neck, and it turned pink as he rested a deadly gaze on the speaker.
‘Is that you, Jenkins? You still eating with your fingers or did somebody give you a fork this time?’
A few men along the table laughed softly. McComb took a breath in and laid his fork down carefully.
‘Now just who was it that told you I stopped at Spencer’s mount, flea-brain?’
Men stopped eating, even at nearby tables. Jenkins swallowed hard, and glanced at Flannery, two places down from him.
‘Come on, boy,’ McComb urged ominously. ‘Share what you got.’
The Irishman, a recent immigrant, cleared his throat and spoke in a heavy accent.
‘Sure and it was me that saw it. I make no accusations here. But as you walked along the back of the line, as you often do, you did seem to dally at Spencer’s mount. And your hands was on his gear.’
McComb was about finished with his food. He pushed his tin tray away now and clasped his hands before him. Everybody at the table had stopped eating.
‘Flannery, Flannery,’ McComb said quietly. The entire mess hall had now gone tombstone silent. Servers behind the long counter had turned to watch the table.
‘I’m sure you had your reasons, Mr McComb,’ Flannery added.
McComb turned a look on him that turned Flannery pale under it.
‘I told Spencer why I stopped there. His blanket was all twisted up at the back because he wasn’t careful putting it on. He apologized as I fixed it. And I didn’t see no burrs under there because I was only working on the edge of it.’ He looked along the line of faces across the table.
‘It’s just that Flannery thought you was there quite a while,’ the fellow Jenkins spoke up again, rather apologetically.
‘Let it go,’ Navarro called out down the table. ‘Are you two loco?’
But McComb was on his feet. His hand went out over the Colt Army .45 he always carried on his hip.
‘Get on your feet, you goddam snake!’
All eyes in the big room were all on McComb. Down at the end of the table Jenkins was slack-jawed.
‘I was just talking, McComb. I got no fight with you.’
‘Maybe you don’t hear good,’ McComb growled. ‘I said get on your feet and back up your words like a man.’
‘Hey, slow it down, McComb,’ called one of the tanners at another table.
McComb glanced at the man hostilely, then turned back to Jenkins. Jenkins had risen slowly from his seat.
‘I ain’t going to draw on you, McComb. Me and Flannery ain’t making no charge against you. You can rest easy on that score.’
‘I don’t give that credence,’ McComb spat out. ‘I bet you been flapping your lips all over this compound. A man has to defend hisself. Go for your iron.’
There was absolute silence in the room. A scraper across the way placed his fork down on his tray and it sounded like a small explosion. Jenkins jumped slightly. McComb had cooled down, though.
‘I should shoot you down like the yellow dog you are,’ he growled.
‘Let it go Cyrus,’ Navarro said from across their table. ‘He is not worth it.’
McComb slowly relaxed, and his hand moved away from the Colt.
‘A saucy manner does not go down with me,’ he said finally, resuming his place at the table. ‘Nor wild accusations. They don’t set well in my craw.’ He forked up some stew. ‘Spencer was a friend, and I’ll kill any man that calls me a liar.’
‘And that goes for both you locos,’ Navarro added to him.
Jenkins had quietly sat back down, excha
nging a quick, surreptitious look with Flannery. Flannery turned toward McComb.
‘We don’t want to get crossways of you, boss. You got a perfect explanation for what happened out there. We’re flea-brains, both of us. Brash as camp cooks doing brain surgery, and that’s the truth of it.’
That lightened the mood in the room, and a few men laughed lightly. McComb ate his stew.
‘If any man-jack of you finds any evidence of tampering with Spencer’s saddle, you bring it right to me, and I’ll take it to Walcott.’
A few men muttered their assent to the order, and the subject was closed for good.
After the evening meal McComb returned to his bunkhouse across the compound. The company complex consisted of several sizeable buildings besides the long mess hall and the kitchen, with three bunkhouses, a main work building where hides were processed, Walcott’s office, a warehouse where finished hides were readied for shipment to customers back East, and a recently installed tannery.
When McComb and Navarro were alone in the bunkhouse momentarily, Navarro grinned at McComb.
‘You handled that muy bien back there, amigo. If you had not shown such anger, they might have known you were lying.’
McComb was changing his shirt, putting a clean, cotton one on. He showed a brawny, muscular frame with a second scar along his rib cage, put there in a long-ago knife fight.
‘I told you. What I said out there. That never happened. There’s no evidence to connect me with any of it.’ He gave Navarro a narrowed look. ‘And there never will be.’
‘Of course not, my friend. Are you going into town?’
McComb grinned. ‘Walcott will be in his office here most of the evening. I thought it might be a good time to pay Molly a little visit. When we can be alone for a while.’ The grin widened.
Navarro laughed softly. ‘Ah. The cause of all this trouble.’
McComb’s grin dissolved into a scowl. ‘Maybe I didn’t make myself clear.’
Navarro raised his hands defensively. ‘Yes, yes. Lo siento.’
McComb left the building a moment later without speaking further to Navarro. He retrieved his chestnut stallion from the corral behind the buildings, saddled up, and rode on into Ogallaia.
