Winchester 1886 Read online

  He felt good—until Danny Waco laid the big Winchester on the table.

  When Waco raked in a good-sized pot, McIntyre shook his head, pushed back his hat and smiled, “You’re a man of luck, sir.”

  “Luck?” Waco laughed. “It’s skill.”

  Pointing at the almost empty bottle of rye, McIntyre said, “Well, I think we need some refreshments. How about if I buy us a new bottle?”

  “Suits me.” Waco’s partner was a man apparently named Gil.

  McIntyre bowed graciously, pushed his chair from the table, and walked to the bar. He pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his coat. “A bottle of your best rye, Horace.” Through sleight of hand, he handed over a five-dollar bill he had pocketed from the cash Waco had used to buy into the poker game.

  He leaned forward, finding a match, and fished an old cigar—his last—from another pocket. As the bartender ducked to find a bottle of something that wouldn’t blind a railroader, McIntyre whispered as he struck the match, cupped his hands, and lighted the cheroot. “Get the marshal. That’s Danny Waco over there.”

  The barkeep looked up, his face draining of all color.

  “Just act normal,” the gambler said quietly, calmly. “How about that bottle?” he said loud enough for Waco to hear, and leaned forward, whispering again, “Find that scalawag you call a peace officer. Tell him to bring the vigilantes. Get them over here. Pronto.”

  Reaching down, he took the bottle the bartender had, thanked him loudly, and returned to the poker table.

  Two men in black broadcloth suits entered the saloon, shot a glance at the table, and moved to the bar.

  “Danny,” Waco’s partner said.

  Waco was already studying the men, then grinned, and focused on the cards McIntyre had dealt. “They ain’t no threat.” He bet a blue chip.

  Not a threat? McIntyre’s head shook. He recognized both men as members of the Border Queen City Vigilance Committee. They were part of the reason he was waiting for the northbound train to pull out of town.

  Gil swore, but matched the bet with his nine of clubs showing. McIntyre looked at the ace of diamonds in front of Waco’s hand, and also bet.

  He let the pot build. Three watches had found their way from the road agents’ pockets, along with most of the chips, a diamond pin, a mother of pearl broach, plus some silver, gold, and greenbacks.

  Three other men had entered the saloon, ordering a pitcher of beer and three glasses, but neither Waco nor Gil even considered them.

  McIntyre couldn’t blame them. He let Waco raise, saw Gil call, then he called himself, and dealt the last cards up. King of clubs to Waco, whose face revealed just that smirk he’d been showing since his first two cards. The queen of hearts went to Gil, who frowned, lousy poker player that he was. He knew the queen didn’t help him at all.

  So did McIntyre, who’d dealt himself the king of spades.

  “Holy . . .” Gil whistled. “He’s buckin’ for a royal flush, Danny.”

  Sure enough, McIntyre had a queen, jack, ten, and king—all spades—showing.

  “Yeah.” Waco was still smirking. “But I’ve been playin’ poker for years, and I ain’t never seen no one deal a royal flush.”

  Waco bet a hundred. A good bet, even facing a possible straight flush, since he had two pair—aces and kings—showing.

  “Man!” Gil looked at his hole card for the umpteenth time. He shot Waco a glance, then smiled at McIntyre. “I don’t think you got the biggie, but a flush maybe. But . . . Awe. it’s only poker!” He called Waco’s bet with the last of his chips and cash. He held a nine of clubs, six of spades, six of diamonds, and queen of hearts. He was betting against a flush—a possible royal flush, at that—and two high pair that could easily be a full house.

  “Well . . .” McIntyre didn’t look at his hole card. “Like the man said, it is poker.” He matched the bet, and casually raised $500.

  Waco shook his head.

  “He’s bluffin’,” Gil said.

  “Of course he is.” Waco pushed the rest of his chips onto the table. “That’s all I got, and it’s table stakes.”

  “How about that Winchester?” McIntyre asked.

  Waco glanced at the big rifle. “That’s too much rifle for a dude like you.”

  Grinning, McIntyre pulled the emerald stickpin from his ascot, dangled it, and dropped it on the pile of chips and plunder. “A side bet. My pin against your rifle. What kind of punkin slinger is that, anyhow?”

  “Fifty caliber,” Waco answered, looked at the pin, then grinning, slid the Winchester into the center of the table. His right hand disappeared briefly and came up with a Colt, which he slid where the Winchester had been resting. He kept his eyes locked on the gambler.

  McIntyre looked at Gil. “It’s up to you, sir.”

  Sighing, the man polished off the rye in his shot glass, and turned over his hole card. “I want you boys to see what I’m folding.” The six of hearts fell atop his cards. “Sure hope my luck’s better in Nebraska. Three sixes. I hope one of you ain’t bluffin’.”

  “I ain’t much for bluffin’,” Waco said, grinning as he lifted his hole card. “And I know you ain’t got no royal flush, gamblin’ man, because I got the ace of spades right here.”

  He dropped the card, revealing a full house, aces over kings.

  Gil let out with an old rebel yell, shook his head in disbelief, and refilled his glass with rye. “That’s a hand, ol’ pal!” He turned toward the men at the bar and the table, who were concentrating on the poker game.

  “It most certainly is, friends,” McIntyre said, letting Waco reach for the pot with both hands before springing his trap. The fingers on the gambler’s left hand turned over his hole card. Danny Waco froze, and the man called Gil swore.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The nine of spades.

  Not a royal flush, but a straight flush beat a full house any day of the week.

  Waco shot back, his right hand going for the Colt, but a Remington over-and-under derringer appeared in McIntyre’s hand. Those twin .41-caliber barrels just a few feet from Waco’s nose stopped him.

  “Don’t.” The Southern charm could no longer be detected in the voice of Dehner McIntyre, native of Georgia, cheater at cards.

  A half dozen cocked revolvers punctuated the gambler’s order. Danny Waco and his partner became statues as the batwing doors pounded and six other men armed with shotguns entered Dick’s.

  “Your Indian friend is waiting at Miller’s livery,” said Greg Mason, the head of Caldwell’s vigilantes. He gripped a Schofield .45 in his right hand.

  “This sharper . . . He . . .” Waco stopped. He wasn’t about to beg, and the look on those vigilantes’ faces told him they cared nary a whit whether he had been cheated or not.

  “You and your boys are leaving town,” Mason said.

  Waco nodded. He had been run out of better burgs than this hayseed town. Besides, being asked to leave sure beat being locked up in jail to wait extradition to Judge Parker’s court for trial, conviction, and hanging. He picked up the bottle of rye, and stared at Dehner McIntyre, who calmly raked in his winnings.

  “I’ll be seeing you, mister,” Waco said icily.

  The gambler slid the Winchester off the table, pressing the stock against his thigh, and worked the lever. A giant .50-100-450 popped out and bounced across the floor. His grin held no warmth or humor, either. “I look forward to the visit.”

  When the two outlaws stormed through the batwing doors, most members of the Border Queen City Vigilance Committee followed them, never lowering their shotguns, rifles, or revolvers, bound and determined to make sure they, indeed, left Caldwell. After they had passed the plate-glass window, McIntyre thumbed back the Winchester’s hammer and laid the big rifle on the table.

  Mason stood in front of him. “And you’re to be on that train, gambler. Don’t forget it.”

  “Of course.” McIntyre returned the emerald stickpin to its proper place in his ascot. “Would
you mind handing me that shell?”

  The vigilante nodded to one of his associates, who bent, knees popping, and fingered the giant bullet, which he tossed onto the pile of money, chips, and plunder in front of McIntyre. Then, they were gone, too.

  McIntyre picked up one of the watches, pressed on the button and watched the case, engraved with a large elk and foliage, open. The large Springfield Watch Company model felt heavy—probably solid silver—with roman numerals and blue spade hands. The time read 5:37. He slipped it inside his vest pocket.

  The 7:15, of course, would pull out for Wichita on time, but McIntyre would not be on it. He was no fool. Waco and his gang would want that big Winchester, the money, the watches, everything McIntyre had cheated them out of. They would want him dead, too, and he had told them he was going to Dodge City.

  So, most likely, they would either meet him in Wichita, when he had to change trains. Or in Wellington. They might even wait till he got to Dodge City. Life used to be cheap in Dodge, but civilization had reached that old cattle town, too.

  Well, McIntyre would outsmart them. His luck was turning, he felt, and he had seen Dodge City before. Maybe Ogallala, Nebraska. Or west to Denver. He had plenty of money, a .50-caliber repeating rifle, and he figured he could buy a horse at Miller’s livery—as soon as the vigilantes made sure Danny Waco had left Caldwell.

  Vinita, Cherokee Nation

  After leaving the corpses with the undertaker, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann walked toward the depot, Jackson Sixpersons right behind him.

  “I need to get to Caldwell, Kansas,” Jimmy told the agent. He showed him his badge. “Fast as possible.”

  “Let me see what I can get for you, Marshal.” The agent hurried away from the window and began flipping through books on a table.

  Turning, Jimmy saw Sixpersons’ frown. “I know. By the time I get to Caldwell, Waco will be gone. But I can pick up his trail there.” Jimmy forced a smile. “Maybe even get some sleep on the train. You’ve been hounding me—” He stopped.

  The Cherokee lawman kept shaking his head.

  “Waco went to Caldwell,” Jimmy said, sharper.

  “Your jurisdiction,” Sixpersons reminded him, “ends at the state line.”

  Jimmy tapped the badge. “This here says I am a United States deputy marshal.”

  “And your commission says for the Western District of Arkansas including the Indian Nations. Not Kansas.”

  The agent was back. “I can get you on the Katy to Parsons. Then to Cherryvale. Then Winfield. To Wellington. Down to Caldwell. It’ll get you to Caldwell, if everything stays on schedule, which they won’t, by . . .”

  Jimmy didn’t care. He simply nodded, his cold eyes boring straight through Sixpersons.

  “I kinda hoped you’d see things my way, Jackson,” Jimmy said after a long while.

  The Indian’s face looked sad. It was about the first time Jimmy had ever seen the Cherokee reveal any emotion.

  “Badge means something to me, Jimmy,” Sixpersons said. “So does my word.”

  With an understanding nod, Jimmy turned to gather the assortment of tickets the agent had given him. A few moments later, he stopped in front of Sixpersons, who handed him the battered Winchester ’73. “He was my brother, Jackson.”

  The Cherokee nodded. “I know. This is something you have to do. But I can’t go with you.”

  It was better this way, Jimmy figured. He didn’t know how long it would take him to track down Danny Waco and that .50-caliber Winchester—nor did he care. And there was a good chance anyone traveling with Jimmy Mann might get killed. He could use a friend, a good man, plus that shotgun Sixpersons wielded, but he didn’t want the old Cherokee lawman to get hurt. Besides, Sixpersons was right. This was something he had to do. Alone.

  “You’ll telegraph Fort Smith for me? Tell them . . .” Tell them what? That I am resigning my commission, but will still use the badge to get whatever I need? That I am forgetting that oath I recited with my right hand over the judge’s Bible? That I would kill Danny Waco—in cold blood if I had to?

  Sixpersons only nodded.

  “And take care of Old Buck for me?” No reason in loading Buck on the train, Jimmy thought, taking him across the Indian Nations and Kansas. Maybe even farther.

  Again, Sixpersons nodded.

  “So long.” Jimmy didn’t offer to shake the Cherokee’s hand, but his right held the Winchester and his left the bundle of tickets for various trains.

  The Cherokee pulled a pouch from his pocket, and passed it to Jimmy, who shook his head. “That badge won’t get you everything. You’ll need some money. More than I do.”

  “All right.” Jimmy slipped the rifle under his arm, took the beaded leather pouch, slipped it into his pocket. “And if the railroad pays anything for those idiots we brought in . . .”

  “I’ll save half for you.” The Cherokee grinned, his head nodding his farewell.

  Jimmy went toward the rails. Sixpersons walked to the hitching rail.

  Wellington, Kansas

  “He ain’t on the train, Danny.”

  The locomotive churned coal-black smoke, the taste heavy on Danny Waco’s tongue. He stared at Gil Millican, and looked at the passengers disembarking the train from Caldwell. A drummer in a plaid suit. A nun.

  Wellington didn’t bustle like Kansas City or Omaha. At 9:30 P.M., the town was asleep, seeming as dull as Caldwell. That cheating sharper, Dehner McIntyre, couldn’t have slipped off the train, gotten off.

  Spitting into a trashcan, Waco swore. “He never got on.”

  Millican’s eyes widened. “He said—”

  “I know what he said.” Waco made a beeline for the horses. That lousy gambler had his cash, had his Winchester.

  “He said he was goin’ to Dodge,” Millican said. “Maybe we can meet him there.”

  Pulling the newspaper he had picked up from some tyke of a hawker at the depot, Waco shoved the Times under Millican’s eyes. “We can’t go to Dodge City,” he snapped. “Law won’t be so gutless in Dodge City. They’ll be after that reward the Katy’s posted.”

  “What about your rifle?”

  Waco wadded the newspaper into a ball and tossed it underneath one of the train’s coaches. “Maybe it’ll show up in Nebraska.” He saw The Tonk waiting across the street with the horses and pack mule. He knew they needed to put some distance between themselves and the Indian Nations, and Wellington, Kansas. Even Dodge City wasn’t that far from the reach of the law. He hated to run, hated to give up on killing Dehner McIntyre and fetching that Winchester ’86. But he didn’t want to die.

  Kiowa County

  Camping along the banks of the Medicine Lodge River, Dehner McIntyre had money in his pockets, coffee in the pot on the fire, a fine blue roan with some Tennessee Walker in her blood, and a twenty-five-cent cigar in his mouth.

  He ran a rag over the Winchester’s barrel, and began to wonder just what he needed with a .50-caliber rifle. Gamblers didn’t use rifles, especially gamblers like him, who knew how to deal off the bottom of the deck, how to palm cards. Men like him used hideaway guns like that Remington derringer.

  On the other hand, a derringer wouldn’t bring down a deer. He probably couldn’t even hit a rabbit with that little popgun, and it was a long way to Hays City. Luck was still running with McIntyre, and he had decided to try his luck in Hays, leaving Dodge City to the likes of Danny Waco and his men.

  Caldwell

  He stared hard into Greg Mason’s eyes until the full-time newspaper editor and part-time vigilante looked away and motioned to the bartender to bring a bottle of something that wouldn’t blind a man. “Did you know he robbed a train in the Nations?” Jimmy asked again.

  The bartender found a bottle of Jameson, and Mason poured two fingers in a tumbler for Jimmy Mann and four fingers for himself.

  Jimmy laid his Winchester on the bar. “I asked you a question. Twice.”

  Mason shot down his liquor, and quickly refilled the glass. “I didn�
�t know, Marshal.” He let out a heavy sigh.

  Well, Jimmy thought, what did I expect? He sipped the Irish whiskey. “But you knew he was wanted—”

  Swearing bitterly, Mason turned around and gave Jimmy an equally hard stare. “What did you expect me to do? Get the citizens of this town—maybe even their kids and dogs—shot to pieces? This isn’t Caldwell ten years ago, Marshal. It’s a town full of good people with good children. Most of them cater to farmers. You come to Caldwell, chances are you’ll see a bunch of farm families. What’s Waco’s reward up to these days? A thousand dollars? Five? Even if it was ten thousand dollars, I don’t think that’s worth risking the lives of women and children. Do you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It seemed to me that the best thing to do was get those gunmen out of town. But I guess that’s something you just don’t understand.”

  Jimmy finished the whiskey, and surprised the vigilante. “I understand.”

  Each had another whiskey.

  “I don’t know, Marshal,” Mason said wearily. “Had I known about the Katy robbery . . . had I known about your brother . . .” The whiskey went down. He corked the bottle, which made Jimmy relieved. As much as he wanted to get drunk, he knew he couldn’t afford that.

  “It’s all right,” Jimmy said. “Wasn’t your fight. It’s my fight. Which way did Waco go?”

  “We pointed him north,” the vigilante said. “Wellington? Wichita?” Suddenly, Mason paused, rubbed his nose, and cocked his head, thinking.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, there was a gambler in town. He took Waco and one of his men for a pile of money.”

  Jimmy waited.

  “Gambler’s name was Dehner McIntyre. We were running him out of town, too. A sharper, he was. Marshal at Hunnewell had sent me a telegraph about him, which is why we’d asked him to take the next train north.”