Kinch Riley and Hickok and Cody Page 22

  “We could certainly use some of that here. A hard snow would drive the hostiles into winter camp. They’ll continue to raid as long as the weather holds.”

  Phil Sheridan was a soldier who believed in taking the fight to the enemy. During the Civil War, his cavalry had laid waste to the Shenandoah Valley, routing Confederate forces in a brilliant campaign. He was frustrated by the will-o’-the-wisp tactics of the Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne. Hit-and-run was not his idea of a war.

  “These hostiles,” Alexis said, as though testing the word. “What do they hope to accomplish by raiding farmers and transport lines? How can they defeat your army unless they force a battle?”

  Sheridan barked a harsh laugh. “Your Highness, you’ve put your thumb on the problem. Indians will avoid a full-scale battle at all costs. They harass us instead with these damnedable raids.”

  “The general’s right,” Cody said from the front seat. “Not their way to stand and fight, even when you track ’em down. They’re skirmishers, strictly hit-and-run.”

  “Tough buggers, all the same,” Hickok added. “I recollect somebody called ’em the finest light cavalry in the world. Wasn’t them your words, Gen’ral?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Sheridan said curtly. “But the Grand Duke made the salient point a moment ago. Light cavalry will never win a war unless they come to battle.”

  Hickok shrugged. “Well, maybe they don’t figure to win. Maybe they’re just tryin’ to hold their own.”

  Sheridan fell silent. He turned in the seat, looking back at Custer and the other generals, their horses held to a walk behind the carriage. Beyond them, the companies of the Fifth Regiment were strung out in a long column. Not once, in all his years on the plains, had he been able to engage the Indians in battle with a full regiment. Hickok, he told himself, saw the problem with a certain finite clarity. The hostiles were fighting a holding action.

  Sometimes he slept poorly, his dreams a stew of misgiving. He admired the Indians in many ways, and indeed, he believed them to be the finest light cavalry ever seen by man. All too often he felt personally sullied by the government’s record of broken treaties, lies piled upon lies. But history was a litany of one people conquering another, frequently for spoils and inevitably to claim the land. However much he admired the Indians, he was a soldier no less than the Roman generals of ancient times. The Western Plains were his Egypt.

  Alexis was also impressed by Hickok’s insightful remark about the hostiles. He leaned forward in his seat. “I have been meaning to ask, Wild Bill. What are your plans now that our hunt has concluded?”

  “Likely back to Kansas,” Hickok said, twisting around. “There’s a cowtown I just suspect will be needin’ a marshal. Place called Ellsworth.”

  “Yes, of course,” Alexis said, intrigued by the thought. “I have read a good deal of your Texas cowboys. Are they as ferocious as reported?”

  Hickok chuckled. “I don’t know as I’d call ’em ferocious. Texans ain’t got sense enough to come in out of the rain. That and liquor puts ’em crosswise of the law.”

  “So, then, you will return to marshaling. Da?”

  “Well, cattle season don’t start till June. I doubt Ellsworth will be hirin’ much before May.”

  Alexis considered a moment. “Would you be offended if I asked you a personal question?”

  “No, I reckon not,” Hickok said. “Go ahead, ask away.”

  “Have you ever found it necessary to kill a cowboy?”

  “I shot a Texan last summer in Abilene. Gamblin’ man by the name of Phil Coe. But to answer your question—no cowboys.”

  “I see,” Alexis said. “May I ask why?”

  “Not worth the trouble,” Hickok observed. “I generally just toss ’em in the hoosgow. They sober up by mornin’.”

  “We’re there,” Cody broke in. “North Platte just ahead.”

  The carriage crested a small hill. Though it was the county seat, North Platte was a community of less than two thousand people. The town was largely an extension of the railroad tracks, a center of trade for farmers and ranchers. The Union Pacific depot was south of the tracks, with fewer than a dozen buildings scattered at random nearby. The business district was north of the tracks, surrounded by a grid of streets dotted with houses. A train, chuffing smoke, stood on a siding by the depot.

  “How about it, General?” Cody called out. “Want to deliver the Grand Duke in style?”

  Sheridan appeared uncertain. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Let’s take ’em by storm!”

  Cody popped the reins with a sharp snap. The horses jumped in the traces and took off at a pounding lope. The carriage jounced and swayed as they careened down the hillside, the wheels striking the ground every ten feet or so. Custer pumped his arm overhead, signaling the troop commanders at the rear. The cavalry broke into a gallop.

  They roared into North Platte at a full charge.

  * * *

  The private coach was elegance on wheels. The interior was paneled in rosewood, with plush armchairs and a massive leather sofa. A Persian carpet covered the floor, and to the rear was a private bedroom and lavatory. Directly forward was a single passenger coach, and beyond that a dining car. The kitchen was ruled by a French chef.

  James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, owned the private coach. Bennett was a man of immense wealth and power, and he had provided the train for the Grand Duke’s hunting trip. Hickok was nonplussed by the lavish accommodations, but Cody took it all in stride. A year ago he’d served as guide on a buffalo hunt for Bennett and several of New York’s more prominent businessmen. He recalled only too well that the rich liked to travel in style.

  The train was ready to roll. Sheridan and Custer and the other generals were to accompany the Grand Duke as far as St. Louis. Headquarters for the Division of the Missouri, Sheriden’s command, was located there, and the generals would return to duty. Alexis, now playing the role of host, turned his attention from the officers to Cody and Hickok. His Cossack manservant appeared with wrapped boxes and he presented each of them with gifts. For Cody there was a bag of gold coins and jeweled cufflinks. Hickok opened his box to find a diamond stickpin.

  “Well, now,” Cody said, hefting the bag of gold. “That’s mighty generous, Your Highness. I’m plumb obliged.”

  “Same goes here,” Hickok said, clearly surprised. “Didn’t expect nothin’ like this.”

  Alexis beamed. “Consider it a token of my appreciation. You have given me a hunt I will never forget. I return to Russia with many fond memories.”

  The Grand Duke walked them to the rear of the coach. He embraced each of them with a backslapping bear hug and shook their hands in farewell. As they started down the steps, a westbound train ground to a halt outside the depot. The royal train got underway, waiting for a switchman to throw the bar on the siding, and pulled onto the main tracks. Alexis waved to them from the door of the private coach.

  “Fine feller,” Hickok noted as the train gathered speed. “Never once put on any airs, did he?”

  Cody nodded. “Not all that bad a shot, either. Got the hang of it pretty quick.”

  “You came away like a Mexican bandit. How much you got in that bag of gold?”

  “Looks to be five hundred or so. I’m buyin’ the drinks.”

  “Let’s find ourselves a saloon.”

  The troopers of the Fifth Cavalry were ordered to mount their horses. Fort McPherson was some fifteen miles southeast of town, and the major in charge of the detail wanted to arrive there by nightfall. Cody spoke with him briefly, indicating that he planned to stay over in North Platte a couple of nights. A trooper was assigned to drive the carriage at the end of the column.

  Cody and Hickok started across the tracks, leading their horses. As they rounded the locomotive of the westbound train, they saw a group of farmers on the platform outside the depot. Their attention was drawn to six bedraggled children, lined up and standing apart, as though o
n display. A large portly man was addressing the farmers in a mellifluous voice.

  “Brothers and sisters!” Thadius Crocker said to the farmers. “Welcome on behalf of the Children’s Aid Society. These poor little orphans”—he paused, gesturing to the children—“are here looking for good homes. We ask you to open your hearts in Christian charity.”

  Their curiosity whetted, Cody and Hickok stopped to watch. They had heard of the Orphan Train, but they’d never seen one until today. The children appeared to them somehow pitiful, dirty and plainly disheartened, dressed in tattered clothing. Hickok noticed a girl and boy standing slightly apart from the other children. He thought they looked like wild young colts ready to bolt.

  Augustus was no less aware of the two plainsmen. His eyes darted over their buckskin outfits, their shiny pistols, and their broad-brimmed hats. Then, his gaze drawn to their shoulder-length hair, something snapped in his mind. He studied their faces, one with a mustache and the other with a mustache and goatee, and suddenly he knew. He’d seen those faces many times before, in pen-and-ink drawings. On the covers of dime novels!

  “Look,” he hissed to Katherine, barely able to contain himself. “It’s Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. The Heroes of the Plains!”

  Katherine glanced at him with no great interest. “How on earth could you know that? You’re imagining things.”

  “No, I’m not either. It’s them.”

  “All right, then, it’s them. Who cares?”

  Katherine was beside herself with fear. For the past two days the Orphan Train had steamed westward through Nebraska. With each stop at some barren depot, more and more of the children had been adopted. There were only six left, herself and Augustus included, and she had no idea how far they were from New York. She felt lost and deserted, and ached desperately for the sight of her parents. She bit her tongue not to burst out in tears.

  There were more farmers than children on the platform. The moment Crocker stopped talking, the farmers surged forward, intent on leaving with a child. One of them, a rawboned man with beady eyes and hard features, roughly elbowed the others aside and strode directly to Augustus and Katherine. He clapped a hand squarely on the boy’s shoulder.

  “I’ll take this one,” he said, motioning to Crocker. “Make him into a farmer in no time. Give him a good home, too.”

  “You will not!” Katherine screeched in a shrill voice. “You leave him alone!”

  Thadius Crocker rushed to intervene. “You’ll have to excuse the outburst. May I ask your name, sir?”

  “Homer Ledbetter.”

  “Well, you see, they’re brother and sister, Mr. Ledbetter Perhaps you would consider taking both. I assure you they are hard workers.”

  “I dunno—” Ledbetter stared at Katherine a moment, then bobbed his head. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take ’em off your hands. My missus needs a girl in the kitchen, anyways.”

  “You won’t regret it,” Crocker said, pleased to be rid of the obstreperous girl and her brother. “All I require is your solemn vow that you will give them a Christian upbringing and never mistreat them. Do you so swear?”

  “We are not orphans!” Katherine squalled. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Feisty, ain’t she?” Ledbetter with a sour smile. “Well, don’t make no nevermind. My missus’ll straighten her out.”

  “Bless you, brother,” Crocker said hurriedly. “You’ve done the Lord’s work here today.”

  The farmer took hold of Augustus. When he reached for Katherine, she resisted and he grabbed her by the wrist. He dragged her kicking to the end of the platform and lifted her unceremoniously into a wagon. Then he hefted Augustus aboard and climbed into the driver’s seat, clucking to his team as he gathered the reins. The boy stared back at Hickok and Cody as the wagon disappeared around the side of the depot.

  “Damn shame,” Hickok said, his eyes cold. “That sorry bastard will work ’em into the ground. He come here to find cheap labor.”

  “No Christian charity there,” Cody agreed. “Don’t think I’d want to be an orphan.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Well, let’s get ourselves a drink. I’m still buyin’.”

  “Lead the way, ol’ scout.”

  They walked off toward the center of North Platte.

  CHAPTER 6

  HICKOK AND Cody emerged from the Cedar House shortly after sundown. The hotel was located at the intersection of First and Locust, a block north of the train station. Directly across the street was the town’s only livery stable.

  The plainsmen had taken a room at the hotel earlier that afternoon. Fortified by several rounds of rye whiskey, they felt the need to refurbish themselves. A scalding bath removed the trail dust, and a shave at the tonsorial parlor left them smelling of bay rum. They were prepared for a night on the town.

  Their first stop was the Bon Ton Café. Hickok lived by the maxim that a full stomach offset the deleterious effects of John Barleycorn. Years ago, he’d taught Cody that a balance of solid food and snakehead whiskey was the secret to steady nerves. They ordered blood-red beefsteak with fried potatoes, canned tomatoes, and sourdough biscuits. A toothpick finished off the meal.

  Outside again, they stood surveying their options. Locust Street was the main thoroughfare, crowded with shops and stores, and at the north end, was the county courthouse. The nightlife revolved around three saloons, one of which they’d sampled that afternoon, and a smaller dive devoted solely to the town’s drunks. The third establishment was a gaming den and watering hole with hurdy-gurdy girls. They turned upstreet.

  The Tivoli occupied the northeast corner of Locust and Fourth. The strains of a banjo and a rinky-dink piano were mixed with the squealing laughter of women. Opposite a mahogany bar were faro layouts, dice, roulette, and three tables reserved for poker. Flanking the backbar mirror were the ubiquitous paintings of nude voluptuaries romping through pastoral fields. A small dance floor at the rear was crowded with couples who stomped about in time to the music.

  Cody was a regular patron of the Tivoli. Everyone in town was aware of the royal hunt for the Grand Duke Alexis, which had been widely reported in the local newspaper. They were aware as well that Wild Bill Hickok, the deadliest pistol shot in the West, had been a member of the hunting party. Several men at the bar greeted Cody by name, and after ordering drinks, he introduced them to Hickok. The men shook hands as though a lion tamer had suddenly dropped into their midst.

  Three girls joined them at the bar. The women wore peekaboo gowns, cut short on the bottom and their breasts spilling out of the top. Cody, who was handsomer than Hickok, and a better talker, invariably attracted women. He possessed all the social graces and casually presented himself as an educated man. In truth, his education had been gleaned from reading Chaucer and everything written by Charles Dickens. He’d learned how to spin a tale by studying the masters.

  Hickok, by contrast, seemed almost coarse. He was taciturn, with a saturnine wit, and given to pungent language. Certain women were attracted to him in the way a cobra uncoils from a basket, drawn by the danger. But he begrudged his younger friend nothing, and even took amusement in watching the byplay. Cody was married, though he seldom advertised the fact, and boyishly faithful to his wife. For all his appeal to the ladies, it never went beyond talk. He was simply a born showoff.

  “You’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, the girls hanging on his every word. “The Grand Duke of all the Russias and a whole passel of Sioux. What a sight!”

  “Tell us,” a buxom brunette trilled. “Were the Indians on the warpath?”

  Cody, an audience at hand, plunged into a wild tale of derring-do. Hickok figured the story would hold the crowd spellbound for a good part of the evening. He lit a cheroot, puffing a thick cloud of smoke, and wandered across to the poker tables. His own education ran more to the pasteboards than to books, and he freely admitted he’d never read Charles Dickens. Yet where cards were concerned, he considered himself some
thing of a scholar. He knew all the tricks of the trade.

  One of the first tenets was that every game was assumed to be crooked. A poker table served as a lure to cardsharps, ever on the lookout for an easy score. One of their favorite dodges was to introduce a marked deck into a game, “readers” with secret symbols on the backs of the cards. Another trick was shaved cards, trimmed along the sides, or cards with slightly rounded corners, employed by those with the dexterity to deal from the bottom. A tinhorn, no less than a magician, relied on sleight of hand.

  Hickok stopped at one of the tables. There was an empty chair and he nodded to the other players. “You gents mind fresh money?”

  The men exchanged glances, and one of them grinned around a cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth. “We’re honored to have you in the game, Mr. Hickok. Pull up a chair.”

  The rules were dealer’s choice, restricted to five-card stud and five-card draw. Ante was five dollars, with a twenty-dollar limit and three raises. Check and raise was permitted, which made it cutthroat poker and a game perfectly suited to Hickok’s style. He prided himself that other men seldom knew what he held.

  “Everybody ante,” the man with the cigar said. “Draw poker, jacks or better to open.”

  Hickok, inscrutable as a sphinx, caught three queens on the deal.

  * * *

  The night was clear and bitterly cold, a bone-white crescent moon floating on the horizon. Augustus paused in the shadows, where the rutted wagon road merged with the street in front of the train station. He slowly scanned the depot for any sign of life.

  A single lamp burned in the window of the office. He saw a man slouched in a chair, chin on his chest, fast asleep. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, setting off a chorus of howls on the west side of town. He waited, listening, until the commotion died down.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go on.”

  Katherine stepped from the shadows. She was shivering, the wind cutting through her threadbare coat. “Are you sure it’s safe?”