“The kid smells worse than them hogs.” Tom Carson, another deputy, punched Brocky Jack’s shoulder. I didn’t like Carson, either.
“Don’t you two have work to do?” Hickok asked, and Carson and Brocky Jack frowned and left the jail.
Two other deputies, Gainsford and McDonald, seemed all right. They had taken the prisoners to court, where the judge would pass sentences on them. But I liked Mike Williams the best.
After two weeks, I had become a top hand pig wrangler. Hogs. Sows. Piglets. White pigs, pink pigs, spotted pigs, black pigs, maybe even a wild boar, filled the pen—so many that as soon as Brocky Jack and Carson were gone, Hickok said he had a new job for me and that I must lay off rounding up pigs until the pen behind the jail thinned out.
“I want you to look after the jail,” he said.
That was a big job, and it showed that Hickok trusted me, a Texas teen, but I felt a dread. “What about Mike?” I asked.
“Mike’ll be working the Novelty at nights,” Hickok said.
That came as a relief. I feared he might be resigning to go back to his wife in Missouri.
“Doing what?” I had yet to sneak inside the Novelty, though I wanted to. Box Head and Three-Fingered Dave had regaled us with stories about scantily clad females and all sorts of lewd behavior going on inside that place, and I couldn’t see Mike playing piano or acting in some burlesque.
“Keeping peace, you little nuisance.” Hickok moved in front of the mirror, where he began combing his hair with a women’s brush that he had dipped in perfume. “What did you think he’d be doing? The cancan?”
“What is it you want me to do?” I asked.
He did not look away from the mirror. He began to wax his mustache. Seeing me in the mirror, he said: “Watch the jail.” He straightened his tie. “Do a good job, and maybe we’ll let you cook, too. But if any prisoner’s missing when I get back, you better be lying on the floor with your brains bashed out.”
He flicked lint off his coat, adjusted the fob on his watch chain, then wiped his thin lips with a handkerchief. Finally, he positioned the Colt revolvers in his sash, threw back his shoulders, and donned a broad-brimmed tan hat.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?” I asked.
“To meet the train, of course.”
* * * * *
It’s how I wish I could always remember James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. The way he’d preen himself like a peacock, just to show off for the passengers on the K. P. Those heading west or east would gawk at him through the windows, and though we couldn’t hear what those inside the coaches were saying, we could see their lips move—and imagine.
To Yankees, having read all about him in Harper’s or Frank Leslie’s, or in newspapers, or in half-dime novels, seeing Wild Bill in the flesh, decked out like royalty, with his handsome Colts, must have been like spotting President Grant.
Naturally, we Texans cared little for the President, but for cowboys working the cattle pens or just loitering around the depot, Hickok gave them a show, too.
“The far post, Noah,” he ordered. I picked up the empty airtight, hurried to the nearest pen, put the tin on the top, and stepped aside. I wasn’t getting an apple shot off my head by that fellow from that storybook whose name I disremember, but I was close enough to hear the bullet whistle by, send the tin spinning, and make the cattle bawl.
Folks at the depot and inside the coaches applauded. The cowboys looked a little put out, but I figured Hickok had just commanded their respect, even if begrudgingly. It always was a hell of a shot. Wild Bill never missed.
Then there were the kids. We saw those tykes parading down Texas Street to the public schoolhouse on Walnut Street. No one thought much about it, for Texas Street wasn’t populated with drunkards when the boys and girls walked to school in the morning, and few raced horses down the street when the students headed home in the early afternoon. Now and then, a woman would take a young boy or girl off the train to stretch their limbs. Hickok always greeted them by removing his hat, bowing to the ladies, and fetching candy from his coat pockets to give the children.
After Hickok sent the empty airtight plummeting inside the pen, a petite woman told the two children with her: “Bonnie and Christopher, we are safe. That is Marshal Hickok, and they will not harm us now.” They happened to be the cowhands by the loading chutes and on the boardwalk across the street.
When Hickok walked over to them, bowed to the redhead, and handed the children peppermints, the little girl said as he walked away: “What a grand man that marshal is.”
That’s when this struck me. Nobody ever said that about John Wesley Hardin.
* * * * *
“If you’re going to be seen with me,” Hickok said one afternoon, “get rid of that stupid cap. It smells of pig dung.” He tossed a box at me, but I dropped it on the floor. “If it doesn’t fit,” he said, “take it over to the Great Western and trade it in for one that does.”
He left before I got the box open, but when I did, I gazed down upon a pale-colored Boss of the Plains, which fit pretty well after a trip to the barber. The baseball cap became tinder for that evening’s supper fire.
* * * * *
Things fell into something of a routine. I stayed in the jail, kept an eye on the prisoners, and slept on a bunk in the outer room, away from the cells, the snores, and the stink of vomit after liquor got the better of the Texas drovers Hickok or his deputies locked up. On Thursdays, when the newspaper came out, I had something to read—though it did not take long to get through four pages.
Mike showed up around noon. Marshal Hickok came in by two. One deputy would be at the office by nine in the morning, and the others showed up at various times. Prisoners were escorted to the courthouse, where most of them paid their fines and went back to work.
Mayor McCoy came in one morning and asked to see the marshal. Not yet ten, I was barely awake myself.
“He’s not in, sir,” I told him. The mayor pulled out his watch. “He works pretty much all night, sir,” I let him know, though he had to know that already.
“Yes,” Mayor McCoy said. “Of course.” He withdrew a folded paper from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to me. “Make sure he sees this.”
He gave me the curtest of nods and left.
* * * * *
“Did you read it?” Mike asked when he came in.
“No.” He stared at me. “Honest,” I told him.
Laughing, Mike ran his hands through my hair and took the paper, unfolded it, sat on the desk, and read.
We, the undersigned, members of the Farmers’ Protective Association, and officers and citizens of Dickinson County, Kansas, most respectfully request all who have contemplated driving Texas cattle to Abilene for the season beginning in the spring or summer of 1872 to seek some other point for shipment, as the inhabitants of Dickinson will no longer submit to the evils of the trade.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
Mike shrugged. “Farmers are sick of us.”
Farmers? Farmers around Abilene? I saw only cowboys, gamblers, cattlemen, and whores.
“It’s like this,” Mike said. “It’s about money, basically. Some farmers have been complaining, and maybe they have a point. Do you know who pays your salary?”
I blinked. “My what?”
Mike grinned as he found the coffeepot. “I think you worked off any fines you owed the city some time back, Noah. I’ll have to talk it over with Jim to see how much you should start drawing a month. You won’t get rich. Unless you’re Wild Bill.” He handed me the cup, then filled another. “So taxpayers pay the city’s bills. Farmers pay taxes. And in a town like this one … and you know this all too well … it takes a lot of money to keep peace here. The farmers see thousands and thousands head of cattle coming in. We shipped one hundred and fifty carloads east yesterd
ay, that’s upwards of three thousand cattle. And the farmers see all this beef grazing on Kansas grass for weeks, sometimes months. So they’ve been suggesting to Mayor McCoy that we should put a tax on Texas beef by the head. Tax every steer that comes into the county.”
I considered that. With all the herds along the fork, it wouldn’t take much of a tax to pay a lot of bills.
“What does the mayor say?” I asked.
Mike snorted. “Well, it goes something like this. Before he brought the trade here, Abilene had one shingle-roofed building that was vastly outnumbered by soddies and log huts with dirt roofs. There was maybe one whiskey battery in town. The mayor went on to point out that, back then, we had one mercantile, about eighty square feet, and that had in stock enough goods that would, maybe, fill three wheelbarrows.”
“Who wouldn’t want to have the business we bring here?” I asked.
Mike laughed. “My wife, for one.” He sat on the top of Hickok’s desk. “You ought to meet her. Not much older than you.”
“How come you haven’t introduced me?”
“I’m not bringing a girl like that to a place like this. Besides, she’s in Kansas City,” he said. “Got a saloon, the Cabinet. We live above it. Corner of Walnut and Twelfth. Fine saloon. Small. Quiet. No orchestra playing from dusk to dawn like the Alamo. No crooked faro layouts like Coe and Thompson keep trying to run at the Bull’s Head. But we do have one billiard table. Not as obnoxious or earsplitting as bowling. Relaxing it is. When the season’s over, I’ll be back drawing beers, playing pool, and dancing with my love. I’ll forget about Abilene till Hickok telegraphs me to come on back. Ever been to Kansas City?” He didn’t let me answer. “It’s a great city. A real city. Maybe thirty thousand people living there. It’s not like Abilene, which’ll dry up and almost get blown away by wind and snow from November to April with nobody here. Trains can take you anywhere you want to go. It’s growing, too, but Abilene? Well, you see, we’re getting more and more farmers, homesteaders, here. Abilene’s changing.”
He pulled out his watch, a big nickel-plated American, popped open the case, and showed me the image of a pretty young woman. Real tiny, she was. “Tell you what,” Mike said. “If you’re not in too big of a hurry to get back to Texas, when we’re discharged for the season, you and me’ll take a train to Kansas City. You can meet the missus, and we’ll see if you play billiards as well as you roll tenpins or cheat at cards.”
He laughed, slapped my shoulder, just as Hickok walked inside, early this day.
“I miss the joke?” he asked.
“Nah.” Mike handed him the paper. “The mayor wanted you to see this, though.”
Hickok held it close to his eyes, read, spit, and dropped it in the trash bin.
“I wouldn’t dismiss those sodbusters so quickly, Jim. They’re getting organized and …”
Mike didn’t finish, because Hickok started preening in front of the mirror, but not taking the time he generally needed. He merely combed his locks, smoothed his mustache, adjusted the diamond pin on his lapel, and found us in the mirror’s reflection.
“Come along,” he told us.
“The train here already?” I asked.
“Not just any train,” Hickok said. “A special run. Damnedest outfit you’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Damnedest sight you’ve ever seen—indeed. A young girl who wore a fancy, tightly fitting dress that didn’t go much past her knees. A clown, his face painted yellow and his nose about the size of an apple and just as red. This little princess of a girl and this crazy fool walked hand in hand.
“Christ A’mighty. Look at that.”
The Baptist preacher glanced our way with a stern frown, but I stood behind Hickok, and maybe the parson thought the sacrilege came from the marshal.
The workers who came in with the circus moved animals, tents, just about everything off this long train. The clown handed Mike the handbill.
LAKE’S HIPPO-OLYMPIAD AND MAMMOTH CIRCUS
will
EXHIBIT AT ABILENE
for one day only
SEPTEMBER 4
morning show: 10 o’clock
afternoon show: 2 o’clock
evening show: 6 o’clock
come see the troupe
of today’s leading artists
under a woman’s management
THIS IS NO RAILROAD SHOW
“What’s that mean?” Pointing at the bottom line, I nodded toward the depot. “It came on a train.”
“Trains bring in a lot of circuses,” Mike said. “And circuses can be filled with confidence men and grafters. So a ‘railroad show’ is a crooked … anything.”
“Ben Thompson should open a circus.” I could say something like that in front of Hickok and Mike, especially since Ben Thompson had returned to Texas for some reason or another and wouldn’t hear that I’d questioned his honesty.
Hickok looked at me with humor in his eyes. “You’re one to talk,” he said. “How many honest folks did you fleece at A. V.’s bowling alley?” He gave me a friendly shove just to let me know he was joking, slightly, and, after taking the handbill from Mike, stepped onto the platform where this big, older gal stood talking to the mayor and the city clerk.
Mike and I watched the spectacle.
“Ever been to a circus?” Mike asked.
“There was something that came to Victoria,” I said. “Pa took us all. But Sam said it was a dog and pony show. I liked it. But I was just a kid.”
“This,” he said, nodding at the woman who the mayor was introducing to Hickok, “is no dog and pony show. Come on.”
I thought he wanted to go see them put up the tent, but Mike moved toward Hickok. My shoulders sagged, and I sighed, figuring I had to follow.
“Fifty dollars,” the woman said. “You charge me fifty dollars for a license, when you would charge any performance other than a circus or menagerie five dollars.”
Mr. Kilpatrick, the city clerk, shrugged. “You paid a hundred dollars in Topeka.” He grinned as though he had the upper hand.
She stared him down, then said: “Sir, the mayor of Topeka explained to me that he was forced to charge that much because the town wanted to rid itself of bawdy houses, dens of inequity, brothels, and grog shops. That does not appear to be the case here in Abilene.”
A cowboy reared his horse, grabbed his lasso, and shouted that he was going to rope and brand the clown for his own.
“Mike,” Hickok said softly.
With a frown, Mike drew his revolver, and went to stop the drunk. I didn’t follow.
“So you talked to the mayor of Topeka,” the woman said. “Did you read what the Daily Commercial wrote about our performances?”
“I did.” Mr. Wilson, our local newspaper editor and publisher, smiled as he joined the conversation. “It is an honor to have you here, Mrs. Lake, and allow me to express my sincerest condolences after losing your husband in such a foul, villainous tragedy.”
The woman bowed. She was big-boned, with dark hair parted in the middle and pinned up in the back above the lace collar over her dress. Her dress was black, despite the September heat, but I figured she had to wear that color being a widow and all. She had thin lips, a round face, and a cleft in her chin. She wasn’t what you’d call pretty. Mike later called her “half-sow, half-buffalo bull,” but never within earshot of Hickok.
As Mr. Kilpatrick studied his own Congress gaiters, the big woman turned her attack on the mayor. “We were told our fee would be ten dollars,” she said.
Even Mayor McCoy shifted uncomfortably while trying his best defense: “The city administration changed in April.”
“I thought all Westerners were men of their word,” the woman stated.
Now McCoy retreated, too. “Allow me to introduce our city marshal, Mrs. Lake. After all,
Marshal Hickok is responsible for all levying and collecting of licenses.”
She gave Hickok an intent look, but that quickly softened as Hickok removed his hat, bowed, took one of her big hands in one of his dainty ones, and kissed it softly. Once he straightened, he whispered poetry that Mike later told me came from one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, whatever those are:
O how much more doth
beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament
which truth doth give!
“You,” she said. “You are Wild Bill Hickok, the notorious gunman and killer of Indians, ruffians, and vermin?”
Hickok just grinned like a schoolboy. “Many have called me a red-handed murderer,” he said. “That men have died at my hands I freely and truthfully admit, but always they met their end in performance of my duty, and always I acted justly and only in absolute self-defense.”
“Two years ago, my late husband, Bill, died at the hands of a foul desperado in Granby, Missouri, shot dead by a revolver much like those in your sash, but in the hands of this scoundrel named Killian who has fled and apparently disappeared. No one has yet to find him, even though his bad eye and disfigured face should grab everyone’s attention.”
Hickok’s hat was doffed once more, and his head shook sadly. “Missouri is a state populated with scoundrels. I killed many during the recent unpleasantness and at least one since, and should I ever meet this fiend named Killian, I would gladly attempt to bring him to justice, though perhaps it would cause me to die with my boots on.”
Mr. Kilpatrick and Mayor McCoy stared at each other in disbelief, as Mrs. Lake’s face softened even more, and she took his hand, patted it gently, saying: “You are a gentle and kind soul, and a champion of justice.” Again, Hickok brought her hand to his lips.
“How may I assist you?” he asked.
She said: “There is this matter of fifty dollars for a license to present three performances on Monday.”
Hat back on his head, Hickok looked at McCoy and Kilpatrick, cleared his throat, pushed back the tails of his coat, and said: “You know I’m not one for speechifying, but hear me out. Kilpatrick, Mayor, I guess your hearts have shriveled up like tatters left too long in the sun. Yes, I know. I’m a heathen, too, but I haven’t forgotten about the sanctity of womanhood.” He tilted his head toward the Widow Lake. “This lady is bringing a circus to our little town to offer some amusement to young and old alike. She didn’t have to stop here. There are other towns, with not as many undesirables as you’ll find in the Devil’s Addition. A woman. A woman who is capable enough to run a circus. She’s got pluck. Wild Bill Hickok respects pluck.” He shook his head. “I don’t quite understand what you’re thinking … charging her fifty dollars to put on a show that we’ll be talking about, that Mr. Wilson here will be writing about in the Chronicle? By thunder, boys, I figure she’d be right to charge us all fifty dollars to allow us the opportunity to see her show. They got a balloon. I read about it. A balloon that’ll take off in the morning and …”
The Fall of Abilene Page 15
