“Charley Pickett! I realize I’m not much to look at. But you could at least have the courtesy to say good morning.”
“Melissa!” Charley sprang to help with her effects. Crammed into a carpetbag were all her worldly possessions. She also had a shoulder bag that she held on to. “I didn’t see you there. You’re early too.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Melissa had no sooner stepped inside than Enos enfolded her in a hug. In his exuberance, he lifted her clear off the floor. “Missy! I was afeared maybe you would change your mind!”
Mr. Leeds was horrified. “You intend to take a woman along?” He made a passionate appeal for them not to do so, citing a host of reasons: that manhunting was no fit occupation for a woman; that she would be exposed to constant danger; that if she fell into the hands of hostiles, they would mistreat her in the worse way imaginable; that she must endure heat and dust and insects and wild animals.
Melissa let him have his say, and when he was done, she thanked him sincerely but stated that she could not afford to let the opportunity pass. “I need the money, Mr. Leeds. You know yourself that jobs for women are too few and pay too little. I stand to make as much in a couple of months as would take me ten years or better to earn.”
“Money is never easy to come by, young lady, I’ll grant you that. But there has to be a safer means to acquire it.”
“Name me one way I can make as much in as short a time, and I’ll forget about going after the outlaws,” Melissa challenged him.
For a few seconds Charley was scared Leeds would come up with one. He was being selfish, he knew, but he dearly wanted her along. He had high hopes they would grow a lot closer. But he need not have worried.
“I cannot think of one,” Leeds said. “So if you insist on taking part in this perilous enterprise, I pray the Good Lord keeps you safe from harm.” Leeds then surprised Charley by hugging her.
The hinges to one of the double doors creaked, and in came Tony. He was dressed in his usual city clothes and carrying his valise. “Buon giorno. Against my better judgment, I am here.”
Again Mr. Leeds was introduced. He excused himself to go into his office but only after taking Charley aside to remark, “Not that I don’t enjoy squandering time that could be spent working, but need I remind you of the rather nasty gentleman with the cane? He promised to come back, if you’ll recall. It might be prudent for you and your friends to be gone when he does.”
Charley hadn’t forgotten. The fix Tony was in was always at the back of his mind, spurring him to get done and get out of there. “So, where do we commence?” he asked his fellow would-be manhunters. “With the rest of the horses we need? Or with the supplies?”
“What kind of tomfool question is that?” Howard said. “All the supplies in the world won’t do us a lick of good if we don’t have horses to tote them.” Chewing on his lower lip, he gazed down the street. “I suppose you expect me to go along and help you out?”
“Talk about tomfool questions.” Charley gave him a taste of his own verbal abuse. “Of course you’re taggin’ along. You’re the only one of us who knows what he’s doin’.”
“Which is not saying a whole lot,” Tony muttered.
Enos removed his heavy coat. “Where can I hang this that no one will steal it?”
Before Charley could reply, Tony said, “Who would want to?”
The buffalo hunter rounded on him. “Is there somethin’ botherin’ you, boy? Speak up, and we’ll hash it out. Because I don’t take sass off anyone. Ever. And I don’t want to upset Missy by stompin’ you into the dirt.”
“I do not like being threatened.”
“Then you should be a sight more careful about whose tail you step on. Enos glowered and fingered the hammer of his rifle.
Charley stepped between them. “Will you two cut it out? You’re worse than a pair of brothers. We’re on the same side, remember? The sooner you two simpletons realize that, the happier all of us will be.” He still thought they might tear into one another, but Melissa came to his aid.
“His sentiments are the same as mine. Tony, have you forgotten the favor Mr. Howard did you by distracting Radtke’s men? And Enos, if you’re going to arch your back and spit every time anyone ruffles your fur, you’d best bring forty bottles instead of twenty to keep your mouth plugged.”
Enos let out with another of his belly-shaking laughs. “Gal, if you don’t beat all! You’re right. It’s the little things that get stuck in our craw and fester and sore. But for you’re sake, I’ll swallow as many of ’em as I can.”
Charley hung up the smelly buffalo coat in the tack room. It was the first time he had seen Enos Howard go without it. As they hurried down the block, he noticed that Howard was as nervous as a squirrel on a porch full of cats. Enos continually glanced every which way, his head tucked to his chest like he was trying to slide his chin down to his navel. Once again, Charley wondered about the money Enos had scrounged up.
It turned out, though, that the buffalo hunter was worth his weight in money saved. He was a world-class haggler. When they found an item they needed, Enos leaped into the fray and badgered the clerk into lowering the price. It didn’t always work. Maybe eight times of out ten. Enough to stretch their dollars a lot further than Charley had figured.
General store by general store, stable by stable, they acquired what they needed. Their horses weren’t the best. Fact was, the animals weren’t much above the bottom of the barrel. And some of the others things, like the moldy cheese and the stale bread and the knives with spots of rust on the blades, weren’t items most people would stoop to accept. But they got it all at a discount, thanks to Enos, and that was what counted.
Their second-to-last stop was Olinger’s Guns and Gunsmithing. Mr. Olinger was a pleasant old fellow who nodded knowingly when Enos said, “We need us some hardware, old-timer. Artillery that will blow the brains out of anything inclined to do us harm but won’t bankrupt us in the bargain.”
Crooking a finger, Olinger took them into a back room. There, in glass cases and on wall racks, were guns he had been unable to sell for one reason or another. A few were outdated flintlocks. Some were percussion firearms. A lot were foreign-made.
“I discount all these,” Olinger said.
“Even the nickel-plated ones?” Charley had seen one he liked.
“Guns, like clothes, have their fashions. What is popular one year might not be popular the next. All anyone wants of late are the latest Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles. Nothing else will do. So the foreign models go wanting.” Olinger paused. “Just the other day I tried to sell a cowboy an excellent Merwin and Hulbert pistol, but he shook his head and told me if it isn’t a Colt, it isn’t worth carrying.”
“I never realized there were so many kinds.” Melissa was beside a case of derringers.
“Few do, young lady,” Olinger responded. “Scho field, Bacon, Prescott, Uhlinger, Brooklyn Firearms—they all offer outstanding firearms, but I’d warrant hardly anyone has ever heard of them.”
Charley sure hadn’t. “If that’s the case, why carry any?”
“Some I’ve taken in partial trade. Others because there’s always that one customer in fifty who doesn’t want to buy what everyone else buys.” Olinger opened a case and removed a finely engraved pistol. “Some I stock because they’re works of art.”
It took over an hour. Olinger patiently showed them gun after gun. Enos haggled over each and every one. In the end, each of them had a rifle and a revolver and some extras besides.
Enos was pleased. As they were leading their new horses back to the stable, he crowed, “The king of hornswogglers, that’s me! I ain’t met a coon yet I can’t talk down in price! I’m a fox and a badger rolled into one! Slick as axle grease and trickier than a politician!”