Kinch Riley and Hickok and Cody

by Matt Braun

  “I don’t understand,” Katherine said. “What does he mean, Wild Bill?”

  “Guess it’s like this…” Hickok paused, placing percussion caps behind the chambers on his pistol. “A feller shouldn’t get married till he finds the right girl. Just any old girl won’t do.”

  “And you’ve never found the right girl?”

  “I can truthfully say that’s a fact.”

  Katherine thought there was no question that Buffalo Bill was the handsomer of the two men. But she was strangely drawn to the danger that lurked behind every syllable of every word spoken by Wild Bill. All the more so since she’d now discovered that he wasn’t married.

  “I’ve been thinking…” she hesitated, then rushed on, certain he was the one to ask. “Why were those men shooting at us, Wild Bill?”

  Hickok stuffed the loaded pistol in his belt. “Buffalo Bill and me don’t rightly know. We figure to find out what’s what when we get to New York.”

  “Mother and Father will be able to tell us. I just know they will.”

  “Maybe so.” Hickok deftly changed the subject. “Speakin’ of New York, Scout Cody, what in tarnation have you got me into with this show business?”

  “Told you before,” Cody said. “You get up on a stage and talk. Buntline writes the words you say. He calls it a script.”

  Ned Buntline advertised the production as the Buffalo Bill Combination. In stage terms, a combination was a theatrical troupe that presented the same play for the run of the show. A stock company, by contrast, offered a repertory of plays, often changing from night to night. The bigger difference, however, was that a stock company production was the work of professional actors. Buntline’s plays relied solely on the fame of the star.

  “No need to worry,” Cody went on. “You’ll do just fine on the stage, Jim. Just fine.”

  Augustus appeared startled. “Wild Bill, why did Buffalo Bill call you ‘Jim’?”

  “I reckon he just slips every now and then. You see, my name’s really James Butler Hickok. But that sort of got lost in the shuffle.”

  “I think that’s a nice name,” Augustus said. “Why don’t people call you Wild Jim?”

  “That’d suit me,” Hickok said, tamping powder and ball into his other pistol. “I’ve been tryin’ to ditch Wild Bill ever since I got hung with it.”

  “Then why do they call you Wild Bill?”

  “Well, it happened durin’ the war. One of them flukes that never makes much sense.”

  “What is a fluke?”

  “Oddball things that happen to a man.”

  Hickok explained that he’d been a scout during the Civil War. On one assignment, operating as a spy behind Confederate lines, he had been caught out. He fought off a swarm of Rebels in a running gun battle and finally swam his horse to safety across a river. The Union troops on the opposite shore saw the last of the fight and his miraculous escape. Someone dubbed him Wild Bill and the name stuck.

  “So that’s a fluke,” Hickok concluded. “Feller that tagged me with the handle didn’t even know me. I ain’t outrun it yet.”

  Augustus averted his eyes. “Will you get mad at me if I tell you something?”

  “’Course I won’t get mad at you. Go ahead, speak your piece.”

  “Well—it’s just that … ain’t is not a word.”

  Hickok looked up from his pistol. “What do you mean, it ain’t a word?”

  Augustus gave him a shy glance. “We were taught in school that it isn’t … a proper word.”

  “There’s more to life than school learnin’. Take your name for example.”

  “My name?”

  “Augustus,” Hickok said slowly. “That’s purely a mouthful, ain’t it?”

  “I guess it is.”

  “So wouldn’t you like to have your own handle? Something easier to swallow?”

  “Like what?”

  Hickok grinned. “From now on, I’m gonna call you Gus. How’s that sound?”

  “Gus,” Augustus repeated, testing the word. “I think I like it.”

  “Now, about your sister.” Hickok nodded to him with a sly smile. “Katherine’s sort of a mouthful too. Maybe we’ll just call her Sis.”

  “You will not,” Katherine shrieked. “I am not a—Sis!”

  Hickok gave the boy a conspiratorial look. “What do you think about that, Gus?”

  “Well,” Augustus went along, struggling not to laugh. “When no one can hear us, I call her Katie.”

  “What does she call you?”

  “Auggie.”

  “Auggie and Katie.” Hickok deliberated on it a moment, abruptly smiled. “I’d sooner call you by special names. How about Gus and”—he winked drolly at the girl—“Kate.”

  Katherine thought she would melt. She blushed bright as a beet, certain she would love him forever. “A special name,” she said in a throaty voice. “Oh, yes, thank you, Wild Bill.”

  “Don’t mention it, Kate.” Hickok stuck the second pistol in his belt. “Think I’ll step out and have a smoke. Little stuffy in here for cigars.”

  Katherine simpered. “I love the smell of cigars.”

  Cody grunted a laugh. Hickok ignored him, moving through the door into the passageway. He lit a cheroot, and then, deciding to stretch his legs, walked back to the passenger coaches. The train hurtled eastward across the plains, the dark of nightfall upon the land. The coaches were dimly lighted by coal-oil lamps.

  Hickok thought he might catch a breath of fresh air. There was an observation deck at the rear of the train, and he made his way to the last passenger coach. As he moved along the aisle, he suddenly squinted, hardly able to credit his eyes. Richter and his hooligan, the one named Johnson, were seated at the rear of the coach.

  Richter was seated by the window. Johnson was dozing, his chin resting on his massive chest. Hickok stopped in the aisle, and Richter turned from the window, his features abruptly guarded. He poked Johnson in the ribs with his elbow.

  Richter stared at him. “We’re not looking for trouble, Hickok.”

  “Well, you done found it, you sorry sonsabitches. Why’re you after them kids, anyway?”

  Johnson started out of his seat. Hickok pulled one of his Colts, thumbed the hammer. He hooked the blade of the front sight in Johnson’s nose.

  “Sit real still,” he said. “All I need’s an excuse.”

  “Take it easy, Turk,” Richter said, placing a hand on Johnson’s arm. “We have as much right on this train as he does. He won’t do anything.”

  Hickok’s eyes went cold. “Here’s the way it works, Richter. You or your gorilla come anywhere near them kids and I’ll kill you. Take it as gospel fact.”

  “You don’t frighten me,” Richter scoffed. “I’ll come and go as I please.”

  “You’re already talkin’ like a dead man.”

  Hickok ripped the blade of the sight out of Johnson’s nostril. Johnson clutched at his nose, a jet of blood pouring over his hands. Lowering the hammer, Hickok backed away, the Colt still leveled on them. His voice was pleasantly ominous.

  “Don’t let me see you boys again.”

  Johnson watched him with a murderous glare. Hickok turned in the aisle and walked back through the train. A few minutes later he opened the door of the compartment, motioning Cody into the passageway. He waited until the door was closed.

  “We’ve got company,” he said. “Richter and Johnson are on the train.”

  Cody went ashen. “You talked to them?”

  “After a fashion. I warned ’em off, but it won’t do no good. They’ll make a try for the kids.”

  “Judas Priest! You got any bright ideas?”

  “Just one,” Hickok said. “We ain’t gonna let them kids out of our sight.”

  They decided the children would not be allowed out of the compartment. Once they were back inside, the door was locked and the sleeping arrangements were quickly settled. Katherine and Augustus shared the upper bunk, and Cody stretched out on the lower bunk.
Hickok, seated on the upholstered bench, took the first watch.

  Katherine smiled down at him from the top bunk. “Good night, Wild Bill.”

  “Get some sleep, Kate. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  She giggled. “I promise I won’t.”

  Hickok leaned back against the bench. Cody would spell him at midnight, and until then, he had plenty to occupy his mind. Somewhere before New York, Richter and Johnson would make a play for the children. The question that wouldn’t go away was Why?

  He thought about it as the train barreled through the night.

  CHAPTER 12

  CHICAGO WAS the midcontinental shipping center of the nation. The city was located at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, and served as a major port on the Great Lakes. Yet it was the railroads that transformed Chicago into a metropolis. The city by the lake was in the midst of a boom.

  The good times were all the more remarkable because of the fire. Three months ago, on a Sunday night in October, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow became known around the world. The cow kicked over a lantern, which set the barn afire, and within hours a holocaust raged through the streets. The city’s buildings, constructed of timber and slats, went up like kindling.

  By the following night, the Great Chicago Fire had burned itself out. Three hundred people were dead, half the buildings in the city were destroyed, and one hundred thousand were homeless. But Chicago, like the phoenix of ancient myth, was reborn from the ashes. The city arose anew to the sound of hammers pounding nails into rip-sawed lumber.

  Hickok smelled the stockyards when he stepped off the train. The longhorns trailed from Texas to the Kansas cowtowns ended up in the slaughterhouses of Chicago. By some estimates, upward of seventy thousand longhorns had been shipped north from Abilene last summer. The sweetish smell of manure permeated the railroad district.

  Cody and the children joined Hickok on the depot platform. The stationhouse was immense by Western standards, and hundreds of travelers scurried from train to train. Hickok scanned the crowds, searching the sea of faces for some glimpse of Richter and Johnson. His every instinct told him they were out there. Watching. Waiting.

  Chicago was the terminus for Western trains. Hickok and Cody were forced to lay over for the night, and catch a morning train to New York. They were all too aware that the danger to the children increased a hundredfold in a large city. Oddly enough, even among the jostling throngs, they felt more exposed than on the open plains. The hustle and bustle of the jammed railway station merely set their nerves on edge.

  A porter directed them to a nearby hotel. The sun smoldered on the western horizon as they came out of the depot. For a moment, they stood marveling at the renaissance of a city virtually leveled by flame. Just three months ago, the Great Chicago Fire had been headlined in every newspaper in America. They expected to see a city in ruin, and instead they saw a forest of buildings in every direction. The transformation was startling.

  The Dearborn Hotel still smelled of raw lumber. Located a block north of the railway station, the three-story structure had been hammered together within a month of the fire. The hotel was unpretentious and cheap, a stopover for travelers stranded between trains. A lone settee positioned on a nondescript carpet provided the sole amenity in the lobby. The desk clerk looked like a bartender in a workingman’s saloon. He wore red garters on his shirtsleeves.

  “Afternoon,” Cody said. “We’d like to engage rooms for the night.”

  The clerk scrutinized the children with an inquisitive look. “Will that be one room or two?”

  “Two,” Cody answered. “Adjoining rooms with a connecting door.”

  “We have one set of adjoining rooms on each floor. Any preference?”

  “First floor,” Hickok said. “Hear you’re prone to fires in this town.”

  The clerk sniffed. “We refund in case of a fire. That will be ten dollars—in advance.”

  “Godalmighty,” Hickok groaned. “We don’t aim to buy the place.”

  “Do you want the rooms or not?”

  Hickok bristled at the man’s tone. Cody intervened before his friend could instruct the clerk in manners. Too often, he’d seen the instruction result in broken noses and missing teeth, or worse. He slapped a gold eagle on the counter and signed the register “William F. Cody.” The clerk handed him two keys.

  The rooms were spartan as a monk’s cell. The beds were hard as planks, with dingy sheets and coarse woolen blankets. Along one wall was a washstand with a chipped basin and a faded mirror. On the opposite wall were wooden pegs for clothing and a straight-backed chair, and beneath the bed was a stained johnnypot. A lavatory at the end of the hall served the entire floor.

  “Highway robbery,” Hickok fumed. “Leave it to city slickers to pick your pocket.”

  Augustus put on a smile. “It’s only for one night, Wild Bill. We’ll be on our way to New York tomorrow.”

  “I like a man who looks on the bright side, Gus. Guess it could’ve been worse.”

  Hickok went into the adjoining room. He took the wooden chair and wedged it beneath the knob of the door leading to the hall. Katherine and Augustus watched him with puzzled expressions. She finally gave way to curiosity.

  “Why did you do that, Wild Bill?”

  “No harm in being careful,” Hickok said. “Anybody rattles that door knob tonight, I want you to yell out real loud. You understand?”

  “Do you think someone would try to come in our room?”

  “Kate, it’s like they say, an ounce of prevention.”

  Hickok glanced back at the adjoining door and Cody gave him a cryptic nod. Words were unnecessary, for they each read the other’s mind. They were thinking the same thing.

  Richter and Johnson were out there somewhere.

  * * *

  A short while later they returned to the lobby. Hickok and Cody were carrying bundles of wrinkled clothes taken from their war bags. Cody left Hickok with the children and carried both bundles to the desk. He showed the clerk a five-dollar gold piece.

  “We need to get these things pressed. Think you could arrange that?”

  “There’s a Chinese laundry around the corner. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Have to be back tonight.”

  The clerk accepted the gold piece. “How’s an hour sound?”

  “Just about right.”

  Outside the hotel, Cody and Hickok fell in on either side of the children. The streetlamps were lit and the sidewalks were crowded with people. They turned north from the hotel and went off in search of a place to have supper. Hickok kept looking over his shoulder.

  Three blocks upstreet they found O’Malley’s Steakhouse. The restaurant had red-checkered tablecloths and sawdust on the floor, and a small bar at the rear of the room. The waiter recommended the twelve-ounce ribeye, with mashed potatoes and gravy, and winter squash. Hickok and Cody ordered rye whiskey, and a pitcher of milk for the children. The waiter scurried off to the kitchen.

  Not quite an hour later they emerged from the restaurant. Augustus and Katherine were stuffed, hardly able to finish half of their steaks. The plainsmen once again flanked them and they turned back toward the hotel. There were fewer people on the streets, and they loafed along at a leisurely pace. On the corner they passed a saloon and Hickok spotted card tables through the tall plate-glass window. He paused, drawn to a gaming den in the way metal finds a magnet, and the others stopped with him. Cody suggested it was not the night for poker.

  Hickok, reluctantly, was forced to agree. He was about to turn away when a reflection in the window caught his attention. He hesitated, fishing a cheroot from inside his jacket, and struck a match on his thumbnail. The wind was out of the north, and he turned slightly, shielding the match in his cupped hands. As he puffed on the cheroot, he glanced over the flame.

  Richter and Johnson were on the opposite side of the street. They were halfway up the block, standing before a haberdashery, feigning interest in the window display. He thought they were lik
ely watching him in the shop window, and he snuffed the match, quickly looked away. All in an instant, he knew he had to end it here, tonight. He turned back to Cody.

  “Everybody keep their eyes on me,” he said firmly, nodding to the children. “Don’t let on what I’m about to tell you. Our friends are across the street, back a little ways.”

  Cody held his gaze. “Any chance we could shake them?”

  “We’re long past that. I’m gonna go in this saloon to play poker, and I want you to get mad as hell. Then you take the kids and go on back to the hotel. Don’t argue with me, just do it.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “You’re the actor, think of something.”

  “The devil you are!” Cody shouted, inventing dialogue to suit the role. “You’re not fixin’ to stick me with these kids while you play poker all night!”

  “I’ll do what I please,” Hickok said loudly. “You’re the one that signed on as nursemaid, not me. You don’t like it, lump it.”

  “You got some brass!”

  “Just leave me the hell be.”

  Hickok wheeled through the door of the saloon. He walked to the poker tables, which were across from the bar. Through the window, he saw Cody turn downstreet with the children. Upstreet, he saw Richter and Johnson glance at the saloon as they neared the opposite corner. He took a chair at one of the tables, certain they would follow Cody. They, to the surprise of the other players, he pushed back out of the chair. He hurried toward the door.

  Outside, he saw Richter and Johnson angling across the street. Cody and the children were approaching the next intersection, walking in the direction of the hotel. Hickok lengthened his stride, closing the distance as the two men dodged around a horse-drawn coal wagon halfway down the block. There was no one else in sight and he quickened his pace. He caught them as they stepped onto the curb.

  “Look who’s here,” he said tersely. “You boys don’t know good advice when you hear it.”

  “Hickok!” Richter spun around “I thought—”

  “Defend yourselves,” Hickok ordered. “I mean to kill you.”

  “No, wait!”