North to the Salt Fork (28 page)

Jack nodded. “My name's Starr. Jack Starr.”

The marshal shook his hand. “My name's Earp. Wyatt Earp.”

“Nice to meet you, Marshal Earp. I just sold a herd and I'm anxious to get back home, but we will be here for the trial if you need me.”

“I'll know in a few days what the state will do about them.”

“What now?” Jangles asked.

“Breakfast. Let's go find some,” Jack said.

They found a small café opening its doors for the day. After the meal they ran into several of their hungover hands, who were saddened to hear the news about Shanks and Claude. Most of them had spent the night at cards or with women. Most rode with them back to camp. Jack knew the next few days would be long and hard. He'd arranged for the funeral home to bring Shanks' body to them once the official inquiries were over.

 

The corpse arrived the next morning. Jack helped the rangers dig a grave on a small rise. He figured Shanks would rather be planted out there rather than in a yard with a bunch of outlaws and gamblers.

He finished the services with “How Great Thou Art.”

After two verses of the hymn he closed the Bible and said, “Lord, we're delivering you a great cowboy. He was a good friend, an honest man and a generous man. Lord, take him home. He belongs with you. Amen.”

“Amen,” the sad crew echoed.

Jack walked with the crew back to the chuck wagon and they all had a drink of whiskey in Shanks' honor. Ralph had stew cooking and the smell wafted gently on the breeze toward the crew.

Claude, Raul and Peso had come back just in time for the funeral. The congenial older man, still in bandages, thanked Jack for his help and told him what had happened. Cutter had been cheating at cards all night. Shanks challenged him and tried to leave the game, fed up with losing all his money. When he started for the door, Cutter stood up and shot him in the back.

“I protested and they started beating me. Next thing I knew I was lying in the alley, half conscious. I guess Raul and Peso found me later. They said they got word through Flower.”

Jack patted Claude on the back. “I'm glad you're alright. Let's put this all behind us and eat some of Ralph's delicious stew.”

Jack met with the Kansas prosecutor, Jerome Lonagan, who wanted to make a plea deal with Cutter and his attorney, the next morning. Manslaughter and four years—no parole.

“He won't ever shoot anyone with his right hand again. Why, I bet he can't even wipe his ass with it,” Lonagan said.

“He brought it on himself,” Jack said gruffly.

“This is the best deal I can make. Otherwise you and your men will have to come back and testify at a trial.”

Jack sighed. He was eager to get back home to Lucy and the baby, and he trusted that Cutter would learn his lesson in four years. “I guess we'll take that then. We're anxious to shed this Kansas dust, but I need to know that justice will be served.”

“Trust me,” Lonagan said. “You haven't been to a Kansas prison. Justice will be served.”

 

They left for Texas the next day. Jack had posted a letter to Lucy the day before, telling her he was leaving for home. Claude sat on the chuck wagon seat beside Ralph. The mules stepped lightly as Jangles played them out on the harmonic. They rolled southward as he sang
“
John, John, the gray goose is gone and the fox is on the town, oh . . .”

 

The second day they approached Indian Territory. Jangles asked Jack about Julius Knotts.

“Captain, you're not gonna pass up your chance to get 'em because you're eager to get home, are you?” Jangles asked.

Jack was silent for a moment. “We don't have any authority up here and I'd rather not have another run-in with the law that could prevent us from getting home.”

It was Jangles' turn to fall silent. Finally he said, “Sir, with all due respect, that's nonsense. Julius Knotts deserves what's coming. Besides, you've got three rangers who'll back you up. I have a feeling this is your one and only shot.”

Jack nodded. “You're right, Jangles. I need to take care of this now.” They hatched a plan and Jangles went to share the plan with Cotton and Arnold. Jack knew he was doing the right thing. One by one he'd eliminate anyone who had hurt his family, friends and loved ones, leaving no stones unturned. Besides, Knotts would be good practice for when he finally confronted Hiram Sawyer. He knew Sawyer would be waiting for him, itching to get his revenge.

 

At dawn Jack mounted Mac and the four rangers left camp in a short lope, riding stirrup to stirrup. They scattered a few prairie chickens and sent several fat ground-hogs scrambling for their dens. A pair of sleek coyotes spun off and tore over the hill. “What was that bluestem country like?” Cotton asked. “I'd like to have seen it.”

“Great grass country. The hills are rocky, but that would only keep the homesteaders out and leave plenty of space for us ranchers. Big springs and plenty of water in the creeks. God intended it to be cow country,” Jack said.

“Are we going to try to get a herd of yearlings this year?”

“I plan to. They say snow doesn't usually last long up there. But it'll be colder than South Texas.”

“We'll just wear more clothes,” Cotton laughed. The others agreed. “Me and Arnold sure want in.”

“I figure we can get a bunch back up here by next spring, then sell them next fall,” Jack said.

“Yearlings are cheap in Texas,” Jangles said. “How many will we buy?”

“As many as a banker will let us have,” Jack said. Ten-dollar yearlings could be worth sixty to eighty dollars by the following fall if the grass that fattened the deer so well worked on cattle.

 

Midday they drove up in sight of Julius Knotts' stomping grounds. Everyone checked the loads in their pistols. Loaded rifles under each stirrup, they spread out to advance on the corrals and a low-walled sod building with a tin roof. A rooster crowed and a hen cackled. A milk cow bawled for her calf from her pen. A woman stood in the doorway in a blue dress and used her hand to shield her eyes from the midday sun.

“Julius Knotts here?” Jack asked.

“I don't know who you're talking about,” she said warily.

“You know him, lady. Is he here?”

She sighed. “You the law?”

“No, we're Texas rangers.”

“What do you want him fur?”

“Murder.”

“He's been gone for a week. I don't know where he went or when he'll be back.”

Jack looked around and dropped out of the saddle. “Move aside from the door, ma'am.”

“He ain't in here.”

Jangles, standing in the stirrups, nodded sharply, then rode around to the back of the house to cover the other exit.

“Halt or I'll shoot!” Jangles shouted from the rear.

Shots were fired.

Jack yelled to Cotton as he ran for Jangles, “Keep a gun on her.”

He raced around the building and found Jangles dismounted and standing over a man lying facedown.

“He tried to shoot me, but his gun misfired. I had no choice.”

“You did the right thing,” Jack said as he dropped to his knees and rolled him over.

The bullet had entered squarely in the center of Knotts' chest. Blood poured out of the black hole to stain a once-white shirt. Jack closed his eyelids and straightened his body.

The woman rushed to him, covering her mouth as she fell to her knees.

“You want us to bury him?” Jack asked soberly.

She shook her head. “Tie him up in a blanket and put him in my rig around the corner.”

“Ma'am, he chose how he died. But we're civil enough to bury him and do it the right way.”

“The U.S. deputy marshal at Enid will pay me a hundred dollars for him. Dead or alive.”

“We'll take him to the marshal at Enid for you,” Jack said.

She refused his offer.

They headed back for the chuck wagon and Arnold spoke up. “Strange lady. She never shed a tear about him. All she wanted was the hundred dollars.”

Jack nodded. “I reckon she was his woman. Guess she's thinking about what she'll have to live on now that he's gone.”

“I guess so. It's just strange to me.”

Jack nodded. Knotts was finally gone, but it wasn't exactly what he wanted; worse, it didn't bring Cory back. He was glad Knotts couldn't kill another innocent person, but he'd rather he'd ended up behind bars to think over his sins. It would've been more of a settling of debts than shooting him dead in his yard in front of his wife. Things didn't always tally up in a man's life the way he thought they ought to. All he could do was be grateful that Julius Knotts would no longer haunt him.

Jack realized they'd made good time; they had crossed Indian Territory in a little over two weeks. After stopping to rest, they grained Ralph's mules and swapped horses midday for fresh ones. When they came down to the Red River ferry the cowboys laughed and teased each other.

“You happy, Arnold?” Jangles asked. “You won't have to swim buck naked this time.”

“I've never been so damn happy to see a boat.”

“How are you going to drive dumb yearlings up here and not cross rivers?” Jangles teased.

“I'll make it,” Arnold said. “But I damn sure won't like it.” He spat to one side.

By the time they were in the Trinity River bottoms, Jack called for a three-day rest. The boys, except for Jangles, were ready to catch some extra sleep. Jack and Jangles left them at camp and rode in to Fort Worth to talk to a buyer about the yearling market.

“You know, my wife may not appreciate me being gone all summer,” Jack said. He hadn't thought much about it, but here he was working on another scheme that would separate them and he'd sure missed her while he was away. He'd have to go along to get the boys settled. He just hoped Lucy would understand.

“Why, she ought to be tickled pink. Those cattle made her a fortune.”

“But having her husband away is a steep price to pay,” Jack reminded him.

“Ain't that something?”

“What's that?” Jack asked.

“A woman being mad 'cause her man is off making money.”

“Well, I think she married me to have a husband, not a cattle trader.”

Once they arrived he talked to a few commission men at the stockyards. Most said they could assemble a herd of yearlings for less than ten dollars a head. One buyer said if he had time he could find most for seven-fifty a head.

“I sure do like the idea of making money,” Jangles said as they left the office, the smell of oats and leather following them out of the door.

“We better keep it quiet. No telling how this will go and we don't need hundreds of other traders doing the same thing.”

“Oh, I will. I'm just excited we may have a real deal.”

“You bet. Bankers come next.”

“How much money do we need?”

“Twenty-five thousand bucks.”

“Good Lord, who's going to loan us that much money?”

“That's why we're going to see the banker,” Jack said with a laugh.

Jangles chuckled. “I'm learning, Captain. I'm learning. Old man Sawyer loans my paw money. Costs him a pretty penny too. And it ain't never much. Just enough to get by on till he makes some money.”

“That's the difference between going to someone like Sawyer and going to a legitimate banker. Your paw is going to pay him high interest for a short-term loan, but it ain't worth that much to a real banker.”

When they arrived at the bank, they met with a loan officer named Mr. Rosencroft. The pale-skinned, short man with large-framed glasses perched on his nose didn't look overly impressed with two trail-dusted cowboys holding their hats in grimy hands until Jack showed him the receipts from Wichita. Then his eyes opened wide and his mouth fell open in disbelief.

“We're on our way home. We live sixty miles or so north of Fredericksburg in the hill country,” Jack explained.

“This is a very impressive amount of money. It's the highest receipt I've ever seen from a cattle trader. What's your secret?”

“I have several of them and trust me, they all work,” Jack said.

Rosencroft smiled. “Let me bring Harold Davis in here. Mr. Davis is our senior vice president. Will you excuse me?”

When he got up to leave, both Jack and Jangles rose and nodded to him.

Jangles checked to be sure they were alone. “I believe the fish has bitten the bait. He liked to have swallowed his tongue at the sight of those receipts.”

Rosencroft came back into the room with an older, heavyset man in a very expensive suit. Jack extended his hand as Rosencroft introduced him as Mr. Davis.

“Have a seat,” Davis said as he sat on the edge of the desk. “Allan here advises me that you two gentlemen are here to apply for a substantial loan.” He paused.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Jack said. “Nothing more; nothing less.”

“And you would need this money for how long?”

“Fourteen to fifteen months.”

“You have collateral to back it?'

“Two thousand steers, a chuck wagon and eighty good horses.”

“And you could sell them in that short timeframe?” he asked, looking a bit skeptical.

“I don't know what the market will be then, but anywhere around fifteen dollars a head would satisfy your loan.”

“How much did this herd you just delivered earn you?”