CHAPTER TEN
The next morning as Falcon was shaving
in his room at the BOQ he heard a knock at his door. With the towel
draped across his shoulder and half his face still lathered, he
took the few steps to the door and pulled it open. A tall, muscular
black soldier was standing there. The stripes on his arm indicated
that he was a sergeant.
“Colonel MacCallister?”
“Yes, I’m MacCallister.” Falcon still
wasn’t all that comfortable with referring to himself as Colonel
MacCallister.
The black sergeant saluted. “I’m
Sergeant Major Coletrain, sir,” he said. His voice was deep and
resonant. “Major Benteen has assigned me to you, Colonel Cody, and
Colonel Ingraham for the day.”
“What do you mean he has assigned
you?”
“Aren’t you three gentlemen catching
the boat, goin’ down river?” Coletrain asked.
“We are.”
“I’ve got a team connected to the CO’s
carriage. I’ll be driving the three of you to the steamboat
dock.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“No, sir, it’s my privilege to thank
you,” Coletrain said.
“Thank me for what?”
Coletrain chuckled. “I reckon when
someone like does a thing, you don’t always know all the good
that’s goin’ to come of it. But some time ago you killed an outlaw
by the name of Luke Mueller. Down in Arizona, it was.”
“I remember,” Falcon said.
“I was in Arizona at the time, the
Ninth was fightin’ Apaches then. I was married to the prettiest
young girl you ever did see. She was a laundress at the
post.
“Well sir, one day when she was goin’
into town, Luke Mueller raped her, and kilt her. When I found out
who done it, I was plannin’ on desertin’ the army to find him and
kill him. Only he run across you, and you kilt him
instead.
“I wish it had been me that kilt him,
but thinkin’ back on it, dead is dead, and I never got myself in
trouble with the army. So, Colonel MacCallister, as you can see, I
do have somethin’ to thank you for.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your wife,”
Falcon said.
“Yes, sir, well, what is done is done,”
Coletrain said. “You can go on outside to the carriage if you want,
I’ll get the others.”
Sergeant Major Coletrain drove the
others down to the riverside where the Queen of the
West, a very shallowdraft riverboat, was tied nose in to the
bank. The riverbank was crowded with people who had just arrived,
those who were departing, those who were seeing people off or
welcoming them. There were also several others there, just for the
excitement. The ticket agent was sitting at a table in front of the
boat, checking the tickets of those who had already booked passage,
and selling tickets to those who had not yet done so.
Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham were among
the latter, so they stood in line for a moment until it was their
time. Looking up at them, the ticket agent smiled.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look
like Buffalo Bill Cody?” the ticket agent asked Cody.
“I get that a lot,” Cody
said.
“It must make you angry, being compared
to that phony,” the ticket agent said.
“Oh, sometimes it does,” Cody said with
awry smile.
“All right, one ticket to Sheridan,”
the ticket agent said. “Your name, sir?”
“Cody. William F. Cody,” Cody
said.
“Cody, Will . . . ,” the ticket agent
looked up in surprise. “You—you mean you really are Buffalo
Bill?”
“Guilty,” Cody said.
“Oh, Mr. Cody, I’m so sorry,” the
ticket agent said. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just
shooting off my mouth. I, uh, I’m sorry.”
“Think nothing of it, friend,” Cody
said.
Falcon was still chuckling as he
stepped up to the table.
“Yes, sir,” the nervous ticket agent
said. “Your name?”
“McCallister. Falcon
MacCallister.”
“What? Are you the Falcon MacCallister?”
“I don’t know,” Falcon replied. “I may
be, since I am the only Falcon MacCallister I know.”
“I’ve read about you,” the ticket agent
said. “I—well, just a minute, let me show you.”
The ticket agent reached down into a
case that was on the ground by his table and pulled out a book. The
title of the book was Falcon MacCallister and the
Mountain Marauders.
“This is a real good book,” he
said.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Ingraham
said. “Would you like me to autograph it for you?”
“Don’t tell me you are . .
.”
“Prentiss Ingraham,” Ingraham said,
answering the ticket agent before his question was completed. “And
you have chosen well. This is one of my personal
favorites.”
The ticket agent shook his head. “My
wife isn’t going to believe this,” he said.
Half an hour later, Falcon, Cody, and
Ingraham were aboard when the captain stepped to the front rail of
the wheelhouse.
“Draw in the gangplank,” he shouted,
and two deckhands responded by pulling in the ramp by which all had
boarded.
“Cast off all lines!”
With that accomplished, the pilot
called for fullreverse engine, and the stern paddle pulled the boat
away from the bank to the middle of the narrow, shallow river; then
it turned, nose downriver. The paddlewheel stopped, then started
spinning in the opposite direction as the boat started its journey
down the Tongue River.
An hour later, Falcon was standing at
the stern, watching the paddlewheel spin through the water, leaving
a frothing wake behind them. The river was not very wide and was
quite shallow, so the boat was equipped with spars. They had not
gone very far when the captain ordered the first use of the
spars.
“Stand clear of the line, sir,” a
boatman said as he approached the spar on the starboard side of the
boat, the side on which Falcon was standing. “When the line gets
taut, if it breaks, it could hurt you bad.”
“Thanks, I’ll stay out of the way,”
Falcon replied.
“Stand by the spars!” the captain
yelled through his megaphone from the Texas deck.
The boatman who had spoken to Falcon
grabbed hold of the spar.
“Spars in the water!” the captain
called through his megaphone.
The riverman stuck the end of the spar
down into the water, then wrapped the line around a capstan. “Aye,
Cap’n, spar in the water!” he called back.
The deckhand who was handling the spar
on the other side of the boat repeated the call.
“Commence sparring!”
The boatman pulled a lever and the
capstan, powered by steam, began putting pressure on the spar,
while the same thing was being done to the spar on the port
side.
Sparring lifted the bow of the
Queen of the West as if it were on crutches,
up and off the sandbar. With the bow raised, the paddlewheel got
more purchase in the water and moved the boat forward. Because it
was a particularly long sandbar, the action had to be repeated, in
a procedure that Falcon knew was called grass-hoppering, or
walking, the boat. The procedure had to be repeated several times
until, finally, the boat was clear of the sand bar and the captain
was able to proceed downriver at a rapid clip.
As the boat continued down the river,
Falcon examined the banks sliding by. He saw a lot of deer coming
down to the river to drink, amazingly unafraid of the huge fire
bellowing, and the thundering monster that was moving down the
river. He also saw elk, bighorn, and even a couple of bears coming
down to get a drink.
Once he saw three Indians on horseback,
high on an overlook as they watched the riverboat pass by on its
downriver transit. Shortly after they crossed from Montana
territory into Wyoming territory, they saw a young white boy and
girl standing on rock jutting out into the river. They were waving
and Falcon waved back. Behind them stood a very small log cabin,
and in a field alongside the cabin, a man Falcon presumed to be
their father was plowing a field.
“Falcon,” Cody called, and Falcon
turned away from the railing to see what his friend
wanted.
“We are getting a card game together in
the salon. Come join us.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Falcon
replied.
The salon was the social center of the
Queen of the West. Here the passengers could
have a drink, take their meals, play cards, or simply engage in
conversation. There were many more men on board than there were
women, and the women passengers tended to gather in one corner to
talk among themselves.
The game Falcon joined had six players:
Falcon, Cody, Ingraham, and three others, all gold hunters.
Reynolds, one of the card players, was a veteran of prospecting in
the Big Horn Basin, and during the course of the game he was
telling the others some of the places they could look for
gold.
“Of course, I tell this, but with a
warning,” he said.
“A warning about what?” one of the gold
hunters asked. “Bear? I know there are bear there. I plan to keep
away from them.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about bears,” Reynolds
said. “Though you’d be smart to keep a lookout for ’em. I’m talkin’
about Injuns.”
“Indians?” Cody said. “But the Crow
live there. They are friendly.”
“Yeah, I reckon they are supposed to
be,” Reynolds said. “But we’ve been havin’ a little trouble with
them. They’ve kilt a few prospectors, and here just recent, why
they kilt a whole family, husband, wife, and their little
child.”
“Are you talking about the Kennedy
family? That was Mean to His Horses, wasn’t it?”
“No, sir, ain’t talkin’ about them.
This was the Barlow family, and they lived right there along the
Stinking Water River. And the closest Injuns to ’em is
Crow.”
“How do you know it was Indians who did
it?” Falcon asked.
“How do I know? ’Cause they cut ’em up
somethin’ awful. And they scalped ’em too. Now I’ve heard of white
men killing people for to rob them and such. But I ain’t never
heard of no white men scalping other whites. Most especial if it be
a woman and a child.”
“Has the army been called out?” one of
the other card players asked.
“Nah,” Reynolds said. “The people are
takin’ care of it their ownselves. Mr. Bellefontaine organized a
posse, found some Injuns off the reservation, and kilt a couple of
them. Then they left a note, lettin’ the Injuns know the two was
kilt ’cause they didn’t stay where they belong. And it told ’em
there’d be more killin’ if the Injuns got off their reservation
again.”
“Bellefontaine did that?” Cody asked.
“What right did he have to do something like that? Why didn’t he
take it to the army?”
“I don’t know why he didn’t take it to
the army,” Reynolds replied. “But seein’ as he purt’ nigh owns the
entire town, I reckon that’s about all the right he
needs.”
That evening, as the boat moved slowly,
but majestically down the river, Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham stood
out on the deck, enjoying the cool evening breeze, and looking at
the wake of paddlewheel-churned water, breaking white and gleaming
in the moonlight.
Cody lit his pipe, and for a moment the
flare of his match cast a golden glow on the faces of the three
men. He sucked on the pipe a few times until the tobacco caught,
then he exhaled, the puff of smoke caught by the night air and
drifting back over the churning paddlewheel where it was broken
up.
“I don’t mind telling you that I have
been giving a lot of thought to what Reynolds was talking about at
our poker game this afternoon,” Cody said.
“Do you believe him?” Ingraham
asked.
“I don’t have any reason not to believe
him,” Cody replied.
“What do you know about this man,
Bellefontaine?” Falcon asked.
“Well, I know that we are going to be
competitors,” Cody replied. “We’ll be building Cody very close to
where DeMaris Springs is, and when the railroad extends this far,
why Cody and DeMaris Springs will just naturally be in competition
for it.”
“Is he the kind of man who would send
out a posse on his own?” Falcon asked.
Cody paused for a moment before he
answered. “Look, I don’t want you to get me wrong here. I mean, I
have already told you that Bellefontaine and I will both be
competing for the railroad, so I don’t want you to think that
colors my assessment of the man. But to answer your question? Yes,
he is exactly the kind of man who would send out a posse on his
own, and not just for Indians. Reynolds was correct when he said
that Bellefontaine owns the town. And he was also correct when he
said that is all the right Bellefontaine thinks that he
needs.”
“I may need to meet this man,” Falcon
said.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You will
meet him,” Cody replied.