The Floating Outfit 25

by J. T. Edson

  For her part, Freddie had a shrewd judgment of human nature and saw beneath the small, yet powerful frame to the real big man beyond it.

  ‘My pleasure, ma’am,’ Dusty answered formally, feeling the strength in the girl’s hand. ‘How’s Mark?’

  ‘I called in Doctor Brennan to attend to his wound. Come up and see the patient for yourself.’

  On following Freddie upstairs to one of the first floor rooms, Dusty found Mark to be doing all right. The blond giant lay in a comfortable bed, his shoulder bandaged and his back propped up with soft pillows, while one of Freddie’s best-looking girls sat at his side having brought him a tray of delicacies.

  ‘Well?’ asked Freddie when she and Dusty left the sick room.

  ‘I’d say very well,’ Dusty replied with a grin. ‘I’ll be lucky to get him back on his feet this year.’

  Showing Dusty into her suite of rooms, Freddie told him to make himself at home and went to order a meal. Dusty looked around the well-furnished room.

  ‘Admiring my armory?’Freddie asked, entering the room.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘What do you use?’

  ‘A Winchester carbine. It’s one of the earliest the company brought out. I was given it by their representative for helping him deliver a consignment to Juarez in Mexico.’ iii

  Freddie guessed that there was more to the story than that, but did not ask any questions. A smile came to her face as she watched Dusty lift one of the dueling swords from the case.

  Taking the second sword, Freddie moved back a little and, adopting a ready position, said, ‘En garde!’

  On the heels of the words, she lunged with the button-tipped sword. Much to her surprise, Dusty deflected her blade and, with a quick riposte drove his own sword out to hit her. Nor did luck account for the hit. Dusty had adopted a near classic on guard position and handled the sword with deft ease.

  ‘You’ve used a sword before,’ Freddie accused.

  ‘Back in the War I learned which end to hold and which to poke with,’ Dusty replied.

  ‘We must try a few passes when I’m more suitably dressed,’ she told him, guessing that his knowledge went far beyond the limitations he set.

  ‘Any time you say, ma’am,’ Dusty answered.

  The arrival of a meal prevented further discussion, or arrangements for future fencing matches. After living on stew, beef and beans—the trial crews’ usual food—since leaving Texas, Dusty sat down with an excellent appetite to a really well cooked meal. Freddie hired a good cook and consequently conversation during the meal did not flourish.

  ‘You may smoke,’ Freddie told Dusty over their coffee.

  ‘Do you?’Dusty asked.

  ‘My grandmother used to,’ smiled Freddie. ‘She let me try, but it made me sick. Waco says you’ve a good sized herd.’

  ‘Three thousand, four hundred and sixty head last trail count.’

  ‘That’s a lot of cattle,’ Freddie remarked.

  ‘Sure, but there’s a market for them back East.’

  A sudden chilling sensation hit Freddie at Dusty’s words as she realized there was not a single cattle buyer in town. She could imagine Dusty’s thoughts if he should bring his herd to Mulrooney and then discover there was no way he might sell it. Of course there was a chance she might contact a buyer in—no, the citizens of Brownton would never pass on a message asking a buyer to leave their town at the request of their hated rivals down the railroad track.

  ‘When will your herd arrive?’ she asked. ‘This evening, before sundown most likely.’

  For a moment Freddie thought of asking the banker to buy the herd and keep it until such time as a cattle buyer arrived. However she saw the futility of such a suggestion. Courtland could hardly afford to allow such a large sum of money to leave his establishment, especially as Freddie did not know how long it might be before a buyer arrived. There was only one honorable way out of the mess.

  ‘Dusty, there isn’t a cattle buyer in town.’

  The words came out with only a trace of Freddie’s bitter disappointment showing in them. Of all the rotten luck to hit a girl, this was clearly the worst. First to meet a trail boss, make a favorable impression on him, and then have to admit he could not sell his herd in her town.

  ‘Isn’t, huh?’ Dusty asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s life. How about showing me around your town?’

  ‘Of course,’ Freddie agreed, being too good a hostess to deny her guest anything. ‘Let me change first.’

  On passing through the saloon, they collected Waco. One of Freddie’s old swampers had visited the livery barn and the girl’s dainty spot-rumped Appaloosa gelding stood saddled and waiting at the hitching rail next to the three Texans’ horses. Freddie smiled as she saw that Waco rode a paint stallion which matched Dusty’s in size; she guessed the youngster selected such a horse because Dusty went against the rangeland prejudice at paints for working mounts.

  ‘Would you like to see the jail?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re taking us on the grand tour,’ Dusty answered.

  ‘Now me,’ Waco drawled; ‘I always reckon looking’s right likely to be catching.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Lon,’ Dusty remarked.

  ‘Why sure. He makes right good sense—sometimes.’

  ‘Take Mark’s horse to the herd then,’ Dusty ordered. ‘Come in with it.’

  ‘Yo!’ the youngster said, doffed his hat to Freddie and then sent his paint loping off at a good speed, leading Mark’s huge blood bay stallion by its reins.

  ‘He’s a nice youngster,’ Freddie remarked. ‘Have you known him long?’

  ‘Not long. We ran into some trouble down on the Indian Nations line and he helped us handle it. He’s got sand to burn and there’s a real good brain in his head. Good hand with cattle.’

  ‘And with a gun.’

  ‘That too. He was left an orphan in a Waco Indian raid, almost from birth. A settler took him in, had nine kids of his own, but made Waco feel just like one of the family. Only the boy had itching feet and took to roaming. He’s a natural with a gun; most kids can shoot before they can read and write down to Texas and he had a gun almost from the time he was old enough to tote one. When I met him he was riding with Clay Allison’s C.A. and neither man nor boy rides with Clay unless they can handle a gun.’

  ‘Why did he leave Allison?’Freddie asked.

  ‘Clay figured Waco was getting too much like him. Figured he deserve better than being a trigger-fast-and-up-from-Texas kid, which is what he was getting to be, so asked if I’d take him along with me. I agreed.’

  There was much more to the story than that. A few weeks before meeting Waco, Dusty’s younger brother, working as a Texas Ranger, had been killed and the youngster looked much like Danny Fog. Only Waco had been developing into a fast-gun killer with a log-sized chip on his shoulder. Then Dusty saved Waco when the youngster’s horse fell before a stampede. iv Since that day, Waco had followed Dusty and given the small Texan an almost dog-like devotion. His character was already changing; refraining from shooting down more than one buffalo hunter proved that.

  ‘Does he have another name?’

  ‘Not that I, or he, knows of. The folks who raised him never troubled to adopt him formally. Folks began by calling him the Waco-orphaned baby and in time it became shortened to Waco. One thing I do know, one name or so many it would cover a tally book’s page, there’s a real good man inside that boy.’

  ‘I see,’ Freddie said. ‘Would you like to look over the jail?’

  Lack of experience or not, the jail had been stoutly constructed. Its front half had been given over to three offices, one at the right for the marshal; the room at the left, Freddie explained, for a county sheriff’s deputy if the sheriff got around to sending one.

  Looking at the central office, Dusty was reminded of Quiet Town, or his father’s jail down in the Rio Hondo country. Facing the main doors stood the usual big desk, as yet uns
carred by cigarette ends or spur-decorated boot heels, its log book closed and unused. The bulletin board had a few wanted posters tacked on it, but the stove was unlit. To the right of the rear wall’s door stood a safe and on the left was a rack for shoulder weapons but as yet this was empty.

  ‘One of my swampers acts as jailer,’ Freddie remarked.

  ‘Huh huh!’ Dusty grunted. ‘How about handcuffs and leg irons?’

  ‘In the desk cupboard.’

  Opening the cupboard door, Dusty lifted out the tools of restraint and examined them, nodding his approval. He put them back again and looked at Freddie.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘You bought good stock. It pays in the long run.’

  ‘We were wondering about rifles,’ the girl went on, indicating the empty rack. ‘I thought of buying half-a-dozen Winchesters.’

  ‘Good guns,’ Dusty admitted.

  ‘The best repeating rifles ever made,’ Freddie said in a casual tone.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘All right, dam you! What’s your opinion?’

  ‘Of the Winchester, or the jail’s armament?’

  ‘The latter,’ Freddie answered, icily calm.

  ‘Was I you, I’d stock up with twin barrel, ten-gauge shotguns. Get them with twenty inch barrels if you can, but not longer than twenty-four. Throw in a couple of Winchesters later when the fines start coming in.’

  ‘Shotguns?’

  ‘Sure. They’re the finest argument I know for town use. A sheriff’s office works out on the range, needs guns that will carry further than a revolver, but a marshal’s jurisdiction ends with the civic limits. In town the range’s likely to be short and a shotgun’s a mighty good convincer should one be needed.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Tell you though,’ Dusty went on. ‘A good buffalo gun such as Remington or Sharps put out is worth having.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Which only goes to prove that you can’t trust Texans,’ Dusty interrupted Freddie’s interruption. ‘Seriously though, Freddie, a buffalo gun gives the user range, power and accuracy. Was I you, I’d go for one Sharps or Remington even before you buy Winchesters.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, knowing that Dusty had considerable experience in such matters and wishing to learn all she could.

  ‘There are times, even in town, when having a rifle that holds true at half a mile—which a Winchester won’t—can save lives. Say you’ve got a bad hombre holed up someplace; a man with a long-range rifle can maybe get him where it could cost the lives of two—three good men taking him at shorter range. I know that it sounds cold-blooded—’

  ‘But necessary,’ Freddie answered. ‘I’m afraid I’m not one of those ideological idiots who pretend they believe that the life of some thief or killer is of more importance to the community than that of an honest law enforcement officer. Would you like to see the rear of the building?’

  ‘Why sure,’ Dusty smiled and opened the rear door. The more he saw of Miss Freddie Woods, the better he liked her; and her views on the relative importance of human life matched his own.

  The rear section of the jail showed the same careful planning and attention to detail as did the front. Freddie pointed to the three cells with steel barred doors and which could be used to accommodate the usual crop of minor offenders fetched in each night. In either end of the triple cells was a smaller room with a stout wooden door that had a small barred grill in it; these would house dangerous prisoners. Beyond the cells lay the marshal and deputies’ night-duty accommodation and, built into a separate segment, a couple of cells and a small room where women prisoners could be held and searched.

  ‘And you say that nobody in town has had any experience?’ Dusty asked as he and Freddie left the rear of the building.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then who designed all this?’

  ‘I did. Is it all right?’

  ‘Stop fishing for compliments,’ he told her. ‘This’s as neat a layout as I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘I just did what I thought would be needed,’ Freddie replied, trying to keep the pride out of her voice. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the stock pens.’

  ‘Why sure,’ Dusty agreed, wondering if the stock pens were as well-designed as the rest of the town.

  ‘Are cowhands really as wild as one hears, Dusty?’ Freddie asked as they mounted their horses before the jail.

  ‘We like to have our fun,’ he answered.

  ‘Riding and shooting?’

  ‘In most cases about the only thing a cowhand owns is his horse and his gun. So when he plays, that’s what he plays with. When he’s got pay in his pocket, he acts a mite rowdy.’

  ‘Hoorawing the town, don’t they call it?’

  ‘That’s one way,’ Dusty agreed. ‘One trouble is that when he sees a town he gets a mite excited, especially after a drive.’

  For the rest of the ride to the stock pens Dusty told Freddie of cattle trailing. He painted a graphic picture of what went into walking a herd of half-wild longhorn cattle from Texas to Kansas; explaining how the hands worked anywhere from ten to twenty-four hours a day, braved the elements, risked storm, flood, drought, Indian attack and stampede. Never had Dusty talked as he did with Freddie and at the end of the time she had gained an insight into cowhand mentality and knew why the hands behaved a mite wildly when they finally discharged their burden at the shipping pens.

  More than ever before Freddie realized the enormity of the task ahead of her. While her inborn sense of justice and fair play would not allow her to discriminate against the cowhands, she wanted to make sure they kept their high spirits within reasonable bounds.

  While showing Dusty the stock pens, Freddie wondered how she might establish some control over the trail crews, buffalo hunters, railroad workers and the folk who flocked in to prey on those who came to town. Then she remembered that she first must attract the cowhands to her town. Not until that happened would Freddie need to bother about keeping the peace.

  For a time Dusty sat his horse and studied the stock pens in silence, letting the girl have her thoughts unbroken. In his imagination he saw how the cattle could be passed into the big pens alongside the track and out on to the waiting cars. From what Dusty could see, the operation would be smoother and easier than in any other town he had visited.

  ‘Who designed them?’ he asked.

  ‘Mil Sanders, down to the depot,’ Freddie replied. ‘Are they all right?’

  ‘They’ll do real well. We can start shoving the herd straight in when it arrives this evening.’

  ‘Of co—’ Freddie began, then almost groaned aloud. ‘But there aren’t any cattle-buyers in town.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ asked Dusty innocently. ‘I saw Waldo Burkman in Brownton and arranged for him to meet me down here.’

  Freddie could not speak for almost a minute, but from the way her face turned red she sure wanted to. All the time she had been worrying herself into a tizzy—Freddie often wondered at the way she picked up western terms—and that white-topped big man from Texas knew she did not need to worry at all.

  ‘Oooh!’ she finally managed to gasp, and if she had been on the ground she would have stamped up a war-dance. ‘Oooh! Just you wait, Dusty Fog!’

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ he answered mildly, and before she could tell him, went on, ‘I sent word down trail to warn every drive moving north about what to expect in Brownton. Your town might get some of the drives that were headed there.’

  ‘Dusty,’ Freddie said, her voice husky. ‘I—you—I don’t know how to thank you.’

  ‘For what? Going to look over a town, learning that it stinks worse than a six day dead stunk-up skunk and sending a warning to other Texans. Happen you want to thank me, just run one Kansas town where a Texan doesn’t get cheated blind.’

  ‘I’ll try to do it,’ she promised.

  On the way back to town Freddie turned the subject to law enforcement. Once again Dusty told her mu
ch about the work a lawman in a western town, especially such a town as Mulrooney, would find herself doing. Freddie fired question after question at Dusty and so absorbed did she become that they rode straight by the front of her place.

  ‘Where now, Kansas City, Hays, or your home in England?’ Dusty inquired as they left town.

  ‘To my pi—have we passed it?’

  ‘One thing’s for sure, it didn’t up and walk away.’

  Turning their horses, they rode back into town again. Freddie sank into her thoughts, turning over and over the problem of policing Mulrooney. One thing was for sure, handling the law in her town would take a special kind of man. There were a number of professional lawmen in Kansas Territory, the Earp brothers, Wild Bill Hickok and their kind, but Freddie did not care to hire them for all were violently anti-Texan and hated cowhands—and, if rumor be true, none too honest. Freddie swore that Mulrooney would have honest law and finally handed the problem to Dusty.

  ‘There’s a good feller down in the Indian Nations, Kail Beauregard’s his name. His works with Bill Tilghman and Billy’d supply references happen you needed them. Kail’d be just what you want. He knows soldiers, cowhands, buffalo hunters and western towns.’

  ‘How long would it be before he arrives?’ Freddie asked. ‘Four or five weeks at the earliest.’

  ‘Oh!’

  Freddie’s flat, one-worded reply showed the world of disappointment. Long before Kail Beauregard could arrive, her town would have a reputation for being wild, woolly and full of fleas. The railroad would not run their spur-line to Montana from a lawless town.

  Reaching out his hand, Dusty caught Freddie’s horse by the bridle and halted it before her place. Then he grinned at her and said, ‘Now ask me the other question, Freddie gal.’

  ‘Which other question’s that?’ she inquired.

  ‘Will I run the law for you until Kail Beauregard arrives.’ For a long moment Freddie did not reply. Then she shook her head and stared at Dusty with admiration in her eyes.