Ox-Yoke was the biggest of them, he’d been told, and one of the largest in Owyhee County; he had no trouble finding it. The ranchyard contained a dozen buildings, including two bunkhouses and a separate cookshack, and a pair of corrals. Horses moved skittishly in one of the corrals; in an extension of the other, several cowhands were branding calves. The calves, separated from their mothers, were frightened and bawling, and as a result the cows penned nearby were in the same state. The commotion was what was making the horses skittish.
Quincannon dismounted near the horse corral, tied the roan, and crossed to where a big-bellied man whose stained apron identified him as the cook stood watching the branding operation. When Quincannon asked him where he might find Sudden Wheeler, the fat man jerked a thumb at the corral. “In there,” he said. “You want him, you’ll have to wait a spell.”
“I’ll wait, then. Which one is he?”
“Beanpole with the white whiskers.”
The ground inside the corral had been beaten down to a fine powdery dust; through a haze of it Quincannon picked out a tall, thin old waddy with a yellow-white beard and a shock of yellow-white hair, coated now with dust, poking out from under his laloo hat. He was standing next to a sagebrush fire, sharpening a knifelike tool on a whetstone. His gray shirt and Texas leg chaps were smeared with blood.
Quincannon leaned against one of the fence rails and watched another waddy on a fast little cow pony throw a lasso loop around a calf’s hind legs, jerk the animal off its feet, and then drag it to where the other hands waited. Four men fell on it, held it down and steady; a fifth, Sudden Wheeler, rapidly cut off the tip of one ear, slit and notched the dewlap under the neck, removed the horn buds on its head, and then applied a tar mixture to the wounds to prevent infection. The calf was a male; Wheeler castrated it, applied alcohol and more tar. Then the hot branding iron was lifted out of the fire and rolled against the animal’s flank. A cloud of gray smoke puffed up, mingling with the powdery dust to deepen the haze inside the corral.
The dust had got into Quincannon’s throat and it started him coughing. The stench of sweat, manure, burning sage, and scorched hide and hair aggravated his hangover, made his stomach churn again. He turned away from the fence, went back to where he had tied his horse, and took another drink from the flask.
He had to wait half an hour before the last of the calves had been branded and the foreman allowed the hands a rest before the next batch was shunted in. He used the time to question the fat cook and three other men who wandered into the area, but none of them could tell him much about Whistling Dixon. Wheeler was the man he wanted.
Most of the cowboys trooped to the water bucket; two others treated cuts and scratches with a milky solution made of alcohol and oil. Sudden Wheeler’s left arm bore a long, bleeding scratch, but he didn’t bother treating it. He drank a dipper of water, took off his laloo hat and poured a second dipper over his head to cool himself off. Away from his duties in the corral, he moved with a kind of determined slowness, as if he needed to conserve his energy; he was not a man, Quincannon thought, who would ever make a sudden move. Given the nature of cowboy humor, his nickname was inevitable.
Quincannon introduced himself as Andrew Lyons and spun the same story he had used in Silver City to explain his interest in Whistling Dixon. Wheeler seemed wary at first, but Quincannon put that down to a natural reluctance to deal with strangers in general and noncattlemen in particular. He seemed to have nothing to hide and he was not unwilling to talk once his pump had been primed.
“Sure,” he said, “I knowed Whistling some. Hard man to know at all. Didn’t talk much to nobody. Used to josh him about his vocal chords rusting up for lack of use. No sense of humor, though; never even cracked a smile.”
“When did you last see him, Mr. Wheeler?”
“My pa was Mr. Wheeler and he’s been dead forty years. Call me Sudden like everybody else. Four-five weeks ago, I’d say it was. Day he quit Ox-Yoke.”
“He hadn’t been working here in over a month?”
“What I said.”
“Why did he quit?”
Wheeler shrugged. “Close-mouthed booger, like I told you.”
“Do you know where he went when he left here?”
“Up in the mountains somewheres, I reckon,” Wheeler said. He had the makings out now and was rolling himself a cigarette. “Prospecting, way we all figured it. Wasn’t the first time he quit to go off hunting gold. First time he done it when he was needed, though.”
“Where did he do his prospecting?”
“Never talked about where. But he had him a section staked out, where he figured to make a strike. Them with the fever always do.”
“It must have been somewhere near Silver City. He was seen there during the past month.”
“Couple of the boys seen him too. Don’t get to Silver much myself. Don’t like towns.”
“Did he have any friends there that you know of?”
“Didn’t have no friends anywheres that I know of.”
“Did he ever mention a man named Jason Elder?”
“Elder? Who’s he?”
“Tramp printer who worked for Will Coffin at the Owyhee Volunteer. He disappeared a few days ago.”
“Hell. Man like Whistling wouldn’t have no truck with a tramp printer.”
“He knew him, though. I have proof of that.”
Wheeler scratched a lucifer on his bootsole and fired his quirly. He made no comment.
Quincannon said, “People in Silver think it was outlaws who shot him. That what you think, too?”
“Must’ve been. Who else’d want to kill him?”
“I thought you might have some idea.”
“Not me, son. Whistling was a crusty old fart, and maybe a tiny bit crooked, but he didn’t have no real enemies. Never talked to nobody long enough to make hisself an enemy.”
“How was he a tiny bit crooked?”
“Played cards with him once. Never caught him at nothing but I wouldn’t play with him again. Nobody else would, neither, that knowed him. He was allus cleaning out some young snot figured he was born to lie down with lady luck.”
“Maybe he was a lot more dishonest than you thought,” Quincannon said musingly.
Wheeler said nothing. That sort of speculation was something he seemed disinclined to engage in.
Quincannon asked, “Did Dixon ever mention Oliver Truax?”
“Who? Oh, fancy-pants owns the Paymaster mine. Nope. Why should he?”
“No particular reason. How about a Chinese merchant named Yum Wing?”
“Now what in holy hell would Whistling be talking about a Chinaman for? You got some funny ideas, mister. Yes you have.”
“Jack Bogardus, then. Owner of the Rattling Jack mine.”
“Well, now, there you got something,” Wheeler said. “I recollect Whistling did mention Bogardus a time or two.”
“In what way?”
“He knowed somebody works for Bogardus.”
“Who?”
“Shirttail cousin of his’n, name of Conrad. Mean little booger with bad teeth and breath that’d knock a man over at twenty rods. Worked here a couple of months during the spring gather.”
“When did he quit?”
“Didn’t quit. Boss caught him butchering one of our steers to sell to the homesteaders and threw him off Ox-Yoke land. Told him he’d be shot on sight if he ever showed his ugly face around here again.”
“How did Dixon take to that?”
“Never said nothing or did nothing to tell us how he felt. Said later on Conrad went to work for Bogardus, but that’s all.”