The Dawn of Fury (74 page)

“Whoa,” said Netherton, “you unjustly accuse me.”

“I've heard of these hog killings where a bunch of hombres talk, with nobody carin' a damn what they say. I'll be there on one condition, that I can leave when I'm good and ready.”

“That's how it'll be, then,” said Netherton.

The Kansas-Pacific offered transportation from Abilene to Kansas City, but Nathan wanted to ride. It was a good time to buy horses in Abilene, for many a cattleman sold his remuda at trail's end. Nathan still mourned the loss of his faithful black, and made up his mind never to own another black, for it would be a constant reminder of one that could never truly be replaced. He finally settled for a grulla, almost the exact shade of gray as Mary's. They reached Kansas City and when Nathan presented Mary to Eppie Bolivar, she welcomed the girl without question. They settled in at Eppie's boardinghouse and Nathan resumed his habit of reading newspapers from other towns, forever seeking a name that was never there. What had become of John Wesley Hardin and the men who rode with him?

A week before the affair on July fourth, Netherton's wife took Mary into town and outfitted her in what was considered proper dress for the time. The fun began when she returned, and spent an hour getting herself up for Nathan's approval. It was a ballroom dress that almost swept the floor, with what seemed a never-ending array of petticoats. Her slippers were a matching light blue. She came out, almost falling over the numerous petticoats, and Nathan laughed.

“What's so funny?” she demanded. “Would you rather I wore a flannel shirt and Levi's?”

“There'd be less chance of you falling and breaking your neck,” said Nathan. “I'm wearing what I always wear, or I don't go.”

But Nathan yielded to pressure, some of it from Mary, and eventually bought new black pin-striped trousers, white ruffled shirt, string tie, black boots, and a new, high-crowned gray hat.

“Damn it,” he complained, “a man walks around dressed for burying, he's likely to be shot, just on general principles.”

But the affair was deemed a huge success, and Nathan Stone enjoyed it far more than he expected to or would later admit. Byron Silver was there, and while much of his and Nathan's joint efforts could not be discussed, they had their moments.

“I reckon we'd best enjoy this blowout,” Silver said. “It's the first time we've even been together for any length of time that one or both of us wasn't bein' shot at.”

“Yeah,” said Nathan. “I miss it, don't you?”

Silver remained in Kansas City two more days before returning to Washington. Finally, on July eighth, Nathan hit paydirt with his newspapers. On July sixth, in Abilene, Charles Cougar had been shot dead after a quarrel with John Wesley Hardin. Another piece charged Hardin with killing Juan Bideno, a Mexican, in the tiny village of Bluff City, Kansas. There was no mention of the men who had supposedly left Texas with Hardin. The writer of one of the articles had suggested that Hardin had come up the trail with a Texas herd to Wichita, but that was unconfirmed. The trail-drive story made sense to Nathan, accounting for the time it had taken Hardin to reach Kansas.

“I'm riding to Wichita,” Nathan told Mary. “You can stay here, if you want. There's a chance the man I'm after came up the trail from Texas with a Texas herd.”

“And if he didn't,” said Mary, “you'll be off on another trail, and I may never see you again. I'll go with you.”

Nathan made the rounds of all the saloons without learning anything that was helpful to him, until a bartender suggested he ask at the hotels and the boardinghouses.

“Most gents just off the trail usually stay at least one night,” said the helpful bartender.

“Do you really think these men are going to use their own names?” Mary asked.

“There's a good chance they will,” said Nathan. “This would have been their first night here. I reckon Hardin won't be usin' his own name now that he's shot some hombres, but he might have, that first night off the trail.”

“I'm sorry,” the desk clerk at the Drover's Cottage said, “but we do not reveal information about our guests.”

“Damn uppity place,” said Nathan, as he and Mary went out the door.

But Nathan's luck turned completely around when he reached a less-than-elegant hotel called the Texas.

“I've been looking for some hombres to get here for three months,” said Nathan to the clerk. “They were comin' up the trail with a herd, and I'd say if they got here, it was on maybe the fourth or the fifth.”

“Have a look at the register, if you want,” the clerk said.

Nathan started on July third, and on the next page, found what he was seeking. The scrawled signature read: J. W.
Hardin,
and on the line below it, D. Withers.

“They may not be in Wichita,” Nathan said exultantly, “but they're somewhere in Kansas.”

“You can't be sure of that,” said Mary. “It's not more than forty miles from here to Indian Territory.” Immediately, she bit her tongue, for Indian Territory was the last place she wished to go, or have Nathan go. But to her surprise and relief, he had other ideas.

“After Hardin left here, he went to Bluff City,” Nathan said, “and from there, he had to ride to Abilene. What I need to know is whether or not Dade Withers is with him. If Withers is on his own, then the hell with Hardin. I've been trailing him because he's been my only contact with Withers.”

Nathan found no record of John Wesley Hardin at any of the hotels, and when he was about to admit defeat, he found Withers's scrawled signature on an out-of-the-way hotel register. The date was July ninth.

“By God,” Nathan said, “that's what I've been looking for. Withers was still in Abilene two days after Hardin killed the second man. That means that Withers is no longer riding with Hardin.”

“Is that going to make him any easier to find?” Mary asked.

“Yes. I ... hell, I don't know,” said Nathan. “It means Withers has kept his nose clean enough to sign his own name. I'm going to at least ask at the livery. His horse may have a Texas brand.”

“Jist one Texas brand I seen lately,” the liveryman grinned. “XIT.”

Nathan turned away without even thanking him.

“That's no help?” Mary asked.

“My God, no,” said Nathan, looking at her pityingly. “The XIT is likely the biggest damn spread in the world. It covers ten counties. That's what XIT means: Ten in Texas. I doubt there's a cowboy west of the Mississippi who hasn't ridden for XIT.”

“You don't have to talk to me like I'm a dumb cow,” she said. “I've never been anywhere until I met you.”

“Sorry,” said Nathan. “I keep forgetting that.”

“You know Withers isn't here,” Mary said, “because the date on that hotel register was July ninth. Unless he stayed somewhere else for a longer time.”

“That makes no sense,” said Nathan. “If I stay at a hotel for one night, why the hell wouldn't I stay there till I was ready to leave town?”

“I don't know,” Mary said. “We're talking about Dade Withers, not you.”

“You're right,” said Nathan grudgingly. “It makes no sense, but I can't ride on without knowing for sure.”

Nathan studied as many hotel registers as he was permitted to see, and didn't find Withers' signature again.

“Now where are we going?”

“He could have ridden to Hays, Dodge, or even Denver,” Nathan said. “We'll try Dodge first, and then Hays. If I don't find him in either place, then I reckon we'll ride farther north.”

“If you find no further trace of him in Kansas,” said Mary, “how do you know he didn't just ride back to Texas?”

Speechless, Nathan leaned on his saddle and rubbed his eyes. Why did a woman always have to be so right?

In Texas, riding with John Wesley Hardin, Dade Withers had taken part in several robberies. While nobody had been killed, Withers had welcomed Hardin's decision to join the trail drive bound for Wichita. Withers had been drawn to the Texas outlaw because of Hardin's lightning-fast draw and his devil-may-care attitude, but while crossing Indian Territory with the trail drive, Hardin had shot and killed an Indian without cause. Withers realized that Hardin had a hell of a temper, and he killed for any reason, or for no reason at all. Withers had thus reached the sobering conclusion that just riding with such a man could get him gunned down or hanged on the same limb as Hardin. When he had reached Kansas, Withers had just begun to breathe a little easier when, in the space of just two days, Hardin had killed two more men. Hardin had been forced to leave town in a hurry, so it hadn't been difficult for Dade Withers to sever his ties with the outlaw.

Now Withers was riding southwest, for he had heard of the lawless tent city on the bank of the Arkansas, soon to become Dodge City. Withers didn't bother stopping at Fort Dodge, but rode eight miles west, where he paid for a cot in the tent that was soon to become a hotel. Withers then spent the rest of the day sizing up various businesses. Most of them, except for the mercantile, still occupied tents. He quickly decided the mercantile was his best bet for some fast money, for thanks to the soldiers and civilians at Fort Dodge, it did a landslide business. While in Wichita, Withers had seen a map of the state, and he judged that, on a fast horse, he was less than an hour from Indian Territory. He could be well on his way before the marshal took the trail, if he even bothered.

But Dade Withers would have hurriedly scrapped his plan to rob the store, had he known that others were of the same mind. Breed and Vanardo had already spent half a day in the tent city, and even as Withers settled down on his cot for the night, the two renegades rode south, bound for Indian Territory. Their report would bring El Gato and his outlaw band to the tent city the next evening, just after dark. The new mercantile had prospered and the vultures had begun to gather ...