Butler's Wager

CHAPTER 53

April 16, 1881

Butler decided to stay in Dodge City for the next week for several reasons. His luck was running so good and he was building up quite a stake for himself. When your luck is going that good you don’t want to break it yourself, you have to wait for it to break on its own.

Secondly he wanted to see the results of the telegram he’d sent. He’d figured it would take about a week, so he waited it out.

Ben Thompson, however, had moved on several days before.

“It’s quiet,” he’d said to Butler, “too quiet, and your damn luck is going too good. Time for me to move on. I know I said I’d watch your back, but that was while I was here.”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me, Ben,” Butler had told him. “You’ve got to do what’s right for you.”

“I know you don’t want to break your string of luck, Butler, but if I was you I’d leave, too. This quiet ain’t gonna last forever. This is what they call a pregnant quiet, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, Ben,” Butler had said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Catch up with you somewhere down the line, then.”

The two men shook hands…

Butler took to sitting in front of the hotel every day now. His mouth started to taste like crap from the cheroots, so he stopped smoking them. Instead, he started whittling. He’d found the same boy who had bought him the first cigars and sent him to buy a block of wood.

“You know what you’re doing there?” Neal Brown had asked him the first day he brought out the wood and knife.

“Yep,” Butler said. “I’m marking time.”

“But can you whittle?” Brown asked. “Do you know what you’re doin’?”

“Oh,” Butler said, “hell no, I don’t.”

So for one full morning Neal Brown tried to give Butler a course in whittling. It didn’t help much, and the more time that went by, the smaller the piece of wood got, and it resembled nothing. At the end of the afternoon, before he quit his position to go and play cards, Butler would clean up all the wood shavings that had fallen at his feet.

He was, indeed, simply marking time.

Updegraff was getting impatient, but Peacock was not.

“I finally got it figured,” Updegraff said to his brother-in-law on the morning of the sixteenth.

“Got what figured?”

“You know when they’re getting’ here, don’t ya? That’s why you’re not impatient.”

Peacock smiled at Updegraff.

“By God, Al, you may not be as dumb as you make out to be.”

“So you do know.”

Peacock produced a telegram from his desk drawer.

“Got this yesterday. They’ll be on the Santa Fe today.”

“Jesus Christ!” Updegraff said. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I told you now,” Peacock said. “You and me, we’re gonna meet that train, Al. And it’s all gonna end today.”

“Well, thank God,” Updegraff said. “The tension’s been killin’ me.”

Peacock laughed.

“Imagine what it’s been doin’ to Masterson,” he said. “And his friends, Brown and that gambler, too.”

“That gambler bothers me,” Updegraff said. “He guns that bounty hunter, and then stays in town. For what?”

“The way I hear it, he’s cleanin’ out every poker player in town.”

“Then maybe one of them should get rid of him for us.”

“That could still happen,” Peacock said, “but stay ready, Al. I’ll let you know when we’re gonna head for the depot.”

“I’ll be ready,” Updegraff said. “I been ready for this for a long time. I’m gonna put a bullet right in Jim Masterson’s back.”

It had not been a good week for Marshal Fred Singer. He was still struggling with what Mayor Webster had told him. He was supposed to stand by and watch Jim Masterson be killed. It didn’t sit right with him, but if he did something about it, he’d be switching sides—again. For at one time he’d been perceived as a Masterson supporter, until he’d accepted the badge they’d taken away from Jim. Now, if he switched back, he’d be branding himself as a man who couldn’t make up his mind which side he was on.

In truth, he was on Fred Singer’s side—he just didn’t know, lately, where that put him.

He got up from his desk and walked to the door. Looking out the window he could see the Lady Gay off to his left, and the Dodge House off to his right, where Butler sat each day, whittling. The man looked completely relaxed. Maybe that was what Singer needed to do, sit out in front of his office with a block of wood, and relax. Let whatever was going to happen happen.

He was sure that would not have been Jim Masterson’s solution if he was still wearing the marshal’s badge.

“Why don’t you go and take a walk?” Jim Masterson said to Neal Brown. “You’re makin me nervous.”

Brown looked across the table at Masterson. They were each nursing a beer. Updegraff was behind the bar, and A. J. Peacock was in the office.

“I got nowhere to go,” Brown said. “I think I’ll just stay here and keep you alive.”

“It’s been a quiet week, Neal.”

“Too quiet.” Brown leaned forward. “Besides, I happen to know there’s a sawed-off behind the bar.”

“Updegraff wouldn’t have the balls,” Masterson said. “I’m just waitin’ for Peacock to leave the office so I can go in.”

“What do you do in there, Jim?” Brown asked. “You’re not the office type. Even when you were marshal you were never in the office, you were always on the street.”

“It’s my office, too.” Masterson said. “It’s not just his.”

“Listen to you,” Brown said. “You’re fightin’ over somethin’ you don’t even want.”

“This ain’t about a desk, Neal.”

Neal Brown spread his arms to indicate the interior of the Lady Gay and said, “I wasn’t talkin’ about the desk.”

Peacock came out of the office, saw that the place had a smattering of patrons, among them Jim Masterson and Neal Brown sitting with their heads together.

He walked over to the bar, waited for Updegraff to finish serving a cowboy, then called him over.

“Go on over to the railroad station and wait for me,” he said. “Take your gun.”

“You bet I will!”

Peacock put his hand on Updegraff’s arm.

“Slowly,” he said. “And go out the back.”

“Okay.” Updegraff started away, then stopped short. “But what about the bar?”

“Lenny’s comin’ in to man the bar,” Peacock said, “Go.”

Updegraff nodded, came out from behind the bar and went through a doorway that led to his room near the back. He’d collect his guns and go out the back door.

Peacock got behind the bar to wait for Lenny, one of the other bartenders. Within the hour he’d be going over to the station to await the arrival of Jason Ruger and his men. He considered drawing two beers and taking them over to Masterson and Brown, to celebrate their last day on earth.

Neal Brown saw Peacock get behind the bar and said, “What the hell is that about?”

“I don’t know,” Masterson said, “but it looks like I can get to the office now.” He stood up without looking over at Peacock and turned to head for the office.

“Jim—”

Masterson looked down at his friend and said, “Neal, damn it, take a walk!”

He turned and continued to the office. Neal Brown stared after him, trying not to be angry. His friend was under a lot of pressure. In the end he decided to do what Masterson suggested and get some fresh air.

For the past several days Butler had taken to walking over to the train depot in the afternoon, when the Santa Fe was due in, to wait and see who got off. The train’s arrival was still a couple of hours away, but his block of wood—the third one he was working on—was almost gone so he decided just to take the walk.

He put what was left of the wood on the chair and headed for the train station at a slow pace.