Winchester 1886 (12 page)

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

She hated it here. Despised the cold. Loathed this home of dirt. Detested that uncouth man she had married. Abhorred this frontier called Kansas. Reviled herself, her weakness, and her stupidity that had brought her into this marriage, and into this filthy place. She could not bear that everlasting wind.

Peggy Crabbe could get away from neither the wind nor the dirt. The wind blew always. Dirt came through the cracks in the door. Once, while she lay in bed, it sifted from the roof, and fell onto her. Not much, really, but it felt like an avalanche. She had awakened screaming, thinking the entire place was caving in on her, for she had read about the awful cave-ins at the mines in the West, and even in the East. Her husband, that fool Matt Crabbe, had come to her, tried to reason with her, and finally had slapped her—which had silenced her screams.

“Nothin' to worry 'bout,” the cad she had married told her.

More dirt sifted from the roof, fell to the quilt her grandmother had made. She couldn't see the designs anymore, could only see the dirt.

“Might be a deer.” Crabbe spoke with excitement, and he left her sitting upright in her bed—
her
bed—for her husband had been sleeping on his bedroll across the room. He grabbed that giant rifle he kept leaning by the front door.

Front
door?

Only
door. And it wasn't much of a door. No lock. Simply a latchstring he would pull in of nights.

He stepped through the door, which slammed shut behind him, then opened, then shut, then opened . . . the wind stirring up the dirt that had piled on the floor. The floor . . . of dirt. When the door flew back open, and held for a moment by a wild gust of wind, she saw the grayness swallow him.

The door slammed again, and she bolted out of the bed, grabbed the string, holding it, like she was a cowboy holding onto a rope. Pulling hard, she refused to let go, refused to let the wind blow open the door . . . again.

She breathed in dust and cold and the wretched odor of whatever he had cooked for their supper. The grayness had swallowed him. He had disappeared in the dirt and the tumbleweeds that blew across their home. If the wind had blown him away, out of her life, she would be free. Free to leave this awful place.

The door pulled open, and since she was pulling on the latchstring, she fell backward as her husband stepped inside.

“What the Sam Hill is you doin'?” he called out, closing the door behind him and setting the bar in place. But the wind still rattled the door. It would rattle all night, and probably all the next day.

It would rattle for all of eternity.

“No deer.” He sighed. “Think it was a coyot'. Nah. Too big for a coyot'. Wolf, most like.” He leaned the rifle against the door, took a cautious step toward her, and then extended his hand. “You fall or somethin', Miss Peggy?”

She nodded.

“Hurt?”

Her head shook. She stared at his hand, rough, calloused, the first joint of his ring finger missing. She couldn't remember how he had lost it—shot off, cut off, or seared off with a lariat. She imagined it as a snake, the fingers fangs ready to strike her, release its venom into her veins. She suddenly thought that would not be so bad at all. She would have to wake up in a better place than this.

She took his hand, but sensed no sharp bite of fangs, only a rough grip that squeezed and pulled, and she felt herself lifted from the floor.

“Sure you ain't hurt?” her husband asked.

“I'm . . . fine.” She began brushing the dirt off the skirt of her nightshirt. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Everywhere. She couldn't escape it.

Her husband moved to the uneven table, sat down, began pulling off his boots.

She kept at the skirt, watching the dirt and dust fall, beating the fabric . . . beating it and beating it....

“Best stop that,” her husband said.

She obeyed, looked at him. Even his face looked like a serpent. His eyes sparkling hypnotically like that rattlesnake that had bitten ten-year-old Marilyn Summers last spring during recess. Her thoughts drifted off to that time, what felt like a thousand years ago, in a place so far, far away.

It had snowed two days earlier. She remembered that. Could not believe that a snake would be out of hibernation, even though it had been warm for about a week before the cold front moved in. Had it been windy then? She couldn't remember. In fact, it amazed her that she could even remember La Crosse, let alone Marilyn Summers, who died.

Died.

Died.

 

 

 

 

“That snake . . .” Peggy still heard that poor girl's wail. “He was like the devil.”

Suddenly, she was back from La Crosse, and again inside this perdition that her husband called a home. She watched him stoking the fire, bringing it back to life, busying himself to heat up yesterday's leftover coffee and corn pone.
Another great breakfast.
Coffee thick as tar, and no honey for the crumbling bread that tasted as if he had used more salt than cornmeal.

Peggy stared straight ahead and knew that she had made a horrible mistake. This home was under the earth. Well, practically. No other person lived anywhere close. Her husband's eyes were like diamonds, like the rattlesnake's. They had mesmerized her, tricked her. His hands . . . not hands. Cloven hoofs. So were his feet. She could really see . . . now that he had removed his boots. His socks were so filthy and full of holes . . . yes, she could see that his feet were likewise cloven hoofs. Why, she could see the tail, the horns, and the pointed ears. She looked at the rifle, but it was no rifle. It was a pitchfork.

Matt Crabbe was the devil. He was after her soul.

“You hungry?” he asked. “Sun'll be up in a half hour. Might as well start our day.”

Start our day
. Another day . . . that lasted an eternity. Another day of wind and dirt. Another day in hell. “I'm not hungry,” she managed to say.

“Got to eat.” He slid the coffee pot onto the grate over the hot coals in the fireplace.

A kitchen. Without an oven.

A home. Without a window.

A husband. Without a soul.

She moved to the table, sat down.

He did not put the bread into the Dutch oven, just pushed the awful stuff into a skillet and set it on the grate next to the pot. “I'll fix you somethin' then I gots to find us some game. That norther left a coat of ice an inch or two thick outside, but I warrant I should find some buck near 'bouts.” He gestured at the pitchfork, which had transformed again into that hideous rifle.

Somehow, she managed to eat, and even wash down the horrible bread with black coffee. She wondered if Lucifer were trying to poison her.

He reached over with his hoof-hands and patted her hand that lay flat on the table by her plate. “I know it's tough. Takes some gettin' used to. But this is gonna be a good place for us. Got water. Good farmland, I'm thinkin'. Don't look like much right now, but it will. We won't always be livin' in this soddy. Don't you fret none 'bout that. Just got to clear the field first, plant some crops, get us some money. And I'm thinkin' that I might could set some traps along that creek. Sell us some skins in town. No, Miss Peggy, by the time our kids are maybe seven, eight years old, we'll have us a fine, fine place. Neighbors'll look on us with envy. Me especially.” The diamonds in his eyes winked. “On account that I got the prettiest wife in western Kansas.”

She stared at him, could not think of anything to say, and slid her hand from underneath his scratchy hoof, and picked up the coffee. She drank, smiling pleasantly at him, trying to think, trying to form a plan.

“Well.” Lucifer drained his coffee and pulled on his boots. He pulled on his Mackinaw, tossed a bandolier of ammunition over his shoulder, grabbed his hat, setting it atop his head, and picked up the pitchfork-rifle. “I'll be back in a few hours.”

He opened the door, letting the coming light brighten their home enough so she could see the dust mites. She could feel the wind, but managed to follow her husband, the devil, outside. She clutched the neck of her nightshirt. It was cold, so cold, and the country was no longer the color of dead grass—beige, brown, ugly. It was white.

Her husband slipped a few times, then grabbed a stick from the woodpile to help him with his balance. He trotted off to the south, but stopped at the edge of the lean-to, and looked back. “You might want to chop up some wood. Stack it inside, in case we get another wet storm. Winter's comin'. Right soon, feels like. I'll be back, Miss Peggy. You just get settled in our home.”

She nodded and he was gone. She looked at the woodpile, at the axe underneath the lean-to, its blade buried deep in the chunk of wood.
Wood.
There wasn't much, just some dry wood her husband, that devil, had scrounged up around the creek. Even that chunk he had brought from La Crosse. You could hardly find a tree in this country, so mostly what they burned in what passed for a fireplace was dung. Dried dung.

The devil was gone.

The idea struck her, and she hurried back inside, leaving the door open, pulling off her nightshirt, dressing quickly in warmer clothes. She picked up her stockings that she had worn yesterday, pulled them on, thought it would take forever to button up her shoes. The scarf went around her neck, and she raced outside, again leaving the door open. Immediately, she slipped on the ice, falling, hitting the ground hard.

She felt like a total idiot. Pain raced up her arm, where her elbow had struck, and she figured the bruises were already forming on her thigh. She pushed herself up, shook her head, and saw her steamy breath. The sun was up, slowly rising, a white globe that seemed to slow, but not stop, the wind.

Tentatively, she rose and gingerly picked a path toward the lean-to. She did not care about the woodpile, about chopping up kindling. The bucket next to the fireplace in that awful home of dirt was full of dung. Antelope droppings. Mule waste. Even ancient discharges of buffalo, practically gone from Kansas for a decade. What fascinated her was the ax.

It took her five minutes to free it from that old chunk. “Bury the blade deep in the trunk,” her husband, Lucifer, had told her earlier. “Keeps the blade free of rust, sharper, too.” She didn't know if she believed that or not, but her husband, the devil, had certainly sunk that blade in deeply. As blisters formed on her fingers, she wondered if she would manage to free the ax.

A trick. Her husband, Satan himself, had fooled her. Tried to exhaust her so she would not be able to put up a fight when he came home this evening to take her soul.

At last, the blade pulled free, and she raised the ax. Heavy. She wanted to rub her finger over its edge, to test its sharpness, but she feared the ax. It looked like a snake's fang. Impossible. But . . .

It did not matter. She had the ax. She knew what she must do.

How do you kill the devil? The same way, she had decided, as you kill a rattlesnake.

You chop off its head.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

 

Danny Waco remembered those good old days—wild and raucous, with cheap booze, cheaper women, and stupid cowboys who expected to be cheated in the gambling dens and promptly were by shady card sharps and crooked roulette rigs. Ogallala sure hadn't changed much with the times, and to him, Tonkawa Tom and Gil Millican, that was a good thing. Oh, the town had grown some, and progress had reached parts of it, but River Street remained a fine place for debauchery. Ogallala seemed just as lawless as it had been back when it was nothing more than a hell-on-wheels along the Union Pacific line. The Pony Express had come through first, then the railroad, but Ogallala's claim to fame came as a cattle town, one that some say rivaled Dodge City. It had catered to cattlemen ever since the burg had been plotted, official-like, back in '75. Plotted, yeah, but nobody had ever gotten around to incorporating it.

The Great Western Trail came through there, bringing cattlemen, cowboys, and longhorn beef to stock the ranges in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and even a few in the rolling hills of western Nebraska's boot heel. Stupid Texas waddies came in and got drunk, and often got killed. Boot Hill, for the longest while the only cemetery in town, had more than a hundred graves. When you realized that the town's population seldom topped more than one-twenty-five, that was saying a lot.

It brought in the likes of Luke Short, a gunman mighty handy with cards, and Sam Bass, an outlaw who'd met his maker down in Texas in the late '70s. And on a clear autumn day of blue skies, a modest wind, and temperatures in the fifties, it brought in Danny Waco.

For three days, Waco had enjoyed all the comforts of Nebraska. He had settled into a high-stakes poker game for some more comfort. What he didn't realize was how fate would soon make Ogallala uncomfortable.

Though the Texas cattle trade wasn't as prominent as it had been before that Texas fever outbreak back in '84—which led to Nebraska banning Texas cattle and ending the trail-herd business—Ogallala hadn't finished sowing her oats.

The stores stood along Railroad Avenue, south of the UP rails. River Street, where the cowboys had raised Cain back in the '70s and '80s, ran south of the rails just above the South Platte River.

The town jail, the lone stone structure along Railroad Avenue's false-fronted frame buildings, sat empty, and the lawdog minded his own affairs. He didn't care what happened in the saloons, gambling dens, and brothels, as long as no one disturbed the business section or made fools out of themselves by the railroad depot where people might see them and get the wrong idea about Ogallala, Nebraska. Nor could anyone cause a ruction and disturb anyone eating at the Ogallala House, because S.S. Gast, the owner, didn't want anyone spoiling his supper or unnerving his chef.

Danny Waco had no plans of disturbing any peace, unless the dealer at the poker table inside the Cowboys Rest riled him. Gil Millican stood with his boot on the brass foot rail at the bar, working on his sixth beer of the day. Some hurdy-gurdy gal stood beside him. A handful of other men lined the bar, and two more card games were being played.

Waco studied his hand. Two jacks, two queens, and the ten of hearts. He checked.

The man in the derby who kept sucking his teeth checked as well.

The skinflint beside him tossed in his cards and swore. “It ain't even good enough to check with.” He reached for his flask. Man was even too cheap to buy whiskey.

The lady gambler bet fifty. The dealer, a gent with a crooked nose and brown bowler, matched the bet, and it was back to Danny Waco . . . who saw their fifty and raised a hundred.

“Checking and raising,” said the dealer, “can get a man killed.”

“So can a crooked nose, bowler hat, and big mouth,” Waco said.

The gambler's face turned ashen. The lady gambler laughed softly, but was already reaching for her chips.

She was all right. Waco decided that he would hate taking all her money.

The teeth sucker folded, saying, as every fool seemed to say, “Too rich for me.”

The skinflint, who had already folded, pushed his chair back. and stood. “I'm callin' it quits, friends.”

Waco watched him weave through the batwing doors.

The lady gambler saw Waco's hundred and raised again. The dealer folded.

Waco wondered about her. Red hair. Green eyes. Not pretty, but not like that soiled dove who was still pestering Gil Millican. Without looking at his cards, Waco called the lady's bet.

The dealer asked, “How many?”

Waco took one. A five of clubs. No help. But two pair, especially jacks and queens, still proved to be a powerful hand.

The lady said, “I'm good.”

“I expect you are,” Waco said, grinning and watching her reaction.

She had none.

Straight? Flush? Nah.
Waco figured her to be bluffing. A good bluff, too. He looked at the stack of cash, coin, chips, and the skinflint's pocket watch. He had made up his mind to call and raise her two hundred, let her sweat that one out, when Tonkawa Tom pushed through the batwing doors and made a beeline for Waco's poker table.

 

 

Jimmy Mann crossed the bridge over the South Platte River, barely pausing to look at the saloons, gambling dens, and brothels that still lined River Street. Late in the year, and late in the life of the once wild and woolly cow town, there weren't as many saloons, gambling dens, and brothels, and certainly not as many horses tethered to the hitching rails out front as in the past. He followed Spruce Street over the rails, past the depot, and to Railroad Avenue, where he found the jail and the marshal's office.

Inside, he found a deputy who sent him to the Platte House.

The lawman, a short, squat man named Munroe was eating an early supper. Jimmy introduced himself. The lawman motioned at the empty chair across from his ham and biscuits, and Jimmy slid out the chair and sat down, resting the battered old Winchester on the tabletop.

Munroe stared at the carbine, pulled out the napkin he had stuck in the neck of his shirt, and dabbed the gravy off his mustache. The napkin dropped onto the table. He pushed back his chair and sized up Jimmy Mann. “What brings a deputy United States marshal to this part of the world?” He reached for his coffee cup.

Jimmy was aware that everyone in the dining room had stopped eating. He couldn't hear a knife scraping a plate or anyone slurping coffee. Outside, through the big window, he saw people walking down the boardwalk, a freight wagon rumbling down Railroad Avenue. Inside, they stared. That Winchester had gotten their attention.

“Danny Waco,” Jimmy answered in a bare whisper.

Munroe left the coffee cup on the table. His hand disappeared. “You sure?”

Jimmy's head shook. “It's a guess.” He knew not to waste time asking the town marshal if he had seen him. Munroe's reaction had already told him the answer. His paling face also told Jimmy there was no need in asking for assistance in arresting Waco, if Waco were indeed hanging his hat in Ogallala.

“So . . . knowing what you know about Danny Waco . . . where would I look?” Jimmy figured the lawman would have read all those articles in the
National Police Gazette
, whatever the Ogallala newspaper called itself, and the wanted posters . . . maybe even the two Beadle & Adams dime novels that glorified the outlaw the way they made heroes out of Jesse James, Sam Bass and Billy the Kid.

Munroe found enough strength to grab his coffee cup and drank some. Probably would have preferred whiskey. Inhaled deeply, blew it out, and motioned with a tilt of his head. “River Street.”

“Any place in particular?”

“This town used to bring in floaters from all over, but they'd go back to Omaha or Cheyenne, Deadwood or Denver City once the cow business ended. Come back in late spring, early summer. Wouldn't be but one saloon open in December.”

Jimmy waited impatiently. He didn't care one whit about a lecture on
The History of Ogallala, Nebraska
. He repeated the question.

Munroe shrugged. “Would Waco want to get drunk or get . . . ?” He looked over his shoulder, and let the sentence die.

“Whiskey,” Jimmy answered. “Poker. And a woman.”

“The Cowboys Rest,” Munroe answered.

“It still around?” Jimmy had heard of it, mostly from older lawmen talking about the wild old days ten to twenty years back.

“More or less,” Munroe said. “Ol' Tuck sold out after the herds stopped coming in, but the place hasn't changed much. Quieter, maybe, but there's still loose women, roulette wheels, poker tables, and plenty of John Barleycorn. Local cowboys come in, mostly. Most of them don't even carry revolvers.”

Danny Waco would. Jimmy knew that. He thanked the lawman, grabbed his Winchester, and stood.

“Marshal?”

Jimmy waited.

After clearing his throat, Munroe said, “Our jail was built back in '75. Stone building. Folks called it ‘the most substantial jail west of Omaha.' It wasn't, of course. And it sure isn't strong enough to hold a man like Danny Waco.”

Jimmy nodded. “It won't have to,” he said, his voice cold, emotionless. “Boot Hill will hold Danny Waco. I aim to kill him.”

 

 

Waco always sat facing the door. That's one reason he had lived so long. He held up on raising the lady gambler and let Tonkawa Tom make his way to the poker table. The barkeep and a few others frowned at the sight of an Indian, even a half-breed, in the Cowboys Rest, but none had enough guts to say or do anything about it.

The Tonk knelt at the table on Waco's left and whispered, “Lawman just met with town law. Wears badge like Parker's deputies.”

Waco grinned at the patient lady gambler. “And his horse?”

“Been on the trail long time.”

“Now what would a deputy from Arkansas and the Indian Territory be doin' this far north?”

“Didn't ask. But he carried a carbine. On his lap. Not in scabbard. Him ready. Him lookin' for somebody. Me guess . . . you be who he after.”

Shaking his head, Waco sighed. “A body can't get no rest no more, seems like.” Well, he could wait. Nothing like a good gun fracas to get one's blood a-boiling.

On the other hand, there was a time and a place to fight, and Ogallala, Nebraska, wasn't it. The way Danny Waco figured things, it would take the lawdog from Indian Territory an hour or two to round up enough brave, law-abiding citizens to cross the railroad tracks and walk down Railroad Street to chase out or kill that undesired element. Best thing to do, then, would be to light out right away, move north and follow the North Platte and the old Oregon Trail northwest, then turn north toward the Black Hills.

Maybe a body could find a good card game and no persnickety lawdogs in a place like Deadwood up in Dakota Territory. No, it was
South Dakota
these days. A regular state. More progress. That was the problem with the West—not enough frontier left anymore for an owlhoot to get any rest.

“Where are our horses?” Waco asked.

“Outside.”

“Fetch Millican from that hussy. Tell him we're leavin'.”

With a nod, The Tonk rose, and crossed the room toward the bar.

Waco smiled at the lady gambler. He hated doing it, but he moved his hand from his winnings, and laid his cards on the table. “I always hate foldin' a winnin' hand, little lady, but I am a gentleman and decided to let you bluff me.” He started to rake his winnings into his hat.

The woman—he wished he could remember her name—shook her head at Waco's high two pair and laid her own cards on the table as she swept the pot in front of her. She didn't have to show her cards.

Waco knew that. She was classy, this dame, and he would have enjoyed getting to know her better. A lot better than that strumpet who had been trying to woo Gil Millican into spending an extra dollar or two on her.

“It wasn't a bluff, Mister Waco.”

He stopped and stared. Not only did she know his name, she knew how to play good poker. It was a good thing Tonkawa Tom had come in with that news. Else Waco would have lost a whole lot more money.

The lady had a full house. Aces over eights. Not the Dead Man's Hand—that was two pair, which would have also beaten Waco's cards—but a sure-fire winner.

“Maybe I'll see you down the road.” He went to the bar to cash out any chips he had. And to have a shot of rye for the long trail north. “And have some better luck.”

“Maybe.”

When he had his money stuffed inside his jacket pocket and the thickening money belt he wore under his shirt, Waco stepped onto the boardwalk. Millican and The Tonk were already in the saddle.

“We runnin'?” Millican seemed a bit testy since Waco had interrupted that budding romance.

“Nope,” Waco lied. “Playin' the odds is all. Three days is long enough in one town. I hear Deadwood callin' our names, boys.”

That made both of them smile.

Waco loosened the reins, but said before he started to climb into the saddle, “Let's get us a little grubstake out of that little ol' bank up in Chadron.”

Their smiles widened.

And quickly faded when a voice called out, “Hold it, Waco. Move and you're dead!”