By then we were smack in the middle of Boone's Lick, right outside the saloon.
5 WILD Bill Hickok sat at a table at the back of the saloon, smoking a thin cigar. He wore a buckskin jacket a lot like the one Pa wore, only Pa's was always filthy from buffalo grease or bear grease or something, whereas Wild Bill's looked as if it had just come from the tailor. He was playing a hand of solitaire when we walked in, his chair tilted back a little.
I guess he made it clear that he didn't want company, because there was nobody at any of the tables just in front of him. All of the customers were either crowded up at three or four tables near the front of the saloon or else were standing at the bar. Uncle Seth didn't let the empty tables stop him. "Why, hello, Seth," Mr. Hickok said, when we approached his table. "You're still keeping your plinking rifle safe from the damp, I see."
"Hello, Bill," Uncle Seth said. "This hulking lad is my nephew Sherman--
Shay for short."
To my shock Mr. Hickok settled his chair, stood up, smiled, and shook hands with me courteously.
"He's no kin of William Tecumseh Sherman, your former commander--or was he your former commander?" Uncle Seth asked.
14
"No, the little frizzy-hair terrier never got to order me around," Mr.
Hickok said. "The two of you can have a seat."
I noticed when I was taking a chair that several of the fellows crowded up in the front of the saloon were looking daggers at us--they didn't like it that we got to sit with Mr. Hickok and they just got to sit with their ugly selves. Uncle Seth didn't give them a thought.
"We had a spot of trouble earlier in the day," Uncle Seth said. "I believe my niece may have stopped by to talk to you about it."
"Oh yes, Miss Geneva," Mr. Hickok said. "She's a fetching lass, if I do say so. I fed her a big juicy beefsteak and she put it away so quick that I fed her another. That young lady can eat."
"It was generous of you," Uncle Seth said. "If I hadn't just et I'd have a beefsteak myself."
"What was the trouble?" Mr. Hickok inquired.
"Oh, Baldy Stone borrowed all our mules, and the girls thought he was stealing them. Then Mary Margaret shot Baldy's horse. At the time she was under the impression that the horse was an elk."
The part about the elk, which struck me as so curious, didn't seem to interest Wild
Bill Hickok at all.
"Now why would Baldy Stone need to borrow a passel of mules?" he asked.
"He was hoping that good mounts would attract a posse," Uncle Seth said.
"I believe he has had about enough of Jake Miller and that bunch over at Stumptown."
"Well, I don't agree with his thinking," Wild Bill said. "You can get shot just as dead off a good horse as off a bad horse. The quality of the posse is more important than the quality of the horses. How many posse men does he have signed up?"
"One, himself," Uncle Seth said.
"It would take a gallant fellow to ride off alone to tackle the Millers,"
Wild Bill said. "I haven't noticed that Baldy is that gallant."
After that there was a silence. Wild Bill seemed to be thinking about something. The bartender came over with a whiskey bottle and two glasses.
Uncle Seth accepted a shot of whiskey, but waved off the second glass.
"This youth don't drink," he said. "But I do. You might just leave that bottle--that way you won't have to be traipsing back and forth. It'll give the dust a chance to settle."
Uncle Seth had spoken politely, something he didn't always bother to do, but the bartender, who was a feisty little fellow with a scar just under his lip, took offense at the remark.
"There's not a speck of dust on this floor," the bartender said. "What do you think I do all day and most of the night?"
15
"Just leave the bottle--there's no need for a dispute," Uncle Seth said.
"What does he think I do all day and most of the night?" the bartender asked Mr. Hickok, who didn't reply. The floor of the saloon had so many cigar butts strewn on it that it would have been hard to find much dust, but there was a pretty good pile of mud just inside the door where several mule skinners had scraped off their boots.
"That man has been working too hard--it's made him touchy," Uncle Seth said. "I get touchy myself, when I'm overworked."
"Let's hear more about this expedition to arrest the Millers," Mr. Hickok said. "The Millers have never disturbed me personally, but that goddamn Little Billy Perkins, who runs with them, has done me several bad turns."
"Little Billy has few morals--few to none," Uncle Seth said.
"He won't need morals, if he crosses me again," Mr. Hickok said. "It would be doing a favor to humanity to dispose of Little Billy, and I'm in the mood to do the favor.
"If the pay is decent, that is," he added.
He finished his little cigar and flipped the butt across the room. Then he pulled three more slim cigars out of his shirt pocket and offered one to Uncle Seth and one to me. He was a very polite man.
"This boy don't smoke, either," Uncle Seth said. "Mary Margaret is determined to raise him Christian."