Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave (28 page)

“And Campbell is one hard-boiled egg,” Boyce added. “He's the man who stocked the ranch with such deviant hands.”

“I've reported all this to Chicago,” Matlock confided. “They wanted
me
to take it over, but I'm a lawyer not a ranch manager. Mr. Findlay and I were sent to look into things, and I am appalled at what we found. Fact is, I'm lucky to have run onto Boyce…and lucky he was willing. Hell, I was just up in Colorado City last week. There's a man up there I had hopes would run this show. A civic leader. An experienced rancher. I told him he was the man of the hour. But know what he told me? He told me he's of greater value to his family alive than to be shot full of holes at the XIT.”

He shook his head in disgust.

“If that tells you anything,” he added.

Boyce puffed softly on his cigarette. Stories about the XIT were all over the Panhandle. He had been delivering cattle for the Snyder brothers up until the day before. On his way down from Colorado City, he ran into Matlock at a watering hole. Matlock laid it out as it was. Boyce knew he could do the job and signed on right there. He knew there was a chore ahead of him, and the thought of adding reliable men before they got there was a good one.

“XIT's got a mean reputation,” Boyce said. “Call them
the
Xmas hell variety
.”
 

Matlock set his coffee down and nodded.

“And we're stepping in. Turn that reputation on its head.”

“Sakes alive, sounds like a first-class mess,” Davis said.

“Well your man in Colorado City was right to be cautious. The B-Cross
was
shot full of holes,” Lee said and spat on the floor. “Been through all that, and back again. If you need help count us in.”

“Could use you,” Boyce said, sincerely. “Need some good men. I'm angling to fire just about ever' man I see.”

“There's still some honest ones left…men I can set store by,” Matlock told Boyce. “Frank Yearwood, Earl Wright, Mack Huffman.”

“You point ‘em out to me when we get there.”

Matlock's coffee was too cool now to be worth drinking and he poured it out the open window behind him. From the kitchen, Sam Singer saw him dump his cup and rushed out with the coffee pot. He had his own reputation to maintain: good coffee and timely warm-ups.

 

Chapter 11

 

Riding at an easy pace, Lee and Davis trailed along behind the buckboard. Mr. Matlock and George Findlay drove that, while AG Boyce road ahead on his sorrel. The sun was slipping below the horizon. The sunlight refracted off the clouds above, casting a rich evening hue all across the wide grassy plains.

They were on a defined path. The grass was worn away from use. Everywhere else, all they could see for miles was open prairie. In some places the grass rose up over the wagon wheels. They could see a long stretch of barbed wire fence up ahead.

“Lee, want to catch that gate?” Boyce asked.

Trotting his quarter horse around the buckboard, Lee went on ahead. There was not an actual gate, so much as a section of wire tied to a wooden post. He leaned low to unhook a wire hoop, which held the post in place. He pulled it back and they all rode into the Yellow Houses Division. Lee looked up and down the fence line. It seemed to stretch on forever.

With the fading sunlight, the evening was finally beginning to cool off. The breeze was hardly noticeable but they all welcomed it.

“We're in one of the Yellow Houses pastures now,” Boyce told them. “We'll bed down under the stars tonight. Roll into headquarters tomorrow, come what may.”

Beyond the creak of the buckboard was a vast silence — the quietude of miles and miles of grassland. Lee enjoyed this about Texas. It felt peaceful. Working up in Colorado's high country for so long, he had forgotten how big the sky was. In the mountains, he had begun to feel walled in and the change of scenery was welcome.

“I can really breathe out here,” he said to Davis. “I think I spent one too many winters up there.”

The sun dropped out of sight and the air took on a dim quality. Mosquitoes came out and hummed around them.

“We'll camp up there,” Boyce announced.

In the growing gloom they could make out a windmill. It was nearly dark when they pulled up to it. A large wooden water trough circled out at its base, three feet high and sixteen feet across. Matlock noticed it was full of water and broke into a wide grin.

“Ain't like this everywhere,” he commented. “The XIT is bone dry this year. Take it when you can get it.”

George Findlay untacked his mules and led them to the tank. The mules drank, and then he hobbled them and let them graze. Both Davis and Lee staked their horses and shook out their bedrolls.

“Good thing we had a big dinner,” Davis said. “Supper's in a can.”

He opened up his saddle bag and rifled through it. Lee put his own saddle in the grass, laid down on his Navajo blanket, and pulled his bedding up to his chin. The grass smelled good. Some crickets were out and the frogs were croaking, too. Lee smiled to himself. This was what it was all about. The gentle lap of water against the tank's sideboards was rhythmic enough to lull him to sleep. He nodded off without waiting for Davis to open up the can.

“We're eighteen miles out from headquarters,” Boyce said to Davis quietly. He took off his boots and made his bed in the back of the wagon. “At an easy pace, we'll be there by dinner tomorrow.”

Boyce laid down and sighed.

“I met Til Blancett down in Dallas couple months back, at the stock show. Otherwise, I might not know the brand.”

“Peculiar luck,” Davis replied. But Boyce didn't say anything more.

Davis chewed on cold pinto beans and licked his spoon until it was clean. He walked over to the trough and filled his canteen with fresh cold water. He glanced back at the horses. His bay was just a silhouette — head arched toward the ground, grazing. The sound of the horses and mules cropping grass seemed loud in the stillness.

Matlock and Findlay were stretched out in their own bedrolls, sound asleep. Lee was out, too, and Davis could only make out Boyce's bare feet in the gloom — sticking out of the wagon.

Palming some cool water, Davis washed his face a little. He wondered how Til and the boys were doing. Things had changed after the shootings. The cattle drive was done for. Til was thinking about buying some land up in South Park. Settle down, he said. Said he missed his wife. The McGonkin brothers wanted to stay on, and so had Emmanuel. They left Casey to heal up at that girl's home in Gold Hill. He had been shot up pretty bad. Gyp moved on. No one knew what had happened to LG. That was the end of the B-Cross — as a trail driving outfit, anyhow. So that day both Davis and Lee decided it was time to move on.

Above him the sky was dark and the stars were really out, now. Davis appreciated the night sky. It was calming, reassuring. If God Above could make all those little stars way up there, give them each a place and a path to travel…well, the same could be said for him, he guessed. Even when things got so balled up he didn't know much
what
to think.

Chapter 12

Colorado

Leadville

Tabor Opera House

 

Only one gas lamp was burning at the moment. There were other light fixtures lining the upper room but they were all out, deliberately. Moonlight shined in through the 3rd-story windows and whitewashed the men inside. Horace “Haw” Tabor twisted the end of his walrus mustache and paced the floor. The other men in the room made him feel very uncomfortable, so he paced.

“Prescott Sloan just opened up The Pastime,” Big Ed Burns informed him in a low voice. Big Ed's eyes looked like little marbles — little black marbles. Horace paused and glanced over at Big Ed. Those little black marbles stared back dully. It was unsettling, so Horace resumed pacing.

“It's over on State Street,” Big Ed said sharply, watching to see how Horace reacted. Big Ed scowled. He watched Horace Tabor, the so-called Silver King of Leadville, pace back and forth across the dim room. Big Ed smirked. He knew Tabor had no stomach for this.

“Ain't that hard to figure,” Big Ed told him. “Soapy Smith gives Prescott Sloan his whole stake in the Matchless Mine. In turn, Sloan claims he put a hunnert thousand in a PO Box in Denver. Well, hold the damn press…the PO Box is plumb empty. And now Sloan opens up a top-sawyer saloon right
here
of all places. Could only be stupider if he opened it in Denver.”
 

Horace pressed his hand to his belly. The doctor told him it was an ulcer and urged him to lessen his work load. Relax. Maybe take a vacation in lower climes. But Horace had not taken the advice or the vacation. He shook his head at the bitter irony of life's twisty paths. He knew where this was headed.

“Can you count two and two, Haw?”

“I can count two and two,” Horace replied. “Hell, I can count to a million with the Matchless alone. And I don't have any control over Prescott Sloan opening up a saloon in Leadville. Or closing his bank in Ward. Or hoodwinking Soapy Smith in Denver. Such machinations are not mine in origin, nor mine to wrastle against.”

Big Ed turned around and glared at the other men standing behind him. There were three of them. They all stood silent as rocks, impassive — they were Big Ed's muscle. Not that Big Ed needed any muscle. His name was really a good description of his stature. He was a big man. But he always liked to bring the boys along anyhow.

Horace saw that Big Ed's men had their eyes fixed on him, and none of them seemed to blink. It was disturbing whenever he braved a glance in their direction. The mood in the room was unpleasant to Horace, and he did not like it. He hoped to dispel it soon and get home to Elizabeth. Have some buttermilk. Buttermilk might soothe his stomach ache.

“Aw, Big Ed, come on. Alright, what can I help with? I'm a busy man…a
respectable
man. I must keep it that way in the perception of this fine community.”

Big Ed took a step closer to Horace, and Horace could smell the liquor. It was cheap whiskey. Up close, Big Ed's black marble eyes looked even smaller, like dark shadowy specks in his flat white moonlit face. Horace's ulcer was churning but he managed to stand up straight and maintain his composure. Surely the doctor had something more potent than chalky magnesium tablets for a man of his social and financial caliber.

“You keep being respectable,” Big Ed told him. “Soapy's a-comin'.”

“Here?” Horace asked, rhetorically. His mind began to reel.

“He'll be up. And so's his dander.”

 

Chapter 13

 

Prescott Sloan was nicely dressed. But then he always was.

“Bucking the Tiger?” Doc Holliday asked him.

“Indeed. Follow me, sir.”

Sloan led the man across the busy saloon floor and tapped on a solid pine door in the back wall. Holliday was certainly slight and frail looking — Sloan had heard the stories, but honestly he was a little surprised at how frail. The man' eyes were bloodshot from either lack of sleep or liquor or illness, Sloan could only guess.

They waited in polite silence for the door to open.

The Pastime Saloon was full of people. Since it first opened its doors, the saloon had never really closed. Sloan looked around the room, soaking it all in. Basking in it. Voices carried, bottles and glass mugs clinked. The bar was full and red-light girls were scattered around the room, painted up seductively. What a decision — to cut ties and leave Ward behind! Ward was a sleepy villa compared to the boomtown of Leadville. It was the new start Sloan needed. Especially since that PO Box key went missing.

Sloan turned back to the door and was about to knock again, when young Billy Barrister finally opened it from the inside. At that very moment, Holliday launched into a violent coughing fit. Sloan felt the hot moist air puff against his neck. Sloan cringed. Was the man's ailment something that could spread? A disease he could catch? Sloan slowly turned to face Holliday. But whatever he was expecting, perhaps an apology, did not occur. Holliday merely blotted his mouth with a white kerchief and looked at Sloan blankly.

“Welcome to enter,” Billy Barrister announced in as formal voice he could muster. “Faro or poker, it's your game.”

Billy tried to be as formal as he could when he opened the game room up. The young man's only job was to open and close that door. He heard Sloan knocking but happened to be standing by the faro table. The thing was…he was not
supposed
to stand by the tables. Mr. Sloan got angry whenever he discovered Billy standing by the tables, watching the game, because his job was to open and close that door. No one was able to open it from the outside, only from inside. Billy Barrister was trembling when he pulled open the door, but as soon as he saw Doc Holliday he brightened. Billy had lived in Leadville for several years and had worked at many saloons around town. He had the privilege of seeing Doc Holliday sit at card tables before.

Even though he never saw any scuffles or gunfights himself, Billy secretly hoped to. Everyone knew Doc Holliday shot Bill Allen in the wrist a couple years back, right inside Hyman's Saloon on 13th — over a $5 poker debt. Not long after that, Doc shot Constable Kelly in a duel on the street. The man died, Doc was charged, but was acquitted by trial not too long after the fact. Billy Barrister felt like he was watching history unfold whenever Doc Holliday walked into a saloon. And now here he was again. How fantastic!

So when Billy Barrister opened the door and saw Doc Holliday coughing all over Prescott Sloan's neck, Billy held his breath. This could be it! He watched Mr. Sloan bristle. What if he drew a gun? Or called him outside? But to Billy's dismay the tension slowly dissolved…and Mr. Sloan did not even utter a cross word. This was a surprise to Billy, since Mr. Sloan struck like a rattlesnake when someone said or did the wrong thing — like watching the game table when he should be opening the door.