A Lone Star Christmas

CHAPTER EIGHT

Union Stockyards, Fort Worth, October 1

“I understand that you have yet to replace your stock,” Hurley said. The two men were in William Hurley’s office, a place that had almost become Big Ben’s home away from home since he sold all his stock.

“I haven’t yet, but I’m going to have to do something fairly soon,” Big Ben said. “Otherwise I’ll be having to let some of my permanent hands go and I would hate to do that. But there is only so much make-work that can done on a ranch that has no cows.”

“Are you going to buy Herefords?”

“I suppose I will,” Big Ben said. “I certainly see no profit in buying any more Longhorns. I sure hate having to do that though. Walter Hannah is my friend, but if he gets something on you, he never lets go of it. The moment the first Hereford sets foot on my ranch is the moment he will start crowing.”

“Maybe you would feel better about it if you knew that Herefords were bringing thirteen dollars a head this morning,” Hurley said.

“Yes. Well, that’s why I came into town today. I wanted to check the highest price being paid, just to reinforce my decision. So I guess I’ll be buying Herefords.”

“That’s a good move,” Hurley said. He chuckled. “Though the truth is, if you were just buying according to the highest price, you wouldn’t be buying Herefords.”

“I wouldn’t?” Big Ben replied, curious by the strange answer. “What would I be buying?”

“Black Angus.”

“Black Angus? Yes, I think I have heard of those. I haven’t seen any in Texas, though.”

“That’s because there aren’t any Black Angus in Texas,” Hurley said.

“Wait. You mean if I brought Black Angus into Texas, I would be first?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Big Ben laughed, then slapped his hand on his knee. “That would put a sock in Walter Hannah’s mouth, once and for all, wouldn’t it?” he said. “Tell me, Will, what are Black Angus going for right now?”

Hurley looked at a piece of paper on his desk until he found the figure he was after.

“As of ten o’clock this morning, they were sixteen dollars and thirty cents a head.”

“That’s even higher than Herefords,” Big Ben said. “Now, the next question, is where can I find some to buy?”

“Well, they are my competition,” Hurley said. “But setting that aside, my best guess would be the Stock Exchange in Kansas City.”

“You wouldn’t feel like I’m going behind your back by going there?” Big Ben asked.

“Not if you do business with me once you get your cows.”

Big Ben smiled and stuck out his hand. “You’ve been a good friend to me, Will,” he said. “Of course I will be doing business with you.”

Stock Exchange, Kansas City, Missouri, October 13

The building was divided into two parts. On one side there was an area that everyone referred to as “the bullpen.” It was so called because here, there were six desks crowded rather close together. Behind the desks toiled the inventory clerks, men who came to work and buried their head in endless rows of numbers.

A long counter separated the “bullpen” from the much larger and better decorated director’s room where Jay Montgomery had his desk. On the back wall was a large blackboard upon which figures were written, the figures representing the latest quotes from the cattle market. In the corner was a ticker-tape machine, and at the moment one of the clerks was standing by it, holding the tape in his two hands, reading it as it came from the machine. As soon as he got all the numbers, he would transfer them to the blackboard.

Big Ben, who had left Fort Worth the day before, walked up to the low railing and stood there for a moment, waiting for someone to notice him. One of the clerks who had just finished putting numbers on the blackboard turned, and seeing Big Ben, flinched in surprise. He had never seen a man quite that big.

“Yes, sir, can I help you?”

“My name is Benjamin Conyers. I would like to speak with Mr. Jay Montgomery.”

“Just a moment, sir,” the clerk said as he hurried out of the bullpen and into an office at the back. A moment later a tall, silver-haired, dignified-looking man came out of the office with the clerk. Smiling, he approached Big Ben with his hand extended.

“Mr. Conyers,” he said. “It is so nice to actually meet you, after doing business all these years. Have you come to arrange a cattle sale?”

“No, sir. A cattle buy,” Big Ben said.

“A cattle buy? Well, I’m sure we can accommodate you there. What kind of cattle do you want to buy, and how many?”

“I want to buy twenty-five hundred head of Black Angus,” Big Ben said.

Montgomery blinked. “Twenty-five hundred head of Angus? That’s—uh—quite an order,” he said.

“Yes, sir, I suppose it is,” Big Ben said. “Can you fill it?”

Montgomery shook his head. “No, sir, I’m afraid I can’t. There aren’t so many Black Angus in the country for us to have such a large reserve.”

“Damn,” Big Ben said.

“I understand what you are trying to do, Mr. Conyers,” Montgomery said. “All the cattlemen are getting rid of Longhorn now. They simply are no longer profitable. But everyone is going into Herefords, and if you would be interested in that, then we would be able to help you.”

“I may have to do that,” Big Ben said. “But I don’t mind telling you that I was set upon buying Black Angus. How many other places are there like yours? What I mean is, what would be the chances of putting together a herd as large as the one I need?”

“Oh, Mr. Conyers, I don’t know,” Montgomery said. “I suppose I could check with all the other cattle exchanges in the country, and among those who have any Angus at all, put together a herd for you. But you would have to gather them from all over, and by the time you did that, counting transportation costs and everything, they are likely to cost you thirty dollars a head. That would make them completely cost-prohibitive.”

Big Ben breathed out a sigh of disappointment.

“Yes,” he said. “I see what you mean.”

“Unless ... ,” Montgomery said, brightening, and holding up one finger.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you would be willing to buy them all from a private rancher.”

“You know a rancher who has enough Black Angus to be able to sell me two thousand, five hundred head?”

“Yes, I think I do,” Montgomery said. “His name is Duff MacCallister, and he lives in Chugwater, Wyoming.”

Montgomery walked over to the desk of one of the many clerks and, making a motion for paper and a pen, started writing.

“Here is his name and how to get in touch with him,” Montgomery said. “When you write to him, you can mention my name. It might do you some good. We have done business together quite frequently over the last three years.”

“Thank you,” Big Ben said. “By the way, what is the market price for Angus, today?”

“Seventeen dollars,” Montgomery said without having to check. He smiled. “I just got a quote this morning.”

“That’s up from the last time I checked,” Big Ben said.

“Yes, Black Angus are the most active right now.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind when I make my buy,” Big Ben said.

Sky Meadow Ranch, Wyoming, October 24

Duff Tavish MacCallister was standing on the front porch of his ranch house at Sky Meadow drinking coffee and watching the light show that the setting sun played upon the long, purple range of mountains called Laramie Ridge. His ranch, Sky Meadow, one of the most productive ranches in all of Wyoming. It was also the location of a producing gold mine. The mine did not produce enough gold to merit full-time operation, but it did produce enough to enable him to build Sky Meadow, and to populate it with Black Angus cattle.

Duff had raised Black Angus back in Scotland; he was well familiar with the breed, and knew of its superiority to Longhorn and even Hereford cattle. He now had the largest Angus herd in the West, and one of the largest herds in the nation.

Earlier in the day, Elmer Gleason, Duff’s ranch foreman, had gone into Chugwater. Duff drank his coffee and watched as his foreman rode through the front gate, about fifty yards down the road from the house itself. Elmer was wiry and raw-boned. He had a full head of white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Duff didn’t know exactly how old Elmer was, and Elmer never said. But he knew some of Elmer’s past from riding with Quantrill, and later Jesse James, to being a seaman on China Clipper. He knew also that he had never known a man more loyal than Elmer Gleason.

“You got some mail,” Elmer said as he dismounted onto the front stoop. He handed the letter to Duff. “But I’d be careful reading that letter if I was you,” Gleason said.

“Why is that?”

“Well, sir, because it’s postmarked from Texas, and you bein’ from Scotland ’n all, like as not you don’t know about them Texans. But they ain’t none of ’em to be trusted.”

“Sure ’n back in Scotland they say that about the Highlanders,” Duff said, chuckling as he opened the letter. “Well now, ’tis a fancy letter on monogrammed stationery it is.”

Benjamin Conyers

Live Oaks Ranch, Texas

Dear Mr. MacCallister:

I am informed by Mr. Jay Montgomery that you have the largest and most superior herd of a breed known as Black Angus in the United States. I have been running Longhorns for many years, but as the price of Longhorns at the market has decreased sharply in the last few years, I have sold off my entire herd and now have 120, 000 well watered acres, with ample grass, but no cows.

At my last telegraphic query, Black Angus were bringing $17 a head at the Kansas City Market. If you can deliver 2500 head of Black Angus to me here, at Live Oaks, I am prepared to pay you $20 a head, provided there are no steers, but enough bulls and heifers to enable me to increase the size of the herd. However, I shall require delivery before the end of the year. I know that a winter drive may be difficult, but should you make it by Christmas, you will be welcome to celebrate the birthday of our Lord at my ranch. If you agree to these terms, please respond soonest by telegram.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Conyers

“Are you going to do it?” Elmer asked, after reading the letter when Duff showed it to him.

“Aye, that’s three dollars a head more than I can get anywhere else,” Duff said. “But he is wanting to start a herd so he wants only bulls and heifers, so I’ve only got about fifteen hundred head that I feel like I can ship.”

“You could ask Smoke Jensen to add some of his cattle to the shipment,” Elmer said. “You might recall that he started running Black Angus after he lost so much of his cattle in the big freeze and die-out a couple of years ago.”

“That’s right, he did,” Duff said. “I’ll ride into town tomorrow and send him a telegram.”

“Will you be callin’ on Miss Meghan when you go into town?” Elmer asked.

“And why wouldn’t I be calling on her, she being my business partner?”

“It ain’t just the business that has you sniffin’ around her all the time, my friend,” Elmer said.

Duff laughed. “Sure, Elmer, ’n you remind me of a Scottish laird, brokerin’ a marriage for his tenants. ‘Tis no doubt but that I’ll be seeing her. But don’t be ringing the wedding bells just yet, my friend.”

Big Rock, Colorado, October 31

Smoke Jensen was in Longmont’s saloon sitting at a table with two of his closest friends in town, Louis Longmont, the owner of the saloon, and Sheriff Monty Carson.

“How long are you going to be in Cheyenne?” Louis asked. “I ask only because I want to know if there will be enough time for me to use my French charm to win the beautiful Madame Sally away from you.”

Sheriff Carson laughed. “Louis, if you had until the Second Coming, you couldn’t win Sally away from Smoke.”

“One can always try,” Louis said. Louis winning Sally away from Smoke was a running joke, and everyone knew that it was. But his admiration for her was genuine; aboveboard, but genuine.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be there,” Smoke said. “Just long enough to conclude some business, or at least, discuss the business if not conclude it.”

“Who are you meeting with?” Sheriff Carson asked.

“Duff MacCallister,” Smoke said. “He is a cousin of Falcon’s, not too long a resident of the U.S. He is the one I bought the Black Angus from, after the great die-out.”

“Oh, yes, I remember that,” Sheriff Carson said. “How are the cows working out?”

“Great. I’ve got quite a large herd now. Not as many as I had when I was running Longhorn, but more than I would have thought by now. In fact, I have enough to be able to help Duff out with his project.”

The whistle of the approaching train could be heard and Smoke stood, then reached down for his grip. Not until he stood could someone get a good enough look at him to be able to judge the whole of the man. Six feet two inches tall, he had broad shoulders and upper arms so large that even the shirt he wore couldn’t hide the bulge of his biceps. His hair, the color of wheat, was kept trimmed, and he was clean-shaven. His hips were narrow, though accented by the gunbelt and holster from which protruded a Colt .44, its wooden handle smooth and unmarked.

Fifteen minutes later, Smoke was on the train, headed for a meeting in Cheyenne with Duff MacCallister.

Dodge City, November 1

As Smoke rode the train through the night toward Cheyenne, 430 miles away, in Dodge City, Kansas, Rebecca Conyers, who was now calling herself Becca Davenport, was sitting in her mother’s darkened room over the Lucky Chance Saloon. In the quiet shadows, she listened to her mother’s labored breathing.

Rebecca had been in Dodge City for four months now. During that four months she had written three letters to her father just to let him know that she was safe and well. She had not received any replies from him, nor could she, because she had not let him know where she was. And in order to hide her whereabouts from him, she had implored friends who were going to be out of town to post the letters for her from other locations.

“Becca? Honey, are you here?” The voice, weak and strained, brought Rebecca back to the present.

Though Janie had been strong and well when Rebecca first arrived, two months later she had taken ill, and her decline had been very rapid from that time.

“I’m here, Mama,” Rebecca said. Her hair, which once fell luxuriously down her back, was just now beginning to grow back. Though much shorter than it had been, it was still long enough come to her shoulders, and to require her to brush some errant tendrils away from her face.

“Move your chair next to the bed,” Janie asked.

Rebecca did as asked, then she reached out to take her mother’s hand. The hand was small and the grip was weak. Neither Rebecca nor her mother knew when she arrived four months ago that her mother’s death warrant had already been signed. She had something that the doctor called cancer, and although he had been treating her illness with compounds of potassium arsenate, the cancer continued to advance, and Rebecca knew now that her mother did not have long to live.

“I want you to know what a joy it has been to have you here,” Janie said.

“I am glad that I came,” Rebecca said.

“I know you would much rather be back at Live Oaks with your young man, but I’m selfish enough that I will take you any way I can have you.”

“Even if I were back home, I wouldn’t be with my young man,” Rebecca said. “He has already made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me. And even if he did, Papa wouldn’t allow it.”

Rebecca had told Janie about Tom, and how she had declared her love for him on the day before she left home, only to have it spurned. She also told Janie about her father’s reaction.

“I can’t believe that this man, Tom, whom you profess to love, does not love you back. More than likely, he is just unsure of himself, and when he realizes that you are serious, he will have more confidence. And I wouldn’t worry about Big Ben either. He is a good man, Becca,” Janie said. “If you give him another chance, I’m sure he will come around. He was a good man and I hurt him, just as I have hurt everyone else who has ever been close to me. You are the one I hurt most of all. But I also hurt your Papa, my own parents, and my brother. How sorry I am that I hurt my brother. The two of us share a past that no one else can, and yet, for twenty-five years, we have been strangers to each other.”

“You have a brother?” Rebecca reacted in surprise. “I didn’t know you had a brother. You have never mentioned him.”

“I thought it best not to, but as I think more about it, you have the right to know about him. He thinks I’m dead,” Janie said. “He thinks I died a long time ago.”

“And you have never told him other wise?”

“No, it is much better that he thinks I’m dead. I’m afraid I was quite a disappointment to him,” Janie said. “No man wants a whore for a sister.”

“Mama!”

“It’s true, honey, much as I hate to admit it. During the war, I ran off with a man named Paul Garner. I was young then, younger than you are now. Paul was a gambling man, and he promised me a life of fun and excitement. At the time, anything seemed better than living on a dirt farm in Missouri. We went to Fort Worth and stayed there until the war was over. Then after my gambling man got himself killed, I got a job as bargirl working in one of the saloons in Hell’s Half Acre. That was when I met your Papa, fresh back from the war, a wounded hero. Oh, he made quite a presence, Becca. He was a magnificent and kingly-looking man. I fell head over heels in love with him, and one thing led to another, until I became pregnant. I feared that he might run away then, but he didn’t. As soon as he learned I was pregnant, he moved me out to Live Oaks. I stayed there until you were born.”

“But you and Papa were never married?”

“He asked me to marry him, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Honey, your Papa was one of the richest men in Texas. Before I met him I was a gambler’s widow, and a part-time soiled dove. Can you imagine what his enemies would have made of that? Someone would have said something and your father would have challenged him. He would have either killed someone, or gotten killed himself. I would not have been able to accept either outcome.

“I didn’t fit in his society, Becca. I was a mule in a horse harness. So one morning I just left. I know that sounds harsh, but believe me, it was much better for both of you. And I found out that, within a couple of months after I left, your Papa had married a decent and respectable woman.”

“That would be Julia,” Rebecca said.

“Has she been good to you, Becca?”

“Oh, yes, she has been a moth ... ,” Rebecca halted in mid-sentence, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings by comparison.

“You can say it, honey. She has been a mother to you. And judging from the way you turned out, she has been a much better mother to you than I could have ever been.”

“But you are my mother,” Rebecca said, not exactly knowing where to go with this.

“Yes, I am your mother,” Janie said, almost as if apologizing. She was quiet for a long moment. “After I left your father I went farther west, where I whored for quite a number of years, then I met Oscar. Oscar didn’t care that I used to be on the line. But I want you to know, Becca, that I have reformed. And you know what they say. No one is more righteous than a reformed whore.” Janie chuckled.

“That’s why when I learned that Kirby thought I was dead, I decided not to ever tell him any different,” she concluded.

“Your brother’s name is Kirby?”

“Yes.”

“What is Uncle Kirby like?”

“Honey if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. He is a man of legendary accomplishments. Why, did you know that books and plays have actually been written about him?”

“Really? What are some of the things he’s done?”

Janie thought for a moment, then she laughed. “I know something he did once that has never been in any book or any play. In fact, I doubt that anyone who knows him knows about this. It happened when we were both very young. But I’ll tell you, and then you will know something about your uncle that no one else knows.

“It was back before the war, I was twelve, Kirby was ten. We lived on a farm and Ma and Pa had a couple of milk cows. Kirby and I had the job of milking the cows, and oh how Kirby hated that. Well, the two cows were kept in the same stall, and one morning Kirby got it in mind to tie their tails together. Well of course, you can’t tie the tails themselves, but he took the hairy tufts at the end of their tails and tied them together. Then, when the cows were turned out into the pasture, one wanted to go one way and the other wanted go in the opposite direction, so they pulled against each other, and the harder they pulled, the tighter the knot got in their tails.”

Janie was laughing now, and so was Rebecca. “Well, those two cows just kept pulling, and bawling, and pulling and bawling, until finally Pa came out to see what they were bawling about. When he saw those two tails tied together he liked to have had conniptions. Kirby had tied so many of the hairs together that Pa couldn’t get them untied, so he finally gave up trying and just cut them apart. Then he asked Kirby what he knew about it.

“‘Well, Pa, the flies were real bad,’ Kirby said.” By now, Janie was laughing so hard that she was having a hard time telling the story. “‘And those two cows were being tormented something awful by the flies, so they commenced to sweeping their tails at them, trying to keep the flies away, you see. Now I didn’t exactly see it happen, but if you was to ask me, I’d say that those cows tied their own tails together while they were trying to swish away those flies.’ I think that was the only time I ever saw Kirby get a whipping,” Janie concluded.

By the time she finished telling the story, both Janie and Rebecca were laughing hysterically. They were laughing so hard that they didn’t even hear the knock on the door. That was when the door was pushed open and a man stuck his head in. “May I come in?”

“Yes, of course,” Rebecca said, getting up from her chair.

The door opened, spilling a wedge of light into the room. Janie’s husband, Oscar Davenport, stepped into the room.

“Were you two telling jokes up here?” Oscar said.

“No, we were just having girl-talk, that’s all,” Janie answered.

Oscar was considerably shorter than Rebecca, and nearly bald except for a tuft of hair over each ear. He walked over to the bed, then leaned down and kissed Janie on the forehead.

“How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked, considerately.

“I’m in no pain,” Janie answered.

“Good, good. That’s good,” Oscar said. He turned to Rebecca. “Becca, I was wondering—well, we have a pretty good gathering downstairs, and I thought I might ask you come down and sing a couple of songs. You have such a good voice and everyone seems to enjoy your singing so much. It also helps to keep things calm.”

“Mama?” Rebecca asked.

“Go ahead, child,” Janie said. “You do sing so beautifully, I just wish I could be down there to hear it.”

Rebecca leaned over to kiss her mother, then she followed Oscar downstairs. Oscar was good to her, as he had been to her mother, and he looked out for her.

After coming to Dodge City to join her mother, Rebecca had taken a job working for Oscar in his saloon. Like the other girls who worked in the Lucky Chance, Rebecca would drink with the customers, though with Rebecca the bartender was under strict orders to serve only tea. Unlike the other girls, Rebecca would never visit one of the cribs. Often she would sing for the customers, most of the time the cowboy ballads that they seemed to like. But upon occasion she would sing an operatic aria, doing so with a classically beautiful voice. With her shining auburn hair, full lips, high cheekbones, and dark eyes shaded by long eyelashes, Rebecca was as beautiful as her singing.

Frank Lovejoy stood at the end of the bar watching Rebecca sing. As usual, he was dressed all in black, with a low-crown black hat, ringed with a silver hatband. His ever-present pistol was hanging low in a silver-studded holster on his right side. He was smoking a long, slender cheroot and drinking bourbon.

“Ain’t no sense in lookin’ at her,” Mike Malloy said. “Ever’body knows that she don’t do no whorin’.”

“Oh yeah, she whores, all right,” Lovejoy said confidently. He took a swallow of his bourbon, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She just don’t know it yet, is all.”