Butler's Wager

CHAPTER 47

When Butler woke the next morning it was a beautiful day. From his window he could see that the sky was clear, the sun was out, everything looked fresh and clean—well, as fresh and clean as it could look in Dodge City. Buckboards and horses kicked up enough dust to choke a horse, but that was to be expected. All things considered it was a fresh, new day and anything was possible.

He dressed and left his room for breakfast. As he did a door opened further down the hall and Trixie stepped out. She didn’t see him and headed for the stairs, looking a bit rumpled but beautiful, in the same dress she’d worn last night. As he passed the room she’d come out of he saw that it was Ben Thompson’s.

“Good for you, Ben.”

He took breakfast in the hotel dining room again, eating alone this time. Ben Thompson did not come down the entire time he was there. He probably needed some extra rest this morning, which Butler could well understand.

He still had not had a chance to talk to Thompson about the possibility of watching each other’s back while they were in town. There were just too many possibilities now: Ryerson, somebody who didn’t want him to help Masterson and Brown or—if the bounty hunter wasn’t there for him—somebody else trying for that payday.

He stepped outside, looked up and down the street. Normal hustle and bustle, the kind that a man could easily get lost in if he didn’t want to be seen.

Butler decided to take it easy today. He looked around, found a straight-backed wooden chair and sat in front of the hotel, watching the morning go by. On a rare occasion he’d smoke a cigar, and this morning he felt like one. He nabbed a boy of about ten going by and promised him a quarter if he’d go to the general store and buy a couple of cigars.

“What kind?” the boy asked.

“The kind that are three for a nickel will do.” That way the boy wouldn’t run off with the nickel if he knew he was getting a quarter for making the purchase. “Get me three of them and I’ll give you your quarter.”

“You got a deal, Mister.”

He gave the boy a nickel and sat back in his chair to wait.

The man known as Hank opened his trunk and stared down at the gun and holster. It had been part of his life for such a long time that even now, when he had convinced himself that he’d put it down for good, he couldn’t get rid of it. And now with Ryerson in town he might have to put it back on, or die.

And what about Butler? Should he really have trusted him? What if he went to Ryerson? No, he wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t that kind of man. If it came down to it he’d be able to trust Butler. He’d back the gambler, and the gambler would back him. Of that he was sure.

He closed the trunk and went to fire up the stove.

The gambler Corbin woke and wondered if he ought to quit Dodge. There were opportunities to make money, but there were also opportunities to get killed.

One really wasn’t worth the other, was it?

Ryerson woke in a bad mood. His tongue tasted bad, his head ached, and he wished he’d spent money the night before on women, not on beer and whiskey.

He washed quickly, but took his time over his ritual with his guns. He did his pistol this morning, and his rifle. Before the day was out he’d probably need both.

He went down to the street, found a small café—a different one than last time—and had breakfast. Halfway through his meal he remembered two things.

He remembered that Corbin, the gambler, had a price on his head in Missouri.

And he remembered who the café owner was from the day before.

Suddenly, Dodge City was a treasure trove of bounty money. All he had to do was figure out how to go about getting it all.

A. J. Peacock went to the telegraph office first thing in the morning and sent off a telegram he hoped would solve all his problems. He was tired of counting on idiots like his brother-in-law and the man he hired. He knew Updegraff was probably keeping some of the money he’d given him to hire men, which was why he’d been hiring stumblebums instead of men who were good with their gun.

So Peacock finally decided to open his purse and dig down deep to get the job done.

Jim Masterson was up earlier than most. In fact, he’d slept very little that night. He kept turning over in his mind Neal Brown’s words about selling and getting out. It just rankled him that people would think he left Dodge City with his tail between his legs. What he would rather do was get his money for his share of the Lady Gay and then leave town at his own leisure.

But who was he kidding? What he really wanted to do was get his badge back.

Over a cigar Butler realized that Dodge City was a powder keg. There were just too many guns there. Maybe it wasn’t like the old days when the Earps and Bat Masterson and Bill Tilghman and Charlie Bassett were around, and maybe it wasn’t the volatile situation he’d heard existed in Tombstone at the moment, but it was bad enough that he decided to send a telegram. They needed somebody in Dodge with the ability and the balls to put things right.

He thought he knew just who that would be, but he needed to word the telegram very carefully.

He walked to the telegraph office after breakfast, but stopped short when he saw a man coming out. Butler hadn’t really met A. J. Peacock formally yet, but he knew the man on sight; and Jim Masterson’s partner was coming out of the telegraph office, looking both ways as if worried someone would see him.

Butler waited across the street until Peacock satisfied himself that he wasn’t being watched, and slunk away. Only then did he cross the street and enter the office himself.

“Help ya?” the middle-aged clerk asked. He wore a visor and sleeve garters, like he could have been dealing faro as much as sending telegrams.

“Was that A. J. Peacock who just left here?”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, “but don’t go askin’ me what he was doin’ here. I ain’t allowed to talk about it.”

“Not even if I ask you real nice?” Butler asked, taking out some money.

“Put your money away, friend,” the man said, waving with both hands. “It’d be real nice to have, but my job is nicer, and I got a family to feed.”

“Okay, then,” Butler said, satisfied that the man wouldn’t talk about his telegram, either, “I’ve just got two lines to send myself.”