“All right. I do.”
Tom Chantry reached in his pocket and withdrew
a gold piece. “You ride for me and you will get another like this.”
“I do. You keep. You pay all when finish.”
He pulled off. “I ride now.”
Clifton House loomed ahead, and Tom Chantry trotted his horse toward it. The stage had just stopped and some people were getting down. One of them was a girl.
Chapter 7
Tom Chantry rode up to Clifton House and left his roan at the hitching rail. He glanced at the other horses … six saddled horses, and a buckboard. He had not yet acquired the westerners’ habit of noting brands.
He went up the steps to the first-floor porch, and entered the door. Several men standing at the bar turned to glance at him, but none offered a greeting or comment. What his business was remained his business, no matter how curious they might be.
Chantry ordered a beer, then turned to the man beside him. “Join me?”
“Thanks.”
He was a long-geared man in shotgun chaps and
denim jacket, a faded blue shirt, and a tied-down gun. “It’s a dry country,” the man added.
“I’m heading north. Do you know the country along the Picketwire?”
“Some. I just come over it.”
“Water up there?”
“Enough. But no more than enough. The range is
dryin’ up.” He lifted the beer. “Salud.”
“Cheers.” Chantry drank, then said, “I’m Tom Chantry. Driving north with a trail herd.”
“Bone McCarthy. I’m driftin’.”
They talked in a desultory fashion, but with
half his attention Chantry was listening for mention of the railroad.
“Seems a shame,” McCarthy was saying.
“What?”
“Them Injuns. Takin’ the country off ‘em.
In good times it must’ve been a fine life they had, huntin’ and fishin’, or driftin’ down the country on the trail of the buffalo. I ain’t sure what we’ll do to the country will be any better.”
“Have you lived among them?”
“Brought up around ‘em. I’ve fought ‘em off
an’ on since I was a kid, and they’re good fighters. Maybe the best.”
“But we’ve whipped them. The army has, I mean.”
“Lucked out, I’d say. Mighty few
Injuns have rifles, and never enough ammunition to last out a fight, but you never seen their like for creepin’, crawlin’, bein’ where they ain’t expected.
“It won’t be at war that the white man whips ‘em. He’ll beat them with his store-bought things. When the Injun made all he needed he had no troubles to speak of, but the white man showed him all sorts of things he was greedy for, and now he wants ‘em. He has to get ‘em by war or by trade.”
“Whiskey?”
“That’s the least of it, believe me. Knives,
guns, pots, pans, and such. The Indian was whipped the first time a white trader came amongst them to trade with things the Injun couldn’t make with his own hands.”
“I hadn’t looked at it that way.”
Bone McCarthy took a swallow of his beer.
“You’re ridin’ with a herd? Whose?”
“Mine … if I can stay with it to the railhead. French Williams is trail boss.”
“Williams? You got you a live one, amigo. He’s hell on wheels with a gun.”
“Do you know him?”
“Can’t say I do, but there’s talk goes up
the trail. What did you mean when you said it was your herd if you stayed with it?”
Chantry explained, and to leave nothing out he coolly told why he was forced to make such a deal, and also spoke of his feelings about guns.
McCarthy listened in silence. It was obvious that the others at the bar, or some of them, heard what Chantry was saying. He did not care. He had acted as he saw fit.
“You’re carryin’ some bruises. Did you get throwed?”
“No. Because I wasn’t anxious to shoot, a man named Koch questioned my courage. We had a bit of a go-around. I whipped him.”
He drank his beer. The conversation along the bar began again, and Chantry asked McCarthy, “Did you ever run across a Pawnee named Sun Chief?”
“Uh-huh. Good man. He was one of Major North’s Pawnee scouts. Got wounded and had to drop out. Heard he was up and around again.”
“I hired him to scout the trail for me, the trail to the railhead.”
“You takin’ on anybody else? I’m rustlin’ work.”
Tom Chantry drained his glass.
“McCarthy, you heard my story. I’m not a man who believes in guns, and there are some who think I’m yellow. You still want to join me?”
McCarthy shrugged. “Every man’s entitled to think the way he chooses, the way I see it. I think you’re wrong, and I think the time’ll come when you’ll pay for it. What you’re sayin’ is that I got to take my own chances that you’d back me up in a tight spot, ain’t that it?”
Chantry felt anger stir within him, and with it a feeling of resentment. Why could things never be simple? Yet, what would he do if it came to that? Supposing he was caught in a situation where he must fight or die? Or worse still, where he must fight or one of his men would die?
“You’d have to gamble on it, McCarthy,” he said. “I believe a lot more can be done by reason than by guns.”
“All right. You trust to reason,” McCarthy said, “but you won’t mind if I wear my guns, will you?”
“As you like. I’m not a reformer.”
McCarthy lifted his beer. “Luck,” he
said. “You’re sure a-goin’ to need it.”
He ordered another beer. “This’ll have to be the last,” he said. “I ain’t carryin’ any more money.” When the beer arrived he said, “Now that I’m workin’ for you, what do I do?”
“Bring your beer along,” Chantry suggested, “and we’ll sit over there at the table. I’m going to order us a couple of dinners and you’re going to tell me every way you can think of that Williams might use to drive me off the herd.”
For an hour they talked. Bone McCarthy was a cool, knowledgeable man with much experience on cattle drives and roundups. He ran through the possible ruses, one by one. Bad horses, Indian scares, maybe a rattlesnake in the bed. “He may even have put Koch up to jumpin’ you. It’s the sort of thing he might do.”
After a while McCarthy was silent, but he seemed to have something on his mind that he hesitated to say.
“What is it?” Chantry asked.
Bone looked up at him, then filled both their
coffee cups. “You know damn well what he’ll do, Chantry. He’ll have somebody brace you with a gun. He’ll catch you when you’re armed, and you’ll have no excuse.”
“I simply won’t shoot.”
Bone stared at him. “You don’t seem to read
the sign,” he said. “If you don’t shoot, he’ll kill you … whoever French Williams gets to bully you into a fight. It won’t matter one damn what you do, whether you drop your gun or whatever, he’ll shoot, and shoot to kill.”
“He’d kill me for that herd?”
“You must be dreamin’, man. Of course he will.
He’d kill his whole outfit for that herd. Right now I’d say the odds are a hundred to one against you makin’ the next fifty miles.”
They stopped talking then, but Tom Chantry considered the matter. French Williams was a known thief. He had killed men. He might offer an appearance of fair play for the look of the thing, but Bone was sure to be right. Somebody who rode with them would challenge him, and at his first move, would shoot and shoot to kill … any move Chantry made would be construed as a move for a gun—a move to shoot.
The only thing he could do was avoid carrying any weapon at all. He said as much.
McCarthy shrugged. “Worse comes to worst, they’ll get you out on the grass somewheres, shoot you, and plant a gun on you. It’s been done.”
He looked hard at Chantry. “Can you shoot? I mean, did you ever use a gun?”
“I can shoot. I’ve hunted a lot.”
“How about with a hand gun?”
“Yes. I’ve used one.”
“Can you draw? I mean, can you get a gun out of your holster without dropping it?”
“Yes. My father showed me when I was a youngster.
He had me practice. But I never liked it.”
“Just get it out, and no matter what he does, even if you get hit, you level that gun and shoot. Take your time, but make that first shot count. You may never get another one.”
“There’s no use to talk of it. I won’t be carrying a gun.”
“Well, in case you change your mind, you make that first one do the job. I’ve seen many a fast-draw artist who got his gun out quicker’n scat, an’ then put his first bullet right out in the dust betwixt ‘em, an’ never got another shot.”