Sawyer pretended he hadn't heard the laughter or the gibe. "I'll trade you five of those cattle to take back to your village and feed your families, in return for not having to bother with you heathens while we're passing through these parts."
"Many buffalo," the Sioux warrior said scornfully, waving a hand at the plains around them. "Not need white man's skinny cattle."
Sawyer's mouth was getting a little dry, but he managed to chuckle. "Well, longhorn's not the best eatin' in the world, I'll give you that. And some of 'em in my herd are probably damned near as wild as any buffalo you got around here. So I'll throw in a couple of ponies." The horses in his remuda were what the Indians would really be after if they attacked the herd, he knew.
The warrior held up a clenched fist, opened and closed it twice. "Ten ponies," he said.
Sawyer shook his head emphatically. "Three," he countered.
"Eight ponies," the Sioux said angrily.
Sawyer worked the Winchester's lever, jacking a shell into the chamber. "Five, and that's as high as I'll go, you thievin' son of a bitch."
The warrior glared at him for a few seconds, then turned his head abruptly and spoke to the others. While the conversation was going on Sawyer stole a glance at Lon Rogers. If the boy commenced to sweat any more, he'd be sitting in a puddle before long, thought Sawyer.
The spokesman looked at Sawyer again and grunted. "Five ponies and five of these longhorns. It is good."
Sawyer nodded and pointed at the chuck wagon. "And you'll leave my chuck wagon, my riders, and my herd alone?"
"You be safe on Sioux land . . . for while. Not stay long."
"We'll be out of here as soon as we can," Sawyer promised. He slid the rifle back in its sheath and swung down out of the saddle. "Lon," he called to the cook, "come get this horse and ride back to the herd. Tell Frenchy to cut five good ponies out of the remuda and bring 'em up here along with five head of stock. Make sure some of the boys come back with you." Lon hesitated, and Sawyer added, "Well, come on!"
Lon jumped down from the seat of the chuck wagon and hurried toward his boss. The line of Indians parted to let him through, and as the youngster came up to him Sawyer put his horse's reins in the boy's hands. "Don't waste any time gettin' there and back," he said quietly.
"What're you going to do, Mr. Sawyer?"
"I'll stay here with the chuck wagon and keep an eye on it. Don't want to tempt those bucks too much."
"But . . . but what about the Sioux?"
"They won't bother me. We've made a deal. I traded with the Comanch' down in Texas, and they kept their word most of the time when it was a private deal, not a government treaty. I reckon these heathens'll do the same."
Lon licked dry lips and looked at him. "What if they don't? What if we come back and they've killed you?"
"Well, then, son . . . don't give 'em the ponies."
The boy's eyes widened, and Sawyer knew Lon thought he was crazy. That was all right. Sometimes the smartest thing a man could do was to act a little crazy.
"Go on," Sawyer urged. "Get the job done, Lon."
The cook nodded and mounted Sawyer's horse, wheeling it and kicking it into a gallop.
In less than an hour, Frenchy and half a dozen of the boys would come boiling back over that ridge, and if the Sioux hadn't kept their part of the bargain, those Texas lads would track them clear to Canada if they had to in order to even the score. Sawyer was certain of that.
He watched until Lon had disappeared over the rise, then turned and strode toward the chuck wagon. One of the Indians shifted his horse a little to get in Sawyer's way.
Sawyer just looked coldly up at the warrior until he moved the animal again. As he walked on to the wagon Sawyer thought that Amelia would have understood what he had done. A man didn't back down, didn't turn and run. He stood up to trouble when it came and met it head-on.
But that was a mite easier to do, Sawyer reckoned, when the person you loved most in the world had gone and died, leaving you behind. Life had lost some of its sweetness, some of the reason to keep on clinging to it the way most folks did.
Sawyer stepped up to the wagon seat and settled down on it to wait. The Sioux walked their horses around so that they were facing him again, and he motioned to the spokesman. "What's your name?" Sawyer asked.
"In your tongue, called Eagle Feather."
"Well, tell me, Eagle Feather, are those the Wind River Mountains?" The old cattleman pointed to the peaks rising hazily to the north.
"Wind River," Eagle Feather repeated with a nod. "Sioux land, too."
Maybe so, Sawyer mused, but if the railroad was really coming through the way people said it was, the days of the Sioux's dominion over this territory were numbered. Eagle Feather might not know it, but he was probably already a dying breed.
Sort of like Kermit Sawyer himself . . .
Chapter 3
The knock at the door of Cole's hotel room came just as he was about to go downstairs again and look for some place to get a meal. He had washed off some of the dust of the past weeks in a big wooden tub filled with hot water brought up by the clerk, then pulled a clean buckskin shirt over his head and put on a pair of denim pants. Not expecting any visitors, he reached for the coiled shell belt and holster on the bed when the knock sounded.
He slid the Colt from the holster and went over to the door, standing to one side out of habit as he called, "Who is it?"
"I'd like to talk to you, Mr. Tyler," replied a voice that was vaguely familiar. "My name is William Durand."
Cole didn't know any William Durand and was about to say so when the man went on, "It's very important, and it could prove to be profitable for you, Mr. Tyler."
Cole had never been one to object to an honest profit, but he wasn't greedy enough to let the promise of a payoff make him careless, either. He twisted the key in the lock and stepped back quickly, keeping the revolver trained on the doorway. "It's open," he called. "Come on in."
The knob turned and the door swung slowly open. The man standing there blinked in surprise at the sight of the gun pointed at him and said, "Oh, dear." Cole recognized him as the thickset, bearded individual who had been on the platform that afternoon with Andrew McKay.
William Durand wasn't alone, either. Cole saw the British doctor standing beside him, and the sandy-haired young man from the platform— what was his name? Hatfield?—was also with him. The doctor stepped into the room first, casting a scornful glance at the gun, and said to Cole, "You don't need that, my good man. We're here on business."
Cole smiled thinly. "Out here on the frontier, some folks do business with a gun in their hand."
"Yes, but you're not a desperado, and neither are we."
Cole inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of the point, then slipped his thumb off the hammer of the Colt and slid the revolver back into the holster. He buckled the shell belt around his waist, however, and thonged down the holster.
"I don't know what brought you here, gents," he said, "but I'm hungry, so get on with it."
The heavyset man stepped forward, obviously more at ease now that Cole had put up his gun.
The man extended a hand and said, "I'm William Durand. I was Andrew McKay's business partner."
Cole looked at his hand but didn't take it, said, "I figured as much."
Durand dropped the hand, not seeming to be offended. "This is Dr. Judson Kent."
"Pleased to meet you," the medico said dryly.
"And Michael Hatfield, the editor of the Wind River Sentinel," Durand continued. "We're here as a sort of unofficial town council, as it were."
"I'm honored, I reckon," Cole said. "But what the hell do you want with me?"
"You are Cole Tyler? That's how you signed the register downstairs."
Cole felt a brief surge of irritation that they had checked the register. "That's right," he said.
"You are presently employed as a buffalo hunter, providing fresh meat for the workers of the Union Pacific?"
Cole nodded but didn't say anything.
Michael Hatfield spoke up, saying eagerly, "You rode with Colonel Jeb Stuart during the Civil War, didn't you?"
"What if I did?" Cole asked.
"But even though you were a Confederate, you signed up as a scout for the army after the war."
Cole shrugged. "The war was over. I didn't see any need to keep on fighting it."
"And you have also guided several wagon trains to Oregon, is that correct?" Kent asked.
Cole looked at the Englishman and said, "You gents have been studying up on me. Why?"
"We're told that you are an honest man and a tough man," Durand stated. "We need someone like that, Mr. Tyler."
"What for?"
"To be the marshal of Wind River."
Cole just stared at them for a long moment, his gaze going from Durand to Kent to Hatfield and back to Durand. He opened his mouth, hesitated again, then finally said, "What the hell are you talking about? Are you asking me to be your marshal?"
"That is precisely what we are doing," Kent said in his clipped tones.
Cole looked over at the young newspaper editor. "Hell, this afternoon you practically accused me of killing that fella McKay!"
Hatfield flushed slightly and looked uncomfortable. "I didn't say that. I just said you had a gun. And I know now I overreacted."
"A mite," Cole agreed wryly. "I thought for a second I was going to wind up being lynched. McKay seemed to be a mighty important man."
"He and I built this town, Mr. Tyler," Durand said. "Now Andrew is gone, and we must carry on without him. We must put a stop to lawless displays like the one that took his life, and to do that, we need law and order!"
Cole rubbed his freshly shaven jaw. "Still don't see why you came to me."
"We think you're the best man for the job," Hatfield said. "We've had a constable, but he hasn't been able to maintain order. We need a real marshal."
"I've never carried a badge in my life."
"No reason why you can't start now, eh?" Kent put in.
Cole shook his head curtly. "Sorry. I'm riding out in a day or two to get back to buffalo hunting. I just took a few days off while they moved the railhead."
"We'll pay you more than you make shooting buffalo," Durand said.
"It's not a question of money. I'm not a lawman." Cole stepped past them, went to the door, and put his hand on the knob. "Good night, gentlemen."
Judson Kent faced him. "Are you certain we can't convince you otherwise?"
"There's bound to be plenty of men around here who are handy with their fists and handy with a gun," Cole told them. "Hire one of them." He opened the door.
Durand sighed heavily. "We're very disappointed, Mr. Tyler."
"Well, that's not my problem, is it?" Cole crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the door until they had filed out, then closed the door with his foot. He sighed and shook his head. Of all the crazy things . . .
The hotel didn't have a dining room, but there was a hash house down the block. Cole ate his fill, then stood in the street for a moment and listened to the laughter and music coming from the tent saloons clustered at the other end of the avenue.
He'd had a drink earlier, before getting Ulysses settled for the night in a nearby stable, and while he was still a little thirsty, he decided against visiting any of the saloons. The mood in the settlement was still tense. If any fights broke out, he wanted no part of them. He turned toward the hotel instead.
The clerk wasn't behind the desk as Cole crossed the lobby. It was almost like being in a hotel back in Kansas City or St. Louis. There was a rug on the floor and a couple of plants in pots, curtains over the windows, and armchairs and settees scattered around the room. Mighty fancy for Wyoming Territory, Cole thought. But it was obvious from everything he had seen that Durand and McKay intended the best for their town.
Unfortunately, they hadn't seemed to count on the riffraff that the railroad brought in with it. As long as it was a railhead, Wind River was going to be wide open and roaring.
Cole went upstairs and down the lantern-lit hallway to his room. He hadn't locked the door when he left, so he didn't think anything of it when the knob turned easily under his hand. But he had blown out the candle on the little table next to the bed, and it was lit again now. As soon as he saw that, he froze on the threshold and his hand dropped quickly to the butt of his gun.
"You won't need that, Mr. Tyler," a woman's voice said.
He saw her then, sitting stiffly in the single ladderback chair beside the bed. She wore a black dress and a veil, the mourning clothes of a widow, and even if her voice hadn't been slightly familiar, her garb would have told him who she was.
"What are you doing here, Mrs. McKay?" he asked as he moved his hand away from his gun and stepped on into the room. He didn't close the door behind him.
"My . . . late husband's partner, Mr. Durand, told me that he and Dr. Kent and Michael Hatfield came to see you earlier this evening. They made you an offer."
"And I turned it down," Cole said. He could see her eyes behind the veil, large and dark and luminous. Grief had not dimmed her beauty.
"If it's a question of money . . ."
Cole shook his head. "That's not it. I'm just not a lawman. Never have been."
"But you've guided wagon trains. You've occupied a position of authority."
"That's not like packing a badge as town marshal." Obviously she had come to plead the same case as his other visitors, and that made Cole uncomfortable. Turning down a job offer was one thing, but if this widow woman started pleading with him . . .
"I won't beg you to accept the offer, Mr. Tyler," Simone McKay said, as if reading his mind. "But I will tell you that we need your help. Wind River was growing rapidly even before the railroad arrived. Now that the Union Pacific is here, people will pour into this town from all over the Wyoming Territory. From all over the West, in fact."
"Yes, ma'am, I'd say you're right about that."
"You saw some of the ruffians who are already here. They started that fight with the workers from the railroad. There were all kinds of people on that station platform—gamblers, prostitutes, horse thieves, miscreants of every stripe."
If she was expecting him to ask her what "miscreants" meant, he disappointed her. "You're right," he said. "Your husband and Mr. Durand should have made some provision for law enforcement when they started the town. No offense, but they should have known that all hell was going to break loose."
Simone lifted her chin. "Since we're both speaking plainly, Mr. Tyler, I agree with you. Andrew and William sometimes got caught up in how much money they were going to make and lost sight of some of the practical problems. But we still have the problem." Her mouth twisted under the veil. "I was wrong. I am going to beg you to take the job, Mr. Tyler. Help us put a stop to the sort of mob violence that took my husband's life."
Cole sighed. He wanted to tell Simone McKay to go to hell, but it wasn't in him to do that. He liked his job with the railroad. It ensured that he didn't have to stay in one place for too long.
And yet there was nothing saying that the marshal's job here in Wind River had to be permanent. He could draw their pay for a couple of months, tamp down the lid a little on the boiling pot, and then ride on. It was as simple as that.
Oh, hell, he thought. He was talking himself into it, just because some pretty woman in widow's weeds asked him. The smart thing to do would be to go get Ulysses from the stable and ride out of Wind River right now, tonight.
But a man couldn't always do the smart thing, he supposed.
"All right," he said. "You've got yourself a marshal."
Simone McKay stood up and clasped her black-gloved hands together. "Thank you, Mr. Tyler. You don't know what this means to us."
Maybe not, but Cole knew what it meant to him. It meant sleeping with a roof over his head instead of the western stars, it meant answering to authority, it meant being tied down.
; He hoped he wasn't making the worst mistake of his life.
* * *
They had a badge for him and everything, Cole discovered the next morning when he walked into the office of the McKay and Durand Land Development Company, which was the closest thing Wind River had to a town hall. Mrs. McKay had obviously spread the word of his acceptance, because there was a sizable crowd waiting for him, including Durand, Dr. Kent, and the young editor Hatfield. Everybody shook his hand, and Kent pinned the badge—a five-pointed star—to his buckskin shirt.
Cole hoped to God they didn't expect him to make some sort of speech.
Evidently they didn't, because Durand took care of that, going on about how glad the entire community was that Cole had taken the job of bringing law and order to Wind River. Cole let him finish, then asked, "What's this chore pay?"
"Fifty dollars a month, plus a free room in the boardinghouse," Durand replied magnanimously.
Those were good wages, Cole had to admit. He nodded and shook hands again with everybody, and as the citizens began to file out, Durand went on, "Your deputy can show you around town and help you get to know everyone."
"Deputy?" Cole repeated with a frown.
"That's right. He was our constable, as I believe we mentioned yesterday, and now he's going to serve as your deputy." Durand turned and motioned to a man Cole hadn't noticed in the crowd until then.
The man shuffled forward, stuck out a hand, and grinned at Cole. "Glad to meet you. Marshal," he said. "Name's Billy Casebolt, and I'm right proud to be your deputy."
Cole shook hands, still frowning. Billy Casebolt was around fifty, he guessed, lean almost to the point of gauntness, with iron-gray hair and the sunburn and permanent squint of a man who had spent most of his life outdoors. He wore a battered old hat, a wool work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal the faded red sleeves of a set of long underwear, denim pants, and run-down boots. A shell belt was strapped around his skinny hips, and an old Griswold and Gunnison Confederate revolver rode in the holster.
Billy Casebolt was a pretty unimpressive-looking specimen, and Cole could see why the old man hadn't been very successful as Wind River's first lawman.
Wind River Page 3
