by Judd Cole
Furthermore, widows were not required to “prove up” or improve the land in any way. Nor did they have to build a dwelling or even occupy the land before they transferred title.
“You know, Johnny,” Sam said timidly, clearing his throat, “Hansen and the rest of the hoe-men are tryin’ to go to law over in Casper. They want all unoccupied filings subject to contest. Most especial, those around Bar Nunn, Mills, and Evansville that border on Turk’s Creek.”
Johnny snorted like a master stallion. “I hear the damned is wantin’ ice water in hell, too, Sammy. Don’t fret. Let ’em go to law. Judges like shiners, too. ’Sides that, we ain’t breaking no laws.”
Johnny led Dottie outside. Across the sun-drenched ruts of the town’s only street, a big, rawboned Swede was gingerly loading a roll of barbed wire into a buckboard. He wore whipcord trousers, gone through at the knees. One broken boot was wrapped tight with burlap to reinforce it.
“Hey, Hansen!” Kinkaid shouted when he spotted him. “Know what? Bobwire is easier to cut than to string!”
“Yah, for a fact! And know what else? It’s easier to kill a man than to argue with him,” Dave Hansen shot back.
“That a threat?”
“Yah, you’re goldang right it is, Kinkaid. I catch you at my wire, you unchristian sot, I blow your belly open with buckshot!”
Johnny’s mouth twisted in contempt. “You filthy seed-stickers are all alike. Poor as Job’s turkey, alla yous. But you got plenty of mouth. Why’n’t you quit hot-jawing your betters and strap on a short iron, big man?”
“I may be poor, Kinkaid, but there’s no shadow on my name. A man can be proud of that.”
Johnny dropped Dottie’s arm and took two steps out into the street. His right hand rested on the metal backstrap of his Smith & Wesson. “What’s your drift, Hansen?”
Dave backed away from his first reply, not sure how far to push the younger Kinkaid. Elmer’s boy was not exactly known as a frontier bully who shot unarmed men. But he was reckless and hotheaded. And he derived great pleasure from humbling a foe before killing him, to make him realize he’d been beaten by a better man.
“Go to hell, Johnny. I don’t spit when a Kinkaid says hawk.”
The big Swede turned his back. Kinkaid’s sneer deepened. “The time’s coming, Hansen. You’ll fight or show yellow, you soft-mouthed son of a bitch.”
Johnny turned to take Widow McGratten’s elbow again. Abruptly, he made eye contact with a well-dressed, middle-aged man who’d just emerged from the Medicine Bow Hotel across the street. The man was clearly “East Coast capital” and not a local. He wore a dark twill suit and a neat bowler hat, and carried a slender walking stick tipped with an ivory knob.
Johnny nodded once before he turned away and guided Dottie toward the surrey waiting in the alley. The man watched him for a moment. Then he smiled and headed down the street toward the Western Union office.
“They’ve had nothing but fodder for almost a week now,” Wild Bill told a half-wit-looking kid. “Feed ’em up good on corn and oats, wouldja?”
The hostler nodded absently, for Josh could see that he was watching Bill’s roan enjoy a good roll in the hoof-packed yard of the livery stable. “Yessir. Mister, that’s a fine horse. Best I’ve seen in a spell now. And that little blue Indian cayuse ain’t no slouch neither, I’d wager.”
“And you’d win,” Bill assured him, realizing the kid was smarter than he looked. “Both those horses can gallop from hell to breakfast. Son, if it’s good weather tonight, don’t stall either animal. Turn ’em out into the corral.”
“Yessir.”
Bill threw a tired arm around Josh’s shoulders. The older man’s handsome face was beard-smudged and gray with trail dust. The Hickok nobody ever photographed, Josh realized.
“C’mon, Longfellow,” Wild Bill said. “Let’s stow our rigs, then get the lay of this place.”
Both men carried their saddles into the big barn and threw them onto saddle racks in the tack room. They hung their bridles on nails, then headed back out into the rutted street.
Unlike many western towns Josh had seen so far, Progress City had plenty of trees, and they were budding into leaf. The livery stood at the far western edge of town. This side of the street included a bank, a blacksmith’s forge, a Western Union office, a saloon, and the land office at the opposite edge of town. The far side of the single, straight street included a general store, the sheriff’s office and jailhouse, a hardware, a barber’s shop, and a two-story frame hotel with a high false front.
“I don’t see a separate wash-house,” Bill told the kid. “Prob’ly the hotel sells hot baths.”
As they strolled, Josh marveled again at Hickok’s smooth manner. The man looked relaxed and easy. But by now Josh had learned that Hickok’s hair-trigger alertness never let the slightest detail slip by.
Within seconds, for example, Bill had made a mental map of the entire street and its denizens: the usual crew of town loafers, track hands, reservation bucks, women in calico sunbonnets, and assorted hard tails. This last group was the only one Bill paid close attention to—the dirty men with lidded eyes and notched guns, holding up the buildings with their hips while they menaced every passerby.
“Those’re the easy-money lemmings,” Bill told Josh in a low tone. “Every town’s got ’em. That’s it, Junior, just keep smiling wide at ’em. You look sweet as a scrubbed angel, Longfellow.”
By now Josh had learned to ignore Bill’s insulting patter. It was all a distraction. Hickok was nervously dreading being recognized. He was fastidious about his clothing, and now wore a long gray duster to protect his suit. But it also hid his distinctive pearl-gripped Colts. So far, no one had recognized Wild Bill and run forward to ask if he could touch him for luck—or to take a shot at him.
But Josh knew that Bill feared more than one kind of ambush. At one point, a bead of nervous sweat trickled out of Wild Bill’s hairline. Hickok asked in a tense voice, “You don’t see her, do you, kid?”
With effort, Josh stifled a grin. “Her” was Martha Jane Burke—better known in frontier circles as Calamity Jane. It was widely known the woman had a serious itch, and she was convinced that only Wild Bill Hickok could scratch it.
“Nothing so far,” Josh replied.
“She’ll show,” Bill muttered. “Sure as cats fighting.”
The Medicine Bow Hotel was typical of a dozen such establishments Josh had stayed in since throwing in with Wild Bill. The lobby was dominated by a rusted stove set on brick legs, and the rough floor of foot-wide, unsanded boards showed huge cracks between them. Tin lamp reflectors lined the narrow hallways, and the legs of all the beds had been set in bowls of kerosene to keep off the bedbugs.
A clerk in a high, bright-glazed paper collar handed both guests a key and spun the register around so they could sign in. “Steam boiler out back, gents, all the hot water you’ll need. Get your towels and soap from the little Chinee boy, Mr. ... Hickok!”
The clerk’s eyes widened when he saw the register. Josh knew that Wild Bill never bothered to use an alias. Instead, Hickok flipped a gold piece onto the counter.
“Would it be such a problem,” Bill said to the clerk in a low tone, “if the register says we’re in rooms that’re actually empty?”
The clerk never batted an eye. Without a word he wrote “Room 212” after Bill’s name, “Room 212” after Josh’s. In fact, both men were assigned to adjacent rooms on the first floor.
The clerk slid the gold back to Wild Bill. “Keep your money, Bill. I owe you my life. The name is Rault—Jed Rault. I was with the First Illinois Rifles under General Hoffman. Your report on the Rebels’ secret artillery nests at Nashville came through just in the nick of time. Saved my division from a massacre. You were the best scout and spy the Union put in the field.”
Bill offered his hand, and the two Civil War vets gave each other a hearty grip.
The clerk glanced around discreetly before adding, “I can guess why you’re here
, Bill. Just take care, both of you. It ain’t just cattle dying early around here.”
“Wild Bill Hickok, as I live and breathe!”
The suave baritone voice came from behind them, startling both new arrivals. Josh saw Bill go rigid as a poker. He had violated one of his sacred rules— somehow, he had let a man slip into the room unobserved.
Bill turned slowly around. A well-dressed, courteously smiling gentleman holding a slender walking stick gave both men a slight bow.
“Wild Bill Hickok!” he repeated. “What an extraordinary pleasure. Sir, your reputation as a shootist is almost matched by your reputation as a poker aficionado. My name is Jarvis Blackford, a drummer by trade. Would you perhaps be interested in a game of chance later this evening?”
Bill flashed a grin through the dusty patina on his face. This kind of challenge he relished. “Is Paris a city? I’ll look for you in the lounge, Mr. Blackford.”
Chapter Three
The next morning, Bill got directions from Jed Rault, the hotel clerk. Then Bill and Josh made the five-mile ride out to Elmer Kinkaid’s Rocking K spread.
“That Mr. Blackford fella,” Josh remarked as their mounts trotted along a good road established by the local short-line stage. “Nice enough gent, but he ain’t much of a hand at poker, is he? Man alive! He musta lost a hundred dollars to you last night.”
“One hundred and seven dollars, to be exact.” Even as he replied, Bill monitored the sprawling country to both sides of the trail. They were safe from ambush here in the open grass flats. But Josh and Bill had both seen plenty of reminders that a war was heating up hereabouts. They had spotted more dead and bloated cattle, obviously poisoned, as well as cut fences and trampled crops.
“If I was that bad at cards,” Josh observed, “I’d take up dominoes or checkers.”
“Blackford is an excellent card player,” Bill said quietly, watching a wedge of geese head north. “Better than Bill Hickok. But he cheated.”
“Cheated!” Josh’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “But he lost!”
Bill nodded. His face, smooth-shaven now, was half in shadow under the black brim of his hat.
“My point exactly, Longfellow. He cheated himself so I would win. Once, he even discarded a wild card.”
“But why?” Josh demanded. The young reporter was due to file a story soon by telegraphic dispatch. And he sniffed a compelling mystery here.
“That’s a good question, kid. Nobody gives you something for nothing except your mother. And Jarvis Blackford is not the motherly type.”
Josh hated it when Bill acted so damned cryptic. But despite a barrage of questions, Bill maintained silence for the rest of the trip.
They topped the summit of a long, low ridge and spotted the Rocking K below them in a grassy hollow fed by a big creek. A sprawling one-story ranch house built of fieldstone was surrounded by weathered-plank outbuildings and several pole corrals.
Punchers were busy in a big pasture behind the house, branding and dehorning yearling steers. No one paid much attention as the two riders entered the main yard and hobbled their mounts at a long stone watering trough.
Bill knuckled the front door frame. A moment later, Josh gaped in astonishment at the beauty who answered. The young woman wore a floral-print dress that swelled generously at the bosom. Her thick, coffee-colored hair was pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck. Her cheeks, Josh noted with wide-eyed approval, glowed like fall apples. She held two paper bags.
“Well,” she greeted them uncertainly, eyes darting between both men to take their measure. “Our maid said two riders were coming into the yard. Since it’s close to dinnertime, I assumed you’d be out-of-work cowboys looking for a bite to eat. But neither of you gentlemen appears very destitute.”
Josh understood the bags now. It was the custom, in cattle country, for the wealthiest ranchers to feed local, out-of-work cowboys. Bill took one of the bags, opened it, saw a sandwich, an apple, and a doughnut. He removed the apple, handed the bag back, and began shining the apple on his vest while he frankly appraised the beauty.
“I suddenly have an appetite,” Bill said, greeting her. “This apple looks tempting. Miss ... ?”
“Kinkaid. Nell Kinkaid. But a man who looks like you can call me Eve.”
Still watching her, his bottomless blue eyes twinkling, Bill bit deeply into the fresh, sweet, juicy fruit.
“Kid,” he informed Josh between chews, “on the frontier, people generally fall into two societies. They’re either dancers or they’ve got Methodist feet. I’d wager Nell here is one of the dancers.”
“Sir, I see you fancy yourself quite the expert on women,” Nell shot back. “Do you know us from theory or experience?”
“Don’t mind my daughter, Mr. Hickok,” came a tobacco-roughened voice from behind Nell. “That girl’s just like her ma was, may she rest in peace. Pretty as four aces and brash as a government mule. Come in, Wild Bill, come in, I’ve been expecting you since Pinkerton sent a telegram. This is a great honor.”
Only now realizing who the handsome man in the duster was, Nell flushed and stepped aside to let the visitors in. Josh saw an old man in a wheelchair behind her.
“I’m Elmer Kinkaid,” he announced. “Stove up, but still feisty. Welcome to the Rocking K spread, gents. Jenny!” he called to a young maid in a mobcap. “Serve us coffee in the front parlor.”
Bill quickly introduced Josh. The young New York Herald reporter already knew that old man Kinkaid had been permanently crippled in a toss from his horse six years earlier. Though it left him confined to a wheelchair, he still ran the Kinkaid cattle empire with the same iron will and fist.
“Sorry my boy Johnny couldn’t be here,” Elmer said. “He’s supervising the branding of the yearlings. The ones that ain’t been poisoned, that is,” Kinkaid added bitterly. “If you can’t get to the bottom of all this, Bill, I’m selling out, and to hell with raising beeves.”
By now they had all settled in a comfortable parlor featuring red plush furniture with a fancy knotted fringe. Josh had been unable to take his eyes off Nell, but she, in turn, had eyes only for Wild Bill. Josh felt a familiar sting of jealousy. Playing sidekick to a living legend—especially one noted for good looks— was hell on a man’s love life.
“Even a blind man can see what’s going on around Kinkaid County,” Bill told the old patriarch. “Trouble is, a man can’t judge only by appearances. Especially a stranger to these parts. So you tell me how you see it.”
The weathered grooves of his face deepened when Elmer frowned. He twisted a finger into his soup-strainer mustache, mulling Bill’s question. Josh noticed that the old man had been working at a little table, carving a new gunstock from a block of walnut. Elmer’s hands were crippled up from a life of hard labor, but he still did good work with them.
“This area is settling up,” Kinkaid finally replied. “Nothing wrong with that. Hell, I welcome newcomers. I was new here once, myself, and didn’t have a pot to spit in. But these new settlers we get now? Hell, half of ’em are goddamn Pops,” Elmer added bitterly, meaning Populists. “They hate the rich man on principle. And they’ve got ’em a mouthpiece name o’ Dave Hansen. A Swedish sodbuster who’s got one hell of an ax to grind. And mister, he means to grind it till the wheel breaks.”
“So you figure this Hansen is the ringleader behind the poisonings?”
“I figure it, I know it, but damn my eyes if I can prove it. Especially from this damned chair.”
“What about the sheriff in Progress City?” Bill asked. “He honest?”
Elmer snorted. “Waldo is middling honest, all right. Trouble is, he ain’t got the mentality for the job. Matter of fact, he ain’t got the brains God gave a pissant.”
Elmer pulled open the top drawer of his little worktable. He removed a one-ounce bottle of white powder.
“This is strychnine, Mr. Hickok. A little pinch of this cheap white powder will kill most any varmint. Especially since the sheepmen moved in, we
got a real problem hereabouts with coyotes and gray wolves. Trouble is, everybody hereabouts has strychnine on hand. And it kills cattle, too.”
“Do you have any hard evidence,” Bill asked, “that Hansen’s poisoning cattle?”
“Evidence? Hell no! That’s why there ain’t no end to the damned lawing hereabouts. Hansen’s been spotted near the worst poisoning sites. Trouble is, he’s got him a good excuse for being spotted all over. See, he locates new settlers for a small fee. Helps them find the government corners on their land.”
Bill nodded. The section corners of each land-grant plot were marked with four small holes, often difficult to find without help from locals.
“This Dave Hansen,” Bill pressed. “Is he the killing kind? I ask because Josh and I were dry-gulched outside of Progress City.”
Josh watched Elmer give that one some thought, again twisting a finger into his shaggy mustache. “I can’t say, Wild Bill. I despise the man, but I’m not so sure Hansen is a cold-blooded killer. But there’s others around here—other hoe-men, I mean—that are lower than a snake’s belly.”
“Maybe a few low cattlemen, too?” Bill prodded.
Kinkaid’s white eyebrows met in a frown. “The hell’s that mean? We hired you, Hickok. Don’t crap where you eat.”
Bill let it go for now. Before he could ask any more questions, a puncher in dusty work clothes appeared at one of the open windows and politely requested to speak with the boss.
“Keep Mr. Hickok entertained, Nell,” Elmer said before he wheeled his chair across to the window. “But watch him. I hear he’s quite the lady’s man.”
After the old man was out of earshot, Josh saw Nell catch Bill’s eye. “I’ll be safe with you, won’t I, Mr. Hickok? After all, you only squire wealthy and famous women, isn’t that right? Actresses, singers, countesses, and the like? Not a common ranch girl like me.”
“Actually,” Bill replied easily, “quality is all I look for—in a horse or a woman.”
