The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel (11 page)

It angered Jessie slightly. She reached in her bag and came out with a pocketknife, which she opened with her teeth, and pointed it at Wyatt, who had just managed to get a lantern lit. He didn’t like the look in Jessie’s eye.

“What were you going to do, Wyatt, cut my throat?” she asked. Her eyes flashed in a way that Wyatt didn’t like.

“I merely meant to shake you, put away that knife,” Wyatt said. If the knife impressed him he didn’t show it.

“You may not mean business but I do,” Jessie said. “You oughtn’t to have brought me to a place this terrible.”

“You don’t know,” he said. “This train might be headed straight to paradise.”

Jessie stood her ground, the hot look in her eye.

“Put that darn knife down before I’m forced to shoot you,” Wyatt said.

Wyatt didn’t shoot her.

After a time he went to the back of the car and lit a cheroot.

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41
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“The children just like
the guts,” Quanah said. He sat next to Goodnight, watching the butchery going on below them. In the great sandstorm that no plains person would ever forget, Goodnight’s herd had run before it so near the Palo Duro rim that eighteen animals had been pushed off a cutback to their doom. All of them broke at least one limb. These Goodnight shot and the Indian children were pulling out the guts and eating them like candy. Occasionally an aggressive dog would snatch a piece. Several old Comanche women were cutting out the sweetbreads, while others set up poles on which to dry the meat.

“It’s not only Englishmen who can run off cliffs,” Goodnight said. “We’re about one hundred miles from your reservation. How did you happen to hear about it so quick?”

“The birds told us, and the wolves—especially the wolves,” Quanah said. “There’s two of them right now.”

Sure enough, two lobo wolves were watching the operation.

“They hope to get the bones,” Quanah explained.

“I’ve seen wolves before,” Goodnight said. “What did you do when the big sandstorm hit?”

“Went to a cellar,” Quanah said. “All but one woman, and that one was pretty dusty. We found her in a ditch when morning came.”

“Surely this mansion had a cellar,” he added.

“Nope, but I aim to start digging one tomorrow,” he said, swinging in the saddle.

“Thank you for the beef,” Quanah said.

“A dead beef animal is no use to me,” Goodnight said. “The lesson here if there is one is that I need to do my ranching on the flatland prairie. No dern cutbacks.”

“I’m glad you and I didn’t have to fight. I can beat most white men, but you’re quick.”

“I hear you once could have taken Mackenzie’s scalp,” Goodnight replied, referring to the brilliant young cavalry officer who did more than any American soldier to break the Comanche power on the south plains.

“Yes, at Blanco Canyon, before he learned how to fight us,” Quanah said. “But he learned how to fight us and he fought us only too well.”

“So why’d you spare him, Quanah?”

Quanah shrugged.

“For no reason,” he said. “Sometimes I just do things like that. Then, later on, he beat us good, and he even beat Dull Knife too.”

Goodnight watched the Indian children eating gut.

“You went in but you didn’t always stay in,” Goodnight said. “I’d still like to know how you found out about these eighteen beeves.”

“Just gossip,” Quanah said. “Caddo Jake knew about it.”

“They say Mackenzie went crazy the night before his wedding and he died in New York in an asylum,” Goodnight said.

“Yes, we fought him too hard,” Quanah said.

“I rarely talk this much in a week,” Goodnight said, and rode away.

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42
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When Goodnight was out
of sight one of the old Comanche women who was drying beef began to badger Quanah. Her name was Crow Talks and she talked as much as any crow. Her incessant chatter annoyed most warriors but Quanah indulged her and didn’t beat her. The main reason for his forebearance was that she had been a friend of his mother, Cynthia Ann. He had a hunger for news of his mother, even though she was dead.

Crow Talks knew of his longing and told him many stories, including some that weren’t true.

“Goodnight was there when the whites took your mother back,” Crow Talks said.

“Yes . . . you tell me that every time I see you,” he said.

“You should have killed him,” she said.

“If I had, whose beef would we be eating now?”

“Nobody’s beef,” he added. Sometimes he answered his own questions.

“There are lots of stories now about the old days . . . the time of the People,” the old woman said. “I’m a forgetful old woman . . . myself. I have never been quite sure what happened to your father, Peta.”

“Peta was wounded in the Palo Duro fight, when Mackenzie beat us,” Quanah said, wondering why he bothered to talk to this pesky old woman. Maybe it was because he liked to be reminded of the years of the Comanche glory, when the People were lords of the plain—then they could go anywhere, kill anybody, torture and scalp.

“I was not in that battle,” Crow Talks said.

“No woman was in that battle,” he reminded her, with a sharp look.

“Peta was good to your mother,” she said, thinking it might be time to change the subject.

Quanah had been with his father as the wound from Mackenzie’s soldiers festered and pulled Peta away.

They were picking wild plums on the Canadian River when it happened. Eight warriors sang over him as he died.

Peta had been their leader; at his death Quanah became the leader. Not all Comanches were pleased with that, but none challenged him, not even Isatai, the medicine man who had failed so badly when, for a second time, they tried to drive the buffalo hunters out of the old trading post called Adobe Walls. The whites had attacked there once before, led by the great Kit Carson, but the People had been strong then and Carson had barely escaped with his life.

In the second battle, when Isatai assured them that his magic was unbeatable, it had not proved as unbeatable as the big .50 caliber Spencer rifles, guns that could kill at a mile’s distance. Isatai lost his power then. He tried to blame his defeat on a skunk, but all the warriors knew it was caused by those Spencer rifles.

Crow Talks started in on something but Quanah cut her off.

“I don’t want that beef to spoil,” he said. “Go back to your work.”

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43
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Wyatt, Doc, and Jessie
entered Arizona by way of Lordsburg, New Mexico. The sandstorm that cost Charles Goodnight eighteen cattle also gummed up several cars on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The coach that finally carried them west also contained a fat woman with three howling brats and a Frenchman who spoke no English.

Naturally the coach rattled and bounced. Doc picked up a toothache and Jessie grew queasy from the uneven progress. Wyatt was merely bored.

“I didn’t bargain for cactus,” Jessie said.

“Well, you got some, bargain or not,” Wyatt replied. He tried to remember a time when Jessie had sounded friendly, but he couldn’t think of one.

“I hope I don’t have to pull my own tooth,” Doc said. “What a tragedy that would be.”

Just at that moment the fat woman came out with a scream.

“I seen an Indian,” she said. Her three brats howled with her.

Wyatt glanced out the window and sure enough there was an Indian, a short brown man with a Winchester standing by a yucca that was taller than himself.

“She’s right,” Wyatt informed the company. “There’s an Indian fellow out by that yucca.”

“I don’t suppose a naked savage would be able to afford dental work,” Doc said.

He had a strong urge to throw the three howling brats out the window, but refrained.

“I wonder if Virg and Warren have got their saloon open yet,” Wyatt mentioned. “I would welcome a few swallows of whiskey.”

“You promised me I could bartend,” Jessie reminded him. “It’s my main pleasure.”

“You can bartend if there’s a bar,” Wyatt assured her. “I’ll be the bouncer, if one’s needed.”

“Unless we get scalped in the next few miles,” he added.

“What’s that?” Doc asked. “I was reliably informed that all the wild Indians had run off to Mexico.”

“You may not be as reliably informed as you like to think,” Wyatt said. “The one I just saw wasn’t in Mexico. For all I know it was Geronimo himself. He was carrying a Winchester rifle, which is an expensive gun.”

Ahead they saw a cluster of shacks, which seemed to be all the Arizona towns consisted of. Jessie was getting the feeling that she had made a mistake leaving Kansas City.

“That’s probably Tombstone,” Wyatt said.

But it wasn’t. It was Douglas, a town on the border. But any chance to stretch their legs was welcome. No sooner had the three brats hit the ground than they took off running, at which point their mother started praying to the angels. Then one of the engineers began to beat on another.

“Let them scuffle,” Doc said. “Fisticuffs will often clear the brain.”

“Get my boys, get ’em,” the desperate fat woman said.

“Where are we, Wyatt?” Jessie asked. “I thought there’d be lots of buildings.”

“I don’t know about the lots of buildings,” Wyatt said. “You know how Virg exaggerates when he’s drunk.”

“Which is often,” Doc said.

“You mind your own business,” Wyatt said, snappishly. He did not like to hear any of his brothers criticized, unless it was by him.

Doc ignored this threat and walked over to the two Butterfield men who had been exchanging blows. His hope was that a tooth or two might have been knocked loose. In fact when he arrived both men were spitting out teeth.

“I’m a practitioner of the dental arts,” he said. “Either of you gents need attention?”

“We were bound for Tombstone, but some ignorant fool forgot to pull the main switch and here we are in Douglas.”

Jessie could not remember feeling as lost as she felt at that moment. There was still probably a fine haze of dust in the air. There had been that Indian by the yucca. Doc had often explained to her what a fine scalp her long lustrous hair would make.

Wyatt was studying a little pocket map he had bought in Chicago a while back. He had found an empty bucket somewhere and sat on it while he read his map.

“Tombstone ain’t such a far piece from here,” he said.

“It wouldn’t be if we had firewood enough,” the engineer said. “But we missed the big wood yard in that sandstorm,” the man said. “And now we’re short of fuel.”

“It’s times like these when a deck of cards comes in handy—and I happen to have a deck of cards.”

Suddenly a high whirling dust devil came racing up the street. Jessie wanted to run but where was there to run? The small Frenchman had just stepped out of the train, just in time to walk right into it, which snatched his hat and blew it high in the sky. Fortunately the dust devil quickly dissolved.

“That dude picked the wrong time to get off the train,” Doc said.

No one disagreed.

Jessie got back on the train and had a cry.

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44
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“Miguel throws the prettiest
loop of any vaquero I’ve ever seen,” Goodnight said to San Saba. They were watching a team of six cowboys castrate some long yearlings that should have been cut months before. The vaquero Goodnight was praising was neither a young man nor a large man, but his skill with the lariat exceeded anything she had ever seen.

“Yes, quite a pretty loop,” San Saba said. In her time with Goodnight she had acquired some roping skills herself, but her roping did not compare with Miguel’s.

Goodnight, who rarely praised anyone, could not heap praise enough on Miguel.

“And it ain’t just his roping,” Goodnight went on. “He’s the best trail boss I know, and I’m pretty good with a trail myself. But Miguel will pick up a herd of three thousand and let them graze along and not lose a head—and most of them will weigh more in Kansas than they weighed in Texas. I’ve not the patience for that kind of driving. I push, and that’s asking for trouble.”

“You do push, Mr. Goodnight,” San Saba told him. “And for some reason you’re still nervous about me. I don’t know why.”

“I don’t either,” Goodnight admitted. “I suppose I’ve not had your opportunities. I know cattle and not much else.”

“How about your wife . . . there’s a lot to know there,” she said.

“Mary’s a force of nature and I’ve only one lifetime to learn about her.”

In the lots Miguel made a particularly difficult throw. The yearling went down and the cowboys were on him.

Miguel flashed a look and San Saba returned it. Goodnight saw the look but let it pass. He didn’t ask.

“I confess I’ve grown fond of Miguel, Mr. Goodnight,” she said. “He makes wonderful snares and gives me what he catches: prairie chickens, sometimes a quail. Mary and I and Flo often lunch on what Miguel snares.”

“I could probably eat a prairie chicken, if I was offered one,” Goodnight said.

“Maybe Mary will ask you to lunch,” she said. “Then you’ll be back to get another trail herd and we ladies will be back to beefsteak.”

“Miguel has a wife and thirteen children—did you know that, Mr. Goodnight?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” Goodnight admitted. “When I need Miguel I go to San Antonio and send for him. So far he’s always come.”

“Thirteen is a passel of children,” he said. “Maybe he likes to get away from them. I would.”

“Maybe, but mainly he comes for me,” she said. “We’re having a little romance. A very light one, no threats to the rest of our arrangements. There’s just a smile, like the one today. Just a smile, now and then. That’s as far as I care to go, romantically.”

Goodnight searched his mind for a reply, couldn’t find one—so he tipped his hat politely and walked off.

It stuck in his mind through supper, or dinner as the women came to call it. He mentioned it to Mary as she was getting ready for bed. She had her gown in her hand and held it in front of her while she looked at him.

“Did Saba tell you that or did you finally notice?”