The Long Journey Home

by Don Coldsmith

  Afterward, he could not remember just when and how he had started to drink. It must have been on the train, somewhere crossing Iowa or Nebraska. Probably somebody had offered him a bottle and he had eagerly shelled out the cash that was asked.

  It might be thought that whiskey would be hard to obtain. There was a hard-fought campaign in progress to outlaw all alcoholic beverages. The major political parties had refused to meet the question head-on in their official platforms. But there was considerable strength in the Prohibition Party and, even without the right to vote, a great many women carried a great deal of power. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League were bringing pressure to bear. Public drunkenness—and, in many cases, drinking at all—was considered a disgrace. There was legislation making its way through Congress to completely forbid all production, transportation, and sale of beverage alcohol of any type—beer, wine, whiskey, anything.

  Under these circumstances, it would seem that it might have been difficult for John Buffalo to have acquired a drinking problem. But it was not so. When he had money, there always seemed to be someone who had, or could obtain, a bottle. Especially in the West.

  In the blur of his memory somewhat later, he could dimly remember a series of dusty western towns. Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming … Cattle country … People he understood, horses, cowboys …

  When he ran out of money, he would acquire enough for a fresh start in one way or another. He no longer had his saddle, and was not certain how he had become separated from it. Maybe he had even left it on the train. If he had that saddle, he might have worked as a cowboy. He might have, anyway, except that he didn’t feel like it. It would have taken more energy and ambition than he had.

  It was easier to make a little money by gambling. Gambling games had always been a favorite pastime among his people. This translated well into the card games of the white man. Poker was a favorite, and lent itself well to the flat, emotionless facial expression often relied upon by the Indian.

  John Buffalo was an expert at poker. As a student, he had had great success in low-stakes games, naturally frowned upon by the school authorities. At the 101, especially in the winter months, poker was a frequent pastime.

  Even in his whiskey-troubled mind, John recognized this as a source of money to continue his habit. He was able to stay sober enough when he needed to, to play a skilled hand, collect a few jackpots, and continue his downhill slide.

  There were several small towns, indistinguishable one from another in his memory, where this had happened. That he survived was probably due only to the fact that it was summer, and that the drunken portion of the sequence could take place outdoors. He would waken in a street he did not recognize, and begin the destructive cycle again.

  In this way, he found himself in a saloon called Happy Jack’s, in a town in Wyoming. He was looking for an opportunity for a poker game, casually pretending to drink, while he watched the other patrons. They were cowboys, men he understood. They were having a good time, joking and visiting. Not really a bunch who afforded a good possibility for a poker game, but men he envied, in a way. They were among friends and were having fun.

  The conversation was about the European War. Increasingly, there was a feeling that the United States would be drawn into the war.

  “I’m neutral, meself,” a big Irishman was saying. “I don’t care who kills the Kaiser, as long as he gets the job done.”

  “Now, Tom,” retorted another cowboy, “I heard the Irish have a secret weapon … A new type of square-barreled cannon that shoots bricks.”

  “It’s true,” said Irish Tom seriously, “but the real showdown is comin’. Wait till we get the Irish Navy after them German U-boats.”

  “Irish Navy? Who ever heard of them?” a cowboy scoffed. “Ain’t they the sailors who go home for lunch?”

  “Yeah,” said another. “Where is this Irish Navy, anyway?”

  Irish Tom lowered his tone and looked suspiciously from side to side.

  “An’ do ye think,” he half-whispered, “that I’d be tellin’ you, ye damned German spy?”

  There was a roar of laughter, and again, John felt a pang of envy. These were friends, having fun. He was an outsider. It was easy to feel that it was because of the color of his skin. He realized, however, that one of the cowboys in the jovial group was probably an Indian, also. The man was quiet and unassuming … a tall, handsome man. There was nothing to indicate his tribe or nation.

  As the group broke up and passed his table, the tall Indian gave him a slight nod of recognition, and John responded with a nod of his own.

  Autumn came, and cooler weather. John was still in the same general area, drawn by the easygoing atmosphere. He was still a loner, rejecting the temptation to make acquaintances. It might interfere with his gambler’s vocation.

  He considered applying for work at one of the ranches in the area, but kept postponing the decision. He had done well enough at poker that he still had a small stake. Maybe later.

  In early January 1917, he was reading a Denver Post newspaper that someone had left in a hotel lobby, and an article caught his eye. It was about the war and quoted Theodore Roosevelt at length. Roosevelt advocated immediate entry into the war, with at least a division of volunteers. Among these would be a brigade of hard-riding, fast-moving cavalry, a new unit of Rough Riders who could breach the vaunted German lines. Once in Germany, they would live off the land, move fast and strike hard, and challenge the Kaiser on his own turf. It should not be hard, Roosevelt speculated, to recruit a few hundred hard-riding cowboys who could handle such a assignment.

  John thought for a moment of the gang he knew in the 101 Wild West Show … . Yes, for many of those, this would be an attractive adventure. He laid the paper aside. He had a more pressing problem. He was running short on cash, and needed a poker game.

  In the same general area, a young cowboy named Tim McCoy, who had a homestead on Owl Creek, had read the same article in the Denver Post. He was enthusiastically interested in a project like Roosevelt’s. Somebody needs to do something, he thought. With the brashness of youth and convinced of his own immortality, he took pen and paper and composed a letter to the former president. He offered to recruit four hundred skilled cowboy riders for the cavalry unit proposed by Roosevelt.

  Not having any idea where Roosevelt might live, he assumed that someone in the postal system might know. He addressed the letter to:

  The Hon. Theo. Roosevelt

  New York City, New York

  A couple of weeks later, a rider from the town of Thermopolis, Wyoming, rode into the McCoy homestead. He carried a telegram.

  “It looked mighty important,” the rider explained.

  There were six words in the telegram:

  BULLY FOR YOU! DO PROCEED! ROOSEVELT.

  All of this was unknown to John Buffalo, who had found his poker game and was winning. As the game narrowed far into the night, two players kept jockeying for the big win: John and a nondescript drifter with a week’s beard and the shoes of a miner. He carried a small pouch of gold dust, and used it sometimes to cover the cash and chips on the table when the betting became heavy.

  John did not trust him, but the gold dust appeared real, and John was on a winning streak. The other man won just often enough to stay in.

  The hour was late, the game five-card stud. There were five men still at the table, but three were there more from interest than for serious play. They’d bet just enough to keep the game going, and would fold at the first opportunity. The serious players continued to be John and the miner.

  The dealer, one of the other three for this hand, dealt a card facedown to each player, and on top of that, another card, faceup. John took a quick look around the table. Nothing much showing: a jack, a couple of low numbers … His own was an eight, the miner’s a two, both clubs.

  Each player took a careful look at his hole card. Then the bidding began. The player with the jack opened, the miner raised the bet, and one o
f the others dropped out. John’s hole card was a three of hearts. Not much to be proud of.

  The dealer tossed cards, faceup, to those still in the game. John drew a three of diamonds. Not bad … With his hole card, a pair of threes.

  The miner now had a pair of twos showing, with a new two of diamonds.

  The dealer dropped, but would continue to deal to the others. The miner, with the highest hand showing—a pair of twos—opened the betting.

  “Ten dollars!”

  A high bet for only a pair of twos. He’s pretty proud of that hole card, thought John. A high face card? Not another two, or the miner would have bet higher before this.

  “Call,” said John, tossing a gold piece into the pot.

  On the next round, the miner drew an ace, and John another three, this time in spades. He now had three of a kind—a good hand at five-card stud, but it didn’t look like much … . A low pair and an eight were all that were showing.

  His opponent, with a pair and an ace, seemed overly elated.

  John, using his stone-faced stoicism, bet ten. The miner raised twenty, and the third player dropped out.

  There was more going on than could be seen as the last card dropped before each of the two remaining players. Two very small cards: a two of hearts to the miner, and another three for John.

  Four of a kind. Almost a once-in-a-lifetime hand.

  Very quickly, he saw that the miner had overlooked that possibility. He was far too excited about his three deuces and an ace.

  John looked over the possibilities. Normally, three of a kind was a good hand, but this miner was far too excited. The man could see that John’s threes would top those three twos. This bet, then, would be based on the miner’s hole card. What would it be? If it happened to be a fourth two, it would account for the man’s excitement. Of course, John’s four threes would top it.

  What could it be? Suddenly it struck him: The hole card must be another ace: a full house. Almost nothing beats a full house. A royal flush or a straight flush, both impossible here. Only one other hand could win: four of kind, the hand that was filled by John’s fourth three, lying there facedown.

  He doesn’t realize, thought John. He’s too pleased with his full house!

  John appeared to ponder, and finally faked dejection.

  “I’ll check,” he said in resignation.

  “Raise fifty!” said the miner.

  “See it and raise a hundred,” said John quickly.

  The miner took the bait.

  “Look,” he said, “I got no more cash than this, but here’s somethin’. He pulled out a folded paper and spread it on the table. “This here’s a deed to a gold claim I own. It’s prob’ly worth a few hunnerd dollars. It’ll cover whatever you got. How about it?”

  There was a little further negotiating, with the dealer and the bartender as witnesses. The miner turned over his hole card triumphantly. The ace of spades—a full house.

  Now John flipped over his own card and watched the expression on the miner’s face change to one of disbelief.

  “Four of a kind!” he breathed. “My God!”

  FORTY-NINE

  The “Boar’s Nest,” a gold mine … It had been exciting, at first. John had rented a horse at the livery stable and followed the directions written out for him by the poker-playing miner.

  “It ain’t been worked for a while,” the man had warned. “It ain’t much … . There’s a tunnel in pretty good shape. About gold, I can’t say. I’ve never really worked it. You know minin’?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you can learn, I guess. All of us did, sometime. You need to go out and take a look, talk to somebody at an assay office. They’ll help you. They’ll weigh out your dust, too. You got that little bag of dust I was bettin’ with last night?”

  “Yes … That’s from the mine?”

  “No, not the Boar’s Nest. Another place. But there’s gold in them hills.”

  John had taken most of the day to ride out to the mine. Even there, he had trouble finding it. There were bushes and shrubs, even a small tree growing in front of the tunnel opening. Not very impressive.

  The day was late, and he made camp in order to get settled in before dark. He could explore later.

  He began to investigate as soon as it was light enough. He had brought a coal-oil lantern, and now lit it to explore the mine tunnel.

  John quickly realized that it, too, had been greatly exaggerated. It was low, requiring a squatting position. For a man as tall as himself, it would probably be better to work on one’s knees or even sitting. Judging from the cobwebs, it appeared that no one had worked this claim for some time. There must be a reason, and he suspected that maybe he—not the miner—had been the victim in that last poker hand.

  He scratched around enough to assure himself that he had little interest in mining. He had always had a fear of closed-in places, probably because of his early childhood in a Lakota lodge; warm in winter, cool in summer, but open and free to sky and prairie. This reinforced his feeling that there are things more important than gold.

  The next thing, then, was to find a way to get rid of his liability. He spent the day cleaning up around the mine’s opening, brushing down cobwebs, and picking up debris from the tunnel’s floor. If he were to sell it, it must at least look workable.

  Back in town, he went to the assay office, which appeared not to have been very busy for some time. He introduced himself, and asked whether there was much interest in buying and selling claims.

  The man behind the counter looked him over curiously: a cowboy, not a miner.

  “Not much,” he said cautiously. “Pickin’ up a little with the war effort. You lookin’ to buy a claim?”

  “No,” said John. “I’m no miner, but … Well, I sort of bought one. I either need to learn to work it, or to sell it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Up north, a half a day. It’s called the Boar’s Nest.”

  From the look on the man’s face, John realized that he had guessed right. Apparently it had a reputation.

  “The Boar’s Nest?”

  “That’s what it says on the paper. You know of it?”

  “Well, yes …”

  There was a lopsided grin on the man’s face that told a bigger story.

  “Maybe I should learn a little about mining,” John pondered. “Either that, or sell it, if I can.”

  “Well, I ain’t in business to teach greenhorns to mine,” said the assayer. “But there were a couple of fellas askin’ about buyin’ a claim, a while ago. Are you workin’ the shaft?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, tell you what. Get you a gold pan over at the mercantile. They can tell you how to get started. When you get a little dust, bring it in. That’ll stir some interest in buyin’, maybe.”

  As he left, John realized that he might well have the proverbial bear by the tail. How could he escape? The poorly concealed smirk on the face of the assayer as he turned away was the final insult.

  At the store, he bought odds and ends of supplies that seemed appropriate for his purpose. He also asked about a cheap shotgun.

  “There’s a few grouse up there,” he told the clerk. “Maybe I can get some fresh meat.”

  The old single-shot had seen better days, but the clerk offered to throw in a loading tool for the brass shells.

  “You can reload with your own powder and shot,” he explained. “Use a cloth wadding. Here, you’ll need a box of primer caps. See, you punch out the fired cap and push in the new one with this tool.”

  John was quite aware of the process of reloading. He’d seen the old men do it many times. This was what he needed.

  A gold pan, a short lesson in how to use it …

  “You’ll see this black sand in the pan, the merchant told him. Now, that ain’t gold, but you’re gettin’ close. That’s when you keep tryin’. Now we got a stretch of purty good weather right now, but … Say, you got shelter if we get snow?”

>   John thought of the mine tunnel.

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be fine.”

  He actually did spend half a day panning. A few grains of black sand, one sparkling glitter that reflected sunlight for a moment … It could have been a fleck of gold dust, he always thought later, but it was gone the next instant, and he never found it again. Like a lot of things in life, he pondered morosely.

  Well, time to return to his original plan. He fired a couple of shells from the old shotgun and got a grouse, which he broiled over his fire. While his supper cooked, he took out his reloading tools … . Punch out the old primers, replace with new caps, measure the black powder … A somewhat lighter load than recommended … Tightly packed wadding … Almost filling the shell.

  With his wad cutter, he had punched several cardboard top-wads out of a lightweight box in which the clerk had packed some of his supplies. One of these on top of the rags …

  Now he turned to the buckskin pouch of gold dust which had been part of his winnings at poker. Very carefully, he sifted fine dust into the nose of each brass shell casing. He was throwing money away, but he had to think of it as an investment … . A thin cardboard top wad, and a light crimp with the tool, to turn the shell’s rim over the wad.

  His palms were sweating as he took the shotgun and his two high-priced shells to the very back of the tunnel and set the lantern on the floor. He selected a corner with a sort of crevice, and scratched around a bit with his short-handled miner’s pick to expose a fresh surface. Then, a few steps back …

  He fired the first shell, and started forward to examine the results with the lantern. He was stopped by the dense white powder smoke that filled the tunnel. He’d have to wait.

  The results were quite pleasing, he thought when he was able to reenter. A bright sprinkle of sparkling gold in a space of a handspan. He backed off another step or two before firing the second shell into the same general area. He rolled in his blankets that night with a solid feeling of satisfaction. Now he was ready to go back to the assay office.