The Old Colts (13 page)

The “Wolverine” of the New York Central had sped them overnight to Buffalo, across lower Ontario to Detroit, and on to the LaSalle Station in Chicago. Transferring to the Dearborn Station via taxi—it miffed Bat to discover Chicago as modern as New York in respect of taxis—they boarded the Santa Fe “Scout” and settled down to twenty-four hours and 789 miles of deluxe rail travel. Bat whiled away several evening hours, drinks, and dollars at cards in the club car. Wyatt looked thoughtful and read a
Police Gazette
and retired early.

They whistled through Joliet and Galesburg, Ill. They snored through Fort Madison, Iowa; K.C., Mo.; and K.C., Kansas. Between Topeka and Emporia they rolled out of their uppers and shaved, and it was then, blades stropped and faces lathered, hanging on to the sink with one hand and the razor with the other, that Wyatt popped the question.

“What time do we get off at Dodge?”

“How in hell did you—damn!”

The realization that Wyatt, if not way ahead of his plans, was at least keeping up, so startled Bat that he cut himself and had to apply alum liberally.

They breakfasted, paying, through the windows of the dining car, particular attention to Newton, and remembering. Neither in his youth had put in time or trouble in Newton, and though it was no more than a wide place in the road now, it had once been, like Abilene, Ellsworth, and Dodge, the end of the rail line, and hence a shoot-down-drag-out cowtown. It had been the spitting image, in fact, of Ellsworth, and it was in Ellsworth, in 1873, that Wyatt Earp first made his mark. He had buffaloed Ben Thompson—the same rare Ben who, had it not been for Bat’s intercession, would have plugged poor Eddie Foy in Dodge five years later.

Thompson and his brother Bill were a sweet pair, and sweeter still when under the influence. They operated a floating faro bank and shot people. Bill’s score was three, Ben’s ten times that, give or take a defunct or two. In any case, they had Ellsworth treed that typical afternoon. Bill had run his score up to four by emptying both barrels of a shotgun into C.B. Whitney’s, the marshal’s, chest. The remainder of the peace force found a hole and pulled it in after them. An unarmed Wyatt Earp, pausing for a sarsaparilla on his unwitting way to Wichita, stood in the shade between Beebee’s General Store and Brennan’s Saloon, spectating, as Ben paraded up and down the plaza on drunken horseback, brandishing the aforesaid shotgun and fouling the air with profanity and daring the town to do anything about the murder. Standing with the stranger, looking him over and deciding him a likely lad, Mayor Jim Miller pinned a star on Wyatt’s shirt and dared him to do something about it. Earp walked into Beebee’s, borrowed a brace of persuaders, buckled them on, and stepped alone into the sunshine, hands easy at his hips. A sobered Bill had hit the trail by now, but, backing his play, Ben had a happy-go-lucky group of varmints including Cad Pierce, Neil Kane, and a troop of temperamental hair-trigger Texans. Walking steadily across the silent plaza toward Thompson, who kept him under his muzzles, Wyatt stopped at fifteen yards and told him to shit or get off the pot—to make his fight or throw down his gun. After a spine-tingling minute, and to the incredulity of the town, the county, the state, and the West, Thompson opted for the latter. Deputy Earp marched him to Judge V.B. Osborne’s court, where he was fined a puny twenty-five dollars for disturbing the peace and banished to his hotel minus his weapons and aplomb, after which Wyatt returned his guns and sarsaparilla bottle to Beebee’s and his star to the mayor.

On the spot, Miller offered him a cigar and the job of town Marshal at a hundred a month.

“Looks to me Ellsworth values Marshals at twenty-five dollars a head,” said young Earp, drawing composed smoke. “So I don’t figure the town’s my size.”

Two hours later the conductor came through calling, “Dodge! Dodge City!”
They swung valises from the rack and moved down the aisle to be near the end of the car. If their hearts fluttered, if they got gooseflesh, if, in their systems, strange and almost juvenile juices began to flow again, they gave no indication. Perhaps, bending to peer through windows, they noted it an unusually gloomy morning. Perhaps they recalled the old joke about the cowboy and the conductor. When, in the roaring ‘70s, a cowboy up to the gills in alcohol was asked by the conductor for his ticket, he replied, “Don’ have no ticket.” “Well, where you goin’?” “Goin’ t’hell.” Whereupon the conductor held out his hand. “Gimme a dollar, then, and get off at Dodge.”

At 11:14 exactly, the “Scout” clanged and ground to a stop at the Santa Fe station. Suddenly, miraculously, as though a mighty hand passed o’er the heavens, the clouds rolled back and a brilliant sun shone in a sky of benign blue. And at that very moment Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson descended the steps of their car to take their legendary place once more upon the plains of Kansas.

They crossed the concrete platform.

They slowed, stopped, put down their bags.

Where in the name of God was Dodge City?

Where was dear old Front Street with its flies and chuck-holes and dead cats and plank sidewalks, and hitching rails cribbed half through by the teeth of impoverished ponies, and jingling spurs and popping pistols and drunks laid out to dry? Where the loafers and landsharks lounging in the shade of the overhangs? Where the whiskey barrels filled with water in case of fire? Where the town well with its sign “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited”?

They gaped instead at a paved thoroughfare and sidewalks and high-stepping pedestrians and electric light-poles and one buggy and one wagon and a passel of coupes and touring cars and carryalls chugging along and not one solitary human being remotely resembling a cowboy or a cowhand or a cowpoke forked up on four legs.

Where was the unbroken line of wooden, weatherbeaten, false-fronted business and entertainment establishments? Where were the landmarks of their early lives—the Dodge House, Wright & Beverly’s general merchandise emporium, the Delmonico restaurant, the Long Branch, the Alamo saloon and Occidental and Saratoga; Zimmermann’s Guns, Hardware, and Tinware; the Blue Front Store, Coffins and Undertaker’s Goods; the OK Clothing Store, Dieter & Lemley’s Tonsorial Parlor?

They scowled instead at a solid wall of modern red-brick commercial buildings, the only exception one of white glazed brick surmounted by the only recognizable name— Drovers Bank of Dodge City—which used to be around the corner on Railroad Avenue.

At their rear, the “Scout” pulled out. They about-faced to the south, looking over the tracks which in their time had constituted the “deadline” across which the implements of murder and mayhem could not be carried north according to municipal ordinance. Where were the town calaboose, the Lady Gay, the Comique, the Varieties, the hurdy-gurdies, or whorehouses, the corrals, the cattle outfitting and supply stores, the shacks and sod huts and stacks of bones and hides?

They stared instead at block upon block of neat frame houses with flower gardens and nothing in the back yard, even a privy, but wash on the line and a shed for the Tin Lizzie.

“Progress,” Wyatt intoned.

“Shit and shame,” grumped Bat.

“You boys tourists?”

They swung around to meet the shifty eye of a very old gaffer who’d wheelchaired up behind them.

“You might say,” said Bat. “We passed through a long time ago.” He gestured. “What happened?”

“Front Street, y’mean? Hull shebang burned down in ‘85, they built ‘er up again. Brick. You dudes’ll wanta see what they call a rep-li-ca, over yonder on the hill. Tourist ‘traction.”

He had a red nose and wore a battered ten-gallon and from the smell of him imbibed that much daily.

“What else should we see?” Wyatt inquired.

“Ah, Boot Hill, likely, an’ the Beeson Museum.”

“Beeson? Chalk Beeson?”

“Himself.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Wyatt. “Do you have a hotel?”

“O’Neal House.”

“Where does a man get a drink?” Bat asked.

“He don’t. Kansas gone temp’rance—that goddam Nation woman.”

“A hell of a note. You lived around here long, Grand-dad?”

“Come out in ‘71. From Kentucky. Seen ever’thin’ an’ done ever’thin’. Caught a Cheyenne arrey in m’hip in ‘82 an’ ain’t been able since. Can’t even stand up t’take a leak. But I knew ‘em all—Earp, Masterson, Luke Short—all friends a mine.

“They were, huh?”

The gaffer shot a glance east and a glance west and lowered his wheeze. “Come close, boys.”

They came close.

Methuselah reached into his shirt front and fumbled out an old Colt. “Either of you boys be inter-sted in a leetle sou-ven-eer? Belonged t’Bat Masterson—that’s a fact. He give it t’me.” He held it out butt first. “Lookee them notches! Seventeen!”

“I’ll be damned,” said Bat. “But I heard he bragged on twenty-three.”

“He was a born liar, Bat was. Anyhow, seem’s you boys are so sociable, you can have it cheap. Dirt. Fifty bucks.”

“Fifty!” Bat protested.

“How ‘bout forty?”

“I dunno,” said Wyatt. “Only seventeen notches.”

“Well, hell, cut yourself some more,” argued the gaffer.

“I’ll take thirty—I need the money. Otherwise I’d sell my stones ‘fore I would this here gun.”

“Tell you what, old-timer,” said Bat. “You around the station most days?”

“Ever’day. Meet all the trains.”

“Well, come time to leave Dodge, we’ll get together. We just might do business.”

“I’ll be here.” The pioneer shoved the souvenir into his shirt. “So long, pards. Watch out for them tourist ‘tractions—don’t b’lieve half you see an’ less’n half you hear. We’ll skin the ass off a greenhorn we get the chance’t!”

From their arrival they had been under surveillance. They were about to smash their bags across Front Street, but there, at the curb, watching them approach, waited a buster in the pink of youth and a uniform and a badge, astride a motorcycle red as a fire engine and nearly as big as a horse.

“Good day, gents,” said he.

“Yessir,” said Bat.

“Welcome to Dodge.”

“Thank you. You the Marshal?”

“Oh we got no Marshals any more. Peace Officer Harvey Wadsworth.” And the buster put a hand to the broad brim of his hat and snapped off a salute. “At your service.”

“Peace Officer?”

“What we’re called nowadays. Ahem, well, gents, I hope you enjoy your stay with us and come back again. Be sure to see Boot Hill and the Beeson Museum and the replica of Old Front Street. Most folks find ‘em mighty interesting.”

He rattled off this Chamber-of-Commerce spiel and concluded with a smile which twinkled his baby blue eyes and dimpled his cherubic cheeks. His uniform, too, was baby blue, with gold piping and gold braid around his hat, and black leather boots shined as slick as a spade’s heel, and a flapped leather holster hung on his Sam Browne belt which housed some type of nickel-plated popgun.

Wyatt had looked him up and down. “You’ve been keeping an eye on us.”

“Yes indeedy. I always come down to see the trains come in, see who gets off.”

Bat was fascinated by his steed. “What kind of a cayuse you up on?”

That rang Harvey Wadsworth’s bell. “Glad you asked. This here’s an Indian Powerplus, fresh out of the crate.” He caressed a handlebar as though it were an ear. “Lamps, generator, sireen, speedometer, and twenty-two horsepower. She’ll do seventy-three-plus miles an hour—factory guaranteed. I tell you, they don’t even have these in New York City!”

“I’ll be damned,” said Bat. “You must catch a bunch of rustlers at that rate.”

“Rustlers, ha. Speeders—that’s about all the crime we got.”

“I’ll be damned—speeders,” said Bat. “By the way, where does a man get a drink around here?”

“Sorry,” said Wadsworth. “We been dry as a bone for years. Closed the last saloon in Dodge in 1903. Oh, you can get booze in a pharmacy—but only for medicinal purposes.”

“Hmmm,” Bat reflected. “Must be why I’m feeling so poorly lately. Well, thanks a lot, Officer.”

“You’re entirely welcome. Say, I didn’t catch your names, gents.”

Bat opened his mouth. He was about to say Enrico Caruso and William Randolph Hearst, but Wyatt beat him to it. “I’m Wyatt Earp. This is Bat Masterson.”

Harvey Wadsworth’s grin spread halfway round his head. “Earp and Masterson again, huh? Funny how you gents keep showing up all the time. Well, nice to know you’re here. I get in a pinch, I’ll holler for your six-guns!”

The young minion of the law snapped them another salute, booted the big Indian into noisy life, and galloped off in a cloud of exhaust.

Bat was angry. “Why in hell would you tell ‘im our names!”

Wyatt picked up his valise. “Use your head. Those are the only names he’d never believe.”

They ran into the same identity oddity while checking into the O’Neal House. Wyatt appropriated the pen before Bat could, and signed the register for both of them, after which the whippersnapper desk clerk turned the book for a look.

“Earp and Masterson again, huh? Our best customers—why, I bet you two sign in a hundred times a year!” If the peace officer’s grin had been innocently cynical, the clerk’s leer was downright decadent. “Bring along your wives, too, sometimes—Mr. and Mrs. Earp, Mr. and Mrs. Masterson—overnights mostly.”

“Izzatso?” said Bat.

“How long since you’ve been taken out to the woodshed?” Wyatt asked.

The clerk colored. “Well, say, I’m sorry, gents. No offense. Welcome to Dodge and enjoy your stay. And while you’re here, be sure to see Old Front Street and the Beeson Museum and Boot Hill. Everybody does and everybody’s glad they did.”

“Wouldn’t miss ‘em,” said Bat, hitting the spittoon with his first shot.

They took adjoining rooms and naps because the train
had tired them, and while they were washing up in the bowls preparatory to going out, Wyatt spoke to Bat through the open transom over the door between their rooms, which was locked.

“Can you hear me?”

“Easy. What’s on your mind?”

“What’s on yours? You’ve been playing your cards close to the vest. What’s next?”

“Old Front Street.”

“You know what I mean.”