Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1
Page 27
“It ain’t as much Elmer findin’ him, as it is Reid just come ridin’ back in without so much as a by-your-leave,” Ben said.
“He told Elmer he thought he was finished with the work he was give to do,” Dale added.
“And Elmer took issue with that, did he?”
“Yes, sir, he sure did, an’ ole Elmer’s been givin’ Reid hell ever since.”
“Keep the damn stalls clean!” Elmer’s voice said loudly. “You wouldn’t want to be sleeping, ankle deep in horseshit, would you?”
“They’re horses,” a voice replied. “This is only natural for them. Horses is supposed to live in shit.”
“It ain’t natural at all,” Elmer said. “If we was doin’ things natural, the horses wouldn’t be in stalls in the first place. They’d all be runnin’ free. We’re the ones that’s got ’em all cooped up, so the least we can do is give ’em a clean place to be. Now get it done.”
“I didn’t sign on to clean horse shit out of a stall,” Reid said. “You want the shit cleaned, you clean it yourself.”
“I’ve had about enough of you, Mr. Reid,” Elmer said. “You’ve been slacking off way too much here, lately. You lollygagged around all mornin’ long, and after lunch you wasn’t nowhere to be found. You left Earl to do the work all by himself.”
“I told Earl where I was goin’. Yesterday, my rain slicker fell offen my saddle, and I went back to look for it. Then, while I was lookin’ for it, I seen some cows drifting off the ranch. I figured savin’ them cows was more important than cleanin’ up horse shit.”
“Did you now? Well, here is the thing, Reid, how do I know you was actually roundin’ up wanderin’ away strays? Or even lookin’ for your rain slicker, for that matter. I mean, you lied about greasing the wheel on the hay wagon last week, and because it didn’t get no grease, the axle got so wore down that it’s out of round and we’re goin’ to have to put on another one.”
“Then why don’t you have me doin’ somethin’ important like that, instead of shovelin’ shit out of a stall?”
“I tell you what, Reid. You don’t have to worry about cleaning out no more shit because you ain’t a’ goin’ to be working here no more. Get your tack and get out of here. You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me, old man. The only one who can fire me is the man that owns this place.”
Duff had been just outside, listening in on the discussion, and he chose that moment to walk into the barn.
“That is where you are wrong, Mr. Reid,” Duff said. “Elmer Gleason is the executive administrator of this operation, and as such, has full authority to fire anyone he deems needing fired.”
“He’s the what?” Reid asked.
“I’m the ramrod,” Elmer said. “Now, get.”
“Someday you are goin’ to regret this,” Reid said.
“That wouldn’t be a threat now, would it, Reid?” Elmer asked. “Because if it is, well by God, me ’n’ you can just settle this out here and now.”
“I’ll leave, but I ain’t goin’ nowhere without drawin’ my pay,” Reid said.
“How much are you owed?” Duff asked.
“I’m drawin’ forty dollars a month.”
“Reid, you do know that Mr. MacCallister is payin’ more than any other rancher in the valley, don’t you? Most anyone else is paying is thirty dollars and found.”
“Here’s twenty dollars,” Duff said.
“You’re bein’ awful generous, Mr. MacCallister,” Elmer said. “The most we owe him right now is ten dollars, and we don’t even have to settle up with him for that, until the end of the month.”
“If I am for understanding the way you feel about him, Elmer, the more distant he is from Sky Meadow, the better things will be.”
“I guess that’s true, all right.”
Duff smiled. “Then let’s just say he can get farther away on twenty dollars, than he can on ten.”
Reid took the twenty-dollar bill, and then glared for a moment at both Elmer and Duff.
“You got your money, Reid. Now get,” Elmer ordered.
Reid walked outside where his horse, still saddled, stood tied to a hitching rail.
About half the cowboys employed by Duff owned their own horses, while half rode horses that belong to Sky Meadow. Reid was one of the cowboys who owned his own horse, and from the very first day that had given him an attitude of superiority over those who did not. Now, as he rode away from the compound, a few of the other cowboys turned out to watch him leave.
Reid’s air of superiority, his lack of cooperation with the others who worked on the ranch, as well as his general laziness, had not engendered strong friendships. As a result, those who had turned out to watch him leave did so with a sense of satisfaction that he was gone. A few even called insults out to him.
“Ha! I’ll bet this here is the first time anyone ever seen a bag o’ shit ridin’ a horse before,” one of the cowboys called.
“Look there, boys, that’s somethin’ you don’t see all that often,” another said. “Two horse’s asses at the same time, one at the horse rear end, and the other sittin’ in the horse’s saddle.”
There were other insults and derisive comments shouted until Reid, who urged his horse into a gallop, moved out of range.
“It looks as if your decision to fire Mr. Reid is being well received by the others,” Duff said.
“It looks like it, don’t it?” Elmer replied. “It turns out there didn’t nobody like the son of a bitch. So tell me, Duff, did you see any wolves?” he asked.
“Aye, eight of the creatures I saw,” Duff said.
“Good. I’ll get someone out there to bury them.”
“Sure now, ’n’ how is it that you know I killed them?” Duff asked.
“How do I know? Because you seen ’em, that’s how I know. You ain’t a’goin’ to tell me they run off now, are you?”
“They’re dead,” Duff said.
“Uh-huh. Like I said, I’ll get someone out there to bury ’em. If we leave ’em to lay around and rot, next thing you know the water could get bad.”
“I’m going into town this afternoon to check the mail and collect a few items at the store,” Duff said. “Would you be for wanting me to pick something up for you?”
“Better get some coffee,” Duff said. “You bein’ an Englishman, you always remember tea, but don’t always remember coffee.”
“Och, ’tis a Scotsman I am, and nae an Englishman,” Duff corrected him. He smiled. “Sure now, and have you nae corrected me anytime I refer to you as a Yank?”
“Lord, no, don’t do that,” Elmer said with a wince. “You know damn well I ain’t no Yankee.”
“Aye, I know well, Elmer Gleason. ’Tis a pair of rebels we both be, but in differing ways.”
When Elmer walked back out to the barn, he saw the wagons painted and glistening, with the wheels greased and reattached.
“Good job, men,” he said.
“Al, Case, and Brax are goin’ into town. Since all the work you give us to do is done, can we have the rest of the afternoon off to go into town with them?”
“I reckon so,” Elmer said.
Ben smiled, broadly. “Come on, Dale, let’s get washed up, some.”
Ben, Dale, Woodward, Martin, and Walker lived in the bunkhouse. A long, relatively narrow building, the bunkhouse was one of several buildings that now occupied the compound. It had seven beds on either side. The individual beds, and the area immediately around the bed, became the personal domain of the cowboy who slept there, his space as inviolate as if it were his home. And in fact, it was his home.
The cowboys used different forms of expression to personalize their “homes,” which not only established it as their private area, but gave them a sense of belonging and identity.
Dale had a picture of a fancy saddle that he had cut from a Sears and Roebuck Catalogue pinned to the wall above his bed. Ben had a blue ribbon he had won in a foot race in Cheyenne the year before. There were other
pictures and bits of memorabilia tacked to the wall above other bunks, from a calendar featuring a picture of a passenger train roaring through the night, to more than one “lucky” horse shoe.
Ben and Dale filled a Number Two washtub with water, and then flipped a coin to see who got to use the water first.
Ben won the coin toss and was now sitting in the tub in the middle of the floor, scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush.
“Dale, you ever been to a big city?” Ben asked.
“I been to Cheyenne.”
“No, I mean a big city, like maybe Denver, or San Francisco, or St. Louis, or someplace like that.”
“Well, I was borned in St. Louis, but I don’t remember it.”
“I ain’t never been to no big city either, but I’d dearly love to go someday.”
“Why?”
“I’ve heard tell that in San Francisco they got a whore standin’ on near ’bout ever’ corner.”
“They got whores in Chugwater.”
“Yeah, but most of the whores in Chugwater are so ugly they’d make a train take five miles of dirt road. The ones in the city is all real pretty, and ’cause they got so many, it don’t cost you hardly nothin’ at all to go to bed with ’em.”
“Maybe someday me ’n’ you can go to San Francisco,” Dale suggested.
Ben climbed out of the tub then and started toward his bunk.
“The water is all your’n now,” he said.
Dale walked over to look down into the tub. “What water?” he asked. “Looks to me like I’m about to climb into one of them bog holes we sometimes got to pull the cows out of.”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
The WWJ steer head logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 978-0-7860-3263-1
First electronic edition: March 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3264-8
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3264-2
Notes
1
By a strange quirk of fate, Cleveland is believed to have passed through Holy Rood, by then a ghost town, in the winter of 1897, two months before the end of his second term.
2
More than 160 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem. At least 25 were executed or died in jail and the rest lost their property and legal rights.
3
By 1890 Silver Reef was a ghost town. In the early 1900s, most of its buildings were demolished and a fire in 1908 destroyed what was left. Many attempts were made to resurrect the town, the last in 1950, but all failed.