The Floating Outfit 25

by J. T. Edson

  ‘Remind me never to play cards with you,’ she said. ‘I used to think I had a pretty fair poker face.’

  ‘Let’s put it that I made a lucky guess,’ Dusty replied. ‘Where do we leave the horses?’

  ‘At the livery barn. But I can’t impose on your good nature anymore.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ grinned Dusty. ‘You tell Lon and the boys that I’ve got a good nature, and I’ll run the law for you until Kail gets up here.’

  ‘Captain Fog, sir,’ Freddie answered, holding out her hand. ‘You have just made yourself a deal—if the town council agree to it.’

  ‘Reckon they will?’

  ‘I just reckon they might,’ Freddie smiled. ‘Like you, I can be mighty persuasive when I need to be.’

  Freddie felt happier than she had for days as she rode into the livery barn with Dusty Fog. It seemed that her troubles were coming to an end. With Dusty handling the law, nothing serious could go wrong. At last she could settle down and run her saloon in peace.

  Which might have come true if Buffalo Kate Gilgore stayed out of Mulrooney.

  Chapter Five

  Pay-Off For the O.D. Connected

  Word flew around Mulrooney like the wind-fanned flames of a range fire. Soon everyone in town knew a trail herd was coming and would arrive before sundown. The afternoon eastbound train brought in a number of well-dressed men who made for Courtland’s bank and deposited thick wads of money as well as certified checks for large sums; they were the cattle buyers coming to meet the herds, for word of Dusty Fog’s departure from Brownton had gone the rounds and the buyers guessed what action he would take. After visiting the bank, the buyers headed for the Fair Lady Saloon where they bid against each other for the herd and it finally went to Burkman’s company at a near record price of forty-eight dollars a head.

  Almost everybody in town went out to the stock pens to see the arrival of the first herd. Dusty and Burkman arrived with Freddie and most of the local dignitaries gathered around to meet the young man who was responsible for saving their town. People studied Dusty with interest and a hundred different stories of his life or capabilities made the rounds. Dusty warned the crowd to keep well back from the stock pens; especially those on foot, for a longhorn feared human beings only as long as they sat on horseback.

  Time passed by and every eye watched the dot appear on the distant rim, extend into a long, winding line and take the form of the approaching herd.

  Sitting her Appaloosa alongside Dusty and Burkman, Freddie watched the mile-long column of cattle with its flanking riders around it. Behind the herd came the remuda of spare horses for the trail hands and bringing up the rear rolled the men’s mobile home, the chuck and bed wagons.

  It made a breath-taking scene, the more so when one remembered the journey the herd had made to reach Mulroney.

  A tall young man raced his big claybank stallion from the front of the herd, making for Dusty’s party. Under his shoved-back brown hat, a mass of curly; fiery red hair framed a freckled, pugnaciously-handsome face that looked made to hold a broad grin. He wore trail-dirty cowhand clothes and a brace of walnut handled Army Colts rode butt forward in his holsters.

  ‘Here they are, Dusty,’ he whooped, sliding the horse to a halt.

  ‘Why sure,’ Dusty agreed. ‘You made it, Cousin Red. Uncle Devil’ll be real pleased when he hears.’

  To Freddie it seemed that the young man’s chest expanded several inches at Dusty’s words. Certainly Red Blaze felt considerable pride in his achievement. The trouble was that Red tended to jump into any fight he came across, helping the weaker side without finding what caused the trouble, so most folks figured him to be a mite wild and irresponsible. Dusty knew different. Give Red a job to do, or put him in a position of trust, and he became the most cool of men. The way he had handled the trail drive in Dusty’s absence proved that.

  ‘You know Waldo, I reckon, Red,’ Dusty introduced. ‘This’s Miss Freddie Wood, she’s Mayor of Mulrooney. Freddie, this’s my cousin, Red Blaze.’

  ‘Right pleased, ma’am,’ Red said, nodding. ‘Call up your boy, Waldo, let’s take a trail count back there, so’s we can do it again if we’re a hundred or so different from each other.’

  Smiling at the old joke, Burkman signaled to his assistant who rode forward with a notebook and pencil in his hand. Red and Hamish, as the assistant was known, rode off in the direction of the herd and after a moment Freddie excused herself to Dusty and Burkman and followed.

  ‘I’d like to watch,’ she said. ‘Dusty told me about taking a trail count and I would so like to see it done.’

  ‘Feel free, ma’am,’ Red replied, reaching into his hip pocket and producing a couple of lengths of string. He offered one to Freddie, ‘Here, try your hand at it instead of just sitting.’

  ‘It’s no’ difficult, ma’am,’ Hamish went on. ‘Count the legs and divide by four.’

  ‘I’ll, serve you Irish whiskey if you try that on me,’ Freddie warned with a grin.

  ‘I’ll be good, ma’am,’ promised Hamish. ‘Irish whiskey! Ugh!’

  However on reaching a point some hundred yards from the advancing herd, the two men became serious. They halted their horses facing each other and some thirty yards apart, Red holding his cord and with Freddie at his side and Waldo resting the notebook on his saddle before him. On a signal from Red the trail hands started to thin down the herd and soon the cattle began to trickle between the counters. As the cattle went by, Red, Freddie and Hamish counted them and on each hundredth head Red and Freddie made a quick knot in their cord while Hamish put a stroke with his pencil on the paper of his book. Not only did the assistant have to count the cattle, he also watched the animals as they went by, reading the extra-large O.D. Connected road brand burned on each one’s left shoulder where it could easily be seen.

  Time went by, cattle passed between the counters, cowhands flashed interested and admiring glances at Freddie in passing. At last the drag of the herd went through and the counters came together, each one adding up his or her total.

  ‘How about it, Miss Freddie?’ asked Red.

  ‘That’s hardly fair,’ she answered. ‘It’s my first time.’

  ‘Make a stab at it anyhow.’

  ‘Three thousand, four hundred and fifty-nine head.’

  Freddie saw the startled manner in which Red and Hamish looked first at her then stared at each other and knew she must have come close to the correct number.

  ‘I get it the same,’ Red said admiringly.

  ‘And me,’ Hamish confirmed, his voice tinged with awe. ‘If you haven’t made a trail count before, Miss Freddie, I’ll drink that Irish whiskey.’

  ‘Then you’ll drink it,’ she smiled. ‘Come on, let’s tell the others.’

  ‘Do you want for us to cut out a few head so you can examine them, Waldo?’ Dusty asked when the result of the trail count had been passed on.

  ‘No. I’ll chance them all dying off on me during the trip to Chicago,’ the cattle buyer answered, giving his usual reply, for he knew the cattle would be in good condition. ‘Head them into the pens, let them water and I’ll see about starting to put them on the train.’

  ‘I’ll tend to it, Dusty,’ Red said, swinging his claybank around and heading for the herd.

  Showing their marvelous riding skill, maybe even showing off a mite too, the cowhands brought down their cattle, cutting the line into groups and feeding them into the stock pens so the animals could drink their fill at the water troughs before being moved on to the waiting railroad cars ready for shipment to Chicago.

  Once the herd had been penned, Dusty, Red and Burkman went along to the bank where the sale of the cattle was finished and the small Texan drew enough money to pay off the hands. On discharging their herd, the O.D. Connected crew had headed for the Fair Lady Saloon and filed up to collect their wages. Once they held the money, the cowhands lost no time in starting to spend it. First the bathhouse received a swarm of laughing, shouting, singing and wil
dly-happy men. From there a visit to a store to buy new clothes was followed by a stroll—on horseback—around town and finally the hands gathered in the Fair Lady to celebrate until, as the Texans put it, the last dog was shot and all the pups hung.

  In all her life Freddie had never seen men buckle down to enjoying themselves as did the cowhands; and Dusty was in the thick of everything. He seemed to be everywhere and wherever he went the laughter and fun rolled at its highest Watching Dusty, Freddie realized why those men, most of them bigger and some maybe even stronger than him, admired the small Texan and gave him their loyalty.

  It was an exhausting time for the saloon girls. Almost every girl found herself out on the dance floor and whirling with cowhands who appeared to possess an inexhaustible source of energy. Only the four girl band and the three duty barmaids were not dancing, which did not mean they relaxed and let the others do all the work. All were fully occupied with quenching Texas thirsts and soothing Texas breasts with, if not sweet at least loud and lively, music.

  Then it happened!

  ‘Yeeagh!’

  The wild rebel yell rang out and one of the cowhands drew his Army Colt. A sudden hush that could almost be felt dropped on the room. All the men knew this young cowhand. In the war he had ridden in Dusty’s company of the Texas Light Cavalry and proved himself a brave, if somewhat reckless fighting man. Since then he had become a top-hand with cattle—but he was dangerous when wet. In other words, when he carried a load of Old Stump Blaster, he could turn from friendly to mean.

  ‘Yahoo!’ he whooped, looking up at the crystal chandelier in the center of the room. ‘Just watch me bust that fancy do-ad there.’

  Slowly Dusty eased back his chair and prepared to rise. Maybe, only maybe, he could prevent Bucky from throwing lead into the chandelier without having to put a bullet into him. Dusty aimed to try. Before he could rise from the table he shared with the civic dignitaries, Dusty felt a hand on his sleeve and turned to meet Freddie’s eyes.

  ‘Let me try,’ she said and rose, crossing the room to where Bucky had a clear space to himself. ‘I bet I could hit that?’ she told the young cowhand.

  Whatever his faults when drinking, Bucky always respected women. A grin came to his face and he reversed the Colt, offering it to Freddie.

  ‘Take first whirl then, ma’am,’ he said.

  You’re a smart one, trying to get me to take a gun that’s not proved empty,’ Freddie replied. ‘Only I know about not doing it.’

  Bucky threw back his head and laughed. ‘Ma’am, you sure know guns. Want for me to unload the gun?’

  ‘Let’s see you shoot first,’ she answered. ‘Not the chandelier though, I bet anybody could hit that. How about those decorations on the far wall there?’

  Turning on his high heels, Bucky looked across the room and studied the decoration to which Freddie pointed. It was in the shape of the four aces of a deck of cards and about thirty yards away. Every eye in the saloon stayed on Bucky and Freddie, but at his table Dusty grinned and relaxed. The main danger had passed once Freddie started Bucky talking.

  ‘That’s a fair target,’ Bucky drawled, nodding gravely.

  ‘Then how about you showing me how to hit the ace of clubs first?’ Freddie challenged.

  Bringing up his Colt, Bucky fired a fast shot that came within three inches of the ace of clubs. He grunted in annoyance and fired again, this time the bullet made a hole a couple of inches off the other side. Twice more Bucky fired, his bullets framing the card and his annoyance growing. Scowling in concentration, he lined his Colt once more. A tension filled the room and the cowhands knew Bucky’s temper would explode into violence if he missed again. The gun roared and a hole appeared in the center of the ace of clubs.

  At his table Dusty slid the left-side Colt back into its holster and hoped that Bucky did not notice a second hole which had appeared at the same moment as the ace-hitting shot, but a good foot or two above the decoration.

  ‘Yippee!’ Freddie whooped and her girls added their shrill yelps of delight to her shout. ‘It took a real good shot to surround that card, then put one smack in the middle. This calls for a drink, Bucky! Hey, Sarah! Pour out one of your specials for this gentleman.’

  Without showing any expression at all, Sarah poured out a shot of whisky from one of the top-price bottles. Then, with a deft and practiced move, she dropped a small tablet into the drink and shook the glass gently. By the time Bucky had teetered over to the bar there was no sign of the tablet in the drink. Taking the glass, Bucky turned and grinned at Freddie.

  ‘Just watch me when I’ve drunk this, ma’am,’ he told her gravely. ‘I’ll be set to show you some real shooting then.’

  ‘I just bet you will,’ she agreed. ‘Bottoms up, as we say back home.’

  Tipping up the glass, Bucky sent its contents gliding down his throat to join the other drinks he had taken. Within five seconds of finishing the drink, Bucky forgot his desire to show off his shooting skill. All he wanted to do was sit down; and, on sitting, placed his arms on the table top, rested his head upon them and went peacefully to sleep.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Dusty as Freddie returned to their table.

  ‘Bucky wants to go to sleep.’

  ‘That I can see.’

  ‘It’s nothing harmful, although I wouldn’t want his head in the morning and he won’t feel like eating or drinking much tomorrow.’

  ‘And you reckon you need me as town marshal,’ Dusty grinned.

  ‘And I do. I want to run a saloon, not spend my time going around town pacifying young cowhands who have taken too much to drink—don’t you raise your eyebrows at me, Dusty Fog. I don’t mind how much they drink as long as they don’t want to damage my chandelier.’

  ‘Yes’m,’ Dusty answered, neither looking nor sounding contrite. ‘You’ve got a real good point there. Now go entertain your other guests.’

  From then on the celebration passed by without anything dangerous like incidents involving firearms. The trail crew were in town to celebrate and the O.D. Connected boasted it never did anything by halves. At half past one Freddie made her one mistake of the evening. After watching the hoe-downs and square dances, she insisted on teaching the crowd the Sir Roger de Coverley. Her band knew the time and Freddie lined up her dancers in two columns, even getting Dusty out on the floor despite his aversion to dancing. The lively and merry tune, calling for frequent changes of partners, appealed to cowhand tastes, but was easier started than stopped. Seeing that they must eventually wind up dancing with every girl in the room, the cowhands determined to make sure that they did. Dusty pulled out after a quarter of an hour and leaned on the bar, grinning as he watched Freddie partner first Jimmo, the old ranch cook, then Kiowa, a lean, Indian-dark man who shared the herd’s scouting duties with the Kid. Neither were what one could term accomplished dancers, but they made up in gusto what they lacked in grace and poise.

  Never had Freddie seen such dancing, it made the sessions at some top hunt’s ball pale into insignificance. Not until long after three did the dance end and a disheveled, exhausted Freddie stated that she was licked and her girls needed their rest. The cowhands raised their objections, but not even the most eager of them felt like carrying on that night. So they piled out of the saloon, carrying along Bucky and such others as had fallen by the wayside. Mounting their horses, the whooping cowhands headed out of town to where their wagons waited. It would be few if any of the crew who spread their bed rolls that night.

  Freddie and Dusty stood at the door of the saloon and watched the cowhands depart, then turned to look at the disordered saloon. Girls drooped in their chairs or limped upstairs to bed, tired but happy.

  ‘Whew!’ Freddie gasped.

  ‘It’ll be like this most nights in the season,’ Dusty warned.

  ‘I know. Come up to my room and we’ll share a pot of coffee. Did you see Shad Birnbaum and Vic Courtland dancing? I can die happy now I’ve seen that. Oooh! The way my feet feel, I’ll die all
right. Did you ever try dancing with Jimmo, or Kiowa, Dusty?’

  ‘Can’t say I ever did,’ Dusty admitted. ‘Fact being I’d rather dance with gals, happen some awkward cuss makes me dance.’

  Freddie poked her tongue out at him and laughed. ‘So would I—after tonight. I thought Jimmo was bad enough, but Kiowa—’

  ‘I know. He dances like he was making medicine before taking out after the paleface brother’s scalp.’

  Taking Freddie’s arm, Dusty escorted her across the room and upstairs. They went to the main door of Freddie’s suite and she opened it. Inside they found Babsy and Waco waiting, although the two youngsters had managed to make themselves comfortable and contrived to keep themselves amused.

  ‘I brought you some coffee up, Miss Freddie,’ Babsy said, bouncing off Waco’s knee. ‘Is there anything else tonight?’

  ‘Pour out four cups,’ Freddie replied. ‘How did you enjoy tonight, Babsy?’

  ‘Cooer, it was ever so good. These Texans don’t half go to town when they start, don’t they.’

  ‘They certainly do,’ smiled Freddie, watching her maid pour out the coffee. ‘By the way, Dusty, I had two camp beds put up in Mark’s room. I thought you’d like to stay in town, especially as your horses are in the livery barn.’

  ‘Shucks, ma’am,’ Waco grinned. ‘You’ll have to force us hard to accept. I surely loves using the ground for a mattress and the sky for a roof, especially when it’s raining.’

  ‘Or when there’s a good high wind blowing,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Thanks, Freddie.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. I’m merely making sure you don’t get a chance to think twice about your offer and get away.’

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Freddie,’ Dusty told her, taking his coffee cup. ‘You’re all heart.’

  ‘I know, I know. By the way, the town council meets at half past one this afternoon—if they’ve recovered by that time.’

  ‘I’ll be along to see them,’ Dusty promised.

  After drinking their coffee and eating a few of the cookies Babsy had fetched from the saloon’s kitchen, Dusty and Waco said their good-nights and left the two girls. Mark was asleep when the other two entered his room and they undressed without waking him. Not until the lights were out and they lay in their camp beds did Waco speak.