by Jake Logan
“Peaceful passage has a price,” Slocum said. “Highway robbery is where I draw the line.”
Black laughed. “This ain’t your first cattle drive, is it?”
“Certainly not my first, and I hope not my last.”
They both laughed then. One cowboy, Pete Combs, took sick on them. Rufus made him a bed in the trailer, and everyone thought he’d die. High fever and he was near out of his mind. But they were halfway across the Crow reservation when one day he got well enough to climb down and eat with them. A miracle, and his recovery cheered up the crew, especially when, in a few days, he was back on horseback.
Rufus treated two hands for boils on their butts and set one broken arm for a boy in a horse wreck. The old pipe-sucking ex-noncom was almost a surgeon in Slocum’s book. His food wasn’t as good as Murty’s, but it was good enough to eat, and he cooked some really good elk meat on an occasion or two.
The Crows missed charging them a fee by not being in their camp, but Slocum and his men gave some poor, begging squaws a limper that could hardly walk. Everyone smiled. If Slocum hadn’t feared they all had the clap, he’d have let the squaws entertain his boys.
They found enough graze north of Billings that Slocum split the crew and let half go to town the first night and the others the next, on his advance of three dollars each from Caltron’s petty cash. They came home whooping and none were arrested. In the end they lost three days, but Slocum’s help was acting much more alive on the job, and tales of beautiful whores and fantastic feats were the topic of the next week’s drive.
“You sure know men, Slocum.” Black shook his head. “I’d never have thought about shutting down for three days. But that one-night furlough did us more good than Christmas at home would have.”
“Boys need to be boys sometimes.”
“I agree. They’ve been new men all week. Caltron had you figured out pretty quick as the man for this job. I was dreading him piling this job on me. I knew I’d get scattered or the crew would quit. Man, they really missed home feeding hay all winter in the cold up here and all.”
“I’d have allowed those squaws to screw our boys, down there on the Crow reservation, but I figured they all had the clap.”
Black threw his head back and laughed. “What you worry the most about never happens, does it?”
“You’re right.”
The boys had got some letters from home at Billings too. One boy told them his letter said that someone else had got Caltron’s wife pregnant while he was gone.
“What do you reckon he did about that?” Rufus asked Slocum, joining in the conversation.
“I’m glad I wasn’t there for it,” Slocum told him.
“Much as he loved her, you wouldn’t think that would happen,” Rack complained. “What do you think?”
“Any of you got a wife at home?” Slocum asked.
The heads of those gathered around the table shook.
“Ain’t none of us married, Slocum.”
“You ever leave a wife unattended long enough, there’s a chance some sweet-talking guy is going to get in her britches. Trust me, temptation is always there.”
They laughed.
“But he was so in love with her—”
“You heard me,” Slocum said and shook his head.
“By damn, I get one, I won’t leave her that long.”
“Boys, we have about a heavy push ahead to get there. If you are going back to Texas, I want you to decide by then. Caltron told me if there wasn’t six men to take the horses and wagon back, to sell everything. Otherwise I can issue you enough money for supplies to get it all back home.”
“How long will it take us?” one boy asked.
“Three months. You will make better time than driving cattle, but I figure roughly that long.”
“I’m going home,” another said. “Somehow.”
Slocum felt certain that enough would go home to be able to return Caltron’s stock and gear to Texas. He wondered if Caltron had been more worried than he’d let on about his wife running around on him, which was why he was wanting to get back to her. Tough deal if she was pregnant. Slocum would probably never know how it turned out.
They were less than week from Bozeman when his scout Jimmy Evans came in early one afternoon. He could tell the young man was vexed when he dismounted up by the chuckwagon, where Slocum was looking over the books.
“What’s wrong, Jim?”
“I think some hard cases are sizing us up. Maybe make a try to grab the herd.”
“What did you see?”
“Last three days they’ve been using field glasses to watch us. I first didn’t think nothing about it. But I had a look at them and they look like tough hombres, and I figure they may try to jump us and try to take the herd.”
“Let me go get my field glasses. My horse is saddled, and we’ll go see what we can learn about them. I sure appreciate you watching out for us. Things have been almost too quiet.”
“I’d hate to holler fire and there only be smoke.”
“No, that’s your job, and I appreciate that your scouting has been all no-nonsense so far.”
“Thanks. It’s a great job and I have appreciated your trust in me.”
“Rufus, tell Dan we’re going to go check on a few things. Keep an eye out and a Greener handy.”
“Aye, boss man. I’ll put off my nap today.”
“We may have trouble coming.”
“I’ll tell the boys too.”
“Do that and be careful. We’re so damn close I can smell it.”
“Me too sir. You two be careful.”
Glasses in his saddlebags, he followed Jim’s lead. “They were on that hill over there when I saw them last. Should we circle around back?”
“Good idea. Don’t push too fast; we might run into them.” Slocum motioned for Jim to lead the way.
In a short while, they found tracks coming and going. Both men nodded, and Jim led the way though the jack pines until they heard running water and could smell campfire smoke. They dismounted, hitched their horses and proceeded on foot. From a high point, they bellied down, and both men used their field glasses.
The camp was made up of some old brown sidewall tents, around which several squaws worked fixing food. The men were mostly half-breeds, except for one black-bearded, heavy-set white man who looked like he ran things.
“I wonder who he is,” Jimmy said.
“I sure have no idea, but he looks like he doesn’t earn a living doing anything.”
Jimmy agreed. “But can we do anything before they try to take the herd?”
“Be sort of hard. I wonder if the law would come up and check on them for us.”
“We could ask them to.”
“Why don’t you ride over and ask the law and explain what they’ve been doing?”
“I can do that. Might get us some help, huh?”
Slocum figured that with his beard and with everyone calling him Clark, his disguise as John Clark should hold with the law. The bunch he was watching could run off some of his cattle, but he doubted they could take the whole herd. Still, there was no need in taking any chances. He gave Jim some money for expenses. In the old days he’d have shot the camp up, run off their horses, and ended that matter. But things were getting a lot tighter in the West. Vigilante law was getting frowned on more and more.
With Jim gone to ask for help, Slocum rode back to camp. He’d have Dan scout ahead the next day, and he’d also keep an eye out for any sign of the breeds preparing to raid the herd. When they came in for supper, he told the men about the problems they might face and to be watchful. While the herd was trail-broke, they’d be hell to ever reassemble if they were stampeded in this timber country.
Everyone agreed, and being so close to their destination, they were pissed that anyone would try to blo
ck them from getting there. It had been way over a year since they’d left home.
Buyers had begun to show up. When Slocum got back from scouting for trouble, two men were there talking about buying half the herd and giving a paper for the rest until they got the first half sold.
Slocum told the pair he’d sell them the whole herd or part of it, but he could take no paper for the cattle. He had to sell them for cash for his boss in Texas.
“What would you take for them?” the one partner, Simpson, asked.
“What’s the going market?”
“Oh, ten cents on the hoof.”
“Hell, I got more than that back in Abilene years ago.”
“I imagine you could get twenty cents.”
“If that’s the market. How many do you want?”
“We’d need to buy them cheaper than that to make any money.”
“You said that was the market,” he reminded the man.
His partner jumped up. “I can see we can’t do any business here.”
“Sorry we came out,” Simpson said.
Dan Black, who’d been on guard duty all day, had come in and heard their offer. “They didn’t want to buy cattle, did they?”
“Only to steal them. What did you learn?”
“They watched us through their glasses a lot is all I can say.”
At dark Jim arrived back with three deputies. They ate with the crew.
“You seen any more activity from the breeds?” the lead man, Ables, asked.
“They’re still scoping us all day,” Black told him.
“We’ve got warrants for some of them, and Jim said he could take us to their camp. They ain’t struck you by morning, we’ll go arrest a passel of them,” the deputy said.
Slocum thanked them for coming, and they were up at daybreak, with no raid. So Slocum and Jim rode back to the breeds’ camp with them. A few shots fired in the air, and the breeds surrendered without a fight.
Slocum asked the big white guy in irons why he’d been scoping the herd.
“Aw we were only looking. Too goddamn many cows to steal.”
Slocum thanked the deputies, and he and Jim rode back to catch up with the herd.
* * *
Close to town they settled the herd for a stay, and Slocum went into Bozeman to find a buyer or two. It was a typical mining town, wide open 24/7, and things buzzing. Everyone trying to get a winning business going on the upswing. Everything from a millinery to dress shops, saloons galore, and plenty of whorehouses to keep the miners right there and broke. And a few blocks of nothing but narrow crib houses with scantily dressed women standing at their doors calling out for business in bawdy terms: “Hey, you with the long dick. Come fuck me.”
Past them, Slocum stabled his horse, took a room in the Montana Queen Hotel, and walked a block down to the Great North Saloon. A palace-like place with gaslights and sharp hostesses in low-cut dresses who met you at the door and offered you their services in an upstairs bed with clean sheets. “The cost is nominal during the daylight hours, sir.”
“I am really here on business. Any cattle buyers in here?”
“Some of the best are playing poker right over there.” She began to escort him over to a table of players.
“And you are drinking what?”
“A cold beer.”
“And your name is?”
“Clark, John Clark.”
“Your beer is coming. Gentlemen, this is John Clark,” she said to the players. “He is looking for cattle buyers.”
“Have a seat, Clark. You might change my luck,” said the big man smoking a cigar and dealing cards. “You’re in the next hand. How many head you got?”
“Twenty-five hundred head.”
The big man frowned. “Where in the hell have they been?”
“My boss wintered them in Wyoming.”
“Who’s he?”
“Jim Caltron, he had to go back to Texas, and I’m in charge.”
The cigar man took the stogie out of his mouth, laid it in an ashtray, and put down the deck. “They have any meat on them?”
“Yes, we’ve come easy and they’re fleshy.”
“I’ll be there in the morning. Where you at?”
“Oh, east of here in some grass.”
“I’ll meet you at six o’clock at the restaurant, Cook’s Place, and I’ll feed you before we go look.”
“What are cattle worth up here?”
“What do you say to fifteen cents a pound?”
“That sounds good, but I think we can get more.”
The man drew his breath out of his nose. “Eighteen.”
Men around the table were so intent on the big man’s words that it became very quiet under the hissing lamp overhead.
“You need twenty-five hundred head?” Slocum asked him
“I can damn sure handle them if they ain’t skeletons.”
“I ain’t got any reason to lie to you. You can see for yourself. My boss fed these cattle good last winter down there. We been coming ten miles a day to hold that flesh on them, and the graze we been on has been strong. They’ve been licking hair on their sides ever since I took over.”
“You been up here before?”
“No, sir. But I think it was time for me to get here.”
“There ain’t hardly any head of beef around here to buy worth slaughtering. I can sure use them. I have a railroad construction beef contract and two mines to feed.”
“I reckon tomorrow we can talk business.”
“I reckon we can.” He picked up his hand and after a quick look tossed it in. “Who needs cards?”
“I never caught your name.”
“Alexander, Cy Alexander.”
“Nice to meet you. I’ll raise a dollar and take two.” Poor old Caltron might have wife troubles in Texas, but in a few days he’d damn sure not have any money problems. That would be over three hundred thousand dollars. That wasn’t even real. And Slocum had three of a kind in his hand—sevens. He won the pot and everyone moaned.
“Damn. He walks in, sells his damn cattle, and cleans us out. Texas welcome to Montana, Clark.”
“Thanks, gents, I can use some good news.”
“How long you been trailing them?” another player asked.
“Long enough. He hired me at Fort Laramie to bring them up here.”
Alexander nodded. “Next herd coming is in Colorado. I got a wire today. How did you get by all the lookouts?”
“I have no idea. We just headed up here. I had my boss’s maps. We never had any trouble, except some breeds scouted us until the sheriff arrested them.”
“No stampedes?”
“No, sir, we just came up along the trail. Those cattle were drove far last year. Caltron wintered them on real good hay so they’d be in shape, and he waited till the grass was strong enough to head them up here.”
“He got a big ranch in Texas?”
“You know I don’t know. I have never been to his place down there. Like I said we met in Fort Laramie country, and he hired me to ramrod this deal on up here.”
“He must have trusted you.”
“We hit it off. I’d driven cattle to Abilene out of Texas, and Caltron had some good hardworking boys.” He held a pair of aces in his hand. So he raised the bet a dollar and discarded two to disguise his aces.
“Mister, if I had a herd of cattle, I think I’d trust you to get them here, but that many—whew.”
“Good help. No outlaws. It all went good.”
“What’ll he do with all that money?” another asked.
Slocum shook his head. “I ain’t sure. I guess just enjoy it.”
They all laughed. He wound up his card playing at eleven and headed for his hotel room. The lady who’d introduced him to the buyer, and to whom
he owed a tip, must have had a customer to service, since he didn’t see her when he left. The night was cool, and he wondered if someone had been spying on him as he crossed the street. It was no time to have problems. Maybe by the next day he’d have some good words to send to Caltron by telegram.
He was walking toward his hotel in the night’s shadows when a bullet shattered the glass window of the store right beside him. He dove behind a horse trough for cover. Two more shots followed. Gun in hand, he rose up to look in the direction the shots had come from—across the street from him. A shotgun-bearing marshal came running down the boardwalk, shouting, “Hold your fire. Hold your fire.”
Satisfied that the shooter was gone, Slocum got to his feet.
“Who did it?”
“Shots came from over there.” Slocum pointed to the place beside a dark shop across the street.
“You didn’t see him?”
“I didn’t see anything but the flash of a shot and took cover behind the trough.”
“You have any enemies?”
“I don’t know. I have only been here for about six hours.”
“Make anyone mad or get in a fight tonight?”
“I am a drover. I came to town to sell my cattle and I found a man to buy them. Played some cards. I have no idea why I was shot at.”
“Mr. . . . ?”
“John Clark, Sweetwater, Texas.”
“I need to write that down now.”
“Sure. I feel bad about this broken glass, but I can’t figure who was wasting bullets on me.”
“Mr. Clark, we consider our town a safe place to live. Shooting makes everyone nervous, you understand. I will need lots of information so we can prevent this happening again.”
“I understand, but I have a business meeting at six A.M. to sell my cattle, so make it as brief as you can.”
“I understand. My partner is the guy running up here now so don’t concern yourself about that.”
“Thank you. Being shot at is unnerving.”
“I agree. This is Marshal Hart. Sir, this is John Clark. He was shot at. He has only been here six hours and was shot at.”
“Anyone contacted Ira Counts about his broken window?” Hart asked.
