Contention and Other Frontier Stories Read online

  “When’s tide?” he asked the man.

  “Hell, it’s here. They wanted to get one last load in before weighing anchor.” He paused after each word to gather breath for the next.

  “Some war, ain’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I never got into it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Yellow jack.”

  “What’s that?”

  The man grinned. His face looked like naked skull. “The flag. Didn’t you see it?”

  He had, now that he thought of it. He’d been too busy congratulating himself on his escape to take notice of the yellow pennant flapping from a staff topside.

  “What’s it mean?”

  Just then the ship’s whistle blasted three times. The captain was preparing to put to sea.

  “Hell, kid. Can’t you smell it?”

  He did then; the sour stink filled the hold. Again, he’d been too concerned with himself to pay attention to details. What did the Cubans call it? El vomito negrito: the black vomit, pooling on the deck and spreading the miasma of death. It was a quarantine ship, filled to the gunnels with dying men.

  “It’s the devil’s own plague,” said the other. “Faster than a Mauser round and it hits its mark every time. I won’t make it home. None of us will, I guess. Not aboard this poison ship.”

  “Yellow fever! Jesus!” He started to scramble to his feet. Just then the deck lurched. They were in motion, pulling away from shore toward open sea.

  “Just sit back and enjoy the ride,” said the other. “Like it’s your last.”

  His laugh was sharp and high-pitched, like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

  Loren D. Estleman has published more than eighty novels and two hundred short stories in the areas of mystery, western, and mainstream. He has received more than twenty national honors, including four lifetime achievement awards.

  A FULL MOON AT NOON

  BY MARCIA GAYE

  The tapping of the telegraph filled the dusty office. Linwood Whitaker bent over his desk as he interpreted the incoming dots and dashes. He read over what he’d written and made a second copy.

  “Listen, Cog, this is what you do. Take this telegram over to Mister Festus at the bank. You know Mister Festus, don’t you?”

  “Sure I, I do, Mister Whitaker. Mister Festus needs, needs a haircut. I seen him put slicker in his hair but it don’t help. Ain’t, ain’t that right, Duke? That Mister Festus has him a wild head, head of hair. Ain’t that right, Duke?” Cog looked at the red rooster tucked under his arm as if he expected an answer.

  Whitaker stood and patted Cog on the shoulder, even though he had to reach up to do it.

  “That’s fine, Cog. It’s important this telegram gets to the bank, and right away.” The telegrapher slipped the paper into Cog’s free hand. “Off with you, now, boy.” He pulled at his beard and limped toward the sheriff’s office at a good pace for an old man.

  Duke pecked at Cog’s hand, tasting the paper.

  “Oh, no you don’t, you old sneak.” Cog set the rooster on the ground and stuffed the paper in his pocket. “Now, come on, we got to hurry. I got to earn my two, two bits this week.”

  The rooster cocked one eye. With a ruffle of feathers, he stretched out his legs and trotted off. Jumping onto the edge of a horse trough, Duke scooped a beak full of water and lifted his neck to let it pour down his gullet.

  “Now you’ve done it, you old feather bag! Get on back, back here.” Cog chased after the bird for a street and a half in the wrong direction before the cagey fowl was caught and secured in the arm of a stranger coming around the corner.

  “This your rooster?”

  “Yes, sir. He took, took a mind to skip out on me. It’s a game he plays is all. Ain’t that right, Duke? I’ll take ’im, and, and thanks.”

  Duke received a firm scolding and a soothing stroking.

  “Slow down, Whitaker. What’s the telegram say?” Sheriff Boggs unfolded the paper.

  “Read it for yourself, Sheriff. All I know is what’s there.”

  “How long ago did this come in?”

  “Just a minute ago, Sheriff. I rushed right over. I’ve already sent word to Festus. I should think he’d close the bank and post extra guards.”

  “Good. Go on and get back to your machine. Let me know if anything else comes in.”

  Sheriff Boggs leaned through the door and whistled to a group of young boys playing marbles in the dirt. “One of you boys run over to the church and ring the bell. Ring it loud, five times. Then count off exactly one minute and ring it five times again.”

  The boys jumped up and tangled themselves all in a knot trying to run and talk at the same time. “I’ll do it, Sheriff!” and “Me, too!” and “Why, Sheriff?” spilled over the yard.

  “Because I said so. You ring it just like I said and then hightail it home, you hear?”

  A dust devil kicked up from all the feet scrambling away. Despite the gravity of the situation, Boggs smiled behind his mustache. These were good boys, not scalawags or budding train robbers. He planned to keep them that way.

  The sound of the signal bell brought a half-dozen men gathered for instruction. Sheriff Boggs put it this way:

  “Some men robbed the eastbound train out of Eureka this morning. It’s suspected they’re headed through here on horseback. A passenger overheard talk of a rendezvous down at Little Fork. We’re going to protect our own. Keep an eye out. Any stranger bears watching.”

  “Ain’t anybody getting past us, Sheriff,” spoke Doyle Richards, to a nodding consensus. Boggs held up a hand. “Mind now, Richards, I don’t want any gunplay or blood in the streets. It’s business as usual until it isn’t. You all just keep your eyes open and let me know if any stranger comes into town. That’s it. Keep your families at home. We don’t want women and children in harm’s way.”

  Handing Duke over, the stranger in an open-crown Stetson glanced up and down the lean young man before him. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I’m Cog and this here is Duke. That’s what everybody calls me. On account of I lost a cog out of my head when I was, was a boy. A horse, horse kicked me and a cog rolled right out of my ear. That’s what they say. I’ve looked and looked but I ain’t never found one that, that I could fit back in. It don’t hurt none, though. I carry a note that holds my real name. Part of it is Burns. Ain’t that right, Duke? If you hold, hold onto Duke, I’ll find it. I can’t read it but, but maybe you can.”

  Cog proffered the rooster but the man in the hat shook his head.

  “Doesn’t matter, son. If your friends call you Cog, then that’s good enough for me.”

  Cog wriggled his fingers into his pants pocket, coming up empty. A reach into his shirt brought out a folded note.

  “Hey, here it is. Read it, mister. What’s it say my, my name is?”

  “This isn’t . . . Well what’s this now?” The man muttered as he scanned the paper.

  “Oh, that’s for, for Mister Festus at the bank! I got to give Mister Festus the news. I need to earn my, my keep. I need that paper back, mister.”

  “Well, Cog, how about I give you your pay now and I take care of Mister Festus? Here’s two bits for your trouble. You and Duke can go on home.”

  “If I go on home early, Miss Pa-Patricia won’t know what to do with me. She’ll say I’m a puzzler, again. Reckon she might give Duke a bis-biscuit, though.”

  The stranger thought this over. “Well, then, maybe you’d rather work for me this afternoon. How about that?”

  At the close of day, the mercantile was empty of customers as it had been all afternoon. Doyle Richards locked up and waited upstairs in his living quarters, his rifle trained out a front window open to view the riders coming in. There were two of them, silhouetted by the lowering sun. The riders paused at the edge of town, turned a circle, looking each way, then dismounted and walked between their horses, out of sight, down the alley behind the mercantile.

  Cog, squatting on his
haunches below the window at the far side of the store, cupped a hand over Duke’s head to keep him still. He raised his other hand to his new friend, Reuben, who crouched in the tall grass beyond. Boot steps echoed across the width of the loading ramp.

  “Hello? Shopkeep? Anybody here?” called the shorter of the men.

  “Place is clear,” said the other. “Best get to it. Grab food tins and tobacco. I’ll check the cash drawer.” He kicked open the supply door and they hustled inside.

  Reuben rushed forward, carrying a small torch. He broke the window and Cog handed him one of their homemade smudge pots. Reuben lit it and tossed it in. Cog gave him another to light and toss. The shop filled with black smoke.

  The thin, shaky voice of Doyle Richards sounded from far across the room. “You boys give up or you’ll never get away alive.”

  Two soot-blinded robbers stumbled around, kicking up a ruckus, knocking displays over, tin cans and two-penny nails rolling across the floor, jumbling everything into a confusion.

  From outside, Reuben threated, “Throw down your guns and get on out here before I cut you down where you stand,” though nobody could’ve targeted anything in that smoke.

  He lit another pot and handed it to Cog. “Run around back and put this at the door. We’ll flush them out through the front.”

  Reuben ran to the storefront and broke the glass so he could reach in and unbolt the door. Sunlight streamed a dim path from the boardwalk. Reuben drew his pistol and made a quick sidestep out of the light, slipping behind the thieves.

  “Move on out, you rotten cowards,” he said. “I’ve got you covered.”

  Coughing and sputtering, the robbers stumbled toward the light. Grabbing one of them by an arm and using the barrel of his pistol to prod the other one along, Reuben shoved both men into the street.

  Looking around, he took notice of a rifle barrel in an upstairs window. He called out.

  “Hey shopkeeper, I got these robbing thieves caught in the act. C’mon down!”

  Rifle shots snapped at his legs, twisting him halfway around. More shots, some into the robbers, some into Reuben’s back. He fell and the sun went down with him.

  “Cog wouldn’t hurt a fly, Sheriff. You know that.”

  Cog tapped the woman on her arm. “But I would, Miss, Miss Patricia. I can snatch a fly, fly right off Duke’s back and squish it good. I, I done it lots of times.”

  “Hush, boy. That’s not what I mean.”

  Sheriff Boggs glanced at the rooster tucked in the elbow curve of Cog Burns’s arm. Round yellow eyes looked about as confused as the sheriff’s own. Neither was quite sure what to make of it all. The smoke had cleared, three strangers lay dead, and here stood the town’s errand boy covered in soot, holding that dad-blamed rooster. Except for the bodies in the street, it was almost comical.

  “Now, Cog, what do you know about this mess?”

  “Well, sir, Reuben said did I want, want some work, and I needed a biscuit for Duke so I said I sure, I sure do, and he gave me two bits. We made smudge pots and Reuben knowed how, how to light ’em. When the fellers came, we made ’em smoke like Hades itself.”

  “Reuben, you say? Who’s he?”

  “My friend there, layin’ beside those robbers. Probably the best friend I ever had. Well, ’cept for Duke and Miss, Miss Patricia. Duke’s my, my best friend. You’re my good friend too, Sheriff, and old Mister Whitaker pays me, that maybe means he’s my, my friend too. Reuben said, ‘We got work to do,’ and we set to puttin’ wet hay and cow pies in cans. Reuben said, ‘and nobody’ll get hurt.’ ” Cog lowered his eyes to the heap of men blackened with soot, dust, and blood. “I reckon Reuben was wrong about that part.”

  Boggs sighed and turned to the owner of the mercantile. “What happened, Richards?”

  “I was waiting upstairs, Sheriff, after what you told us about staying on the lookout, and sure enough two strangers came along and broke right into the store, calling me out. Then there was a racket, a hollerin’ and scramblin’. I started down the stairs with my rifle but thick smoke stopped me. I thought they’d set my store afire. Seems I was trapped. But I wasn’t about to let them get away, no, sir, and that’s what I told them. No matter if I perished in the pursuit. As they tried to make a getaway, one of them waved a pistol, yelling up at me. I aimed from the window and squeezed off some shots.” His eyes shifted up and down the street before he leaned close to Boggs’s ear. “You suppose that’s all of them, Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Boggs looked over the damage and nodded. “I do suppose. Seems they’re ready for the undertaker.”

  The one called Reuben moaned and moved his lips, trying to speak, but then passed out cold.

  “Deputy McGrew, that one’s alive. Get him to the doc. Make sure he’s cuffed to the bed. Don’t take any chances.”

  Satisfied of no further danger, Richards hooked his thumbs into his vest pockets and turned to the people milling along the street, raising his voice to be heard. “Taking down rovers ain’t difficult for a man with my aim. Consider it my gift to the town. I’m turning them over to you with my compliments.”

  Cheers and whoops of admiration filled the dusky evening as the townsfolk patted Richards on his back and shook his hand.

  Cog followed as Reuben’s limp body was toted to the infirmary.

  “Reuben. Reuben, can you hear me? Can’t you wake up?”

  Duke strutted around the bed and crowed a loud cock-adoodle. Reuben’s eyes fluttered.

  “Cog? What happened? Did we get those robbers? Did we get them?”

  “Yes, sir, Reuben. They’s shot dead. Mister Richards shot, shot you too. Are you hurt bad, Reuben?”

  “Shot me? Why’d he go and do that? I had them boys well in hand.” He ran a dry tongue over his lips. “Got any water?”

  After a sip from a tin ladle, he lay back, exhausted. “Now I remember. That storekeep. He wouldn’t listen. I told him no need to fire. I told him I got ’em, it’s all over.”

  Deputy McGrew, standing guard, spoke up. “You saying you’re not part of the gang? Then who are you?”

  Reuben gathered his breath. “Name’s Monroe. With the bank sewed up tight. I staked out the mercantile. Made smoke to blind them. Flush ’em out. Turn them thieving louts over to the law.”

  “You didn’t set out to kill them?”

  “No. But I reckon I was a well-wisher to it.”

  A coughing fit took over for a minute before he could continue.

  “Been trying to catch up to them since they robbed my mama awhile back. Knew they were in this vicinity but lost their trail. I came here to buy supplies, then heard they’d robbed again and were headed this way.”

  Reuben lay quiet. Cog shook him by the arm, and he drew a shallow breath.

  “Those cowards don’t have gumption to rob a guarded bank. They prey like coyotes on old women. Sneaking into a store to steal supplies, now that’s a simple plan they thought they could handle.”

  “But why didn’t you tell the sheriff? He’d have helped capture those vermin.”

  His eyes opened to stare at the ceiling. He made an effort to gather his strength. “Reckon I wanted to be a hero. Mama told me it’d be my downfall. She said, ‘Don’t try to be a hero, son, just live the life of a good man and that’s praise enough.’ Like the Good Book says, pride goeth before a fall. I have a prideful streak. I confess that I ain’t proud of it.”

  Cog’s brow furrowed. “That’s a puzzler, Reuben. How can you be, be proud but not proud?”

  “I’ll be,” exclaimed the deputy. “Cog, run get the sheriff. He needs to hear this.”

  Cog shook his head. “I got to, to stay here with Reuben.”

  “Aw, Cog, why you got to be contrary? Suit yourself. I’ll be right back. Try to keep him alive until the doc comes.” The deputy loped out the door.

  Cog put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Are you dyin’, Reuben? I wish you, you wouldn’t.”

  “Well, if I do, Cog, there’s something I’d like to
ask of you. Think you can do me a last favor? However they send me on my way to Glory, I want to make sure Richards gets the respect he deserves.”

  “Sure, sure I can. Favors is what friends do, ain’t that right? What is, is it, Reuben?”

  Duke flapped up onto the bed and swiveled his feathered neck, putting an eye on first one friend, then the other, as they worked it out.

  Two open pine coffins leaned on end at the railing in front of the jail. Each held a stranger, now identified as notorious brothers Doug and Jack Thompson, their heads back and eyes closed. The flash of the photographer’s light popped, recording the day for posterity. Then the lids were nailed on and the coffins loaded on a buckboard headed for twin newly dug holes in the cemetery.

  Four men carried a third coffin made of solid oak by its wrought-iron handles. They slipped it into a waiting funeral wagon.

  “Now that’s a fine wagon. Look here, I can see myself in the shine.” Sheriff Boggs whistled as he tipped his hat back for a closer look.

  The long-bedded hearse glinted in the sun. Two brass lanterns hung on either side, round glass windows set high behind the driver’s bench. A matched pair of black horses hitched in front stood straight still except to flick at a fly now and then. No one gave any notice to the town errand boy nuzzling the far horse, nor heeded when he and his rooster slipped out of sight.

  Deputy McGrew nodded. “Well, all considered, a proper send-off back to his mama is the least we can do. I’d say we owe Reuben Monroe better than a pine box.”

  A snap of reins started the team. As the hearse turned onto the road out of town, the back panel fell open and there stood Cog Burns. Grinning at the crowd of townsfolk, he called out. “Mister Richards! Reuben said to give, give you this goodbye!” Cog turned his back, bent over, and dropped his drawers. Sunlight gleamed on his bare behind, shining like a full moon at noon.

  Duke stretched his neck and crowed.