Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Lottie the Hottie
It was a short jaunt back to the train station in Topeka, where some of the passengers were gathering outside, after a good meal. A good meal which Alvin had missed. Perhaps there was still a bite inside.
The innkeeper had fed the passengers some hearty beef stew, with onions and potatoes, and some bread that must have been a week old, but dipped in the soup it was not bad. The rebel gal was shoveling the last of it in as he came through the door. The journalist had stretched out and fallen asleep, and was shaking off his nap. And the old women had eaten and were saying their good byes, as they were spending the night and then headed northwest on the next day to Salina and then Ogallala. The drummer had fallen asleep after supper while sitting in his chair, and the baggage handler was shaking him. Alvin grabbed a hard brick of over-baked dough that had represented bread at the meal, and took a bite as he stepped outside. He would still be working on this chunk when they got to Wichita.
A thirty-something couple arrived, just as people were starting to take their seats in the coach. The ticket clerk swiftly took their money and assured them that there was room. Then the little rebel gal paid for her ticket as well, and she and a baggage handler talked in hushed tones. He seemed to know her, and he grabbed her bag and took it to the train, and put it in the baggage car. As she boarded, he waved and yelled, “I'm sorry you did not find him Lottie, good luck to you.”
The train puffed steam and surged forward towards Wichita and rolled into the night, as the staggering drunk from the alley finally caught up to them, holding his neck with one hand and his Bowie knife with the other. He seemed to sober up as he approached the tracks, agitated and frustrated, and even stretching his neck as he got near, but he could not see inside. He exploded into a cursing and slashing as the caboose pulled away. It was a warm farewell.
When the train left Topeka, it left Alvin's timidity behind. The incident in the alley had reset his virility, and the wild surroundings helped to quicken his inner wolf. He was no longer a vagabond with a camera, he was an agent behind enemy lines. The peculiar melee in Topeka helped him visualize the game board, and provided a list of players, and he was ready to play. Now curious about the mysterious young woman, Alvin wasted no more time.
Luckily, rebel gal sat next to him, and that had been a conscious decision on her part. He was sure that she had no idea who her rescuer had been. During the whole struggle, he had never been able to see her face, and he was confident that in her deadly dilemma, she could not have seen his, and he was glad. Partly because he thought she would avoid him if she had recognized him, but now instead she smiled at him when she approached the cozy spot next to him. This time he did not give his shyness time to freeze his lips, and listened instead to Stew...
“Name's Alvin- Alvin Payne. What in the world put you on this rocker-box?” He was trying to pretend that nothing unusual had just happened, and in seconds he would know if she was buying his innocence.
Rebel girl smiled, but she was not ready to give anyone in this crowd her name. She felt a tiny throb in her left ear and realized that the ear ring was missing. She checked to see if it was in her collar. She felt of her ear again. It was dark, so she could not be sure, but she thought there was a trace of blood which she found on her ear, and now smearing between her fingers. She needed a mirror, and mostly she needed a way to clean herself up. Fortunately, because of the darkness, nobody else could see her ear either, so she casually pulled a strand of her hair, so that it covered her wound. That would have to do. Finally she gulped and quietly leaked:
“They call me Lottie... but my name is actually Charlotte. Well actually Carlotta.” There was an awkward silence, as she began to nervously ramble. Lottie had just almost been murdered, and as the train blasted farewell whistles into the night, her nerves began to unravel. And as they did, telling the truth seemed almost therapeutic. “But I changed it, I guess I'll be headed from town to town now, tryin' to hook up with my... fiance. We were supposed to meet here in Topeka, but he left a message for me that he had to get out of town- something about a shooting. Anyway, I'm hoping I guessed right, and he headed south towards our final destination.”
“That's pretty dicey, are you comfortable traveling by yourself?” Alvin was quick to engage with her, and get her to talk about herself, but he already wondered how he could get the answers he wanted. Lottie was obviously a little bit complicated.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I love it. I've been all over. I gamble. Poker mostly, but I love keno, when they will let me in- My daddy taught me and my sister how, and I'm pretty good at it.”
Everyone on the train within earshot tried to listen without appearing to hear, looking around, while they raised their eyebrows, or looked at one another with alarm or amusement. They could not wait for Alvin to ask more questions. A pretty young rebel gal with a talent for gambling, trying to catch up with a man who was obviously in trouble, in this god-forsaken wilderness. This was a welcome diversion, like a Mark Twain novel.
“Gambling! Glory be! Wish I had brought some cards!” Almost as soon as Alvin said that kiddingly, a pack of cards landed in his lap. It was dim in the train car and he could not even tell where it had came from. “Thanks, whoever tossed this... but unless somebody brought a lantern, we'll have to wait to witness Miss Lottie's skills till tomorrow!”
Two hundred and fifty miles southwest of Topeka, where there were very few roads and where crude, sparsely scattered towns appeared nearly heroic, and there were only Native peoples and a fierce breed of pioneers who called the open spaces home, and no courts or jails or lawmen, the inhabitants were living by their own self-constructed moral codes, and burly men known mostly by sobriquets were building an outlaw empire.
Charles Darwin would have been puffed up with the result of this evolution of American omnivores, as their struggle for survival had conditioned them into tough individuals, strong of will and hard of heart. These survivors, what Darwin might have called the “fittest,” had dismissed the norms and traditions of the civilized world, and taken inspiration from the brute force of the bear, the persistence of the puma, and the speed and flexibility of the eagle. So it would not be a surprise that the society which they had invented was patterned after Nature: There was little concern about marriage, or education, or Presidential elections. The weather was god, the land was a game board, each creature took care of his own circle of associates, and did whatever he had to do. Life was considered cheap compared to the essentials like water, grass, booze and sex.
The few women to be found were tormented souls; gawked at, grabbed at, dehumanized and fought over, often until blood was shed. In spite of these contests, the dominant males tended to service several females, like bull elk.
Prostitution was the only paradigm which made sense- that way the men, who carried lethal weapons and used them spontaneously, could leave their egos and feelings at the door, and there could be peace. All a man needed to stand as tall as any other was the price of a “poke.” The world's oldest profession saved lives, and time and ammunition.
Cattle and horse rustling also made a great deal of sense; It had been the equivalent of collegiate fraternity rivalry among the tribes before the White Man came. Every tribe actively acquired horses any way they could get them. The horse was the Indian's jeep, and without the horse his army was impotent. When settlers began to move into the Indian Nations, or near to them, their rustling habits probably began when they cleverly went and stole their own horses back... and the cycle never ceased. Until somebody ended it for a perpetrator caught red-handed- by killing him.
Over the years, out in this infinite lawlessness, the hate and distrust and crimes, and the justifications for them, became a treacherous game board where no player was safe for very long. And so the United States Government plopped almost all of its surviving Native Tribes in the midst of this environment. It was a formula for disaster, and most people knew it. And sadly, they looked the other way. And the bears and tigers and wolves began to circle the tribes and lick their teeth.
They created commercial centers; trading posts, where shiny things could be dangled and native peoples could be conveniently cheated and great wealth could be accumulated. And they began to purchase goods from the hunters and the “Indians” and sell them things the government forbade, and provided drinking and gambling and prostitution and a perfect atmosphere- for predators. All knowing that the U. S. Government would usually keep a “hands off” policy. And most people knew it, and looked the other way.
One black-hearted man led around twenty equally black-hearted men throughout the Indian Territory, seeking whom he would devour. Confident and rapacious, he had gathered together ruthless, violent Jayhawkers and ex-Confederates, who would do anything he directed if money was the object. Many of these men ware hardened killers after their service in the American Civil War, and they no longer held on to the paradigms of their childhoods; their religion, the respect for motherhood and all women, or even the sanctity of life. They would have been considered Sociopaths, had that word been invented. And with dead consciences they mugged, cheated, robbed, murdered and raped, focusing most of their evil at American Indians who lived peacefully nearby.
In most societies, these individuals would have been an insignificant minority; social pariahs, but on this plain they were devils on the hoof, and if not a majority, a significant enough portion of plains culture to be feared and never opposed. And one man seems to have knitted this network of undesirables, and made the Indian Territory his oyster. He was a big, loud, extroverted braggart who had the “gift of gab,” and was known to tell those classic Western “windies” which everyone knew was a lie but loved the telling of it. Born William Martin, the world called him the lowest from of life, but his friends knew him as “Hurricane Bill.”
Bill must have been a born leader, a natural commander, and a very effective politician, given the number of men he dominated and organized- and shaped into an outlaw band which was hard to catch and impossible to prosecute. John Miles, the Cheyenne Indian Agent knew who he was and what he was doing, and complained often. Cheyenne Indian trader and spokesman George Bent wrote to authorities about his outrages and named him by name. General Pope knew of his crimes and begged in vain for the U. S. Government to allow him to intervene. But Martin had found his niche and worked it to perfection.
It was largely Martin's doings which Alvin had been sent to help investigate. But while Alvin was just beginning to nibble on the corners of the cracker, Bill and his troops were operating a bloody, wholesale confiscation and distribution racket of buffalo hides, whiskey, mules and horses, across two states. Hurricane Bill could only have done this so successfully with the tacit approval of his neighbors, and perhaps even many of the authorities. And the reason was simple- racial hatred. So everyone knew and chose to look the other way. And Alvin Payne had been sent into this dark world, to look at it and shine a light on the faces of abject racism, lawlessness and hatred. And if he was not killed, to capture those faces on tin.
Hurricane Bill had a few problems managing his talent however, since every outlaw really wants to eventually be the king of the mountain. Given enough whiskey and jealousy, two dozen cut-throats can easily become half that number overnight. A predatory pack like his was in a constant clash of egos and ambitions, where killing a rival was always a reasonable option. On a summer night when there was no breeze and the men had not enjoyed a weekend in town for awhile, just their body odor was enough to deserve to be shot dead. Add a new prostitute to the ranch and his men could suddenly become a treacherous, brawling mass. Place bets on that fight- and it would become a bloodbath.
Hurricane Bill had to rule with an iron fist, while swinging a long whip, and give his men a short leash. And occasionally he had to kill one to prove that he would. He was the law, the lawyer, the judge, the jury and the executioner. He could not tolerate whiners or complainers or accusers. But he found a workable arrangement with the men by enforcing several unquestioned rules: No “operations” were done without his approval. No theft, killing, kidnapping, counterfeiting, or even conning would be done unless sanctioned by him. Infractions were punishable by instant death. Raids were planned by Bill, and the spoils divided by Bill. Usually he just wanted the livestock and buffalo robes, and let the men play “finders keepers” with the rest.
His land buccaneers could have the guns, jewelry, tack, bedding, hats, and even the cash recovered... unless it was a large amount. Bill retained the authority to take anything recovered which fancied him. He provided each man with two horses, a Winchester 44-40 rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition, and his main henchmen got room and board... usually at Baker's Ranch, on the Chisholm Trail in north central Indian Territory... when they were not on the scout. Most of the time he provided “...the prairie for a bed and the stars for a roof, and food if it could be scavenged.” They rarely had a nice little chuck wagon following behind, or tents, or lanterns or tobacco. Bill's men traveled light, relics of the classic Civil War cavalry unit, designed for swift movement over rough terrain, and dependent on random requisitioning of food and supplies from "civilians." He sometimes shared the proceeds from the sale of livestock, giving volunteers incentive to help herd them to market. Bill had a man who took care of the buffalo hide business, giving him a commission. It was business, even if it was all illegal. He had a butcher who helped slaughter and skin out stolen cattle with familiar brands, to turn them into cash quickly. The brands were removed and then the raw hides were sold for saddle tree covers or chair bottoms. It was a network of industries built on theft and murder.
Bill's main horse broker was a well-connected gunslinger, a former City Marshal of Newton, Kansas and a short-lived “provisional” marshal of Dodge City, who now worked as a part-time deputy for the the Ford County Sheriff: Billy Brooks, also known as “Bully” Brooks, sometimes even “Buffalo” Billy Brooks, and one of Martin's most essential associates. Brooks was someone he counted on to provide him critical information about the livestock market, sympathetic politicians, and the general status of law enforcement in Dodge City. Brooks had to know every facet of Bill's operation; his location, his target victims, his sellers and buyers. Brooks had to know how to tap the syndicate grapevine, and had to know whom Bill would send to tap his. Billy Brooks was Hurricane Bill's eyes and ears where his crimes would get laundered and his profits would be stored. And yet Brooks was one murderous sonovabitch. For this reason he was typically assigned to “lone wolf” duties.
Brooks quite literally thought with his bullets. Nobody knew for sure how straight his thinking was, but his shooting was a marvel of accuracy. In the first month of his service in Dodge, it was said that he shot a dozen men- killing a bartender and shooting W. P. Brown, the Santa Fe yardmaster, in the head. They were apparently old rivals in Newton, and the showdown was supposedly over the affections of a prostitute whom they both had a shine for. After killing another man named Berry, the victim's four brothers searched Dodge for him, probably wanting to end the carnage, but Bully Brooks watched for them from a dance hall and jumped them right on Front Street with both of his guns blazing, and killed them all. According to legend, all five brothers met eternity via Bully brooks, and were buried together up on “Boot Hill.”
Brooks was believed by many to be one of the most trigger-happy men in Kansas. And he wore a badge. Bully Brooks was the epitome of the western bad cop.
But Bully Brooks was as tough they came. When he was marshal of Newton, the local paper bragged how he still pursued several cowboys after they put three bullets in him. The Wichita City Eagle claimed “Bill has sand enough to beat the hour-glass that tries to run him out.” In less than a year, however the same paper would call Bill Brooks a desperate man, and take less satisfaction that he reportedly killed another man again, after receiving a bullet himself. In a life or death scramble of the fittest, Billy Brooks would have ended up near the top, assuming that Hurricane Bill would reserve the very highest point for himself.
After the town fathers of Dodge assessed Billy's rather brief record of service, they had to let him go, because he was single-handedly establishing a scandalous death rate for the town, and one it took years to live down. Brooks was not averse to using his talent while off-duty to kill sexual rivals either. His last mortal gunfight in Dodge would be another shoot-out over a prostitute. So it was Kirk Jordan, a buffalo Hunter who solved the problem for them. When he heard Billy was coming after him, he picked up his deadly “needle gun” and hunted him down and demolished a water barrel Billy chose to hide behind. Soaking wet, the gunslinger finally decided to get out of Dodge, and with the help of friends he was able to sneak out before Jordan could put any lead into him. His friends maintained that he took the train east... but that was a diversion, for Billy had friends down in the Nations and many more fish to fry.
Billy bought a bottle and headed south to party at Bill Martin's western-most hideout and report the latest news. He knew the gang was operating corrals up and down Turkey Creek, just south of the Kansas border, where they could bring stolen horses and hide them until they could be brought to Dodge. Billy was constantly identifying horse buyers there, always making sure they were not from the area, and were taking the horses north to Hays City or farther to Nebraska or out west to Colorado. But now Hurricane Bill was going to have to find a new contact in town.
Billy needed to show that he could be more useful to Bill in his day-to-day operations. He was cagey and a “good man with a gun,” and could be useful in other ways, especially in driving out Bill's competition. For some reason, criminals have never been good at sharing, and Hurricane Bill was no exception. He would welcome a scheme to shut down about half of the "whiskey ranches" below the border on the Chisholm Trail, which also posed as stagecoach stops. Billy visited with a Seminole who was hired to maintain and watch the northern-most corral on Turkey Creek, and managed to interpret enough of his bad English to understand that some of Martin's men were on their way with fresh horses. He tied his horse to a scrub oak and laid down in the shade and waited...
It was hours before the herd made a puff of dust on the horizon, and judging by its size, they had made a big haul. Bill was with them, and ignored Billy when he rode up, more concerned with keeping the horses contained. After the new ponies were safely penned, Bill dismounted and strolled over to Billy, but it was obvious he was not very happy to see him. Brooks tried to smile and ignore his dark mood, but his nervous grin was not convincing.
“What is it?” Martin inquired, barely interested.
“What?” Billy teased, “No Howdy Billy, what brings you up here?”
“What is it, Goddammit?”
Brooks stood up, not sure what was brewing, and felt a cold chill. He wanted to be able to reach his guns... men like Hurricane Bill were damned unpredictable. He suddenly looked like a fifth-grader in trouble.
“Bill- things fell apart in Dodge... they kinda run me out of town. So's I guess I'm lookin' for a different job...” He tried to chuckle but he stopped before it sounded like levity.
“I already heard. Hollis told me a buffalo hunter tried to kill you.” This made Hurricane Bill smile real big. “I just wish I'd seen it.” He let out an evil laugh, and distracted, looked back at the corral. “Ramon! Ramon! No agua ahora! Dumb Mexican, I keep telling him to wait with the damn water...”
There was an awkward silence. Billy thought it best not to correct Bill and tell him the man's name was not Ramon and he was not a Mexican but was a Seminole Indian. He had no idea where he stood, whether Bill was mad at him, or just razzing him, or was going to fire him, or going to kill him- he decided that he would remain quiet until he had an iota of an impression.
“What else can you do, Brooks? All I've ever seen was you drilling tin cans. I don't need any more wranglers. You've shot so many damn people, we were glad you were in Dodge and we were here.” Martin was still smiling, but he was thinking something else. “You being here will just make the men nervous as hell. And somebody will get fed-up with your attitude and decide to be the man who killed the man who killed all of the other men- And frankly Billy, I haven't got time for it. You might kill somebody I like- then I would have to kill you.”
“I thought maybe I could go to work on the east fork and kinda help some of your competition go bankrupt- and I won't hafta shoot anybody, I promise.”
“What have you got in mind?”
“Oooooh... a few runaway mules here, a few loose horses there... maybe a fire in the kitchen... a loose hub nut. I think we could run Vail out of the country in a few months.”
“I'll think about it. I guess you can help Gallagher until then.”
“What's he doin' these days?”
“I'm sure you heard rumblings in Dodge, He's knocking out Rath's wagons- making it look like Arapahos. Trading the booty immediately to the Cheyennes at the agency." Bill made an evil, satisfying laugh. "He's stolen a bunch of Arapaho arrows, caught a bunch of young braves swimming in the Cimmeron last spring- and when they got out of the river, they did not own an arrow among 'em!”
“Yeah... I heard... right smart of 'im... they think the Arapahos have gone renegade.”
“Then sometimes he knocks out some Cheyennes... trades their hides to Lee or Rath... he's got 'em hating each other... But he told me last week he was tired of butchering teamsters. He'll probably hand that off to you.” Hurricane Bill Martin walked away, confident that he had solved a personnel problem. He finally had a job for Billy Brooks that he could be good at, and it would keep him out of his hair. And if he got to be too big of a nuisance, Gallagher knew how to take care of him. And he would never make a sound.
“Yes... How could you tell?” She chuckled, in a self-deprecating way. “I'm sorry about what I said- it's just that, no offense intended, Mr. Newspaper there forgets that half of this country took the blame, and is still taking the blame for the war, and all of the punishment afterwards, and many of us have lost everything. My father was killed, we lost our home and our wealth- and our pride. I'm wandering the country tryin' to scratch out a livin'. Doin' whatever I have to do, so my baby sister can go to school. My mama is sick... maybe dyin', we can't afford a doctor or medicine or even the casket to bury her in. And he talks so sad 'bout those folks here in “bleedin' Kansas” as if they are the only ones.”
“I guess I liked the part where you said you were sorry about what you said.” Alvin teased.
Lottie smiled and looked down. “I know, it don't take much to get me started.”
The people on the train were quietly hanging on every word of their conversation which they could hear. The woman with the man sitting in front of them had been listening intently, and glancing back occasionally at Lottie, and she finally spoke up. Her companion had dozed off, so she pulled his whiskey flask out of his coat pocket, and unscrewed the top as she held it up and cried, “To the South, may she rise again!” Her brother was awakened but hid his face in his hands as she took a long sip. Everyone enjoyed his fussy discomfort, and someone said “Hear, hear!” to irritate him, and to acknowledge her courage.
“She's my sister from a different mother.” He drolled, showing that he was aware of what was going on. She slapped him hard.
Alvin had become the emcee of his own talk show. Somehow the eavesdropping crowd made him less shy. Lottie was going to be good entertainment on their way to Liberty. “So, where are you and your fiance headed- besides marriage?”
“Texas... Dallas... or San Antonio. We both gamble. Me with cards, him on the horses. He used to be a jockey. It gets in your blood.”
Alvin could not actually sympathize. He enjoyed gambling, but he never gambled very much, never risked his savings. “You two must make quite a pair.”
“So... where do you operate? I mean most saloons are men-only, and it would be hard to get a chair, no matter how much money you have.”
“That's true. Johnny sets it up. He gets a chair, starts the game. It's often in one of those back rooms, where the big dogs play... Then after he has won a bunch of their money, of course they are all wanting to continue gambling... But he gives an excuse, like he suddenly feels ill, or he has to go see a man about a dog, you know... and he asks if they mind if I sit in while he leaves for whatever it is. They never mind.” She smiled, so cute and foxy, “And they all think that they can win their money back, and maybe me, before he gets back.” She laughed with delight at her game, showing beautiful straight teeth.
“They hardly ever do.” She smirked, as she fluffed her hair, checking her wound, placing her hand on it softly as it began to throb. It was so dark, nobody could see her hair, and it just appeared to be a nervous habit. Sister across the way, noticed her dilemma, the way women always detect such things which men never notice. She began to dig around in her handbag, searching for an extra handkerchief.
“Amazing...” Alvin thought out load. Rebel Lottie talked and bled and charmed the passengers, and kept him spellbound, and she had not dozed off once. Her energy was baffling. Her beauty was addictive. And now she had someone fussing over her nasty little wound. No matter the situation, Lottie was always in charge, and she was bound to turn the tables in Wichita.
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