The Last Buckaroo Read online

  The Last

  BUCKAROO

  The Last

  BUCKAROO

  © Copyright 2014 by J.R. Wright / DKW BOOKS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Edited by MIA MANNS

  This is a work of fiction and as such all names and places in it are fictional.

  ENJOY.

  To Sherlock with Love

  Blazedale, Montana — Early spring, 1919

  CHAPTER ONE

  The large bird high overhead gracefully circled, then suddenly broke wing and darted downward. No doubt it was destined for disaster unless its trajectory changed, which of course it did, at the last instant, and the eagle lifted skyward again, now with a striped prairie gopher in its talons. Yancey watched it go, hoping to see the nest high in some nearby pine tree, where the rodent would surely become a midday meal for some young chicks.

  Yancey Burke wasn’t exactly a relic of the past, even though he felt it from time to time. For him it wasn’t easy adjusting to the forces of change. All around him there were noises that were never there before. Noises that had absolutely nothing to do with the natural way things once were, or ought to be. Hell, he couldn’t even enjoy the full benefit of the shrill squawk of a lone bald eagle coming down for the kill but what the sound of some distant farm tractor or locomotive whistle interfered with the excitement of it all. And just try stretching out on a sun warmed rock of a chill day, see how that works in harmony with the peace of nature he’d became so comfortable with in previous times.

  When Yancey started out early that morning on the long ride to town, his horse loaded heavy with belongings, wrapped in canvas and tied behind the saddle, he’d expected to rest himself and his horse at a clear water creek before going the remainder of the way. The old raw-boned stallion may not have paid much attention while grazing on some tender spring grass nearby, but he certainly did. From one direction it was a steady pop — pop — pop … And from another it was a wheezy chew — chew — chew …

  Once in town, his wasn’t the only horse in the sea of mechanical forms of transportation, but almost. There was no doubt in his mind that in a few years horses wouldn’t even be allowed on the same streets with automobiles. And surely that water trough in the center of the street would be gone, along with the windmill that fed it to overflowing daily. The trough had been crashed into by cars twice in recent years and many had already declared it an unnecessary nuisance. Unnecessary of course if the person doing the declaring no longer traveled by horse, in some fashion. So where did that leave him?

  But that was far from being Yancey Burke’s only grief this day. He’d just been expelled from the only job he’d ever known: wrangling cattle. Now that the large ranch where he’d worked was completely fenced and the cattle were worked in corrals, chutes, and mechanical restraining devices, horse riding, roping cowboys were no longer needed for branding, dehorning, and such, or so he was told. Oh, they offered to let him stay on if he agreed to sit the iron seat of a steel wheeled farm tractor the entire day, bouncing from furrow to furrow plowing up half the place, in order to plant it to wheat. “No thank you,” he’d told them. “I’ll take my chances of getting hired on someplace else.” But where, seeing most of the big ranches had gone to crops? Starting out at fifteen, over the past twenty-two years he’d worked his way up to Montana from Texas. And with Canada sitting just thirty miles to the north, this seemed to be the end of the line for him. Feeling hopeless, it now appeared there were no more frontiers to move on to, no more ridges to cross. Not anymore. He should have known this would eventually happen, but frankly he hadn’t given it much thought, until now … Now that it was too late to change his ways.

  He tied the white horse to the only rail that remained out front of the saloon (now called a tavern because the owner thought it better fit the times) and with all the courage he could muster, walked inside.

  Not another person in the place had a ten gallon Stetson on his head or wore high top, heeled boots on his feet, let alone spurs that jangled with every step. “Katie,” Yancey said as he bellied up to the bar and solemnly tipped his hat to the pretty female bartender.

  “What will you have, Yance?” the shapely, not yet thirty redhead said.

  “Same as it’s been all these years, Katie,” he returned with a dimpled smile. He liked Katie because she seemed to like him, which was an exception as far as he was concerned. But then he didn’t come across many available females in his line of work. Katie, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly single. She had a husband somewhere, as was evidenced by the ever present gold band on her ring finger, or so she let people believe since she’d come to town near seven years back.

  “Yeah, I know,” Katie poured the shot of whiskey, then went for the beer, “nothing ever changes with you. So what brings you to town in the middle of the month, Yance?” She came to expect him for a day or so near the turn of the month, when he rode in to deposit his meager pay in the town’s only bank.

  “I quit,” he said and downed the whiskey.

  “Oh!” Katie said, and eyed him questioningly. “So what will you do now?” She slid the mug of barrel beer before him.

  Yancey’s shoulders went up, then fell as he slurped the head from the brew. “Got any ideas?”

  Katie Peck had always thought Yancey handsome regardless of the difference in their ages. Maybe he was a bit too skinny, but his boyish dimpled smile declared that unimportant. At least he had a powerful butt, and broad shoulders. He wasn’t scrawny where it counted. “Well …” She looked about to see who may need service, and went on, “maybe you ought to find another line of work. I know how that offends you, but what choice do you have? I mean you’ve got to eat, right?” She smiled to him, hoping to lighten the moment.

  “Eatin’s the least of my worries,” Yancey returned. “I’ve lived off the land before, I can do it again. Besides, I got money saved.” He gulped a goodly amount of the beer to settle the burn in his belly from the whiskey. “I just don’t care to give up what I’ve always done, is all. That’s who I am, Katie.”

  “Things change and people have to change with it … or be left behind.” Again she tried the smile, to no avail. “For all we know you might be the last buckaroo, Yance. Did you ever think of that?” She laughed heartily at her wit.

  “I prefer cowpoke,” he said in jest and cracked loose with a smile after all.

  “Oh! Now you’ve given me an itch.” She wrinkled her nose dotted with a busy patch of orange freckles. “The last cowpoke!” She laughed again. “Somehow that sounds naughty.”

  “There’s nothing naughty about dust and sweat. Good honest work when it’s swapped for a fair month’s pay.”

  “What about the Rocking J?” Katie said. “Aren’t they still free ranging a lot of cows?”

  “Most of their beeves went to the war effort. That was the price they paid for all those years of free grazing government lands. Can’t say they weren’t warned enough times to keep a tighter rein on their stock. They’re near bust now, with most of their herd gone.”

  A voice interrupted from the center of the tavern. “Katie! If it’s not asking too much, ya reckon you can pull yourself away from Yancey long enough to give us a refill?” a burly man at a table of four said.

  “Hold your shirt on, Clyde,” Katie replied and tossed a wet bar rag, barely missing him. She then laughed and went to work filling fresh mugs.

  Yancey knew Clyde Banyon, but since their friendship had deteriorated over the years, he didn’t bother to turn and greet him. That ended up to be a mistake when Clyde, a blacksmith and owner of the livery down the street, gathered the bar rag off the floor and fired it at Yancey, knocking his dusty brown hat off onto the bar, spilling some of his beer.

/>   In the early days most knew better than to mess with a cowhand’s hat unless you were looking for trouble. Yancey Burke, in a sour mood anyway, wasn’t about to be the exception to the old rule. He didn’t bother collecting the hat, but rather went directly at Clyde, kicking chairs out of the way as he traveled.

  Clyde, up to the challenge, pulled a heavy pair of hoof nippers from the hammer loop at the side of his grimy overalls, doubled back and threw them at Yancey. Yancey ducked. They sailed over his head and lodged handles first in a bare area of the smoke stained plaster wall behind the bar.

  Katie screamed, “Stop that! Both of you … Yancey! Clyde!” She came to be between them. “Now go sit down! If I have to call the sheriff, you’ll both go to jail!” she threatened.

  Yancey was tempted to do as Katie ordered. But Clyde didn’t seem to be inclined to do likewise. In fact, the other three at the table now looked as if they wanted a piece of Yancey as well and began circling wide around, each picking up a chair as they went.

  Yancey, feeling he had very little choice in the matter, pulled a small pistol from his boot. “This is where it ends!” he shouted, moving it from man to man. He looked around for Katie and saw her at the wall phone, cranking it fiercely. Such an action he knew would alert everyone in the community, including the county sheriff’s office across the street. Meantime the dozen or so other customers in the place scurried out the door.

  “Okay, Yance, you win this one,” Clyde finally said, dropped the chair and headed for the open door as well. “But there’ll be another time for you, fella!”

  “Count on it!” Yancey returned and watched him leave before going back to the bar to retrieve his hat.

  “My God, Yance, what was that about?” Katie said angrily. “Were you really going to shoot him? Clyde was just funning at first, but you had to make a big deal out of it, didn’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said, dipped his head into the hat, slipped the two shot derringer into a rawhide loop inside the right boot top and walked for the door.

  “Oh, Yancey, don’t go,” Katie pleaded, having had a change of heart. “Preston will be here any moment now … He’ll want to know what prompted me to make that call. You know how angry he gets when it’s a false alarm.”

  Yancey hesitated as the people outside, now that Clyde was gone, began filing back through the door. He then turned and reseated himself at the bar.

  Pleased, Katie hustled to get him another whiskey and refill the mug. Serving it up, she said, “Thank you,” before going to wipe up the spilled beer on the bar.

  Moments later, the sheriff came through the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Blazedale, since it was the county seat, had never had a police department, but instead relied on the sheriff and his five deputies to keep the peace in the three hundred population town, as well as in the twelve hundred or so population county. And Preston Ames, as longtime sheriff, did an adequate, if not overzealous, job of doing just that. He wasn’t a large man but he didn’t need to be. He hadn’t lived to become old and white haired by being slow on the draw. He’d been sheriff here for the past thirty-three years and made it through some of the very wildest of times at the beginning, years before Montana had officially gained statehood, in eighty-nine. Now at sixty-four all he wanted was peace and quiet, and if that was unnecessarily disturbed, everyone including the devil may be called on to pay the price for his discontent.

  “Don’t anybody move …” Preston Ames yelled as he charged through the open front door, both silver Colts drawn and swinging wildly from side to side. Just then a young deputy came into the room from the back, likewise with a gun filling his hand.

  “What goes …?” Preston’s ample white hair flowing beneath a large white hat swished from side to side as he panned around at the stern faces, all glaring back at him. “Would somebody mind telling me what the hell goes here?” His eyes instantly went to Katie, behind the bar. “Young lady …” He holstered the guns and marched toward her.

  “Well, Sheriff … Clyde …”

  “Clyde Banyon? Was Clyde in here causing trouble again?” he asked, coming closer. “What’s that?” He pointed past Katie to the hoof nippers, handles embedded in the wall.

  “Well, Clyde …”

  “Did Clyde throw those at you, Katie? Striker!” he yelled, turning to the deputy. “Go get Clyde. I want him here, now!”

  The deputy departed as if somebody was shooting bullets at his feet.

  “Well, actually, Sheriff,” Katie injected, “he threw them at Yancey. And that was after he threw a bar rag knocking Mister Burke’s hat off.”

  Hearing that, Sheriff Ames moved down the bar. “Yancey,” he said, “did Clyde knock your hat off?”

  “Yeah, he did,” Yancey said, figuring that a dumb question since Katie had just told the old fool …

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, Sheriff, where I come from if a man messed with your hat, it was considered disrespectful … It was also call for a fight.”

  “I agree. So what’d you do?”

  “I went for him. That’s when he doubled back and threw those hoof nippers, there.”

  “But he missed …”

  “He did. I guess I ducked.”

  “So that was it? Nothing more happened? Clyde skedaddled? That doesn’t sound like Clyde,” the sheriff said gruffly.

  “No, sir,” Yancey said. “Him, and his three friends, all picked up chairs. That’s when I pulled my boot pistol … They left then. They must have known you were on the way, Sheriff. I think they saw Katie make the telephone call … That scared ‘em.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot him, Yancey? The man just tried to kill you … I’ll bet you wanted to … didn’t you?” the sheriff accused.

  “No, sir! Not at all …”

  “Give me that boot pistol, Yancey,” Preston ordered, and poked out a hand to receive it.

  “I hate to part with it,” Yancey said, but got off the stool, stooped for it anyway. “I’ve had it since Texas. Comes in handy, Sheriff.” Once, a timber wolf that’d wondered down from Canada jumped him in some thickets, knocking him from his horse. It was about to get at his throat when he got hold of the derringer and shot it through the heart. And that was just one time in many the treasured gun had saved his life.

  “I’m not taking your gun away from you, Yancey. I just want to see it,” Preston said and took it from his hand. “Hey, this is an old timer. There’s no safety on it. What keeps you from blowing your goddamned foot off, Yancey?”

  “I’ve had no trouble, that way. Just make sure it’s not cocked while in the boot.”

  “You do know we have a no carry ordinance in Blazedale?”

  “I guess that slipped my mind, Sheriff. It’s always there in the boot …”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Preston scolded, broke the gun open, removed the two cartridges and returned the derringer and the bullets to him.

  Yancey put the pistol back in the boot and the bullets in his pants pocket. He then watched as the sheriff rounded the bar, walked behind Katie and yanked the hoof nippers from the plaster wall, leaving two thumb size holes where they’d been.

  “You’re a lucky man, Yancey,” Preston said, hefting the heavy tool. “If these had hit you in the head, you may be dead now.”

  “Well, come to think of it, Clyde could use some practice if that was his intention,” Yancey said truthfully. “They came at me a little high, Sheriff.”

  “Hitting ain’t important in the eyes of the law, Yancey. The question is: was it his intention to kill you?”

  “I believe not …” Yancey said.

  “That ain’t for you to decide. Only a jury can make that determination.”

  Sheriff Ames was questioning others in the barroom when Deputy Striker returned and meekly said, “He ain’t nowhere to be found, Sheriff. There’s nobody at the livery. And he ain’t at his house behind either … I searched it myself.”

 
“Get on back to the office then and fill out a warrant. Make sure to get Judge Samuels over at the courthouse to sign it, before he leaves for the day.”

  “Yes, sir,” Deputy Striker said. “What’s the charge?”

  “Attempted murder,” Sheriff Preston Ames said, and the two of them walked toward the door. “I’ll fix that Clyde Banyon! He’s been a thorn in my backside for ten years now … ever since he came here from only God knows where ...”

  Thinking that over, Yancey turned to see Katie’s eyes on him. “I think that’s a little harsh, don’t you … attempted murder? I wonder what the punishment for that is?”

  “Clyde’s been asking for it for a long time, Yancey. You’re not in town often enough to know what that man is capable of. Nearly every week he gets into it with somebody in here. I tried to get Helmer to block him from coming into the tavern, but you know how he is. It’s all about the money. I guess I can’t blame him.”

  “At ten cents a beer, I suppose that does add up the way Clyde puts them down,” Yancey said with a smile. “But now that you brought up Helmer, will you give him a ring and order me a steak from next door?” Not only did Helmer Jergen own the only drinking establishment in town, he owned the only eating place as well. They were separate buildings, but side by side: Jergen’s Eats and Jergen’s Tavern. Jergen’s Tavern was simply named Saloon before Helmer bought it and changed the name. It was then he put Katie, who was a waitress at the eatery, in this place to run it. In Yancey’s opinion she was a perfect fit. She was not only attractive, spunky and smart, she got along great with most in the community.

  “I’ll order you a T-bone, Yance. They’re the freshest. When I came at noon to open up, the ice wagon from Billings was out back stocking the cooler next door. I saw a case marked T-bones going inside,” Katie said. “In fact I think I’ll have one of them myself.” She headed for the phone.

  “Then let me buy for the both of us,” Yancey offered.