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  “I can shoe horses, do some vettin’, drive a wagon team, and I’ve herded cows. And I can shoot.”

  Amos’s gaze went to the ivory-handled pistol strapped to Buell’s right hip. His eyes narrowed. “Nice-looking piece. Ya say you can use it?”

  “I can, and have.”

  “Don’t talk near as pretty as yer partner.” He turned back to the players at the table. “Ain’t near as respectful either.” And then back to Simon and Buell. “Where you boys from?”

  “Nebraska,” Buell said quickly and glanced at Simon. “Near Fort Kearney.”

  “The law after you?” Amos held up his hand as Buell started to speak. “You answer,” he said to Simon.

  “No, sir. We left of our own accord, peacefully.”

  “Your own accord. Peacefully.” He chuckled. “Don’t ya love the way he talks, boys?” He grinned at his fellow players. “Well, matter of fact, I could use a man who can cipher and write. Talkin’ like ya do, I don’t have much doubt you can do both quite well. And I have need of someone to keep the lid on this place at times. So, here’s what I’ll do. You, what’s your name?” He looked at Simon.

  “Simon Steele.”

  “And you?”

  “Buell Lacey.”

  Simon’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at Buell.

  “Okay, Simon. I want you to come back tomorrow, and I’ll show you how I’ve managed to keep track of some of this place. Buell. I might want you to start right away. We’ll go outside, and you can show me how well that pistol talks for you. But first I gotta try to skin a couple more cats right here. You two go and get yourself a beer or a whiskey, on me.” He raised his hand over his head. “Twiggs!” he bellowed across the saloon. The bartender’s head snapped around. “On me,” he shouted, held up one finger and then pointed at Simon and Buell. He winked at Simon, turned his chair around, and picked up his hand of cards.

  Twiggs waited for them at the far end of the bar. “Little quieter down here. What can I get ya?”

  “I’ll have a whiskey,” Buell said. “Something with a label on it.”

  Twiggs smiled. “And you?” he asked Simon.

  “I’ll have a beer, thank you.”

  Twiggs pulled Simon’s beer and set it in front of him and then reached under the bar for a bottle. “This one do?” He hoisted it.

  Buell nodded.

  Twiggs filled the shot glass and stepped back, the smile still on his face.

  “Well, here’s to a new place and a fresh start.” Buell raised his glass.

  “New place, fresh start.” Simon touched his to Buell’s and took a sip of beer. Warm, it tasted flat. He scowled at it for a moment, and then looked at Buell.

  Eyes squinted shut and his face screwed up in a grimace, Buell had a hold of the bar, shaking his head: “Gawdamn, that’s nasty shit.” He gathered his spit and unloaded in a spittoon before glaring at Twiggs, who was now chuckling, his eyes asparkle.

  “Thought the label meant something, didn’t ya?”

  “Well, it usually does.”

  “Not here. Pick any bottle in sight, and the contents came from the same barrel. Only difference is, some’s watered and some’s not, and even I can’t tell which is which.”

  “How do you get away with that? At home we’d go to another saloon,” Simon said.

  “And you can here. There’s one five miles east of the fort and another three miles west of here. They all serve the same stuff. So go ahead.”

  “You mean you don’t have anything except that rotgut?” Buell asked.

  “Sure.” Twiggs smiled. “You just can’t see it.” He turned and sauntered down the bar.

  “Don’t know why you drink that stuff anyway, Buell. I know ya don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, and I see you’re really enjoying that beer.”

  They turned around and surveyed the saloon that Simon figured to be about seventy feet wide and thirty feet deep. On the left, a stairway angled from the front of the room, up to the second floor and over a door built into the staircase. A piano stood at the base of the steps, but against the street-side wall and just past where Amos McCaffrey played cards. Two four-by-six windows bracketed a set of double doors that opened to the street. Black sheet-iron stoves stood at either ends of the room. The bar itself ran the length of the back of the room except for about four or five feet on each end. Three dingy mirrors reflected the stacks of glasses and bottles lining the counter behind the bar. Coal-oil lamps, with polished reflectors, hung from the ceiling, placed to light the fifteen or so tables set up around the room. More lamps clung to the pair of evenly spaced, floor-to-ceiling pillars supporting the upper floor. Soldiers made up about half the people in the place, most of the rest roughly dressed beer drinkers. Simon counted four women. Everybody seemed to be shouting.

  “Get you another?” Twiggs was back.

  “If it’s not the same stuff,” Buell said.

  Twiggs winked at him. “What’d Amos say about a job?”

  “Looks like we’re hired. I’m Simon Steele and this is Buell . . . Lacey.” Simon extended his hand.

  “Maxwell Twiggs. Call me Max. And seeing as how you’re now members of the staff, I can get you a decent drink.” He reached under the bar and retrieved a bottle, then looked at Simon. “You still drinking beer?”

  “Yeah, I don’t like whiskey much. I’ll get along with what I have here.”

  Twiggs poured Buell’s glass full.

  “That’s two dollars. Amos is watching.” Twiggs chuckled again. “Amos is always watching.”

  “Two dollars! For a shot of whiskey?” Buell stared at the amber drink.

  “For that, yes. Oh, never mind, it’s on me. And don’t just toss it back. Sip it.”

  Buell looked at him sideways and then eyed Simon. “Sip it?”

  Simon shrugged.

  Buell’s face lit up and he grinned. “Simon, you ought to try that.” He slid the glass toward him. “Try it.”

  Simon wrinkled his nose. “I really don’t like it.”

  “C’mon.”

  Simon picked up the glass and took a small taste. And then another.

  Buell took the glass away from him as he started to tip it again. “Hey, I said try it.”

  Simon looked at the bartender. “That’s wonderful. What is it?”

  “Napoleon Brandy. French. Good, isn’t it?”

  Amos McCaffrey laid his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I see Twiggs give ya a taste of my good stuff.”

  “Yes’ir. I’ve never tasted anything like that.”

  “One of the privileges that comes with ownin’ the place.” He turned to Buell. “Ready to show me what you can do with that fancy gun?”

  “Anytime.”

  A shooting exhibition always draws a crowd, and the open space behind the saloon soon filled with over forty people. Several boxes, standing at increasing distances toward the river, suggested this wasn’t an unusual event.

  “Daggett!” Amos shouted at a short, filthy man standing outside the back door of the saloon. “Grab three or four targets, and set ’em up on the boxes.”

  Daggett sauntered over to a barrel and retrieved three bottles. As he walked past and headed towards the target stands, Simon thought he could taste what the man smelled like.

  “So, ya say you can and have,” Amos said. “Are you quick?”

  Buell drew his pistol part way out of the holster and let it drop back. “Quick enough so far.”

  “Quick enough. So far?” Amos looked at his cronies, chuckled and shook his head. “No respect at all.”

  Daggett set the first bottle on a box about fifty feet away and walked unsteadily toward them. He set the second bottle at about thirty feet.

  “I guess we’ll see.” Amos glanced at Buell.

  Daggett came to the closest box and reached out to set the bottle down. About a foot above the box, it exploded with an ear-shattering blast. A split second later the second bottle splattered. Daggett slumped to his knees and covered hi
s head.

  “Su’um bitch!” someone in the crowd said.

  Amos turned to Buell, working his jaws and digging his finger in his left ear. “You don’t mess around. Let me see you hit the last one.” He stepped behind Buell while Daggett scrambled to his feet and hurried for the edge of the crowd.

  Almost too fast to see, the Remington flashed out of the holster and went off. Wood splintered a couple inches to the left of the last brown target, followed almost instantly by a second shot. The top of the bottle vanished. Buell dropped the pistol into its holster.

  Amos nodded his head slowly, his thumb scratching the stubble on his chin. “Yep, you kin shoot. Let me buy ya another drink—the good stuff.”

  Simon held his cup out as Tay Prescott poured it full of steaming coffee. The old man put the pot back on the stove, then sat at the table.

  “Not surprised ya landed jobs right off,” Tay said. “Ol’ Amos is a sharp operator, but he’s actually fairly honest. Not sayin’ he won’t take advantage of a good deal when he sees it, but he’ll do what he says and keep his end on a bargain. Some o’ the rest of them ain’t so sweet, and I’ll leave it at that. You’ll sniff ’em out.”

  “What about the other place, the one you said was east of here?”

  “B’longs to a feller named Evans. Crooked as hell, and he don’t care if ya know it. Never been one ta in’erfere, but if ya ever figger to buy me a drink, I’d ’preciate it if ya didn’t expect ta meet me there.”

  “What about the sutler?”

  Tay leaned both elbows on the table, coffee cup held between cupped hands. “Drives a hard bargain, but he’s honest. Gotta be, else the army’ll send ’im packin’. I like ol’ T. P. Acts kinda crusty, but I think his heart’s well placed.”

  “How ’bout the army?” Buell asked. “I get the feelin’ they pretty much run things around here.”

  “And you’d be right. Both those roadhouses are jist a twitch over five miles from the fort. Ain’t no coincidence. Any closer and the army has control of who runs it and what kind of place they are. T. P. Triffet is granted full rights to all tradin’ business within five miles of the fort. He has an agreement with Clay Rawlins about the stable and feed store. And Kent Berggren—he’s married Clay’s daughter—has a deal to sell guns and stuff like that. Everything else is T. P.’s business. Ya wanna buy some lumber, you buy it from T. P., even if it’s sawed right here.”

  “Do you have any law?” Buell asked.

  “Army law if it has anything to do with the soldiers or the forts and the roads that run between ’em. Or if Indians are involved. Course, they can stick their noses in anywhere they want to and do. Then there’s a fed’ral marshal that comes up from Cheyenne once in a while. Mostly we settle our differences any way we can. I suspect that’s what Amos hired you for, Buell.”

  The image of Judge Kingsley at home came to Simon’s mind. “Don’t you have a judge or a court?”

  “Not as such. The military has the provost and the commander—Colonel Maynadier? I think he’s still here—they change a lot, and I ain’t got no reason to keep up anymore. The US marshal comes by when he’s called, and we have a judge come through once a month fer a two-day stay.”

  “So if a person has a legal complaint, they wait until someone shows up to help them with it?” Simon shook his head. “That seems a little capricious.”

  “Cap, caprish . . . ca what? Damn youngin’, d’ya always talk like that?”

  “Yeah . . . he does. Irritatin’ as hell, ain’t it?” Buell chuckled.

  “I mean, it’s kinda hit and miss,” Simon explained.

  “ ’Tis that. We’ve had three or four citizen groups git together and even had a couple town constables, but they soon turn to scrappin’ with each other and fall apart. Things git real serious, they’ll form a posse of sorts, and jist hang a feller, or run ’im outta the country. The army settles a lotta stuff ya might not think is any of their business, but they’s not many will argue with a troop of soldiers. Seems to work so far.”

  “You mean a posse will hang a person without benefit of a trial, or some formal defense with a judge deciding?” Simon said.

  “Yep. ’Cept there is a trial and there is a judge. The posse does both. Like I said, seems to work. I kin honestly say I don’t know of a single person handed that kinda justice that didn’t deserve it, and then some.”

  “Hmm. Lot different than what we’re used to seeing. We had a sheriff at home who knew everything that went on in town. He took care of enforcing the law, and if any justice was dealt, he dealt it. Right, Buell?”

  Buell stared at his cup, apparently lost in thought.

  “Right, Buell?” Simon persisted.

  “Wh—what?” Buell looked at Simon.

  “I was saying Sheriff Staker didn’t allow anyone but himself to lay down the law.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. He was the law.” Buell mumbled almost absently. “We better get goin’. I ain’t sure when we’re ’sposed ta be there, but I expect we should git.”

  “Don’t figger you’ll see anybody before about nine. They run that place till three or four in the mornin’ sometimes.”

  “No, Buell’s right. We’ll show up just in case. We appreciate you putting us up again. We’ll find a place to stay today.”

  “No problem. Been a real pleasure havin’ ya. Don’t talk to many, and I find you two real easy to git along with. Yer welcome anytime.”

  Tay followed them out and stood in the doorway as they went for the horses. Tay had been right—the animals grazed within a hundred feet of where they’d been left the night before.

  CHAPTER 5

  They arrived at McCaffrey’s to find empty hitching rails and not a soul in sight. They tied up their mounts and tried the door to the saloon. It opened.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” hailed Twiggs from one of the tables.

  “We were beginning to wonder if anybody was here.” Simon closed the door and headed for the bartender.

  “Oh, they’re here all right, just not conscious yet. Can I get you a cup of coffee or something?”

  “Not for me. We had breakfast.” Simon looked at Buell, who’d gone over to a tall stool by the stairs.

  “Me either,” Buell said.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, where you staying?” Twiggs asked Simon.

  “We met a fella first day we were here who offered us a bed. We stayed there last night.”

  “We have rooms here,” Twiggs said. “Unless you really want to stay at the fort.”

  “It’s not at the fort exactly. His place is a little dugout north of the river, right on a small meadow. Got a corral and everything.”

  Twiggs’s eyebrows arched. “You’re staying with Tay Prescott?”

  “Yeah. You seem surprised.”

  “Tay Prescott is not the friendliest person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. Matter of fact, I find him downright unpleasant.”

  “And now I’m surprised,” Simon replied. “I’ve enjoyed his company. He’s told us a lot about the fort and how things run around here. What do you think Buell?”

  “Hasn’t been uncomfortable a bit, just the opposite. And he’s a good cook.”

  “Well, I’m amazed. He has two friends around here that I know of, the gunsmith at the blacksmith’s place, and strange as it may seem, an old Indian who lives east of the fort. Huh. Be that as it may, I know Amos can make you a deal for some rooms here. There are two buildings adjacent to this one with space in the back, and he has a small—can’t call it a house—guess you’d call it a cabin, over by the stables. He’ll be down in an hour or so, and we can talk to him.”

  “Well, if we have an hour, I think I’ll take you up on the coffee. I can get it if you’ll tell me where it’s at.”

  Twiggs jerked his thumb toward a door at the right end of the bar. “Through there and on the left. You’ll see it.”

  “Buell?”

  “Yeah, might as well.”

  Simon returned wit
h two enamel cups. They sat and jawed for a while.

  The man clumping down the stairs didn’t look anything like the person they’d talked to the night before. Hair disheveled, he wore a long robe that badly needed washing. He paused halfway down and studied the three men at the bar for several seconds, scratching his butt.

  “So, ya did decide to take me up on the job? I’m a bit surprised.” He continued down the stairs and came over to the table. “That coffee?”

  “I’ll get you a cup. Sit down.” Twiggs left and returned with a large cup that he set in front of Amos.

  “Got a little rowdy in here last night, so I didn’t sleep too good.” Amos took a hissing sip of the scalding brew. “Oooff, that tastes good. So, Simon, tell me a little about yourself.”

  “Not a lot to tell. I went to school until I was almost eighteen. Worked in a trading store for over three years. I’ve helped several people with new businesses set up their accounting books and inventory controls. Saved our mercantile store a lot of money by adding a few simple cross-checks. I can do sums, including fractions, and even some algebra and geometry. And I’ve read more books than I can count. I had a real good teacher who arranged for me to visit our local judge and read his books too.”

  “How about you Buell? I saw last night what you can do. Anything else?”

  “My pa run the livery, so I know some about horses. I ain’t afraid of work.”

  “Uh-huh,” Amos grunted. “So, where ya plannin’ on stayin’?”

  “Mister Twiggs said you might have a place, or we can get something near the fort.” Simon glanced at Buell, who shook his head. “I think we’d prefer to stay out here.”

  “Ain’t no sense in you stayin’ anyplace else. I’m gonna charge ya rent same as anyone, but maybe you’ll get a break with me. Then again, maybe not,” Amos added with a mischievous grin.

  “And if you want to sleep, I’d suggest you negotiate for the little house over by the stable.” Twiggs raised his eyebrows toward the ceiling. “The girls live upstairs and in the buildings either side. And they can get boisterous.”

  “I saw it,” Buell said. “Is there room for both of us?”

  “Easy,” Amos said. “There’s two rooms. Couple of beds in the one, and the other has a stove for heatin’ and cookin’ plus a sofa, a soft chair, and a table for eating on. Built it for myself, but found I wasn’t spendin’ a lot of time there, so I moved upstairs.”