Showdown at Dead End Canyon

Chapter 2

THE TOWN OF BITTER CREEK, WYOMING TERRITORY, was little more than a fly-blown speck on the Union Pacific Railroad. It had reached its peak when it was End of Track, a “hell on wheels,” with enough cafés, saloons, and bawdy houses to take care of the men who were building the railroad. But as the railroad continued on its westward trek, Bitter Creek lost all of its importance and most of its population. It was gradually beginning to recover, though, and its hearty citizens hung on, waiting for the eventual bounty the railroad was sure to bring.

Two young men, passing through the town, stopped in front of the Boar’s Breath saloon. Swinging down from their horses, they patted their dusters down.

“Damn me, Boomer, if you don’t look like one of them dust devils,” one of the men said, laughing at his friend.

“Yeah, well you ain’t exactly a clean white sheet yourself, Dooley,” Boomer replied. “What do you say we get us a couple of beers?”

“Sounds good to me,” the other man said.

Pushing through the bat-wing doors, the two men entered the saloon and stepped up to the bar. The saloon was relatively quiet, with only four men at one table and a fifth standing down at the far end of the bar. The four at the table were playing cards, the one at the end of the bar was nursing a drink. The man with the drink had a scar that started at his right eyebrow, came through the eye, disfiguring it, slashed down his cheek like a purple lightning bolt, then hooked into the corner of a misshapen mouth.

As the boys stepped up to the bar, the man with the scar looked over at them with an unblinking stare.

“What’ll it be, gents?” the bartender asked.

One of them continued to stare back at the man standing at the end of the bar. He had never seen a face quite as disfigured.

“Dooley?” Boomer said. “The bartender asked what’ll we have.”

“Oh,” Dooley replied. “Uh, two beers.”

“Two beers it is,” the bartender replied, and turned to draw them.

“And I’ll have the same,” Boomer added.

The bartender laughed. “You boys sound like you’ve got a thirst.”

“Just sayin’ we’re thirsty don’t quite get it,” Dooley said. “Why, I got that much dust you could grow cotton in my mouth.”

“Cotton, huh? You boys must be from the South,” the bartender said as he put the two beers in front of Dooley.

“You got somethin’ against the South?” Boomer challenged.

“No, Lord, no,” the bartender said, chuckling. “I’m from southeast Missouri myself. I wore the gray and fought with ol’ Jeff Thompson durin’ the war.”

“We wasn’t neither one of us old enough to fight in the war,” Dooley said.

“But if we had been, we woulda fought with General James Henry Lane of the Texas Fifth,” Boomer said. “He’s my uncle,” he added proudly.

“So, you boys are from Texas, are you?”

“Yes, sir. We just rode up here.”

“It’s a long ride all the way up here from Texas.”

“Sure is. We ’bout rode the legs offen our horses,” Dooley said.

“What brings you to Wyoming Territory?”

“Well sir, we just got a little bit of the wanderin’ fever, so we thought we’d come up here ’n’ see what it’s like,” Boomer said. “We’re pretty good cowhands. Do you know if any ranchers are hiring?”

“Cowhands, huh?” the man with the scar said. It was the first time he had spoken, and he snorted what might have been laughter.

“I beg your pardon?” Boomer asked.

“I’d be willing to bet that you aren’t cowhands at all. More than likely, you’re store clerks, out for a little adventure, and you don’t know the difference between a cowhide and a buffalo turd.”

“Are you hirin’, mister?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone that is hirin’?”

“No.”

“Well, then, whether we are cowhands or not ain’t none of your business, is it?”

“Who did you say your uncle was? Some general?” the scar-faced man asked.

“I said my uncle was General Lane. General James Lane,” Boomer said. He took a swallow of his beer, leaving some foam trapped in his moustache. “You got somethin’ to say about that?”

“I heard of General Lane.”

“Yeah? What did you hear?”

The scar-faced man poured himself another whiskey, then drank it, all the while holding Boomer in a steady gaze.

“I heard he was a cowardly son of a bitch, leadin’ a pack of Texas cowards,” the man replied.

“That’s a hell of a thing to say,” Dooley said, joining the conversation.

“Mister, I expect you’d better take that back,” Boomer challenged.

The bartender leaned across the bar and said, very quietly, “You boys might want to ease up just a bit. Don’t you know who that is?”

“I don’t care if he is Abraham Lincoln,” Boomer said. “I already don’t like the son of a bitch and just met him. And if he don’t shut the hell up, I may just shut him up.”

“Easy, Boomer,” Dooley said, reaching out for his partner. “We’ve come a long way from home, and we didn’t come up here to get into no fight.”

Boomer glared at the scar-faced man, but the expression on the man’s face never changed.

“I ain’t goin’ to just stand by while my own kin and a bunch of brave men are being insulted by some ass-faced son of bitch who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Boomer said.

“Cowboy, no!” the bartender gasped, reaching across the bar. “My God, do you really not know who this is?”

“Whoever he is, I reckon I can handle the likes of him,” Boomer said.

“Boomer,” Dooley said. “Come on, have your beer and leave this be.”

Boomer stared at the man for a moment longer, then, with a shrug, he turned back toward the bar. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll let it go this time. Maybe folks up here just don’t have as much sense as the folks do back in Texas.”

“Texas,” the scar-faced man snorted. “If it weren’t for whores and their bastards, there wouldn’t be anyone in the whole state but Mexicans and coyotes. You don’t look like a Mexican, and you didn’t come in here walking on all fours. I guess that means your mother is a whore.”

“That’s it, mister!” Boomer shouted in almost uncontrolled anger. “I’m going to mop the floor with your sorry hide!” He put up his fists.

The scar-faced man smiled, though it was a smile without mirth. “Well now, cowboy, if we’re going to fight, why don’t we make it permanent?” he asked. He stepped away from the bar and flipped his jacket back, exposing a pistol that he wore low and kicked out, in the way of a gunfighter.

“Mr. Dancer, I’m sure these boys would apologize to you if you asked them for it,” the bartender said. “There’s no need to carry this any further.”

“Dancer?” Dooley said, his voice cracking. “Did you call him Dancer?”

“I tried to warn you boys,” the bartender said. “This is Ethan Dancer.”

“Boomer, back off,” Dooley said. “Back off. My God, you don’t want to go bracing the likes of Ethan Dancer!”

Boomer realized then that he had gotten in much deeper than he ever intended, and he stopped, then opened his fists and held his hands, palms out, in front of him.

“My friend is right,” he said. “There’s no need to carry things this far. This isn’t worth either one of us dying over.”

“Oh, it won’t be either of us, cowboy. It’ll just be you,” Dancer said. He looked over at Dooley. “Both of you,” he added. “You came in here together, you are going to die together.”

Dooley shook his head. “No, it ain’t goin’ to be either one of us. ’Cause there ain’ neither one of us going to draw on you,” he said. “So if you shoot us, it’s goin’ to have to be in cold blood, in front of these witnesses.”

“Oh, you’ll draw all right. You’ll draw first, and these witnesses will say that.”

“They ain’t goin’ to be able to say it, ’cause we ain’t goin’ to draw on you,” Dooley said. He looked over at the four card players, who had stopped their game to watch what was going on. “I want you all to hear this. We ain’t goin’ to draw on Ethan Dancer.”

“Oh, I think you will,” Dancer said calmly, confidently.

“Please, Mr. Dancer, we don’t want any trouble,” Dooley said. “Why don’t you just let us apologize and we’ll go on our way?”

Dancer shook his head. “I’m afraid not, gents. You brought me to this ball, now it’s time to dance with the demon.”

Boomer and Dooley looked at each other, then, with an imperceptible signal, they started their draw. Though the two young men were able to defend themselves in most bar fights, they were badly overmatched in this fight. They made ragged, desperate grabs for their pistols.

So bad were they that Dancer had the luxury of waiting a moment to see which of the two offered him the most competition. Deciding it was Boomer, he pulled his pistol and shot him first. Dooley, shocked at seeing his friend killed right before his eyes, released his pistol and let it fall back into his holster. He was still looking at Boomer when Dancer’s second shot hit Dooley in the neck. He fell on top of Boomer.

Dancer stood there for a moment, holding the smoking gun. He put it back in his holster, poured himself another drink, then turned his back to the bar and looked at the four card players. Their faces registered shock and fear.

“Is there anyone who didn’t see them draw first?” he asked.

“They drew first, I seen it,” one of the card players said.

“Yes, sir, I seen it first too. They drawed first, the both of them.”

“Bartender, you saw it too?”

The bartender was staring down at the two young men who, but a moment earlier, had been laughing and joking with him.

“Did you hear the question, bartender?” Dancer asked.

The bartender looked up at Dancer. His face showed more sorrow than fear.

“You goaded them into that fight, Dancer,” he said. “They was just two cowboys mindin’ their own business, and you goaded them into it.”

“Did they draw first or didn’t they?”

“They drew first,” the bartender said. “But you prodded them until they did.”

Dancer put a silver dollar on the bar. “Give these boys a drink on me, and have one for yourself,” he said.

“A drink, yes,” one of the card players said. “Damn, do I need a drink.”

The four card players rushed to the bar. Dancer reached over and picked up one of the beers Dooley and Boomer had left behind.

A tall, silver-haired, dignified-looking man sat at his breakfast table reading the London Daily Times. Brigadier Emeritus of the Northumberland Fusiliers, Sir James Spencer Dorchester, Earl of Preston, Viscount of Davencourt, was wearing a wine-colored, silken robe. Over the left breast pocket was his coat of arms, a white shield with a blue mailed fist clutching a golden sword, placed at the intersection of a red St. Andrew’s Cross.

The remnants of his breakfast, the bottom half of the shell of a soft-boiled egg, was still in its silver cup. The rind of half a grapefruit and the crust of a piece of toast were pushed to one side.

A balding, older man wearing a morning coat and striped trousers came into the room. Stepping up to the table, he raised a silver teapot.

“Would you care for more tea, sir?” Terry Wilson asked.

Wilson, Dorchester’s valet, had served him for thirty years. Before that he had succeeded his own father in service to Dorchester’s father. In all, the Wilsons had been “in service” to the Earls of Preston for five generations. When Dorchester got ready to leave England, he gave his valet a choice. He would either find a position for Wilson somewhere else, or Wilson could come to America with him.

Wilson could not imagine serving anyone else, so he chose to come to America. Here, even though the trappings of peerage were removed, Wilson continued to maintain a “proper” separation between them. Dorchester would have preferred a less formal relationship between them, but he honored Wilson’s wishes.

“Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Dorchester said as his valet poured the tea.

“Is there anything of particular interest in the Times today, sir?” Wilson asked.

Dorchester took a swallow of tea as he perused the newspaper.

“It says here that Mr. Dickens may come to America to do a series of lectures,” Dorchester said.

“That would be nice,” Wilson replied. “It would give Americans an opportunity to meet one of our really fine authors. I’ll just clear this away, sir.” Wilson took the empty plates and withdrew, leaving Dorchester to read the paper.

The newspaper was actually six weeks old, having made the journey from London to New York by ship, then from New York to Green River, Wyoming Territory, by train. The papers arrived every month in one big bundle, but Dorchester very carefully read them in chronological order, reading only one newspaper per day, and lingering over it during his breakfast.

For the one hour each morning that he devoted to his breakfast and the newspaper, he could almost feel as if he were actually back in England.

Five years ago Dorchester had been a man with a title, a 102-room manor house, and a dwindling financial base. His wife had just died, leaving him with a sixteen-year-old daughter and mounting debts. In a move that some called bold, but most called foolish, Dorchester sold everything he owned and came to America to start a cattle ranch.

Now, his ranch, Northumbria, was one of the largest in the territory, and his twenty thousand head of cattle had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

“Good morning, Father.”

Looking up from his paper, Dorchester smiled at his daughter. Pamela was twenty-one, tall and willowy, with blue eyes and dark hair. She moved with the easy grace of someone unaware of her own beauty.

“Good morning, my dear.”

“Did you sleep on it?” she asked as she took her seat. “Just toast and tea,” she said to Wilson, who stepped up to the table.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did I sleep on what?”

“Come on, Father, you mustn’t tease,” Pamela said. “We talked about it last night, and you said would sleep on it.”

“Oh. You must be talking about your trip to Chicago.”

“Yes. May I go? It’s only three days by train. I’ll stay no more than a week, then I’ll come right back home, I promise. I’ll be gone for two weeks at the most. Please, Father, may I go?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Dorchester said with a stern expression on his face.

“And?” The expression on Pamela’s face was one of concern that he was about to say no.

Suddenly, a big smile spread across her father’s face. “You may go,” he said.

“Oh, Father! Thank you, thank you!” Pamela said. She jumped up from her chair and hurried around the long table to kiss him in appreciation.

Poke Wheeler and Gilley Morris stood in the parlor. Neither had ever been in a house this elegant before now. In fact, it had been some time since either of them had been in a house of any kind.

“Lookie here,” Poke said, running his hand over the back of one of the chairs. “You ever seen leather this soft? What kind of cow you reckon this here leather comes from?”

“I don’t know,” Gilley said. “Maybe they’s special cows that’s got skin like that.”

“Ain’t none that I ever seen,” Poke said. “And I’ve saw lots of cows.”

“Maybe it’s from the kind of cows they got in India or China or somethin’.”

Poke looked at Gilley. “That don’t make no sense. Cows is cows.”

“Not if they are over in China or India, or some such place,” Gilley replied. “The people is different over there. I mean, look at the Chinamen with their eyes and all. Why, I reckon the cows could be different too, and maybe one of the things is, they got real soft skin.”

“I’m goin’ to sit down and see jus’ how soft this is,” Poke said.

Poke had just settled in the chair when the owner of the house came into the room.

“Don’t sit anywhere, don’t touch anything.”

Poke jumped up quickly.

“Do you know what to do? Do you know where to go and what time to be there?”

Poke nodded. “Yeah, we know. Why are you helpin’ us?”

“I have my reasons.”

“And you don’t want none of the money?”

“No. I don’t want any of your money.”

“Listen,” Poke said. “Seein’ as you don’t want none of the money or nothin’, then you must have another reason for helpin’ us. That bein’ the case, you reckon you could see your way clear to lend us just a little money till the job is done? I mean, maybe just enough for us to get us a good supper, and a couple of drinks before we go.”

“I’ll give you five dollars apiece now. But if you get drunk and fail to do your job…well, let’s just say that I will be very disappointed.”

“You don’t be worryin’ none about us. We’ll do our job, all right.”

“I’ll be counting on that. Now, please leave my house. You are smelling up the place.”

“Come on, Gilley,” Poke said. “Let’s go get us some supper.”