Blood and Gold

Spread before me were racks of gleaming new Winchesters, stacked boxes of cartridges and wide-brimmed Stetson hats brought all the way from Wichita Falls. Shirts in every color of the rainbow were neatly folded row on row and among them boots and shoes with a notice that read: FOOTWEAR SOLD AT COST. From the rafters hung great slabs of sowbelly bacon, salt pork and smoked hams and arranged around the floor stood kegs and barrels of molasses, vinegar, flour and soda crackers. Rounds and thick wedges of yellow and white cheeses under glass domes competed for space on the counter with jars of spices, sugar, pink candy canes and black-striped peppermint balls.

The store smelled of plug tobacco, fragrant Virginia ham, the leather of boots and belts, fresh ground coffee, gun oil and the sweet, musty tang of calico and cotton cloth in bolts.

Me, I was so enthralled, counting through the round silver dollars in my pocket and mighty wishful for more, that it took me a few moments to realize Jonathan Doan was talking to me.

I turned and found him at my elbow. As his nephew Corwin had done, he said: “You’re late getting back, Dusty.”

And as I had told Corwin, I said I’d been delayed in Dodge because of Simon Prather’s illness. I made no mention of the thirty thousand dollars or Lafe Wingo.

“Well”—Doan sighed after I’d said my piece—“I take that news mighty hard. Simon Prather is a good man.”

“Indeed he is,” I said, letting it go at that.

Jonathan Doan was a small, bearded man with keenly intelligent, penetrating brown eyes and a gentle way about him. He was an Ohio Yankee but I didn’t hold that against him, and he was a Quaker, and I didn’t hold that against him either.

“So what can I do you for, Dusty?” Doan asked, smiling.

“I need supplies, Mr. Doan,” I replied. “But I figure those can wait until morning. Right now I could use a beer.”

Doan, not a drinking man himself, nodded. “Then step right up to the bar.”

I crossed the room in a sudden silence, my spurs chiming. The reason for the stillness became apparent when I noticed one of the punchers at the table, a huge man with a thick mane of yellow hair, looking me up and down, with downright mean belligerence in his bloodshot eyes.

The others in the room, sensing as I did that the big puncher was on the prod and had sized me up as his victim, eyed me warily as I stepped to the bar.

“What will it be, Dusty?” Doan asked. There was a concerned edge to his voice and I guessed he was also aware of trouble brewing.

I ordered a Bass Ale, and while Doan bent down to find the bottle, I opened my slicker and moved it slowly away from my holstered Colt. I did it so casually I figured no one noticed, nor it seemed had they.

One of the soldiers caught my eye and his glance held a warning. He nodded slightly toward the door, telling me I should leave. I ignored the man and turned to the bar as Doan proffered me my beer.

“See any Apaches on your travels, young feller?” the old-timer by the stove asked, whether to break the tension or because he was blissfully unaware of what was happening I could not tell.

“Uh-huh, tangled with a passel of them north of here,” I said, sampling the ale. It was cold and good.

The big puncher guffawed. “Yeah, sure you did. Why, you ain’t old enough to have left your momma’s teat. You didn’t tangle with no Apaches. A passel o’ them my ass.”

Now a couple of things displeased me about this man. The first was that he’d called me a liar, the second that he sported a fine, sweeping dragoon mustache that put to shame the fuzzy growth on my top lip.

But I was in no mood for a fight, so I let it go. “Believe what you want,” I said, shrugging. “Makes no never mind to me.”

I turned back to the bar and said to Doan: “Beer is real good, Mr. Doan.”

I felt a rough hand on my shoulder that half-turned me round and the huge puncher stuck his face into mine, whiskey heavy on his breath. “Doan,” he said, “bring a bottle. I’m gonna teach this whippersnapper how to drink like a man.”

“Let it be, Burt,” Doan said. “This boy means you no harm.”

The man called Burt grinned, his eyes bright and cruel. “Aw, Doan, I won’t hurt him too bad. All I’m gonna do is pour some of your rotten whiskey down his throat.”

I sized this man up as a mean drunk and a remorseless bully. He was huge, six inches taller than me and maybe sixty pounds heavier, the kind smaller men are all too willing to step around.

But now I was getting good and mad and maybe he saw something in my eyes because he took a single step back and his grin slipped a little.

“Mister, I don’t want your whiskey,” I said. “I’m wet and tired and I’m not here to borrow trouble, so let me be.” I moved my slicker again, clearing my gun. “You’ve been duly notified. Let me be.”

At heart this man was a coward used to knocking around men who were weaker and scared of him. But I wasn’t afraid, and he knew it, because Burt dug deep, found no reserve of courage and retreated into bluster.