Free Buffalo Trail by Jeff Guinn Page A

bet?”
    McLendon tried to cut through the alcohol haze enveloping his brain. Most of his stake was already on the table. If he won the hand, he could travel to San Francisco in style with enough left over to live on for months. He had two pair, and Doc had just drawn three cards. The odds were very much in McLendon’s favor, and for a moment he thought a hesitant expression flickered across the dentist’s face. McLendon pushed his last hundred dollars across the table and announced, “I’m putting it all in.”
    â€œWell, now,” Doc said. He studied his own hand. “What the hell. Can’t let you just walk away with it. I call.”
    McLendon tossed out his nines and sevens. “Two pair.”
    â€œImpressive.” Doc spread out his cards. “Three fours, two fives. Full house.” He had to use both hands to rake the massive pot over to his side of the table.
    â€œFull house? When you drew three? Why, that’s— You—”
    Doc pulled back his coat and rested his palm on the butt of a handgun. “What are you saying?” he asked quietly, and everyone in the saloon shut up.
    McLendon looked at Holliday’s face and sobered up enough to see the eagerness for violence there. “Nothing. I’m not saying anything.”
    â€œAll right.” Doc stuffed the money into his pockets and walked out.
    Afterward McLendon slumped on the plank sidewalk in front of the saloon, his battered valise at his feet. All he had packed in it were a rumpled suit, two shirts, a change of underdrawers,
The Last of the Mohicans
, and the Navy Colt .36 that he’d only fired on a single occasion, the climactic shootout in Glorious the previous summer. His head ached terribly as he considered his plight. He was stuck in Fort Griffin, Texas, with no money at all.
    â€œHey, fellow.” McLendon looked up and saw two straw-haired men standing over him. They’d been among the onlookers at the saloon. Even fighting his vicious hangover, McLendon took them for brothers because they looked so much alike, except that one was much taller than the other.
    â€œYou all right?” the taller man asked. “Lot of money you lost in there. Foolish thing, to take on Doc Holliday at poker. When it gets to the nut-cutting, the Doc never loses.”
    â€œWell, I’m too often prone to be foolish and my nuts got cut,” McLendon groaned. “This is only the latest calamity I’ve brought on myself.”
    The two men laughed. “We’re all fools at times,” the short one said. “Come with us to get some breakfast. Things will look better on a full stomach.”
    â€œI can’t afford it. Doc Holliday took my last cent.”
    The tall one said, “Come along, we’ll buy.” They led McLendon to a small café and ordered hard-fried eggs, biscuits, and coffee. He introduced himself and learned that they were brothers named Isaac and Jacob Scheidler, though Jacob, for obvious reasons, answered to “Shorty.” The Scheidlers were teamsters who used their two wagons to transport freight for clients. They were in Fort Griffin to pick up a load of saddle tack for delivery to Fort Dodge, in Kansas.
    â€œOnce we unload there, we’ll head a few miles west to Dodge City for recreation,” Isaac explained. “We’ll spend the next few months takingloads to Wichita and Kansas City; then in the spring, when the hide men in Dodge go out after buffalo, we’ll hire on with them to haul their hides back into town. It’s decent money and with luck we’ll have steady hide-hauling work right through the fall.”
    When they asked McLendon where he was headed, he said California. “Not that under my new impoverished circumstances I’m going to get there anytime soon. I’ll have to scrounge for work here. Have you any suggestions?”
    â€œCan you ride well?” Shorty asked. “Some of the