He strode over to the horse trader the freight agent had advised him to try, Dwyer being too small to support a town livery, and found the trader and two of his rougher-dressed hands out in the paddock, gentling a young cow-pony with a blindfold and feed sack.
The trader, called Bronco Bob for some reason, went on gently rubbing the proddy pony's spine with the man-scented feed sack while his boys steadied it and Longarm explained his predicament.
Bronco Bob looked dubious until he suddenly brightened and asked, "Might you be the same Custis Long as scouted for the Cav and the Wyoming Militia over in the South Pass Country during Buffalo Horn's reservation jump a summer or so back?"
When Longarm allowed he'd been there, but hadn't killed Buffalo Horn, personal, Bronco Bob laughed and said, "By Jimmies, you must be the only white man riding with us who don't count coup on that old renegade. I've killed him more than once when in my cups. You say you need a horse and saddle? You're going to need a saddle boot for that Winchester as well, and I've got just the ticket, if you ain't too proud to fork an old Cavalry McClellen."
Longarm soberly allowed he wasn't out to rope no cows. So Bronco Bob told one of his hands to quit fooling with that damned halter and go saddle up old Socks, who turned out to be a buckskin standing a good fifteen hands on her four pale hooves. She looked as frisky as her owner bragged.
When Longarm asked how much all this was going to cost him, the horse trader bristled and demanded, Do I look like a damned livery stable swamper? We rid against Buffalo Horn together, and you say you need the borrow of a horse and saddle. There is a livery over yonder at Keller's Crossing, next to the stage terminal. Leave Socks and my old army saddle there when you're done with 'em. I get over yonder regular, and I never charged Uncle Sam any bounty on Buffalo Horn, now that I study on it."
They shook on it and Longarm had to fight the urge to say something mushy about a little trail town called Dwyer, which would never be famous as Deadwood or Dodge because the folk who lived there were so much more neighborly.
CHAPTER 14
The rolling sea of grass trended down some from Dwyer and the Laramie Range behind it. So the buckskin made good time under him as Longarm rode her east-northeast toward the flats of the wide but shallow North Platte.
Travelers' tales allowed the North Platte was a mile wide and an inch deep. This was stretching it some, at low water in high summer during a drought year. But it was true you could wade, ford, or drive stock across most any stretch that wasn't quick-sandy a good deal of the time. A good deal wasn't often enough for folk who crossed the North Platte regular. So Keller's Crossing had been surveyed, staked, and claimed where the river purled wider and shallower over a natural submerged causeway of bedrock.
Longarm knew he was getting warm long before he could make out a whitewashed church spire and barn-red grain elevator because he and old Socks took to passing clumps of grazing cows, mostly Texas Calico with a few black Cherokee Longhorns, and then he had to dismount to unstaple a drift fence because they'd been bee-lining across pathless open range, and the fence had been strung to keep uninvited stock west of it.
He stomped the slack wire flat in the tawny summer-cured buffalo grass, led Socks through, and tethered her to a post on the far side while he restapled the wire with a gun butt so's they could go on.
All the barbed wire they encountered east of the drift fence had been strung around quarter-section hog and produce spreads settled to supply the transportation hub ahead. So Longarm never had to ride more than a furlong either way to swing around a corner post. From time to time they'd catch a wave in passing a soddy, pen, and windmill complex. But Longarm would just wave back and ride on, knowing there was no way to rein in closer for directions or gossip without staying long enough for two helpings of coffee and cake. He was in a hurry and still tasting that sorghum syrup whenever he burped.
He walked Socks up the rises and trotted her down, trail-breaking at a cottonwood-lined prairie creek to put some water in her and get rid of some of his breakfast coffee. Then they rode on, topped only a few more rises, and saw Keller's Crossing laid out in all its glory on either side of the broad braided river down yonder.
His low-flying-bird's-eye view cleared up the hazier picture he'd had in his mind's eye. The simply laid single line of the other railroad that would have taken him longer ran along the south bank of the river on ties laid flat on the flood plain with little or no ballast. It was likely under water and surely under deep snow a good part of the winter months. But nobody shipped beef or produce in the winter, so what the hell.
The town, mostly private homes and two-story business blocks of frame construction, sprawled north and south of the river crossing with that grain elevator, a lower water tower and a couple of acres of stock-pens at the south end of the north-south main street and river ford. That tall white steeple and a few more imposing homes with mansart roofs rose from the north half of town, where stage coaches from the Montana gold fields reined in on that side of the crossing.
Having been through many such a trail town, Longarm would have bet money the quality folk and higher-toned businesses would be found on the far side, upwind of the stock pens and railroad spur.
But there was only one way to be certain. So Longarm rode on in, with his loaded and locked Winchester riding crossways across his thighs and his last trail-smoke snuffed, lest even a whiff of smoke get in his eyes as he swept all sides ahead of him with an expression of calm he didn't feel, knowing somebody in that infernal town ahead had posted hired killers in Cheyenne to keep him from getting this far. And knowing his unknown enemy was sure to feel might chagrined from the moment anybody in Keller's Crossing announced his arrival!
Someone always announced the wonder of a stranger riding in on his own betwixt rail or stage arrivals. Longarm had given up the notion of riding in as somebody else as soon as he'd considered it. For his secret enemies would be on the prod for any stranger fitting his description, while the usual small-town pests would be more apt to start up with an apparent drifter than a paid-up lawman. So he'd pinned his badge to his denim jacket in plain view to avoid any words that might be awkward to take back. He suspected he'd made a smart move when he rode past the first neighborhood grocery near the south end of town, where a motley group of shabby men and one fat woman in a cheap flashy dress had clustered on the front steps to spit and whittle. He got dirty looks from some of the men and a sassy gesture from the flirty fat gal. But nobody yelled anything calling for a dismount.
He rode on past trashy frame houses and some boarded-over and shut-down shops and saloons. Business picked up between the open railroad platform and the shallow ford. But he saw nothing in the way of a public office. So when he came upon some kids throwing 'dobes in the river ahead, he reined in to ask for directions.
The kids knew more about digging 'dobes with their penknives than the running of their township. Like kids in Denver, Omaha, and other parts of the stoneless high plains, they'd been raised busting windows and dusting heads with clods of dried mud, or adobe, available in such endless supply that high-plains kids had 'dobe fights about as often as they had snowball fights, albeit it smarted worse to get hit with a missile only a tad less dangerous than a solid rock.
Longarm hit pay dirt when he thought to ask them where their jail was. Small-town kids always pointed out jails and whorehouses to new arrivals.