Wicked Wyoming Nights (40 page)

“I’ve been working on this number for weeks. Croley’s virtually promised it to the boys tonight.”

“Then give it to them. I don’t see why you’ve got to come bothering me about it.”

“Because I can’t do my act without this damned dress!”

“Then you’re in trouble. I got this dress to do for Miss Eliza, and with the cooking and having to stay after those cleaning girls, I haven’t had time to sew on these ruffles. Sure is a lot of them” she said, dipping her hand into the pile and letting them cascade back onto the table. “Don’t know when I’ll get done. Guess those cowboys will have to wait a bit longer for you to kick up your heels in a dress you ought to be ashamed to wear.”

“So that’s it. It isn’t proper enough for you.”

“No, that
isn’t
it, but it’s all you need to know.”

“I’ll speak to Mr. Blaine about this.”

“And what do you think he’s going to do? Find himself somebody else who’ll cook up three meals a day, keep this place swept out, and sew shameful dresses for you to go chasing after Mr. Cord? You go and tell him, and don’t be slow getting back here with his answer.”

Iris changed her tactics. Lucy was a pearl beyond price and she knew Croley wouldn’t do anything to cause her to leave.

“I
knew
Eliza was at the bottom of this, but I never thought she’d stoop to such a low trick.”

“You watch what you say about Miss Eliza,” Lucy said, firing up. “She wouldn’t do anything underhanded, not even when she ought to,” she commented in disgust. “But I will,” she declared in warlike tones.

“You won’t get away with this,” Iris fumed.

“With this and a whole lot more,” Lucy taunted, smugly confident of her position. “Of course, things might be a lot different if you was to get your claws out of Mr. Cord. Who knows how many dresses I’d be willing to run up for you.”

“You can’t blackmail me, you old witch. Eliza threw Cord over. I even asked her if it was all right to go after him.”

“What did you expect her to say? She ain’t about to empty out her poor broken heart to a painted hussy like you.”

“Call me a hussy once more, and I’ll slap you silly.”

“Not with a broken arm you won’t.”

“Croley will certainly hear about this.”

“Tell anybody you want. It’s just going to make you look foolish when I tell them I haven’t got the slightest notion what you’re talking about.”

“Do you really think I’m going to give up on Cord just so you’ll sew up some measly dress? If I were to marry him, I could buy up this whole damned saloon and throw you out into the street.”

“There ain’t no use in trying to bring down an eagle with a peashooter,” Lucy said scornfully. “There ain’t nothing about you Miss Eliza can’t beat to flinders.”

“I’m a damned good-looking woman.”

“You’ll do fine for the likes of Mr. Croley, but you can put Mr. Cord out of your mind. He loves Miss Eliza, and they’re going to get married.”

“They’ll have to start talking to each other first.”

“That’ll happen a whole lot sooner if you don’t show your face every time he comes around. It takes the bloom off things right smart.”

“I imagine it does,” said Iris with a satisfied grin. “Cord hasn’t ignored me yet.”

“He’d take notice of the kitchen garbage if it was dumped at his feet. You wait till someone comes around
asking
to see you before you start to crow.”

“I want this dress done by tomorrow,” Iris demanded, livid with fury. “If not, I’ll fasten your hide to the wall with your own pins.”

“Ain’t nobody put on this earth to have all her wants satisfied, but I’ll see what I can do,” Lucy relented, going back to her sewing and blatantly dismissing Iris, who turned on her heel and stormed down the hall, where she slammed the door so hard that downstairs the top row of glasses danced merrily along the shelf.

Cord followed the quaking clerk into the inner office of Sanford Burton’s Buffalo National Bank. The man had never seen Cord before, but he had fed on the idle remarks made by waiting customers, and unable to separate the reasonable from the fantastic, believed everything he’d heard. Cord’s imposing statue, his brusque demand for Mr. Burton, and the unmistakable air of dark displeasure made the clerk so nervous that, as he later told his wife, he was unable to swallow more than two bites of his lunch.

Cord came to a halt two steps inside the door and leisurely passed the occupants of the room under review. In an unconscious gesture, he pulled the brim of his hat a little lower over eyes that seemed to have already receded into his head. Cord had never been a member of the Association, but it only took him a few seconds to realize he was face to face with the owners or foremen of every major cattle operation in two counties, and every nerve in his body was alert.

“I’m not sure you all know Mr. Stedman,” Burton said, rising to greet Cord, “but I asked him to join us.”

“We’ve met,” said Chet Winfield, the roundup boss who had gotten in trouble for selling Cord unbranded calves at prices reserved only for Association members.

“We’ve done business from time to time,” said another. But most were meeting for the first time a man they had heard a lot about and one they had come to fear, distrust, or respect as their interests happened to agree with or run counter to Cord’s. A somber, unattractive lot on the whole, they nodded a greeting without getting up to shake his hand. Cord returned their salute with an equally noncommittal nod and took a seat next to the door.

“The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the rustling that’s a continual drain on your herds and is threatening to reduce your revenues to nothing,” explained Sanford.

“I’m not here to discuss,” grumbled one owner, rising to his feet. “I’m here to
do
something. Everybody knows the courts won’t do a damned thing about the rustlers that infest Johnson and Natrona counties. It’s time we took things into our own hands. You don’t see Montana having trouble with rustlers, not after they hanged every one they could get their hands on.”

“I don’t think we should consider a vigilante action—”

“Then we might as well all go home. We’ve tried everything else and gotten nowhere.”

“That’s why I invited Mr. Stedman,” Sanford interposed quickly. “I thought he might share some of his methods with us.”

“Besides breaking arms,” one man said derisively.

“Men with broken arms don’t steal cows,” Cord said simply.

“Yes, well, you have to catch them first, and they don’t exactly stand.”

“You have to be on the spot. Lying snug in your bed isn’t going to catch rustlers.”

“But our men can’t be depended upon to do anything once we find them. Half the time they look the other way, and the other half they just let the rustlers run right over them.”

“You’ve got to give them a reason to fight. No man is going to face death for somebody else’s property unless he feels he has something to gain.”

“What do you suggest?”

“A decent wage, year-round employment, and letting them have a piece of the game.”

“What do you mean by that?” the first owner asked suspiciously.

“I let any man who can save enough money buy a few head and run them with mine.”

“But they’re using your grass.”

“They’re also watching my cows with sharpened vision.”

“But you’re already paying them to do that.”

“No hand will face a rustler’s gun for thirty dollars a month, but if he has his own cows to watch, he’ll stay in the saddle an hour longer, ride over one more ridge, or inspect a boxed canyon even though it will make him late for supper. He tells me everything he sees because he identifies his cause with mine, and I have his expert skills year after year instead of losing him in the annual turnover.”

“But what you’re suggesting will cost a lot of money. We’re losing too much already.”

“This policy has enabled Cord to put together one of the largest spreads in our area.”

“That and buying mavericks at ten dollars a head.”

“You do it,” countered Cord. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re not a member of the Association,” one man said boldly, “and I don’t see any reason why you should have been taken off the blacklist.”

“Just because I’m better at ranching than you is no reason to think I’ve done anything illegal, Gene. If you’d get off your ass, you’d be able to turn a profit too.”

Gene started up from his chair, but when Cord calmly rose to his feet, contrasting his six-foot, four-inch, well-muscled body to Gene’s shorter and fatter one, the man’s fury sputtered ludicrously.

“You even allowed rustlers to invade your roundup last spring and cut out the best steers right from under your nose,” added Cord.

“They were armed,” Gene protested, “and they were gone before I could get my crew together.”

“When that same gang stole one of my herds, I went after them
into Montana
. They were armed then too, but you can bet they won’t try it a second time.”

“That’s fine for you, you don’t have a wife and children, but the rest of us can’t be throwing ourselves in front of a gun for the fun of it. I still say we ought to back the Association. They’ve promised to send help come spring.”

“What are they planning to do?”

“That’s still a secret, but the Association secretary assures me come fall there won’t be any rustlers left in Wyoming.”

“What’s the cost?”

“No more than five or six hundred each, and that’s less than the cost of two steers. Think how much well save.”

A spirited discussion followed, but everyone agreed the cost would more than be made up for by their savings.

“Are you with us, Stedman?” Gene asked.

“I don’t need help.”

“Then you’re against us.”

“I’m not
against
anybody. I just don’t need to pay outsiders to defend my property? He stood up. “You won’t want me listening to your business, so I’ll leave.”

Sanford Burton hurried after him. “Don’t turn your back on us, Cord.”

“Why are you siding with them, Sanford? You don’t have any cattle.”

“They’re my customers.”

“If you don’t unhitch your wagon from that runaway team, you’re going to end up smashed to pieces. Sounds like they’re up to something dangerous. This county is hot enough to blow sky high right now. All it needs is one fool with a match.”

“But these are the men with power. You ought to be one of them. Remember what I said about being willing to help a son-in-law? That son-in-law would have to stick by me too.”

“I’m not going to be your son-in-law, and if you keep bothering me about it, I’m liable to pull my money out of your bank and start my own. There’re a lot of people who would welcome an alternative to doing business with the Buffalo National.”

“Don’t threaten me, Stedman. I can destroy you.”

“I’m just saying I don’t need your friends in there, but I’m not afraid to butt heads with you. I beat them, I can beat you.”

“You’re a fool to think you can stand alone against the Association.”

Cord opened the door on the quaking clerk. “But not a stupid fool, Sanford. And you are.”

He departed, leaving Sanford cursing and the clerk hopping with excitement. At last he was seeing the violence and passion of the West at first hand, and the excitement was almost too much for the clerk’s thin blood.

“And I think every saloon in Buffalo should be closed on Sunday. It’s disgraceful for our citizens to get drunk before Reverend Fry has even started his sermon.” Jessica had invited Buffalo’s most influential citizens to a special meeting to discuss the increasing rowdiness of the habitués of the town’s many saloons, and her parlor was filled with a confused babble of protest and assent.

“And you men needn’t think you can shout me down, and then proceed undeterred in your greedy attempts to extract the last possible dollar from those unfortunate men,” Jessica said sternly, refusing to yield the floor. “Everyone, including the ladies, shall have their say before a decision is taken.” There was a chorus of groans from the men.

Sanford Burton succinctly expressed the position of the saloon keepers when he said there was no point in closing their doors to dollars that were going to be spent “in Sheridan or Douglas, if not in Buffalo. The men need somewhere to eat and sleep. You ladies forget our saloons provide many more services than just access to fine liquor.”

There were several derisive hoots at that, mostly from the men.

“What you say is all fine and good,” said Ella Baylis, her powerful voice carrying easily throughout the noisy room, “but nobody’s objecting to giving people dinner and a place to sleep. What we don’t like is to see a street full of stumbling drunks on our way to church.”

The women signified their agreement in chorus, and the battle was joined. The issue swayed back and forth, first toward the ladies and the moralists in the group, and then back toward the merchants and the business interests. Soon the lines were firmly drawn, and sharp words began to stray from the issue of saloons into the arena of personal remarks.