Ralph Compton Outlaw Town Read online

  Chancy had to hand it to their trail boss. Stragglers were a nuisance. The hands were constantly goading them to keep on the move. Getting rid of three made their job easier.

  “It’ll take a bit,” Stout said to the Indian. “The herd is a ways back.”

  “We wait,” the warrior said.

  Lucas Stout motioned at Chancy and the rest and reined over to one side. Leaning on his saddle horn, he said, “I don’t like the delay but it can’t be helped. Might as well relax a little.”

  “I can’t believe you’re giving them cows,” Mays said. “They’re just mangy Injuns.”

  “You have a lot to learn,” Stout said. “Indians are people too.”

  “And you plumb flabbergast me, boss,” Mays made bold to say. “Why not have Rigenaw and Jelly Varnes come up and shoo these redskins away whether they want to be shooed or not?”

  “Is that your answer?” Lucas Stout said. “Gun work?”

  “They’re stealing from us, is what they’re doing. It’s not right.”

  Chancy was considerably surprised the youngster was questioning their trail boss’s judgment. He reminded himself that when he was younger, he sometimes let his tongue do his thinking too.

  “Look at them,” Stout said. “At how their clothes hang on their bodies. They’re starving. Their people are starving. The women. Their sprouts. Three cows will keep them alive for a while.”

  “You’re being nice to them on purpose?” Mays said, sounding as if the notion astonished him.

  “Ever hear of do unto others?” Stout said.

  “I still think you should bring Rig and Jelly up.”

  Lucas Stout shook his head as if disappointed. “Ben Rigenaw doesn’t pull on someone without cause. Jelly might. He can be reckless. He’s trying to prove himself and hasn’t learned the lessons Ben has.”

  “What lessons are those?” Mays asked.

  “That a man on the peck is looking for an early grave. You don’t last long as the cock of the walk if you fly up on the barn and crow about it. Sooner or later someone will get tired of your crowing.”

  “I think I savvy,” Mays said. “But still. You’re bending over backward for a bunch of redskins.”

  “Bending isn’t the same as breaking,” Stout said.

  Chancy figured that would be the end of it, but the young puncher wouldn’t let it drop.

  “My grandpa used to the say the only good Injun is one that’s six feet under.” Mays stared at the warriors as if he had half a mind to plant them himself.

  Lucas Stout had apparently had enough. “Your grandpa was a jackass.”

  “Here, now,” Mays said. “What gives you call to talk about him like that? You didn’t know him.”

  “Haters, boy,” Stout said, stressing the “boy.” “I’ve run into their kind all my life. They hate anyone who’s different. They hate because of skin. They hate because of religion. They hate for no reason at all other than they don’t like something. From cradle to grave, they hate, hate, hate. And you reckon that’s the right way to be?”

  “Well, no, I suppose not,” Mays said uncertainly.

  “I’ll have no truck with haters,” Stout said. “I live my life how I please and mind my own business, and I expect those who work for me to do the same. If you’re a hater, keep it to yourself.”

  “I didn’t mean . . . ,” Mays said, and stopped. “It’s just that my grandpa . . .” He stopped again.

  “That’s all right,” Stout said. He stared to the south. “Addy better hurry with those cattle. We can’t dawdle at this.”

  “What’s the rush, boss?” Ollie said. “Those Injuns aren’t any threat.”

  “We have a bigger problem than a handful of starved Indians,” Stout said, and grew grim. “It could be we’ll lose one of us before we reach Wichita.”

  Chapter 3

  Chancy Gantry thought it was almost comical how the warriors practically drooled over the three cows. Their eyes lit up and one of them rubbed his stomach, and the one who had done all the talking came over and offered his hand to Lucas Stout, white-fashion. When they rode off, they were about the happiest Indians Chancy had ever seen.

  The trail boss told Chancy and Ollie to push on while he and the others returned to the herd. Stout’s parting words were “You’re doing fine, gents. Keep it up.”

  Once they were alone again and riding point, Ollie snickered and said, “How can we not do fine? All we’re doing is following the herds that have gone before us.”

  There was more than one trail north from Texas. Some were used more than others. The Chisholm Trail, one of the earliest, was so popular that at times the herds were lined up one after the other for miles. The trail they were following was an offshoot that shaved a little time. A lot of herds had been up it before them. The ground was pockmarked with thousands of prints, and dry droppings were everywhere. The previous herd, Chancy figured, had gone by not more than a few days ago.

  “This is easy to do,” Ollie went on. “I like it when things are easy. When they’re hard, I have to think more, and my ma always said I shouldn’t ever try to think too much because I’m sort of slow at it.”

  “Not that slow,” Chancy said.

  “You know who Stout was talking about, don’t you?” Ollie said. “The one we might lose?”

  Chancy nodded. The puncher’s name was Finger Howard. Finger was called that on account of when he was a baby, a rat gnawed one of his fingers almost down to the bone. The flesh never did regrow all the way.

  “Last night Finger was curled up in a ball and gritting his teeth and trying not to groan,” Ollie mentioned.

  “I saw,” Chancy said.

  “Stout says it’s Finger’s appendix. I never heard of it, so I asked Lester Smith and he said it’s some kind of wormy thing we have inside us.”

  “Wormy thing?”

  “Lester’s own words. He says it’s at the end of our, what do you call them, intestines? And that it wriggles around a lot like a worm.”

  “I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in anything Lester says,” Chancy said. “He was the one who told us that you can tell how much milk a woman can give a baby by the size of her breasts.”

  “Lester says it’s common sense. The bigger the jugs, the more they can hold.”

  “It’s not true, I tell you,” Chancy said. “My aunt had no jugs to speak of, and she gave her baby milk by the gallon. My uncle used to joke that she was a regular cow.”

  “Well, something is sure wrong with Finger Howard, and if it’s not his worm, I don’t know what it is.”

  The miles fell behind them as the morning crawled like a turtle.

  Chancy was recollecting his days as a boy on the farm when his hawk-eyed partner cleared his throat.

  “What in Sam Hill is that?”

  Chancy looked up.

  Off to the north something shimmered and sparkled, casting gleams of sunlight. It wasn’t all that big, but it was bright.

  Ollie rose in his stirrups for a better look. “Ain’t that something? I’ve never seen the like. What can it be?”

  Chancy was at a loss too. “Beats me. Maybe it’s more Indians.”

  “Injuns don’t sparkle,” Ollie said. “And it’s not moving, whatever it is. It’s just standing there.”

  Chancy’s curiosity got of the better of him. “Let’s go see.”

  They used their spurs, trotting side by side. The cattle trail, Chancy noticed, passed right by whatever was sparkling. Once again, his friend’s eyes made out what it was before he could.

  “Why, it’s a blamed sign.”

  “A what?”

  “Are you hard of hearing? It’s a sign. In the middle of nowhere. And it’s got words and everything.”

  Words weren’t all it had. Over four feet high and three feet wide, it had been firmly naile
d to posts embedded in the ground. Pieces of broken glass had been stuck around the edges, which accounted for the sparkling.

  “That’s some trick,” Ollie said. “I bet they did it so their sign can be seen from a ways off.”

  Chancy was more interested in what the sign said in large black letters. “Don’t that beat all?”

  “What’s it say?” Ollie said. “You know I can’t read worth a lick.”

  “Prosperity—” Chancy began.

  “How’s that?” Ollie interrupted.

  “Are you going to let me read it or not? That large word at the top is Prosperity.”

  “What do you suppose it means? What’s prosperous about the middle of nowhere?”

  Chancy stared at him.

  “What?”

  “Let me finish.” Chancy turned to the sign again. “‘Prosperity,’” he read. “‘One mile west. Plenty of—’”

  “Why, it must be a town,” Ollie interrupted a second time.

  “I could hit you.”

  “What did I do?”

  Reading quickly, Chancy said, “‘Prosperity. One mile west. Plenty of food and drink. Water and graze for herds. Come one, come all. Spend the night or a week. Everyone welcome.’”

  “Why, that’s right friendly,” Ollie said. “Who knew there was a town hereabouts?”

  “I wonder,” Chancy said.

  “You wonder if someone put up the sign to trick folks?”

  “Do you ever listen to yourself?” Chancy replied. “Who would go to all the bother of toting those posts and that slab of wood all the way out here just to fool people?”

  “What were you wondering, then?”

  “A town might have a sawbones.”

  “You’re ailing and didn’t tell me? What’s the matter? Is it those headaches you get from time to time? I doubt a doc can do much about those. Some people just naturally get headaches and there’s nothing anyone can do.”

  Chancy shook his head. “You beat all, pard. Do you know that?”

  “What?” Ollie said, and jerked as if he’d been stung. “Oh. You meant a sawbones for Finger Howard and that wormy thing in his gut?”

  “It’s worth paying this town a visit, don’t you think?”

  “One of us should ride back and tell Lucas Stout. Although he must know a town is here. He’s been up this trail before.”

  “Odd he didn’t mention it,” Chancy said.

  “Maybe he forgot,” Ollie said.

  “Have you ever known the boss to forget anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then I doubt he’d forget a whole blamed town.”

  “We’ll flip a coin to see who goes,” Ollie said. He patted his pockets. “Do you have one?”

  “We’ll go together,” Chancy said. “You shouldn’t be on the loose alone.”

  “I’m not dumb, you know,” Ollie said indignantly. “My ma told me I’m not. I may be slow sometimes, but I pick up on things.”

  “If by slow you mean molasses, then that’s you, sure enough,” Chancy joked.

  “I hope you’re right about the sawbones,” Ollie said. “It would spoil the drive if Finger dies.”

  “Would it ever!” Chancy said.

  Chapter 4

  It was well-known that settlements and towns were springing up all over the place. The East bulged with people, and a lot of them were heeding the advice of someone whose name Chancy couldn’t recollect to “Go West, young man.” Or young woman. Farmers by the drove were flocking to the fertile plains. Miners were pouring into the Rockies to work the new silver, gold, and lead mines. Then there were the butchers and haberdashers and clerks and whatnot who figured they could earn as good a living in a Western town as in an Eastern town, and besides, life west of the Mississippi River was new and different.

  The railroad had a lot to do with the influx, just as it did with the cattle trade. Without the rails, cattlemen couldn’t get their herds to Eastern markets. Those same rails brought people and goods from back East. So did stagecoaches and wagon trains, but it was the railroad that was widely regarded as the pinnacle of enterprise.

  Some towns sprang up so fast it was as if one day they weren’t there and the next they were. Which was an exaggeration, but it fit Lucas Stout’s reaction when he set eyes on the sign decorated with the broken bits of glass.

  “Prosperity? Never heard of it,” Stout said. “It wasn’t here the last time I came through. But you’re right, Gantry. It could be there’s a doc, and we could use one. The only thing is . . .” He stopped and twisted in his saddle.

  The herd had come up, all fifteen hundred head, or thereabouts, and the fourteen hands. Plus the cook with his wagon. The cattle had stopped and most of the hands were out on the flanks and at the rear to ensure that none strayed off.

  With horns on the cows and the steers that could stretch up to seven feet from tip to tip, and over eleven feet on a big bull, longhorns were aptly named. They packed a lot of meat on their bony frames. Five hundred pounds or more for a cow wasn’t unusual. Steers and bulls weighed a lot more. Good meat too, not stringy or rangy. Small wonder that longhorns were highly prized for Eastern tables.

  “Something wrong?” Ollie asked when the trail boss didn’t go on.

  “I have a decision to make,” Lucas Stout said.

  Chancy could guess what it was. Should they take the entire herd to Prosperity? Or leave it and just take Finger Howard?

  As if to prove him right, Stout remarked, more to himself than to them, “I’ll have to send someone along. He’s in no shape to go by himself.”

  “Are you talking about Finger Howard?” Ollie asked.

  “No. President Grant.”

  “You’re joshing. He doesn’t know cows. From what I hear, all he knows is cigars and being a general.”

  Stout looked at Chancy. “Does he do this often?”

  “All the time,” Chancy said.

  “Do what?” Ollie said.

  Just then several punchers joined them, Addy and Mays and Finger Howard himself. Howard looked terrible. He was pasty and slick with sweat, and he was gritting his teeth against the pain. He had both hands on his saddle horn as if he was afraid he might fall off.

  “Addy said you wanted to see me?” Finger said to Stout, speaking with visible effort.

  Lucas Stout nodded at the sign. “We’re hoping there’s a sawbones. Chancy and Ollie will take you there.”

  Chancy’s pulse leaped a little. The town might have a saloon, and maybe doves to boot.

  “No need to go to all that bother on my account,” Finger said. “I can make it by myself.”

  “Like hell,” Stout said bluntly. “And I decide what to do, not you. We’re ahead of schedule, so we can take a day or two to see that you’re tended to, and then we’ll move on.”

  “I’m obliged, but—” Finger began.

  Stout held up a hand. “I haven’t ever lost a hand on a drive and I don’t aim to start with you. That appendix has to come out or you can die.” He turned to Chancy. “You and your pard see to it. If there’s no doc, or no water or graze for the cattle like that sign claims, one of you come let me know. I’m not taking the herd unless there is.” He glanced at the sun. “We’ll wait. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to get there and back.”

  “Half that if we hurry,” Ollie said.

  Stout nodded at Howard. “Finger can’t ride very fast. It wouldn’t do to kill him getting there.”

  “Let’s go,” Chancy said, and clucked to his roan. He was eager to find out about the saloon. He held to a walk. Ollie came up on one side and a few seconds later, Finger Howard on the other.

  “I hate this,” Finger said.

  “You can’t help getting sick,” Chancy said.

  “My ma used to blame getting sick on baths,” Ollie
remarked. “She said that if you take too many, it makes you poorly.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had a bath,” Finger said.

  Neither could Chancy. But then, anyone with a delicate nose had no business being a cowhand. “If you need us to stop, say so.”

  “I don’t,” Finger said. The next moment he closed his eyes and groaned.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Ollie said.

  “You shouldn’t ought to remind him of it,” Chancy said.

  “What difference does it make?” Ollie replied. “He’ll hurt whether I do or I don’t.”

  “Enough about how I’m feeling,” Finger said.

  “Sure thing,” Ollie said, and with his next breath added, “I wouldn’t have reckoned a little worm can cause a body that much trouble.”

  Large drops of sweat trickling down his brow, Finger blinked at Chancy and said, “Would you shoot him for me?”

  “Gladly,” Chancy said.

  Chapter 5

  The new town of Prosperity liked signs. The three cowboys came on another after going only a short way. It didn’t have bits of glass, but it was on a higher pair of posts so no one would miss it.

  “‘You’re halfway there,’” Chancy read. “‘Supplies. Drinks. And more. Keep on coming.’”

  “The sign says that? ‘Keep on coming’?” Ollie said.

  “It does,” Chancy confirmed.

  “Why, it’s like they’re talking to us. Who writes a sign that way? Usually signs are just words.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re not my pard,” Finger Howard said. “You would drive me loco in no time.”

  “Why say something mean like that?” Ollie asked.

  Chancy hazed the subject before they got into a spat. “Where’s your own pard anyway?” Finger’s saddle partner was Jelly Varnes.

  “Stout sent Jelly and Rigenaw back on drag,” Finger said. “On the off chance those Injuns we ran into weren’t happy with the three cows he gave them and came after more.”

  The three of them rode on, Ollie commenting, “Those Indians try anything, Ben Rigenaw will gun them dead.”

  “Rigenaw would warn them if he could,” Finger said. “Jelly is the one who’d shoot them as quick as look at them.”