by Ralph Hayes
CHAPTER THREE
The Conestoga saloon was one of three in Ogallala, but it was the finest, and the most patronized by townsfolk, ranch hands and hide men alike. It had a genuine tin ceiling, a large original painting by Remington behind the bar depicting a running horseback fight between unidentified Plains Indians and the US Cavalry, and plenty of sawdust on the floor to absorb the odours of beer, whiskey and sweat.
On O’Brien and Cahill’s second evening with the hide company the two decided to ride into town for a couple of drinks before retiring to the bunkhouse for the night. When they got to town they were surprised to see it bustling with activity. The saloons and two stores were open for business, their whale-oil lamps brightening their interiors and also the street. A couple of cowboys were racing up and down the main street, firing their six-shooters, and the sound of tinny music came from the Conestoga.
They stopped in front of that saloon and looked around. Neither man had ever been in Ogallala before except to ride through.
‘Looks like a Dodge City,’ Cahill commented. His middle-aged, weathered face was clean-shaven now, and he had lost some of the tired look he had shown on arrival at the company.
O’Brien grunted. ‘Nothing is like Dodge City.’ He gave a small grin.
‘Let’s go get ourselves something to quench our thirst,’ Cahill suggested.
A few minutes later they pushed through swinging slatted doors and looked around. The place was ear-rending with boisterous noise that drowned out the piano at the rear. Most of the customers were cowpokes from nearby ranches, and they were the loudest. Most tables were already taken, and the long bar on their left was crowded with men, red-eyed and half-drunk.
There was one table unoccupied not far from the door. The twosome walked over and settled themselves there. Only after getting seated did they notice McComb and Navarro at the next table. They were with two other riflemen from the hide company.
‘Hey, look who decided to join the party!’ McComb called out. ‘Our new recruits.’
‘McComb,’ Cahill responded quietly.
It did not escape McComb’s notice that O’Brien hadn’t returned the greeting. His face sobered.
‘Look, boys this is the rawhide man that throws shot coins into the air to look good with his rifle.’ He laughed gutturally, and Navarro joined in. The other two hunters just stared over at O’Brien.
‘There wasn’t nothing wrong with them coins,’ Cahill said. ‘Two of them come out of my pocket.’
McComb shook his head. ‘OK, OK. Have it your way. What you drinking tonight, boys? Sarsaparilla?’
‘Let it go, Cyrus,’ the Mexican said. ‘It spoils the tequila.’
McComb arched his brow. ‘My ale tastes the same. I’m having a real good time.’
But two of the cowboys at the bar had heard his accusation about sarsaparilla. They turned towards the tables, shot glasses in hand.
‘Look, we got some of them buffalo men in here tonight, Ben. Drinking sarsaparilla like a bunch of New Orleans dandies.’
‘They don’t smell like dandies.’ The other cowboy, Ben, grinned. ‘I wondered what that stink was in here. I reckon they can’t get all that buffalo dung washed off.’
McComb sighed, his attention taken off O’Brien. It was always this way in town when the cowpokes got their pay. There was always some interplay between company men and ranch hands.
‘The stink come in with you cow-floppers,’ McComb called back as he swigged down some dark ale.
‘Go poke some doggies in the ass,’ Navarro shouted merrily, and laughed as he held a glass up in the air.
‘Ah! And we hear from the wetbacks too.’ The first cowboy grinned. ‘Do you miss bedding with your sister, Mex?’
The smile faded off Navarro’s face, and he started to come off his seat. McComb put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
‘Remember, amigo, Walcott fires us if we get into it with ranches.’
‘What’s the matter, greaser?’ Ben now said loudly. ‘You allergic to gringos?’
Now most men at the bar were listening to the exchange, as were several tables of cowboys and townsfolk. The piano had stopped playing.
‘Maybe we better just get on back to the compound.’ One of the two hunters at McComb’s table said quietly. ‘If we shoot one of these jackasses Walcott will fire all of us. He knows all the ranchers around here.’
McComb was dark-visaged. ‘It might be worth it to blow a hole through one of these morons.’ He was armed, as was every patron in the room except for O’Brien, who never carried a sidearm. He had begun taking his Winchester with him into cafés and saloons in strange towns on the Wells Fargo trail, but figured there was little likelihood of real trouble in this company-dominated town, so he’d left it back at the compound.
Now a third cowpoke at the bar spoke up. ‘Who let them hide boys in here, anyway. Can’t a man have a drink without the stink of buffalo in his nose? It’s goddam disgusting!’
There was laughter around the room. Tonight there were no other hide men in the room but the ones at McComb’s and O’Brien’s tables.
‘By God, I don’t think we have to put up with it,’ Ben blustered. ‘What do you think, Luke?’
The taller man who had started the whole thing nodded. ‘I think you’re right, by Jesus.’ He looked at Navarro. ‘Why don’t you get your greasy ass out of our saloon, wetback, and take your stinking friends with you?’
‘Boy, your head is empty as last year’s bird’s nest,’ McComb growled at him.
‘And now, maybe we’ll see who leaves here.’
McComb was about to rise off his chair, when he glanced over and saw O’Brien already on his feet.
Suddenly every eye in the room was fastened on the man in rawhides, including those of the troublemakers at the bar. O’Brien picked up a bottle of planters’ rye that had been delivered to his table, and took a long swig of it as everybody watched. Then, without setting the bottle back down, he walked over to the bar with it in his right hand. He came up to the fellow called Luke without speaking.
‘What do you want, buckskin? You ain’t even armed. You come to smoke a peace pipe?’
To general loud laughter, O’Brien swung the bottle at Luke’s head. It smashed into his left ear and knocked him violently back against the bar. He hung there for a moment, looking glassy-eyed, then slid to the floor at O’Brien’s feet. Busted glass and spilled whiskey lay all over him and the floor.
There was loud murmuring from the room. Ben, his eyes wide, hissed out harshly, ‘You sonofabitch!’ Then he drew a revolver on his hip. Before he could pull the trigger, though, O’Brien grabbed his gunhand and shoved it away from him. The gun went off with an ear-splitting roar. Hot lead, missing a bartender’s head by inches, crashed into an oil lamp in a distant corner. Then O’Brien started squeezing down on Ben’s gunhand, inexorably, like a bear trap.
Ben began yelling as the fingers in his gunhand began to fracture under the iron grip. When the grip was released his gun clattered to the floor. Ben fell moaning against the bar. O’Brien back-handed him with a violent slap that broke two teeth out as the cowpoke joined his cohort on the floor.
O’Brien looked down the bar. ‘Anybody else got something smart to say?’
There was a long silence. Then O’Brien walked back to his table, to a grinning Uriah Cahill. He dropped two coins onto the table.
‘You ready to get out of here? It ain’t quiet enough tonight for my taste.’
McComb and the others at his table were just staring at him.
‘Yeah, let’s go get some rest,’ Cahill said, still grinning.
When they were gone a general murmuring of hushed exclamations filled the room.
‘Did you see that?’
‘He was one of them hide men.’
‘I never seen the like. Not here in Ogallala.’
‘Walcott got hisself something there.’
By the time the wonderment tapered off McComb was twisted up
inside with envy.
‘I guess we have a tough hombre there, heh, amigo?’ Navarro offered.
‘Why? Because he knocked a couple drunks down?’
‘Oh. Well, any of us could have done that, por supuesto. They were just a couple of borrachos, si?’
McComb cracked the knuckles on his right hand with his left. ‘Somebody has to take that boy down a notch or two.’
Navarro leaned toward him. ‘Maybe a little something under his saddle, heh, Cyrus? Like, you know.’ He was momentarily forgetting McComb’s warning to him. McComb turned to him with a look that made Navarro’s mouth go paper-dry.
‘Mex, if your brains was dynamite, you couldn’t blow the top of your head off. If I ever hear that pass your lips again, I’m going to blast your liver out past your backbone.’
Navarro found it difficult to speak. ‘Excuse, compadre. The liquor has climbed into my head. Never again, lo prometo. My lips are sealed.’
‘I’m heading back to Whiskey Creek.’ McComb rose from the table. ‘Take my mount back. I’m going to walk it. I need the exercise.’
Navarro nodded subserviently. ‘No trouble, Cyrus. Get some fresh air.’
Outside on the street Navarro mounted his own horse and rode off toward company HQ with McComb’s stallion trailing behind on a tether. McComb walked on down the street leisurely, trying to put O’Brien and Navarro out of his head. When he reached a residential area not far from the business section, he found himself passing by Elias Walcott’s Victorian mansion. Molly Walcott called out to him from a porch swing.
‘Good evening, Cyrus,’ came the feminine voice from the porch. ‘Been having a literary seminar at the Conestoga?’
McComb squinted to see better, and spotted a man sitting beside her on the porch swing.
‘I’ll be damned,’ he muttered to himself. He pushed through a small gate and climbed the steps to the porch.
‘Molly,’ he said deliberately. ‘Dawkins.’ Her companion was one of his riflemen.
A young, sinewy Dawkins, about O’Brien’s age, grinned awkwardly at McComb.
Everybody knew McComb was interested in the owner’s daughter.
‘Evening, boss. Ain’t it a fine night out here?’
‘I been thinking the same thing,’ McComb said tightly. ‘What are you doing in town, Dawkins? You got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.’
Dawkins was embarrassed. ‘Oh, it’s early, Cyrus. We was looking at the moon.’
McComb nodded. ‘The moon. Well, I want to see you bushy-tailed tomorrow morning, mister, so I want you to go get some sleep. Now.’
‘Hey! We were enjoying ourselves here, Cyrus,’ Molly protested.
Dawkins rose off the swing. ‘It’s OK, Molly. We’ll set some other time.’
‘You just pay attention to your work,’ McComb said pointedly.
‘Yes sir,’ Dawkins nodded. McComb was a decade older than he, and his boss. ‘Enjoy the night, Molly,’ he added. Then he left. McComb sat down beside Molly. She moved away from him, frowning.
‘You quit scaring my beaux away, Cyrus, or I’ll quit seeing you entirely.’ Her blonde hair was put up behind her head and she looked particularly pretty in the moonlight.
‘I told you,’ McComb said, ‘I don’t want you setting with every hide man or cowpoke that comes past here. It ain’t fitting for a business owner’s daughter.’
Molly laughed a soft laugh. ‘You don’t want? Who are you to tell me who to see? I’m not promised to anybody, Cyrus. I can do just what I want.’
McComb turned to her. ‘You got the reputation for being the biggest flirt in Ogallala, Molly. There are other girls that won’t even see you ’cause you ain’t fit to set with. I heard it in the store last week.’
Her face crimsoned. ‘Damn you! How dare you repeat that to me. I know who those girls are. I wouldn’t give a halfdime for any of them.’
‘You got to see it soon, Molly. It’s you and me that work together. It will always be that way.’
‘Only in your dreams, Mr McComb. I see lots of young men I like the looks of. One just rode past here earlier this evening. Wearing rawhides. A new man?’
McComb looked away, and swore under his breath. ‘We got a couple new ones.’
‘What’s his name? The young one?’ She knew she was irritating him, and enjoyed it. McComb suddenly stood up and scowled down at her.
‘You don’t have to know the name of every drifter that Walcott hires to do his shooting. Try to find some self respect, Molly, and some damn sense.’
Then he was storming off the porch, and out of the yard.
When he arrived back at the hunters’ bunkhouse he got a surprise. Elias Walcott was there, and most of the riflemen, and Walcott had just begun addressing them. He turned when McComb walked in.
‘Oh, good. I won’t have to see you privately, McComb. I got some news. A rider come in with it earlier.’
McComb sat down on his bunk. O’Brien, Cahill and Navarro were all there, listening to Walcott.
‘The rider was one of our scouts. He just rode in from an area south and west of here. About a day’s ride, with our wagons. There’s a herd there he says you can’t see the other end of. They’re grazing peacefully and will probably be there for several days.’
There was a low murmuring among the hunters. Walcott pulled a railroad watch from a pocket.
‘It’s almost nine. I want you all to be ready to ride out of here by midnight.’
‘What?’ McComb exclaimed.
‘I know,’ Walcott said. ‘But an opportunity like this is rare nowadays. And there was no other hide company on it. I want us to be there about dawn tomorrow, or maybe a little later. I think we can do it if we ride hard all night.’
‘Will we have grub out there?’ a nearby hunter asked.
‘I’ll take the wagon,’ Walcott replied. ‘But there won’t be no eating till the hunt’s over. Any other questions?’
He looked around the room to a heavy silence. ‘There will be plenty of ammo boxes loaded on the first hide wagon. I want you boys ready for a big spring kill.’
‘I’ll get them ready, Elias,’ McComb said loudly. ‘You can count on it.’
Walcott nodded and bowed his head. ‘And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures for the use of man, and everything that creepeth upon the ground, and God saw that it was good. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ McComb repeated loudly. He turned and winked at Navarro.
‘I’ll see you all at midnight,’ Walcott announced. ‘And remember, this is why you pull down bigger pay than hiders. More is expected of you.’
When he was gone there was some mild grumbling about the midnight trek, but at twelve all were ready to ride, gathered in the compound on horseback.
O’Brien’s appaloosa complained quietly to him for a few minutes, but then settled down.
By 12.30 by Walcott’s watch the silent group of riders was through Ogallala and on the way south and west in a bright moonlight.
The trek was long and tedious. O’Brien and Cahill rode side by side, and Cahill related some stories about trapping in the Rockies to make the time pass more easily. O’Brien didn’t understand the necessity, but didn’t try to stop him. He was accustomed to riding all night for Wells Fargo, and before that while cattle droving. Once he had gone for three days and nights without sleep, food or water while stalking a killer grizzly for the Lakota.
Halfway through the night a few of the men began falling asleep in the saddle. One of them was so far gone that his mount started wandering off into the low hills away from the caravan of the riders and wagons. McComb saw it, and told Navarro, riding just behind him.
‘I’ll go round him up,’ Navarro told him.
‘No. Let the dumb jackass go. It will teach him a lesson.’
But a couple of minutes later O’Brien rode out to the sleeping hunter and came up beside his mount. He reached out and grabbed the sleeper, jerking him upright.
‘Wake up, buffalo man.
Or you’ll miss the big show.’
McComb and Navarro both saw what happened, and McComb just stared hostilely toward the two riders as they rejoined the others.
It was just at dawn when the company of riders crested a low hill and the herd came into sight. It was something few of them had ever seen before. In a long low valley the black, hulking shaggies carpeted the terrain like a thick blanket: it extended as far as the eye could see.
The long line of hunters drew up in a tight bunch, the wagons rumbling to a stop behind them. There was a long moment of absolute silence as everyone stared in awe. Then Walcott was at their fore, leaning on his saddle, a wide grin on his face.
‘God has shown his mercy on us today, my lads.’ He threw a small turkey feather into the air and it drifted away behind him. ‘Good. The wind will not take our scent to them. Prepare for the attack.’
The sun was now climbing up from off the horizon behind them, making crimson stripes across the eastern sky. The buffalo came more clearly in view, and they were an impressive herd.
The hunters had formed a long line of attack now, and their mounts were guffering tensely. There was last minute loading of cartridges into chambers, and inserting of cartridges into belts.
‘I ain’t never seen a herd this big.’ From one of the newer men.
‘Look at them beautiful hides.’ From the man next to him.
Down at the far end of the attack line, Cahill looked over at O’Brien.
‘What do you think, partner?’ he asked with a smile.
O’Brien was staring silently at the valley before him with its magnificent herd.
‘This is what it was like,’ he said quietly, ‘before any of us got here.’
Fifty yards away, Walcott was ready to give the attack signal. He raised his arm high.
‘And the fear of man and the dread of him shall be upon every beast of the earth. Genesis chapter nine, verse two. Now go show yourselves to the beast, and make him understand his fear.’ Then his arm came down.
As on that day when Sam Spencer died, not long ago, the long line of riflemen thundered down a grassy slope toward the big herd. O’Brien and Cahill galloped along in their midst, and the appaloosa arrived at the herd out front. Now the air crackled and roared with hot gunfire as the riders merged with the frightened animals and began taking them down. O’Brien and Cahill were separated, and O’Brien was firing the Winchester over and over, barely taking aim to fire, hands free of the reins. Buffalo were going down all around him.
