tolerate it.”
She frowned, her eyes searching his face. “Mr. Fallon, just what are you trying
to do?”
“It should be obvious. I’m playing midwife to a town. Red Horse never really
lived, so I’m giving it a second chance.”
“And then what?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? The chances are I’ll go on to somewhere else.”
Fallon no longer ate with the Damons and the Blanes. Young Jim Blane obviously
disliked him, and some of this feeling seemed to have rubbed off on the others.
When he killed meat he shared it with them, then went on about his business.
He had scouted the flat below the town. There was just enough grade to permit an
easy flow of water if he could get water on the upper part of the flat. The bed
of the wash offered at least one very good site for a dam … a narrow place
where the walls and bottom were rock for a short distance. He had rolled a few
stones into position across the wash, then with his rope he had snaked a couple
of logs down.
Each time he rode out from town he scouted for tracks, but found none. The stock
was grazing in a small herd on the lower part of the flat, with Al Damon
herding.
Restlessly, Fallon watched the trail each day, but he saw no wagons, no movement
at all, and time was running out. Their slim food supply was steadily growing
less, and this in spite of his contributions of meat. He himself was living on
meat, squaw cabbage, wild onions, and whatever else he could glean from the
desert around.
The canyon itself, the dark maw opening into the mountains beyond and behind the
town, intrigued him. The walls reared up suddenly just a few hundred yards
beyond the last building, but you could not see more than fifty feet into the
canyon from the best vantage point the town had to offer. If a man was caught in
that canyon by a flash flood he would simply have no chance at all.
On the eleventh day a wagon showed up, rumbling over the bridge and into the
town. Fallon rode out to meet it. The driver of the wagon was a lean, hard-faced
man who wore a belt gun and had a rifle beside him, leaning against the seat.
The woman beside him was motherly-looking, and her face showed strength. Joshua
Teel was from Missouri, a harness-maker by trade, and Fallon took an instant
liking to him.
“If you’re interested in mining,” Fallon said to him, “there are claims to be
had; but if you’re a harness-maker, why not work at your trade and prospect in
your spare time?”
“Injuns about?”
“Used to be, but not since we’ve been around. Not even any sign.” At the risk of
losing a prospective citizen, he added, “Frankly, you look like a man I’d like
to have on my side. The Bellows outfit is around, and they’re as bad as any
Indians.”
“Heard of them.”
Teel cast a glance at the town, letting his eyes sweep slowly around. “Woman’s
tired of movin’, young uns’re sickly. Figured to stop for a mite.”
“Ever farm any?”
Teel’s eyes showed a mild interest. “Raised to it. Taken my first steps behind a
plow.”
Macon Fallon explained about the flat, and the dam he had begun. The Missourian
listened, his eyes straying from the flat to Fallon’s face from time to time.
“You shape like a gamblin’ man,” he said at last, “but you talk like a man who’d
made hay. I’ll look at it.”
The following day, Fallon went to the wash and worked the entire day, sunrise to
sunset, on his dam. At the beginning, one would hardly have recognized it as a
dam, for what he was doing was building a barrier that would catch other debris
and pile it up. Nobody from the town came to see what he was doing, and none
offered to help.
On the day that marked the end of the second week, four wagons stopped and
business was brisk. One of the wagons pulled up at the Yankee Saloon. It was
followed by another wagon driven by a burly Negro.
The driver of the first wagon came into the saloon, a stocky man with a shock of
prematurely gray hair and the beginnings of a paunch. He had a smooth,
rosy-cheeked face and keen blue eyes.
“Brennan’s the name,” he announced. “I’ll have a whiskey.”
As Fallon poured the glass, Brennan added, “I’m a saloon man myself. Maybe I
could offer some suggestions.”
“I’m sure you could,” Fallon replied dryly, “so let me offer one. Don’t drink
the whiskey.”
Brennan glanced at him, then tasted the drink. Carefully, as if fearful it might
explode, he replaced the glass on the bar. “Unusual flavor,” he said politely.
“I don’t believe I recognize the brand.”
“Indian whiskey. My own version.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll have a glass of water.”
He tasted the water, then put the glass down, smiling. “Limestone water, the
purest there is … just like from the hills of Bourbon County, Kentucky. My
friend”—he gestured toward the water—”if you really want to make good whiskey,
there’s the first essential … good water.”
Fallon walked around the bar. “Mr. Brennan, I don’t want to make whiskey. I
don’t want to operate a saloon. I’ll supply the water and whatever equipment you
need, and I’ll handle, the gambling, if there is any. You operate the saloon and
we split fifty-fifty … how’s that?”
Brennan tasted the water again. “Sixty-forty,” he said. “I have operated saloons
in New York, Richmond, Louisville, Abilene, Leadville, Corinne, and Silver Beef.
I know my business.”
Fallon looked at him, then out across the flat. Brennan was perhaps thirty-five,
and a man who appreciated the good things of life, if Fallon was any judge. Yet
here he was, though the towns showed a steady progression westward … why?
“You’ve made a deal. Take over as of now. Tomorrow we’ll scout the location for
a still.”
“You aren’t going to ask any questions?”
“If you’re the man who can handle the job, I want you. If you are not, out you
go.”
“I killed a man,” Brennan said.
“If the Bellows outfit decide to raid us,” Fallon said bluntly, “you may have to
kill several.”
“This is my town,” Brennan said quietly, “and I’m glad to be home.”
Brennan, among other things, had three barrels of whiskey in his second wagon.
He also had a case of claret and approximately a hundred empty beer bottles.
What else he carried was not immediately obvious. They divided the upstairs into
two apartments and Brennan moved into one of them.
Slowly, business picked up. Several wagons came by, and once a whole wagon train
drove in and camped the night on the upper flat. Fallon was always around, but
each day he worked some upon the dam. Twice, Joshua Teel joined him, bringing
his mules to help, and slowly the dam grew.
It was midafternoon, and Fallon was sitting at a table in the saloon drinking
coffee when Al Damon came in. He walked to the bar and lifted a boot to the
brass rail. He wore a pair of new Spanish-style boots with high heels and
Mexican spurs. His gun, which he had taken to wearing when he began herding
cattle, was tied down.
“Gimme a whiskey.” His tone indicated that he half expected to be refused the
drink and was prepared to make an issue of it.
“Two bits a shot,” Brennan said. “Most places it’s less, but whiskey is hard to
come by out here.”
Al Damon slapped a silver dollar on the bar. “You think I ain’t got it?” he
demanded. “Now give me that drink.”
Brennan served him without comment and held the whiskey up to see the light
through the amber liquid.
“Are you still herding the stock?” Fallon asked mildly.
“Sure. What of it?”
“Who’s with them now?”
“Aw, they’re all right. What’s to bother them?”
“The Bellows crowd might run them off.”
Al Damon turned his back to the bar and rested his elbows on it; a heel hung
over the brass rail. “You’re makin’ a big thing out of them,” he said
sarcastically. “What would a high-powered outfit like that want with a bunch of
old work oxen?”
“High-powered?” Fallon repeated. “That outfit? There isn’t guts enough in the
crowd to tackle a bunch of grown men. Not unless they outnumber them five to
one.”
Al put his glass down so hard he spilled whiskey. “A lot you know! That’s a
tough outfit!”
Fallon ignored the comment and glanced out the door, a frown gathering over his
eyes. He started to ask a question, then thought better of it.
At the bar Al was saying to Brennan, “Pa says you tended bar in Abilene. Was
Hickok there when you were?”
“Yes.”
“I hear tell he was slick with a gun. Why, they do say he was the fastest of all