A Lone Star Christmas Read online

  “If they are like this from Dodge all the way down to Fort Worth, I don’t think we’ll have a bit of trouble,” Falcon added. “They trail as easy as Longhorns, if not easier.”

  The loading pen manager came up to the group then. “Any of you fellows in charge of the cattle that just came in on this train?”

  “Aye, that would be me,” Duff said.

  “What do you want done with them?”

  “Here you go, Mr. Dawes,” Smoke said, handing the manager a sheet of paper. “You can put those cattle in with mine. I have the holding pens reserved through Thursday.”

  Dawes looked at the paper and nodded.

  “All right, I’ll get them off-loaded.”

  “Thank you,” Smoke said. Then to the others, “I have four trains scheduled. We’ll ship the cows to Dodge, then all we have to do is drive the cows from Dodge City down to Fort Worth.”

  “All we have to do?” Falcon asked with a smile. “You have any idea how far that is?”

  “Four hundred and fifty miles,” Smoke said. “Figure on making fifteen miles a day, it’ll take us just about thirty days. We should be there just before Christmas.”

  “That’s pretty ambitious, considering the weather,” Falcon said. “Don’t forget, most cattle drives are in the summertime. This is a wintertime drive. We aren’t only going to have the weather to worry about, we are going to have to worry about finding enough grass to keep the herd fed.”

  “I know,” Smoke replied. “And I’ve discovered since I started running them, that Angus eat a lot more grass than Longhorns, or even Herefords.”

  “We’ll do it,” Duff said. “We don’t have any choice but to do it.”

  “What do you we say we go to the hotel now, get a good supper and get you checked in.”

  After taking rooms at the hotel, they met up again in the hotel restaurant. There, they were met by Smoke’s two principal hands, Pearlie and Cal. There was a large round table set for nine, eight plates of which were clean. Cal had already started eating, and he stood up with a mouth full of food, chewing it quickly to avoid having to talk with his mouth full.

  “Cal, I’m glad you waited on the rest of us,” Smoke said, and the others laughed.

  “I did wait,” Cal said. “I just decided to have a little something to eat while I was waiting to eat.”

  Smoke chuckled. “Damn, if you all knew Cal the way I do, you would know that, that almost makes sense.”

  “Duff, this is my foreman Pearlie,” Smoke introduced. “And the young man with a face full of food is Cal.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Cal mumbled around food, not yet swallowed.

  When the introductions were completed they sat at the table, and after ordering their meals, began talking about the upcoming adventure.

  “So, Sally, is this really the Christmas trip that Smoke promised you?” Falcon teased.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Sally said.

  “There you go, Matt,” Falcon said. “If you ever get married, you need to find a woman just like Sally.”

  “There isn’t anyone else like Sally,” Matt said, “if so, I would have found her and married her long ago.”

  Sally beamed under the compliment. “Why thank you, Matt. I appreciate that,” she said. “But I’m sure that some fine day, someone is going to say the same thing about Meghan.”

  Everyone around the table looked at Meghan and Duff who smiled, but made no incriminating response.

  “Oh, here is something you might appreciate,” Smoke said. “I have ordered a private car to be attached to each train,” Smoke said. “Since we are going to have a very difficult winter drive, I figure we may as well take what comfort we can, while we can.”

  “Nobody can find any fault with that,” Falcon said.

  “Smoke, are you sure you don’t want Cal and me to come along?” Pearlie asked. “You’re going to have a long drive with just the five of you.”

  “I’ve been in touch with Big Ben,” Smoke said. “He has promised to send some drovers up to meet us. He will also be furnishing the chuck wagon and a wagon to carry our gear.”

  “Still, a drive in the wintertime,” Pearlie said. “That’s going to be rough as a cob. I wish you would let Cal and me help out.”

  “You and Cal just keep things under control back at the ranch,” Smoke said. “That will be help enough.”

  “All right, if you say so,” Pearlie said.

  “How have the Angus worked out for you, Smoke?” Duff asked.

  “Best decision I’ve ever made,” Smoke said.

  “Oh?” Sally asked with an arched eyebrow. “Switching from Longhorns to Black Angus cattle was the best decision you ever made.”

  “Yes. They are easier to handle, they pay more at the market.”

  “Smoke, you might want to rethink that ‘best move you ever made’ comment,” Pearlie suggested. “I mean, seeing as you decided to ask Sally here to ...”

  Pearlie didn’t have to finish his comment because, belatedly, Smoke caught on.

  “Best move I ever made regarding cattle,” Smoke said, doing damage control. “Of course, marrying Sally was the best move I ever made.”

  Sally’s laugh told him that she had been having some fun at his expense, and the others laughed as well.

  There was a lot of discussion during the rest of the meal, much of it driven by curiosity as to whether the relationship between Duff and Meghan was more than partnership in a ranch. Neither Duff nor Meghan provided an answer to the speculation.

  From the Colorado Springs Gazette, November 13, 1890

  BIG CATTLESHIPMENT.

  Intelligence has been received of a large rail shipment of cattle which will pass through Colorado Springs on the night of the 14th Instant, for Dodge City, at which point they will be taken from the cars and driven to a ranch near Fort Worth, Texas.

  The shipment is the result of a business transaction conducted by Mr. Duff MacCallister of Chugwater Valley, Wyoming and Mr. Smoke Jensen of Big Rock, Colorado with Mr. Benjamin Conyers of Live Oaks Ranch in Tarrant County, Texas. Black Angus Cattle are a much better breed than the Longhorn in that they have more weight, and the beef is said to be of the finest quality. A measure of the animals’ superiority can be ascertained by their price at the Kansas Market. The price for Longhorn cattle has fallen precipitously, while the cost for Black Angus remains around $17.00 per head. Two thousand five hundred of these valuable beasts are being shipped, that number being sufficient to require a total of four trains.

  Most people who read the article did so with an interest that was generated only by their curiosity in the transaction, or by a bit of pride in the fact that cattle from Wyoming and Colorado were being shipped to Texas.

  One of the readers was Red Coleman, and his reaction to the article was considerably different from that of all the other readers. The first thing he noticed was the name Smoke Jensen.

  “Lookie here, McDill,” he said. “Looks to me like we might be able to square things with Smoke Jensen after all.”

  “How?” McDill asked. The two men were having a beer at a saloon in the small town of Salcedo.

  “It seems that Mr. Smoke Jensen is in the cow business. And not just the Longhorn cow business, but a special kind of cow that’s worth seventeen dollars a head. He is puttin’ them real valuable cows on four trains that’s going to be passing right through here, and we’re goin’ to steal them cows.”

  “How we goin’ to take four trains?”

  “We ain’t. We’ll only take the first train, and we’ll take it when it reaches Lajunta.”

  “When will it be comin’ through?” McDill asked.

  “According to the paper, they’ll be comin’ through tomorrow night.”

  “How many cows will be on that train?” McDill asked.

  “Well, if it is one of four trains, I figure that means that it breaks down to about six hundred and twenty-five,” Red replied. “And that’s about ten thousand dollars.”
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  “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money all right, but it’s for sure and certain that we ain’t goin’ to be able to do this alone,” McDill said. “We’re goin’ to need some more folks.”

  “You don’t worry about that. I’ve got a couple of men in mind,” Red said. “I’ll gather them up and we’ll meet back here this afternoon.”

  Though it was still mid-afternoon, the saloon was already crowded and noisy with the sounds of idle men and painted women having fun. Near the piano, three men and a couple of women filled the air with their idea of a song, their discordant voices killed whatever melody there might have been, and their interpretation of the lyrics, complete with ribald phrases, would render the song unrecognizable by the composer.

  At the moment McDill was standing at the bar, his foot propped up on the rail as he stared into the single beer he was nursing. Every time someone new would come in, he would look over to see if it was Red. After waiting for an hour, all the time nursing a single beer that had grown flat, he saw Red come in with two other men. One, a man named Woodward, McDill recognized. McDill and Woodward had been in jail together back in Denver. But he had no idea who the other man was.

  The three men ordered beer at the counter, then started toward an empty table at the back of the place. McDill followed.

  “All right,” Woodward said. “Now, what’s this job you were talkin’ about?”

  Red told of the four trains that would be going from Denver to Dodge City, Kansas, each one filled with cattle.

  “And these ain’t your ordinary kind of cows neither,” Red said. “They’re Black Angus, and Black Angus cows are worth a lot of money.”

  “How are we going to take four trains?” Woodward asked.

  “We ain’t,” McDill said, speaking up quickly to show that he and Red were the ones who came up with the idea. “We’re just goin’ to take the first one.”

  “Still, there’s only goin’ to be the four of us,” Woodward said, keeping up the argument. “You think we can off-load a whole trainload of cows before the next train comes along?”

  “We ain’t goin’ to be off-loadin’ ’em,” Red said. “We’re goin’ to leave ’em on the train.”

  “Leave ’em on the train? Now, that don’t make no sense at all,” McDill complained. Even McDill had not been filled in on Red’s ultimate plan.

  Smiling, Red looked around the table at the men he had recruited just for this job. “Burgess, I think it’s about time we tell these other two men what you used to do.”

  “Until I got fired for bein’ drunk while workin’, I was a railroad engineer,” Burgess said.

  “Really? You mean you used to drive the trains?” McDill asked, obviously impressed with Burgess’s résumé.

  “That’s what I did, all right.”

  “And he’s going to do it again,” Red said. “Burgess, tell them what we have in mind.”

  “We’re goin’ to steal the train,” Burgess said. “When it gets to Lajunta, we will steal it, then we will leave the Santa Fe tracks,” Burgess said.

  “What do you mean leave the tracks?” McDill asked. “That don’t make no sense a-tall. Hell, even I know you can’t drive a train unless it’s on tracks.”

  “We won’t be leaving the tracks,” Burgess explained patiently. “There is a switch track at Lajunta. When I say we will leave Santa Fe tracks, that’s just what I mean. We are going to switch the train off those tracks, and onto the Denver and New Orleans tracks.”

  “Oh,” McDill said, though it was clear that he still didn’t fully understand the operation.

  “We are going to steal the train,” Red continued with the explanation. “Then Burgess is going to drive it. Like he said, we’ll leave the Santa Fe track and head south on the Denver and New Orleans. When the other three trains come through, they won’t have any idea that anything is wrong with the first train, and by the time they get it figured out, we’ll be sitting pretty somewhere with a whole trainload of cattle.”

  “You make it sound pretty easy,” Woodward said. “So what are you not sayin’? What do we need to look out for?”

  “I don’t figure we’ll have too much trouble taking the train,” Red said, “but Burgess has pointed out what might be a problem.”

  “Yeah, I thought this was sounding too easy. What is the problem?” Woodward asked.

  “On any railroad you’ve got trains goin’ all the time, using the same tracks,” Burgess said. “The only way they can keep them from ever runnin’ in to each other is by scheduling them so that they know where every train is at all time, and which way it’s going. As long as we are on the Santa Fe Tracks, we’re on their schedule so there’s no problem with other trains. But once we get on the Denver and New Orleans line, they won’t have us on their schedule.”

  “So what you are saying is that another train could run in to us?” Woodward asked.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem for us,” Burgess said. “All we have to do is get clear of the high iron, then we stop somewhere and unload the cattle. But, being as we’ll be leaving the train just sittin’ there, why, it could be a problem for the next train that comes along. Won’t be so bad if the next train to come along is just freight. But if it’s varnish, it could wind up killin’ a lot of folks.”

  “Varnish?” McDill asked.

  “That means a passenger train,” Burgess explained.

  “Yeah, but if you think about it, that’s not really a problem either,” Red said. “If a bunch of folks gets killed and injured, then that will mean that ever’ one’s goin’ to be concentratin’ on the train wreck. Like as not, they’ll forget all about a few cows.”

  “What will we do with the cows once we get ’em?” Woodward asked.

  “Why, we’ll sell ’em of course,” Red said.

  “To who?” Woodward wanted to know. “It ain’t like we can take them cows to market and sell ’em. Bein’ a special breed and all, soon as we take ’em, folks are goin’ to know about it. And if we show up at some market with the same number and same kind of cows as the ones that was stolen, we’ll wind up in prison. And I ain’t all that anxious to go back to prison.”

  “We’ll find someone to buy ’em,” Red said. “We won’t get as much money for ’em by sellin’ ’em that way, but we will make enough for this to be worth our time and effort, that’s for sure.”

  Onboard Special Train Number One, November 14

  In the cab of the 2-4-2 Baldwin locomotive, Engineer Clem Beale and Fireman Jerry Kelly were illuminated by the yellow cabin lights. Beale looked at the steam-pressure gauge, then checked the water level.

  “I’m glad we’re comin’ up on the Lajunta tank,” Beale said. “We’ve been keepin’ a lot of pressure and we’re using water like it’s passin’ through a sieve.”

  “Ahh, we’re in good shape to make it to the tank,” Kelly said. He opened the door to the firebox then tossed in another few shovelfuls of coal. Slamming the door shut, he leaned back against the side of the cab, pulled out a large red bandana, and wiped the sweat from his face.

  “Say, Clem, have you ever heard of Santy Claus?” Kelly asked.

  “Of course I’ve heard of Santa Claus,” Beale replied. “Why would you ask a question like that?”

  “I wasn’t sure whether you had, seein’ as you ain’t married and don’t have any kids or nothin’,” Kelly said. “But my two kids is just full of it. I told ’em, it’s more than a month ’till Christmas, it ain’t time to be worryin’ about anything like that yet. But that ain’t quietened ’em down any.”

  Beale chuckled. “What are you goin’ to do, Jerry? Get yourself one of them red Santa Claus suits?”

  “Nah, I’ll just wait ’til they’re both asleep, then tell ’em they didn’t wake up in time to see him.”

  “Ha, I’m glad I don’t have any kids to worry about with Santa Claus and such things,” Beale said.

  “It ain’t really that big a worry when you think about it,” Kelly said.
“I kind of like it.”

  Beale smiled and nodded at his friend. “That’s because you are a good Pa.”

  Thirty cars back from the engine, the only other car that was illuminated was the private car owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, but on temporary consignment to Smoke Jensen. Sally was in bed in her nightgown, but not asleep. Smoke, who was not in bed was sitting in a large, overstuffed reclining chair. His feet were propped up on the footrest, and he was looking through the window at the moon-silvered landscape they were passing through.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to have our own private car?” Smoke asked. “That way, anytime we wanted to go somewhere, all we would have to do is arrange to have it attached to the end of some train and we could go anywhere we wanted as comfortable as this.”

  “We can do that anyway,” Sally said. “I mean look at us now. We don’t own a private car, but we aren’t exactly riding in a cattle car either, are we? If we wanted one, we could always rent one.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t it be neat to sort of drop into a conversation, something like—‘Next week Sally and I will be taking our private car to New York, or Philadelphia, or Madagascar.’”

  Sally laughed. “Madagascar is an island. How would we get there?”

  “By ship.”

  “Then we wouldn’t need a private car, would we?”

  “You are too practical for your own good,” Smoke said. He reached for his boots, then set them beside the chair.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just making my boots handy. I figure we’ll be taking on water pretty soon,” Smoke said. “When we do, I’m going to take a walk up one side of the train and down the other side, just to make certain everything is all right.”

  Lajunta, Colorado

  It was only a quarter moon, but that was enough to cause the tracks to gleam silver as they stretched out before Red and the three men with him. Far to the west they could see the Rocky Mountains, rising like a huge black slab against a somewhat lighter sky. A few minutes earlier, Burgess had climbed up onto the water tower, and now he climbed back down.