The Horse Thief

Sometimes the line between justice and vengeance is a very fine one.

“Yes, Sir. I’ve seen them all, first Abilene and now Dodge City. Soon they’ll close this one too,” the man in the bowler hat said, as he bit off the end of his cigar and fired it into the spittoon. “The name is John Peabody; I travel in cigars and whiskey. Your first time out?”

The tall dark-haired handsome man looked up from under his hat with a smile and replied, “Nope.”

The man wore a black store-bought suit and well-worn boots. In his mid-thirties, he had been sleeping when the drummer boarded earlier that day. He had slept as the train lurched and rattled across the endless Kansas plain faster than a horse could run.

“Didn’t think so. You don’t have the look. I can spot the pilgrims by the way they keep looking out the window to see an Indian or a buffalo. Ain’t no more Indians around now, or buffalo for that matter. They shipped close to a million Buffalo hides out of Dodge but that ended in seventy-five. I remember mountains of bones. Well, as close to mountains as anyone ever saw in Kansas. We should be pulling into Dodge in a few minutes. Cigar?”

The tall man stood, stretched, took the cigar and lit it with a wooden match. “Thanks.”

“That’s one from my line. You remember it, ask for it when you’re in town and buy a few in the next couple days and I’ll be beholden to you. ‘Never hurts to have a satisfied customer’ is my motto. Of course, with those wild Texas boys fresh from the trail, I don’t need to do much but write out the orders. See those pens? I would say there must be 5,000 head of cattle here. What do you think Mr. …?”

“They call me Mike Thornton, most recently from Boston.”

“As I said, I’ve been traveling this way for five years, since the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe ran a rail line here. I’ve seen a sight of them but this is the roughest town there is, when the herds arrive.”

Once the train stopped, the people rushed to get off. Outside, porters scurried and teamsters on wagons waited on the street for a fare. The hiss from the engine blended with the jangle of traces and the groan of un-greased axles.

The railroad tracks divided the town as did Front Street, which ran on either side of the tracks. While the train was in the station, it split the town into two pieces as effectively as a medieval wall. North of the tracks stood the fashionable stores, the quality hotels and behind them the homes of the more respectable citizens. South of the railroad track, the ‘Deadline’, anything went: saloons, the whorehouses and the outfitters.

Up from Texas came herds of fifteen hundred or two thousand cattle to Dodge where the Eastern buyers would pay twenty to thirty dollars a head. Mike took a deep breath, taking in the familiar smell of cattle, excitement and money. His Eastern suit didn’t disguise the breadth of his shoulders he had built during the reconstruction. He had ridden the Chisholm Trail, fighting the Comanche, the Kiowa and the rustlers, for the brand.

Mike followed the drummer to The Wright House Hotel, on the corner of Chestnut and Bridge streets. In his room, he filled the wash basin and sponged the travel grime from his body and clothes. He opened his suitcase and took out a well-worn holster. Picking up the pistol, he checked its action and slipped it into the holster. South of the Deadline in Dodge, unlike Boston, a man should carry a gun and know how to use it.

At sunset he left the Wright House, heading for the most famous bar in all of Kansas, the Long Branch Saloon. It was a narrow building wedged between the Alamo Saloon and Hoover’s Wholesale Liquors and Saloon. The Lone Star and the Alhambra stood further west in the same block, between Bridge Street and First Avenue. Inside, the long bar that ran halfway down the left side dominated the room. At the back, Chalk Beeson’s five-piece orchestra played “Camptown Races.” Gamblers ran their tables with games that ranged from nickel “Chuck-a-luck” to high stakes poker and the girls circulated. Most of the customers were cowboys, fresh from the trail and three months of hard work.