CHAPTER TWELVE
Sheridan, Wyoming Territory
The Occidental Hotel was on North Main.
A fine log structure, the hotel was built by Charles Buell. It
advertised itself as the finest hostelry establishment between
Chicago and San Francisco, and the boast was not without some
justification. The lobby of the hotel was well appointed with
overstuffed sofas and chairs, a dark blue carpet, and several brass
spittoons. A chandelier and a few strategically placed lanterns
provided some light, but not brightness.
There were several people in the lobby,
but they were gathered in separate conversational groups speaking
quietly, so that there was relative quiet. The desk clerk was
sitting in a chair behind the sign-in desk, reading a copy of the
Sheridan Bulletin. He was wearing a brown
three-piece suit with a white shirt, detachable collar, and bow
tie. Except for a small line of hair above each ear, he was bald.
He looked up as Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham came into the
hotel.
“Buffalo Bill Cody,” the desk clerk
said, setting his paper aside as the three men walked up to the
desk. “I heard that you had taken passage on the Queen of the West. How wonderful to see you
again.”
“Hello, Paul,” Cody said. “May I
introduce my two friends? This is Falcon
MacCallister.”
“Yes, indeed, I have heard much about
you, sir. And all of it flattering,” Paul said.
“And this gentleman is a writer who we
can’t seem to get rid of. His name is Prentiss
Ingraham.”
“Prentiss Ingraham? The Prentiss Ingraham?”
“You have heard of me?”
“Indeed I have, sir. And I have read
every one of your books. In fact, I have one here that I would ask
you to autograph for me, if you would be so kind.”
“Why, I would be delighted to autograph
your book for you,” Ingraham said, beaming in delight over the
unexpected recognition.
The clerk reached under the check-in
counter and pulled out a copy of Buffalo Bill’s Spy
Trailer—The Stranger in Camp and handed it to
Ingraham.
“Oh, you’ve chosen well,” Ingraham said
as he autographed the book. “This is one of my personal
favorites.”
That was the same thing he had said to
the boat ticket agent about Falcon MacCallister and
the Mountain Marauders, and as Ingraham signed the book with
a great flourish, Falcon and Cody looked at each other and
chuckled.
“Mr. Cody, I saw in the newspaper that
you are going to be holding auditions for your show. Up in
Cinnabar, I believe?”
“Indeed I am,” Cody replied. “How about
it, Paul? Do you want to try out for the show?”
Paul laughed. “Not unless you have a
place in your show for hotel clerks,” he said. He turned toward a
board filled with keys hanging from hooks, took three of them down
and handed one to each of them. “These rooms are on the second
floor near the front,” he said. “All three are together, two of
them are adjoining rooms, and the third one is immediately across
the hall.”
“Thanks,” Falcon and Cody said.
Ingraham finished signing the book and then handed back to the
clerk.
“Thank you, sir,” the clerk said with a
broad smile. “I will treasure this.”
Like the lobby, the hotel room was
nicely furnished. More spacious than most hotel rooms, this one had
a bed, a settee, a chest of drawers, a chifforobe, and a dry sink.
A porcelain pitcher and bowl sat on the dry sink.
After settling their luggage into the
room, Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham decided to take a turn around the
town to see what it was like.
“The reason I wanted to look over the
town is because I expect that Cody will be much like this one,”
Cody said. “After all, Mr. Beck founded and built this town, and he
is the principal architect for Cody, which is to be built some
fifty miles west of here.”
The town was well laid out, not only
with a very fine hotel, but with many other conveniences a town
would need: a mercantile, a leather goods store, a feed and seed
store, a hardware store, a butcher shop, a livery, a gun shop, and,
of course, a saloon. In this case the saloon was called the North
Star Saloon, and it was a rather substantial building. Unlike many
of the others, it was painted a gleaming white.
Buffalo Bill Cody had been to the town
of Sheridan many times over the last few years, and he knew several
of the people who were, at the moment, patronizing the saloon. They
all greeted him effusively, and Cody returned the greetings with
equal enthusiasm, introducing Falcon and Ingraham to them. Nearly
all had heard of Falcon and Prentiss Ingraham, much to the delight
of Ingraham, who enjoyed sharing stories of both his books and
adventures.
As Falcon and the others listened with
interest to Ingraham’s tall tales, the sound of a slap could be
heard all through the saloon.
“Ouch! Don’t do that!” a woman called
out, the pain and fear evident in the tone of her
voice.
“Don’t tell me what to do, whore!” a
man’s gruff voice replied. “I done bought you four drinks and you
say you I can’t lie in your bed?”
“I’m a bar girl, I’m not a prostitute,”
the woman replied.
“She’s right, Slayton,” the bar tender
said. “Lucy is not a soiled dove. None of the girls here are. If
you want that kind of woman, you need to go down the street to the
cribs.”
“Don’t tell me where to go, and don’t
tell me she ain’t no whore,” Slayton said. He drew his hand back
and turned toward Lucy. “You’re goin’ to lie with me, or I’m going
to beat you to a pulp,” he said with a menacing growl.
“Mister, back away from the lady,”
Falcon ordered, loudly.
“Say what?” Slayton replied. Slayton
was nearly as big a man as Falcon. He didn’t have a beard, but
neither was he clean-shaven. He had what looked like a five-day
stubble. The most noticeable thing about him was his teeth.
Irregular and yellow, one front tooth was broken and the one next
to it was missing.
“I said back away from the lady. Now,”
Falcon said.
Slayton turned toward Falcon and
pointed at him. “Mister, you are buttin’ in where you got no call.
Now my advice to you is to sit down and mind your own
business.”
“Mister, you might want to rethink,”
Falcon said.
“Really? And what is it I need to
rethink?”
“Your entire attitude.”
Don’t you be worryin’ none about my
attitude,” Slayton said. “If there is anyone in here that’s needin’
to rethink, it’s you for buttin’ in where you got no business. You
bein’ a stranger in town, you may not know that I ain’t the kind of
man you want to mess with.” He had been pointing at Falcon, but now
he started to drop his arm.
“Huh, uh. Don’t drop your arm, don’t
make a move,” Falcon said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Falcon said. “Don’t
make a move. If you so much as twitch, I’ll kill you.”
“Mister, you don’t even have a gun in
your hand. Do you think you can run a bluff on me? Nobody runs a
bluff on me.”
“Friend,” Buffalo Bill said. “I’ve
known Falcon MacCallister for some time now, and I don’t believe I
have ever seen him run a bluff.”
“I don’t believe that is Falcon
MacCallister,” Slayton said. He started to drop his arm, but no
sooner did he twitch than he found himself staring at the black
hole of the business end of Falcon’s pistol.
“I told you not to move,” Falcon
said.
“No! Wait!” Slayton shouted. He put
both arms up. “Don’t shoot, Mister, don’t shoot!”
For the moment the loudest sound to be
heard was the steady tick-tock of the regulator clock which hung
just above the fireplace mantle. The other customers in the saloon
were viewing the unfolding scene as intently as anyone who had ever
watched a Buffalo Bill Wild West Exhibition. And in a way, they
were spectators of a show, but in this case the scene being played
out before them was much more intense than anything Buffalo Bill
had ever produced. This was a drama of life or death.
Unable to control the sudden twitch
that started in his left eye, Slayton looked around the saloon to
see if he could count on anyone for help.
“Are you people going to just let him
get away with this?” Slayton called out. “He’s a stranger! I’m one
of you!”
“You ain’t never been one of us,
Slayton,” a cowboy over at the bar said. The cowboy was standing
with his back against the bar, leaning back with his elbows resting
on the bar. “You ain’t done nothin’ but run roughshod over the rest
of us ever since you got here. As far as I’m concerned, he can
shoot you right now and I’d say good riddance.”
Slayton looked back at Falcon,
realizing now that not only was he on his own, but he had come up
against someone who was far his superior.
“Please, Mister,” Slayton said with a
whimper. “What are you going to do?”
“Yes, Falcon, what are you going to
do?” Cody asked.
“What do you think, Buffalo Bill? Do
you think I should just shoot him and be done with it?” Falcon
asked.
“My God,” Slayton said, his bottom lip
quivering now. “Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Ingraham said.
“Falcon, suppose you put your pistol back in your holster. I’ll
count to three, then both of you can draw. A duel to the death like
that would make much better story than if I wrote that you merely
shot him. You would like that better, wouldn’t you, Slayton? I mean
if Falcon MacCallister put his gun away and actually gave you a
chance to draw against him? It wouldn’t be much of a chance, I
admit—but it would be a chance. Better than him just shooting you,
here and now.”
“Yes,” Slayton said.
Falcon put his pistol back in his
holster.
“I mean no!” Slayton shouted, quickly,
holding both his arms out in front of him, palms facing outward. “I
mean no I don’t want to draw against you at all. I ain’t goin’ for
my gun! Do you see? I ain’t goin’ for my gun!”
The young woman was tending to her
bleeding lip, and she looked up at Slayton. One of her eyes was
black and nearly swollen shut. “If it was left up to me, I would
tell you to shoot him,” she said.
“No,” Slayton said. He began shaking
uncontrollably, and he wet his pants. “Please, don’t kill me,” he
begged. “I swear, I’ll never touch the girl again. Please, don’t
kill me.”
Lucy turned to the others in the
saloon. “Did you all hear the promise Mr. Slayton just
made?”
“We heard it, Miss Lucy,” one of the
other patrons asked.
“Will you see to it that he keeps his
promise?”
“Oh, he’ll keep his promise, all
right,” the cowboy who was leaning back against the bar said.
“’Cause if he don’t keep it, me an’ some of the boys will find him,
and we’ll string him up ourselves.”
“Go home, Mr. Slayton,” Lucy finally
said in a cold voice. “And don’t come back here until you know how
to behave around a lady.”
“Behave around a lady?” Slayton said in
a contemptuous tone. “What do you mean around a lady?”
The next sound was the deadly
double-click of a pistol sear engaging the hammer and rotating a
shell under the firing pin. Once again, Falcon was holding his
pistol pointed at Slayton.
“Are you going to try and say that you
don’t see any ladies around here?” Falcon asked.
“What? No, no, I see a lady,” Slayton
stammered. He looked around at the other bar girls. “I see a lot of
ladies around here!” Still holding his hands out in front of him,
as if warding Falcon off, he turned to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Falcon
called.
Slayton stopped.
“Before you leave, shuck out of that
gun belt. The pistol stays here,” Falcon said.
“Who the hell says that it stays here?”
Slayton asked, in one last attempt at bravado.
“I say it,” Falcon replied as calmly as
if he were giving the time.
Slayton paused for a moment longer,
then, with shaking hands, unbuckled his gun belt. He let it drop to
the floor.
“Now you can go,” Falcon
said.
“When do I get it back?” Slayton
asked.
“Whenever the lady says you can have it
back,” Falcon said.
“Are you crazy? I ain’t leavin’ my gun
with no whore!”
“I will give it back to you, Mr.
Slayton, when you have learned to behave as a gentleman,” Lucy
said.
As soon as Slayton stepped outside,
there was a collective sigh of relief, then everyone started
talking at the same time.
“Did you see that?”
“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it in
my whole life.”
“Never thought I would see anyone back
down Ethan Slayton,” one of the patrons said.
“Well, it wasn’t just anyone,” another
said. “It was Falcon MacCallister.
Falcon reached down to pick up the gun
and belt that Slayton had shed. Carrying it over to the bar, he
handed it to the bartender.
“It might be a good idea to empty the
bullets before you hand the pistol back to him,” Falcon suggested.
“Someone with a temper like he has is liable to start shooting the
moment he gets his hands back on it.”
“Don’t you worry none about that, Mr.
MacCallister,” the bartender said. “I’ll have this gun empty before
you can say Jack Sprat.”
“Johnny,” Lucy said.
“Yes, Miss Lucy?”
“Would you please pour these three
gentleman a drink, on me?” she asked, referring to Falcon, Cody,
and Ingraham.
“Yes, ma’am, I’d be glad to,” Johnny
said, reaching for the house’s finest bourbon. “But you are only
goin’ to pay for half of it. I’m payin’ the other half my
ownself.”
Preston Ingraham’s notes from his book in
progress:
After
assuring the gallant General Nelson Miles that he did not believe
the great Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull, was behind or planning any
nefarious activity, Buffalo Bill Cody, Falcon MacCallister, and
your humble scribe left the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to
continue their sojourn through the West, proceeding from the above
location by way of train to Miles City. There, the two Western
heroes were feted by the commandant of the nearby army post, Fort
Keogh, named for the gallant officer who died with Custer. Colonel
Whitehead, the fort’s commandant, allowed the ladies of the post to
produce a military ball in their honor. Although the ball was held
in the bare hall of a Suttler’s Store, the ladies of the fort
succeeded with their clever and colorful decorations to convert the
stark building into as inviting a ball room as in the finest
Eastern salons. And, as I am travelling with Cody and MacCallister,
I was also privileged to attend the ball, and enjoyed dancing with
the lovely ladies of the post.
Leaving Miles
City, we traveled by riverboat on the Tongue River, with Sheridan
as the destination.
Shortly after
arriving in Sheridan, a small town in Wyoming Territory, a brutish
fellow imagined himself offended by a young woman of the bar, and
he struck her several times. Falcon MacCallister, upon seeing the
altercation, interceded.
“Here, sir,
do not strike that woman again.”
His words
rang with authority, and not one person in the room was there, who
did not realize that a challenge was being
issued.
The brigand,
a most disreputable fellow of the lowest type, was a known bully by
the name of Ethan Slayton, a person whose disrepute was known by
all.
“Mister, what
I do to this woman ain’t none of your business,” Slayton replied in
a voice dripping with arrogance and venom.
“You err,
sir, for I have made it my business,” the valiant Falcon
MacCallister said. “For one who attacks a defenseless woman,
attacks all that is good and noble.”
Pointing his
finger at Falcon, Slayton issued a challenge that would have made
the blood run cold in most men. “Mister, you have butted in where
you have no business. My advice to you is to back away or be
prepared to face the ire of Ethan Slayton.”
It is to be
supposed that brute was of the opinion that mere mention of the
name Ethan Slayton would be sufficient to make most men withdraw
meekly. But Mr. Slayton made a serious miscalculation, for Falcon
MacCallister is not a man who is easily frightened. His reply,
intoned in a voice that was dripping with danger, brought instant
silence to all in the saloon.
“Friend, if
you so much as twitch, I will kill you,” Falcon MacCallister said,
his words cold and piercing.
“I will not
be buffaloed, by you or any man,” Slayton said, and to prove his
point, moved his hand in the direction of his pistol, but ere his
hand reached his holster, a Colt .44, as if by magic, appeared in
the hand of Falcon MacCallister. Slayton gasped in surprise and
fear.
“You should
feel no shame sir, for having been bested by this man,” Buffalo
Bill Cody said from aside. “For this is Falcon MacCallister, and
his gunmanship is superior to all in the West. Were you to test him
any further, he would have put a ball in your
heart.”
Realizing
that he was beaten, the disagreeable Slayton made no further
attempt to extract his weapon from his holster. Begging for his
life, he was allowed to leave the saloon, but only after offering
his apology to the young woman whom he had assaulted, and
surrendering his pistol.