Big Foot ate up everything in sight, then picked up the skillet and sopped it out with a hunk of bread. He poured another cup of coffee and with a sigh of contentment, leaned back and rolled a smoke. “Mighty fine eats, Smoke. Feel human agin.”
“Where you heading. Big Foot?”
“Kansas. I’m givin’ er up. I been prowlin’ this countryside for twenty-five years, chasin’ color. Never found the mother lode. Barely findin’ enough color to keep body and soul alive. My brother s been pesterin’ me for years to come hep work his hog farm. So that’s where I’m headin’. Me and Lucy over yonder. Bes’ burro I ever had. I’m gonna retie her; just let ’er eat and get fat. You?”
“Heading up to Montana to check out some land. I don’t plan on staying long.”
“You fight shy of Gibson, now, Smoke. They’s something wrong with that town.”
“How do you mean that?”
“Cain’t hardly put it in words. It’s a feel in the air. And the people is crabby. Oh, most go to church and all that. But it’s ... well, they don’t like each other. Always bickerin’ about this and that and the other thing. The lid’s gonna blow off that whole county one of these days. It’s gonna be unpleasant when it do.”
“How about the sheriff?”
“He’s nearabouts a hundred miles away. I never put eyes on him or any of his deputies. Ain’t no town marshal. Just a whole bunch of gunslicks lookin’ hard at one another. When they start grabbin’ iron, it’s gonna be a sight to see.”
Big Foot drank his coffee and lay back with a grunt. “And I’ll tell you something else: that Fae Jensen woman, her spread is smack in the middle of it all. She’s got the water and the graze, and both sides wants it. Sharp tongue and men’s britches an’ all ... I feel sorry for her.”
“She have hands?”
“Had a half a dozen. Down to two now. Both of them old men. Hanks and McCorkle keep runnin’ off anyone she hires. Either that or just outright killin’ them. Drug one young puncher, Hanks s men did. Killed him. But McCorkle is not a really mean person. He just don’t like Hanks. Nothin’ to like. Hanks is evil, Smoke. Just plain evil.”
Two
Come the dawning, Smoke gave Big Foot enough food to take him to the trading post. They said their goodbyes and each went their own way: one north, one east.
Smoke pondered the situation as he rode, trying to work out a plan of action. Since he knew only a smattering of what was going on, he decided to go in unknown and check it out. He took off his pistols and tucked them away in his supplies. He began growing a mustache.
Just inside Wyoming, Smoke came up on the camp of half a dozen riders. It took him but one glance to know what they were: gunhawks.
“Light and set,” one offered, his eyes appraising Smoke and deciding he was no danger. He waved toward the fire. “We got beef and beans.”
“Jist don’t ask where the meat come from,” a young man said with a mean grin.
“You talk too much, Royce,” another told him. “Shut up and eat.” He looked at Smoke. “Help yourself, stranger.”
“Thanks.” Smoke filled a plate and squatted down. “Lookin’ for work. Any of you boys know where they’re hirin’?”
“Depends on what kind of work you’re lookin’ for,” a man with a long scar on the side of his face said.
“Punchin’ cows,” Smoke told him. “Breakin’ horses. Ridin’ fence. Whatever it takes to make a dollar.”
Smoke had packed away his buckskin jacket and for a dollar had bought a nearly wornout light jacket from a farmer, frayed at the cuffs and collar. He had deliberately scuffed his boots and dirtied his jeans.
“Can’t help you there,” the scar-faced man said.
Smoke knew the man, but doubted the man knew him. He had seen him twice before. His name was Lodi, from down Texas way, and the man was rattlesnake quick with a gun.
“How come you don’t pack no gun?” Royce asked.
Smoke had met the type many times. A punk who thought he was bad and liked to push. Royce wore two guns, both tied down low. Fancy guns: engraved .45 caliber Peacemakers.
“I got my rifle,” Smoke told him. ”She’ll bang seventeen times.”
“I mean a short gun,” Royce said irritably.
“One in the saddlebags if I need it. I don’t hunt trouble, so I ain’t never needed it.”
One of the other gunhands laughed. “You got your answer, Royce. Now let the man eat.” He cut his eyes to Smoke. “What be your name?”
“Kirby.” He knew his last name would not be asked. It was not a polite question in the West.
“You look familiar to me.”
“I been workin’ down on the Blue for three years. Got the urge to drift.”
‘I do know the feelin’.” He rose to his boots and started packing his gear.
These men, with the possible exception of Royce, were range wise and had been on the owlhoot trail many times, Smoke concluded. They would eat in one place, then move on several miles before settling in and making camp for the night. Smoke quickly finished his beef and beans and cleaned his plate.
They packed up, taking everything but the fire. Lodi lifted his head. “See you, puncher.”
Smoke nodded and watched them ride away. To the north. He stayed by the fire, watching it burn down, then swung back into the saddle and headed out, following their trail for a couple of miles before cutting east. He crossed the North Platte and made camp on the east side of the river.
He followed the Platte up to Fort Fred Steele, an army post built in 1868 to protect workers involved in the building of the Union Pacific railroad. There, he had a hot bath in a wooden tub behind a barber shop and resupplied. He stepped into a cafe and enjoyed a meal that he didn’t have to cook, and ate quietly, listening to the gossip going on around him.
There had been no Indian trouble for some time; the Shoshone and the Arapahoe were, for the most part, now settled in at the Wind River Reservation, although every now and then some whiskeyed-up bucks would go on the prowl. They usually ended up either shot or hanged.
Smoke loafed around the fort for a couple of days, giving the gunhands he’d talked with ample time to get gone farther north.
And even this far south of the Little Belt Mountains, folks knew about the impending range war, although Smoke did not hear any talk about anyone here taking sides.
He pulled out and headed for Fort Caspar, about halfway between Fort Fetterman and Hell’s Half Acre. The town of Casper would become reality in a few more years.
At Fort Caspar, Smoke stayed clear of a group of gunslicks who were resupplying at the general store. He knew several in this bunch: Eddie Hart, Pooch Matthews, Golden. None of them were known for their gentle, loving dispositions.
It was at Fort Caspar that he met a young, down-at-the-heels puncher with the unlikely handle of Beans.
“Bainbridge is the name my folks hung on me,” Beans explained with a grin. “I was about to come to the conclusion that I’d just shoot myself and get it over with knowin’ I had to go through the rest of my life with everybody callin’ me Bainbridge. A camp cook over in the Dakotas started callin’ me Beans. He didn’t have no teeth, and evertime he called my name, it come out soundin’ like Beans-Beans. So Beans it is. ”
Beans was one of those types who seemed not to have a care in the world. He had him a good horse, a good pistol, and a good rifle. He was young and full of fire and vinegar ... so what was there to worry about?
Smoke told him he was drifting on up into Montana. Beans allowed as how that was as good a direction as any to go, so they pulled out before dawn the next day.
With his beat-up clothes and his lip concealed behind a mustache and his hair now badly in need of a trim, Smoke felt that unless he met someone who really knew him, he would not be recognized by any who had only bumped into him casually.
“You any good with that short gun? ’ Smoke asked.