What he saw less than five miles off was a sight that could bring tears to the eyes of a buffalo hunter. The herd was moving north at its own slow, time-honored pace. Grazing and browsing, flocks of the tiny black birds sweeping over the black carpet stretched between the hills in its slow, undulating migration. The little yellow ones were frisking beside their mothers at the head of the grand march. Young bulls and old were relegated to the rear, kept to the fringes of the procession.
Whooping, Dixon wheeled his horse and raced back to the skinners’ camp, where he confirmed the good news.
“How long you figure we can chance staying?” Dixon asked the old skinner.
He ran a tongue through the gap in his mouth where three rotten teeth had been yanked with ramrod pliers in years gone by. “Three, maybe four days, Billy.”
“That herd will bring in the hunters, won’t it?”
The old man nodded. “And we ain’t talking about white hunters neither. Don’t push your luck, and when we pull out—we best not spare the mules making it for the river, Billy.”
“All right, boys,” Dixon replied. “You heard it. I plan on this outfit hanging on here and working hides while we can—for four days.”
That afternoon the five skinners were put to work. Not a one complained, for this was the only way a hide-man made his money. And besides, they hadn’t seen a hint of a feather in any direction. Perhaps the buffalo gods had finally smiled on Billy Dixon after all.
So successful were they that not one of them really kept track of the passing days, not even the old skinner. The hides piled up from sunup to sundown, and at night Billy Dixon cast bullets for the next day’s go at the passing herd. For hundreds of yards in all directions around their camp, green, heavy hides were pegged, still much too heavy to haul north.
For weeks now McCabe had served as chief camp cook each morning and evening in return for a bigger share of the outfit’s profits. One starlit evening it was the redheaded skinner who told Billy they needed some fresh meat from the next day’s hunt for the larder.
“Boss ribs, it is, McCabe,” Dixon declared.
“Come to think on it—anyone know how long we been here?” asked the old skinner.
“I got a idea it’s more’n a week,” replied one of the others.
“On the order of ten days, by my count,” Dixon answered. Then it struck him as he turned to the old skinner. “Something wrong?”
“Just hope we didn’t overstay our welcome, Dixon.”
“Damn, if that ain’t the story, boys. Unless we wait till they’re cured, how we gonna haul these green hides too heavy for the wagon? And if we wait on the hides to cure—why not hunt for more instead of sitting on our thumbs?”
“It don’t really make sense sitting on your thumbs,” the old skinner replied. “But it don’t please me losing my hair waiting for a single hide to dry neither.”
“All right. Two more days won’t hurt,” Dixon decided. “I’ll go out early tomorrow and make meat to last us till we get north of the Arkansas. And we’ll pull hides till we pull out, fellas. Each one of these damned hides is worth too much for me to leave it behind.”
That seemed to settle it, without much grumbling from the skinners. At least any grumbling that Billy overheard. The next morning after a scalding cup of McCabe’s coffee, Dixon was gone into the herd roaming and feeding as little as two miles to the west of their camp. What he ran into was mostly younger cows and some young bulls along for the march. And for the most part the whole bunch of them acted as if they’d been chivvied of late, stirred up and restless. Downright spooky and ready to bolt at any sudden change in the breeze.
If he didn’t know better, Dixon would have figured the herd had been chivvied by Indians. But he was here to make meat, and hides too, if he got a good stand out of it, so he dismounted and rein-hobbled his horse.
Near the top of a low hill he went to his belly and crawled to the crest. Down below, the herd milled as if ready to make the jump, tails high and noses into the wind. Dixon chose a young bull and eased the barrel of the big Sharps down on the crossed sticks he had jammed in the ground to steady his aim. The gun roared.
As the stinging, gray smoke cleared, Dixon could see not only that the young bull had dropped, but that the rest of the herd was whirling away in a blinding cloud of dust, spooked by the gunshot and blood. He rammed home another cartridge, fired. Chambered another and fired as fast as he could. One after another Dixon aimed by feel into the blinding cloud of dust raised by the herd lumbering past the slope of the hill. If they were running off, then Billy Dixon was going to take as many as he could right here and now before they got out of range of his big gun.
When the thundering noise of their passing had faded and the dust cloud hung far down the valley hemmed with rolling hills, Billy rose and surveyed the scene. He tapped a finger on the Sharps barrel, searing his flesh. At least there were a dozen, perhaps more, down there for the others to skin. A good start on the day’s work, he decided.
At that moment back in camp, McCabe and the others had heard the first shot, then the second and all the rest rumbling in from the prairie in rapid succession.
“He’s pinned down,” declared the old skinner.
“We best get,” suggested another.
“I ain’t leaving Billy!” McCabe growled.
“Lookit!” one of the others shouted, pointing at a distant hill, in the general direction of the gunfire.
Silhouetted on the crest of the knoll were several dark forms that to the eyes of the skinners appeared to be mounted warriors adorned with feathers in their hair. Instead of being a war-party of Comanche, a small band of some two dozen antelope had been driven toward the skinners’ camp by the stampeding buffalo. Those shadowy outlines of the confused, frightened antelope was all it took to light a fire under the hide-men.
“We’re next, by God!”
“They got Dixon—and now red bastards coming for us!”
“Get ready to fight for your scalps, boys!” the old skinner exhorted them. “We’ll try for the river if we can.”
“We’re staying here—and waiting to find out what happened to Billy!” McCabe yelled at them.
The old skinner stepped up to the redheaded young man. “We’re going to the river to save our own hides.” He whirled on the other, younger men. “Now, the rest of you—round up the stock and let’s get loaded. Maybeso we can reach the Arkansas afore they kill us all.”
They had the wagons hitched and the horses saddled, leaving the hides, both dry and green, where they dotted the surrounding prairie … when of a sudden one of them spotted a lone figure appear on the far hilltop.
“There’s one of the bastards,” he said.
The old skinner pushed forward through the muttering, frightened men. “He’s probably come in to show us Dixon’s scalp and tell us we better push north, we know what’s good for us.”
“Don’t shoot,” McCabe begged them. “Let’s find out what happened to Billy first.”
They watched the rider come in at an easy lope, with something shadowy and dark slung over the front flanks of the horse as the rider came out of the west. After a moment McCabe rose behind the wagon where he had taken refuge, ready to sell his life dearly.
“Glory! Glory be! Howdeedo, Billy!”
“Halloo, the camp!” Dixon hollered back. “Made meat, fellas.” He rode into their midst, looking over the hitched teams and loaded wagons. “Didn’t mean to starve you to the point you’d just up and take off on me.”
“They was fixing to light out for the river, Billy,” McCabe explained.
He gazed at the old skinner, then the rest. “That right?”
“We heard all the shooting,” one of them explained sheepishly. “Figured you’d made a fight of it and was a goner.”
“Then we saw some Injuns on the hill over yonder,” another skinner jumped in to declare.
“Injuns?” Billy asked, turning in the saddle. “I ain’t seen nothing but s
ome antelope on my way in.”
The rest looked at one another.
“Antelope?” McCabe asked. “So what you got for my stew kettle, Billy?”
Dixon glanced down at the bloody, fresh chunk of meat he had slung in front of him for the ride in. He eased the heavy load down to McCabe’s arms. “I promised you boss ribs … so boss ribs it’ll be.”
“I wasn’t gonna leave you, Billy,” said the fiery redbeard as he juggled his load of buffalo meat. “The rest was set to pull up stakes.”
Dixon’s eyes touched them all, not finding any that would hold his for very long. “That true? You was ready to pull out and not even come back and claim my body?”
“You wasn’t killed, Dixon,” said the old skinner.
“What if I was—you’d just leave me for the wolves and the buzzards?”
“Shit no,” the old man answered, his arm sweeping an arc across the surrounding prairie. “No wolf or buzzard I know would chew on your carcass … not when we’ve left the carcasses of more’n enough good buffalo out there for ’em to eat!”
After selling what he had in the way of hides back in Dodge City to the Mooar brothers that spring, Billy had ventured south once more with a new outfit and a new bunch of skinners. This time they pushed past Crooked Creek and the Cimarron. On to Coldwater and Palo Duro Creeks. Farther south than any of them had ever been, or dared push into Indian country. They were past the land of the Cheyenne, pressing into the haunts of the Kwahadi and Kiowa. For certain this was not a white man’s land.
Dixon found piles of old bones where the Indians and Mexicans had once hunted these austere plains. Those bones and a prairie dotted with buffalo chips were the only evidence that the herds had been here of a time.
But there were no buffalo.
One thing was coming clear in his mind: if a man was to keep making money at this hide business, he would have to dare to ride farther and farther south each season. And if he wanted to make his fortune in buffalo, then a man had to say to hell with the red devils.
To hell with the Kwahadi of Quanah Parker. And to hell with the Kiowa of Satanta and Lone Wolf.
Chapter 14
August 1873
“Excuse me, fellas,” the stranger said as he rose from his chair and eased over to the table where Seamus Donegan and Jack Stillwell sat. “Did I hear one of you say the name Sharp Grover?”
Here in this smoky watering hole in Dodge City, Murray & Waters Saloon, the Irishman glanced at Jack, then looked up at the young man’s face. An open, friendly and well-groomed face with a waxed mustache beneath the handsome nose. Black hair hung to his shoulders.
“We did,” Seamus answered. “You know him?”
“I might have—if it was the same Sharp Grover who worked for Silas Pepoon in the winter of ’sixty-eight.”
“Pepoon?” Donegan asked.
“Chief of scouts for Custer’s campaign against the Washita tribes,” Jack Stillwell explained. He looked up at the stranger. “Yeah—so it must be the same Sharp Grover.”
“I was hoping there wasn’t two of them. The man was like a father to me back then. Jesus, Mary and Joseph—but it’s been five years already, ain’t it?” His large, callused hands grew nervous. “May I join you fellas for a drink—bringing my own?” He hoisted the nearly full bottle.
“Have a seat,” Seamus said. “Never turn down a man who wants to bathe strangers in whiskey.”
“I figure friends of Sharp Grover’s will be friends of mine soon enough,” he replied, holding his hand out to the Irishman. “Billy Dixon’s my name.”
They introduced themselves then watched Dixon pour a round.
“You made some money I take it?” Seamus inquired, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the gaming tables.
Dixon smiled. “Never was one to have much luck at that. No, Mr. Donegan. Made my money bringing in some hides that are already on their way back to a tannery in New York.”
“Buffalo man, eh?” Stillwell said. “You can’t be much older’n me. How long you been doing that?”
“I’ll turn twenty-three on the twenty-fifth of next month—September,” Dixon replied proudly. “Been a hide hunter for the past few seasons—since the spring of ’seventy. First laid eyes on the herds when I was a teamster for Custer’s Seventh Cavalry down to the Washita. We herded the Kiowa into Fort Cobb then went chasing after the rest of the Cheyenne, clear west to the Sweetwater in ’sixty-nine.”
“That’s how you met Sharp?”
“He showed me things—taught me some tricks to get along out here. Truth of it—I’ll never be able to repay Sharp Grover for his friendship that winter down in Indian Territory.”
Stillwell nodded, gazing down at his glass. “Sharp took a lot of us young ones under his wing, Billy. I only got a year on you myself.”
“By the saints! Don’t you two young’uns know how to make a man feel his age?” Seamus grumbled, a smile cracking the side of his face. “I got ten years, couple thousand miles, and more than my share of scars on both of you young hellions. So, here—let’s drink a toast to a grand old man: Sharp Grover!”
“Here, here!” Stillwell replied as he hoisted his glass.
“To Sharp Grover it is!” Dixon agreed.
Less than two years before, trader Charlie Myers had parked his hide wagons beneath a lone cottonwood tree and erected his little sod trading house right here on the road west from Fort Dodge. The following spring of 1872, the construction gangs laying track for the Santa Fe Railroad raised their own tents nearby and the little settlement of Buffalo City was born. There was no shortage of customers for Myers, and soon enough a man named Hoover, who became the biggest trader in whiskey, was selling out of his wagon with its hinged sidewalls that allowed the buffalo hunters to walk up the planks right into the wagonbed.
Card players and whores weren’t long in arriving either. One outfit called it quits on a too-quiet Hays City and moved out, packing bar, bottles and beds in ten wagons for the trip west. Those half-dozen girls who unashamedly showed their assets as they rode into Buffalo City, accompanied by the cheers and hoots of a joyous throng of stinking buffalo men, were sure to make a living bringing progress to the plains. Before there was a bank, a postal office or a sheriff, the fleshpots were open for business and promising a brisk trade.
The hide hunters came to this country, for here in southwestern Kansas roamed the immense Arkansas herd. So to southwestern Kansas flocked a thousand hide hunters.
By August, Buffalo City had come of age as a wild and woolly gathering place for all the best and the worst of mankind streaming onto the central plains. More and more newcomers burrowed dugouts or shoveled sod loose to build their earthen shanties on neatly platted town lots, measured and staked out by Charlie Myers using only a length of rope. Now the main street measured two blocks long, with two general stores among the watering holes and whores’ cribs. Old Mexican Mary still persisted in plying her trade, as she had from the earliest days of Buffalo City—entertaining her customers on a pallet of blankets she laid on the floor of her dugout carved out of a creekbank near the Arkansas.
Old Maria laughed when she learned of the death of one of those six fancy whores recently come to town and working out of an honest-to-goodness featherbed—a whore who died of “galloping consumption.” Maria laughed till she cried when she heard another had poisoned herself when, drunk and curious, she had tasted the vial of wolf poison she found in a hide hunter’s coat pocket before she could be stopped.
Between the hunters and the railroad construction gangs, the girls didn’t lack for customers, night and day, working their cribs in nonstop shifts. And when the buffalo men pulled out for the prairie, the Irish and German laborers took up the slack. They had already seen to it that their track reached the sod-and-pole corrals where stood immense piles of flattened buffalo hides and huge ricks of bleaching bones, waiting for shipment east to the tanneries and fertilizer factories.
It was a wild place, in every sens
e of the word—where the only law was a man’s pistol and his Sharps rifle, and perhaps the well-honed skinning knife he might have to use to carve up a bothersome antagonist. Arguments and fights and brawls and gun battles occurred with such regularity in those early days that no one really grew concerned enough to call for a badge. The only law was in the weight of the weapons a man packed, like those old fukes kept handy beneath the crude bars in every saloon. Both barrels sawed off short, loaded with buck or ball, these ready shotguns settled more than one argument and quieted more than one rowdy, overzealous railhand.
Like the ever-wandering frontier and the ever-nomadic buffalo themselves, Buffalo City did not last long—at least as a name for the town. When the federal government refused to approve the name for a postal drop, stating that Kansas already had a Buffalo and a Buffalo City both, it suggested the town assume the name of the nearby fort.
It was to this newly christened Dodge City that Seamus and Jack bid farewell that late summer, farewell as well to Billy Dixon. Although the sun was only then creeping over the horizon as they mounted their horses to ride to the fort to pick up their civilians and army escort, the music from out-of-tune pianos still punctured the quiet of the morning, as well as the raucous, discordant shouting of men too long without sleep and filled with a bellyful of puggle.
On the afternoon of the sixth day out from Dodge, Jack Stillwell led the fifteen others into Camp Supply after a hundred monotonous miles of trail south from Kansas. Here in the vee of land formed by the mouth of Wolf Creek, dumping itself into the North Canadian, the troops of George Armstrong Custer’s winter campaign had built Camp Supply back in ’68. And here almost five years later a permanent stockade of log and sod had replaced canvas tents. Ten-foot-high walls complete with loopholes, a blockhouse at each corner, and eighty-foot-long barracks housed the troops of the Tenth Cavalry beneath sod roofs that leaked in the rainy months, spilled dust the rest of the year.
A dispensary, a hospital with three wards, along with a large mess hall and a separate kitchen and bakery, joined the quartermaster stores, stables and headquarter’s offices inside the palisade walls guarded by sentries.
Shadow Riders: The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (The Plainsmen Series) Page 15
