Blood and Gold

Chapter 8

I reached the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red an hour before midnight and across the river lamps were still lit among the sprawling cabins, general store, hotel, cattle pens and corrals of Doan’s Crossing.

The Red at this point was very wide, but mostly a series of broad sandbanks with only runnels of shallow water flowing sluggishly between them.

Though he was tired, the big black stepped across easily and I rode him into the settlement in a teeming rain.

That summer of 1880, Doan’s Crossing was crowded with people, the Apache menace to the west and south bringing in punchers, ranchers, a few blanket Indians, soldiers, buffalo hunters, peddlers and itinerant preachers.

Jonathan Doan’s general store, where there was a bar, was doing a brisk business and through the glass doors of the two-story hotel, men were constantly coming and going.

I had no desire for whiskey, but what I did need were supplies and news of Lafe Wingo and the Owens brothers.

Doan’s nephew Corwin operated the livery store, and when I rode in, he recognized me, even though I was just one among the scores of punchers who had driven three hundred thousand head through the crossing that spring.

“You’re late getting back, Dusty,” Doan said as he took my horse and led him to a vacant stall.

Maybe Corwin Doan remembering me shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He kept a record of every cow that crossed the Red at his place, the names of the trail bosses and who owned the herds. Simon Prather was one of the spring regulars, but the biggest herds by far were from the King Ranch, thirty thousand head every season.

I followed Doan and rubbed down the black with a piece of sacking before I thought it through and explained my late arrival. “Lingered too long in Dodge, Corwin,” I said, not wishing to burden the man with my troubles. “Simon Prather took to feeling poorly and I stayed with him a spell.”

“Right sorry to hear that,” Doan said. He was a young man with serious hazel eyes, already balding, with a full black beard and mustache.

I watched him pour the black a good bait of oats and fork him some hay; then I walked back with him to the office.

“Planning to stay long?” Doan asked.

“Just tonight. I’ll be moving out come daybreak.” Doan’s face was suddenly troubled. “Is that wise, Dusty, a man riding alone? Yesterday Victorio and his Apaches ambushed a wagon train three miles south of here. Killed eight teamsters and there’s another at the hotel who isn’t expected to live.”

“I’ve got no choice, Corwin,” I said, deciding to tell a half-truth. “I’m overdue back at the SP Connected and Ma Prather will be some worried.”

“Take my advice, Dusty,” Doan said, “and stay here until this here Apache dustup blows over. Every troop of the Ninth Cavalry is out and they’ll soon catch up to those damned renegades.”

Changing the subject, I asked: “A lot of folks in town you don’t know, Corwin?”

“Well I should say,” the man answered. “Crossing’s full of strangers since Victorio started to play hob.”

“Thing is, I’m looking for a man by the name of Lafe Wingo,” I said. “Him and three brothers who go by Hank, Charlie and Ezra Owens.”

“Friends of yours?” Doan asked, a wary suspicion tingeing his voice. Corwin Doan had the Western man’s ingrained reluctance to impart information about men who might be on the dodge, and me, I didn’t have it in me to hold it against him none.

“Just acquaintances, Corwin,” I said, trying to keep my face unreadable. “I’m a mite concerned about their whereabouts, what with the Apaches an’ all.”

Well, Doan thought about that some, then reached a decision. “Lafe Wingo and the Owens boys rode through three days ago,” he said. “They put their horses up here for a couple of hours while they drank at the store. Then they left.”

Three days. I was far behind them and the distance between us was widening fast.

Doan must have seen the disappointment in my face, because he said: “Dusty, the Apache troubles are flaring up worse and worse. I’m guessing those boys will ride careful and hole up somewheres until Victorio moves on or the army gets him. I’m sure you’ll catch up with them, if that’s your intention.”

“It’s something like that, Corwin,” I replied. “As I said, they’re only passing acquaintances.”

“Strange though, Dusty, mighty strange.”

“What’s so strange?”

“That a nice young feller like you would be acquainted with Lafe Wingo and them. Those boys never done me no harm, mind, but Uncle Jonathan told me the whole passel of them are killers and outlaws.”

“They are killers, Corwin. And Lafe Wingo is the worst of them, a sight deadlier with a gun than good ol’ John Wesley or Clay Allison or any of them.” I shrugged, forcing a smile, trying to make light of it. “And you’re right, I guess I do tend to have some mighty unusual acquaintances.”

I could tell that Doan figured I was keeping something back, but he decided not to push me further. He looked out at the lashing rain and the black sky and said: “Dusty, the hotel is full with so many folks coming in, but you can bed down here for the night. The barn is warm and dry and it will still only cost you two bits and I have good strong coffee here in the morning.”

“I’m obliged, Corwin,” I said. “I reckon I’ll walk over to the store and get me a beer and see the sights, then head back this way.”

“Step careful, Dusty,” Doan warned as I made to walk into the rain and the gathering night. “There are some rough ones in town.”

I waved a hand in acknowledgment and headed toward the general store, passing sprawling cattle pens, the blacksmith shop and the hotel.

When I reached the front of the store, a long, peaked-roofed adobe building, I kicked off clinging mud from my boots on the flagstone steps, then walked inside.

Doan’s general store was a single room, with piled-up merchandise of all kinds at one end and a rough-hewn pine bar at the other.

The crowd had thinned out now the hour was growing late. A couple of tired-looking men in faded soldier blue gazed gloomily into the bottom of empty glasses and four punchers shared a bottle at one of the two tables in the place. A grizzled old-timer sat by the potbellied stove smoking a reeking pipe and Jonathan Doan, lord of all he surveyed, stood sentinel behind the bar.

I tarried for a while at the merchandise, wondering at the breathtaking luxury and plentitude of it all.

Spread before me were racks of gleaming new Winchesters, stacked boxes of cartridges and wide-brimmed Stetson hats brought all the way from Wichita Falls. Shirts in every color of the rainbow were neatly folded row on row and among them boots and shoes with a notice that read: FOOTWEAR SOLD AT COST. From the rafters hung great slabs of sowbelly bacon, salt pork and smoked hams and arranged around the floor stood kegs and barrels of molasses, vinegar, flour and soda crackers. Rounds and thick wedges of yellow and white cheeses under glass domes competed for space on the counter with jars of spices, sugar, pink candy canes and black-striped peppermint balls.

The store smelled of plug tobacco, fragrant Virginia ham, the leather of boots and belts, fresh ground coffee, gun oil and the sweet, musty tang of calico and cotton cloth in bolts.

Me, I was so enthralled, counting through the round silver dollars in my pocket and mighty wishful for more, that it took me a few moments to realize Jonathan Doan was talking to me.

I turned and found him at my elbow. As his nephew Corwin had done, he said: “You’re late getting back, Dusty.”

And as I had told Corwin, I said I’d been delayed in Dodge because of Simon Prather’s illness. I made no mention of the thirty thousand dollars or Lafe Wingo.

“Well”—Doan sighed after I’d said my piece—“I take that news mighty hard. Simon Prather is a good man.”

“Indeed he is,” I said, letting it go at that.

Jonathan Doan was a small, bearded man with keenly intelligent, penetrating brown eyes and a gentle way about him. He was an Ohio Yankee but I didn’t hold that against him, and he was a Quaker, and I didn’t hold that against him either.

“So what can I do you for, Dusty?” Doan asked, smiling.

“I need supplies, Mr. Doan,” I replied. “But I figure those can wait until morning. Right now I could use a beer.”

Doan, not a drinking man himself, nodded. “Then step right up to the bar.”

I crossed the room in a sudden silence, my spurs chiming. The reason for the stillness became apparent when I noticed one of the punchers at the table, a huge man with a thick mane of yellow hair, looking me up and down, with downright mean belligerence in his bloodshot eyes.

The others in the room, sensing as I did that the big puncher was on the prod and had sized me up as his victim, eyed me warily as I stepped to the bar.

“What will it be, Dusty?” Doan asked. There was a concerned edge to his voice and I guessed he was also aware of trouble brewing.

I ordered a Bass Ale, and while Doan bent down to find the bottle, I opened my slicker and moved it slowly away from my holstered Colt. I did it so casually I figured no one noticed, nor it seemed had they.

One of the soldiers caught my eye and his glance held a warning. He nodded slightly toward the door, telling me I should leave. I ignored the man and turned to the bar as Doan proffered me my beer.

“See any Apaches on your travels, young feller?” the old-timer by the stove asked, whether to break the tension or because he was blissfully unaware of what was happening I could not tell.

“Uh-huh, tangled with a passel of them north of here,” I said, sampling the ale. It was cold and good.

The big puncher guffawed. “Yeah, sure you did. Why, you ain’t old enough to have left your momma’s teat. You didn’t tangle with no Apaches. A passel o’ them my ass.”

Now a couple of things displeased me about this man. The first was that he’d called me a liar, the second that he sported a fine, sweeping dragoon mustache that put to shame the fuzzy growth on my top lip.

But I was in no mood for a fight, so I let it go. “Believe what you want,” I said, shrugging. “Makes no never mind to me.”

I turned back to the bar and said to Doan: “Beer is real good, Mr. Doan.”

I felt a rough hand on my shoulder that half-turned me round and the huge puncher stuck his face into mine, whiskey heavy on his breath. “Doan,” he said, “bring a bottle. I’m gonna teach this whippersnapper how to drink like a man.”

“Let it be, Burt,” Doan said. “This boy means you no harm.”

The man called Burt grinned, his eyes bright and cruel. “Aw, Doan, I won’t hurt him too bad. All I’m gonna do is pour some of your rotten whiskey down his throat.”

I sized this man up as a mean drunk and a remorseless bully. He was huge, six inches taller than me and maybe sixty pounds heavier, the kind smaller men are all too willing to step around.

But now I was getting good and mad and maybe he saw something in my eyes because he took a single step back and his grin slipped a little.

“Mister, I don’t want your whiskey,” I said. “I’m wet and tired and I’m not here to borrow trouble, so let me be.” I moved my slicker again, clearing my gun. “You’ve been duly notified. Let me be.”

At heart this man was a coward used to knocking around men who were weaker and scared of him. But I wasn’t afraid, and he knew it, because Burt dug deep, found no reserve of courage and retreated into bluster.

“When I say you drink with me, you’ll drink with me,” he yelled, turning to his grinning compadres at the table, seeking their support. The man knew he had gone way too far to back down, and though I’d given him an out, his pride wouldn’t let him take it. He swung back to the bar. “Damn you, Doan, I told you to bring a bottle.”

“Mister,” I said again, “I don’t want your whiskey. I’m not partial to it.”

Burt jerked the bottle from Doan’s hand, pulled the cork and held the whiskey high. “Open your trap,” he said. “You’re either gonna drink like a man or be carried out of here with two broken legs.”

Me, I’d had enough. I was tired and wet and as far as I was concerned this hoedown was over.

Two things happened very fast. First, Burt grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me toward him, the splashing bottle poised so he could ram it into my mouth. Second, I palmed my Colt and slammed the barrel hard against the side of his head.

For a moment the man just stood there, looking at me with glazed eyes that rolled like dice in his head. Then he collapsed to the floor with a crash that shook the building, as though an anvil had just dropped on his head.

I swung the Colt, covering the three punchers at the table, but not a one of them even twitched an eyelid. Three pairs of eyes regarded me in stunned horror, like I’d just scared them into salvation and Sunday school.

“Yee-hah!” The old man by the stove sprang to his feet, spry as you please, and threw his arms into the air. “Man, oh, man,” he yelled, “I never seen nobody draw a Colt that fast. Boy,” he hollered at me, “you’re quick as double-geared lightning an’ no mistake.”

I ignored the oldster and spoke to the punchers at the table. “The man at my feet was duly notified,” I said. “Any of you three have a problem with that?”

The youngest of the punchers, a boy about my own age, shook his head. “We got no problem with you,” and after a moment’s hesitation, he added, “mister.”

I nodded to the fallen Burt. “Then carry him out of here and let him sleep it off.”

The three waddies rose as one and helped their limp, groaning compadre to his feet. I watched them carry Burt through the door before I turned back to the bar.

Jonathan Doan was looking hard at me, a strange expression that I found difficult to read in his eyes. “You’ve grown up, Dusty,” he said finally. “I’d say you’ve grown up considerable since the spring.”

He reached under the bar, found another bottle of Bass Ale and slid it across the bar.

“This one’s on me, Mr. Hannah,” he said.