Short Stories & Tall Tales
Buffalo Money
By Ian Rogers
Felix rode into town, the reins clenched in one hand and Wedgy Weiss's letter in the other.
So this is where Wedgy ended up, Felix thought as he took in the dilapidated buildings with their weather-scrubbed boards and crumbling facades. The whole place looked as if a strong wind would knock it down and sweep it away. Platinum Flats, he thought. A town at home with the past tense.
He followed the sound of honky-tonk piano to a squat building that looked as if it hadn't seen the business end of a paintbrush since the time of the Crucifixion.
Hitching his horse to the rail out front, Felix glanced up at a sign over the awning that proclaimed this place The Night Owl Saloon. The batwing doors were missing, probably torn off their hinges in some long-ago brawl, and the music poured out like water through a busted dam.
Felix went in.
The place was packed. Felix felt several sets of eyes follow him to the bar. At least the music didn't stop. He dropped onto a stool next to a scrawny kid wearing an absurd-looking red bowler hat. He ordered a beer and the bartender brought it over in a cracked schooner.
The kid in the bowler hat turned slightly on his seat and gave him a sly, sidelong look.
"See something green?" Felix asked harshly. He hated people who looked at him like they had pulled a royal flush in the great poker game of life. Anyone who had to make an effort to look smart usually turned out to be just the opposite.
"Nope," the kid said, amiably enough. "You friends with Miles Barker, though, ain'tcha?"
"Friends would be stretching it," Felix replied.
"That's not what he said," the kid went on.
Felix looked straight ahead and sipped his beer. "Then Miles should write novels for a living because he has a penchant for fiction."
"Miles Barker says you're a bounty hunter."
"Miles talks too much," Felix said. "Is he around?"
"Nawp. Rode through yest'day. Didn't even stay the night." The kid looked straight ahead, smiling ruefully. "Smarter than me, I guess."
An uneasy silence fell between them. The kid broke it by sticking his hand out and almost knocking over Felix's schooner.
"I'm Paws Delacourt," he said.
"Paws?" Felix said. "People call you that?"
"Those that want to get my attention."
"Okay." He shook his hand. "I'm Felix. But I guess you already know that." He paused. "How do you know that?"
"Your hands," the kid said, grinning. "That's why they call me Paws. I can tell things about people just by looking at their hands. I noticed you picked up your glass with your left."
"So?"
"Miles said he bunked down with a southpaw bounty hunter night before last. Said you'd be riding through."
"Is that so?"
"So it ain't true?" Paws went on. "You ain't a bounty hunter?"
"It's the truth," Felix said, "of a sort. Which seems to be the only kind Miles Barker is familiar with." He paused. "I hunt bounty, that's true. But not people."
"What kind of bounty hunter is that?"
"I guess the kind that doesn't call himself a bounty hunter."
"I've never heard o' no bounty hunter that didn't hunt people."
"You have now."
"You're an odd one, ain'tcha?"
"I can think of worse things to be." He eyed Paws' hat. "And worse things to wear."
"This hat makes me stand out as an individual."
"I won't argue you that," Felix said. "You work with the census folk?"
"The who-sis folk?"
"Never mind. Did you know Wedgy Weiss? I heard this was his town."
"Wedgy Weiss never owned no town," Paws said with a laugh.
"I meant that he hailed from here."
"Oh. Right." Paws tipped his hat back and scratched his head. "Yeah, Wedgy was local. Worked in the mines. Supposed to have gotten rich, too."
"That's the rumor," Felix agreed.
"You fixing to dig up Wedgy's treasure? Retire early?"
"Something like that.
"Yeah, well I hope you know how to divide, friend. 'Cause if you find his treasure--and I don't think you will--you're liable to find yourself with more than a few partners."
"How many?"
Paws turned his head and surveyed the rest of the room. "Oh, I'd say about thirty different flavors of trouble. At least."
Felix gave his head a small, cynical shake. "There's no law in this town?"
Paws snorted. "You're pulling my leg, right?"
"Not even a marshal?" Felix said, incredulous. "I never heard of a mining town that didn't have a marshal."
"This ain't no mining town anymore than I'm a bible salesman. The mine dried up more'n a year ago. Not long after Wedgy wrote his ticket. That's when the thieves rolled in. Everyone in this room knows about Wedgy's treasure--that's why they stick around this dead ol' place. They know he cached it somewhere in the Sunset Hills. Hell, there's been more digging around here these past months than there ever was in the twenty years that damn mine was open."
Felix frowned and set his glass down hard enough to make the last swallow of beer on the bottom jump. "It don't matter," he said in a low voice, as if speaking to himself. "It don't matter a bit."
"You ain't gonna get two feet in any direction with that treasure--if you can find it. These guys'll be on you like a duck on a June bug." He sipped his beer. "Wedgy had his payday, and they mean to have theirs."
Felix sighed. "Doesn't anyone believe in earning their money anymore?"
Paws shrugged indifferently.
"Why would Wedgy bury his money in a town full of thieves?" Felix asked aloud.
"Don't rightly know," Paws said. "But it's probably the last place most people would look, don'tcha think?"
"I suppose."
"Everybody knew he left town a rich man. Cashed out and ran like the devil was after him. He must've known he was living on borrowed time. Burying the money in a thieves' den was a good way to make 'em fight over it. There's been plenty of blood spilled over that money and not a single greenback to show for it. I guess Wedgy was fixing for some revenge from beyond the grave."
Felix shook his head solemnly. "That's a damn lie. It was buffalo money. Wedgy had plans for it. Just didn't have time to see it through. He sure as hell didn't mean for it to end up as some killing joke."
Paws sipped his beer. "I dont know nothing about buffalo money, but I do know one thing, Mr. Hunter-of-Bounty. If you are serious about leaving town with that treasure, you're gonna need a partner."
"I need a partner like a goldfish needs a bicycle," Felix said curtly. He had sized up Paws Delacourt the moment the kid first opened his mouth. He had seen his type before--the human equivalent of a little lost puppy, seeking companionship and discipline. Felix didn't care for the former and had no patience to dish out the latter.
Paws looked at him shrewdly. "You think we're the only ones having this conversation. You look behind you and you'll find a captive audience."
Felix didn't turn around. "They dont know why I'm here."
"Only one reason folk still come to Platinum Flats," Paws said, "and it sure ain't the ambience."
Felix took a quick look over his shoulder. He didn't like what he saw.
"What makes you so trustworthy?"
"I ain't no thief," Paws said emphatically. "I'm from New Orleans. I been riding west for the last three months on my way to the Starry Night Trail. I stopped here to spend the night. Lost most of my money in a crooked poker game. Not the smartest thing I ever done, but I didn't know I was playing with cheats until it was too late. I come by my money the honest way, mister: I win it or I work for it. But there ain't nothing honest about this place. First they bleed you of all you got, then they just bleed you."
"What do you want?" Felix asked.
"I want to get out of this place," Paws blurted out. "And I know I ain't smart enough to do it on my own." He stared into his glass. "There's plenty of men who can't admit that. Don't that count for something?"
Felix nodded. "Perhaps," he said. "What's it worth to you?"
"As much as it's worth to you." He downed the rest of his beer and wiped foam off his upper lip. "I'll ride with you, mister. I'll keep my eyes and ears open. If you find Wedgy's treasure, I'll see that you leave with it. All I ask is that you take me along."
Felix sighed. He could feel a thousand pairs of eyes burning into his back. He sipped his beer and tried to think of a way to find Wedgy's buffalo money and get out of town unseen. Ideas always came easy to him, and this time was no different. But he couldn't come up with one that didn't include a partner.
"I could just cry," he muttered.
#
Felix and Paws rode out of town in the direction of the Sunset Hills. To their left, the setting sun was painting deep shadows on the played out mine. To Felix it looked like the site of an old archaeological dig. Like the ones he'd seen in that new magazine, National Geographic.
Paws noticed the direction of his gaze. "They say it's haunted," he said.
"Who's 'they'?"
"Folk in town."
"The thieves?"
"Yessum."
"Sounds like a bright bunch," Felix said.
It was the only words that passed between them until they reach the hills.
#
They were deep in the hills by the time they stopped and set up camp for the night. Paws laid out their bed rolls in a grove of cactus and prickly pear while Felix built a fire.
"I wish you'd take off that stupid hat," he grumbled as he set the coffeepot on the fire. "You stand out like a Roman candle on a clear night."
"I like this hat. You fixin' we should be acting stealthy-like?"
"Something like that."
"Uh-huh," Paws went on. "Stealthy from the likes of those three banditos camped out yonder?"
Felix turned and looked out into the dark. Sure enough, he spotted the dim flickering glow of another fire.
"There's three of them," Paws said knowingly.
"What, you got eagle eyes?"
"Nawp, but I seen them following our backtrail just before we made it into the hills."
"Did you plan on telling me?"
"I'm telling you now."
"You got a broken alarm clock for a brain?"
Paws snorted derisively. "You really think we was gonna leave town without anybody following us?"
"Who are they?"
"The one fella is Chester Mills. Huge shoulders and legs like tree trunks. Fella's so big the horse oughta be riding him."
"And the other two?"
Paws stared at the distant fire. "I didn't get a good look. But lately Chester's been crashing around with Dale Rossland and Bad Twin. I'm guessing that's who they are."
"Bad Twin?"
Paws grinned. "That's what they call Dale's twin brother. On account of he's crazier than a polecat in August. They say the folk in the town they hailed from could never tell 'em apart. Never knew if they was talking to Dale or his bad twin. I guess the name stuck."
"Lovely."
Felix sat for a long moment, deep in thought. Then he stood up and unsheathed a long hunting knife strapped to his leg.
"I got an idea, but I'm going to need your hat."
#
Chester Mills waited until a good raft of clouds had blocked out the moon before he made his move. He was a patient man and patience, he felt, was the most important part of being a good thief. Dale Rossland was patient, too, although the same couldn't be said about his twisted twin brother. To say he was a bad seed was like saying a hurricane was just a little gust of wind.
Bad Twin had taken off right after he got the fire going. He was like a wolf in a lot of ways, Chester thought, and not any of them good. Most likely he'd gone hunting. He'd be back in the morning, after he and Dale had done all the dirty work, carrying a couple of dead rabbits--he gutted them himself and with just a bit too much aplomb for Chester's liking. Sometimes he got the impression even Dale was a bit afraid of him. His own brother!
Chester didn't trust a man who didn't carry a gun, and Bad Twin had never been heeled for as long as he'd known him. By their very nature thieves don't tend to organize, but after almost a solid year of digging in the Sunset Hills and nothing to show for it, even the scoundrels of the earth found a way to work together.
They moved in quickly. The campfire they were following was dying fast, and they had no desire to wander around in the dark. The sky was cloudless and the stars shone down on them like a dark seabed sewn with rows of diamonds. There was no sound except the dusty whisper of their boots.
Chester and Dale sauntered right up to the two bed rolls. The embers of the fire made vague shadows of the dark shapes under the blankets. They had their guns drawn, each of them covering one of the slumbering men.
"All right, hombres, if one of you has got a map on his person, now's the time to give it up." Chester drew back the hammer of his pistol--a sound that was sure to grab the attention of any man, no matter how deep a sleeper he might be.
Chester had his gun on Paws. He could tell it was him by the red bowler hat sticking out the end of his bedroll. "Hey, Paws," he said, "didn't you tell your friend who we were? Your mouth don't have but one speed."
No sound came from either of the two men.
Chester turned to Dale. "They still sleeping?"
Dale pursed his lips. "I'll give 'em a wakeup they won't ever forget." He aimed his pistol at the top of the other man's bedroll, where the sleeper's head should have been.
"No," Chester hissed. "We need 'em alive. In case there ain't no map. He might have the location memorized."
Dale didn't lower his gun. "He can still talk with a hole in his hand," he said, shifting his aim slightly and firing.
The sound of the gun was deafening. It rolled across the star-spangled sky and came back again.
Dale didn't miss, but the shot didn't seem to have had any effect, either. The shape under the blankets didn't move, didn't scream, didn't do anything. He stepped forward and kicked the bed roll.
The blankets slid away to reveal the trunk and arms of a cactus. It had been lopped off at the base. Rossland could see the jagged marks of the knife that had cut it down.
Chester was crouched over Paws' bedroll . . . except Paws wasn't in it, either. Only his fool red hat, jammed on top of another cactus.
"We been euchred," Dale muttered.
From the darkness behind them a voice said: "You got that right."
Both men started to turn at the sound of that voice.
"Don't move, damn you!"
Chester and Dale froze like statues.
"Drop your iron and run for the sun," Felix said brusquely.
"I don't run for nothing or no one, mister," Dale said acidly.
"There's a first time for everything," Felix replied.
Chester shot Dale a wild look. What are you doing?
Except he knew what Dale was doing. And a thought raced through his mind: He's as crazy as his brother!
Instead of lowering his gun, Dale was lifting it up. Realizing that they were both dead if he didn't at least try to shoot his way out of this, Chester found himself doing the same thing.
"Dont do it!" Paws called out from somewhere behind them.
Felix never knew why they did it. Maybe they thought one of them would get the drop on him, even if the other ended up dead. Maybe they thought they were both faster, even though Felix had them dead to rights. Most likely they were just too stupid to know when they were outgunned.
No matter the reason, it didn't change the outcome.
Dale Rossland was fast, but fast didn't mean a thing when someone already had a cold bead on you. He had time to turn around, but that was it. Felix's first shot caught him full-body. His chest caved in like a wet paper bag and he fell backward onto the smoldering coals of the campfire, sending up a flurry of sparks.
Chester got a shot off before Felix planted him, but it went wide over his shoulder. Then he collapsed to the ground in a tangle of limbs like a puppet which has had its strings abruptly cut.
Paws stepped away from the cactus he'd been hiding behind. His eyes were transfixed on the two bodies that lay strewn across their camp. The fire had found new fuel in the late (but not so great) Dale Rossland. He was burning pretty good and the smell was something Paws would never forget until the end of his days.
"Phew," he said, waving his hand in front of his nose, "we'll want to stay downwind of him. Or is it upwind?"
Felix had his back to the two dead men, his gun aimed out at the enclosing dark. "You said there were three of them," he said.
Paws took a step forward and looked closely at the man burning on their campfire. "I think that's Dale Rossland you shot," he said. "I never seen Bad Twin carry a gun before. 'Course that fella was always picking up bad habits."
Felix backed up to where Paws was standing without turning around. With his free hand he pulled out his other revolver.
"All right, Paws. Time for you to prove your worth."
Paws stared at the gun as if he'd never seen one before.
"You want out of this town, and tonight I need another set of eyes. I guess you could say it's kismet."
Paws took the gun and held it reverently in his hands. "Kis-what?"
Felix sighed. "Never mind."
It was going to be a long night.
#
They kept watch for the next four hours, until the sky in the east started to turn a pretty shade of pink. There had been no sign of Dale Rossland's crazy brother. Felix figured he must have seen what happened and was lying in wait until he saw his moment.
By the time the sky had lightened enough that they could resume their search, Felix didn't see any point in holding off. They could wait until the Judgment Trump blew and Bad Twin still might not show up. The longer they waited, the more time they gave him to come up with a plan.
So they packed their bed rolls and climbed back onto their horses and rode out. Felix forced himself to look straight ahead, while Paws couldn't help but shoot random, panicked glances in every direction.
An hour later they were deep in the hills and the feeling of being hunted had receded a bit. Paws was still looking around, but now it was for spots where Wedgy Weiss might have cached his treasure.
"How do you know where to look?" he asked. "Every hill out here looks like the other, and damn near every one of them has been turned upside down by some group of hopefuls or another."
"Wedgy sent me a letter before he died," Felix said simply.
Paws jaw dropped. "He told you in a letter? Don't he know those things get intercepted all the time?"
Felix tapped the folded piece of paper in his breast pocket. "He told me in code. One that nobody could break."
"How's that?"
"Wedgy and I grew up together. We used to play all kinds of games, made up our own way of speaking, too, mostly to keep the other kids scratching their heads. It was like being a part of a secret club."
Paws grinned and nodded.
"They were good times," Felix said wistfully. "We hadn't used that old kid-speak in over twenty years. But I tell you, when I got that letter, it all came flooding back like it was yesterday."
"So what did the letter say?"
"Nothing that would make any sense to you or anyone else that weren't us. The short of it is, Wedgy said there was buffalo money in the Sunset Hills. Near the hugging tree."
"Hugging tree? I never seen one of those."
Felix nodded straight ahead. "You have now."
They had drawn up in a small clearing of saltbush and creosote scrub. Standing watch over all this like some wizened old king presiding over his subjects was the strangest looking cottonwood tree Paws Delacourt had ever seen. Some time in its past a bolt of lightning had split it almost completely down the middle. The two halves of its trunk bent outward while its branches curved out at the sides in a bow shape and met again at their tips.
Like a pair of arms embracing the air, Felix thought.
"Well I'll be jiggered," Paws said in a tone of unabashed surprise. "That's a hugging tree if there ever was one."
"Let's get to work."
They dismounted and set to digging with the pick and the short-handled shovel that Felix had strapped to his buckskin. It didn't take long. Wedgy didn't need to bury his treasure deep; it was enough that he had had about a million places in the hills to choose from.
Dropping their tools, Felix and Paws used their hands to wiped the dirt off the top of an old dented lockbox. It had handles on the side. They each took one in both hands and lifted it slowly out of the hole.
That was when Bad Twin rose up from behind a tangle of low-growing mesquite. The surviving Rossland brother was a thin man with a startling pale complexion and lively blue eyes that jumped in their sockets like electric sparks.
So this is the crazy one, he thought.
Crazy or not, Bad Twin had been smart enough to know when to play his hand--at the precise moment Felix and Paws had theirs full.
"Normally I'd tell you to put up your hands, but I think I like them just where there are, thank you very much."
As Paws had said, Bad Twin wasn't packing any iron. In his hands was a pair of long knives. Felix had seen their kind only once before, at the Seaway Twister Carnival in Fort Worth. A mustached man in a top hat only marginally more tasteful than Paws' bowler had thrown knives very similar to these at a woman strapped to a spinning platform.
"You killed my brother," Bad Twin said simply, almost reflectively.
Felix nodded. "I gave him two choices. He took the other one."
Paws stared back and forth between them. Felix could feel his hands through the lockbox they were holding.
He had only a moment to think. Instead of dropping his end and reaching for his gun, he pulled the other handle out of Paws' hands and hefted the lockbox up in front of his chest.
Bad Twin let fly with the first knife and it clanged harmlessly off the dented metal side.
Whoever this guy is, he knows what he's doing, Felix thought.
The lockbox was very heavy. He couldn't hold it up much longer. He'd have to take his chances and hope he was faster with his gun than Bad Twin was with his knife.
The sound of a gunshot broke the air.
Felix dropped the lockbox on the ground--missing his toes by a mere two inches--and looked to his right.
Paws had drawn the pistol Felix had given him and was squeezing off shots with both hands. He was shooting with his eyes firmly closed and not a single shot hit Bad Twin. They didn't even come close.
But it was enough to distract him. Felix had his gun out and fired at the same time Bad Twin threw his other knife.
Felix dipped his left shoulder so he could fire from the hip. It ended up saving his life. The knife which would have skewered his heart as neatly as meat on a kabob ended up slamming into his arm instead. Pain exploded on that side of his body and his hand sprang open, spilling his gun to the ground.
Bad Twin stared at him coolly, a smoking blue hole in the center of his forehead. A moment later he spilled to the ground, too.
Felix pulled the knife out his arm and clamped a hand over the wound. Paws was staring at him with an expression of mingled shock and fascination. Felix nodded at the lockbox. "You wanted to pull your weight," he said, "you can start with that."
Paws crouched down and flipped open the lid. It was packed full of dusty bundles of greenbacks. He looked up at Felix.
"This is buffalo money?"
"It is," Felix agreed.
"Looks like regular money to me."
"Looks can be deceiving."
"What's 'deceiving'?"
Felix took a deep breath. "Never mind. Buffalo money's gotta roam. That's all you need to know."
"We're going to help it roam?"
"We are indeed. Wedgy has kin all over Sebold County. We're gonna make that money roam far and wide."
"We gonna give it to them?"
"That's what buffalo money's for." Felix closed the lid with the tip of his boot. "Ain't you ever heard of spreading the wealth?"
Paws shook his head.
Felix nodded. "You have now."
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