Winchester 1887 (11 page)

“Pick up that rifle, you dern fool!” Wildcat Lamar snapped. “You tryin' to get us all kilt?”

James fumbled with the heavy Winchester and brought it up, trying to wipe off the dirt and dust. “They're Indians!”

“ 'Course they is. What did you expect? A bunch of Frenchies?” Wildcat cursed. “Keep that rifle handy, boy.”

“Mister Lamar.” James could barely talk.

The old man had started out, toward the approaching Indians, but cursed and turned back to face James. “What is it?”

He wet his lips. “I . . . I . . . this . . .” He held up the rifle a tad. Took a deep breath, exhaled, and came out with it. “It's empty. I don't have any bullets.”

The man's face paled, then turned beet red with fury. One hand dropped for the knife and the other reached for James's throat, but both stopped, as did the curse on his lips. “Jes don't let 'em savages know it.” He whirled around, brought both hands up above his head, and began speaking in some guttural language as he walked toward the Comanches.

James had seen Indians before, back when he was a kid, but most of the Comanches and Kiowas had surrendered to the U.S. Army before he had even been born. Reservation Indians were supposed to be tame Indians. That's what folks said over at the post office and barber shop and mercantile in McAdam. Those in front of him did not look civilized, or tame, or anything but wild. Yet as far as he could tell, none carried any rifle or musket, not even a shotgun. However, all except the women and the dogs had quivers full of arrows. A few sported hatchets, and the one with the buffalo horn headdress carried a lance. James hoped it was for ceremonial purposes only.

They rode in, or walked, circling Wildcat Lamar before the one with the buffalo horn headdress said something and dismounted. He kept the lance, wrapped in leather strips dyed red and with brilliant beads and feathers hanging from the shaft, in his right hand.

The dogs barked until one of the women hit one with a switch. That one ran back to the north. The others fell quiet and scurried well out of the woman's reach.

James tried to keep his heart from leaping out of his mouth. Tried to breath. Every once in a while, he had to wipe away the sweat that poured down his face, burning his eyes. His shirt already felt damp on his back and under his armpits.

The one with the lance and Wildcat Lamar did all the talking, but most of it was said with their hands, occasionally saying something in a throaty language more bark than words.

Finally, the leader stepped back and turned toward some of the braves. He spoke briefly, and a tall, lean man wearing only a breechclout and moccasins walked to his horse. James couldn't see what he was doing; the skewbald blocked his view. When the Indian returned, he held a pouch in his right hand, and even from where James stood, he could hear the clinking of coins.

Without a word, he stopped and tossed the pouch at Wildcat Lamar's feet. The old man did not move, but stared hard at the tall brave. “Boy, come here and pick it up.”

It took practically an eternity before James realized the old man wasn't talking to the brave. He meant for James to do the errand. Wildcat Lamar wouldn't take his eyes off the lean, mean, silent warrior.

James went at a hurry, feeling every Indian, even the women, possibly the dogs, staring at him as he raced the short distance and knelt down. Actually, they weren't looking at him. Their eyes were glued on the .50-caliber repeating rifle. He kept that in his right hand, and picked up the pouch, heavy with coin, in his left. Backing up, eyes locked on the lean warrior, he offered the pouch to Wildcat Lamar.

“Yer learnin' kid. Taught you good. Never let that one out of yer sight.” Wildcat hefted the pouch, smiled, and nodded at the one in the buffalo horn headdress. “This concludes our transaction, gents.” He nodded at the barrel of molasses.

James didn't know what a barrel of molasses went for in Indian Territory, but the weight of that pouch told him that the Indians were being robbed. He didn't say anything, just backed away with Wildcat Lamar toward the team of oxen, the wagon, and Robin hiding in the driver's box.

The leader said something and a few other Indians hurried toward the barrel, reaching it long before James and the old man had made it to the wagon.

“It's all right now, boy,” Wildcat said as they walked. “We'll just mosey on along. I'll get in the box. You climb into the back. But don't let 'em bucks see you lower that gun.” He whispered, “No bullets,” and cursed again, but quietly.

James tried to walk calmly toward the back, thinking that none of them had ever ridden in the wagon but glad to do so.

Two of the Indians had drawn their hatchets, the blades iron and not stone, and hacked away at the top of the oaken barrel. Others waited. A few licked their lips. The one in the buffalo horn headdress frowned. The thin, lean one who had fetched the money stared with bitter, angry eyes, first at his comrades, then, with more hatred, at James.

Liquid splashed from the busted top of the barrel, and one of the Indians screamed something, tossed his hatchet a few rods away, and plunged both hands into the jagged opening. He came up, brown water running through his fingers, and drank greedily, then shook his hands and his head, and howled like a coyote toward the sky.

Other Indians quickly ran to the barrel to drink. One pushed another out of the way. Before James had managed to pull himself into the back of the wagon, those two were fighting. None of the others seemed to care. They gathered around the barrel, shoving one another, yelling in that wild language, waiting to get at the barrel. To drink.

The wagon lurched forward, slowly, but picking up speed. The blacksnake whip snapped and bit, and Wildcat Lamar urged the animals on with curses and leather. Oxen generally did not move fast, but these moved faster than normal. Not quick enough to escape all of those Comanches on horseback, but they didn't seemed interested in anything other than the barrel.

“Molasses,” James whispered as the wagon pulled away. “Molasses.”

He knew. He leaned against another barrel and didn't look at what was stamped on it.

Right, he thought.
Molasses is thick. It doesn't flow like . . . like . . .
liquor.

He cursed his luck and cursed Wildcat Lamar and his son. Those two weren't anything but a pair of miserable, low-down whiskey runners. Criminals. Turning a bold and brave Indian people like those Comanches into wild, crazy, foolish drunks.

Usually, Zane Maxwell spent his time in Fort Worth in the saloons, gambling halls, and bordellos along with the drunks, gamblers, outlaws, idiots, cowboys, dance-hall girls, and saloon girls that populated the red-light district known as Hell's Half Acre. Now that he was a respectable member of the press . . . he stopped at a business at 705 Main Street and looked at the prints in the window. A kid and a dog. A photograph of the courthouse. A stiff-lipped man with a woman in what appeared to be her wedding dress. Cattle in the stockyards on the north side of town. All good photos.

The bell over the door chimed, and a man stepped out onto the street. “Good day, sir. Might I interest you in posing for a photograph? Not a tintype, sir. I can use dry plates and sell you as many prints as you desire.”

Maxwell looked at the sign on the window. S
WARTZ
V
IEW
S
TUDIO
. “You're Swartz?”

The photographer bowed. “John Swartz, at your service.”

Maxwell extended his hand. “Butch Curry. With the
Kansas City Enterprise.
” Both names came to him on the fly. He didn't know anyone named Butch or Curry and wasn't sure if there was a newspaper in Kansas City called the
Enterprise
, but who cared? And who in town would know?

They shook, and the man gestured inside. “A photograph, sir? You'll find my fees and services quite reasonable.”

Maxwell laughed and shook his head. “Afraid not. I'm like an Injun. Fear a photograph might just steal my shadow. But good luck to you, sir. I must make my way to the meeting of the Lone Star Cattle Growers Association. Maybe someone else'll pose for you. Make you famous.”

He walked away, shaking his head. Him. Posing for a studio portrait. Wouldn't the Pinkertons and the U.S. marshals love that? Somehow getting their mitts on an actual photograph of a notorious outlaw. That would bring about the downfall of the most notorious outlaw gang since the James and Younger boys. Maxwell chuckled as he walked down Main Street toward the hotel, wondering what kind of fool an outlaw would have to be to do such a thing.

 

 

The meeting of the cattlemen started at Fort Worth's fanciest hotel on Monday. Yet nothing much went on. In fact, from where Maxwell sat in the back of the meeting room, with nothing to drink but coffee, it appeared all those old boys did was talk about cattle and grass and politics in Austin and Washington City and the weather, with a few brief discussions and lamentations on weather and cattle and grass and politics in Austin and Washington City. He knew he could never be a cattleman or a newspaper reporter. The jobs were just too boring, although the evenings, when everyone adjourned to the nearest grog shop, did have some merit.

He met a few other reporters and discovered that newspapermen weren't any better than cowboys and cardsharpers. They just seemed to drink more. So passing himself off as a journalist came easy, especially since the ink-slinger from one of the Dallas papers said nobody from Kansas City had ever covered a cattlemen's meeting in Cow town.

“How long do you think this deal will go on?” Maxwell asked.

The meeting had adjourned for the day. The cattlemen, being of higher class and with thicker wallets than the journalists, had gone out to eat dinner. A few Chickasaw Indians had gone with them.

The Dallas reporter raised his beer stein. “You mean this?” He laughed, drained a healthy portion, and wiped the suds of his mustache with a bar towel. “The meeting?” He shrugged. “Three days probably. They won't get down to serious matters till Thursday. Finish up Friday. Have the weekend to drink. Go home Sunday after church.”

“That's what I thought, too,” Maxwell said. He was utterly clueless. “Just wanted to . . . confirm it from another source.”

The man drained his beer, slapped the empty stein on the bar, and motioned for the bartender for another. “Got to get our facts right. Or at least confirmed. What paper you say you're with?”

“
Enterprise
.”

The place was filled with people. The man yelled at the bartender when he hadn't responded with another beer.

Maxwell waited until the bartender finally brought another stein, and the Dallas scribe reached for his nickel, before slapping a silver dollar on the bar. “This one's on me, and all the others till it runs out.”

The barkeep took the coin, nodded at Maxwell, and brought him a beer. No wait. Not for a man with that kind of money, even if it was only a buck.

“You Kansas City boys are all right.”

With a laugh, Maxwell clinked his stein against the Dallas writer's. “We aim to be.”

They drank. And then Zane Maxwell, alias Butch Curry, reporter for the
Kansas City Enterprise,
said, “Maybe you can confirm a few other facts for me . . .”

 

 

Maxwell met reporters and two or three cattlemen, and those men enjoyed to gab. They talked. Talked a lot. About anything—to anyone, as long as someone, typically Maxwell, kept them in bourbon and beer.

Everyone told him the same thing . . . the meetings would go on for a while, just to build up for some serious drinking and gambling and eating, but everything would be determined on Thursday morning.

Thursday was a long time coming, it seemed to Maxwell, but finally it did arrive. And, just as everyone had told him, that's when everything was set. Firm. The Indians signed. The Texans signed. They shook hands, posed for a few photographs, and the reporters hurried off to file their stories for the next day's or next week's newspapers.

And so, when the cattlemen and the Chickasaws and the ink-slingers broke for their noon dinner, Maxwell gathered his notes and his bowler, and walked out of the hotel and to the telegraph office. Chatting with a handful of reporters from Fort Worth, Dallas, and Austin had indeed confirmed a few significant facts. He filled out the yellow slip of paper to send a wire to Ben Storm, the alias Link McCoy was using in Denison, Texas.

He handed the paper and the greenback to the telegrapher, and stepped back, watching as the man quickly tapped out the message on the key. He also looked at the calendar hanging on the wall over the telegrapher's head. The bespectacled man in the striped shirt and sleeve garters had crossed out the days with a red pencil, marking that day as June twenty-fifth.

The Texans were delivering the gold to the Chickasaws at Fort Washita on Independence Day, the Fourth of July.

He hoped that McCoy would get that message, that he had already located the whiskey runner they wanted to help pull off the score.

June 25. Eight days.

He frowned, then making sure the telegrapher was not looking, did that little number, tapping his knuckles and the gaps between then, reciting the months of the year, just the way the schoolmarm had taught him all those years ago. He didn't have to go through the entire year. He smiled. Not eight days.
Nine
.

June didn't have thirty-one days.