Kill Crazy Read online

  “How do I know? Because you seen ’em, that’s how I know. You ain’t a’ goin’ to tell me they run off now, are you?”

  “They’re dead,” Duff said.

  “Uh-huh. Like I said, I’ll get someone out there to bury ’em. If we leave ’em to lay around and rot, next thing you know the water could get bad.”

  “I’m going into town this afternoon to check the mail and collect a few items at the store,” Duff said. “Would you be for wanting me to pick something up for you?”

  “Better get some coffee,” Elmer said. “You bein’ an Englishman, you always remember tea, but don’t always remember coffee.”

  “Och, ’tis a Scotsman I am, and nae an Englishman,” Duff corrected. He smiled. “Sure now, and have you nae corrected me anytime I refer to you as a Yank?”

  “Lord, no, don’t do that,” Elmer said with a wince. “You know damn well I ain’t no Yankee.”

  “Aye, I know well, Elmer Gleason. ’Tis a pair of rebels we both be, but in differing ways.”

  When Elmer walked back out to the barn, he saw the wagons painted and glistening, with the wheels greased and reattached.

  “Good job, men,” he said.

  “Al, Case, and Brax are goin’ into town. Since all the work you give us to do is done, can we have the rest of the afternoon off to go into town with them?”

  “I reckon so,” Elmer said.

  Ben smiled, broadly. “Come on, Dale. Let’s get washed up some.”

  Ben, Dale, Woodward, Martin, and Walker lived in the bunkhouse. Long and relatively narrow, the bunkhouse was one of several buildings that now occupied the compound. It had seven beds on either side. Each individual bed, and the area immediately around it, became the personal domain of the cowboy who slept there, his space as inviolate as if it were his home. And, in fact, it was his home.

  The cowboys used different forms of expression to personalize their “homes,” which not only established them as their private areas, but gave them a sense of belonging and identity.

  Dale had a picture of a fancy saddle that he had cut from a Sears and Roebuck catalogue pinned to the wall above his bed. Ben had a blue ribbon he had won in a foot race in Cheyenne the year before. There were other pictures and bits of memorabilia tacked to the wall above other bunks, from a calendar featuring a picture of a passenger train roaring through the night, to more than one “lucky” horseshoe.

  Ben and Dale filled a number-two washtub with water, then flipped a coin to see who got to use the water first.

  Ben won the coin toss and was now sitting in the tub in the middle of the floor, scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush.

  “Dale, you ever been to a big city?” Ben asked.

  “I been to Cheyenne.”

  “No, I mean a big city, like maybe Denver, or San Francisco, or St. Louis, or someplace like that.”

  “Well, I was borned in St. Louis, but I don’t remember it.”

  “I ain’t never been to no big city either, but I’d dearly love to go someday.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve heard tell that in San Francisco they got a whore standin’ on near ’bout ever’ corner.”

  “They got whores in Chugwater.”

  “Yeah, but most of the whores in Chugwater are so ugly they’d make a train take five miles of dirt road. The ones in the city is all real pretty, and ’cause they got so many, it don’t cost you hardly nothin’ at all to go to bed with ’em.”

  “Maybe someday me ’n’ you can go to San Francisco,” Dale suggested.

  Ben climbed out of the tub then and started toward his bunk.

  “The water is all your’n now,” he said.

  Dale walked over to look down into the tub. “What water?” he asked. “Looks to me like I’m about to climb into one of them bog holes we sometimes got to pull the cows out of.”

  Chapter Four

  There were two saloons in Chugwater. One was the Wild Hog. It made no pretensions and existed for the sole purpose of providing inexpensive drinks to a clientele who didn’t care if the wide plank floor was unpainted and stained with spilled liquor and expectorated tobacco juice. The Wild Hog did offer a limited food menu, but the biggest thing that set it apart from Fiddler’s Green, the other saloon in town, was its women. While the girls who worked the bar at Fiddler’s Green provided pleasant conversation and flirtatious company only, the women who worked at the Wild Hog were soiled doves who, for a price, would extend their hospitality to the brothel that was maintained on the second floor of the saloon. Nippy Jones, who owned the Wild Hog, made it very clear to the girls he hired that they would be expected to offer that service.

  Because the evening rush had not yet started, Nippy was working the bar himself when Simon Reid came in.

  “What are you doin’ here, Reid?” Jones asked. “I thought all you Sky Meadow boys was connected to the Fiddler’s Green by the hip.”

  “They might be,” Reid said. “But not me, seein’ as I don’t ride for Sky Meadow.”

  “What do you mean you don’t ride for Sky Meadow? You been with Duff MacCallister for near ’bout a year.”

  “I ain’t with him no more,” Reid said without any further explanation. “Let me have a beer.”

  Everyone agreed that the other saloon in town, Fiddler’s Green, was an establishment that was equal to anything you could find between St. Louis and San Francisco. Fiddler’s Green was owned by Biff Johnson, a retired army sergeant who, while he was with the Seventh Cavalry, had served with Custer, Reno, and Benteen.

  Fiddler’s Green was practically a museum to the Seventh Cavalry in general, and to Custer’s last battle in particular. The walls were decorated with regimental flags and troop pennants, with arrows, lances, pistols and carbines picked up from more than a dozen engagements. He had one of Custer’s hats. Libbie Custer had personally given it to him when he’d escorted her back to Monroe, Michigan, after George A. Custer was killed.

  Even the name “Fiddler’s Green” was indicative of Biff’s service in the cavalry. Cavalry legend has it that anyone who had ever served as a cavalryman would, after they died, stop by a shady glen where there was good grass and a nearby stream of cool water for the horses. There, cavalrymen from all wars and generations would drink beer, chew tobacco, smoke their pipes, and visit. They would regale one another with tales of derring-do until that last syllable of recorded time, at which moment they will bid each other a last good-bye before departing for their final and eternal destination.

  Emile Taylor was one of the customers in Fiddler’s Green this afternoon. He was sitting at a table with Cindy Boyce, one of the bar girls, and Francis Schumacher, a local citizen. Cindy was a very pretty young woman, with red hair, blue eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and a slender body with womanly curves. Schumacher was rawhide thin, with a handlebar moustache and hair that hung to his shoulders. Until recently, he had been a deputy. A month earlier Marshal Ferrell had fired him for beating up a drunk that he had brought into jail. Now, Schumacher was working at the livery stable, a position he considered a come-down.

  At the moment, Emile was giving Schumacher tips on how to make a fast draw.

  “What you have to do is always keep your holster and your pistol well oiled,” Emile said. “That way when you go to draw your gun, it won’t get hung up on you.”

  “How many men have you killed?” Schumacher asked.

  Emile chuckled. “That’s not somethin’ you ever actually want to ask someone,” Emile said. “Let’s just say that I’ve seen the elephant a few times.”

  “Can’t you two find something better to talk about than guns and killing?” Cindy asked.

  “Ha!” Emile said. “I suppose the only thing you want us to talk about is how pretty you are.”

  Cindy smiled. “That wouldn’t be a bad subject,” she agreed.

  When the five Sky Meadow cowboys came into town, the first place they visited was Fiddler’s Green. As soon as they pushed in through the swinging b
atwing doors, they were greeted by two of the bar girls, one blond and one brunette.

  “Hello, boys,” the brunette said.

  “Hello, Nell, hello, Mattie,” Woodward said.

  “Hey, Mattie, is that the new girl over there?” Ben asked, pointing to the redhead who, instead of wandering around the bar pushing drinks, was sitting at a table with two men.

  “Yes, that’s Cindy,” Mattie said. “She just started working here last week.”

  “Folks have been talking about her, and they are right. She’s a pretty thing,” Martin said. Then, realizing that he may have committed a faux pas, he added, “’Course, she ain’t no prettier than you two are, though.”

  Both Nell and Mattie laughed. “Don’t worry about it, honey,” Nell said. “I know she’s younger and prettier than I am. But I ask you this. Who is it that came over here to talk to you?”

  “You did,” Ben said, smiling at her, grateful for the way she handled it.

  “Who’s the man she’s sitting with? I know Francis Schumacher—he’s been around a long time. I mean the other one.”

  “His name is Emile, but I haven’t heard anyone say his last name,” Mattie said.

  “She sure seems to be friendly with them,” Walker said.

  “Would you like me to ask her to come visit with you boys for a while?” Nell asked. “I’m sure she would be happy to.”

  “Why would we want to talk to her when we have you two girls?” Woodward said.

  Smiling, Mattie removed Woodward’s hat and ran her hand through his hair.

  “Now isn’t that a smart thing to say?” she asked. “Oh, there are some new customers. We have to go talk to them for a while, but don’t you boys leave. We’ll be back,” Mattie promised.

  The five cowboys, who had stopped by the bar to get their beer when they came in, watched Nell and Mattie walk over to greet the new men. Then they found a table that would accommodate all five of them, and started rehashing the day’s events.

  “I guess you heard about the wolves,” Woodward said.

  “Yeah,” Ben replied. “We spent the whole day workin’ on wagons, tightening spokes in the wheels, greasing hubs. We even painted a couple, but we did hear about the wolves. Someone said that Mr. MacCallister shot five or six of ’em.”

  “Eight of them,” Martin corrected. “I don’t know how he done it. We couldn’t none of us get close enough to the damn things to hardly even get a good look at ’em. But Mr. MacCallister went out there, and I swear, no more ’n an hour later he come back in, leavin’ eight of them critters lyin’ dead in the dirt.”

  “Folks say he is as good a shot as there is in Laramie County,” Woodward said.

  “Laramie County? Huh! I’ll bet there ain’t no better shot in all of Wyoming,” Walker said. “Al, I’m sure you mind the time he shot an apple off Miss Parker’s head from a hundred feet away. And it wan’t no ordinary apple, neither. It wan’t no bigger ’n a plum.”

  “We had a little excitement of our own today,” Dale said.

  “What was that?” Woodward asked.

  “I reckon you fellas heard what happened to Simon Reid, didn’t you?” Dale asked.

  “No, what?” Martin replied.

  “I heard,” Walker said. “Reid quit, didn’t he?”

  “Quit, my ass,” Dale said. “He got hisself fired is what happened.”

  “What did he do to get hisself fired?” Woodward asked.

  “He got to mouthin’ off to Elmer, and Elmer up and fired him. That’s what he done,” Ben said, stepping in so that Dale didn’t get to tell the entire story.

  “Elmer ain’t the kind of person you want to get mad at you,” Woodward said. “I reckon Reid is lucky that fired is all that got done to him.”

  “Elmer’s sort of strange duck,” Ben said.

  “What do you mean, he’s a strange duck?”

  “Most of the time he’s kind of quiet. But when you are around him, you always get the idea that he’s sort of like a stick of dynamite, just waitin’ to explode.”

  Chapter Five

  Elmer Gleason, the subject of their conversation, had a most interesting background. In a way, one could say that Duff had inherited Elmer with the ranch, because when Duff had come to develop the land he had filed upon, Elmer had already been there.

  “They say the place is hainted,” R.W. Guthrie had told Duff when he’d first arrived in the territory. He had been talking about Little Horse Mine, a worked-out and abandoned gold mine that was on the land Duff had just taken title to.

  “’Course, I ain’t sayin’ that I believe in haints, you understand. But that is what they say. Some say it wasn’t the Spanish, that it was injuns that first found the gold, but they was all kilt off by white men who wanted the gold for themselves. But what happened is, after the injuns was all kilt, they become ghosts, and now they haint the mine and they kill any white man who comes around tryin’ to find the gold. Now, mind, I don’t believe none of that. I’m just tellin’ you what folks says about it.”

  As it turned out, the “haint” Guthrie had spoken of had been Elmer Gleason. Elmer had located a new vein of gold in the mine and, unable to capitalize on it, had been living a hand-to-mouth existence in the mine, unshaved and dressed only in skins.

  Then Duff had discovered Elmer in the mine, and because the mine was on the property Duff had just filed upon, everything Elmer had taken from it so far had actually belonged to Duff. Duff had had every right to drive Elmer off, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d offered Elmer a one-half partnership in the mine.

  That partnership had paid off handsomely for both of them. Now, Elmer was Duff’s foreman and closest friend. And Duff’s half of the proceeds from the mine had built Sky Meadow into one of the most productive ranches in Wyoming.

  Before going into the mine, Elmer had lived for two years with the Indians. He’d married an Indian woman who had died while giving birth to their son. He didn’t know where his son was now, and he didn’t care, even though he knew that he probably should. He had left him with his wife’s sister, and had not seen him since the day he was born, nor did he have any plans to.

  As a part of Quantrill’s irregulars during the Civil War, Elmer had taken part in the raid at Lawrence, Kansas.

  From the Leavenworth Daily Conservative of August 23, 1863:

  150 Male Citizens of Lawrence Slaughtered

  TOTAL LOSS $2,000,000,

  CASH LOST $250,000

  The scene along Massachusetts Street, the business artery of Lawrence, is one mass of smoldering ruins and crumbling walls. Only two business houses are left upon the street—one known as the Armory, and the other the old Miller block. About one hundred and twenty-five houses in all were burned, and only one or two escaped being ransacked, with everything of value carried away or destroyed.

  After the war, Elmer had ridden for a while with Frank and Jesse James. Separating from the James gang shortly after the disastrous Northfield, Minnesota raid, Elmer had cut a swath of lawlessness through the West. Then, leaving the outlaw trail behind him, he’d become a sailor, and later an armed mercenary fighting in Afghanistan during the British-Afghan war.

  Elmer had never told Duff about his time in Afghanistan because, as a mercenary, he had been fighting for the Afghans against the British. He knew that Duff had not been there, and he was glad that he hadn’t been. But this was a part of Elmer’s history that he had no intention of sharing with his friend.

  It was raining hard as Elmer waited on the Khyber Pass Road in Afghanistan, in the shadow of the Hindu Kush Mountains. He had information that a British pay officer would be coming this way, accompanied by a small guard detail. Elmer’s men were hidden in the rocks completely out of sight, whereas the British soldiers and the stagecoach were on the road, in plain view.

  As the pay detail approached, Elmer held his hand up, preparing to give the signal. He held back though when, unexpectedly, the British officer in charge of the guard rode to the front, stopped, then
looked down the road.

  The officer in charge, a captain, sent two of his soldiers down the road ahead of them, and Elmer turned in his saddle to make certain that his men were well concealed. He motioned for Sajadi to get out of sight. At his signal, the Afghan slipped back behind the rocks.

  If the advanced guard had been more observant, the British captain might have been forewarned. One of the boulders had been set up to be rolled down upon the trail, and the path between it and the road had been cleared of rocks and natural elevations that might impede the deployment of the boulder. But the Brits gave no more than a cursory glance ahead.

  It was obvious that the soldiers were miserable in the cold rain that ran down their shakos and dripped under the collars of their soaked red jackets, making them miserable and less attentive than they should have been. Their scout ahead of the detail was perfunctory at best; then they rode back at a quick trot through the muddiest part of the narrow road to report that all was well.

  The captain sat on his horse for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether or not he should trust the report.

  “Come on, Brit,” Elmer whispered under his breath. “They told you it was clear. What are you waiting for?”

  Finally, the British officer gave the order to proceed.

  With a sigh of relief, Elmer waved once, and Sajadi returned to his position by the boulder that had been freed to roll easily. Elmer stood by, watching the coach and the escort detail continue ahead, waiting until all were fully committed.

  Choosing the exact moment, Elmer brought his hand down. He heard two sharp reports as a sledgehammer took out the wedges that were holding the big rock back. With crunching and loud popping sounds, the boulder started down, reaching the middle of the muddy road with the crashing thunder of an artillery barrage. At the same time the boulder blocked the path of the coach, Elmer and his men moved out onto the road behind the Brits and fired several shots into the air.