Return of Little Big Man (25 page)

But I had lost some of this sense, else I would of reacted right away to the barking dog, there on the dirt road out front, though I might be excused in part by the fact that my room was at the rear of the building.

Ordinarily when you heard shots in Dodge, you did better to stay where you was so long as it weren’t in the line of fire, for onlookers often took strays or ricochets—and as bad as it might be to get shot by an intentional enemy, for my money it’s worse to get hurt by chance in somebody else’s fight—but that sixth sense that failed me in not being roused by the barking now come into play, and quick pulling on a pair of pants so I wouldn’t be caught again as at the Indian school (though now, in January, I was wearing longjohns) and putting on my boots, I run out in the street, where believe it or not who did I see but old Pard, that dog I left behind in Cheyenne several years before!

It was lucky I got there when I did, for the drunk who had been shooting at him but missed was about to try again. This fellow could hardly stand up let alone point a gun accurately, but he wanted to keep trying and when I objected he allowed as how he’d be as happy to kill me first before doing so to this damned mutt.

“Hold on,” I says. “I’m on your side. I can’t sleep for that barking. But you’re a little under the weather. Let me do it for you.”

I held out my hand for his gun, but a man in that condition never believes he has a weakness, so he didn’t give it to me. But he hesitated slightly before turning it back on Pard, and I grabbed the weapon off him, kicked him in the shins to bring his face down, and smashed the heavy barrel of the pistol, Earp-style, on his head, crushing the hat and knocking him down and out, there at the edge of the street.

Having unloaded what was left in the cylinder, I dropped the gun into the standing water of the nearest fire barrel and went back to where Pard was waiting with wagging tail and dangling tongue.

“Pard!” I says. “You old son of a gun! How’d you get here?” You know how people talk to dogs, as if they’re going to get an answer, but I wanted to distract myself from the guilty feelings I had about leaving him at our camp outside Cheyenne, which, the way these things go, was worse now that I seen him again than when I did it.

Now if you know only the kind of pets ladies keep indoors, or even sporting hounds, and so on, you might expect old Pard to make a greater display than he done when he seen me for the first time in more than three years, having tracked me over hundreds of miles, but just as he weren’t the type to bear a grudge, thank goodness, he had lived the sort of life in which the interests of survival tended to hold down emotional demonstrations, in which he reminded me of myself, so we never hugged or anything, but I was real glad to see him, a feeling which alternated with amazement at his feat, which exceeded anything I had heard of at the time, though in the many years since, now and again dogs have somehow followed their families at greater distances on foot while the humans used the motorcar, so when I tell about Pard it might be easier to believe than the experiences I relate concerning historical personages, though all are equally true.

Anyway, I says, “I’m sure glad to see you, partner. You’re looking real well.” Which was a polite lie, for the tip of one of his ears was missing, with a ragged edge indicating something had chawed it off; his left eye he kept squinted almost shut; his hide was a shade lighter and redder owing to a coat of dried mud; and he limped bad on his left forefoot. Add a few burrs, and a streak of black-green at his neck from some cowflop he had rolled in, as dogs do, and you had the picture. Owing to the last-named, he had an even higher odor than usual, bringing him to almost the stink of that drunk, who now indicated with a groan that he was, unfortunately, alive, so when a deputy marshal showed up in response to them shots, I told him about the illegally carried weapon, now in the fire barrel, and took Pard to a pump back of the nearby stable, where I drenched him with several gallons of water and washed off the filth though it was right cold and him and me was both shivering, but when he had shook hisself, wetting me further with the spray, and I dried him with an old horse blanket, he looked 100 percent improved. I judge that was the first real bath Pard ever had, and he didn’t like any part of it. I reckon at that moment he might of regretted tracking me down over all that time and distance, but I made it up to him by buying him a big breakfast heavy on meat.

Now that he had a smell not so high as most of the people thereabout, I had no hesitation in giving him a home in my room, and though the management wasn’t too keen on this, it was the off season, the cattle drives generally taking place only during the warmer months, and the extra, and exorbitant, fifty cents a week I paid for Pard’s rent was welcome. But I never took him to work with me, even though the Lone Star too was in its quieter season: it was not the place for a decent dog. Anyhow he was an outdoor animal, so he roamed free while I was working, out in the countryside if I knew him, but by the same means by which he had tracked me throughout the years, he always knowed what time I got off even when I put in part of an extra shift if some other barkeep never showed up, and was waiting outside.

First time I run into Bat in the street while Pard was at my heels, I say, “Look who’s here.”

Bat stares around and then asks, “Where?”

“Right there,” I says, pointing down. “Remember that dog I had in Cheyenne? You bought him a big steak.”

He nods and says vaguely, “Uh-huh.” But I doubt he did.

“This very animal! He followed my trail over all that distance. It took him three years, but he got here.”

“Sure he did, Jack,” says Bat, with his familiar smirk.

“Dammit, Bat, I’m serious. This is the one.”

“Listen, Jack, I’m heading for Tombstone day after tomorrow. Are you on for it?”

“I am if Pard can come along.”

“Who’s Pard?”

“It’s this here dog I’m telling you about.”

Bat grinned some more, only now with a certain impatience, nodding his derbied head. “They won’t let him on the train.”

“Him and me will ride in the baggage car.”

“Then who am I going to drink with?”

Having a friend like Pard give me the nerve to stand up to the great Bat Masterson. “Well,” I says, “that’s the only way I’ll go.”

Bat thought about it for a minute and then, pushing up the brim of his derby with his gloved thumb, he says, “I admire loyalty. If they let him on, I won’t object.”

Bat by the way was ever the dandy. For winter he had him a real handsome long black wool overcoat with a thick collar of beaver fur. So you won’t think him a
heemaneh
I might just mention that whenever he took up residence in Dodge he generally lived with a sporting woman.

G
OING TO TOMBSTONE FROM
Dodge in early ’81 involved three separate train rides as well as two spells on different stagecoaches, none of which phases was rapid transit, and all of which was fairly uncomfortable, inconvenient, and dangerous owing to much of the passage being across hostile Apache territory. I of course had an additional problem with Pard, whose presence did not inspire good will in many, if any, but him and me made a lot of compromises, me riding with him in freight cars, then him tolerating being tied on top of the stages, amidst the luggage, and we eventually arrived at Tombstone only slightly the worse for wear, which was an old story with us.

The Oriental saloon and gambling house was Bat’s destination on reaching town, for he heard from the shotgun rider on the stage from Benson, the final leg of our trip, that Wyatt had bought a quarter interest in the gaming room there, but I said I’d be along later, as I wanted to find a hotel or rooming house where they would let Pard share my quarters, for pitching a tent out in the surrounding desert never appealed to me, and the dog, coming from the Black Hills, wasn’t familiar with the godforsaken terrain of southern Arizona, looking at which as we bumped over it on the stage, I wondered what in hell I was doing there. By the way, on that last ride Bat agreed with me (and it won’t come as a surprise that the driver and the other passengers agreed with what Bat decided) that the dog required protection against the fierce sun, and Pard rode inside the coach.

Tombstone had been in existence for a couple years by now and thus was almost fancy compared to the Deadwood I had knowed in its rawest days, with two fine hotels facing each other across Allen Street, on a block otherwise occupied almost entirely by saloons, and Schieffelin Hall, around the corner and down Fourth, the local opera house and the biggest adobe structure in the U.S.A. The better buildings was of adobe, a new material to me and right attractive, the trouble was you had to live in a place with a burning sun and a water shortage to use it. The rest, and in fact most, of the center of town was hastily built of lumber, which was true of most everything beyond the center, and it soon occurred to me that the place was a fire waiting to happen, given the dry heat of the air even in what elsewhere would be the middle of winter and the open flames used for cooking and all types of artificial lighting in them days. So one of my concerns in looking for a place to stay was how much of a firetrap it might be, which immediately ruled out anything above the ground floor, for though I could let myself down by rope from the window of a burning room, that might be hard to do with Pard.

You might notice the special attention I was paying to the welfare of a dog and think it foolish or immoral to take an animal that serious, but I tell you I never knowed no other creature who craved my company so much it would trail me for three years and across several states, through territory that, judging from his scars, was not markedly friendly.

We wandered around for a while, taking in the sights, like a restaurant called the Maison Doree, which had a dinner menu pasted up outside listing a number of dishes that looked misspelled to me, like “boeuf” and “pore,” though what did I know with no education, and I sure couldn’t afford to eat there, for I expect you couldn’t of got out the door without spending at least a dollar.

But reading the menu reminded me we hadn’t ate in a spell, so I bought a hunk of bread at one store and then got some boiled ham at the nearby butcher shop of a man named Bauer, for to make a big sandwich, and while I was there I asked the butcher, a heavy-set fellow in a bloodstained apron, if he could recommend a place to get a room.

He smiles and says, “Fly.”

“Thank you kindly,” I says and, there being no ladies present, I reached down to do up the buttons, but it turned out I had misheard the meaning, which the butcher cleared up.

“Camillus Fly,” says he. “He takes pitchers. They’re good but they cost too much, and then his wife comes in here and complains about the price of meat.”

“I don’t require a photographer at this time,” I says. “What I need is a room.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” says he, wiping his big gory knife on a wet rag. “His missus lets rooms.”

The place was just two doors along Fremont Street, past the assay office where silver claims was filed, and Pard and I strolled there, sharing that sandwich I slapped together while walking, for we was not given to niceties. I did however linger in front of Fly’s house till I swallowed what I had chewed. If I wished to bring a dog onto the premises I didn’t want to show coarse manners to boot.

But before I had gotten the crumbs brushed off the lapels of my coat, the front door opened and who should step out but my former Dodge City dentist, Dr. John H. Holliday. And after him a lady of the type the French had a name for, I learned when visiting their country with Cody’s show, something on the order of
jolly-lard
(though having nothing to do with the English words), which means attractive and ugly at the same time. This lady had strong features but lively eyes and a figure you couldn’t miss dressed as she was in clothes that made the most of her bosom and hips.

Holliday give me a cold once-over, no doubt checking for visible weapons, then looked away, showing no sign of recognition, but his female companion smiles sugar and spice, dropping her eyes quick then raising them slow.

“How-de-do, sir,” says she. “You got a real nice dog for yourself.”

Doc looked like he was gritting his teeth under that mustache of his, but it might of been he was just fixing to cough. Old Pard liked this flirty gal, and he cocked his head with the torn ear and wagged his ragged tail at her.

I just said, “Ma’am,” and touched the brim of my hat. I continued awhile to steel myself against a possible late recognition by Doc, but he had undoubtedly been in so many real fights since what turned out to be an empty threat on my part, and killed so many enemies by gun or knife, as to empty his memory of the incident with me, if it ever registered on him in the first place.

So they went on, and I goes to the door and knocks, but when Mrs. Fly opens it she tells me the place is full up at that time, so we never did get into the matter of keeping a dog. But it was Pard who finally found us a home.

We had got out Fremont beyond First Street, where the houses was real close together and so little it looked unlikely there’d be spare rooms to rent, and I was ready to head back when a small woman comes along the road carrying a number of parcels, one of which slips from her grasp as she is turning into a house just ahead, but she don’t notice it at all.

“Excuse me, ma’am!” I hollers, startling Pard, who never heard me raise my voice before, and he kind of shies away.

The little woman looks questioningly at me, still not seeing the fallen item, so while saying she’s dropped something and doffing my hat, I walk close enough to pick it up myself. It was wrapped in paper and real light.

“Why, thank you kindly,” says she. “You are a real gent of the sort I wouldn’t look for in this town—excepting my husband of course.”

You might say I was disappointed in coming across a woman built on my own proportions, with a nice personality and a sweet face to match, to find her already married, but you’d be wrong. What I felt for her right away was affection of a brotherly kind. Maybe we was related in a past life, like they say. No, she weren’t one of my long-lost sisters from that wagon train years ago. However, she did have a connection to somebody I knowed.