Ralph Compton Doomsday Rider Page 18

  Fletcher smiled. “And around Kansas, Wild Bill’s word goes a long way.”

  Understanding dawned on the girl and she nodded enthusiastically. “Of course, that’s so much better.”

  Fletcher put a hand on her shoulder. “Just don’t get your hopes up, Estelle. Like I just said, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  The butler and Mattie had been following this exchange, their faces showing growing bafflement, but it was the cook who brought it to a close, grasping onto something she understood and could handle.

  “You two,” she said, “get on into the library. There’s a fire there and I’ll bring you both some food. I swear, you both look like you could each eat a chicken, feathers, beak, cluck and all.”

  * * *

  The next morning, well fed and well rested, Fletcher and Estelle loaded their horses into a Union Pacific boxcar heading west.

  The train made frequent stops along the line to take on water and the coal the engine burned at the rate of forty to two hundred pounds a mile, depending on the grade.

  Once they were clear of the Missouri, the remaining one hundred and eighty miles to their destination took Fletcher and Estelle across the Big Blue and the Republican and Saline rivers. There were stops at Kansas City, Abilene, and finally Salina, where the cars were hitched to a new engine for the seventy-mile haul to Hays across rolling, snow-covered prairies, the massive escarpment of the Rocky Mountains lifting their peaks above the flat three hundred miles to the west.

  Two days after leaving Lexington the train pulled into the station at Hays, with its thirty-seven saloons and dance halls and a restless, shifting, and often violent population of army scouts, buffalo hunters, railroad workers, soldiers, gunmen, pale-faced gamblers, and prostitutes.

  The town was a ramshackle collection of false-fronted buildings and cabins along the railroad track with nothing around in all directions but endless, windswept prairie.

  The stock pens lay close to the rails to the east, ready for the spring herds from Texas; the homes of the town’s more respectable elements, the bankers and businessmen, lay upwind to the north, where the rowdy drovers were not allowed to go. Beyond the main street lay the shacks of the girls on the line, and beyond those a cemetery, a Boot Hill that did a rousing, if mostly seasonal, business.

  The fort lay a few miles farther along the track to the west, but Fletcher and Estelle unloaded their horses and led them toward the town’s muddy main street.

  It was yet early afternoon but Hays was up and roaring, the saloons crowded from bar to warped timber walls, an out-of-tune piano in one of the dance halls gallantly trying to compete against the racket of drunk men and laughing women.

  Riders and wagons crowded the street, churning the already thick mud and slush into a rutted, clinging swamp.

  Fletcher and Estelle led their horses across the street and looped the reins around a hitching post outside a restaurant with a painted sign that proclaimed: Ma’s Sideboard.

  Inside it was steamy and hot, the glass panes of the two windows facing the street misted. There were a dozen tables, each covered in a checkered red-and-white cloth, but only one was occupied, by a man in railroad engineer’s overalls who left shortly after Fletcher and the girl entered.

  Fletcher felt gritty and his eyes smarted from the soot and sparks that penetrated every window of the car he and Estelle had ridden, all of it made worse by the smoke of the potbellied stove at one end of the aisle.

  He was sure Estelle felt the same, but somehow she managed to look fresh and pretty despite the rattling ordeal of the long train ride.

  Ma turned out to be a sour-faced stringbean of a man who had the look of the trail cook about him. But he was quick with the coffeepot and recommended buffalo steak, potatoes, and boiled onions, an easy matter since those were the only items on the menu.

  Fletcher had tested his coffee and was rolling a cigarette when the door opened and a soldier in a bearskin coat stepped into the restaurant, slapping his gloved hands together against the outside cold.

  The man glanced at Fletcher, his cool eyes dismissing him as yet another rootless Hays gunman, saw Estelle, and, his interest pleasurably roused, smiled.

  “Chilly out,” he said, taking his seat at a table next to her.

  “It is indeed,” the girl said. “But seasonably so, I suppose.”

  The soldier shrugged out his coat, revealing captain’s straps on his shoulders.

  This time the man looked at Fletcher with renewed interest, obviously wondering what this hard-faced gunman was doing here with a young and obviously well-bred girl.

  “Capt. Anthony Ferrell, at your service,” he said, speaking to Estelle but still studying Fletcher. “Tenth Cavalry, stationed here at Fort Hays.”

  Fletcher had heard of the Tenth, a regiment of black buffalo soldiers that had already built an enviable combat record in dozens of battles against the plains tribes. They had white officers and Ferrell must be one of them.

  Estelle introduced herself and then Fletcher, but the captain’s brow was furrowed in thought.

  “Are you by any chance related to Senator Falcon Stark?” he asked finally.

  “He’s my father,” Estelle replied, her voice cold.

  “Ah,” Ferrell said, apparently content to say no more as he tasted the coffee the cook had poured for him.

  “Have you met him, Captain?” Fletcher asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Indeed,” Ferrell said. “The senator is out on the plains right now with President Grant, Senator John Gray and his wife, and last, but certainly not least, Count and Countess Boris Vorishilov, straight from the Russian imperial court.” The officer smiled. “I’d say that was a very distinguished company.”

  “How large an escort?” Fletcher asked.

  It was a soldier’s question and Ferrell was eager to answer it. “None. The president said he didn’t want a clanking cavalry troop—his very words—scaring away the buffalo. He told the colonel there were four hunters in the party, including himself, all superbly armed and good enough shots to beat off any Indian attack.”

  The captain grinned. “And besides, they have about a dozen servants with them, maybe half that many skinners—and Wild Bill.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Bill can make a difference.” He paused, then asked, “How long do they plan to be out?”

  “Two weeks, maybe three. I’d say it depends on how quickly Hickok can locate a buffalo herd, how long the snow holds off, and how badly they’re slowed by their wagons. That’s the best-equipped hunting party I’ve ever seen. The five wagons are packed with fine linens, crystal and silverware, to say nothing of cases of wine, champagne, bourbon, and cigars. They’ve even got silver candelabras. It’s the Russian count more so than the others who loves to travel in style.”

  “Indians?”

  Captain Ferrell shrugged. “Normally the Sioux and Cheyenne like to hole up somewhere snug in the winter. But a week ago four buffalo hunters were ambushed and scalped about sixty miles south of here down on the Santa Fe Trail at the bend of the Arkansas River. With Indians you never can tell. When you least expect them, that’s when you’ll find them, or rather, that’s when they’ll find you.”

  “And Senator Stark, where does he figure in all this?” Fletcher asked.

  “The trip was his idea.” He turned to Estelle. “I’m sure you know your father plans to run for president. I believe this is his way of winning hearts and minds—mainly the support of the president and another very influential Republican senator.”

  The food came, and while Fletcher and Estelle ate they talked to the soldier of other things, mainly the harsh winter weather on the plains, the much-anticipated arrival of the spring cattle herds, and the dearth of decent officers’ quarters at Fort Hays.

  When they’d finished eating, Fletcher built a smoke and poured more coffee for himself and Estelle.

  “Do you intend to join your father, Miss Stark?” Captain Ferrell asked.

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p; Estelle nodded, saying nothing, and Fletcher stepped into the conversation. “I think we’ll stay at a hotel here tonight and move out at first light tomorrow.”

  “The best hotel in town, and that’s not saying much, is the Cattleman’s Haven at the eastern end of town. At least the beds are clean and free of unwanted guests.”

  Estelle caught Fletcher’s eye and they both rose. The girl extended her hand and Ferrell bowed over it gallantly.

  “You’ve been a great help, Captain,” she said.

  Fletcher dropped money on the table, then asked the soldier, “What direction did the president and Senator Stark take?”

  “Due south from right where you stand. Hickok says he plans to scout all the way to the Santa Fe Trail, then swing west well before he reaches the Cimarron.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Much obliged, Captain.”

  He and Estelle took their leave of the officer and stepped out of the restaurant and back into the rowdy street.

  They were untying their horses when a commotion at the end of town toward the stock pens attracted their attention.

  Five riders, buffalo hunters by the look of them, were surrounded by a cheering, laughing crowd, and the man in front was brandishing a bloody scalp above his head.

  “Boys, we caught the damned savages camped at Twin Butte Creek and we had at ’em,” the buffalo hunter yelled. “By God, when we lit into them with our Sharps they didn’t know what hit them.”

  The hunters stopped at a saloon and were carried inside shoulder-high by the crowd, the man with the scalp still waving it as he ducked his head under the door.

  “Buck,” Estelle whispered, her face pale, “how horrible.”

  Fletcher nodded, lips a tight, grim line under his mustache. “I got a feeling there’s going to be hell to pay out there on the long grass,” he said. “That was a woman’s scalp.”

  Twenty-one

  Buck Fletcher lay on top of his bed in his room at the Cattleman’s Haven Hotel, a strange, echoing restlessness tugging at him.

  Earlier he had seen Estelle settled in the room next to his. The girl was completely exhausted and badly needed sleep.

  “I’ll wake you at first light,” Fletcher had told her. “Best you try to get some shut-eye and rebuild your strength.”

  Hays was a wide-open, exciting town with plenty to see, but Estelle made no objection. Dark circles stained the pale skin under her eyes, and it was obvious to Fletcher that the strain of the past weeks was beginning to tell.

  “Buck,” she’d said before he closed the door to her room, “be careful.”

  Fletcher smiled. “I will.”

  “Buck.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I told you to be careful.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “A man can’t be too careful, Estelle. I’m not on the prod, and, believe me, I’ve no intention of borrowing trouble.”

  Now he stared at the ceiling, listening to the noises from the saloons, the roar of men, the laughter of women, the whirring click of roulette wheels and always the tinny, out-of-tune pianos dropping notes like bad coins into the night.

  Over the years, how many towns had he known like this one? Hundreds maybe? And how many more would he see before it all ended for him? A thousand? More that that?

  Often he’d pause for only a night or two in such a town, just riding through. But there were other times, using his Colts for pay—the hard chink of gold in the palm—when he’d met belted men in gunfights who were every bit as fearless, skilled, and tough as himself.

  Those were days spent along the dangerous, ragged fringes of hell, blazing, searing days, when men died, falling behind a cloud of gray gunsmoke, Colts blasting in teeth-bared defiance, battling until the very end.

  Fletcher closed his eyes against the echoes, reaching for sleep, but saw only the wild, reckless, and laughing faces of men he’d known who lived by the gun. Men like Wes Hardin and Cullen Baker and Clay Allison, men he’d ridden with, men magnificently, vibrantly alive because, every single day of their lives, they lived so close to death.

  Sleep would not come to him.

  Fletcher swung his long legs off the bed and rose to his feet. He stepped to the window and looked outside.

  Along the boardwalks oil lamps had been lit against the gathering darkness, casting dancing pools of yellow and orange on the rough pine planks, lights that could be seen for miles out on the plains.

  Men came and went, heels pounding, leaving one saloon, heading for another.

  The scent of cigar smoke and rye whiskey and women’s perfume hung in the air, and overlaying it all another, subtler odor—the smell of excitement. The restlessness pulled at Fletcher, refusing to let him be.

  He ran a hand through his thick, shaggy hair, trying to reach a compromise with himself.

  A glass of rye, maybe. Just one. Then long enough to stand in a saloon to bring it all back and no longer.

  He scrubbed a hand over the harsh stubble of his cheeks but decided a shave could wait. He also thought to trim his mustache, but that too could be put off until later. Besides, he knew there was little he could do to bring even a remote suggestion of handsomeness to his saddle-brown, hard-boned features.

  Fletcher put on his hat, then tugged on his boots. He picked up his gun belts, but decided against wearing them. A belted man could be seen as a threat—or a challenge.

  The short-barreled Colt he slid from the holster and stuck in the waistband of his pants, covering the gun with his mackinaw so it would not show.

  He checked in his shirt pocket to make sure he had his tobacco, and then studied himself briefly in the flyspecked mirror above the washstand.

  What he saw did little to cheer him, but then it seldom did.

  Fletcher stepped out of his room and closed the door quietly behind him. For a brief moment he stopped outside Estelle’s room but heard no sound. The girl must be sound asleep.

  He went down the stairs, ignored the lifted, quizzical eyebrow of the bored night clerk, and stepped onto the boardwalk, his spurs ringing.

  There was a saloon a short distance away. Like most drinking establishments in Hays it had a false front, twice as high and twice as wide as the real single-story timber shack hiding behind it. A faded sign hanging on rusty chains proclaimed the place to be Chris Riley’s Saloon. It looked as good, or as bad, as any other, and Fletcher made his way toward it.

  He opened the door and stepped inside.

  The saloon was a long, low room, dimly lit by oil lamps strung along the entire length of the vee-shaped ceiling that valiantly tried to penetrate the fog of cigar and pipe smoke. A mahogany bar at least forty feet long dominated the room, the rest of the space taken up by tables and chairs.

  The saloon was crowded with the usual flotsam and jetsam of the frontier. Buffalo hunters, huge and shaggy in hide coats, rubbed shoulders with ragged miners, drifted in from God knows where, both noisily rejoicing in their youth and great strength. Long-limbed cowhands in from surrounding ranches stood, one high-heeled boot hooked on the brass rail, drinking rye, telling each other lies about deserts they’d crossed, blizzards they’d known, and horses they’d ridden. Gamblers of high and low degree went about their business with careful eyes and handled the pasteboards with white, sensitive fingers.

  The tables were crowded with people of both sexes, playing poker, drinking, smoking, talking all at once at the top of their voices. The women were no longer in the first flush of youth, painted faces hard and knowing, drinking vinegar and water bought for them by lustful admirers at champagne prices.

  Here and there pasty young clerks in celluloid collars and grinning farm boys in ill-fitting suits were getting their first lessons in sin, the tantalizing joys of hard liquor and the soft flesh of women.

  At a table set apart from the rest were five black troopers of the Tenth Cavalry, barely tolerated and for the most part ignored.

  A piano player was hard at work in one corner, comp
eting with flush-faced waiters calling, chairs shuffling, drunken men shouting, women’s voices joining in, the clash and chink of glasses and the noise of the street outside, all of it blending together in one deafening din.

  All this Buck Fletcher saw, heard, and smelled with considerable joy. He managed to find a space at the bar long enough to order a rye, then took his drink to an out-of-the-way corner, already feeling the tensions of the past weeks slowly drain from him.

  He held his glass in an elbow jammed into his side and built a cigarette. Then he smoked and sipped his whiskey, an interested observer of what was going on around him but carefully making himself no part of it.

  Much of the crowd’s excited talk centered around the recent visit of President Grant, two distinguished senators, the Russian count and countess, and Wild Bill Hickok—and there was much speculation as to whether or not the buffalo herds had already drifted too far south into the sheltering buttes and ravines of the Bear Creek country and spoiled the hunt.

  This heated conversation muted and staggered to a ragged halt when Chris Riley, a round-faced man with muttonchop whiskers, a white apron tied around his waist, stepped beside the piano and held up his hands for silence.

  After he’d called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, please,” several times, all talk died away into quiet, and the man beamed and yelled so that everyone could hear him, “As you are all aware, our fair city was recently honored by the visit of President Grant, that gallant hero of the late War Between the States.”

  There was some scattered applause and more than a few boos and catcalls, the war still a festering wound that refused to heal.

  Nonplussed, Riley continued: “With the president were a distinguished senator, members of the Russian aristocracy, and that peerless prince of pistoleers, that paladin of the plains, the one we lesser mortals, rejoicing when a god deigns to make one of his periodic visits to Hays, have yclept Wild Bill.”