Butch Cassidy the Lost Years Read online

  That wasn’t likely to happen.

  Looking back on it now, throwing that punch was probably a dumb thing to do. I was outnumbered four to one. Of course, the four cowboys were drunk, which meant they might not be able to fight as well as if they’d been sober, but still, four to one was bad odds.

  But suddenly it was four to three, as Bert and Vince stepped up beside me, and I have to admit, the possibility that they would might have been in the back of my head when I started the ruckus. I was going to be mighty interested to see how the two of them stood up to trouble. The fact that they were siding me when they barely knew me already told me something.

  The fella I had hit led the charge. Blood from his busted nose smeared the lower half of his face. He swung a wild, roundhouse right at my head. I ducked underneath it and buried my left fist in his belly. That made him bend forward and put his chin in good position for the right uppercut I lifted from my knees. His head went back so far it looked like his neck might break. His knees unhinged.

  But when he fell, that created an opening for one of his friends. The man lunged at me and hit me in the chest. The blow made me take a step back. He was fast and got a punch in to my face before I could block it. That knocked me into Bert, who grabbed me and kept me from falling.

  Vince waded into the man who’d just hit me, his arms flailing like windmills. Most of the punches went wild, but a couple of them connected.

  I slapped a hand on the bar and pushed off, freeing Bert from the job of holding me up. With the broken-nosed gent now lying senseless on the floor, that left the odds even. I started slugging away at another of the hombres. Vince was still mixed up with his opponent, and Bert got into the fracas, too.

  Since I was busy with my own man, who proved to be a pretty capable brawler, I didn’t really have time to see how they were doing. I caught a glimpse from time to time, though, and I could tell that what Vince lacked in fighting skill, he was trying to make up for with enthusiasm. He threw more punches in a shorter amount of time than anybody I’d ever seen, and even though most of them missed, sheer luck dictated that some of them were going to land.

  Bert, on the other hand, was slow as mud, and when he did manage to hit the man he was fighting, his punches didn’t seem to pack much power despite his size. He was taking a lot of punishment. That big hat of his had gone flying off his head because he kept getting hit in the face.

  My hat was gone, too, knocked off when I took a fist to the jaw that made stars erupt behind my eyes. The man I was tangling with was broad-shouldered and had a long reach. He could stand off where I’d have a hard time hitting him and pound on me all day. That wasn’t what you’d call a recipe for success.

  So I feinted a left to his head, and while he was watching it I kicked him in the balls. It was a tactic I’d used before, and while it wasn’t exactly fair, I’ve always felt that once you were in a fight, the point was to win it, not to impress folks with how honorable you are.

  He screamed and grabbed at himself and collapsed, and I kicked him in the head on the way down just to be sure he wouldn’t get up and start plaguing me again. That gave me a chance to check on my newfound allies and see how they were doing.

  Vince seemed to be holding his own. He was battling a tall, lanky cowboy, but his short stature allowed him to bore in and pepper the fella’s midsection with punches. Once he was in there, he could still reach his opponent’s jaw despite the height difference.

  Bert was pinned up against the bar, though, and the man he was fighting pounded him mercilessly. Whenever the fella sunk a fist in Bert’s belly, Bert bent over and tried to cover up. That left his head open, and the man smacked him over the ear time after time. I was about to step in and give Bert a hand when something suddenly seemed to change in him.

  He let out a roar like a maddened grizzly and shrugged off a couple of punches to the head as he drove forward and wrapped his arms around the fella. His weight and the unexpected charge forced the cowboy backward. The man tripped and went down, landing on his back with Bert crashing down on top of him. I heard a sharp crack, like a twig snapping, and knew Bert had just broken one of the man’s ribs.

  As the man began to writhe on the floor and make a high-pitched, agonized wailing sound, I reached down and got hold of Bert’s shirt collar.

  “Come on, mad dog,” I told him. “Get off of him. He ain’t interested in fightin’ anymore.”

  I couldn’t have lifted Bert like that if he hadn’t cooperated, but he was willing to get to his feet. He looked worried and upset.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he said. “I swear I didn’t. I just lost my head.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that too much, old son, because he was sure as hell tryin’ to hurt you.”

  Vince had battered his man into submission. The guy huddled against the bar, hanging there by an elbow as blood streamed down his face. Vince had gone after him like one of those fierce little Chihuahua dogs that seems to think it can lick a critter ten times its own weight. Sometimes, like here, that’s just what happened.

  I put a hand on Vince’s shoulder as he backed away from his beaten opponent. Unlikely as it might have seemed, the three of us had taken the four of them.

  “Now, about those jobs—,” I began.

  The roar of a shot interrupted me.

  I was wearing the Remington. I had it unleathered by the time I turned, but there was nothing to shoot at. The loudmouthed cowboy who had started the trouble, the one whose nose I’d busted, was sitting on the floor, slumped back against a table as he clutched his upper right arm. Blood welled between his fingers. A gun lay on the floor beside him.

  Over at the table where the two older men sat, the one who’d been reading the newspaper had put it aside. He had a Colt in his hand instead, with the butt resting on top of the table. A thread of smoke curled from the weapon’s muzzle.

  It was obvious to me what had happened. I nodded to him and said, “I’m obliged to you, mister.”

  In a gravelly voice, he drawled, “I never did cotton to backshooters. Young Wild West there figured he’d plug you while you weren’t lookin’, since he couldn’t beat you any other way.” He lifted the gun, pulled the hammer back a little, and blew the rest of the smoke out of the cylinder.

  I grinned. It was just the sort of dramatic flourish I might have done myself in that situation. I sensed a kindred spirit.

  “Dadgum it, now you’re just showin’ off,” his solitaire-playing compadre said. “Shootin’ the fella was fine, but you don’t have to make a production of it.”

  The wounded man let out a groan. I turned to the one man who was still on his feet—barely—and said, “You’re gonna have a hard time draggin’ your friends out of here, son, but I suspect they could all use some medical attention.” The ventilated one and the one with the busted rib needed a doctor, that was for sure.

  The bartender said, “Never mind about that. I don’t want this trash cluttering up my place, so I’ll go get some help. There are always a few men playing dominoes in the Oddfellows’ hall above the drugstore.” As he came out from behind the bar he pointed at the hombre who’d fired the shot. “I’m counting on you to keep an eye on the place for me until I get back, Enoch.”

  “You can count on me, Dick.”

  The bartender, who was evidently also the proprietor, hustled out. The smaller of the two old-timers, who had dealt himself another hand of solitaire sometime during the ruckus, kept playing. His companion stood up, pouched his iron, and came over to me and the two youngsters who wanted to be cowboys.

  “Enoch Cole,” he introduced himself as he stuck out a hand. “The bashful, card-playin’ one yonder is Gabe Wolverton.”

  “I ain’t bashful,” Gabe said. “I just don’t see any point in flappin’ my gums all the time like some people.”

  I shook hands with Enoch and introduced myself. He was a good ten years older than me, maybe more. His hair under a black Stetson was mostly silver and white with a few
black strands still in it. He was tall and skinny enough, he looked like he wouldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet, although I was sure he actually did weigh more than that. He had a loose-jointed way of moving, and I could tell by looking at him that he was made of rawhide, whang leather, and steel. I’d seen men like him in my time—I’d ridden with more than one of them—but most of them were dead and gone now, just like the times that had bred them.

  Gabe was about the same age, shorter and stockier, with a close-cropped white beard.

  I waved a hand at the two youngsters and said, “This is Bert and Vince. Don’t reckon I know their last handles yet, but I’ll have to since they’re fixin’ to hire on to ride for the Fishhook spread.”

  “I’m Vince Porter,” he said. “Bert’s last name is Chadwick.”

  Enoch shook hands with them and said, “Pleased to meet you boys. So you’re gonna ride for the Fishhook, are you?”

  “Well,” Bert said as he and Vince looked at each other, “I guess so. Do you really want to hire us, Mr. Strickland?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t mean it,” I assured them.

  “But we don’t have any experience as cowboys,” Vince said. “Like that loudmouth said, you’d be better off hiring him and his friends.”

  I made a disgusted sound.

  “Not hardly. I need fellas who ain’t afraid of a little hard work, fellas who can be depended on. You can both ride, can’t you?”

  They nodded.

  “Know how to handle a lasso?”

  Bert said, “Well . . . not really.”

  “You can learn. A man who keeps his eyes open and is willin’ to try can learn just about anything.”

  “We’ll do our best, if you want us,” Vince promised.

  “That’s all I can ask.” I paused. “You wouldn’t happen to know anybody who can cook, do you?”

  From the table where he was putting a red seven on a black eight, Gabe said, “I can cook.”

  I cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Is that so?”

  “Been told my biscuits are edible and my stew ain’t bad,” he said without looking up from his cards.

  Enoch nodded and added, “He’s tellin’ the truth.”

  I looked at him and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be a top hand, would you?”

  “I know which end of a horse is which.”

  “And both of you happen to be out of work?”

  “We drifted this way figurin’ that the spreads hereabouts would be hirin’ for spring roundup soon,” Enoch said. “We’ve been grub-line riders for so long we don’t really know anything else.”

  “Well . . . according to my foreman, I do need one more man . . .”

  “Then you’re lucky. You got everybody you need right here in one room.”

  That was a stroke of luck. So much of one it almost made me suspicious. But I’d come to the saloon to hire the rest of my crew, and here they were. Along with Randy, Santiago, and the Gallardo brothers, that gave me seven punchers and a biscuit-shooter. It seemed like enough to get the job done.

  The bartender came back in then with several loafers from the Oddfellows’ hall. They dragged out the losers from the recent brawl and left them on the saloon’s front porch. There was no doctor in Largo, so they’d have to wait until they were able to ride before seeking medical attention, but at least they wouldn’t be cluttering up the saloon anymore.

  “If you fellas want to, you can ride on out to the Fishhook with me in a little while and move into the bunkhouse,” I told my newly hired crew. “I’ve got one more errand to run, but I’ll be ready to leave in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “We’ll be ready to go,” Enoch said. Bert and Vince nodded. Gabe put a black four on a red five and never looked up, but at least he didn’t object.

  I stepped out of the saloon onto the porch, and as I did a buggy rolled past in the street. Something about it was familiar. I’d had that feeling before, when Sheriff Lester drove up to the ranch in his buggy, but this time it really was that traveling preacher at the reins, I realized, the one who had stopped by the Fishhook several weeks earlier. I recognized his sober black suit and his dour expression.

  This time he wasn’t alone, though. Sitting beside him was a young woman with flaming red hair, and she was so pretty she damn near took my breath away. She looked back at me as the buggy went by, and I would have sworn she started to smile. I couldn’t be sure, though, because then the buggy was past and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  A couple of the men who had dragged the cowboys out of the saloon still lingered on the porch. I said to them, “Who was that?” and pointed my chin at the buggy as it rolled on up the street.

  “You mean Reverend Hatfield?” one of them asked. “He’s fixin’ to build a church here. It’ll be Largo’s first one. If we could get a school, too, this place would be well on its way to being a real town.”

  I didn’t care a whit about Largo’s civic status. I said, “What about the girl with him?”

  “Her? She’s his daughter, I’ve heard.”

  The other man chuckled and said, “If she is, she must take after her ma. You wouldn’t think a peach that ripe could come from such a dried-up little prune as the preacher, would you?”

  His words struck me as disrespectful, but I suppressed the urge to snap at him. Reverend Hatfield’s daughter didn’t need me to defend her honor.

  I had to give in to my curiosity, though, one more time.

  “Do you know her name?” I asked.

  “Daisy, I think. Yeah, that’s it. Daisy Hatfield.”

  It suited her, I thought, as I started toward Tom Mulrooney’s blacksmith shop to claim my buckboard team and settle up with Tom for keeping them in his stable for a few days.

  But from time to time as I went about my business, I paused and said softly to myself, “Daisy Hatfield.” The name stuck with me, and so did the memory of red hair, green eyes, and the creamiest skin I’d ever seen in all my borned days.

  CHAPTER 16

  That reaction wore off, of course. I wasn’t a young man prone to getting all moon-eyed over every pretty girl who crossed my path. The fact of the matter was, I was almost old enough to be Daisy Hatfield’s pa myself. When you got right down to it, I was old enough to be her pa. So I told myself to be sensible, and I went on about my real business, which was to make the Fishhook into a decent spread where I could live out the rest of my days in peace.

  We made quite a procession as we headed back out to the ranch, me driving the buckboard with my saddle horse tied on behind, with the two young men and the two old men following on horseback. I wasn’t sure the bunkhouse was big enough for all of them. Randy would have to move out there, too. He’d been staying in the house while he recuperated, but if he was going to be one of the crew I couldn’t show him any favoritism. I was the boss, so I’d have the house to myself.

  Well, except maybe for Scar. He could sleep at the foot of my bed, like the hounds did with the old Vikings I’d read about in a book one time. I like to think that I would have made a pretty good Viking.

  The trail from town to the ranch was pretty easy to follow, but I pointed out various landmarks along the way to be sure the fellas wouldn’t get lost the next time they had to make the trip. When I showed them the two little hills that looked like a camel’s hump, Enoch said, “Looks more like a lady’s bosoms to me.”

  “You wish,” Gabe muttered.

  “As a matter of fact—”

  “And over yonder on the other side of the trail,” I said, “there’s a tree that was struck by lightning sometime in the past. You can see the scar down its side where the fire went.”

  “Let’s see you compare that to some part of a lady’s anatomy,” Gabe challenged his friend.

  “Well, now that you mention it—,” Enoch began.

  I interrupted him again by saying, “Then there’s that rock spire with the two boulders at the base, and before you go tellin’ us what it looks like, I r
eckon we can all guess, Enoch.”

  “I’ve found that I can recall things better if I relate ’em to things I’m familiar with,” he said.

  Gabe snorted.

  The whole conversation made the two youngsters turn pink, or maybe it was just the sun. Anyway, we pushed on, and by late afternoon we reached the Fishhook.

  Scar came out barking and snarling to greet us. Enoch said, “Lord, if that ain’t the ugliest dog I ever seen.”

  “He was here before you were,” I reminded him.

  “But an ugly dog’s got character, I always say.” That quick comeback made me smile. Enoch went on, “There’s a fella at the door with a rifle.”

  “That’s Randy,” I told them. “Randy McClellan. He’s been laid up with a bullet crease he got helpin’ me fight some outlaws.” I’d been telling that story long enough I was almost starting to believe it. “He’s part of the crew, too. Foreman’s a vaquero by the name of Santiago Marquez. He and his two cousins Javier and Fernando ride with us, too. They have their own little rancho, though, so you won’t have to share the bunkhouse with them.”

  “Good,” Gabe said. “It don’t look big enough for the rest of us as it is.”

  “You might be a little crowded. I figure you’ll work it out, though.”

  I waved Randy out of the house and introduced him to the rest of the bunch. There was a certain wariness among them. That didn’t surprise me. They didn’t really know each other yet. They would have to ride together for a while before they became an actual crew.

  “I reckon the cook shack’s out back?” Gabe asked.

  “Yep. The supplies are in the house because I’ve been doin’ all the cooking in there, but you can move anything out there you want to.”

  Gabe nodded and said, “Might as well get started rustlin’ some supper now, I suppose. You boys are gonna have to get used to my cookin’ sooner or later.”

  He went off to have a look at the cook shack, and when he was gone I said to Enoch, “You did tell me he’s a good cook, didn’t you? What he said there at the end didn’t sound too encouragin’.”