by Len Levinson
~*~
Cassandra entered Collingswood’s office, the cattle broker rose behind his desk. Her grip was solid. Collingswood examined her tanned complexion and sun-bleached hair.
“Reverend Blasingame gave me your name,” she said. “I own a herd of mixed longhorns, my count is twenty-seven hundred. They fed out in the Nation, are in first-class condition. It’s my understanding they’re worth twenty-two dollars a head here at the railroad.”
“Prime steers might fetch twenty-two dollars a head, but mixed cattle aren’t worth nearly that much. The market has been down lately.”
Cassandra had been counting on twenty-two. “What price do you think I can expect?”
“Have to look at the herd. Tomorrow morning be all right?”
“Can’t you give me an estimate for mixed longhorns in first-class condition? Prices won’t fluctuate between now and tomorrow morning, will they?”
The smile froze on Collingswood’s face. He wasn’t used to being pressured by women. “Mrs. Whiteside, I’m not quoting a price on cattle until I inspect them with my own eyes. It’s good business.”
“Can’t even take a shot at it?”
She irritated him, but his boss ordered him to make the deal. “All I can tell you, Mrs. Whiteside, is I’ll beat any other broker’s legitimate price, but I emphasize the word ‘legitimate.’ Sundust is full of crooks, just like Abilene and every other cowtown. It’s important to deal with a reputable broker.”
“I’ll be here first thing in the morning with my trail boss,” she replied.
~*~
Frank Quarternight walked to the front desk of the Drovers Cottage in Abilene. All eyes were on him. “Checkin’ out,” he said.
The clerk handed him the bill. Quarternight reached into his pocket for the money when a handful of coins dropped onto the counter. A gambler stood beside them.
“Allow me,” he said.
Quarternight looked at him. “I slept in the room—I’ll pay for it.”
“No offense …”
Quarternight hoisted his bedroll to his shoulder, held it steady with his hook. His gunhand was empty and loose as he moved toward the door. Gentlemen tipped their hats, and some of the ladies gave him that forthright look. Everybody wanted the kiss of death, but nobody wanted to die.
He crossed the veranda, it was a cool autumn night. His horse was tied to the rail, saddled and ready to go. He walked toward the horse when somebody suddenly shouted: “Watch out!”
Quarternight went for his gun. A bullet zipped through a corner of his bedroll, and he saw a figure with a rifle. He grit his teeth and fired. The figure jerked, and the rifle shot a bullet into the sky. Quarternight triggered again, and gunsmoke billowed around the sidewalk.
He sucked wind when he saw Shelby’s skinny girlfriend stagger to the side, trying to fire the rifle again. He should gun her down, but hesitated. He’d never shot a woman before.
She dropped the rifle and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Blood dripped from her nostrils and soaked the front of her calico dress. Her knees gave out, she collapsed onto the ground. Townspeople gathered around. “Get the doc!”
Quarternight holstered his gun. She’d loved the kid so much she took on a dangerous gunfighter. It was difficult for him to comprehend. Marshal Tom Smith pushed through the crowd, spotted Quarternight. “What happened?”
“Tried to bushwhack me.”
A man kneeled beside her. “No need to wake up the doctor,” he said. “She’s dead as she’ll ever get. Anybody know her?”
Nobody said a word. She and her man were drifters. Potter’s Field. Four men carried her corpse to the undertaker, blood dripped from her hair onto State Street. Quarternight tied his blanket roll behind his saddle.
Marshal Smith said, “Mr. Quarternight—it’s nothin’ personal, but we’d appreciate if you don’t come back to Abilene. Killin’ always happens when a man like you’s around.”
“Don’t go where I’m not wanted,” Quarternight said, “less’n I have business.”
He climbed into the saddle and rode his horse into the middle of the street. Cowboys, gamblers, and ladies lined the sidewalk, watched him pass. His horse trudged through the center of town, and Quarternight felt troubled. He didn’t mind killing men, but not a poor scraggly girl. Ashes were on his tongue as he disappeared into the darkness at the edge of town, headed south toward his next appointment with destiny.
~*~
John Stone and Lewton Rooney drank at a dark corner of the Blue Devil Saloon. At the next table, a spirited game of poker was being played.
“Ever run into anybody from the old brigade?” Rooney asked.
“Met one of my sergeants in Tucson not long ago,” Stone replied. “He was still in the cavalry. We sang the old anthem together.”
Stone and Rooney looked at each other.
“Should we?” asked Rooney.
“Why in hell not?”
They opened their mouths and roared the lively hard-driving tempo of Jeb Stuart’s favorite song:
“If you want to smell hell, boys
jine the cavalry …”
They pounded their fists on the table, and it was like the good old days. The poker game continued without hesitation, and the song blended into the overall racket of a saloon packed with men hollering at the tops of their lungs.
“I’ll order two more,” Rooney said. “Don’t worry about money. I’ve got plenty for all of us.”
Rooney called a waitress, and it was like West Point again. They shared what they had, nobody kept accounts. Rooney rolled a cigarette.
“Ever think about Ashley?”
There was silence for a few moments, then Stone said, “Sometimes.”
“How about Beau?”
“Beau who?”
“Beau Talbott. You, Beau, and Ashley were like brothers. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Beau.”
“Haven’t forgotten him.”
Stone grew up with Ashley Tredegar and Beau Talbott, all three went to West Point. Ashley commanded Troop C, and the Yankees shot him out of his saddle at Yellow Tavern.
“To Ashley,” Stone said.
They raised their glasses. A cowboy whooped at the next table and wrapped his arms around the pot he’d just won, a cigar sticking out of his teeth.
“Wonder what happened to old Beau,” Rooney said. “Heard he came west too.”
Stone said nothing.
“You all right?” Rooney asked.
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“Your face just did something funny.”
Stone sipped whiskey.
“You ever hear anything about Beau?”
There was silence for a few moments. Stone looked toward the bar.
“Just asked you a question,” Rooney said.
Stone reached into his pocket and took out his bag of tobacco.
“I say something wrong?”
Stone lit the cigarette, blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “Beau’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
Stone took another drink of whiskey. A swarm of bees buzzed around his head. “I killed him.”
A queer expression came over Rooney’s face. “You’re serious?”
“It was him or me.”
“I thought you were friends.”
“He turned outlaw. Tried to shoot me, but I got him first. Rather not talk about Beau anymore.”
Silence returned to the table. Stone had buried Beau at dawn on the desert near Santa Fe. His two closest boyhood friends were gone. He raised his glass, a bright colorful figure suddenly appeared in front of him. Stone went for his gun.
A painted clown in baggy pants held out his hand. “Don’t shoot, pardner,” he said in a squeaky voice. Then he placed a leaflet on the table. “See you later, at the carnival.”
The clown moved away from the table. For a moment Stone thought he was one drink over the line. He read the leaflet:
CARNIVAL
Welco
me One and All
Games Freaks Dancing Girls
Free Prizes
“Carnival arrived this morning,” Rooney explained. “Pitched tents on the other end of town. We can go over later, if you want.”
Stone gazed at Rooney, and the years fell away. Whenever Wade Hampton’s officers met, Stone had seen Rooney. They’d been through hell together. “The world turns upside down,” Stone said, “our heroes have feet of clay, but not Bobby Lee. I still think he was a great man, and I’m proud I served under him.”
“Grant sits at the rich man’s table,” Rooney replied, “while Bobby Lee is president of a little college nobody ever heard of. If I had a son, I’d rather he went there than West Point.”
A cowboy smashed another over the head with a bottle, shards of glass flew through the air. A brawl broke out near the bar. Rooney looked at Stone and saw the captain of the lacrosse team, a member of the fencing team. “We all thought you’d be the first to make general,” Rooney said.
“General disaster, maybe.”
“Whatever happened to that girl you were going to marry, the pretty blonde—what was her name?”
“Marie. I returned home after the war, she’d disappeared. That’s what I’m doing out here. I’ve been looking for her all across this goddamned country.” Stone’s mind fuzzed out for a moment, his brain soaked with alcohol. “What are we talking about?”
“Marie.”
“I gave up on her. Now I’m marrying somebody else. The strange thing is she looks an awful lot like Marie.”
“Does she dress like a cowboy?”
“How do you know?”
A tall blond woman wearing a six-gun walked among the tables. Stone got to his feet and waved. She headed toward him.
“I thought I’d find you in one of these filthy disgusting places,” she said to Stone. “How drunk are you?”
Stone’s eyes were nearly closed, and one shoulder was raised higher than the other. “Dear,” he said thickly, “I’d like to present an old friend of mine: Captain Lewton Rooney. Lew, this is my bride-to-be, Cassandra Whiteside.”
“The resemblance is amazing,” Rooney said.
Cassandra knew who he was talking about. “You knew Marie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’d like to find out more about this woman whom I resemble so much.”
“Uncanny,” Rooney replied.
Stone was seriously drunk, she realized with dismay. This wasn’t her range-hardened trail boss, but a saloon rat. Truscott had been the same way. They were good men, but something serious was wrong with their minds.
Stone pressed his lips against her cheek. “What you been up to?”
She didn’t like the smell of whiskey, and wrinkled her pretty nose. “While you’ve been celebrating with Captain Rooney, I’ve attended to business. Tomorrow morning you and I are scheduled to show the herd to a broker, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to make it.”
“I’ll make it,” Stone said thickly. “Stop drinking after this one. Then we’ll go to the Majestic Hotel and turn in, all right?”
Rooney interjected: “I’m a cattle buyer myself, and I’d appreciate your business.”
Cassandra recalled what Reverend Blasingame told her about crooked cattle buyers. Rooney was as drunk as Stone, and she didn’t want to do business with a drunk. “I’ve already begun negotiations with one buyer. If a deal isn’t made, I’ll keep you in mind.”
“Who’s the buyer?” Rooney asked.
“Dexter Collingswood.”
Rooney groaned. “He’s the biggest crook in town.”
“He was recommended highly by Reverend Blasingame.”
“That old fraud? He owns most of this town. We call him Reverend Real Estate.”
“But he’s a minister, a man of God.”
“Between sermons he conducts business like everyone else. If he steered you toward Collingswood, he’s getting a piece of the deal. Old Reverend Real Estate doesn’t do anything unless it pays off.”
“Didn’t seem that way to me,” Cassandra replied. “I received quite the opposite impression.”
“He gives a helluva sermon,” Rooney said, “and he sure knows his Scripture, but those of us who’ve been here since the beginning know what he is. There’s talk he even owns the bank.”
“Are you sure he’s done all these things? He seems like a sweet old pastor. Do you have proof?”
“Reverend Real Estate never puts his name on paper.”
The ash from his cigar fell into his glass of whiskey. His eyes were bloodshot and the front of his suit had become stained. Was the allegation of such a man worth taking seriously?
“What would you pay for twenty-seven hundred head of mixed longhorns in first-class condition?” Cassandra asked.
“Twenty dollars a head.”
“You couldn’t go to twenty-two?”
“Have to take a look at the cattle. If they’re exceptional, I might up the ante.”
A chorus of boos and whistles spread across the Blue Devil Saloon, as two men carrying guitars walked to the stage. A cowboy near the bar, with an Indian scalp hanging from his belt, cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered: “We don’t want no broke down geetar pickers? Where’s the girls?”
A cheer went up at the mere mention of the word. The two men stood on the stage, dressed like cowboys except for the red silk bandanna around the neck of the one on the left, and the gold piping on the black shirt of his partner.
“Evening, gennelman!” said red bandanna. “I know you’d druther have dancin’ girls, and so would I, but they’re comin’ on later. Right now you got us, and we’re the Prairie Troubadours. My name’s Chet, and this here’s Sam.”
A chorus of snarls and growls arose from alcohol-lubricated throats across the length and breadth of the saloon. “Git off the stage! We want the gals!”
“We damn shore ain’t gals,” Chet said. “We’re just a couple of old geetar men.” He looked at Dave, they strummed, the saloon filled with twangy chords. The Prairie Troubadours opened their mouths:
“Way down in South Texas
Where the Rio Grande flows
Where cattle is a-grazin’
And the cactus grows
’Twas there I attended
The Cowboys Halloween Ball...”
Every cattle crew had somebody who could plunk a guitar or blow a mouth organ, but the Prairie Troubadours were exceptional musicians. They sang of the open range, horses, steers, and the girls they left behind. There was something rough about them, they’d roped and branded too. The life they sang of was their own, and they knew it in the fibers and sinews of their bodies.
“When we left the ranch
the sun was high
had the best trail boss
money could buy….”
Cassandra looked at her trail boss. His eyes were sleepy, and a cigarette dangled out the corner of his mouth. This wasn’t the man who’d thrown a gunfighter to the ground yesterday and threatened to blow his brains out. If John Stone was a drunkard now, what would he be in five years?
~*~
At the Mount Zion Church of God, several supplicants knelt in the pews. A candle flickered on the altar, making the cross jump and twist on the wall. The door to the church never closed, so the faithful could use the facilities whenever the spirit moved them. The poor box near the door was locked, because Reverend Blasingame knew well the wickedness in the hearts of the children of Eve.
A grotesque figure approached the poor box, key in hand. It was Little Emma, dragging her club foot behind her. She dropped to one knee, unlocked the poor box, emptied its contents into a basket. Then she carried the basket to the back of the church, disappeared behind the altar, passed through the dark corridor, knocked on a door.
“Come in?”
She shuffled to Blasingame’s desk. “Poor box,” she croaked.
“Good girl.” He patted her head. “Bring me a sandwich, will you?”
Reverend Blasingame upended the basket, spilling coins onto the desk. Looked like a good haul. He sorted the coins and placed them in piles. The donation box usually was good for at least ten dollars a day, but now, with so many cattle crews in town, it amounted to nearly twenty. He wondered if the take could be increased with a new sign:
Help the Families of Cowboys
Who Died on the Trail
He wrote the words on a piece of paper. Every cowboy had lost a friend on a drive. It could be even bigger than his candle concession. Tomorrow he’d give it to a sign maker.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in.”
Collingswood entered the room and removed his derby. “Thought you might want to know the Whiteside woman dropped by.”
Reverend Blasingame turned to him. “And?”
“She’ll be a tough nut to crack.”
“I want that herd. Price is no object. Go as high as you have to.”
“She wants twenty-two dollars a head.”
“Pay it.”
“Mixed longhorns aren’t worth that much.”
“I said pay it.”
Collingswood made a lopsided grin. “It doesn’t matter what number we put on the contract, eh, Reverend? She won’t see a penny anyway.”
“You’re getting the picture.”
“Sure is a looker, but she’s suspicious.”
“Makes the game more fun. When’ll the deal go down?”
“Supposed to look at the herd tomorrow, with her trail boss. He might be a problem.”
“I’ll handle him. Just give me her name on the dotted line.”
Collingswood winked. “Can I have some of her when you’re finished, like we did with the Sully woman?”
~*~
The Prairie Troubadours plucked the last notes of their song, and the saloon exploded with applause. Cowboys rushed forward and carried the musicians off the stage, propelled them to the bar.
“Nothin’ like an appreciative audience,” said Chet, reaching for the closest glass. He touched glasses with Sam, and they knocked the first ones back.
Rooney raised his hand, but the waitresses were busy elsewhere. Cassandra realized it was getting late. She looked at Stone. “Have you checked into the hotel yet?”
“Why can’t I spend the night in your room?”
“Not till we’re married. We’ve returned to civilization, and should act accordingly.” She wasn’t anxious to go to bed with a drunk who hadn’t bathed for a week.
