As a boy, possibly to divert attention from his small size, Dusty had developed and improved a natural tendency to being ambidextrous. The ability to use either hand for every purpose often came in useful—and did at that moment.
Suddenly, giving no hint of what he aimed to do, Dusty drove up both his hands, arcing them outw^ards. With the speed and co-ordination that enabled him to draw and shoot in under a second, he crashed a back-hand blow into Monte and DeFs jaws. He hit with such force and so unexpectedly that the two cowhands spun away from Tack along the bar.
Even as realisation kniJFed into Tack, he found troubles of his own. Down swung Dusty's left fist and rammed with considerable force into the cowhand's belly. While Tack might be as tough as working ten to eighteen hours a day could make him, he still felt die punch. Pain doubled him over and the air belched from his lungs in a rush.
Nor had Dusty finished. Catching Tack by the rear of the collar and seat of the pants, he heaved the yoimgster at Del with enough force to tumble them in a tangled heap to the floor. Monte started forward, hands reaching out at Ehisty and a desire for revenge in his heart. Swivelling around fast. Dusty clamped his two hands around Monte's right wrist. Then, carrying the trapped arm into the air. Dusty pivoted
underneath it and snapped it down. Letting out a bewildered wail, Monte felt his feet leave the ground. For a moment it seemed that the room spim aroimd and he lit down upon the sprawling bodies of his companions.
For a moment the trio lay winded and dazed. Finally they rolled apart and sat up to stare about them. Only they no longer looked at a small, insignificant man. In some manner Dusty seemed to have put on height and heft imtil he stood taller than any of them. Monte expressed his companions* feelings.
"Heyl" he yelped in an aggrieved tone. "Where'd the lil feller go?^
COWHANDS ARE ONLY PART OF IT
"On your feetl" Dusty snapped and the trio obeyed with considerable speed.
**WhatVe you fixing to do with us, marshal?*' Tack asked worriedly.
"Take you to jail for whooping up the town and damned near shooting the mayor.*'
Instead of distressing the trio, the latter piece of information seemed to amuse them. Broad grins creased their faces.
"We-all did that?" gurgled Monte, slapping a hand against his thigh. "Ain't that a pistol. We'ns near on done shot their mayor."
"And I didn't find it amusing!" interrupted a cold feminine voice.
So engrossed in staring at Dusty had the trio become, and delighted that they had given their companions at the herd such a good lead in the matter of hoorawing the town, that they failed to notice the batwing doors opening. Followed by the three deputies, Freddie stalked across the room. The cowhands turned, eyes raking Freddie from head to foot with frank juvenile admiration. Tack found his voice first, jerking off his hat.
"I sure bet the mayor didn't neither, ma'am," he said.
"I am the mayorl" Freddie replied.
Slowly the grins faded as die import of the words sank
in. Three pairs of worried eyes darted from Freddie to Dusty, seeldng confirmation of the remarkable statement and hoping to see denial instead. While the rest of the trail hands would regard scaring a male mayor as a piece of good-natured fim, the same did not apply when that civic dignitary was a woman.
"Are you the for-real, sure-enough female lady mayor of this here town, ma'am?" gulped Del.
"I'm the for-real, sure-enough female lady mayor of this town," Freddie confirmed. "And I don't take to having lead whistling around my ears."
"Ma'am," said Monte fervently as he made a belated removal of his hat. "We didn't know you was in there."
"If we had," Del went on, "why we wouldn't've thought of shooting that ways, ma'am."
"You should've thought on it afore you started,** Dusty growled. "Let's head for the pokey."
"We'ns work for Colonel Charlie Goodnight," Tack pointed out.
**Which same he's just going to fall on your necks with whoops of joy when he hears what you've been doing," Dusty drawled.
"You-all don't know Colonel Charlie, happen that's what you reckon," Del put in, an uneasy feeling forming that his employer would not regard the trio's behaviour as commendable.
"Reckon I don't know him?" Dusty smiled. "I rode with him on that third drive he made to Fort Sumner after the War."
"You was on that drive?" Tack asked, with less disbelief than he might have shown earlier.
"On iti" the Kid put in. "Boy, he was Colonel Charlie's segundo."
Which explained a whole lot more to the Texans than it did to Freddie. All three knew the name of Goodnight's segundo on that fateful third drive to Fort Sumner, a jovimey which helped pave the way for the longer trails north to the Kansas market.
"Lordy lordl" Del breathed, admiration glowing in his eyes. **You're Dusty Fog. No wonder you licked us so easy."
"What's going to happen to us, Cap'n Fog?" Tack inquired respectfully.
**! told you, you re going to the pokey. There're two windows bust—."
"Ole Tack here's the bestest window fixer in Medina County, Cap'n," Del began hopefully. "He could fit in new glass—/*
"Who pays for it?" Dusty interrupted.
"Well now," Tack answered, hesitantly feeling into his pockets. "Im bust."
"Me too," Del groaned.
"I ain*t got but three dollars, 'cepting what the boys gave me to bring back the makings and stuflE for them," Monte went on.
"I'll tell you what," Freddie remarked, recalling something Dusty had told her about cowhands the previous day. "The backhouse hole needs to go down deeper. If you three put it down, m pay for the windows and Tack can fix them."
"Dig?" yelped Del.
"I ain't never took to working on the blister end of a shovel, ma'am," Monte went on.
**Then you can wait in a cell until I've seen Uncle Charlie and asked for your fine money," Dusty told them, inwardly grinning at the way Freddie handed out a punishment.
"Can't say as how I'm took with that idea either," Monte groaned. "You're sure enough Idn to Colonel Charlie. That land of meanness goes in families, they do reckon."
Watching the trio's expressions, Freddie found increasing difficulty in maintaining her coldly regal pose. She could read the growing realisation that a trap had closed aroimd them. All three knew just how Goodnight would regard finding them in jail. They could also visualise their companions* reactions to hearing what had caused the delay in the arrival of much-needed supplies of tobacco and the like. Despite a cowhand's antipathy to handling a shovel, all three felt it better to dig than be held in jail.
**We'll do it," Tack decided. "Happen we work at it, well be done soon enough to get back to the herd in time for supper."
"Digging's thirsty work," Freddie smiled. "You boys had better take a drink before you start."
Grins creased three faces and Tack took up the bottle they had brought in with them. Just as he started to pour out the drinks, he recalled his manners.
"Maybe you'd have one along of us, ma'am?"
'TThank you," Freddie replied, accepting the offered glass and raising it towards her lips. Then she sniffed at it instead of drinking. 'What's this?"
"Whiskey, ma'am," Del answered.
y itr
"Sure is, ma'am. Done bought it off a feller who met us on the range."
Ignoring Del's comment, Freddie took the bottle's neck between 3ie extreme tips of her forefinger and thimib.
**Dispose of this slush, Donna," she ordered. "Give these gentlemen some decent Uquor."
Watched by the cowhands. Donna dropped the bottle into the trash bucket behind the bar. Then she took one of the saloon's stock and poiu-ed out the driiJcs. The cowhands drank appreciatively and forgot any objections to losing their bottle.
**Whooee!" Tack commented, setting down the empty glass. **What've we been drinking all our Kves?"
"On likker like this I can dig that there hole with my two bare hands," Del continued. "Lead me t
o it, ma'am."
'Tell you what," Dusty remarked. "Lon here's riding out just now. Give him the money. HeTl buy that stuff for your pards with the herd and take it to them."
If any Kansas lawman had offered such a suggestion, it would have been regarded with at least suspicion. However the cowhands knew they could trust Dusty Fog. So Monte handed over the money and a scrawled list of goods to the Kid. Then the three cowhands trooped off to begin working out their fines.
Watching them go. Dusty felt sure that he had handled things just right. Back at the herd after finishing their chores, the trio would pass the word of their treatment. Soon news would spread that the law in Mukooney treated cowhands fairly. Most of the trouble in other Kansas trail-end towns came from the citizens and lawmen cheating or abusing the visitors. That was one thing Dusty aimed to prevent at all costs.
"You handled that really well. Dusty," Freddie complimented.
"So did you," he returned. **It won't always be this easy though. Cowhands are only a part of it."
"If they drink stuff like this regularly," Freddie said, waving a hand to the glass of whiskey Tadc had offered her and
which Still stood on the bar, "I can see how they would get mean."
Picking up the glass, Dusty sniffed at it and pulled a wry face. "It's the real, genuine snake-head base-bimier for sure.*'
"They must use twenty-rattle sidewinders' heads in it," the Kid went on after following Dusty's example.
"I never saw a rattlesnake with twenty rattles on its tail," Freddie began,
**That's 'cause youVe never been to Texas, ma'am," Waco informed her. "Why we've rattlers there with—."
"Ill bet you have," she interrupted, but in such a friendly manner that he neither took offence nor felt snubbed. **What I don't see is the connection between rattlesnakes' heads and the whiskey."
'TThey drop the heads in to give it a kick when they're brewing it," the Kid explained. "Makes that fire-water so fierce mat I don't know how they keep it bottled up."
"It's lucky that bunch hadn't drunk more than a couple of snorts apiece," Dusty put in, looking worried. "Happen they had, they might've been some harder to handle."
'TThey can buy better stuff than this at any place in town," Freddie said.
"Only they're not buying it in town," Dusty replied. "Let's go. When those three've put the hole down deep enough, see they fix the windows at the oflBce, Sarah."
"Sure, Cap'n," the woman answered. "Wherell you be?"
"Around and about somewheres. Lon's heading out to the OD Connected camp to see about spreading the word that Brownton's bad medicine."
"You don't have to do that for us, Dusty," Freddie remarked.
"I'm not doing it for you," he assured her. 'Those yahoos in Brownton 're fixing to trim the trail crews to the bone. They've got a civic ordnance that says nobody who supported the Confederate States, which means any Texan whether he supported it or not, can tote a gun in their town. That'll mean the trail-hands who turn in their guns're imarmed in a town full of folks who aren't. Any cowhand who goes home with his teeth and two eyes in his head'll be lucky, because that's just about all he will take. So I figure word ought to go out to warn them what to expect. What they do after that is up to their trail boss."
**They won't be treated like that here," Freddie promised.
"If I thought they would/' Dusty answered. "You'd still be looking for a marshal." Then he looked at his two male deputies. "Come on, we've got work to do."
"I just knowed you'd get around to saying that," Waco groaned, darting glances aroimd the room. "Where-at's Babsy, ma'am?"
"Upstairs resting," Freddie replied, "being, as you Texans put it, plumb tuckered out from all the fussing last night."
Although the girl in question had come from England to act as Freddie's maid, she had proven adept at providing the kind of entertainment saloon audiences enjoyed. Blonde, vivacious, buxom in a small way, her spirited renderings of Cockney songs and dances added to the general festivities celebrating the arrival of the first herd to Mulrooney. Waco found her especially attractive, but hoped to meet her again under less crowded conditions. However it did not seem that she would be making an appearance and Dusty showed signs of wanting to be on his way.
**Tell Mark that we'll be in to see him later," the small Texan requested.
"I bet he's up there in that big soft bed snoring like ten razorback hawgs," the Kid went on.
'Trust him to get shot when there's work to be done," Waco commented and followed the other two into the street.
"How'd you have handled it. Boy?" Dusty asked as they left the saloon.
*T dunno. Gone in with a gun in my hand, likely," the youngster replied.
"Which could've sparked off a shooting," Dusty told him. "Throwing down with a gun's only part of being a lawman. Youll get on better by learning how to handle people. Those three kids aren't bad, just happied up a mite—."
"They just hadn't drunk enough of that wild mare's milk to make them mean," the Kid interjected.
"That's for srn-e," Dusty agreed, but put aside his thoughts on the matter so as to continue making his point to Waco. *With Idds like that you don't need a gun. Just show them who's running things, treat them fair, then you'll get no trouble."
"Not as long as they drink decent whiskey," the Kid continued. "Which they sure wouldn't've been had they finished that bottle they bought."
'That's for sure," Dusty admitted.
**Mind that time over to Newton when a feller was peddling snake-head gut-rot to the trail hands outside townP^ the Kid went on.
"ITl never forget it,** Dusty replied.
'*What happened?" asked Waco.
*This jasper got a smart notion for making money. He stocked up with cheap whiskey and took a wagon on to the range. Used to peddle it to the trail-hands. Up that close to the sale-pens they figured they could loosen oflF a mite and bought a couple of bottles. Only some of the hands got a mite too loose. After belting the bottles, a couple of them started grandstanding a mite reckless for some Eastern folks who'd come out to see a real, genuine trail herd.**
"Which same their fooling spooked the herd into a stampede," the Kid continued as Dusty paused. "Near on three thousand head went down on to Newton like the devil after a yearling. Seeing them coming riled up the cattle already in the railroad holding pens so that they bust down the fences and the whole damned boiling went through the middle of town.**
"Two folks were killed, maybe another dozen hurt, and a helluva lot of damage was done in or around town," Dusty went on grimly. "Paying off for the other stock killed or lost and the damage his herd caused broke the rancher. His crew lost their pay. Two of them got shot trying to rob a store on their way back home. They were broke, damned near starving."
"There's some might say it served them right as they'd been the pair who started the stampede," the Kid drawled. "Only a thing like that doesn't end easy."
"That's for sure," Dusty agreed. "Up to that time Newton'd been a decent sort of town. Folks treated the cowhands fair, everybody got on well enough. Only it stopped after the stampede. Then there was nothing but trouble. They brought in a real mean fighting pimp as marshal, started making fuss with the trail crews. All of it came about just because some stinking yahoo wanted to make a quick profit."
"There's some who'd claim the cowhands didn't have to buy the Ukker in the first place," Waco said. "Only them who'd say it don't know cowhands and've never driven a trail herd."
"It's not going to happen around herel" Dusty stated, ignoring the youngster's comment.
Except tinder certain circumstances, Dusty raised no objections to other men drinking. The way he saw it, any man had the right to decide on such matters without interference from others. One of the conditions where he felt liquor had no place was on a trail herd.
Every man of the trail crew needed his wits constantly about him when handling a herd of between two and three thousand head of half-wild longhom cattle. So drinking
and trail-driving did not mix. Most trail bosses banned the carrying of hard liquor—except for the inevitable medicinal whiskey bottle in the chuck wagon—during the drive. Although they frequently complained about the ban, every experienced trail hand secretly admitted its necessity. Cowhands were not saints; their line of work did not call for abstemious, gentle souls. But the majority of them accepted the no-liquor rule when on the trail.
Consequently they built up quite a thirst between towns and, like sailors in port, tended to make up for lost time on their arrival. While not given to drinking in excess, Dusty regarded it tolerantly and as an understandable human failing. What he wished to avoid was the kind of premature drinking which had sparked oflF the stampede and its consequences in Newton. So far the majority of Mulrooney citizens wanted only to make a reasonable profit from the trail crews and wished to remain on friendly terms with the Texans.
Under such conditions, provided cowhand rowdyism remained in bounds, harmonious relations were assured. From what Freddie claimed, and Dusty had so far seen, the saloons stocked decent whiskey. However cowhands primed on the raw, cheaply-made liquor that Tack's party had brought into town might easily, if inadvertently, spark off an incident that spoiled everything.
"You knew that rancher, Dusty?" Waco asked. "The one in Newton?'*
"I knew him. It was Hill Thompson."
" 'Smokey Hill Thompson, the owlhoot?''
^That's what he became," Dusty admitted. "Like I say, he went broke. The carpetbaggers took over his spread for nonpayment of taxes and he went bad. But I knew him in the War, and after. There wasn't a better, staimcher man in a day's long ride."
"You tried to reach him with enough money to pay the taxes. Dusty," the Kid put in. "But he'd shot up that damned
State Police posse and gone on the dodge before you got there/'
'Thing being, what's to do about that jasper who's peddling whiskey on the ranges out here/' Wacx) remarked, guessing that Dusty wanted the subject closed,
The making of a lawman Page 2
