Contention and Other Frontier Stories Page 11

  The story ran through town in no time. Dunbar got the girls settled into the Eureka Hotel. Finding myself without a job or a place to stay, I took up there as well. Within a few days I was helping in the kitchen, and I heard all the gossip.

  What a terrible thing it was for a man to take girls like that and use them. And his wife knew all about it, even abetted him. Now she was gone, and she had taken all the money from the bank. George Clubb was gone as well, and as far as anyone knew, he had taken up with Mrs. Wardell.

  Unkindest of all was what the townspeople said about the two sisters. How could those girls stay there, the people said, unless they wanted to? They could have walked away at any time. Little Indians.

  The girls themselves caught wind of the comments, of course. They had come out of their room and were working for the hotel, sweeping and cleaning as before, as they waited for someone to come for them from New Mexico Territory.

  One day as I served them dinner when no one else was in the kitchen, I told them I was sorry for everything that had happened to them.

  Ophelia said, “We’re through the worst of it, but we’ve heard what people say. They can’t know what it’s like. It makes no sense to someone who hasn’t lived in a situation like that. He had a strange power over us, a bond that we couldn’t dare to break. At the same time that he forced us to be loyal, he held us in fear. People say we could have left, but it seemed impossible. Too big. There was the fear of what he would do if he caught us. And there was the fear of what people would think, that they wouldn’t believe what we said, or that they would look at us as if it was our fault. As it turned out, we were right.”

  “I’m sorry they’ve said all those unkind things,” I offered.

  The girls looked at each other, and Ophelia said, “They just don’t know what it’s like. They don’t want to believe that we couldn’t leave on our own. Or maybe they just don’t want to think about what it was like to live that way. The only person who listened and believed us was Mr. Dunbar.”

  “I believe you, too. But credit goes to him. And he has sent word to New Mexico Territory. You told him your last name, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. It’s Darling.”

  “How nice,” I said. “And did you come from Albuquerque?”

  “No,” said Ophelia. “We lived in a small town named Polvadera. We’ll know it when we go back.”

  John D. Nesbitt lives in the plains country of Wyoming, where he writes western, contemporary, mystery, and retro/noir fiction as well as nonfiction and poetry. His recent books include Dark Prairie, Death in Cantera, and Destiny at Dry Camp, frontier mysteries with Five Star.

  PIMPLE BY JOHN NEELY DAVIS

  Sometime in the past, a cowboy riding across these vast unmarked plains had observed, “This place ain’t never gonna amount to more than a pimple on a skinny dog’s ass.” He was mostly right.

  Once a week, a stagecoach came through heading south to Oneida. Three days later, and traveling in almost the same ruts, the identical stagecoach passed through northbound. Twice each week a train came through—once, westbound toward Santa Fe, and a day later, eastbound toward St. Louis. Other than that, only the relentless wind visited—starting thirty minutes after sunrise and ending thirty minutes after sunset—and that was as dependable as the train engineer’s watch.

  Pimple started and ended with one building, a combination general store/saloon, depot, and stage station, with living quarters on the second floor. It was visible for ten miles in any direction, sitting there in a sea of blue grama and buffalo grasses. The smoothness of the grass surface was marred only with an occasional island of juniper or clump of mesquite. Not counting antelopes, coyotes, and prairie dogs, permanent residents consisted of Bill Rayburn and his daughter, Louise.

  Three ranch headquarters were within a fifty-mile radius: the Slash Q, the Rocking V, and the Box Seven. Cowboys dreamed of visiting Pimple and, using flimsy excuses, would gladly ride twenty-five miles in hopes of visiting with Louise, even if only under the ever-watchful eye of crotchety old man Rayburn.

  His ornery disposition was constructed around protecting Louise. She was a beauty with blonde hair and fair skin not yet defiled by the High Plains wind, a woman-child, one of those females who had developed winsome curves while her mind was still unaware of her effect on men. She would have stood out in the highest society and fanciest ballrooms of Denver or Dallas, but out here in a land where the next woman might be fifty miles away, Louise was quickly reaching legendary status.

  “Well, looky there at what the wind blew in,” Louise said. “Yesterday it was three tumbleweeds; today it’s Mick Warren. Box Seven fire you?”

  “No’m, nothing like that,” Mick said. “I was sent to buy a pint of horse liniment, big bottle of chloroform, camphor, and a bucket of axle grease.”

  “Sent or volunteered?”

  Mick looked down at his boots. “Guess you could say I volunteered. Somebody had to do it.”

  “Second time this month,” Louise teased.

  “Guess I was the easiest spared.”

  Mick just told his first lie of the month. The Box Seven foreman had appointed Slim Harrington to make the hot and dusty ride down to Pimple. However, Mick had offered Slim a day’s wages, eight bits, and the promise to ride night herd for him next Saturday night in exchange for the rights to run the errand. Because Slim was always broke and always sleepy, he cut the deal with Mick. Slim left money on the table ’cause Mick would have given him more.

  “Well, I’m glad. You’re my favorite from the Box Seven. At least you bathe.”

  Mick blushed. “That ain’t saying much. But I reckon it beats nothing.”

  Louise saw Mick’s embarrassment. “Really, I’m glad for the company. Dad left before daylight for Sweetwater. Trying to buy some cattle from a widow woman over there. It’s his third trip. Dad said she’s harder to deal with and more cantankerous than a croker sack of cockleburs. Truth be told, I believe he’d rather look at her than at the cows. No telling what time he’ll get home.”

  Mick stood by the window, hiding his uncontrollable smile and looking down the railroad tracks. “Train to St. Louis comes today, don’t it?”

  “Yes. The southbound stage will be here in about thirty minutes, too. Sometimes, it doesn’t even stop for more than a blink. Drop off mail or pick some up. Sometimes it don’t stop at all. But the train always stops. I fix a beef sandwich for Mr. Kemp, the engineer. He gives me six bits.”

  “Whoa! Six bits! Why, I don’t make much more than that in a day.”

  Louise laughed. “Maybe I’m a better cook than you are a cowboy. That’s why I’m paid that much. But, if you don’t tell anybody, I’ll make you one for nothing. It’s just meat and bread and a sour pickle. I wouldn’t pay two bits for it myself.”

  The north wind picked up and sent tumbleweeds racing southward across the prairie. They stopped on the windward side of the building, huddling up like exhausted travelers waiting for more energy before continuing their headlong flight.

  The squeak of the leather strap coach-braces, the jingle of trace chains, and the rumble of steel-rimmed wheels against the pitted road brought Mick and Louise out onto the front porch. The coach, enveloped in a furious cloud of dust, thundered toward them, the four horses dripping with sweat and spotted with foam and fighting against the bits.

  The man riding shotgun pulled against the rope line attached to the brake pole as the driver tried to impose his will on the horses. The guard bounded down from the seat as the coach came to a stop, jerked the left-side door open and reached inside. “Come outta there, you sorry son of a bitch,” he said, as he dragged a large man out into the dusty road and flung him to the ground as if he was no more than an unruly child. “Don’t you never book a ride with us again, even if’n it’s fifty years from now. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

  He glared at the man he had just forcibly evicted, then put his foot on the metal step and swung back up onto the bench. The dust hadn’t even
settled when the driver lashed the leather lines against the horses’ backs, and the coach resumed its frantic trek toward Oneida.

  Louise turned to Mick. “Well. I believe now I’ve seen it all.”

  Mick jumped off the porch and vaulted the hitching rail. He leaned forward and helped the still stunned man to his feet. “You all right, mister?”

  The man stood, dusted his clothes, and reshaped his hat. Standing, he was larger than he appeared while sprawled in the dirt. “Young man,” he said, looking down on Mick, “I’ve had rougher treatment from more genteel folks and common criminals. It was a misunderstanding—nothing more, nothing less. I am scheduled to catch the train here,” he pulled a silver-cased watch monogrammed with a cursive O from his vest pocket and inspected the timepiece, “at one forty-five.”

  “That’s about an hour from now,” Mick said. “You got time to rest a bit. Maybe Louise can fix you something to eat. She makes real good sandwiches but they are priced pretty steep.”

  The big man looked at Mick. “What’s your name, cowboy?”

  “Warren. Mick Warren. What’s yours?”

  “You can call me Mr. Olive,” the man said and pulled his black satin vest down over his more than generous stomach.

  He studied Mick. Freckles. Unruly red hair. Sweat-stained shirt and hat. Patches on both knees of his pants. “Hmmm. I believe I’ll call you Bumpkin. You know what a bumpkin is?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. I’d druther be called Mick. That’s what my folks named me, but if you want to call me Bumpkin, I guess that’s OK.”

  Mr. Olive looked at the woman-breasted girl. “And you, young woman, I believe your name is Louise. That’s what Bumpkin called you. Is that correct?”

  Louise, flushed-face, turned away from his embarrassing stare. “Yes, sir. Louise is my name.”

  The plain print dress did not hide her shape. Mr. Olive looked at her from heels to the top of her blonde hair. “I could call you Lou. That’s sweet. However, you remind me of a lamb I once owned. A ewe. A young female sheep, you know. I believe Ewe fits you very well. Innocent. Sweet. Ripe.” He nodded, “Yes, Ewe, fits you.”

  Mick did not understand this game and it confused him. “Louise is a nice name. That’s what everybody calls her.”

  “Well, mayhaps I’m different from everybody else. Perchance I see something you don’t see. Maybe I’m not satisfied with just looking.” Mr. Olive did not look away from the young woman.

  “I’ve got to fix the engineer’s sandwich,” Louise said. She hurried across the porch and went inside, leaving the two men out in the dusty road.

  “What do you do, Bumpkin?” Mr. Olive asked.

  Mick shrugged. “Just regular cowboying. Fix fences. Breaking horses. Help with the calving. Branding. Castrating young bulls. Doctoring calves. Stuff like that.”

  “Well. A really talented fellow. You can throw a calf to the ground. All by yourself?”

  “Yes, sir. If there ain’t nobody around to help me.”

  “And doctoring and castrating. You handy with a knife?”

  “Well, not too good. But I’m a good whittler.”

  “A good whittler! Wonderful.” Mr. Olive leaned across the hitching rail, arms hanging loosely. He let his tongue dangle from the corner of his mouth and eyes roll back in their sockets. “This the way the calf looks when you throw it to the ground?”

  “No, sir, mostly they don’t do their eyes like that,” Mick said. “Maybe sometimes, but mostly, not.”

  Mr. Olive pushed his hat back on his forehead and chuckled. “You are too much, Bumpkin, just too much. Are there more like you where you come from?”

  Mick could not understand why Mr. Olive was laughing. “Yes, sir. But I’m the youngest.”

  Inside, Louise busied herself behind the grocery counter slicing beef for the engineer’s sandwich.

  The two men entered from the porch and Olive stopped to watch Louise slicing the bread.

  “Bumpkin, you ever notice how smooth Ewe’s arms are? Wonder how they’d feel around your neck?”

  Mick moved to a table in the saloon part of the building and sat in a worn chair. “No, sir. I never noticed. I figured they was just normal.”

  Mr. Olive moved to the table and sat across from Mick. “Bumpkin, man as observant as you, why, I’d bet that you are a helluva card player.”

  “No, sir, my folks didn’t believe in playing with face cards. I’m a pretty good Forty-two player.”

  Mr. Olive laughed. “I’ve seen that game. Played with dominos. Children’s game. I’m talking about a real game. A man’s game. Blackjack!”

  Mick shook his head. “Never played that. Saw some fellers over at the fort playing it once. ’Spect I’d better not try to play it. ’Specially since I don’t know how.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Mr. Olive said and shoved his bowler hat back from his forehead. “I’ll teach you. All you need to know is how to count to twenty-one. You can count to twenty-one, can’t you?”

  Louise paused, holding the butcher knife away from the piece of beef. “Let him alone,” she said. “You’ve not got a cause to talk to him that way.”

  Mr. Olive took a deck of cards from his inside coat pocket. “I’m just going to teach him a game,” he said. “Mayhaps I’ll teach you a new game. Something I bet you don’t know.”

  Louise frowned, turned quickly, and went back to slicing the beef.

  “How much money you got?” Mr. Olive asked Mick.

  “A dollar two-bits of my own.”

  Mr. Olive studied the cowboy’s face. “Well, that ought to get us started. Course, I’m not accustomed to such high-stake games. And you may have to bear with me or mayhaps help me with the counting. Once I get past ten, I run out of fingers and can get confused.”

  Mr. Olive fanned the cards across the table in a perfect arc, scooped them together, divided them into equal halves, and riffled them. He formed a bridge with the combined deck and the cards cascaded like a waterfall into a neat stack. He split the deck into halves, riffled them at the corners, and squared the cards into a perfect pack.

  Two minutes later, Mick was broke.

  “Thanks for teaching me the game,” Mick said and pushed away from the table. “I believe I’ll walk around a bit, go outside, see if the train is coming.”

  Mr. Olive leaned across the table and grabbed the cowboy’s arm. “Just a minute, Bumpkin. You said you had a dollar and a quarter of your own. You got more money on you?”

  Mick looked at Mr. Olive’s hand clutching his shirt. “Yes, sir. Nine dollars. But it ain’t mine. Ranch foreman gave it to me for the supplies.”

  “Well, what do you think the foreman would say if you brought the supplies back —and still had a pocket full of jingle to boot? Bet he’d be impressed with you.”

  The cowboy shook his head. “Wouldn’t be right. Ain’t my money. Can’t take no risk with it. I’d be up a creek if I came back broke and without the stuff he sent me after. He’d probably take it outta my hide.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Mr. Olive said. “It looked like you were starting a hot streak before you lost the last hand. Why, I’m not sure I’d be a smart man to keep playing with you.”

  Louise cut four slices of bread and put the knife back into the slot of the wooden block. She moved to the table where the two men were sitting and wiped her hands on her apron. “Why don’t y’all stop playing and let me fix you a sandwich?”

  Without looking at Louise, Mr. Olive snapped, “Why don’t you mind your own damn business? He’s a grown man. Don’t need a woman bossing him around. Do you, cowboy? You are a man of your own, aren’t you?”

  Mick looked at Louise. “She’s not bossing. She just knows that it wouldn’t be right to waste any more money in a game. ’Specially, money that ain’t mine.”

  Mr. Olive pulled the silver timepiece from his pocket. “Twelve fifteen. Haven’t got more than thirty minutes. What say, Ewe? Ready to go upstairs and learn a new game. Cowboy he
re will watch the store. Look at it this way, I teach you and when he grows up, you can teach him.”

  Mick pulled his chair closer to the table and dragged a cloth sack from his pocket. He reached in, pulled out nine one-dollar bills, and spread them on the table. “There,” he said. “Now let’s play blackjack. I start as the dealer.”

  Mr. Olive smiled. “Wonderful. Ewe, I wonder if you might make some fresh coffee. And if you will, sprinkle crushed eggshells in it; kinda takes the edge off it. I’ve got a sensitive stomach. Can’t tolerate harshness in coffee or people, far as that’s concerned.” He cut the cards and laughed. “In fact, I’m a very sensitive man. After Bumpkin cleans me out of money, I’ll show you just how sensitive I can be.”

  On the second deal, Mick busted and the deal passed to Mr. Olive. He hit four blackjacks in a row; Mick busted twice, drawing a face card to a ten and three each time. Then Mr. Olive hit twenty-one twice, and Mick was down to a single dollar.

  “You bringing coffee?” Mr. Olive shouted over his shoulder.

  Louise came from behind the counter and put two cups on the table. “Be right back.”

  Mr. Olive turned in his chair and watched Louise move toward the kitchen. “My, my, a good shearing will do that young woman fine. And do me better.”

  Mr. Olive took a .44 derringer from his coat pocket and laid it on the table. “Bumpkin,” he said, “I don’t expect you to carry a gun. Or, at least, I haven’t seen one. I just wanted everything to be out in the open. Card playing buddies need not keep secrets. You’re not hiding a gun in that coat, are you?”

  “No. I don’t have a gun. Sometimes when a sick cow needs shooting or we get a polecat under the house, I borrow one from the foreman. I never had need for a gun.”

  Mr. Olive nodded. “Splendid. Splendid. I didn’t take you for a gun-toting man, but I just need to have everything in the open.” He turned toward the kitchen again. “Ewe, if we’re going to have any special time together, you best hurry with that coffee. Don’t want you missing out on the fun.”