The Shopkeeper (12 page)

After I had left Denver and couldn’t find a town for the night, my life outdoors was a haphazard affair. I had the right horse and gear for the range, but I was a raw tenderfoot when it came to living in the open. I did, however, know how to hunt birds. My father’s love of shotguns and game birds had rubbed off on me. I would have enjoyed beating the brush with Sam, but I doubted that McAllen would let me out of his sight.

In a few minutes, Sam entered our camp with a smile and two large sage hens. I walked over and held out a hand for one of the birds. “I’ll clean ’em,” he said, throwing a sideways glance toward McAllen.

“We can each take one,” I suggested.

“I can handle ’em.”

McAllen didn’t approve of his men fraternizing with clients, and Sam had already received one reprimand. My solution was simple. I reached in my pocket and drew out a silver dollar. “I’ll bet you I can dress my bird faster than you.”

I heard the men gathering around behind me. I had already discovered that nothing grabbed a westerner’s attention faster than a wager pitting one contestant’s skill against another’s.

A big grin grew on Sam’s face as he handed me one of the sage hens. As I took the bird, I said, “Captain, you judge.”

“With pleasure. I always enjoy seeing a cowboy separate a rich man from his money.”

We picked up canteens and walked over to a pair of knee-high rocks at the side of the wash. Sam knelt, but I remained standing with my legs spread to bring me closer to the surface of my rock. We both laid our birds down, and the captain yelled, “Start!”

Sam’s hands moved in a blur as he plucked the hen. I used my knife to deftly cut off the feet and wings. Without hesitation, I stabbed the bird just behind the neck and ripped down the right side of the backbone, all the way to the tail. I repeated the operation on the left side of the backbone, separating the ribs from the spine. Then I held the bird in my left hand and grabbed the head and craw with my right. With a mighty effort, I ripped the spine right out of the bird with all the organs attached. Tossing the guts aside, I worked my fingers under the skin and tore it from the body, feathers and all. Reaching down, I picked up the canteen and rinsed the bird thoroughly. When I turned and handed the hen to Captain McAllen, I estimated that it had taken me just over a minute.

In as casual a voice as I could muster, I said, “Done.”

Sam’s head whipped around in disbelief, and the other men cheered, slapped my back, and then passed the hen between them for examination. When I turned, Sam smiled as he held out his bird in one hand and a silver dollar in the other. “Do this one. I want to see how ya did that.”

After the best meal I had ever eaten on the trail, the Pinkertons positioned themselves in a rough circle around us. The moon was nearly full, so we could see a bit as we sat around the expiring embers and smoked our respective choice of tobacco.

McAllen blew a large cloud of smoke and directed a question at me. “You prefer that new-model Colt?”

The ’73 Colt .45 army-model revolver was six years old, so the comment told me something about McAllen’s attitude toward things new. I enjoyed talking about guns, but I had learned that westerners could be more than a little animated about their preference in firearms, so I merely said, “It’s reliable.”

Most men selected the 7.5-inch barrel, but I carried the 5.5-inch model, not for speed of the pull, but because of the reduced weight. I didn’t like carrying a huge hog leg at my waist. Although from twenty yards, I could hit a whiskey bottle with my Colt, I only said, “I prefer a rifle for distance.”

McAllen glanced at Sharp before saying, “Good idea, if one’s close by. But you gunfighters seem to like them short-barreled Colts.”

“I’m not a gunfighter.”

“But you
are
a man-killer.”

McAllen sat quiet a minute and then added, “I been in a few fights and seen more than my share. The man who walks away knows how to keep a cool head. If you took the Cutlers like I hear tell, you’re a cold son of a bitch in a gunfight. That’s more important than being good with a gun.”

I remembered how scared I had been walking into that street, but I decided it would be better to let the conversation die. After another moment, McAllen asked, “Can I see your Colt?”

Without comment I pulled my shooter out and handed it to McAllen butt first, hoping the talk would shift to guns instead of killing. McAllen quickly unloaded the weapon using the ejector rod in a way that showed he was not unfamiliar with the Colt .45. He inspected the barrel, spun the cylinder, and took a couple dry shots.

“Nice, clean feel. What’d you do to it?”

“Started with the pick of the litter, replaced the mainspring with a lighter, tempered one, and filed, polished, and hardened the bents.”

“Trial and error. That’s just the way it is. I probably reworked mine five or six times. Only difference is, I did the work and the testing.”

McAllen handed the Colt over to Sharp, who had been sitting quietly, watching our exchange. Sharp turned it in his palm and handed it back. I remembered Sharp in the street with a Winchester and guessed that he had little use for handguns.

After McAllen ran his finger along the barrel, he said, “Filed the sight a mite too.”

“That took the most time. I didn’t like the fat sight from the factory, so I thinned and shortened it to my liking.”

McAllen cocked the hammer in the half position and then in the full-cocked position. After taking a few more dry shots, he handed it back but kept the bullets. After examining one, he said, “Your own loads?”

McAllen poured the cartridges into my outstretched hand. “You’re a rich man, all right, and evidently a good one in a scrape.” He picked up his cigar, which he had laid on a rock. “That’ll be handy, if we run into trouble.”

Chapter 22

I grew increasingly nervous as we drew closer to the Bolton ranch. Jenny was free now, but what did I know of her? She was still a child, uneducated and ignorant of the world. At least, my world. I suppose she would say I was ignorant of her world, and perhaps she would be right.

I tried to figure out what attracted me to her, but my feelings confused me. Sure, she was pretty, but I had known plenty of pretty women. New York was full of them. But Jenny affected me differently than any woman I had ever met. And I had never actually met her—only lusted from a distance. No, that wasn’t right. It was more than lust. The attraction had been immediate and powerful. She exuded charm and energy, and her smile had snatched my heart in an instant.

I couldn’t make sense of it, so I gave up trying to understand emotions previously unknown to me. Reasoning would not provide the answer. Somehow, some way, I had developed an attachment to her, and no amount of thinking could erase an illogical passion.

Mason Valley presented a welcome sight after the stark landscape we had ridden through. A pretty green valley spread out in front of us, and even as a tenderfoot, I could see it was great cattle country. The open range, green grass, and cottonwood trees made the air feel fresh and the ride seem easier.

We arrived at the Bolton ranch house around noon, and my stomach hoped we would be offered a meal. The main house was a two-story clapboard affair with a large porch that faced an array of smaller, single-story buildings and a huge barn. There were five horses in a largish corral and a single horse surrounded by three cowboys in a breaking pen. I held back with the rest of the men as McAllen approached a lone elderly woman standing on the porch. We were too far back to catch the conversation, but eventually the captain made a slight motion with his hand that bid us forward.

As we approached, the captain said, “This is Mrs. Bolton, and she has kindly invited us to rest our horses and join her hands for the noonday meal.”

The title confused me, until I realized that this must be John Bolton’s mother. She was a matronly-looking woman, with a flowered dress draped over her corpulent body. Her flat nose and recessed eyes emphasized a face that looked too large for even her bulky body. Either John had inherited his weight problem, or the Bolton household employed a cook so good it was hard to push the plate away.

I did not want to eat with the ranch hands, so I stepped down from my horse and proceeded directly up the porch. Extending my hand, I said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Bolton. My name is Steve Dancy. I was saddened to hear of your loss.”

Mrs. Bolton looked me up and down and then turned a nasty stare at Sam, who was still dressed in my clothes. When her eyes returned to me, her scorn almost knocked me back a pace. “You have a hell of a lot of nerve showing up here. You’re responsible for my son’s murder.”

I could only stammer, “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who murdered them Cutlers and convinced my boy to reenter the governor’s race. He’d be alive today if you’d stayed out of our business.”

She whirled on me and spoke with venom I had rarely heard. “I’m
Mrs
. Bolton.”

“She’s doing what she’s fit for. You’ll find her in the cookhouse scrubbing dishes … among other duties.” She turned her back to me but then whirled around once again. “And you’re not to take her with you. She has debts to work off.”

“What? You can’t hold her.”

“The hell I can’t. And I got twenty ranch hands that say so.” Someone punctuated her last sentence with a rifle cock behind us. “She’ll stay until she’s worked off her debts.”

I had never been so angry. “How?”

Now came an ugly sneer. “My foreman’ll find ways she can be useful in the bunkhouse.”

I forced myself to take a deep breath and get control. I glanced over my left shoulder and saw that my Pinkertons had somehow spread out a bit, and they looked tighter than an obsessively wound pocket watch. Captain McAllen looked as threatening as any man I had ever seen, and his attention seemed riveted on something over my other shoulder. I assumed that the man with the rifle stood behind me to the right and that he was not alone.

I could understand the woman being angry at the loss of her son, but this outsized malevolence had to reach further back than three days. “All right, I’ll pay the debt,” I said, as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my eastern-style wallet.

After Mrs. Bolton snapped the door shut behind her, I stepped off the porch and gathered up the reins of the horse I had been riding. I tried to make my voice sound casual. “Well, let’s see what the cookhouse is serving for the noonday meal.”

With my neutral statement, I could feel the tension ease. I walked the horse over to the water trough, and Sharp and the rest of the men dismounted and followed. As the horses drank, I took the opportunity to look around. I was surprised to spot about ten armed hands scattered around, but none of them, at least at the moment, looked ready to cause serious trouble.

When Captain McAllen arrived at the trough, I said, “Let the men clean up. We can handle the horses.”

McAllen started to object until he figured out I wanted the three of us to talk in private. The captain nodded to his men and then nonchalantly whispered something into Sam’s ear.

As Sam and the others meandered away, I waited to see if any of the Bolton men moved into earshot. After a few moments, I asked, over the noise of the slurping horses, “What did you tell Sam?”