Hook wiped his bushy black mustache with the back of his hand. “What you said before, Eli—you got any ideas where we could find work?”
“I’m fixing on moseying south myself in a day or two. Hear the K-P needs hunters.”
“What’s the K-P?” Moser asked.
“Kansas Pacific Railroad. Word has it that the track gangs have reached Abilene.”
“Down in Kansas.”
He nodded. “They need hunters to supply meat for their bed gangs and riprap as well.”
“Bed gangs?” Moser asked.
“Level the road where the track will lay. Riprap cuts through timber and brush, crossing water with bridges.”
“I’ve shot mule deer and antelope before,” Jonah said, pouring himself another glass of the red whiskey. “I figure I could do that.”
Robbins chuckled. “You won’t be shooting no mule deer or antelope out there, Jonah. Them gangs get real hungry.”
“Why no deer or antelope?”
Robbins snorted with a chuckle. “Didn’t you ever see ’em while you was soldiering out there in Dakota Territory?”
“See ’em—see what?”
“Buffalo, goddammit! The K-P needs buffalo hunters!”
18
“HE THE ONLY skinner you got?” came the question from the big man perched behind the table crowded with paper and whiskey glasses in the Abilene saloon.
Jonah glanced at Moser. “Yeah. Just him and me.”
This central Kansas town on the great Smoky Hill River was only then starting to boom. Ever since the 1862 Homestead Act had begun to bring settlers fleeing the war that was devastating the east, granting them for next to nothing 160 acres of prairie grassland, towns like these had started to crop up across the central plains. But this particular town had something different going for it. Someone had seen something special when he had first set eyes on Abilene, Kansas.
Just this past summer, Illinois cattle buyer John McCoy had recognized the potential in putting up the corrals and shipping depot that would soon revolutionize the business of driving Texas cattle to the eastern markets. He was the first to see that profits could be realized by having a railroad closer to the cattle empires. Working alongside the Kansas Pacific, McCoy had erected the first of his cattle pens and would keep his crews constructing those pens and loading chutes until cold weather set in. The first marriage of cattle and the railroad was less than a year from becoming a reality.
Tracks heading east were already laid. Abilene and the K-P would be ready come next trail-drive season.
Chewing on some shag leaf tucked in a tight lump within his cheek, the big man behind the wobbly table eyed the two Southerners severely, his gaze eventually coming back to rest on the half-stock, heavy-barreled muzzle- loading rifle Hook rested on its butt between his scuffed boots. “You ever shoot buffalo before?”
“Served with the Third U.S. Volunteers out to the Dakotas during the war.”
“Rebel, eh?”
“I was,” he answered.
“I asked if you ever shot any buffalo, Reb.”
“On Connor’s march up to the Powder—Sioux country.”
“You was with Connor?”
“I was.”
“I think you’re pulling my leg, mister. Bet you can’t tell me—”
“You want to know about the Platte Bridge fight? Or when we got in there and wiped out that village of Black Bear’s Arapaho.”
The man sat there, looking a bit stunned by the suddenness of Hook’s reply. “Don’t remember you.”
“Don’t remember you neither. So what does that prove to us? That I kept to myself? Damn right I did. Now, you want someone to hunt buffalo for this railroad or not?”
The man smiled at last. “So you’re good with that old front-stuffer, are you?”
“Jim Bridger himself always asked me how good a man got to be to kill something big as a buffalo.”
“You knew Bridger?”
“Him and his partner, Shadrach Sweete. They scouted for Connor last summer. So how come you’re here working for the railroad? Got tired of puny wages and moldy hardtack?”
With a sudden gush, the big man laughed. “You’ll do.” He pushed the pencil toward Hook, his other hand indicating the line. “Need your name, and your skinner’s name there.”
Jonah carefully made his letters, the only thing in the world he could write, or recognize. In handing the pencil over to Moser, Hook asked, “What we get in the way of fixin’s?”
“The railroad will assign you a wagon and team. You lose ’em—you get docked on your pay. Three blankets a man and a poncho for each of you. Rope and come-a-long for pulling hides. You need mess gear—buy it yourself.”
“Don’t need none,” he answered as Moser straightened. “You said something about pay. How much?”
The man turned the ledger page around and squinted at the names. “Jonah Hook. And … Artus Moser. Together, you’ll earn two hundred dollars per month.”
They looked at one another in shock.
“I know, boys. It’s a shitload of money—if you got the makings of a buffalo hunter like you claim you do.”
Jonah felt numb inside, thinking about just how much two hundred dollars was in real money. “I am. A hunter.”
“K-P expects you to bring in the meat off ten buff a day. You get a bonus at the end of the month if you bring in more than three hundred for that month.”
“And a bonus too?” Moser asked, his voice a bit on the squeaky side.
The big man looked at Artus. “That’s right. But I personally think you got the worst of it. Him—he’s got the easy job: just shooting the buff. When he gets ten of the big brutes down, all the fun’s over and the work just starts. Ten buff a day will mean the two of you will be humping from first light to moonrise getting in and out of line camp with your meat.”
“Where’s camp?”
“Couple miles west of here now. The K-P been laying track since the first days after the war ended. The line camp moves west about once a week.”
“Soon enough, I s’pose—camp will be so far away there won’t be no more whiskey and women, Artus,” Jonah said with a wry grin.
“Don’t you count on that, mister,” replied the sign-up man. “Watering holes and whores will damn well follow these gandy dancers right on into hell if that’s where the railroad goes to lay track. Because gandy dancers got lots of money and a few hours of nighttime on their hands.”
Jonah looked over the smoky room. “Ain’t that fitting? ’Cause that’s just the two things a whore and fancy card dealers like most about a man.”
The man handed Hook a slip of paper. “You boys take this out to camp west of town. Past McCoy’s corrals next to the tracks. You can’t miss the camp. Just follow the tracks.”
“Who we see there?”
“Ask for the camp foreman. He’ll get you fixed up with the rest of your truck and wagon.”
Hook stuck out his hand. “You know our names. I didn’t catch yours.”
