CHAPTER 26
They were in and out of rain the next week. Long heard some rumors that the cattle herds ahead had not yet sold because the herd owners thought the buyers were not offering enough money for them.
“How much will they pay?” Harp asked Long.
“They said ninety dollars a head.”
Harp laughed. “They will damn sure buy all I’ve got here for that.”
“I’m with you.”
“What do the owners expect?” Harp asked.
“One hundred and twenty-five dollars a head.”
“Do they think no one else will bring cattle up here?” Harp shook his head.
“Something like that.”
“We get closer, I am going to ride in and sell all three herds.”
“Right on, brother. That should satisfy the trains for a while, too, if they are as slow as Sedalia was.”
“We will do that.”
“I ain’t really figured it out to the penny, but we have over a half million dollars’ worth of cattle in these three herds.”
“Mother never showed us how to count that high in our lives.”
“It is something. We will be all right if things keep going on like they have. Cross your fingers, brother, the O’Malley outfit is coming on strong.”
The next five days passed, confirmed by gossip. The cattlemen and the buyers were still at an impasse over the price. Not one livestock car had left Abilene and they had a string of them waiting, according to the men who were coming back from there.
Everyone he stopped on the road told him that the Abilene dream had blown up. There would be no sales that summer unless they found some other better buyers.
Three fancy surreys were headed south full of high-priced women of the night.
A fancy dressed man with them riding a Kentucky horse asked Harp how far south would he have to go to find customers.
Harper said he didn’t know. All his cowboys were too broke until they sold their cattle. The man scowled back in the direction of Abilene. “They won’t ever make it work back there.”
“If they have the money they say they have, I will sell them seven thousand head.”
The man looked at him in disbelief. “You’d take ninety dollars a head for them?”
“Damn right, and I bet a hundred more behind me will, too.”
“Thanks. Albert, turn the buggies around we are going back to get set up. Abilene will soon blossom.”
His first driver took off his derby and stuck his head out to look at his boss. “Boss, you sure you want to do that?”
“Hell, yes, this man is betting a half a million dollars on Abilene.”
“Whatever you say.” The driver did as ordered.
“How many men are in your outfit?”
“Three crews . . . over three dozen men.”
He reached and tossed him three small cloth bags to catch.
“There’s twenty tokens for services in each of those bags at the new establishment I will set up in Abilene. May your men have at least one great time there in Abilene on me.”
He tipped his hat and galloped after his carriages.
“What did he give you?” Red asked him.
“Enough tokens for every hand we have to make a free trip to his house of ill repute in Abilene.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I told him not to worry, that we were selling our cattle when we got there.”
“Open one up. I want to see them.”
The others in his lap, Harp opened one. The brass coin had a crowing rooster on one side and two bucks on the other side.
“Here, you hand yours out. I’ll do the same to the other foremen for their crews.”
“You need one?”
“Not no, but hell, no. Thanks anyway, Red.”
“I can use yours then?”
“You bet your life you can.”
“Keep giving out that good information. Why, that bunch of ours will be tickled pink to get one of these.”
Harp rode off laughing and dreaming he sold all those steers for that much per head. Wouldn’t that be great?
That evening, Long came in late.
Harp met him short of camp. “Anything wrong?”
“I made a wide loop today. By my figures this herd is three days out of Abilene. You can ride in, get a room tomorrow, and the next day sell all three herds. How’s that?”
“Ninety a head is enough isn’t it?”
“Hell, yes. They won’t bring five bucks a head at home.”
Then he told Long about the whorehouse tokens while Ira fixed his plate of food.
Long chuckled about the story, and with a biscuit in one hand and a fork in the other he looked at Harp. “Ma said stay out of those places. I’ve never been in one in my life, have you?”
“ No.”
“Then it ain’t no time to start.”
They both laughed.
Next morning, Harp shaved and cleaned up, then put on a new white shirt, his suit coat, and clean pants. He mounted Comanche and rode off to war. Red knew where he was headed and said he could handle things. Harp wore his .45 on his hip and figured it would be near dark when he got to town.
Comanche stabled at the livery, and his room for the night secured, Harp went into a restaurant. The waiter seated him, and he knew he drew some looks from the crowd in the room. Soon a big man with a whiskey bottle in his left hand came over and introduced himself as Claude Clower from Texas.
“You bring a herd up here, sonny boy, or did your daddy?” he asked, standing over Harp like he was a king or something.
“My father is home in Texas. I brought three herds with me,” Harp answered.
“Three? Oh, my, and the market at this stalemate that we are in? That is a shame.”
“No, it is not a shame. I sold cattle a year ago at Sedalia for eighty bucks a head.”
“Yes, but the meat market shortage conditions are twice as bad now as they were then, so we expect a much better price.”
“Well, tell me where it is that good?” Harper asked Clower, then nodded his approval as a waiter set his supper on the table.
“They can pay it if we all hold their feet to the fire and none of us don’t undersell the rest.”
Clower set the liquor bottle on Harp’s table and took the opposing chair. “You drink whiskey?”
“No, sir, I don’t. But help yourself.”
“You look a little young to be heading an outfit.”
“Mister, my name’s O’Malley. I drove that herd to Sedalia last year. I have three herds coming here. Don’t worry about my years old. I can and will sell them.”
Clower poured half a glass of the brown liquor. “If you step over our deadline to sell cattle for less than what we want, you may not live much longer.”
Harp threw down his napkin. “I have had all the threats I am going to take. Get your damn whiskey and get the hell out of my way.”
“Listen—”
“I will not. So get away before I shoot your head off. And believe me I have shot Comanche and outlaws alike, so you wouldn’t be any different if you threaten me again.”
“Well, the organization can stop you if you aim to ruin our strike.”
“Load your guns, Clower. If I can make a deal, you won’t stop me. But they can preserve your body in alcohol and lead casket to haul back to Texas.”
“Boy, just try it and you will be buried here.” The man rose and started to leave.
“Wear your best damn suit . . . I will bury you in it.”
Clower stopped by a table and picked up his two hard-looking hands and left the restaurant. Still boiling mad, Harp threw down money for the meal that would go uneaten, went to the stables, and rode back to their camp. It was near sundown, and his arrival drew many of the crew around to see what went wrong.
“What happened?” Long said, putting on his shirt while coming out of the tent.
Still near shaking mad, Harp dismounted and gave the reins to the closest man. “Some old man threatened me if I sold our cattle for less than they are demanding. He acted like he was in charge and that I better listen. I told him I’d already killed Comanche and outlaws and he better not get in my way or I’d kill him.”
“Whew, brother, you are as mad as I have ever seen you. He really pulled your chain.”
“Long, tomorrow I want four men armed with rifles with me, and I am going back and selling seven thousand steers for ninety dollars a head.”
“I’ll go along.”
“No. If they kill us both no one wins. We have many people’s wealth here. Someone needs to finish this job if I can’t.”
“All right, but you be careful. I ain’t saying run from a fight, but you and the men you take are important to us all. I don’t want telling Mom or their moms I let you go without me.”
“I am handling Clower. He thinks I am some boy, and I know damn well and good I’m more than that. He will find that out tomorrow.”
“Bro, settle down. He’s a damn fool if he tries.”
“He is that, too.”
He chose Red Culver, who picked the guitar man, Harold Nelson, and his two black point men, Sly and Jimbo Trent, when the two cousins volunteered to back him. Harp felt they were some of the toughest men in the outfit. Others would fight but since Nelson began playing—he showed himself to be a stronger guy than Harp first imagined. The two cousins, he had no doubt they’d surely do in a clutch.
Breakfast was ready before sunup. Harp noticed the girl was proving to be good help, but Ira said she still didn’t have her mind back.
Harp noticed, too, that everyone kind of walked around him since he came back. Obviously Clower had made him fighting mad. Today he’d show him and any others who he was and they better stand clear or die.
They rode in a long lope most of the way and reached the sight of the growing community on sweaty horses. At the edge of town, just in case, each man jerked out and carried a loaded Winchester across his lap. They all had Colt pistols to back their long guns.
“Watch the roofs of buildings; they may be lying in wait for us. I don’t want to cause a fight. But I don’t aim to die here, either,” Harp told his men.
He could see the depot building, which, he understood, the cattle buyers used as their office. Next he noticed four men step out of some batwing doors on a saloon porch and move into the street. No one that he knew.
“I’ve seed the two on the right,” Sly said under his breath. “They be wanted in Texas. Them other two be kids who think they’re tough. It will be the two on the right give us dee most hell here, boss man.”
“I agree,” Red said.
Harp and his men never stopped walking their head-bobbing, hard-breathing horses toward this new threat spreading apart to face Harp and his force.
“You fellows blocking the street or just resting?” Harp asked them as he and the others reined up.
The second one from the right nodded. “What business you got past here?”
“What if I said it was none of your business?”
“Then I am making it my business, mister. Turn around and go back to herding your cattle. There won’t be any cattle sold here today.”
“Wait a minute.” A big man in a suit stepped off the porch. He showed his badge. “I am U.S. Marshal Sam Ryder. Interfering in another man’s business isn’t allowed in any state or territory. I say you four step aside and let these gentlemen pass.”
“What if I don’t?” their leader asked.
“Then I will deputize those five men as U.S. deputy marshals and we will arrest you and the men with you as interfering with commerce.”
“You’ve got some big damn words, mister.”
“Sorry, sir, what is your name?” Ryder asked Harp.
“Harper O’Malley of Kerrville, Texas, sir. Red Culver, my foreman. Harold Nelson, one of my hands, and Sly and Jimbo Trent, my point men.”
“Nice to meet the five of you. Gentlemen, move aside,” Ryder said to the others.
“I don’t believe—”
Ryder had the leader by a fistful of his shirt and his six-gun jammed in his belly faster than a wasp could sting. “Now you’ve made me mad. You and your men are under arrest.”
Four Winchesters were cocked beside Harp as he leaned forward on his horn. “Marshal, you need any help throwing them in jail.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, holstering his gun and handcuffing the lead man.
Ryder disarmed the others and handcuffed them into a chain of four.
“Thanks for the aid and assistance, gentlemen. Good day to you. Now you four head up the street to the jail.”
“Yes, thank you, Marshal. We have some business to do.”
“You won’t ever bring one head of stock in here to load,” the leader promised him.
“I want your name,” Harp said, reining beside him.
“Huh?”
“Tell him your names,” Ryder ordered.
“Luke Kincaid.”
Harp felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Kincaid, you’ve got mine and I’ve got a forty-five bullet with your name on it if you ever try to stop me.”
A little later in the day, Harp met Joe McCoy who had convinced the railroad to lay siding tracks at Abilene to load cattle. He also met the men buying cattle. They had drawn cards to buy the first, second, and third herd, then it was business on their own. Cally Claxton, of Orica Packing Company, offered Harp ninety dollars a head for every good steer in herd one. Harp agreed and they shook hands on the deal.
Oscar Roma, a swarthy Italian with a huge smile, bought the two thousand head of consigned cattle in the second herd, and Rex Laken of Laken and Grimes Packing Company bought the sisters’ herd.
The secretaries scribbled down the parties’ names and the amounts. When both parties signed the documents, Joe McCoy shook Harp’s hand.
“I heard about your sale at Sedalia and wondered if you would come up here this year. I am so glad you made it. You are a tough young man. We asked for some federal assistance and they sent one man, but he is a tough law man.”
“Quite frankly, Mr. McCoy, that marshal saved some men their lives. We’d have left them dead in the street to get this done. My family and the sellers at home thank all of you. I had five months of hell getting up to Sedalia, but aside from a couple of Indians, who I fed, we had only small problems getting here.
“But, back to the cattle. How many cars are here to load?” Harp asked.
“We plan to load four hundred head a day.”
“Give me two days and I can have the cattle here for that many cars.”
“Hurrah,” went up from the room of buyers and their employees.
A reporter followed them out, asking questions and scribbling at a hundred words a minute.
“Sir, did you expect to be the first man to sell here.”
“No, but I expected to sell those cattle here. In Missouri I was never sure if I’d live that long.”
“What will you do now you have sold over six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cattle here today?”
“Go home and pay all the people who helped me get them together and get here. Excuse me, I have been so upset, I forgot to go and see about the mail.”
Harold Nelson said, “Red’s gone to get it.”
“He take two sacks?”
“Ira gave him two large washed hundred-pound flour sacks to get it in.”
“Can I buy you and these men a drink?” Joe McCoy interrupted, and asked him.
“I don’t drink, sir. But thanks. We have a herd that needs to be moved closer, so we need to get to work.”
“I think you have broken the strike. I hated that it happened, but these men, like you, have jobs and they can’t pay more than what they think will make money.”
“Joe, I came here to sell my cattle at a fair price and get my butt back to Texas.”
“I heard what Clower told you last night. You had every right to be mad, but thanks for carrying through. I have spent a fortune to get all this going. It had to work for me, too.”
“I can imagine. As much as it cost to get cattle up to Sedalia, here a man could live for years on that sum.”
Joe smiled. “But that quiet life wouldn’t be half as much fun as yours and mine are. Would it?”
“You know I think you are right, sir.”
Before he left town he wired his father and the Cranford sisters.
WE ARE HERE STOP SOLD THEM NINETY DOLLARS A HEAD LOCK STOCK AND BARREL STOP THE O MALLEY BROTHERS HARP AND LONG
They rode for the herd, and the news he was looking for he finally found in the fifth letter from Katy that he opened riding back.
Congratulations. Your son, Lee O’Malley, was born July 2nd. Big boy, blond hair, and louder than you. Your mom says you looked like him. I had to name him Lee for our meeting place. Creek was not a good middle name so I left it off. Someday I’ll tell him that all this was caused by us eating peaches at Lee’s Creek. Hurry home.
I miss you badly,
Katy
“Well, did someone die?” one of his fellow riders asked.
“Hell, no. I have a son, Lee O’Malley, a big blond boy.”
His team riding with him shouted and congratulated him.
At camp Long danced a jig and everyone was excited. Harp told them about Marshal Ryder and his help. The cattle were sold, but all the men were to wear their guns, go in pairs, and to expect trouble. It might not be over until they slid the last cattle car door shut.
That night he dreamed that someone kept ringing a cash register that conveyed six hundred and thirty thousand dollars in the glass window, showing it to him like he was the customer.
Long had a place picked out for them north of town, but they had trouble with the cattle. The animals had never seen ties or iron rails in their lifetime. Some would not cross the tracks, some jumped them, but finally all were driven across. Harp did have to ask the engineers not to toot any horns until they got the cattle farther away, because they spooked every time one went off.
Ira had camp set up and the men were relaxing. There would be cars to load the next day, and everyone wanted this business to start. They knew they had to stay to load, but they’d have more help and the suspense was over—the O’Malley bothers had won another war.
Harp wrote Katy giving her details to share with everyone. Under the night lamp he wrote and told her he could hardly wait to get home. And he’d see her and Lee this fall. He signed it, Amen, Harp O’Malley, your homesick husband.