The Horse Thief Rendezvous

BOUT sixteen miles west of Buckshot the Oregon Road dipped into a dry wash. Up this gully was a water-hole which overflowed in time of rains but never went empty, even in the long dry spells prevailing thereabouts most of the year, because it was fed by a small boiling spring. A trapper by the name of Bender had discovered the good water and had built a stone cabin and a lodge pole fence corral there, establishing a ranch. Then he was killed while trading his fur catch at Ft. Benton, his squaw wife went elsewhere, and the place became neglected, its history summarized in its name, Bender's Drink.

A wild, desolate loneliness stung those who at rare intervals came to a stop for the night there. One time two men were found frozen to death just over the ridge from the cabin. Then a lunatic made the cabin his den, prowling around in shaggy, howling, feral madness, like a bear or like a cougar, rarely resembling a man in his varying moods—now and again shot at by a frightened homeseeker. Then a renegade killed him and an air of evil ghastliness was left about the scene.

Presently a Down Easter arrived, a shuffling, shambling, ne'er-do-well who came West expecting to find opportunities to seize wealth without knowing a main chance when he saw one. He was tickled to find a house ready built, so he squatted at Bender's Drink. He was really doing well, till a band of wandering Blackfeet mistook his slouchy gait for cowardice. He whipped a dozen, killing nine, but died of his wounds. The others, having captured his wife and daughter, carried them away, but a prospector saw them and rode into Buckshot giving the alarm. A posse was organized and overtook the warriors ninety miles away, by another waterhole, where they were making merry, unaware of the vengeance crowding them. None survived. The mother was killed by a tomahawk and the daughter just drifted on, her family name forgotten. She was Tillie; that's all.

Then Buckshot robbers needed a rendezvous. Hank Yacupe, sometimes known as “Dutch,” took over Bender's Drink, and thus accepted the responsibility of the horses and mules which the Nighthawks brought to him. The trails into Buckshot, and the wagon roads southward, westward and eastward carried a great variety of traffic. Homeseekers went through in wagons. Adventurers came by on foot or on horseback. Stage coaches made their way roaring by, the Concord stages proving the workmanship by their endurance on the roughest roads traversed at top speed.

Lone horsemen went by, watchful, heavily armed, unknown. Small bands of men camped on their way along, some riding light, some driving bands of extra mounts and loaded horses and mules. Strangers were the rule—men who came and went giving no name, spoken of as riding a black horse with a star on the forehead, or a bay, or a gray; described by a hole in the hat or a scar on the cheek, and perhaps afterward heard of as some great scoundrel or a hero of wards or a lost soul of civilization.

A handful of desperate scoundrels recognized one another. They shook hands, agreeing to stand together through forest fire and high water. They ranged and roamed, catching lonely men unawares, or inveigling themselves into the companionship of small parties whose horseflesh was especially good, or whose pack animals promised valuable loot.

Strangers disappeared toward the horizon. Their affairs were no one's concern. Who cared if the man on Star Face arrived in Walla Walla or Salt Lake City? The horse, itself, turned up in Hank Yacupe's corral. How come? It did not matter. Nice horse, though. The same with a big bay horse, and some fine man mules from Missouri, able to carry a good pack over a rough road. Yacupe was doing a lively business in carrying-stock.

“You need a fast horse? Try Yacupe; he's a trader,” the word was passed in Buckshot.

Terry Deerbon arrived in Buckshot with footsore animals. He was a good fellow, drinking too much, spending money openly. He represented Eastern investors. The word was that good mines could be had cheap out from Buckshot, which money could develop and bring in ten thousand per cent. profit. Deerbon represented a lot of capital. He was hard on horses and, having foundered or sore-footed his mounts, he demanded more animals, in good condition.

“You'll find the best there is out at Hank Yacupe's,” he was told by some one, and hiring a horse at the Buckshot livery he took his direction on the West Road toward faraway Oregon.

He did not return, but one day the liveryman found the horse behind his own corral, with the saddle on its back and the bridle tied to the horn.

“Must have left Deerbon out for a walk,” Briesh said to his hostler, and the hostler laughed at the joke.

The Eastern capitalist had been left out so far he never came in.

IX months later two men arrived in Buckshot—good men. They were Ream and Burvid, and they were looking for a mining engineer by the name of Terry Deerbon, about thirty-four years of age, nice, genial fellow, about so high and blue eyed, likely to take a drink and quite a talker, frank and open.

They went to Landers and Deck, general store proprietors and agents of the express company. Both remembered Deerbon very well. They had received letters inquiring about him, had written in reply all they could learn and still had one thousand five hundred dollars in gold which had been sent to his credit. Ream, Burvid, Deck and Landers talked the matter over in the store office.

“You'd know—you'd be able to identify any of Deerbon's property? His revolvers, belt, hat—anything like that?” Deck inquired.

“Oh, yes!” one of the two men exclaimed. “That's why we came. We'd know his teeth, for that matter. And he broke his left leg when he was our man in a logging speculation in the White Mountains. We're back of him. If just a natural accident happened to him, same as may befall any man, all right. But if any meanness, any dirty deal has been given him, we're here to find out who is responsible. He performed his duties faithfully in our behalf. We paid him wages. But we owe him our assistance if he's in trouble, and if he's in his grave, we'll put a marker on it.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Deck said. “Of course, we know you. The general manager of the express company saw to that. You know us. Frankly, we have been hearing quite a little from a ranch known as Bender's Drink. Out west of town, about sixteen miles, you'll come to a dry wash. You go up that wash a mile, and around the second turn is a stone cabin, corral, two or three brush shacks and a log front, sod roof, a dugout in the side hill. A hard Dutchman, burly, flat faced and a broken talker, runs kind of a horse and mule market there, sells liquor—don't drink any of it—and keeps travelers. Don't sleep there; that is, both at the same time. Suppose you ride out. Your horses are travelworn and you can trade them in for the rest of your journey. Tell any one but us you're looking for Terry Deerbon?”

“Not a word. Saw you first.”

“Good! We'll mind our own business. Look things over. Perhaps you can buy a revolver you've seen before. Or a hat. What size was his head?”

“Same as mine, exactly. I'll leave my hat here. No! I'll lose it where I can find it again. Much obliged, Deck! We'll find out. Then what?”

“Come back and tell us—if you're sure. One way or the other. Understand, you can't make any mistakes. It'll be serious.”

“We understand perfectly,” Ream said. “We'll spend the night here. Go around to see the sights. We'll mention we need horses—good ones, reasonable say. That the way?”

“Fine. Red shirted fellows are plumb sure to suggest Yacupe's. Two are safer than one. But don't arouse suspicion—to make it look to be worth while—uh—to mob you.”

“Certainly. We're very short of money—want good horses, cheap.”

“Fine!”

“Hang Eye” Fritter of The Flower Bush said he understood Hank Yacupe had some good horses. This was confirmed from in front of the bar by “Ambling Pete” Covell, a red shirt and a bully, who told the inquirers how to find Yacupe's. In the morning, Covell joined them for the ride out to the ranch, just happening to be on his way in that direction and having in mind to buy some mules himself.

ANK YACUPE welcomed them. He had horses to sell, sure, but maybe not what such fine gentlemen would want; anyhow, they could look in the corral, after dinner, which wasn't so much, but was all ready.

A long table was set for fifteen around. Here sat men and women, two squaws, an Indian and a dandy, who ate with dainty gestures and of selected tidbits of birds, venison and cornbread.

“I say, Crease; huccome you killed that Yellow Vest Dorvis in Carson City!” some one inquired.

“A false, unjustified accusation of cheating, to tell the truth,” the dandy replied judicially. “He insulted my honor.”

“Knife?”

“Oh, no! Derringer,” the dandy replied. “I almost never do use the flashing blade. A knife's messy, you know!”

“Yeh, drips all over, for a fact,” one of the boys remarked, “but it comes off with a brush, for it dries fast in this country.”

The visitors wondered if this wasn't talk to impress them. They made no comments. Certainly, the group was made up of hard customers, swaggering but watchful. Ream sat across the table from Burvid, so that between them both could see in all directions. After eating, they went out to look over the corral of horses. Some of the animals were the finest they had seen. They traded, paying a remarkably small price to boot.

“I'd like a good revolver, if I could find one,” Ream suggested to Burvid in Yacupe's hearing.

“I haf some goot ones, pistols and newfangled shell guns,” the rancher said.

Yacupe brought out forty or fifty pounds of short guns, revolvers, pistols, belts, holsters and sheath knives among them. Burvid reached and dragged a beautifully sewed belt with scabbard and revolver, a relatively, new single action heavy model, cartridge cylinder weapon.

“This one,” Ream said. “How much?”

“Veil, forty dollar.”

Without a word Burvid paid the price. They two mounted their new horses and rode away at once. They came back to Buckshot, hitched their mounts in front of the Deck and Landers store and found the proprietors alone and unpacking a wagonload of cases.

“Well?” Deck inquired.

“Here is the revolver we gave Deerbon for luck!” Burvid choked.

“All right,” Deck nodded grimly. “We'll do something about it.”

Deck put on his hat and left the store, sauntering around, here and there to drink with certain quiet, self-contained men.

HAT night, two miles south of town, fourteen men met by a big rock, conspicuously white in the starlight.

“All here, all set!” some one remarked, and they rode westward.

At dawn they arrived at Bender's Drink. They swarmed into the main and outlying cabins.

“Yacupe!” Deck inquired, “where did you get this revolver and belt?”

“''Mein Gott! Mein Gott!”'' Yacupe wailed. “A committee!”

Of the nine men who were captured, five were allowed to go, as only half bad, or strangers. The women were herded in a corner of the room as the grim posse barked their questions. One of the four broke down. The killing had been with a blow on the head. The body was dragged up the ravine and hidden under a bank.

“All right, boys!” some one said. “It's a hanging!”

“My idee 'zactly!” another assented.

“Aye!” the others voted.

Without ceremony, two who fought were subdued with violence; Yacupe, whose legs refused to function, was dragged and the fourth man walked with head up, swaggering, his gray eyes taking a last look around that vast, bare, bleak land.

The corral gate had two uprights with a long arch pole over their forked tops, Yacupe having made the improvement with methodical skill. Four ropes were lashed over the beam, and nooses swung eight feet from the ground. Two wagons were backed up under the nooses; the four men lifted to the rear ends and the two who had been whimpering checked their sobs, taking a brace.

“Veil, boys, all right,” Yacupe said. “I get vat's to be my end.”

“This comes of bad company!” another young fellow said, choking. “Don't tell my mother what come to me! I drank and gambled.”

“Oh, I don't want to die! I don't want to die!” the third sobbed.

“Go to hell,” the fourth shouted, snarling his opinion of the committee. “Here goes nothing!”

The horses, at whose heads stood six men, were rearing to go. The men leaped aside. Long lashes fell upon the flanks of the four beasts, which sprang away. The defiant man who had struck the blow that killed Deerbon leaped in the air.

The committee stood around, smoking, chewing, taking a drink now and then.

Presently they mounted their horses to ride away. The women took the wagons and drove westward, and thereafter for a long time the chance passerby would see at the corral gate of Bender's Drink the stark, withering reminders that sometimes it wasn't healthy to kill a stranger from away back East.