Blood and Gold

by Joseph A. West

  But Reeves would not be moved. “Then ride in easy and keep your mitts up in the air where I can see them.”

  “Ride in, he says. Am I not riding in already?”

  The creaking and clanking started up again and the bobbing light was gradually transformed into a guttering oil lamp fixed to the side of a small two-wheeled wagon drawn by a swaybacked, mouse-colored mustang. Pots, pans and ladles clanked on the outside of the wagon and the whole rig creaked and groaned like an old man getting up from his seat at the fire.

  The driver up on the box was short and thin, a battered, flat-crowned hat on his head, a black beard, shot with plenty of gray, falling over his narrow chest. As he got closer, I saw dark eyes, bright as those of a bird, peering at us from under a pair of shaggy eyebrows, taking in everything, missing nothing. He looked to be about sixty years old.

  “Hold up, Rosie,” the man said, hauling on the reins, stopping just beyond the circle of the firelight. He looked around him. “How did I find your camp?” he asked finally. “Did I not smell your coffee from a long ways off?”

  “Coffee’s all gone,” I said. I felt no threat from the peddler and decided to be friendly. “Sorry.”

  Rosenberg nodded. “No need for sorrow. I have coffee. Arbuckle coffee, fresh in the sack. Got sugar too, if that’s to your taste.”

  Beside me, I saw Reeves think this through. Then he made up his mind as I had done earlier and holstered his Colt. “Peddler, I guess you’ve come to the right camp because we’re fresh out of everything. That is, if your prices are honest.”

  “Honest?” Rosenberg asked. “And why would my prices not be honest?”

  Reeves’ smile was thin. “Out here, where there ain’t a general store for miles around, a man could get to thinking he can get mighty rich mighty quick.”

  “Rich, he says,” the peddler snorted, “out here in this wilderness where a man hears nothing but the howl of the wild beasts. Look at me. Am I not a poor man? Those most in need have no money to buy, and those with money have no need. Who then gets rich?”

  Reeves’ smile widened. “Well maybe so. Unhitch that pony and show us what you have in your poke.”

  I helped Rosenberg put up his horse, liking the way the man’s quick movements were practiced and precise as he undid the traces, with no wasted effort.

  The little man was a Child of the Book, one of hundreds of Jewish peddlers who wandered the West selling their wares, mostly dry goods like needles and thread, calico cloth, pots, pans and ladles. Most carried packs on their backs, trudging for miles across the prairie to isolated ranches and farms, but a few, like Amos Rosenberg, were successful enough to afford horses and wagons.

  Peddlers also traded with the Indians and one I met had spent six years living with the Cheyenne and had him an Indian wife.

  Most ranch and farm women warmly welcomed the peddler, not only for his goods, but because of the news he brought from the cities. I reckoned if put to it, Rosenberg could tell us how the women of fashion in Cheyenne were wearing their bonnets and how big were the bustles of the Abilene belles and how sheer their fine silk stockings.

  The pioneer woman isolated amid an empty sea of grass for months and years at a time did not know or care that the latest fashion in Abilene was already a year old back in the East and two years out of date in Paris. It was all new and exciting to them, so no wonder the visit of the peddler was a welcome thing, eagerly anticipated.

  Rosenberg seemed to be a shade more prosperous than the rest, because in addition to his dry goods, he carried a small supply of bacon, salt pork, flour and coffee. Arranged around the floor of his wagon, crammed beside bales of calico and muslin, were small kegs of vinegar, sugar and molasses. He had a glass jar of pink candy sticks and another of black-and-white-striped peppermint balls. To my joy he also carried sacks of tobacco and a supply of .44.40 shells in boxes, enough to replenish the ones I’d fired off so freely on the trail.

  Between us, me and Reeves spent close to fifteen dollars on what the peddler had to sell. My major purchase was a new cotton shirt, but it seemed my free-spending ways did little to impress Amos Rosenberg. He glanced at the coins and crumpled paper money in his hand, shook his head and muttered:

  “And now you know why I am a poor man. It’s because I buy dear and sell cheap.” He shook his head again. “Oy, I fear you have taken advantage of me.”

  I doubted that very much, figuring he’d made a more than fair profit, but I held my tongue. I was well aware of how merchants loved to complain. Like sodbusters, they were quick to plead poverty while all the time having sacks of money stashed under their beds.

  I filled our pot at the creek and soon had coffee boiling. Having a young man’s appetite and still being mighty hungry, I fried up some bacon and pan bread and me and Reeves finally ate our fill. Rosenberg would have no part of the bacon, but ate a couple of strips of his own antelope jerky, which he washed down with coffee, strong and boiling from the pot, sweetened with molasses.

  After we ate and got to smoking, the little peddler brought out a battered pipe and lit it with a brand from the fire. Every now and then, he’d stretch out his left hand, contemplate his pinkie finger and let out with a deep sigh, usually followed with a shake of the head and a muttered: “Oy, oy, oy.”

  “Finger broke?” Reeves asked with scant interest.

  “Why would my finger be broke?” Rosenberg asked. “Who has a broken finger?”

  The lawman shrugged. “Just asking.”

  “Oy vey,” Rosenberg said again, looking at his pinkie, his head shaking even more.

  Since the little peddler tended to answer a question with one of his own, I tried to trap him. “Tell us what’s troubling you, Mr. Rosenberg.”

  “What is there to tell? Who needs to know?”

  I shrugged. “You keep looking at your hand. Maybe it pains you.”

  Rosenberg nodded, his black eyes glittering in the firelight. “Ah yes, there is pain. But not in the finger.” He placed a hand on the chest. “The pain is here.”

  I was right sensitive about pain in the chest after what had happened to Simon Prather, so I asked: “Is it in your pump?”

  “Ah, is it in my pump? Boy, you hit the penny nail right on the head. It’s in the heart sure enough. Oy, my poor heart is broke.”

  “How come?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t. But Rosenberg surprised me. He answered the question straight as a fire poker.

  “I had a ring,” the peddler said. “I wore it right there on my little finger. It was a silver ring given to me by my wife.” Rosenberg sighed. “She’s no longer with me, took by the cholera this five years past.”

  “You lose it?” Reeves asked. He was idly rolling a smoke and didn’t look up.

  “Lose it? Why would I lose it? It was took from me.”

  “Who took it?” I asked.

  “Brigands. Black-hearted brigands.”

  Now Reeves was all attention. His unlit cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, he asked:

  “Was one of them a man with long yeller hair? Carries a big Sharps with a fancy brass scope on the top? Goes by the name of Wingo?”

  The peddler shook his head. “That man wasn’t among them. There were six of them, and I heard the name of one of them spoken but it wasn’t that name.”

  “Oh?” Reeves asked, his interest quickly fading as he lit his smoke.

  Rosenberg nodded. “Their leader was a man named Yates and afterward I remembered that I’d seen him before.”

  Reeves’ head snapped around. “Bully Yates? Big feller”—he traced a finger down his left cheek—“has a bowie knife scar right here.”

  “How should I know what gave him the scar?” the peddler replied. “But scar he has. Like I already told you, later I remembered him. I saw him use a scat tergun to kill a man outside a saloon in Abilene three summers ago. Should I forget a thing like that?”

  Reeves drew deep on his cigarette and shook his head. “Well, well, well, Bully Yates as
ever was.”

  “You know him, Bass?” I asked.

  “I should think I do,” the lawman said. “I have a warrant for his arrest, signed by Judge Parker. Yates is wanted for bank robbery and murder and any number of other crimes, including the part scalping of a loose woman he took up with for a spell.” He looked across the fire at Rosenberg. “Did you recognize any of the others?”

  The peddler shrugged. “The others I did not know. But they were all hard men and weighed down by guns.”

  “Well, I have a stack of John Does for the others, so that doesn’t make no difference.” Reeves rose to his feet. “Can you recollect where was you robbed, peddler?”

  “Why should I not recollect? Was it not me who was robbed?”

  “Tell me straight now,” Reeves said, his face grim. “For I plan to start after those men at first light.”

  Rosenberg nodded. “To the west of here, maybe twenty miles. Maybe more.”

  “Over to the Salt Fork country?”

  “Further west. By Sandy Creek.”

  Reeves thought that through, then said: “That’s wild, empty country to the west of us. I’d guess Yates is holed up there, figuring to lay low until the heat over the Lawton bank robbery dies down.” The big lawman threw his cigarette butt into the fire. “Bully Yates was always a damn careful man.”

  “He’s not laying so low,” Rosenberg pointed out, his face bleak. “He stole my ring and the seven dollars and eighty-three cents I had in my purse.” The little peddler shrugged. “He also took some bacon, salt and flour and most of my coffee.”

  “I don’t know about the money,” Reeves told the peddler. “But when I get your ring back, I’ll give it to the clerk of Judge Parker’s court in Fort Smith. You can pick it up there.”

  Before Rosenberg could reply, I said: “Bass, you can’t go after those men alone. Hell, man, there’s six of them.”

  “And hard,” the peddler said, shaking his head. “All of them hard.”

  “I don’t have time to go back to Fort Smith and round up more marshals,” Reeves said. “By the time we all got back here, Yates could have lit a shuck.”

  Reeves reached down and placed a hand on my shoulder, an unusually friendly gesture for a man as reserved as he was. “Dusty, you have your own trail to follow. I won’t think any less of you if you don’t follow mine.”

  Truth to tell, up until that moment I hadn’t even considered going after Yates and his gang. But now, when I looked up into Reeves’ eyes I saw a deal of shrewd speculation going on there. He was saying one thing, but thinking another, like he was determined to judge me as a friend and a man by what I said next.

  I realized then that the cat that had my tongue was a wildcat and I sure had it by the tail.

  So far we had seen neither hide nor hair of Lafe Wingo and the others. If I didn’t catch up to them soon, Simon’s money would be gone and his SP Connected doomed to foreclosure. Ma Prather would be thrown off the ranch and then what would become of her? I didn’t even want to think about the answer to that question.

  Yet how could I stand by and let Bass Reeves ride alone into a one-sided fight with six outlaws? Nobody needed to tell me that he’d saved my life and I owed him. Now that thought nagged at me, yammering to my conscience that I was an ungrateful wretch, giving me no peace.

  Torn, I was about to speak when Amos Rosenberg’s voice bridged the widening gulf of silence stretching awkwardly between me and the big lawman. “Mar shal, I would ride with you, but I am too old and slow,” he said. “I know of calico and cotton, pots and pans, but of tracking men and of guns and gunfighting I know nothing.”

  I rose to my feet, my mind made up. “I’ll ride with you, Bass,” I said, “if you’ll have me.”

  The lawman stuck out his huge hand and I took it. “Proud to have you along, Dusty.” He dropped my hand and slapped me on the back. “You’ll do, boy. You made a man’s decision here tonight, and by God, you’ll do.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “From this moment on, consider yourself a deputy of Judge Parker’s court, duly sworn and appointed.”

  He turned to Rosenberg. “Thanks for the offer, peddler, but you best stick to the business you know.”

  Rosenberg shrugged. “Every man has his own business. You are right, Marshal. I’ll stay with my own.”

  Absently my fingertips wandered to my top lip, touching only fuzz, and above me the bright moon lost itself behind a cloud and suddenly the land around me was shrouded in shadow, dark with foreboding.

  Chapter 5

  We rose before first light, drank coffee and ate some hastily broiled bacon; then we saddled the horses.

  As Rosenberg hitched up his mustang, Reeves dug into his saddlebags and produced a thick sheaf of papers. “Thumb through these, Dusty,” he said. “Make sure Bully Yates is there and pick me out five John Does.”

  I leafed through the warrants and sure enough found Yates. I passed the warrant to Reeves. “This is the one. Read for yourself.”

  The big lawman shook his head. “Never did learn to read or write or do my ciphers. I was born to slavery, Dusty, and my owner didn’t see much need for a field hand to have book learning.”

  For me, reading was a pleasant way to while away idle hours and Simon Prather had an extensive library at the SP Connected, where I got acquainted with the works of Mr. Dickens and Sir Walter Scott, to name just a couple of the fine scribes who had opened up new worlds to me.

  By not being able to read, Bass Reeves was missing out on a sight of adventure and excitement. But I didn’t tell him that because I’m sure it was a thing he knew already. Besides, a man like Reeves made his own excitement and adventure, so maybe, after all was said and done, he didn’t miss the books that much.

  Reeves took the warrant for Yates and the John Does and stuffed them in the pocket of his coat, then walked away and started to tighten the girth on his horse.

  I stepped beside him. “How do we play this when we catch up to them fellers?” I asked.

  Reeves turned to me. “Well, I’ll follow Judge Parker’s instructions in these matters. I’ll ride into their camp, identify myself as an officer and tell them I have warrants for their arrest.”

  “And suppose they don’t want to be arrested?”

  Reeves’ face didn’t change. “Then, boy, I reckon all hell will break loose and we’ll have ourselves a Pecos promenade.”

  I felt my throat tighten. The odds were six against two and Yates and his outlaws would be no pilgrims. I found myself fervently wishing that Simon Prather had trusted banks because then I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  We made our farewells to Rosenberg, who gave each of us a little sack of peppermint candy and wished us luck, then took to the trail west.

  The sky was brightening with the dawn, streaked with bands of scarlet, and a strong prairie wind was blowing, rippling the grass like waves on a vast green ocean.

  The red light stained Reeves’ face so he looked like a cigar store Indian and he was just as wooden and expressionless. I realized then that this man didn’t know the meaning of fear. The big lawman would not take a backward step for any man, and he’d do his duty, no matter the cost.

  From all this, I drew no comfort. I reckoned I was about to ride into a situation where I could easily get my fool head blown off and such thoughts do nothing to console a man.

  We rode into rolling land cut through by numerous sandy creeks, none of them deep, and once we came across an old trail, probably made by Indians, that branched away from us to the north before disappearing between a pair of flat-topped mesas.

  Reeves didn’t push the pace, and by the middle of the brightening morning he insisted we camp by a narrow creek, just a shallow spring branch coming out of the hills, and boil up some coffee.

  Sitting with his back against the trunk of a cottonwood, the lawman drank his coffee and then went to checking his guns, thumbing more loads into his Winchester.

  Taking my cue from him, I did the same. I didn’t feel muc
h like talking. I tried to analyze why I had a knot in my belly and decided it wasn’t fear, but something else. But what?

  Then I understood what was eating at me—I was mighty worried that I would fail to play a man’s part in whatever lay ahead. Had my gun battle with Clem Kennedy and Luke Butler proved that I could stand up, take my hits and go on fighting?

  Maybe. Maybe not. That scrap had been almighty sudden and I’d had no time to think about it.

  What I didn’t want was to look into Bass Reeves’ eyes when this was all over and see only contempt and accusation. There would be no living with myself after that.

  As though reading my thoughts, Reeves looked over at me and smiled. “You’re mighty quiet, Dusty. You scared?”

  This was no time for lies and I answered his question straight up. “I don’t know, Bass. I feel something, like crawling worms in my gut.” I shrugged. “I don’t reckon I’m scared, but maybe I am. Anyhow, that’s what I think.”

  The lawman nodded. “It’s all right to be scared. It’s the ability to swallow fear and step up to the fight that makes a man.”

  “You scared, Bass?”

  Reeves smiled. “Hell, boy, when I’m out here I’m scared all the time.”

  “I won’t let you down, Bass,” I said, knowing how lame that sounded.

  “I know you won’t, Dusty,” the lawman said. “If it comes to a fight, I reckon you’ll stand up just fine.”

  He tossed away the dregs from his cup and rose to his feet. “Let’s ride, boy.”

  I glanced into Reeves’ eyes at that moment . . . and saw with a shock they were guarded and wary. That look could have been caused by doubt, uncertainty, like he was having second thoughts about something . . . or somebody.

  And that somebody could only be me.

  We rode steadily west for a day and night, closing on Sandy Creek, where Reeves hoped Bully Yates and his outlaws were still camped.

  The days grew hot as the sun climbed into the sky and sweat trickled from under my hat brim into my eyes, the salt making them sting, and I felt rivulets ooze down my back.