Cow Feet

Larimer County, Colorado, 1924

Jonah Henderson did everything out of hunger. He was a shark, both with cards and his appetite, and his well-tailored suit belied the almost athletic bulk underneath. His dark eyes rarely blinked. He simply stared, stared and grinned, and when the subject of his gaze would sweat or squirm his grin would widen even more. He had long ago grown bored with achieving his own desires when he realised how delicious it was to simply take someone else’s dream away instead. He’d grown up with stories of the West and the savages who believed in eating their enemies' hearts for strength and he considered himself a perfector of the ancient craft.

            The sun was setting as he arrived at the Sundance Club. It was hidden behind the canned goods section of the local dry goods store, bought and owned by Henderson. It was a third-generation dream, built by a great-grandfather with his bare hands and passed down, son to son until Henderson took it. He had liked taking it and he enjoyed gutting the basement and putting a speakeasy in there even more. It was nothing to write home about, a simple bar and a few poker tables, but it was well stocked and within a month of opening it was catering to day traders from Denver just as much as local ranchers. A month later there were more trilbies than Stetsons. Another after that and it was all smooth-handed customers, with limp-wristed grips on cigarettes, sipping champagne in wide glasses. One could forget the calloused palms that once gripped whisky glasses, while yellow teeth chewed cigars.

            Henderson had worked hard at filtering out the local hicks and was proud of it. Wolves will watch a family of buffalo and look for the weakest one to prey on. But with men, it was different. Men didn’t care when you went after the weakest. They’d thank you for it. It made the tribe stronger. But breaking the strongest? That was how you scattered them.

It had taken a few big names, but eventually they realised the score. When they saw the string of ranches he’d taken for himself, they stopped coming round. He had run off Jed Mathews, Billy Goode, Graham McMasters, a thousand acres between them. Even John Tench, one of the biggest stud farmers in Colorado, had gotten the message and hadn’t been seen in the Sundance for weeks. So when Henderson heard some cowpoke drifter was playing cards at his place, he was surprised.

He didn’t even need to ask around, with the reputation he’d built, people understood the benefit in giving information freely. Even so, there wasn’t much to tell once he’d sifted through all the stories. The Drifter had come into the county not long ago. He’d bought a rinky dink ranch out in the sticks, no one knew who from. He had started coming to the Sundance every other night. He liked cards. Besides his winnings, all he had is what he brought with him. And what he brought were eight black Andalusian horses. The rumour was they were of impeccable pedigree, tracing their bloodline all the way back to the Conquistadors who brought them over the seas to Mexico. It was the only fact of substance Henderson learnt of the Drifter but it was enough.

The Drifter was leaning on his elbows, his arms resting on the green baise. His dark, wide-brimmed hat was pulled low over his eyes and he was idly thumbing through the cards in his hand. Henderson moved through the fog, slowly and calculated. He made a show of greeting patrons, chatting with regulars, checking in with the staff. So when he came to the Drifter’s table he noticed it with feigned nonchalance, as though it had only then, after expending every other inch of the speakeasy, come to his attention.

            He glanced at the game, shuffled from side to side, as though weighing up the options. Then, with a practised expression of resignation as though to succumb to temptation, he went to join. He stood behind one of the patrons.

            “This seat taken?” He asked.

            “Taken? I’m sitting in it aren’t I?” The man turned in his seat and his face fell as he saw who he addressed. He loved doing this. Poking at a man’s pride, raising their ire, and then watching them swallow their defiance when they realised who he was.

            “Mr. Henderson, I’m so sorry I didn’t-“

            “-Seems I caught you just as you were leaving.”

The man quickly folded his hand, scooped up his winnings, and scampered for the door. Henderson slipped into his seat. It was warm and faintly damp. He took a look at his companions, one by one, meeting their eye as they tried to avoid it, finally resting on the Drifter, who was staring right at him.

            “Deal me in, friend.” Henderson said.

The Drifter did. Texas Holdem. A slow game, played over hours, with ground gained and lost, gained and lost. So that’s what they did. Henderson rarely played and his seat at the table, with a cowboy on the other end, guaranteed a show. After the first couple of hands, there was a fair crowd around the table, watching the play. And somewhere in all that haze, Henderson and the Drifter started talking.

“Lot of rumours about you, friend. Heard tell you were a horse thief back up in Montana.”

“Half right. I’m a wrangler. I’ve been training horses all my life. I learnt to ride before I could walk and I’ve broken more stallions than you’ve had hot suppers. If they got stolen, it was after I was gone.”

            “That a fact? I bet John Tench will be glad to hear that. Word is someone took his prize stallions. Snatched them right out off his ranch. What do you make of that?”

“Nothing to do with me. I just train ‘em.”

“Would hate to be the poor fool found with his property. Fella’s a little Old Testament if you know what I mean.”

“I bet.”

“Horse trainer, eh? What’s the best way to break a horse then you reckon?”

          “Depends on the horse.” The Drifter said. He had a laconic, deliberate way of talking. Each word weighed and considered. “Each one’s different. Some need a firm hand. Some need to trust you first. Some of them just need to buck a few riders off their saddle first, get it out of their system.”

            “Huh, just like men, right? Each one needing a different approach.”

            “If you’re in the business of breaking men, sure, I suppose.”

Henderson just smiled at him. An observer coughed. Another scratched his forehead under his hat.

            “Call.” Henderson said, throwing some cash into the centre. He laid a pair of nines down. The Drifter grunted, nodded once, and folded.

            “Fine place you have here, Mr. Henderson.” He said.

            “Ah, you know who I am then.”

            “Hard not to. I’ll raise you ten.”

Someone sneezed. Someone spluttered on their drink. The voices rose and fell.

            “I’ll see your ten, and raise you ten more.”

The Drifter just nodded and matched the bet. Henderson was beginning to get a feel for him now. This was not a man to back down.

            “You been in the bootlegging trade long?” The Drifter asked.

            “I let others worry about that. I just facilitate the fine gentlemen who need a drink. Know much about rumrunning?”

            “Naw. Though I did hear a peculiar story.”

            “Oh?”

            “Heard tell some moonshiners have taken to wearing shoes with little wooden studs to make their footprints look like hooves.”

            “Why?”

            “So when they’re traipsing about at night in the backfields, loading and unloading the booze, come morning when the sheriff comes sniffing he sees the tracks and thinks it's just cattle. Nothing to worry about there. I thought that was clever in a strange sort of way. Not hiding what you’re doing but misdirecting. Making something look one way when it’s actually the other. Makes you think.”

            “I’ll take your word for it. Fancy calling, friend?”

The Drifter confidently laid out a straight. Henderson smiled and showed his flush.

            “Better luck next time.”

They continued like this, hour after hour, the crowd around them keeping an eager eye on them. Henderson was winning. He called at the right time, he folded at the right time, and he never gave up a hand unless he could take the loss. Eventually, they came to the climax of the play. Henderson had amassed himself a little fortune, because say what you want about the Drifter, he had money. Just not enough.

            Henderson glanced around, at the audience. Someone finished their drink. Another loosened their tie. This was it.

“I’m all in.” He said pushing his pile of cash forward.

“I can’t back that play.” The Drifter said.

“Here I thought you were a man to take it all the way.”

“I am and I would. I just can’t.”

“You don’t have anything to put up? Anything at all?”

Like a wolf who smells a trap but is too hungry to not walk into it, he saw the Drifter make his biggest mistake. And just like that, Henderson felt the thrill of learning what broke this man.

           “I’ve got some horses.” Said the Drifter.

           “I’ll take that bet.” Said Henderson.

The Drifter nodded. He had this resignation over his face, like his own grim practicality would refuse him to walk away. So he showed his hand, three of a kind. Henderson smiled and took one last moment to savour it before he put the Drifter out of his misery and laid down his flush.

“Well now, I suppose I better pick up those horses.” He said with a grin, hungry and raw.

*

Henderson had wasted no time. He didn’t think the Drifter would flee with his Andalusians but he couldn’t be sure. He had two trucks with trailers attached on standby so when he left the Sundance along with the crowd who’d watched him break another cowboy, he just slipped right into the passenger seat. A moment later the driver’s door opened and one of the patrons slipped in.

            “Good work boss.” He said.

            “Well, you remembered the signals alright, but there was that one hand you scratched your nose and he had a two pair. Threw me off.”

            “Sorry boss, it was an itch I couldn’t ignore.”

            “I suppose it all worked out. Now drive.”

            So they did. Through the night, on the old familiar backroads of the land he was making his. They had planned the route already and made it in good time. Even in the dark he could see the thick, muscular shapes of the horses sway in the stables.

            “Load ‘em up quick and lets get out of here.” Henderson ordered. His men jumped to and started wrangling them into the trailers. The whole thing took five minutes before they were driving again.

            “Let’s see that Drifter make a living here now.” Henderson laughed. “I give him a month, tops. But, enough of that for now, I’m beat. Gonna catch some rest while it’s still nighttime and I can already see dawn on the horizon. Wake me if anything interesting happens.”

            “Sure, thing boss.” The driver said.

            He did wake him, not long after the shudder of the unpaved road on the truck had lulled him to sleep. The first thing he noticed was that the engine wasn’t running. The second thing was that the sheriff was standing in the road with several deputies and a makeshift roadblock.

            “The hell is this?” Henderson said.

He stepped out of the car and marched over.

            “Now see here, I won these horses fair and square. What’s all this about?”

The sheriff eyed Henderson, almost apologetically.

            “Yeah I heard about your little game and I heard what you won.”

            “You here on account on the Sundance? You know if you close that down there’ll be hell to pay. The mayor was there just last week, goddamn it.”

            “No it ain’t that.”

            “Then what is it?”

            “Let’s take a look at those stallions you’ve got.”

He walked over the trailer, pulled down the gate, and stepped on inside. He ran a hand down on of their flanks. The horse snorted softly. The sheriff frowned, rubbing his finger and thumb together before fishing out a handkerchief and drawing it across the horse’s back before inspecting the result.

            “Did you suppose covering them in shoe polish would work?”

            “The hell are you talking about.”

            “These ain’t Andalusian. They’re Arabians, painted black.”

            “That son of a bitch Drifter, he cheated me!” Henderson roared, his face red and his chin peppered with spit. “You got to arrest him right now, Sheriff.”

            “How do you reckon we square that in front of a jury? You won them illegally when you were gambling in a speakeasy you own? Hard to argue that.”

            “But he cheated me!”

            “Can’t prove that, I’m afraid, even if I know it. What I can prove is that you’ve got several horses, disguised to look like a different breed, and if I’m not mistaken they’re the exact same kind of horses John Tench got stolen. If I’m any kind of judge of character, he ain’t gonna hear excuses about some mysterious stranger loosing horses to you at cards. Hell, he’s just gonna come straight after you. No one will cross you Henderson, you made sure of that. But you also made damn sure no one will stand up for you against him neither.”

            “Oh God. What the hell do I do?”

            “I figure you can either run or pray, and if I was you, I’d do both.”

Henderson was out of the state before midday. Word was Jonh Tench was furious and planning to chase him all the way to Canada if he could. No chance of him coming back, though he did send some emissaries to sell up the properties he’d stolen away. Sold them cheap as well. Couldn’t hang around to haggle for the cash when he needed to escape. And wouldn’t you guess, it was a stranger few people knew who was at the auction hall, outbidding the out of state competition, who snapped it all up. Ended up in the hands of an unknown drifter who has snapped it for pennies. The cowboy made sure every acre was accounted for, and every inch returned to the rightful owners. He wouldn’t take any money for it and when he was done he packed up one day and left. No one ever saw him again, though with the nature of rumours breeding the way they do, the story of how Henderson had been run out of town by the mysterious Drifter just kept getting told and retold. But despite all the tall tales, there was one story that they kept coming back to. Mostly they figured he’d made his money stealing horses up in Montana.