A Tale Out of Luck (24 page)

Flora’s eyes brightened. “I’ve got stick pins galore. That’s a better idea.”

They took down an oil painting and a mirror between two windows facing Main and began arranging the negative replies geographically.

“Here’s Brownsville,” Flora said, kneeling to pin a telegram near the baseboard.

“I have a Lincoln, Nebraska,” Jane said.

“Pin it as high as you can reach. A little more to the right.”

“You really know your geography.” Jane stood on her tiptoes and pinned the reply in place.

“I
have
been around, Janie.”

“I didn’t mean it like—”

“Relax, honey. I know what you meant. Here’s a negative from Denver while you’re up there. Way over to the left by the window frame.”

“Where the heck is Waxahachie?”

“Here, I’ll show you.” Flora eyeballed the imaginary map. “Dallas will be about here, and . . . Waxahachie!”

“I’ll just give them to you,” Jane suggested. “You pin them. Here’s a big, fat ‘No’ from San Antonio.”

Flora took her time placing the telegram on the wall. “So . . . what were you and Jay Tomlinson talking about on the boardwalk in the freezing cold a while ago?”

Jane blushed. “It’s funny. He doesn’t like to be called Jay. He likes Jay Blue. And I don’t like Janie. I prefer just Jane.” She handed over a scrap of paper. “Kansas City.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m just used to Janie by now.”

“Oh, I don’t mind you calling me that, Miss Flora. It’s just everybody else.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Here’s a place called Ogallala. It’s in Nebraska.”

“I know Ogallala. So, what’s going on between Jay
Blue
and Jane Catlett?”

“Nothing. I swear. I mean, I think he wanted to
kiss
me tonight.” She blushed again, and rolled her eyes toward the North Pole.

“It’s about time. Did you let him?”

“Fort Worth says, ‘No.’” She handed over the telegram.

“So much for Fort Worth. What did
you
say?”

“‘No,’ of course!”

“Jane! He’s been trying awful hard for weeks. He may not try forever. What are you waiting for?”

“He’s nice to me. I like him. But I promised my mama.”

“Promised her what? That you’d stay a virgin your whole life?”

“Miss Flora!” Jane hissed, blushing an even deeper shade of red.

“Well! You can make him wait till you get married if you want to, but don’t swear it off completely. I don’t care what you promised your mama.”

“I’m not a virgin. That’s just it. When he finds that out . . . You don’t know what happened to me, Miss Flora. I had a stepfather. He . . . He’s the one who used to call me Janie. That’s the reason I don’t like it much.”

Mortified, Flora grabbed Jane’s arm. “Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I will never, ever call you by that name again. I didn’t know. But what that man did to you doesn’t count, do you hear? You’ve kept your real virginity, and nobody can take it until you want to give it up.”

“But when Jay Blue—or whoever—when he finds out . . .”

“Jay Blue doesn’t even have to know about any of that if you don’t want to tell him. You’re a sweet, young girl. You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

Jane smiled uncertainly and handed over another sample of Sam Collins’s chicken scratchings. “I like Jay Blue. He’s a gentleman and all. But I promised my mama.”

Flora turned to pin Waco on the wall. “What’s this promise all about?”

“She told me to wait for a rich man—somebody who could take care of me. She said he might not be young or handsome, but as long as he was real nice and had money . . . She said I should wait for that kind of man.”

“A rich man? What do you think Jay Blue Tomlinson is? A dirt farmer?”

Jane employed that pretty smirk of hers. “Worse. He’s a cowboy.”

Flora put her hands on her hips. “Jane, sit down.” She pointed at the edge of the bed and waited for the girl to sit there. Flora sat nearby. “His name is Tomlinson. He’s Captain Hank Tomlinson’s son. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Jane shrugged. “I listen to the talk in the saloon. They say Captain Tomlinson never puts any money in the bank. He spends it all on land. He’s got good horses and a lot of land, but he doesn’t have much money. He never dresses up. He doesn’t wear silk hats or diamond tie pins. He doesn’t even own a tie, probably. They have no money, Miss Flora.”

Though it was cool in the room, due to the roaring norther outside, Flora pretended to dab sweat from her brow with her sleeve. “Dear, dear, dear. Oh, my goodness, Jane. Did your mother make you promise that your future husband
had
to be old, bald, and ugly?”

“Well, no, ma’am, but . . .”

“There are all kinds of wealth, honey. Those Tomlinsons have the greatest kind—they live well and enjoy their time on earth. But, okay, I know you promised your mama you’d find a man who’d take care of you, so let’s think about commodities.”

“About what?” Jane said, her face a beautiful question mark.

“Commodities.
Riches.
There are a lot of different kinds of riches. I’ve seen most of them come and go. The gold market fluctuates. They keep digging more of the stuff out of the ground! The treasury will print more currency and mint more coins until they’re almost worthless. I’ve gone broke several times because of it. Stocks and bonds, booms and busts! I’ve survived more panics than a flock of chickens with a fox in the coop. But there’s one commodity that God is not going to make any more of. Do you know what that is?”

“I guess I don’t.”

“We’re pinning it to the wall! Geography! They ain’t making no more land, honey! And only a couple of men in Texas own more of it than Captain Hank Tomlinson, which by blood and default includes Jay Blue Tomlinson.”

Jane was still not convinced. “But there are miles and miles of free range. Anybody can use it. Why is it valuable?”

Flora sighed bigger than the wind outside. “Don’t you read the newspapers? The economy in Texas revolves around cattle since the war ended, and it’s booming. They’re rounding up longhorns here for a few dollars a head and selling them on the hoof at the railheads up north for twenty dollars a head and up. The profits are huge!”

“I know all that. But the Tomlinsons are just spending it on more land.”

“That’s what the smartest ranchers in Texas are doing right now. Even some foreign syndicates. The free-range days are coming to an end, Jane. Texas is selling land faster than a two-dollar whore sells
her
real estate. The day will soon come when the richest man in Texas is the man who owns the most land. He who owns the most land can run the most cattle. He who owns the most cattle will sell them, year in and year out, for more money than Jefferson paid for Louisiana.”

The look of enlightenment on Jane’s face went far beyond any desire for money. “I think I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

“What I mean is that Jay Blue Tomlinson—that handsome young gentleman you’ve been giving the cold shoulder to—is already one of the wealthiest men in Texas on paper land deeds, and will someday in fact be a millionaire. On top of that, he’s so head-over-heels in love with you that he can’t look at anything but you when you’re in the room. But . . . If you think your mama wanted you to wait for an ugly, old, bald man who doesn’t anymore know his way around a herd of cattle than he knows his way around a feather bed, that’s your decision!”

“Miss Flora!”

“And if Jay Blue is anything like his daddy, he’ll
know
his way around a—”

“Miss Flora! I get it!”

“I hope you do get it, honey.”

“Miss Flora!”

Flora laughed. “Anyway, if you were to marry that young man, you couldn’t possibly make your mama any prouder. That’s all I’m going to say. Now, come on, let’s finish our map of cattle country.”

Jane Catlett seemed a little dazed for the rest of the night and wasn’t of much help to Flora. It wasn’t surprising. Flora had just given her permission to fall in love with Jay Blue Tomlinson, and she was falling like a drunk from a bar stool. But because Jane was there, Flora could talk the investigation through out loud, using Jane as a sounding board.

When they had completed pinning negative responses to the wall, the lady detectives got down to analyzing the few replies that held useful information.

“These are our red-hot leads,” Flora said, “so we’ll mark them with a little rouge.” She laughed. “I can just feel Hank cringing now.”

When they were finished, they stepped back to look at their map. There were four red telegrams dating Wes James’s movements, or sightings of his brand, the WJ. The first was from the courthouse clerk in Jack County, and it was brief.

WJ brand registered here last March to John Wesley James.

The next lead came from the elected stock inspector of Brown County, about one hundred miles northwest of Luck.

Saw a line rider and horse matching description of Wes James here last May. Called himself John Wesley James. Herding cattle branded Rafter T in far western part of county. Claimed cattle belonged to his employer.

“What kind of brand is a ‘Rafter’?” Flora asked.

“Huh?” Jane answered.

“Never mind. We’ll have to ask Hank.”

The third red telegram had come from a Texas Ranger assigned to check and record brands on the Chisholm Trail herds heading north during the summer where the trail crossed the Brazos River. Flora knew that trail crossing was well north of Luck, Texas.

One Wes James, mavericker, sold 13 head branded WJ to a Chisholm Trail outfit on the Brazos River, Aug. 1. Received four dollars per head. Rode stout claybank.

The fourth telegram, from the stockyards in Dodge City, Kansas, simply acknowledged that the WJ cattle had arrived there with the trail herd in early September.

Sept. 3, 13 WJ cattle received and shipped.

“Okay,” Flora said, talking out the evidence. “It looks like Wes James entered Texas back in March. He registered his brand at the first courthouse he came to after crossing the Red River, in Jack County. That would be in the town of Jacksboro on the fringe of the frontier. I ran a saloon there awhile. Rough place.”

“Right,” Jane said, trying to stay with the investigation.

“We know from our own observations that Wes showed up here in my saloon in about mid-April, wouldn’t you say?”

Jane seemed to snap back to the moment. “It was a slow night because it was the night before Easter Sunday. Only the Double Horn boys, Gotch, and that Wes James were here. And, later, Wes James made Dottie mad because he told her she was too fat to sit on his lap.”

Flora giggled, remembering the way Dottie had twisted off. “You’ve got a good memory. I’ve been doing this so long that one night just runs into another.” She turned back to the map on the wall. “So, Jacksboro in March; here in April. Then he’s in Brown County in May, tending cattle branded with a ‘Rafter T.’”

“Whatever that is.”

“Yeah. Then we saw him a couple of times here during the summer. Always alone, right?”

“Always,” Jane agreed.

“Then in August he turns up on the Brazos River north of here, selling cattle branded WJ to a Chisholm Trail outfit for only four dollars a head. If he had thrown in with one of the trail outfits, he could have gotten twenty to twenty-five dollars a head up in Kansas for the same thirteen beeves, plus the wages he would have earned as a trail hand. Looks like he just wanted to turn a quick dollar.”

“He never struck me as ambitious,” Jane agreed.

“The fourth telegram, from Dodge City, only says that the thirteen WJ beeves were received at the stockyards there.”

“There’s just one thing that doesn’t fit,” Jane said.

“The Rafter T,” Flora said.

Jane nodded.

“Here’s what we’ll do. First thing in the morning, we’ll get Sam to send telegrams to the same places Hank sent the first batch.”

“But this time, we’ll be inquiring about the Rafter T instead of the WJ.”

Flora smiled. “Hey, you’re getting good at this detective work.”

“It’s kind of fun.”

“Yeah. Until Black Cloud starts shooting arrows at us. That’s the reason this information doesn’t leave this room, agreed?”

Jane’s eyes had grown wide. She nodded.

“Good. Now, you’d better use the cot in the spare room tonight. No need for you to walk home in this weather.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jane said. She turned to leave.

“Oh, Jane,” Flora added. “If you ever want to talk about anything—anything at all—I’m always here. I may be a sorry substitute for your mother. I’m sure she was a much finer lady than me. But I take care of my girls, and I’ll do anything I can to help.”

Jane smiled. “I think you’re a mighty fine lady, Miss Flora.”

34

T
HE WIND CEASED TO HOWL
at daybreak, but the rain and sleet continued to fall in waves. Though the temperature remained below freezing, the warmth of the earth melted the precipitation to pools of slush that oozed everywhere and clung to boots and the hooves of horses, freezing to clumps of ice on feathered pasterns of the Spanish cow ponies. The very clouds of breath exhaled by the riders froze on their whiskers.

Skeeter had approached Captain Tomlinson early that morning and asked if he could search for Poli out toward Double Horn Creek, claiming he knew those ranges well, and thought he knew where Poli might have gone hunting. The captain agreed, but insisted that Jay Blue and Skeeter ride together.

Now they were riding and yelling their lungs out for their lost foreman, worried over whether or not Poli was even alive, and if so how he had fared through the cold night. As they came to the head of a rough arroyo that carved its way through the hills, Skeeter saw his chance to make his break to the Double Horn Ranch alone.

“These gloves you got me are too damn small,” Jay Blue was just grumbling.

“You should’ve gotten your own damn gloves, then,” Skeeter said. “Maybe if you could get your head out of that barmaid’s ass.”

“Hey, watch your mouth. Anyway, that’s none of your business.”

“It is if you’re gonna complain about the gloves.”

“I’ve about had it with her anyway,” he said, as if Skeeter cared. “You know I went to kiss her last night, and she wouldn’t let me?”